Women in the NRA: it's not a new thing

In 1972, the federal law Title IX was passed with the intention of achieving gender equity in high school and collegiate sports. I find it disturbing that 40 years later, some still see this as a bad thing. For example, witness US Womens Soccer champion Brandi Chastain's experience at a Sacramento at an event honoring the 40th anniversary of Title IX.  (article)  Even today, media coverage of women in sports lags significantly behind the coverage of male sports.

If that grudging acceptance of women in sports is the status quo in other sports, you're probably thinking to yourself "I bet that barbaric NRA is even worse"! Let's take a look and see...

Here are a couple examples. On the left, is an article about Elizabeth Topperwein competing in the NRA's national matches in 1906. Wait, could that be right? Yes, it was in fact 1906 and this writeup notes that women had competed in other shooting matches for some time. In the picture on the right, Gertrude Beckstrom proudly celebrates WINNING the overall national pistol matches in 1957..

 

Yes but what about management roles? Surely the backward, benighted NRA wouldn't support women taking a leadership role in their organization. Well, except they did in 1949 when the Seattle area's late Alice Bull was elected to the NRA Board of Directors.  

The pictures above are from the book "NRA: An American Legend" (my review) and highlight the pride the organization has taken in supporting all those interested in shooting over the years, whether for sport or self defense. This has included a North Carolina NAACP chapter threatened by the KKK in the 1950s (link) and a Pink Pistols affiliate in Seattle in 2000 (link). In fact, I was a safety instructor for CeaseFear and a variety of gun rights organizations lent substantial support: the Second Amendment Foundation, Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Washington state's Gun Owners Action League, various shooting ranges.

Clearly, there's a lot more to the NRA's narrative and history that the simplistic media offer up to casual readers. I've included some further illustrations from the NRA's magazine American Rifleman below, in the hope that it will provide valuable information to some.Note that these photos were selected by opening a handful of issues over about a half hour...they are undoubtedly the tip of the iceberg.

This screen shot is from a December 1939 article by Dr. A. F. Bokman, describing the benefits his sons and daughter experienced as a a result of a rifle marksmanship program.

These photos are from the December 1951 editions Annual Meeting coverage

This photo from the November 1951 coverage of the national matches at Camp Perry illustrates that women competed very seriously decades ago.

As does this cover from September 1967.

Gun Advocates Work On Suicide Prevention

Here is reason 87,099 why I love the gun community: the gun community finds solutions to problems. Solutions that can work. Solutions that are based on a laser-like focus on solving the problem without impacting people clumsily or infringing on their rights.

Gun control people talk a good game about reducing gun deaths but their approach is clumsy and, in the United States, ultimately doomed. They don't actually do anything useful. Their only suggestion is "more gun control". Well, we've already got a lot of useless gun control laws and most of it only impacts good folks.

The gun community is smart. Its leadership knows that the suicides, homicides and accidents are very different phenomena and can only be attacked successfully by attacking the distinct root causes of each.

Firearms Accidents Reduced By Voluntary Education

This was successfully done with firearms accidents and mostly without enacting onerous training requirements (although universal firearms safety training in school could be worthwhile). I remember being impressed when I got active in firearms politics that the firearms accidental death rate had dropped by nearly 40 percent between 1970 and 1990. I was even more pleasantly surprised to find that the rate had dropped to 600/year in 2010.

What Can We Do To Reduce Suicides?

In the past few years, gun rights leaders have been turning their attention to the problem of suicide by firearm. Gun control advocates like to conflate murders and suicides but in reality, 2/3 of firearms intentional deaths are suicides. In Washington state, the number is more like 80%, as our firearms murder rate is below the national average.

One of the organizations driving these efforts is the Second Amendment Foundation (link), an organization founded and led by Second Amendment supporting powerhouse Alan Gottlieb. A couple years ago, his organization joined with Washington state health professionals, the Seattle Police Department, the Washington State Department of Veteran Affairs, the Washington Arms Collectors organization and others to form a unique coalition (link). They lobbied the state legislature and obtained official support for this life saving coalition.

This weekend, I attended the Washington Arms Collectors show in Monroe and spoke with some amazing members of the Safer Homes Suicide Awareness coalition. The lady I spoke with was a great representative for the group...the stereotype is that people trying to prevent suicides are anti-firearms. This lady, however, said that she herself owns firearms and that her only interest is in convincing others to secure their firearms. The discussion also highlighted that the group distinguishes between firearms whose use is not anticipated and firearms kept more ready for the self defense possibility that none of us like to think about.

