December 20th, 2010 11:12 am PT
Dave Workman
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is, as usual, resorting to hysteria and hyperbole in
its opposition to a
lawsuit filed by Bellevue’s Second Amendment Foundation, and to play Scrooge to kids from Seattle to Sarasota who, like the youngster in
A Christmas Story, want a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun under the Christmas tree this coming Saturday morning.
I was born on Christmas and, growing up in Tacoma, never got a Red Ryder (I got a couple of real guns, instead!), but this time the fanatics over at Brady have crossed the line. My esteemed colleague
David Codrea writes about the lawsuit
here, and the
Chicago Tribune’s take on the Red Ryder appeared in yesterday's edition. We will address the issues one at a time.
The SAF lawsuit was filed against North Carolina’s Emergency Powers Act – a law not unlike
one here in Washington State – that allows the governor or local authorities to prohibit the possession of firearms outside the home during a declared emergency. The Brady camp has just filed a brief in the case (took them long enough!) that asks the court to dismiss the case. Brady President Paul Helmke offers the ridiculous argument that the Second Amendment “does not grant a right of vigilantes to take up arms on our streets during a riot or state of emergency.”
The Brady Center’s brief argues that there is no right of armed vigilantes to take to the streets during riots or congregate in the vicinity of emergency responders trying to secure a downtown during riots, looting, or terrorist attacks.—Brady Campaign press release
As Codrea points out, the Second Amendment doesn’t “grant” anything. It merely affirms that the right to keep and bear arms exists. SAF’s lawsuit contends that local officials simply cannot suspend a fundamental constitutionally-protected civil right just because of the weather or maybe an earthquake. Helmke would have people believe that it’s okay to leave citizens defenseless in an emergency, when police won’t be responding because there is no communications, perhaps roads are destroyed or flooded, and citizens are on their own.
Helmke’s memory must be awfully short if he does not recall the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when police became part of the problem, as this column noted
here last July. SAF and the National Rifle Association went to federal court to stop the illegal gun confiscations down there, never dreaming that their case would pale in comparison to a much larger drama that included the shooting of unarmed citizens and a cover-up.
Perhaps Helmke would like to make his argument to the store owners who defended their businesses from looters and arsonists during the infamous Rodney King riot in Los Angeles.
Or maybe it is true that the Brady Campaign is anti-self-defense and is determined to undermine and ultimately destroy an important civil right, along with the natural right of self-preservation.
It is perhaps understandable, and certainly predictable, that the Brady Bunch would oppose the SAF lawsuit. It is no surprise they base their opposition on paranoia about armed citizens defending themselves outside the home from looters or carjackers, packs of hungry canines or roving two-legged predators, and try to portray those citizens as jackals.
Recalling that famous Buffalo Springfield
recording that reminds us “Paranoia strikes deep…” we jump to the second item, one that the Brady Campaign must believe will help destroy Christmas for a lot of kids; why else would they do it? Daisy’s famous Red Ryder BB gun is under attack because “children get hurt.” (Where have we heard that before? Oh, yes, they’ve said children will suffer if we reform concealed carry laws, don’t ban guns from Starbucks; you know the drill.) The central object of attention in
A Christmas Story is that Red Ryder, and the argument that this is one of Helmke's favorite holiday tales leaves us with the same impression as a lump of coal in our Christmas stocking.
A leading gun violence prevention group notes that more than 10,000 people received emergency room treatment for pellet and BB gun injuries in 2009. And Daisy Outdoor Products, maker of the Red Ryder, acknowledged that gun awareness has hurt sales.-Chicago Tribune
As noted above, I never got a Red Ryder, but one year the kid next door did, and he learned an enormous amount about gun safety with that BB rifle. He learned muzzle control and hand-eye coordination one night when I taught him to shoot wooden matches and toothpicks at 15 feet, after setting up an old quilt as a backstop, which also taught him about being aware of what is behind the target before pressing a trigger.
The Brady Campaign has raised a red flag over the Red Ryder, the
Chicago Tribune suggests. They noted that “more than 10,000 people received emergency room treatment for pellet and BB gun injuries in 2009. Let’s do some math. More than 9 million Red Ryders have been sold. If it were the only airgun involved in all of these emergency room visits, the percentage would still be miniscule. That percentage drops considerably when one realizes that the Red Ryder is involved in a fraction of BB gun accidents.
The Brady Campaign bills itself as a “gun safety” organization, but we have never seen a single firearms safety instructor fielded by this group. Indeed, gun safety is pretty much cornered by the NRA, which the Brady Campaign would like to see driven off the landscape. The NRA has tens of thousands of certified instructors (full disclosure, I’m one of them) all over the country offering classes almost on a weekly basis somewhere. Where does the Brady Campaign offer gun safety classes?
Face it, the Brady Campaign has not been able to destroy the Second Amendment, but putting a pall over Christmas for thousands of youngsters who may advance to become active gunowners one day apparently is some sort of consolation prize.
To them, we should all say “BAH! Humbug!”
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