Found in John Alden’s house, built in 1653 using material from an earlier house erected in 1632, at 105 Alden Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts “in a secret protective cubbyhole near the front door of the home” during a 1924 renovation, this wheel-lock bears makers’ marks on the lock and barrel indicating it was made by the Beretta, family of Brescia, Italy, known to have been in business since 1526.
It is the only firearm brought over on the Mayflower known to have survived and it is preserved today in the collection of the National Firearms Museum operated by the NRA.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday declaring that the National Rifle Association is a domestic terrorist organization. The officials also urged other cities, states and the federal government to follow suit.
District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani wrote the resolution and shared her thoughts on the NRA with KTVU. “The NRA has it coming to them,” she said. “And I will do everything I possibly can to call them out on what they are, which is a domestic terrorist organization.”
After citing some statistics about gun violence in the United States – like that there’s been more than one mass shooting per day in the country in 2019 – Stefani got local with how gun violence has impact the Bay Area.
She cited the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on July 28, referencing Stephen Romero, Keyla Salazar and Trevor Irby, who were killed by gunman Santino William Legan in what she called a “senseless act of gun violence that day.”
Later in the resolution, which the board passed unanimously, the NRA is blamed for causing gun violence. “The National Rifle Association musters its considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence,” the resolution reads.
The resolution also claims that the NRA “spreads propaganda,” “promotes extremist positions,” and has “through its advocacy has armed those individuals who would and have committed acts of terrorism.”
In addition to calling the NRA a domestic terrorist organization, the Board of Supervisors called on the city and county of San Francisco to “take every reasonable step to limit … entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business” with the NRA.
How about that, boys and girls? We’ve got around five million (the NRA’s membership) terrorists at large in America these days. Me, I’m a Life Terrorist. And we can boast of nine US President terrorists: Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Donald Trump.
Well, if the NRA was a real terrorist organization, we know that SF Board of Supervisors would be out there defending it and kissing its ass.
My father used to shake his head and say, when he read this kind of news of major left-wing lunacy emanating from the Left Coast: “The continent slants, and all the fruits and nuts roll out to California.”
USA Today spins its NRA lawsuit story so as to gladden liberal hearts at the thought of the NRA going broke.
The real gravamen of the news is, however, the use of the organs of government by the liberal gubernatorial administration of Andrew Cuomo in New York to intimidate insurance companies and banks into denying conventional business services to the National Rifle Association.
Obviously, if a national avocationally-oriented organization devoted to lobbying in its members’ interest cannot buy insurance, or potentially even have bank or brokerage accounts, it cannot handle money, receive dues, pay salaries, publish magazines, operate, or exist.
The gun lobbying group claims in its lawsuit, which targets Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Department of Financial Services and Maria Vullo, which heads the department, that the state has caused “irrecoverable loss and irreparable harm” to the organization. But, of course, the organization is making these claims in a lawsuit, which it hopes to win.
The Rolling Stone first obtained the lawsuit and published the 45-page complaint online Friday.
Over several months, the NRA has taken aim at the state of New York and its financial regulators after the state ruled the NRA’s insurance, “Carry Guard,” was illegal because it gave liability protection to gun owners for acts where there was “intentional wrongdoing.”
The NRA claims in its lawsuit that it has lost its insurance coverage, something it claims its carrier wouldn’t renew for “any price.” New York, the NRA says, has interfered with its business by coercing “insurance agencies, insurers, and banks into terminating business relationships with the NRA that were necessary to the survival of the NRA.”
“If the NRA is unable to collect donations from its members, safeguard the assets
endowed to it, apply its funds to cover media buys and other expenses integral to its political speech, and obtain basic corporate insurance coverage, it will be unable to exist as a not-for-profit or pursue its advocacy mission,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants seek to silence one of America’s oldest constitutional rights advocates. If their abuses are not enjoined, they will soon, substantially, succeed.”
If you lawfully defend yourself and/or others against criminal violence, you are very likely to be charged with a crime and forced to face a grand jury. Even if you never actually go to trial, the result will be considerable legal expenses.
Consequently, in recent years, as legal “concealed carry” has become increasingly common, gun owners have felt the need for “Carry Guard” Insurance, purchased via the NRA or through other vendors.
Governor Cuomo is trying to strike at your right to keep and bear arms and to defend yourself nationally, by using the power of New York State to scare insurance companies out of providing any such coverage via the NRA or anybody else anywhere.
From the viewpoint of the Left, the monopoly of force by the Leviathan state must be preserved at any cost.
HuffPo refers to Maria Butina “infiltrating” the National Rifle Association.
What could a Russian spy possibly accomplish by infiltrating the NRA?
Persuade the Board of Directors to start supporting Gun Control?
Fiddle with the reticle on Oliver North’s telescopic sight?
