Category Archives: Chris’s Blog

 

Chris’s Blog

While I do some of the writing chores, my main role is behind the scenes. In particular, look for updates about the web site here. We’ve added several new features recently and there are more to come. Please let me know what you think. You can reach us by following the Contact Us link in the menu.

This is an exciting time for The Firearms Coalition. We’re encouraged by the level of encouragement we’ve received so far. It would seem there’s a need for what we envision The Coalition to be. Help us keep it on the right track.

 

Chris Knox 

Chris's Blog

Chris and Jeff’s Excellent GRPC Adventure

Gun Rights Radicals Meet and Greet Again

What a great weekend!  It’s always good to see the guys who really get what gun rights, the Second Amendment, and civil rights are all about.  I especially enjoyed connecting with the contingents from the Arkansas Concealed Carry Association and from the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association.  I was also pleased to see The Appleseed Project with a table and a couple of reps in the room.  They were handing out passes to Appleseed shoots.  If you haven’t been to one, GO!  If you have been to one, GO!  They’re planning one in Buckeye near me, but unfortunately my time’s committed for that one.  I have my calendar cleared for April 19 in Payson, though.

Joe Tartaro kindly asked me to bring a generous stack of Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War with me to the conference.  SAF always sets up a bookstore in the back of the room and I got to see the book moving briskly.  I don’t know how many copies I signed, and all of the direct feedback was positive.  This year’s GRPC was a bit of a coming-out party for the book, with the first gun press review appearing in the current issue of Gun Week.  Thanks to Joe for that. 

Next year the GRPC heads directly into the belly of the beast:  San Francisco.  The Pink Pistols delegation offered to lead a march through the Castro district.  Stereotype busting, anyone? 

I’ve attached my written speech below.  You may need to click the "Read More" button to see it. 

Continue reading Chris and Jeff’s Excellent GRPC Adventure →

Chris's Blog

Posted on Opposing Views

Misleading Headlines

 Posted as a comment to a story about Amtrak

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/news-senate-says-amtrack-must-allow-guns-on-trains-or-lose-funding

The headlines for this story, including the one here ("Amtrack Must Allow Guns") are unanimously misleading.  From the heads and the leads, one might reasonably conclude that gun owners will be riding the iron with more iron on their hips.  While a few armed good guys might have been a blessing in the case of the 1993 Long Island Railway massacre, that is not what this proposal is about.  Amtrak is being forced, under threat of losing its federal funding, to follow federal law regarding transport of declared, unloaded, and cased guns in checked baggage.  That’s the policy that airlines routinely follow. 

On another point, a "money-in-politics angle" is promised in tomorrow’s coverage followed by a cocktail napkin analysis of who gets funding from what pro- or anti-gun groups, noting that gun rights groups spent over $2M on lobbying while anti-gun groups spent only $80,000.  That’s a pretty simplistic analysis.  It doesn’t include the non-profit foundation money that drives groups like Freedom (sic) States Alliance, Violence Policy Center, and others.  Neither does it count the vast in-kind contribution of Big Media.  It doesn’t take long watching a Hollywood blockbuster or a cheesy sit-com to spot the anti-gun and anti-gun owner slant.

Chris's Blog

Crowdsourcing gun law information

"Crowdsourced" Table of Gun Laws

"Opposing Views," a debate web site that airs representative arguments on a variety of topics, including gun rights versus gun prohibition, has undertaken a project to "crowdsource" a table of state gun laws. Crowdsourcing seeks to draw on the collective knowledge of a crowd.  

The table, shown in the frame below, provides a way to see a summary of views of state gun laws, not unlike Wikipedia.  The idea has merit, although to become authoritative, it needs much more traffic than it has seen so far.  That’s the nature of crowdsourcing — its most important ingredient is the crowd.  As an example,I looked at Arizona’s gun laws and there were some truly bizarre ideas. 

A second, similarly crowdsourced table of gun rights organizations appears below the gun law table.

We’ll follow this experiment in social behavior to see where it leads. The OV management seems genuinely interested in facilitating a good quality discussion.  We’ll be dropping copy into their site.  It’s a way to get exposure for The Firearms Coalition.  And we encourag our readers to join in as well. 

Opposing Views

 

Along those lines, you might want to drop one of our badges into your blog or forum posts.

