Above, the Springfield Armory exhibit booth. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
Back in April, Mitch Geriminsky and I headed to Houston, Texas for the 2026 NRA Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
The exhibit hall held about 14 acres of dealers (800 of them). Although I had a great time, my legs were starting to give up the ghost when I walked the last aisle of exhibitors.
I just spotted a page of 25 photos from the show posted by National Review. They are worth taking a look-see if one in considering attending a future show.
If Donald Trump wins the election next week, Democrats will likely try to use the January 6 case to do what Russiagate did for them eight years ago. | @AndrewCMcCarthyhttps://t.co/njrzmZ5132
The funny thing about old videos, they seem to pop up at the most inopportune times.
Kamala Harris's record of being anti-Second Amendment is at odds with her campaign statements since her debate with former President Donald Trump. She's trying to lie her way out of her anti-gun record. But those old videos keep popping up.
But she's not fooling anybody. In a nutshell, she cannot be trusted.
She has caught the attention of the National Review. They describe her as an enemy of the Second Amendment in a new article.
It begins with:
They say that once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern. If so, Kamala Harris’s three attempts to impose draconian gun-control measures on the citizenry of these United States ought to terrify the voting public. Thrice now, Harris has made plays against the Second Amendment that have no parallel in this country’s history. Were she to be elected, the chances of a fourth would be unacceptably high.
On the stump, Harris likes to scoff that she has no interest in “taking away your guns.” But this belated assurance is belied by every piece of evidence in her record.
PBSAmerican Masters will be airing "The Incomparable Mr. Buckley" on Friday (9:00 PM on New Mexico PBS 5.1) evening. (Check your local listings.)
It takes a look at William F. Buckley Jr., one of the fathers of the modern conservative movement in American politics. This is one program that I am looking forward to seeing.
I have some of Buckley's books such as In The Jeweler's Eye, Quotations From Chairman Bill and Up From Liberalism. I was a regular viewer of his Firing Line television show and read National Review.
I remember seeing Buckley at the 1976 Republican National Convention as he took a "stroll" on the convention floor. I was a California Reagan delegate at that convention in Kansas City, Missouri. He received a great welcome from the delegates.
Above, Wayne LaPierre at the 2017 CPAC. Photo by Gage Skidmore.
NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre's announcement that he's stepping down as of January 31 was long in coming.
For the past several years, the NRA's influence in gun rights, membership and elections dwindled.
Now, he's about to be put on trial for alleged corruption. He cited "health reasons" for his resignation.
Why are many supporters of the National Rifle Assocation breathing sighs of relief?
The National Review takes a look at La Pierre's reign.
They begin it with:
This afternoon, the National Rifle Association announced that its executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, is stepping down at the end of the month.
“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said in a statement released by the organization. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”
During an NRA Board of Directors meeting today in Irving, Texas, NRA President Charles Cotton reported that he accepted LaPierre’s resignation. According to the NRA, LaPierre cited health reasons as a reason for his decision.
Long-time NRA executive and Head of General Operations Andrew Arulanandam will become the interim CEO & EVP of the NRA.
Had the 74-year-old LaPierre stepped down from the NRA in early 2017, shortly after Donald Trump had beaten Hillary Clinton and helped assure a pro-Second Amendment majority on the Supreme Court, LaPierre would be universally hailed as a hero among gun owners everywhere. But the last seven years or so have been some of the most tumultuous and most difficult in the NRA’s history, and LaPierre’s intractable control over the organization, aided by a loyal majority on the NRA’s board of directors, was a major factor in the organization’s difficulties.
It is interesting to note in American political history that former President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a friend and fan of then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California.
A footnote in a book about Ronald Reagan led Gene Kopelson to drop by the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, in the fall of 2012. Kopelson is a physician, not an academically trained historian. But he had begun research on Reagan's presidential run in 1968, a campaign to which historians have paid little attention and Reagan himself never counted as his first bid for the White House.