The allegation makes no kind of sense. No Russian “infiltration” could possibly change the NRA’s agenda or political orientation. And it is essentially impossible to imagine a more unlikely ally of any foreign adversary of the United States. You get the impression that these liberals have never seen “Red Dawn” (1984).
NRA members: those are the guys with guns who become the Resistance to the Russian Invasion.
It’s the other side, all the liberal Gun Control groups, that are helping the Russians disarm America.
I am a 53-year-old lawyer who lives in a trendy neighborhood in a large diverse city with my wife and three kids. I have never owned a gun. In fact, even though I grew up in Louisiana (“Sportsman’s Paradise”), I have never even pulled the trigger of any weapon except a BB gun.
Yet, last week, I became a proud member of the NRA for the first time. I did so because the anti-gun hysteria that I’ve witnessed is dangerous, alarming, and ignores the facts. I’ve joined the NRA to stand up for them when they are viciously attacked, since the organization is a convenient scapegoat, not a cause of what happened in Florida.
I’m fed up. …
[I]nstead of focusing on … social issues and law enforcement breakdowns, we’ve seen unbridled hatred and rage directed toward responsible gun owners. I’ve seen this personally by my friends on the Left. The simple facts are these: overall gun violence is down markedly over the last 20 years, even as more guns are in circulation and the Supreme Court has given greater backing to individual rights to own a firearm. …
It seems to me, however, that the Left is not interested in sensible changes to existing gun laws, such as strengthening background checks, employing more armed security at schools, and better identification and separation of troubled youths. Rather, the Left wants to destroy the NRA and repeal the Second Amendment, as articulated recently by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
After Parkland, one friend posted about perhaps joining the NRA out of spite (“I’m tempted to join the NRA if only to fight the ridiculous group thinkâ€). This post, which contained absolutely nothing threatening, was anonymously reported to his local police department who dispatched a detective to interview him.
Another friend received a phone call from a high school friend, whom he had not spoken to in many years, who expressed deep concern for his worsening “radical conservative’ views. “We’re very worried about you.†She made it sound like a number of people were discussing this concern behind his back and clearly wished to help him mend his ways.
Don Surber thinks the NRA can take all of them to court.
So, First National Bank of Omaha thinks it can blacklist the National Rifle Association and refuse to do business with
Uh-uh.
Not in 21st century America.
The courts have ruled that a business has no discretion in whom it will do business with.
If a Christian baker must bake a wedding cake for gay weddings, then you had better believe a bank must do business with the NRA.
“The battle over gun control has spread to credit cards, rental cars, airlines, hotels, software security, and insurance,” CNN gleefully reported.
“On Thursday, a major bank and the largest rental car company in the U.S. announced they were ending business partnerships with the National Rifle Association, citing pressure from customers in the wake of the Florida school shooting that left 17 dead. Major hotel companies also have eliminated affiliations with the NRA in the aftermath of previous school shootings.
“On Thursday afternoon, the First National Bank of Omaha tweeted that “customer feedback has caused us to review our relationship with the NRA,†and that it would not be renewing its contract to produce NRA-branded Visa cards.”
That is discrimination. If I ran the NRA, I would unleash the lawyers and wind up owning the bank.
The New York Times, through a column by John Corvino, a professor of philosophy at Wayne State University on November 27, said businesses cannot act on personal beliefs.
“At first glance, the Masterpiece Cakeshop case — for which the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments on Dec. 5 — looks easy. In 2012 Charlie Craig and David Mullins attempted to buy a wedding cake at Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo. The owner, an evangelical Christian named Jack Phillips, refused to sell them one. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission found Phillips liable for sexual-orientation discrimination, which is prohibited by the state’s public accommodations law. State courts have upheld the commission’s decision,” the column began.
(I do not link to pay walls.)
But Corvino reached the conclusion that Christians must break their moral beliefs.
“It’s a mistake to treat sexual-orientation discrimination as exactly like racial discrimination — just as it’s a mistake to treat it as entirely dissimilar. But the underlying principle from Piggie Park holds in the case at hand: Freedom of speech and freedom of religion do not exempt business owners from public accommodations laws, which require them to serve customers equally. The Court should uphold the commission’s decision and rule against Phillips,” Corvino concluded.
If a religious belief is not sacrosanct in the eyes of the court, why should a political one be protected?
Found in John Alden’s house, built in 1653 using material from an earlier house erected in 1632, at 105 Alden Street in Duxbury, Massachusetts “in a secret protective cubbyhole near the front door of the home” during a 1924 renovation, this wheel-lock bears makers’ marks on the lock and barrel indicating it was made by the Beretta, family of Brescia, Italy, known to have been in business since 1526.
It is the only firearm brought over on the Mayflower known to have survived and it is preserved today in the collection of the National Firearms Museum operated by the NRA.