I need to know where I can buy that shirt.
Looks like you can get them here:
https://www.sonsoflibertytees.com/s...ght-to-free-speech-to-defeat-the-british.html
I need to know where I can buy that shirt.
I heard the MDA folks were mostly a bused in rent-a-mob....
Thanks for posting... good to see Jeff doing well. Hopefully his health is holding steady. We miss him around here.
He was at the beach last week getting ready for round 16 I believe starting Wednesday. I texted with him.
The morning that Virginia’s legislature convened a special session on gun control, the National Rifle Association set up shop in prime real estate: the conference room belonging to Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox.
The NRA’s supply of 200 T-shirts and 250 hats quickly ran out as an army of gun-rights activists stopped by. NRA officials provided directions to legislators’ offices along with some advice: Be courteous. Don’t react if protesters shout at you. Guns are allowed on the House side, not the Senate.
As it turned out, GOP leaders shut down Tuesday’s legislative session after 90 minutes without voting on any gun control bills. It was a display of political muscle for the NRA, a brand that has appeared crippled in recent months.
... this week’s events in Richmond showed that the organization continues to wield significant influence at the grass roots level. Its legions of members — the group does not release figures but said it has “hundreds of thousands” in Virginia — are reliable voters who show up even during off-year elections.
Backed by those foot soldiers, NRA officials enjoy access to top politicians. Virginia GOP leaders spent weeks before the special session in frequent communication with NRA experts, who provided guidance and research on how gun-control measures had fared in other states, according to several people familiar with the interactions.
While Democrats were stunned by the way the GOP leadership shut down the special legislative session, the NRA knew about the move ahead of some rank-and-file Republicans.
Democrats often accuse the NRA of “buying” access but the organization is not a big spender in Virginia. Since 2015, the NRA has given a total of $130,000 to Virginia political campaigns. Over the same period, Everytown For Gun Safety — the gun control group founded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg — has given $4.7 million, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project.
The NRA has contributed only $15,000 so far this election year to a handful of Republican political action committees — and that is with all 140 seats in the legislature on the November ballot and control of the General Assembly at stake. By contrast, Virginia Beer Wholesalers have kicked in more than $116,000 to various candidates of both parties in 2019, according to VPAP.
Bloomberg, which typically bankrolls TV ads that come late in the campaign, has yet to give any money this year, but both sides expect the group to spend big in Virginia.
The NRA made no effort to bus members to Richmond this week for the legislative session, which was called by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in the wake of the May 31 mass shooting in Virginia Beach in which 12 people were killed at a municipal building.
...
“They’re powerful because they can provide votes,” said Harry L. Wilson, a Roanoke College political scientist with expertise in gun control. “Money’s a good thing . . . but that’s never been what’s determined the NRA’s power. It’s always been their ability to turn out votes.”
The day after the session, Wilson said, the NRA was already pressing its case — emailing members that “the fight has just begun.”
The organization has five paid field directors in Virginia, and all were in Richmond Tuesday, dressed in suits and ties, in keeping with the professional image the NRA tries to project.
“We are glad that our state team communicates directly with the leadership on both sides of the aisle in both House and Senate, and even with the Northam administration,” NRA spokesperson Catherine Mortensen said via email. “We provide research and comments on a variety of legislative issues to all Virginia legislators to help educate them on our issues.”
Northam’s secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, said it is true that the NRA communicates with the governor’s office. “They come to committees and oppose all of our bills,” he said. “But for this special session, I’m not aware of any communication with their group . . . All I heard from them was adamant opposition.”
Moran hosted public meetings all around the state in the weeks before the session, working with activist groups to help build support for gun control.
The governor’s office also consulted with outside groups to assemble eight legislative proposals — including bans on automatic weapons and silencers; a return to Virginia’s one-handgun-a-month limit on purchases; a “red-flag law”; and giving localities the power to enact their own gun restrictions.
Among the groups that worked with Northam and other Democrats to create bills were Moms Demand Action, Everytown, Giffords, Brady and the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Moran said. The gun control groups also sent squadrons of staffers to Richmond on Tuesday to help organize outdoor rallies and protests.
Most of those groups are Democratic donors. Everytown has the deepest pockets, giving $1.4 million to Northam in his 2017 governor’s race — his fourth biggest donor behind the Democratic Governors Association’s super PAC, the Virginia League of Conservation Voters and Planned Parenthood, according to VPAP.
Lori Haas, the Virginia director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, has worked particularly closely with the administration, appearing at events with Moran and Northam. She also appeared in Virginia Beach with Democratic candidate Missy Cotter Smasal, who staged a town hall with members of Moms Demand Action on the same night that her opponent — Republican incumbent Sen. Bill DeSteph — attended a session with the NRA.
...
In fact, many lawmakers, aides and lobbyists had thought there was a good chance Republicans would come to the session willing to make a deal on at least one measure — a red-flag law. The NRA has said it supports such laws in concept, and the measures have been endorsed by the Trump administration.
Del. Richard C. “Rip” Sullivan Jr. (D-Fairfax), who sponsored the bill, said he had worked with the NRA and another gun rights group, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, to try to address concerns.
...
Democrats believe gun control is a good issue for them, particularly in crucial suburban districts where they hope to carve away a few more Republican seats to alter the balance of power in the legislature.
Republicans go into the fall hanging onto control with the thinnest of margins: 20-19 in the Senate and 51-48 in the House, with one vacancy in each chamber.
Suburban Republicans are walking a fine line on the gun issue. In Virginia Beach, after attending the NRA meeting, DeSteph’s office called a reporter repeatedly to note that he had also met with Moms Demand Action.
Similarly, a spokesman for Cox (Colonial Heights) insisted that the NRA’s use of the speaker’s conference room during the special session did not signify a close working relationship, saying it is a public space available to any group with interests before the legislature. His spokesman declined to provide examples of other groups that have used it.
...
Many of the hundreds of gun-rights supporters who flocked to Richmond Tuesday viewed the outcome as a victory — and a sign that the NRA’s organizational troubles have not set back their cause.
“It’s time to take the NRA in a new direction — new blood,” Charles Nesby, 68, a firearms instructor from Arlington, said of the organization’s top leadership. He said he has a “lifetime endowment” membership to the NRA.
...
“The internal struggle is no different than any other corporation that has internal struggles, and they will resolve themselves,” he said. “But at the grass roots level, we are all still on the same page.”
I need to know where I can buy that shirt.
But to give credit , the VCDL ( with their own warts ) is the lead 2A force in Va .
Patriot Picket has already posted pics from the multiple rallies underway now at the State Capitol in the VCDL Rally thread, beginning at post #19.
Below, Patriot Picket Founder Jeff Hulbert brings the winning PP “We Will Not Comply” message to the steps of the Virginia State Capitol today:
https://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=236037