The author of the footnote was Kiron Skinner, a Reagan scholar at the Hoover Institution. It pointed to a connection between Reagan and former president Dwight D. Eisenhower during the 1960s when Reagan was running for governor of California and, later, having won the election, was considering a presidential race. Kopelson was intrigued. He lives in Seattle and spends half the year in medicine, half pursuing his interest in history. He had planned a trip east along I-70. It would take him to three places in Missouri—the Truman Library in Independence, the scene of Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, and Mark Twain's hometown in Hannibal—and to the Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois.
Prompted by the footnote, Kopelson added an I-70 stop at the Eisenhower Museum, Library and Boyhood Home in Abilene. "I thought this would be a good thing to look at," he says. It was a history-making decision in the sense that Kopelson discovered the breadth of a little-known but historically significant episode in Reagan's path to the presidency.
When Dwight Eisenhower left the White House in 1961, he didn't divorce himself from politics. He worried about the future of the Republican party, and this led him to Reagan. From 1965 to 1968, he advised Reagan—and not just on foreign affairs and national security policy. His guidance also focused on the practical politics of running for office. Ike was the teacher, Reagan his pupil. They met in person four times, once at Ike's farm in Gettysburg and twice at the former president's winter home in Palm Desert, California. The fourth location is unknown—at least, Kopelson hasn't nailed it down. And they communicated by telephone and by mail.
In 1967, Reagan appeared in a television hookup with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy to discuss the image of America at the time with international students who were quite hostile to Reagan, Kennedy and the moderator, Charles Collingwood of CBS.
Reagan was seen as the victor in this "debate" and Kennedy was seen as floundering. Kennedy and Reagan didn't debate each other, but rather with some "petulant brats". It is interesting that Eisenhower prepped Reagan for the program.
Ronald Reagan and Bobby Kennedy would finally cross paths on a more personal level five years later, by way of a television hookup in May 1967. Both men (in separate studios, Reagan in Sacramento and Kennedy in Washington, D.C.) were to “debate” each other and a panel of international college students from a studio in London. By that time, Reagan was governor of California and Kennedy was the U.S. senator from New York. The CBS program was called “Town Meeting of the World,” and the topic for discussion was “The Image of America and the Youth of the World.” The dialogue—such as it was—was a program of heated and often hostile questioning about the United States and its role in Vietnam.
In the aftermath, Reagan was judged the victor, with his poise, unflappability and knowledgeable recital of the facts at hand. (It didn’t hurt that in his “debate prep” he had former president Dwight D. Eisenhower to assist him.) For his part, Kennedy appeared unsure and hesitant. He knew that Reagan had bested him. The hostility from the students was palpable, not only toward the governor and the senator but also toward the moderator, CBS correspondent Charles Collingwood, and the lone American on the student panel, Princeton’s Bill Bradley (then studying at Oxford), who would later have a career in both basketball and politics.
Once an hour had passed, Chris Collingwood jumped in to mercifully stop the spectacle. Kennedy interrupted, requesting a final word. Stating that he was speaking on behalf of Reagan as well, he concluded with a patronizing statement about “how much we’ve enjoyed” the internationally broadcast inquisition and the importance of “dialogue,” which, of course, this discussion was not. Kennedy’s compliment was obviously untrue and even more obviously undeserved; this group of petulant brats had earned not gratitude but a good spanking. Embarrassingly, Reagan felt it necessary to second Kennedy’s gesture. On the plus side, perhaps both men showed these 19-year-old know-it-alls a thing or two about civility.
Reagan performed so well that his presidential boosters sought to use clips from the debate during the 1968 Oregon presidential primary, and requested a copy from CBS. Kennedy, however, reportedly did not want the video to be made available; CBS, naturally, acceded to his request. Kennedy himself conceded defeat to Reagan, telling his aides after the debate to never again put him on the same stage with “that son-of-a-bitch.” Kennedy was heard to ask immediately after the debate, “Who the f— got me into this?” Frank Mankiewitz was that aide, as Kennedy was quick to remind him a few weeks later: “You’re the guy who got me into that Reagan thing.”