HTML suitable for your web site or blog:

<a href="http://firearmscoalition.org/s.php " title="The Firearms Coalition" target="_blank"><img src="http://firearmscoalition.org/fclogo.gif" alt="The Firearms Coalition" /></a>

 

Or BBCode suitable for forum signature blocks:

[url=http://firearmscoalition.org/s.php][img]http://firearmscoalition.org/fclogo.gif[/img][/url]

 

The Firearms Coalition

 

 

 

 

 

Continue reading Crowdsourcing gun law information →

Chris's Blog

NPR’s “On The Media” story about “Bradley Effect”

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/07/03/03

This is a story about the "Bradley Effect."  In the 1982 race for California governor between Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian, former LA mayor Bradley, a Black, was supposed to win handily.  In the story the Democratic strategist makes the offhand comment that "there was this gun control initiative" which generated a bunch of votes out of the Central Valley.  For years the "Bradley Effect" has been thought to reveal America as riddled with closet racists.  This story actually throws some cold watner on that allegation, but doesn’t quite acknowledge that the gun issue provided the margin.  Of course, the Republican Deukmejian went on to stick it to the gun owners who elected him, signing a nasty semi-auto ban in his second term.

I’ve long suspected that the "Bradley Effect" was at least encouraged, and possibly even planted, to allow Democrats avoid saying out loud that gun control is a losing issue. 

The Republicans, living up to their title of the "Stupid Party," have so far shown far less understanding of the issue.  Maybe someday.

Chris's Blog

Joe Bowman: Godspeed

Just got the word from The Shooting Wire that trick shooter, actor, magician, and well-loved icon of the gun industry Joe Bowman has left us.  I was probably ten years old when he pulled a quarter from behind my ear.  I believe it may have been at the Camp Perry matches sometime around 1967.  Joe was hard to miss in his wide-brimmed hat with the Tom Mix crease and his hand-tooled boots.  As a kid I liked to watch him shuffle cards and juggle sixguns, but as I grew older I learned that he was a contemporary and friend of some of the legends of the screen.  I’m glad that Jeff and I got to visit with him at the SHOT Show this year. The world is less colorful without him, but it’s better for his having been here.

 

Chris's Blog

Neal Knox Compilation

Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War

Now Accepting Orders!

The long-awaited compilation of the best of Neal Knox’s writing is on its way.  The scheduled release date is July 4.  It’s been a long haul, but I have to say I’m pleased with the result.  I’m looking forward to telling you more about it.  Here’s the cover copy:

  GRWSmall.jpg

“Neal Knox  A hero—no, the hero—of the Second Amendment.”
–Tanya Metaksa
former Executive Director, NRA-ILA

    For forty years, Neal Knox reported on every significant event in the Gun Rights War.  He himself became the story more than once, as he published news that powerful people wanted left alone.  Assembled here at last in one volume are the inside stories:

On Politics

  •  The Democrats are a danger to the Second Amendment—but so are the Republicans.

On the NRA

  •  How Neal Knox became the architect of the modern NRA—and why the NRA now pretends he never existed.

On how to be the Gun Lobby

  • How to talk to a politician—it starts with you listening.

        Often controversial, always principled, Neal Knox was the man Gun Week called, “the conscience of the gun-rights movement.”  Here at last, in one volume is the core of the writing that made his reputation—and helped save the Second Amendment.

    “Neal played a pivotal role in the gun-rights movement. Simultaneously loved and hated, he made a difference in defense of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”
–Alan Korwin, Author, Gun Laws of America

Mail orders may be placed by sending a check for $24.95 to:

The Gun Rights War

PO Box 3313

Manassas, VA 20108

 

The On-Line order site is still in development but should be functioning any minute now – We Hope!

To visit the on-line order site, click here

or go to http://www.TheGunRightsWar.com

 

Chris's Blog

Attention Fellow Webmasters

I got into a conversation with a webmaster for another gun rights site about technology and bugs and such.  We both felt a little concerned about posting questions on the support forums with links back to our site, lest we give some anti-gun hacker the keys to the store.  "Wouldn’t it be great," we both said at the same time, "if we could get a group of pro-rights webmasters together?"  I’ll be setting up a private forum at an undisclosed location.  Any webmaster of a bona-fide pro-rights site is welcome to join.  Send a note to me using the Contact Us link.  Include a link to your site.  I’ll send you a link to our bunker and the secret handshake.

 

Chris's Blog

Obama Tiptoes Around Semi-Auto Ban

Obama Tiptoes Around Semi-Auto Ban

Calls for passage of Inter-American Arms Treaty

Speaking in Mexico, the President today acknowledged his support for renewing the so-called "assault weapons" ban, but also showed respect for political power of the gun rights movement, saying that he and his administration might not have the political wherewithal to pass a ban.  Having sidestepped the call to pass a renewal, he then suggested enforcing existing law, pointing out that it’s already illegal to smuggle guns into Mexico.  A remarkable insight, Mr. President. 

Mr. Obama has put us on notice that he will pass the ban if he can muster up the political muscle.  It is the duty of the gun rights movement to see that any thought of a new ban remains expensive.  

 

April 17 Update

The Washington Times ran the Obama story in today’s edition focusing on Obama’s call for passage of the Inter-American Arms Tready (full text here) to mark guns with their country of origin and to establish all manner of tracing and registration schemes.