“If we try to engineer outcomes, if we overturn tradition to make everyone the same, we ruin society. If we upset tradition to allow for an equal shot at the starting gate, everyone wins, except for the charlatans and would be dictators…” —Ben Stein
Not being a fan of the New Hampshire Association of Chief’s of Police, I now find myself in a peculiar position defending them…Narrowly and singly on this issue, of course. The Chiefs will hold a raffle….”31 days of Guns,” in May, drawing one winner each day.
Gun Raffles are nothing new in the Granite State. Two organizations I am the leader of have hosted such gun raffles or “Thirty days of guns,” and the raffles have shown to be lucrative fund raisers for those organizations.
Reliably, the media went fishing for those who would provide an opposing viewpoint, sans balance, in most cases. Rep. Sharon Nordgren, D-Hanover. told the Valley News,
“You would hope there would be some sensitivity of what the country is going through, whether they agree on gun control or not.”
And of course, Claremont Police Chief Alex Scott and Hanover Chief Nick Giaccone expressed discomfort with the raffle.
The NHACOP, in having this raffle, anunciates its’ hybridization, rife with those very vocal chiefs, not from the Granite State, often bringing with them community policing values and viewpoints that lacks consideration, understanding or cultural respect for the Granite State. When we hear from the Chiefs, one can almost tell whether such speaker is a native son or not. A significant number of New Hampshire’s current Chief’s come from places where restrictive Gun Control rules the day.
I find considerable irony in a viewpoint that raffles, gun shows and events involving firearms lack sensitivity to the Newtown Connecticut Massacre. Somehow, this convention exists that people who own guns don’t care about the loss of those children. Somehow, the viewpoint proliferated by the anti-gun cadre suggests we gun owners live in a different vacuum of life where families, children, grandchildren are simply not valued, while complaining that we are rank polemics.
All the while, those who say such things are out there with diarrhea of the mouth, scrambling…pimping themselves to any new reporter, media hack or leftist anti-gun blogger, ensuring their viewpoint is know far, vast and wide to which the vox popluli will know what template to follow.
A cancer within the community of people who support the Second Amendment presently exists where some drink the Kool-Aid, advocating for bans on some firearms, just not the ones they own. Faux Second Amendment Supporters. Red Herring buz phrases like, “sensible gun policy” and, “reasonable restrictions” are phrases commonly used. So my question then becomes, what of the twenty-thousand gun regulations already on the books in America?
This story grew legs from WCVB-TV and the Boston Globe all the way down to the Stamford (CT) Advocate. Boston Herald quoted “Stop Handgun Violence’s, John Rosenthal in calling the raffle, “absurd.” Other notable publications gave ink to the raffle such as the New York Post and Free Republic.
It is hard to get past all the legislation of recent years where NHACOP came out to restrict certain gun measures in place, while then having a gun raffle. But in defense of NHACOP, they are a diverse bunch with a militant gun control cadre in their ranks, along with Chiefs who grew up here, live here, understand, embrace and accept laws here and the Granite State gun culture as we all know it. This raffle is legal, laws are being followed and to inject Newtown into it, is rank charlatanry.
