cornered rat
Moderator
Went to listen to pro/anti testimony. What a hoot. Pro side was stron, incl. Washington State and MN sherrifs, others who gave several angles on the benefits and lack of problems. Antis had a cop's wife who's afraid that CHL holders will kill her hubbie (and whose hubby told her to not even thing about using guns for home defense cause she'd just freeze up and get killed anyway). They also had a loser "representing city of Minneapolis" (bogus) and a "reverend", both of whom were wailing and screaming about the white folks arming up to kill "people of different pigmentation". A bunch of hoods show up to tell how they will carry openly once CCW shall issue gets passes, to "make sure everyone is afraid equally". And a store owner who felt that now her place merely gets robbed regularly, if the law changes, the robbers will just kill everyone first just in case (she missed the point about the current law already allowing arms at place of biz).
Interestingly, all the female commission member were for the bill (two, at least, swittched from anti). Some men were for, some against, one against because "those people" would benefit, too.
Race was a major topic...all but two antis who testified were black and they kept coming back to CHLs being death sentence to anyone around scare white folk. The audience (which was not all-white, either) had to work hard at supressing laughter.
Two authors of the house bill went for coffee afterwards, followed by half-dozen folks, incl. me. Did a little strategy discussion. I offered to help with producing visuals. I might be giving some pistol training (informally) to one of the bill sponsors.
One other detail: amazing amounts of dirt on the antis came up...seems they can't pass up a pile of dung w/o jumping into it with all four hooves. Fraud of all kinds, ignoring bigger issues like stalkers/rapists on rampage to go harass a gun store, pretty blatant lying and bullying during the testimonies. Things have improved much over the last year, but the hope isn't that great.
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Cornered Rat
http://dd-b.net/RKBA RKBA posters
http://dd-b.net/olegv Portrait, nature photos
Interestingly, all the female commission member were for the bill (two, at least, swittched from anti). Some men were for, some against, one against because "those people" would benefit, too.
Race was a major topic...all but two antis who testified were black and they kept coming back to CHLs being death sentence to anyone around scare white folk. The audience (which was not all-white, either) had to work hard at supressing laughter.
Two authors of the house bill went for coffee afterwards, followed by half-dozen folks, incl. me. Did a little strategy discussion. I offered to help with producing visuals. I might be giving some pistol training (informally) to one of the bill sponsors.
One other detail: amazing amounts of dirt on the antis came up...seems they can't pass up a pile of dung w/o jumping into it with all four hooves. Fraud of all kinds, ignoring bigger issues like stalkers/rapists on rampage to go harass a gun store, pretty blatant lying and bullying during the testimonies. Things have improved much over the last year, but the hope isn't that great.
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Cornered Rat
http://dd-b.net/RKBA RKBA posters
http://dd-b.net/olegv Portrait, nature photos