TargetRichEnvironment

If you follow the personalities involved with the gun control movement, here is some open-source intelligence to file away under newsmedia/gun-grabber connections. It’s nothing new, just a puff piece, but  Philadelphia Inquirer Columnist (and recently hired WHYY public television news executive) Chris Satullo acknowledges his friendship with Ceasefire New Jersey’s Bryan Miller. (link) Of course, they’re allowed to be friends, but the association is notable, that’s all.

Bryan Miller’s declared objective is to end gun trafficking to New Jersey. To do so he must further restrict gun ownership freedoms in Pennsylvania and Delaware by law-abiding individuals.

Of course, if you have someone who’s undaunted by the risk of straw-purchasing penalties, the legal jeopardy caused by theft of firearms, or other sundry laws broken transferring illegal firearms, what’s the difference if you add a few more penalties to them? 

The problem, as I see it, tracks closely with the advance of socialism elsewhere in our society and the trampling of the individual’s sovereignty in favor of the blob.  Like the “war on drugs,” the “war on guns” takes away freedoms, all the while assuming that if you attack the supply, the demand will go away.

It’s always “one more freedom to slip away in the dead of night, hardly anyone will notice” and it’s gone. You will not get them back, they’ve been sacrificed at the altar of risk aversion.  Of course, you can’t attack the drug culture or the urban violence culture, because that would interfere with some rapper or rockstar’s freedom of speech. 

Rallying churches in Philadelphia to oppose gun violence is one thing. Getting believers out in the pro-gun turf of Pennsylvania’s “T,” the swath between and above the Philly and Pittsburgh regions, to risk a fresh conversation is another, harder thing.

Bryan Miller has been trying to spread the word in places such as Lancaster and Berks Counties. Miller, head of Ceasefire New Jersey and former head of its Pennsylvania counterpart, sees promise that quiet talk with clergy may succeed where more common tactics of advocacy – marches, jawboning, speeches – have fallen short.

“Advocacy is like climbing a ladder,” he likes to say. “If you try to skip a few rungs, you’re likely to fall. The first rungs are grass-roots outreach and dialogue.”

So Miller, a Haddonfield resident who doesn’t drive, has been hitching rides with volunteers out to the T, to talk with clergy groups about guns and religion. The words “bitter” or “cling” never pass his lips.

Neither does the phrase “gun control.”

“I tell them that all we’re about is preventing gun violence,” Miller, a former businessman with an undying love for the Baltimore Orioles and wavy, graying hair that he admits is “probably longer than it should be to do the work I do.”

“I tell them we’re not about hunting rifles. We’re not about keeping law-abiding people from having handguns. We’re about keeping handguns out of the hands of people whom we all agree should not have them. I tell them I’m driven to do what I do by my faith, my belief in God. And I tell them I’m very secure in my sense of where Jesus would be on this.”

You’ll notice that the gun grabbers have shifted any talk of “gun control” to “gun violence” or “gun violence prevention” for a while now.  In a way, it’s stupid because Satullo fails to question whether his friend’s objectives have changed. They certainly have NOT.  They’re still seeking incremental restrictions on gun ownership.  So it’s the same thing, just different packaging.

Anyway, my curiosity was piqued that Bryan Miller doesn’t drive. I’m not here to ridicule the guy, he’s doing what he thinks is the right thing.  I happen to disagree vehemently.

Coincidentally, searching for “ceasefire” I had to click on this news headline “Yuletide ceasefire with NPA, MILF proposed”. (link) I almost always root for MILFs, but in this case neither seemed tasteful.