Making excuses

Here is NYAGV spokeswoman Leah Gunn-Barrett making excuses as to why the antigunners have not been more successful:

True, they have not organized at the grassroots level. They rely on astroturf and a biased media to present their side without question.

Explaining Cuomo’s popularity drop

The Observer finds that people are more interested in Anthony Weiner’s dick than pushing gun control.

That explains Governor Cuomo’s declining popularity.  He’s hard on the wrong issue.

Trying to buy off gun owners

Gov. Cuomo appears to be trying a time-honored Tammany tactic of buying votes:

“As Gov. Andrew Cuomo continues to face heat from firearm-rights supporters and conservatives for the state’s January gun-control laws, his administration is launching a new grant program for shooting ranges across the state.  The state Department of Environmental Conservation on Wednesday launched the grant program, which will distribute $65,000 in 2013 to non-profit or municipal ranges in New York, Commissioner Joseph Martens announced Wednesday.  It’s funded with federal firearms tax money required to be used for educational programs …”

First off, while $65K may seem like a lot of money if you’re trying to buy the Republican nomination for NYC mayor, it’s really chump change.  I believe FNRA doles out over $1 million per year in the state for various shooting programs.

Second, and more importantly, this is not a new program.  NYSRPA and others have asked for this for years and DEC had some sort of program for giving out money in place several years ago.

Cuomo’s Brady ad

Here is a copy of the Brady Bunch ad Gov. Cuomo had made.

Earlier posts had the video deleted. I finally found a copy and uploaded it locally so it won’t disappear.

I’ve seen more lively actors on the Walking Dead.

Sensing the peoples’ will

Unbelievable to him, but not the general public.

Has it occurred to the Governor that his actions might have something to do with it?

Then explain your huge drop in popularity.

Failing grade

Mayor Mike is going to start grading politicians:

“… Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the nonprofit group financed by Bloomberg (I), will unveil a scoring system Tuesday to award lawmakers grades of A through F, much like the National Rifle Association, which has derived much of its power by deploying letter rankings against politicians at election time … “For decades, the NRA has done an admirable job of tracking to minute detail how members of Congress stand on gun bills.  We’ve simply decided to do the same,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns … Glaze outlined a sophisticated algorithm that would weigh lawmakers’ votes on gun bills as well as their public statements and other actions to issue overall letter grades.   “Not every member can vote for every bill, but if not, there are other things they can and should be doing, and we will have our eye out for those as well,” Glaze said … “The appetite for information about where members are is very high,” Glaze said. Of the scorecard, he added: “We don’t intend that this will be a tree falling in the forest.  We intend for people to have all the information they need to make sound voting and political-contribution decisions.” …”

This is going to fail for one simple reason: NRA has an actual voting constituency which cares about the issue.  That is why their grades mean something to politicians.  MAIG is just astroturf funded almost entirely by one person: Bloomberg himself.

Plus, antis who agree with Bloomberg can already use NRA’s grades to make choices.  That hasn’t worked because even people who don’t like guns or who don’t like the NRA do not care enough about the issue to vote based on it.  There is a reason that groups like the Brady Campaign and New Yorkers Against Gun Violence have largely given up trying to influence elections: they can’t.

SCOTUS conference Friday

SCOTUS is scheduled to have a conference this Friday and one of the cases on the docket is a SAF petition asking the court to accept their lawsuit challenging New York’s discretionary pistol licensing system.

Going to a gun show

You never know what you’ll find at a gun show. Case in point:

Cuomo calls in the Brady’s

Last week it was announced that Cuomo’s cronies had created their own gun control group.  This week it was announced that they will be running ads in the state:

“The state Democratic Committee announced today it will be promoting its agenda — and one backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo — through ads and mobilization efforts in New York and the nation … The party said in a news release that it is setting up committees on the issues of … gun safety …  A Democratic official clarified that while the effort will promote national issues, the effort will only be in New York and the ads will only run in the state.  The effort will also promote Cuomo’s agenda back home, including gun control … The first ad campaign will focus on gun violence and feature Sarah and Jim Brady calling on Washington to pass comprehensive gun legislation …”

I’m having trouble deciding which is the dumber idea: Trying to promote an agenda that caused a huge drop in the Governor’s popularity or digging up these two fossils to use as mouthpieces for that agenda.

It’s almost as if Cuomo is stuck in the early 90s, when gun control and the Brady’s were de rigueur amongst the Democrat elite.  Even a cursory glance at the political landscape would show that a lot has changed over the last 20 years.  From a purely political standpoint, gun control is not a winning issue with the public and no group has the ability to deliver any money/manpower/votes to supportive candidates at election time.  I don’t even see the gun control groups talking much about elections anymore.  Is Cuomo really that out of touch that he does not see this?

Bloomberg’s revenge on Cuomo

Mayor Mike is getting his revenge against Governor Cuomo for trying to pass off the blame for SAFE onto to him:

“… After a week of almost non-stop corruption revelations … Bloomberg also included Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his revulsion of all things Albany, implying that one of the things that aids corruption is the practice of the governor sending lawmakers something called a “message of necessity” so a bill can pass quickly, without anyone having a the chance to study it.  “Why can’t you give it time?  Well, the answer is they don’t want anybody to see it.  It’s the only explanation,” Bloomberg said …”

Bullseye!