The program is quite fascinating to watch.
Here's a video of it:
A little side note:
Collingwood was once married to actress Louise Albritton (Son of Dracula (1943)) until her death in 1979.
This afternoon, Beto O’Rourke disgracefully interrupted a press conference about the shooting in Uvalde so that he could shout at Governor Greg Abbott:
"It's on you."
In a striking moment, Texas gubernatorial candidate @BetoORourke interrupts Gov. Greg Abbott's press conference about the Uvalde shooting. pic.twitter.com/jINIAave6Y
— The Recount (@therecount) May 25, 2022
O’Rourke told Abbott, “This is on you.”
When O'Rourke said that, Mayor Don McLaughlin of Uvalde was having none of it.
"The truth is that Biden is likely not "presentable" right now. They are waiting it out until he is able to read a script. That means he's incapable of doing the job." - Rep. Claudia Tenney
The news cycle these past 48 hours have been almost nothing but Afghanistan. The whole world is seeing the disaster going on there.
Yet despite this, the team of His Fraudulency Joe Biden were flailing away trying to blame Donald Trump for it on the Sunday news shows.
The Trump Afghan deal was probably not great, but at least Trump said our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be conditions based. Biden then explicitly declared it would NOT be conditions based. Because of His Fraudulency, we have the disaster that's now before our eyes.
National Review, not exactly fans of Donald Trump declared:
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is a debacle and, more than most acts of the U.S. government, it is the responsibility of one man — Joseph Robinette Biden.
Yet, despite the firestorm over this, there has been no official statements from Biden or his dimwit mouthpiece, Jen Psaki. In fact, both are in hiding, supposedly on "vacation". Biding is hiding in Camp David and Psaki is at "who knows where".
FIRST ON FOX: White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is taking a break from her duties at the same time as controversy surrounds the silence of President Joe Biden, who is on vacation while the Taliban quickly seizes control of Afghanistan.
Fox News sent questions to Psaki's White House email address Sunday morning and received an auto-reply. Hours later, on Sunday evening, Fox News attempted once again to reach the White House spokeswoman. The same auto-reply, stating that the voice of the White House would not be available for the next week, was sent.
"I will be out of the office from August 15th-August 22nd," read the email returned to Fox News. Instead, Psaki's reply directs the press to reach out to other press officers in her absence.
Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York made several Tweets, including:
I agree that Biden should resign based on the disaster and unanswered questions in Afghanistan and the dangerous and inhumane crisis at the Southern Border for starters.
This is an absolute disaster. The Biden administration will clearly have blood on its hands as there was no plan and no strategy. Americans and our allies are in harm's way.
The Commander-In-Chief is in hiding while Kabul has been overrun by the Taliban. Any functional President would have addressed the nation by now. We are a nation without a leader.
The President of Afghanistan has gone into hiding because of Joe Biden's failures. Joe Biden has also gone into hiding because of Joe Biden's failures.
The truth is that Biden is likely not "presentable" right now. They are waiting it out until he is able to read a script. That means he's incapable of doing the job.
Small wonder #BidenMustResignis trending. Yes, Biden must go. The sooner, the better.
Above, Neal Adams and yours truly at the 2012 Comikaze Expo in Los Angeles.
Neal Adams, the comic book artist who many (including me) consider to be the definitive Batman artist, turned 80 today.
Adams recently was released from the hospital after a bout with sepsis. Thankfully, he overcame it and is enjoying his birthday.
It is hard to believe Neal Adams is 80. Then again, it is also hard to believe that I'm 67. But, there you go.
I became aware of Adams's work around 1967 when he started drawing covers for DC's Superman Family of comic books. Then, he started doing some Batman/Superman stories in World's Finest Comics.