Not only was this a great thing to hear but the group is also giving away free firearms storage devices and other safety devices, such as the lockable pill bottle included in this picture. I just may have to volunteer with some of these efforts, now...

This business card sized information sheet teaches how to spot people having problems (sometimes a challenge in this stressed out age) and how to help.

To the Second Amendment Foundation, Washington Arms Collectors and their allies in the law enforcement and health care communities: well done!

Letter to Senator Steve Hobbs About His Vote For SB 5992

Good morning.

I enjoyed talking to you at the Capitol a couple weeks ago and wanted to provide feedback about Senator Hobbs and his vote for SB 5992, the bump stock ban.

Frankly, I am somewhat concerned about the Senator's vote for 5992. I hope it does not mean he is reconsidering his support to this point for gun rights or that he might support worse laws now, such as semi-auto and magazine bans..or crippling firearms preemption.

The bump stock ban in the form he voted for is sort of a complicated topic so I thought it might help to explore some angles that are worth considering. I am very interested in understanding why this bill had his support.

On one hand:

1) The version the Senator voted for (solely looking at bump stocks and not including, say, match triggers) is the least harmful law being considered in this legislature. Very few people own bump stocks and they are basically novelty items which probably end up lost in most peoples' closet after a
couple days of wasting money missing things.

On the other hand:

1) I am concerned about having possession of something that could be bought today suddenly being a felony in a few months. To me that seems arbitrary and dangerous. I think this deserves very careful consideration and not the assumption that it is OK to just ban the possession things purchased legally.

2) I seriously question whether banning bump stocks does anything to remove a public safety hazard. The Las Vegas atrocity was committed by someone firing indiscriminately in a situation where he simply could not miss. Bump stocks let him shoot faster but as I understand it, also caused his guns to
malfunction at times. The same thing could be achieved without a bump stock because bump firing is something people have known how to do for ages.

None of these considerations is pleasant to write or read about, obviously.

3) I am concerned about the signals this vote sends

Gun control organizations, which tend to be factually disengaged (politely said) are going to be happy about this because they'll feel like they have momentum. Where civil liberties are concerned, I think letting infringements build momentum is very dangerous.

Right wingers, who tend to have blanket notions that only Republicans are pro-second amendment are going to be happy at having their world view validated and aim at replacing Democrats with more Republicans. As we discussed, that does not appeal to me either. I make my voting decisions based on the character of the legislators involved and the extent of their passion for protecting my rights.

In conclusion:
I hope this vote does not mean Senator Hobbs has changed his position on gun rights.

I hope that he will talk to the firearms community about legislation he might consider supporting and its side effects, rather than taking gun-hostile sources without a grain of salt.

I hope that if the House version is different and there is another Senate vote to confirm changes that Senator Hobbs reconsiders his support for this bill.

Thank you,

Don B

Gun rights alliance interview #2: @ShamashAran talks about being an LGBT shooter

DonB: I'm still working out the format for these posts, so please bear with me. Late last week, I sent @ShamashAran the same 3 questions I asked Michael Woodward last week. Here are her responses:

Sorry, I Completely forgot about this, Life got away with me.

"What have your interactions in the gun community been like? Do you feel that you have been welcomed as a shooter?"

I've honestly never had any real problems other than good natured ribbing.  Gun nuts I know would be more offended if I open-carried a hi-point than by anyone I went home with for a date.  There's a bit of good natured innocent fascination that you can't be offended by either. 

"How can the gun community reach out to a variety of shooters?"

The answer to this would lead to a very long political rant.  All i really want o say is, if we expect people to be tolerant of LGBT folks, we need to be tolerant of people that disagree with our political views.  Everyone's a human.

"How can we collaborate politically to protect our rights, given that the simple suggestion of "voting Republican" might not be workable for all people"

You have to be willing to talk to people you disagree with.  Even if they are stupid.
For example, gun controllers all have fears stoked by ignorance.  The only way you fix that is to cure the ignorance.

Notes for Olympia Testimony

Hello.

My name is Don ****  and I live in Snohomish county in Washington state. I am a husband and father and work as a software developer.

