There’s something odd that happens after a shooting. In the immediate aftermath, anti-gun forces will coalesce around the incident, screaming on and on about how this is proof that “something needs to be done.”
Meanwhile, pro-gun activists are supposed to sit there, shut up, and be lectured to without responding.
In Noblesville, Indiana, a new gun store opened up. It seems the first person asked to leave their property was the city’s mayor after he illustrated that point perfectly.
Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear considers himself “a Second Amendment guy, but I also know and respect guns, and if you’ve got young children in the house…any and all guns should be locked up and not accessible to kids, period.”
That warning was on the mayor’s mind this past Saturday, 24 hours after the Noblesville West Middle School shooting, when he realized Hoosier Armory was having its grand opening at 10th and Logan streets just a block off the city’s downtown square, complete with a tent to encourage registration and membership in the NRA.
“I did approach the owner and I just told him that, ‘No one expected this but you’re hurting your business, in my opinion, strongly, and you’re hurting our city,’ and I asked them to maybe just think about it and take the tent down, and I was asked to leave. And with those types of attitudes, those are very difficult but something needs to happen.
“The NRA needs to realize that they have a place in this to protect gun owners but they also have to make sure that gun owners are responsible.
“I was not happy that I was asked to leave.”
And I’m sure the owner wasn’t happy with you telling him how to run his business, either. Nor, I suspect, was the argument presented that he was somehow hurting the entire community.
It seems like Ditslear is one of those “I support the Second Amendment but…” kind of guns, where everything after the word “but” is an anti-gun talking point straight out of Moms Demand Action.
Well, the owner didn’t need to hear any of that.
For a business owner, the grand opening is an important day. It’s also a chance for him to make his voice heard by supporting a cause he believes in, which is the NRA. What’s funny is that the NRA actually supports people keeping their weapons locked up and secure except when needed. The very organization the mayor took issue with is an organization that actually supports many of the same things he does.
They just don’t want to see them legislated.
Meanwhile, it seems the folks at Hoosier Armory released a statement all about how the NRA reps were more than willing to stand down and go home, to play nice in the wake of the shooting. It also notes that no memberships were sold that way, the controversial tent simply answered questions from the public.
Yeah, they’re awful.
But the key thing to keep in mind is that in the wake of the shooting, no one ever questions those spreading the anti-gun narrative. Those folks are free to say whatever the hell they want.
Meanwhile, the other side is still expected to sit there and remain silent. Maybe that hypocrisy played into the mayor being asked to leave.