Not long after that, he started illustrating stories in Batman and Detective Comics. And, around about that time, he took over the illustrating chores for the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series of stories in the Green Lantern comic book. Adams also illustrated Deadman stories, some included Batman. Those were great reads.
I got to meet Adams at the 2012 Comikaze Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I was there as a panelist on Godzilla.
Adams is still very much artistically active and appears at numerous comic book and science-fiction conventions around the country.
A big Happy Birthday to Neal Adams!
UPDATE (06/17/21):
A nice tribute to Neal Adams was posted in an unlikely place: National Review. I am aware that Adams is politically liberal (and decidedly anti-Donald Trump), but he is lauded in the article as the "Reigning King of Comic Books".
As His Fraudulency Joe Biden and the Democrat Party continue to scare the crap out of people with their gun control/gun confiscation schemes, the surge in gun sales continues and April's figures bear this out.
National Review posted:
The United States is still in the midst of the greatest gun-buying binge in its history. From The Reload:
April 2021 saw the most gun sales of any April on record.
The month saw nearly 1.7 million background checks on gun sales, according to an industry analysis of FBI numbers released on Monday. That puts it about one percent up from the previous record set last year. It also continues the remarkable surge in gun sales that has gone on for more than a year.
The "fit hit the shan" (as commentator Larry Elder likes to say) in a number of ways yesterday when the New York Post story on Joe and Hunter Biden's Burisma scandal hit the Internet.
Two most prominent takeaways are that Joe Biden did meet with executives of Burisma, despite his denials, and later had the prosecutor investigating Burismas fired over aid to Ukraine. Joe Biden lied and has been exposed. No matter how one looks at it, it is extortion, pure and simple. Then there's the takeaway that Twitter and Facebook tried to censor or ban users from posting the Post story or even discuss it.
The problem is, there's too many people discussing it for them to completely suppress the news story. They made things worse for the Bidens.
The liberal media, led by the New York Times and the Washington Post, are now circling the wagons and downplaying the story. If, as they are claiming, this story is "much ado about nothing", then why are they trying to suppress and censor it?
In this morning's National Review website, Jim Gehragty in his "Morning Jolt" column nails Twitter and Facebook for their pro-Democrat bias and news suppression.
He wrote:
Today is a doozy: Facebook and Twitter decided that their users shouldn’t see or be able to read a particular article in the New York Post, and why so many Democrats perceived the Post story as a traumatic flashback to former FBI director James Comey’s letter about Hillary Clinton on October 28, 2016.
‘There Is No Credible Reason for This Kind of Targeted Suppression’
The editors of National Review have something important to say about the way two of the largest and most prominent social-media companies, Facebook and Twitter, decided to effectively block access to a news article in the New York Post.
Andy Stone, Facebook’s policy communications manager (and, per his bio, a former staffer for Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the House Majority PAC), announced that the social-media giant would begin “reducing” the “distribution” of a New York Post investigation into emails purporting that Joe Biden met with a top executive from the Ukrainian natural-gas firm Burisma Holdings at the behest of his son Hunter Biden.
Bad idea.
Instead of simply asking pertinent questions, or debunking the Post’s reporting, a media blackout was initiated. A number of well-known journalists warned colleagues and their sizable social-media audiences not to share the story.
By the afternoon, Twitter had joined Facebook in suppressing the article, not only barring its users from sharing it with followers, but barring them sharing it through direct messages as well. It locked the accounts of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, the Post, and many others for retweeting the story.
There is no credible reason for this kind of targeted suppression. Over the past five years there have been scores of dramatic scoops written by major media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN that were based on faulty information provided by unknown sources that turned out to be incorrect. Not once has Facebook or Twitter concerned itself with the sourcing methods of reporters. Not once did it censor any of those pieces.
The editors conclude the mentality at work in the high commands of Facebook and Twitter “further damages the reputation of Big Tech. For another, it renders the industry more susceptible to a new regulatory regime already being championed by some in Congress. Mostly, however, it just makes the story they’re trying to suppress a far bigger deal.”