Politically, I consider myself an Independent. I was a party line Democrat until I realized about 25 years ago how hostile the party was...and still is...towards gun owners.

I don't think party insiders understand how much damage the party has done to itself by opposing the vital civil liberty of gun rights. Absurd laws are developed and pushed by Democrat legislators in cooperation with technically ignorant gun control advocates. Our current Attorney General, when he is not fund raising for his future bid for Governor, is currently responding to reasoned letters with ridiculous quotes from Mike Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety. Gun owners have the real knowledge to inform legislators about the effects and realities of gun controls and technical realities to gun topics and the Democratic party treats us like pariahs.

I recently blogged about how badly the party is misjudging the politics in our state. We are a very moderate state...and a VERY gun friendly state. We have a higher percentage of concealed pistol licenses than *many* states that voted for President Trump in the 2016 election.

Most of the pistols those licensees carry can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition and may expected to renew an "assault weapon" license EVERY year under one proposal being considered. In a state of 7 million people, we probably have a couple million semi-automatic rifles and have used them with exemplary safety and responsibility.

Every gun control being considered has some subtexts that are rarely discussed. Complying with "Assault weapon" license laws mean that I am expected to request PERMISSION every year to keep a firearm that I have owned responsibly for some time...and accept the possibility that permission might be denied. We do not.

Registration means that I accept the possibility that the firearm may be banned in the future. We do not. If New York and Connecticut gun owners will refuse to comply with registration requirements en masse, what compliance with extreme gun laws can be expected HERE?

Gun owners have a large investment in being law abiding members of society. Adopting a California model where we become whipping boys of every legislature is an awful idea and jeopardizes the civility which generally exists in our state. It also jeopardizes the Democratic party control of the legislature. Tom Foley could have told you that after he lost his job in the United States Congress...the first Speaker of the House to lose an election in over 100 years. Gun owners fired him from what is usually a secure job because of the contempt he showed them.

We have a large investment in remaining law abiding and with being cooperative. I do not like to think what the result would be if the line in the sand of excessive/punitive gun laws is crossed.

Gun rights alliance interview #1: Michael Woodland of Munitions-Weapons Tactical

Since publishing the previous post (link) about forging new alliances in the shooting community, I've been discussing these ideas with  a number of people and am working on talking to as many people as I can. Today I spoke with Michael Woodland of Munitions-Weapons Tactical (link) about this.

Note: M-W Tactical is also on Facebook under M-W Tactical (link) and Twitter as @m_wtactical. This organization offers firearms instruction in Columbia, South Carolina, with alliances generally on the East Coast. Formerly stationed at Fort Benning, Michael is a competitive shooter who contributes regularly to Kenn Blanchard's  excellent "Black Man With A Gun" podcast. He is on the leader board on that site (link). I have enjoyed a lot of interesting articles from him regarding a variety of topics, related to handguns, the AR platform and various aspects of shooting.

I would like to thank Michael Woodland for taking the time to talk to me today. As we discussed, I am inviting him to critique the content of this blog post and comments about our discussion before making it generally public.

These were the questions I asked and Mister Woodland's responses:

What have your interactions in the gun community been like? Do you feel that you have been welcomed as a shooter?

MW responded that he has been welcomed as a shooter but that he has encountered some negative comments when his comments took a tack that people didn't like. For example, when discussing firearms he has suggested it would be a good idea for shooters to have some training beforehand and was subsequently called a communist.

As we talked further, he also commented about the odd way in which gun events are presented. For example, if somebody commits a violent crime with a gun, it's always presented with a focus on the gun and its availability and not the character of the person who committed the crime. This seems odd because a crime using a truck as a weapon focuses on the crime and not the weapon used. He commented that he does not support gun control...that attacking the second amendment is also an attack or leads to attack on the other amendments in the Bill of Rights.

Final thought: what is their agenda after the guns have been gotten rid of?

How can the gun community reach out to a variety of shooters?

MW responded that the gun community as a whole has been welcoming. There have been negative interactions, e.g. at competitions or range trips, that might be classified as the group wanting a shooter's money but looking for a chance to disqualify them or get them to leave.

For example, he was recently at a range in South Carolina with about 6 other black folks and the rangemaster was just hovering around and watching them, despite the fact that shooters were acting with full safety discipline.

How can we collaborate politically to protect our rights, given that the simple suggestion of "voting Republican" might not be workable for all people?

