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Gun Control Movement Looses Relevancy

787 views 6 replies 7 participants last post by  peckman28 
#1 ·
Brady Campaign’s slipping relevancy underscored by NRA convention

Op-Ed By Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman

Adhering to a pattern of behavior that has developed over the years, a tiny contingent of gun prohibitionists paraded outside of the Charlotte Convention Center while the National Rifle Association was hosting its record-breaking members’ meeting, but they remained only long enough to get some camera time with local news crews.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, came to that North Carolina city in order to grab some face time and get his name in the local newspapers. Where the NRA can pull more than 70,000 members, the Brady bunch could barely muster two dozen protesters to parade around for perhaps an hour, probably less, and then leave satisfied that the 5 o’clock news would carry their images.

For several years, right up to the devastating 1994 mid-term elections that turned dozens of Congressional anti-gunners out of office, the Brady Campaign and other gun control groups enjoyed media and public support. But when gun rights organizations began fighting back with facts, and developed a strategy of education through legal journals, their influence began to wane. That influence continued to erode as time tested their rhetoric and found it not simply wanting, but totally preposterous.

Their dire predictions in state after state that concealed carry reform and state preemption statutes would spawn Wild West gunfights at fender benders, bloody shootouts in restaurants and cocktail lounges, and skyrocketing murder rates in which perpetrators would be citizens who were licensed to carry all were false. Influential people, including prosecutors and county sheriffs, recognized this and went on the record to say so.

These days, Brady’s Helmke is reduced to spouting platitudes on the steps of the Supreme Court, verbally bashing important civil rights cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and the Second Amendment Foundation’s pending McDonald v. City of Chicago.

His organization has desperately resorted to attacking Starbucks Coffee to gin up support while pandering paranoia; an effort that anti-gunners have developed into an art form, albeit a lousy one.

They have attacked the most anti-gun president in the nation’s history, giving Barack Obama an “F” grade because he is not anti-gun enough to suit their extremist philosophy.

The Brady Campaign has not managed to push through a single piece of federal legislation in more than 15 years. Their attempt to sue the gun industry into bankruptcy using anti-gun mayors as their puppet proxies failed on legal merit and in the court of public opinion.

If it weren’t for the fact that pro-gun rights groups are so active, the Brady bunch would not even have events to attend. In short, gun prohibitionists have become irrelevant, and in their desperation for attention, they appear to be in a state of denial, reaching out to a shrinking audience that still believes in public safety through demagoguery and surrender to the criminal element.

Just like some politicians, Helmke and the Brady Campaign do not know when it is time to retire.

Alan Gottlieb is the Founder of Second Amendment Foundation. Dave Workman is senior editor of Gun Week. They are co-authors of Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns.
 
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#2 ·
Spent Saturday and Sunday at the convention and never saw the protestors, did have lunch at restaurant that had a sign out front that said “Welcome NRA, Charlotte is now the safest city in North Carolina”.
 
#5 ·
It IS an intresting read......but we must, like our SA we preach here, NEVER let our guard down and think of them as "done". Gun owners will always be 'under fire' and there are PLENTY of like-minded doofuses out there who'll jump on the Brady Bunch's bandwagon.

I do not see them as relevent, but a threat they are!
 
#6 ·
Gun owners will always be 'under fire' and there are PLENTY of like-minded doofuses out there who'll jump on the Brady Bunch's bandwagon.
Bingo, all it takes is, God forbid, an other school type massacre and the bandwagon will be over flowing. They are waiting in the wings almost hoping like the anti-drilling enviro-weenies who are giddy about the Gulf disaster.
 
#7 ·
Great post, and I am glad to see the Brady Campaign on the ropes. Unfortunately, I think the other posters are correct in pointing out that this fight will never be over, and we need to keep the boot on the neck of fools like them now and always in order to keep our rights from being taken from us.
 
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