Frankly, the story is bad enough for the Biden Campaign, but the censoring and suppression by Twitter and Facebook made it a whole lot worse.
Someone else besides me thought that the Republican National Convention started out surprisingly strong last night. There were a lot of damn good speakers. It was a sharp contrast to the Democrats' "Temple of Doom" of last week.
Jim Geraghty of "The Morning Jolt" in National Review has an interesting take on opening night.
Here's some snippets:
On the menu today: a surprisingly strong opening night for the Republican National Convention...
Most Democrats probably didn’t watch the Republican National Convention last night. Those that did probably thought it was schlocky, jingoistic, dishonest, and ridiculous nonsense.
But any Democrat who understood that the convention wasn’t aimed at convincing them — a fact that vast swaths of Washington political journalists are just incapable of grasping — should watch the programming and feel just a little less confident about November. Not panicking, just a recognition that the Trump campaign and GOP still have some fight left in them, and a message that could easily resonate with large-enough pluralities in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes.
I still would have cut Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle from the lineup, who inexplicably shouted most of her speech to an empty chamber. The best case for the president comes from non-famous or lesser-known citizens such as nurse Amy Johnson Ford, Natalie Harp discussing right-to-try, Democratic state representative Vernon Jones of Georgia, Andrew Pollack, the father of a Parkland school-shooting victim talking about the “scumbag gunman” who killed his daughter Meadow, and Maximo Alvarez, speaking bluntly about the realty of life under a socialist regime.
Joe Biden still enjoys a lot of advantages. This is a country still grappling with a serious pandemic that restricts and impedes normal American life including schooling for children, the national unemployment rate is 10.2 percent, and too many cities are still beset by urban violence and riots. This is a tough environment for any incumbent, and every day, Donald Trump finds new ways to keep the Democratic Party’s base highly motivated.
But you can start to see how Biden could blow this. No American will be enthusiastic for the prospect of a President Biden ordering another national shutdown to mitigate the spread of the virus. Teachers’ unions are infuriating usually friendly parents who want their kids to back into classrooms in some fashion. (Jim Jordan: “They won’t let you go to school, but they’ll let you go loot.“) A full-throated denunciation of the riots as undermining the cause of racial and social justice wouldn’t cost Biden a single vote he needs, but he just won’t do it. Trump and the Republicans are embracing patriotism almost to the point of self-parody; Democrats are arguing that the country has taken a terrible wrong turn and is constantly falling short of its values. The country is sick of political correctness and cancel culture and a discourse of constant rage and grievances. Last night, Tim Scott painted America as a land of unlimited opportunity: “Our family went from cotton to Congress.” Even friendly voices are recognizing that Biden’s message is lightest on “a concrete economic plan for average families.” And we haven’t even gotten to guns, illegal immigration, or judges.
Right now, you would rather be Biden with a big lead than be Trump and behind. But Democrats felt really good about their chances after a widely praised convention in late summer four years ago, and we all remember how that turned out.
Just when one may think that the Democrat Party couldn't get any loonier, they come up with a new doozy.
From National Review:
In a since-deleted tweet, the Democratic National Committee accused President Trump of “holding a rally glorifying white supremacy” by attending the fireworks display at Mount Rushmore on Independence Day.
“Trump has disrespected Native communities time and again. He’s attempted to limit their voting rights and blocked critical pandemic relief. Now he’s holding a rally glorifying white supremacy at Mount Rushmore — a region once sacred to tribal communities,” the DNC tweeted early Tuesday morning. The tweet linked to a story by The Guardian, which reported that some Native American groups are planning protests at Mount Rushmore in response to Trump’s expected attendance on July 3.
Here's the now-deleted Twitter post:
Anyone who votes for Democrats needs to have their head examined.
To read more of the National Review article, go here.