MW suggested that he would rather see people voting according to their individual interests than voting on a party line basis. One example that he gave was on healthcare....that we as a society ought to make sure that people who can't afford it can still get it.

Why limit your choices be restricting your vote to a single party?

Mister Woodland's final message was the necessity to knock down the walls of racism. That it's not about white shooters or black shooters but solidarity AS shooters. We have to open up dialogues about that.

Finding allies for gun rights in non-stereotypical shooting communities

Background

Gun control and gun rights topics frequently find their way into the news. Unfortunately, given the characteristic biases of news agencies, they tend to advocate for the gun control side of this debate or otherwise give gun rights arguments short shrift. This is deeply upsetting and a source of considerable concern to members of the shooting community, who are typically highly responsible with their firearms and inclined to come down on abuse of firearms with considerable fury. Shouldn’t the news media share these ethics when exercising *their* rights?

Still, gun control has been a hard sell in the United States as a whole. Gun rights opponents achieve very few wins despite relentless (and hopelessly misinformed) media support and a non-trivial number of politicians using tragedy as a pretext for promoting their agenda. Most of their successes have been local to a handful of states.

However, this writer believes that there could be ways found to render gun control efforts not only weak but absolutely beaten and toothless. Rather than costly victories where gun rights advocates retaliate after damaging legislation has passed (e.g., the punitive 1994 election after Clinton’s “assault weapon” ban or Colorado’s electoral revolt after magazine bans passed), what if we could get to a point where even suggesting punitive gun rights infringements like “assault weapons” bans became career suicide?

One large reason for even the modest successes of gun control and other authoritarian rule making in the United States is that the media and career politicians has divided the populace so thoroughly, in so many ways. Too many people are trained to be good little partisans and attack The Other: based on Democrat/Republican team membership, based on our ethnic groups, based on sex and other personal characteristics like religion….in a dozen different ways. This only helps authoritarian groups like gun control advocates because they apply a stress (e.g., the threat of a gun ban) and gun rights advocates are not organized enough to fight it instantly.

These societal divisions have made coalition building on this topic complicated in the past…but could end up being one of our greatest assets. Gun owners are a diverse lot, with a variety of political positions, from different ethnic backgrounds. When we cooperate in a dire emergency, we can be powerful. If we could learn to cooperate as a rule, we might be absolutely unbeatable.

An Opportunity

The stereotype is that gun owners are mostly white male conservatives…and probably straight. While these people may comprise a significant part of the gun geek population, over 30 years of being a shooter and/or a gun rights activist has shown me that it is very far from being the only truth about the demographics of the shooting community.

Personally, I have gone shooting with:

• Dozens of women at various skill levels. Some were new shooters who I was helping to learn…many were peers…some were teachers helping me boost *my* skill level
•  Black shooters with similar shooting interests. I have also known other black folks on the Internet since the 1990s (the good old Usenet days) who are avid shooters
• Shooters in the LGBT community.  Around 1999/2000, I helped as a safety assistant for a Seattle area Pink Pistols type group. A new Pink Pistols group is now active in the Seattle area and affiliated groups are active across the country
• Quite a number of pro-gun Democrats and other non-Republicans

My Plan

The goal here is manifestly NOT to cause any divisions or Balkanization. Instead, I wish to find areas in which diverse communities can find common ground for working together and overcome real or perceived differences. This seems like a productive discussion to have: talking to members of each of these communities about their impression of the overall gun community, specific concerns/interests and finding common ground with *all* pro-gun folks to protect this vital civil liberty.

After talking to folks and gathering their responses, this blog will publish 4 blog posts (1 per group) focusing on each of the groups mentioned above, discussing firearms/political topics…with a follow-up summary presenting a possible road map for future efforts, should ideas for such present themselves.

For each group, I will look at and present information in these areas:

• History and past involvement in the gun community or with gun ownership. In  other words, is there a historical context for understanding the group's use or reluctance to use firearms?
• Productive approaches to political cooperation by finding commonality. What sort of projects, initiatives and candidates are acceptable...what approaches or political approaches are problematic?
• Specific concerns and interests
• Undoubtedly other angles that I haven’t thought of yet

(Many thanks to Oleg Volk for his kind permission to use his images in this project.)

Image location: http://olegvolk.net/gallery/d/48590-1/american_gunowners_diverse_web.jpg