State lawmakers have launched a nationwide non-partisan coalition to combat gun violence, in part because the Congress has failed to reform gun laws, members of the group said on Monday.
Some 200 lawmakers from 50 states have joined the alliance, American State Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention, said the group’s founder, Democratic New York State Assembly member Brian Kavanagh.
Now when I saw the link to this article while cruising the anti-rights feeds, I almost skipped it. Still I was hooked by the “Non-Partisan” line in the lead. These days support for gun ownership is really the bi-partisan political issue:
Partisan differences on this question, already sizeable in 2012, have widened over the last two years. As was the case in December 2012, a majority of Democrats (60%) say guns do more to put people’s safety at risk, while only about a third (35%) say they do more to protect people from becoming crime victims. By contrast, eight-in-ten Republicans say guns do more to protect people from becoming crime victims, up 17-points from 2012.
Back in the 90s the Brady Campaign (when that name meant something) picked Paul Helmke to head their group because while Gun Control is a Democrat issue (be it the Marxists in the North or the Hood-Wearing Jim Crow types in the South) they wanted to increase their bi-partisan appeal. And they did…for a little while. Now gun control isn’t even a Democrat issue, it’s a “Progressive” one. So how is this group bi-partisan in these days?
Lawmakers from eight states were at the news conference, including Virginia, Alabama, New Hampshire and Kansas. The only Republican lawmaker was state Representative Barbara Bollier from Kansas.
Ahhh, so they managed to to get ONE Republican to sign on. Have a look at this statement from her October:
I support local control and voted against the recent bill that took away cities rights to determine where guns and knives are allowed. I would absolutely support the return of local control, but do not see passage of such a change as a possibility due to the current makeup of the Kansas legislature. However, I will work for change in our state regarding gun laws and would support mandatory background checks for any purchase of a gun. I would also support limitations on the type of guns available to the general public specifically related to the number of rounds that can be fired sequentially. While I support Second Amendment rights, I also recognize that guns are a public health issue and reasonable policy must be the goal surrounding guns.
So she supports the Second Amendment, she doesn’t seem to much support the right of the people to keep and bear arms!
Now what’s interesting is they almost don’t exist outside of this article. They have a website, in that they’ve registered a domain and put up a front page, but all it does is link to this presser:
At the summit, the legislators will discuss how to organize the coalition to be most effective, as well as legislative successes of the last two years and actions they plan to take in their respective states in 2015. Topics will include ways of strengthening and closing loopholes in the background check system, growing concerns about guns in the context of domestic violence and abuse, and effective intervention strategies in communities experiencing high rates of gun violence.
That’s as close to any true agenda item you’ll find. Also while they brag about having 200 members from all 50 states, plus DC and Puerto Rico, they only list the few seen in the press release. Do they really have 200 members, or do they have 200 people interested in attending the summit to see what’s going on, or are they like Mayors against Illegal Guns where they inflated their numbers by keeping on people who quit the group when they found out what it was about, or adding people to the roster simply because they filled out a survey?
Last is this line:
The group has not released information on its preliminary donors, but Kavanagh said fundraising efforts were under way. Members are scheduled to hold their first meeting on Tuesday.
I’m willing to bet this is just Michael Bloomberg working on his new agenda to push local referendums to ban guns rather than dealing with the hostile waters of National politics.
So what? There are 7,383 state legislators. That 200 represents less than 3% of the total.
And they don’t confirm those numbers, nor do they give how many of them are from Puerto Rico, or DC which aren’t states, nor places where much more gun control is going to be passed. (There’s a reason why Bloomberg isn’t targeting Massachusetts for his referendum campaign. While there’s always risk of more gun control, at this point the state is so regulated, and yet still has a serious violence problem, it becomes VERY difficult to pass MORE restrictions, and since I’ve been a Mass resident gun ownership here has only gotten easier and LESS restrictive…albeit by drips and drops)
Plus they talk about having representation in solid Red states….but by the Democrat minority there. They have at least one legislator from Texas, and given how that state is hacked into tiny counties I suspect there are a few more, they gain nothing from them because Texas is only going for LESS restrictions now.
And that’s even without just simply calling them in a lie, which they do pathologically.