Above, the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
It would be interesting to see how many Chinese travel to Cuba. It is suspected that the coronavirus is rampant on the communist island. As National Review says, the Cuban regime has a record of downplaying health crises.
According to National Review:
The actions of China’s Communist leaders concerning the coronavirus pandemic have, yet again, made abundantly clear that totalitarian regimes do not behave like responsible nations. Rather than share information promptly to avert a global health emergency, the “revolution,” or regime, puts itself before all else, regardless of how many human beings are infected or die.
Only when the ghastly reality of the Wuhan coronavirus could no longer be contained did Beijing’s leadership stop some of the censorship, shifting to propaganda, lies, and baseless attacks to deflect responsibility for the crisis. The Iranian regime has followed a similar pattern. So will Communist Cuba, as history has shown that it cannot be relied on for accurate and complete health data on pandemics or other urgent global health challenges.
Unlike China or Iran, however, Cuba is just a 45-minute flight away from the U.S. mainland. To safeguard the American people, it was essential for the U.S. to suspend all travel to and from Cuba. It appears from a tweet Thursday by the U.S. mission in Havana that the administration has implemented such a measure. It should also consider blocking entry to the U.S. for all foreign travelers who have visited the island within the previous 120 days. This suggested timeframe is based on estimates of the spread of the novel coronavirus and on statutory limitations concerning access to American ports by vessels that have been in Cuba. Once the health crisis subsides, the U.S. can reassess travel protocols based on verifiable measures, not Cuban-government rhetoric.
Above, purchasing a pre-1964 Winchester 94 at Ron Peterson Firearms in Albuquerque. Photo by Armand Vaquer.
In a way, this is not too surprising considering that liberal cities are enacting "emergency powers" that include stopping gun and ammo sales during this coronavirus pandemic.
Gun sales have been surging during this pandemic. This is sure to send liberals into apoplexy.
National Review reported:
Gun sales are surging in many parts of the U.S. in response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, according to various reports.
Ammunition retailer Ammo.com has seen a 68 percent increase in transactions from the 11 days before February 23, to the period from February 23 to March 4. February 23 was the day Italy began ramping up measures to stem the spread of coronavirus, which has since infected over 24,700 Italian citizens.
Gun sales were up especially in the states of Washington, California, and New York, which have been hit hardest by the coronavirus, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday. Many sales were to first-time buyers.
“It’s not like an active panic, more a preoccupation with making sure everyone is adequately prepared, myself and family and friends,” first-time gun purchaser Anna Carrenas told the Times at Arcadia Firearm and Safety in Arcadia, Ca. “Better to be prepared and not need it than need it and not have it.”
Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates voted to pass sweeping gun control legislation that will make law-abiding gun owners felons if passed by the full legislature and signed by the governor.
National Review reported:
In a raucous session on Tuesday, the Virginia House of Delegates passed gun-control legislation that would ban the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles and make the possession of magazines holding more than twelve rounds a felony.
The House voted to approve the legislation 51–48, with all Republicans and some Democrats voting against. Capitol police removed gun-rights supporters from the chamber due for the manner in which they protested the bill’s passage.
The bill would require any owner of a semi-automatic rifle it classifies as an “assault weapon,“ including AR-15 rifles, to register the weapon with government authorities by 2021. It would also make magazines of over twelve rounds and silencers illegal. It will now head to the state Senate, where previous legislation that would have enacted an “assault weapons” ban failed to get out committee.
Note: The Democrats took over both houses of the Virginia legislature thanks to the deep pockets of Michael Bloomberg.
The 2020 election campaign of the Democrat candidates has broken wide open the mask that their ultimate goal is to confiscate guns of law-abiding citizens.
Now that they're "out-of-the-closet" on gun confiscation, it is important that gun owners must reject appeasement on gun registration.
The NRA-ILA has an article on what Beto's confiscation plan means.
They begin with:
Gun confiscation is the goal. Gun confiscation has always been the goal. Thanks to a recent outburst by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Robert (Beto) Francis O’Rourke, potentially millions more Americans are now aware of this fact.
On September 12, a visibly deranged Beto told the viewers of an ABC News Democratic primary debate, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” As has become custom among the more frivolous candidates, the Beto campaign was selling a t-shirt with the intemperate statement later that evening. According to the Associated Press, on September 19 Beto stated that he is open to broadening his plan to include all semi-automatic firearms.
Beto’s comments have drawn criticism from some Democrats. However, it is instructive that the Democratic criticism appeared to be more about the former congressman’s strategy than the substance of his plan; they prefer confiscation that is well-cooked instead of raw.
Sad that Beto’s candor might foil his more subtle approach to identical gun control efforts, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told CNN, “I frankly think that that clip will be played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying Democrats are coming for your guns,” adding, “We need to focus on what we can get done.” CNN quoted a “Democratic aide” as saying that Beto’s debate statement “only feeds into the NRA's narrative that Democrats are going to take away your guns.”
In other words: Stop it Beto. You’re spoiling the ending.
Beto’s bombastic delivery of their confiscation agenda even shamed the legacy media, who have long been complicit in obfuscating gun control advocates’ political aims. In response, the media was forced shine unwanted light upon the gun controllers’ confiscatory plans. As the editors of the National Review noticed, “For years, advocates of the right to keep and bear arms have suspected that confiscation was the endgame but have been rebuffed as paranoiacs in the press. Such a rebuffing is no longer possible.”
The National Review editors appreciated what NRA members already know: confiscation has long been apparent to those paying sufficient attention. The only surprise for Democrats was Beto’s failure to follow their long-standing script.
The article concludes with (and there's plenty more in-between):
Gun control advocates have made themselves clear. Their efforts are not about “background checks,” or keeping guns away from “dangerous” individuals, or any other so-called “commonsense gun safety” measures.
They are not operating in good faith.
The gun control movement is about civilian disarmament through firearms confiscation.
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke totally obliterated the mask or screen the Democrat Party has been hiding behind when it comes to gun confiscation for over two decades.
O'Rourke has openly stated "Hell, yes!" that he wants to confiscate the AR-15, the most popular rifle in America, among others, from law-abiding citizens.
National Review has a great article on the quandry (hell, it's not just a quandry, it's a major disaster for them) O'Roarke has put his party into.
I will just quote the final paragraph of the National Review article as it sums up what this Democrat disaster means.
They wrote:
For years, advocates of the right to keep and bear arms have suspected that confiscation was the endgame but have been rebuffed as paranoiacs in the press. Such a rebuffing is no longer possible. If it ever was, “Nobody is coming for your guns!” is no longer true — which means that a host of commonly posed inquiries now have the same simple answer. “Why do you oppose federal licensing?” Because leading Democrats are threatening confiscation. “Why do you oppose ‘universal’ background checks?” Because they would create a registry. “And why do you oppose a registry?” Because leading Democrats are threatening confiscation. Unwittingly or not, O’Rourke and his acolytes have stuck a dagger into the exquisitely calibrated gun-control messaging on which their party has worked for the better part of 20 years. No voter can now say he wasn’t warned.
Small wonder why gun sales have skyrocketed in recent days and small wonder there's a fight over "red flag laws". If any Democrat wants to try to confiscate weapons en masse, they are inviting a second civil war.
Thanks, Beto! You have exposed your party's true intentions!
What is wrong with today's CEOs? They're turning into a bunch of politically correct wussies.
First, it was Dick's Sporting Goods ending sales of firearms, thereby greasing the skids for their eventual demise as gun owners are refusing to shop there.
Walmart announced a number of changes to its firearm-sales policy on Tuesday in response to a mass shooting that killed 20 people at one of its stores in El Paso, Texas last month.
The company will no longer sell handgun ammunition and ammunition for short-barrel rifles, and will ask all customers to refrain from openly carrying firearms while shopping in states that allow open-carry unless law-enforcement officers are present. Walmart will also stop selling handguns in Alaska, the last remaining state where such sales are conducted.
In a memo distributed to employees Tuesday, CEO Doug McMillon said the policy change was prompted by the El Paso massacre as well as a similar recent attacks in Dayton, Ohio and Midland and Odessa, Texas.
“In a complex situation lacking a simple solution, we are trying to take constructive steps to reduce the risk that events like these will happen again,” he said. “The status quo is unacceptable.”
Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, accounts for roughly 2 percent of all gun sales and 20 percent of ammunition sales. McMillon estimated in his memo that the new policy will reduce Walmart’s share of the ammunition market to between 6 and 9 percent. He also noted that the store will continue to cater to law-abiding gun owners and called on Congress to enact more stringent gun-control legislation.
They will "continue to cater to law-abiding gun owners"?! It is punishing law-abiding gun owners by removing a source for ammunition at low prices from them, thanks to the actions of a few deranged people. If anything, this will help those mom & pop gun stores that already Walmart hurt. Let's not forget that they put many small gun stores (along with other kinds of stores) out-of-business over the years.
One California gun dealer, Martin B. Retting, Inc., posted on Facebook:
Well, at least now they're being open about their anti-2A attitude. As if their capitulation wasn't enough, they appear to be more than willing to "help-out" our enemies. I guess it's good to finally know who your real friends are?
Their treason to the 2A cause is particularly hard to swallow in light of how many local gun-stores Walmart has driven out of business. I know it's unrealistic to expect a nationwide Walmart boycott, but at least think twice before you spend any of your shooting sports budget at Wally-world.
"The company, America's largest retailer, said it will stop selling handgun ammunition and ammunition commonly used in assault-style weapons"..."will also stop selling handguns in Alaska, the only state where it still sells handguns"....
"It's clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon"... "McMillon said that he would send letters to the White House and congressional leaders that "call for action" on "common sense" gun safety measures. McMillon said Congress should debate re-authorizing the assault weapons ban and expand background checks" "Given our decades of experience selling firearms, we are also offering to serve as a resource in the national debate on responsible gun sales"
Republicans have long sought to limit abortion, both at the state and national level. But abortion opponents have stepped up their efforts in 2019, according to advocates on both sides of the issue. Alabama this week enacted a law that bans all abortions except to save a woman’s life. There would be no exceptions for pregnancies caused by incest or rape, and conducting an abortion could result in a prison sentence of up to 99 years. Four other states — Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio — have adopted laws that ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
What’s behind this latest push? There have been three important shifts in U.S. politics.
The reasons they give are:
1. Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
2. The rise of one-party rule states.
3. Republicans aren't worried of a backlash.
But they completely missed one other important development: legalized infanticide.
Democrats are increasingly explicit in their support for killing unborn children at any stage of pregnancy — and sometimes even of denying normal medical care to born children.
In New York state, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that makes abortion legal, even after the unborn child is viable, so long as the abortionist makes a “reasonable and good-faith judgment” that abortion will protect the pregnant woman’s health. In Rhode Island, Governor Gina Raimondo has pledged to sign legislation that also makes abortion legal after viability to “preserve . . . health.” In Virginia, state legislator Kathy Tran has introduced legislation that would, she has explained, make abortion legal even at term and in the middle of birth.
These stories in the news caused a backlash by people who are totally repelled by infanticide, no matter what excuse is given. Those actions have fired up the anti-abortionists so much that they are scoring anti-abortion legislative wins. In a nutshell: The pro-abortionists simply overstepped. No wonder Republicans aren't worried.
Pro-choice activists are beside themselves over these limitations. But they only have themselves to blame by going into the infanticide extremes. They brought this onto themselves. Eventually, all passed laws will be decided in the Supreme Court, which is what many states passing legislation actually want.
