Just Say No to Gun Shop

[SecularMotion]

A proposal to put a gun shop downtown in the building that used to house the Pinnacle newspaper has gotten mixed reviews from the community.

Some say we need all the merchants we can get downtown. Anything is better than the vacant and boarded up buildings we have now.

Others worry about the image it would make in a downtown that is striving to match those of Morgan Hill or Los Gatos, as a place to bring families, with a mix of retail, restaurants and entertainment that would entice out-of-towners to what should be one of the most quaint and authentic downtowns in the Bay Area.

It’s funny that we get tourists from Los Angeles who think of Gilroy as a must-see. Garbo’s, the successful antique store, started out advertising down south and got a huge response from travelers looking to venture into a town that still has a historical, agrarian feel. They liked what they found here, even as they thumbed their noses at some of their own small towns.

http://www.gilroydispatch.com/news/just-say-no-to-gun-shop/article_7e0c1b98-0e49-11e6-be16-c300980ed15a.html

[Brickbat]

1. What a classist editorial.

[jmg257]

2. "We don’t want to come off as radically anti-gun."

There’s Predator’s Archery on the right, a nice gun shop on the left and over there down the street is a nuclear warhead shop. And, as wag Jack Foley said, we could turn the carpet store into a carpet bomb store.

[DonP]

3. Yeah, Gilroy the "Garlic Capital of the World", wants to stay classy, LoL

Been there many times and Gilroy is not a tourist destination, more of a "novelty stop", just a nice, small town using their local garlic farms to try and pull in a few passing tourists on their way from LA to SFO.

Comparing themselves to places like Los Gatos is like comparing a new Bentley Speed to a 76 Chevy Impala.

To support them in their fight against evil gunz, all you gun control fans here need to buy a "Mr. Garlic" T-Shirt?

Gilroy has a struggling old downtown area with a share of boarded up closed stores that should be happy for the tax revenue any functioning business can bring in.

But we've had the same thing here in the Chicago area in several suburbs, where the Bloomberg Astroturf Mom's Demand Action show up at Town Halls and Zoning Meetings and try to stop any new range or gun store by claiming danger to schools more than a mile away.

They are 0 for 6 so far.

[benEzra]

4. So now you want to ban small-town gun shops, too?

Speaking out against sporting goods stores in small towns is ridiculous, and from a gun-control standpoint it is stupidly counterproductive to your cause. It is reactionary fundamentalism, not issue advocacy. A few seconds' thought would probably have even Bloomberg himself facepalming over this.

As I said in the other thread, I'll believe the gun control lobby is primarily concerned about violence when they stop targeting the lawful and responsible. And trying to eliminate small-town gun stores is pretty much the definition of "targeting the lawful and responsible".

And a note to the clueless: small towns with a "historical, agrarian feel" sold guns back in those historical, agrarian days. Heck, I'll bet you could buy high-capacity military-style rifles at the general store there back in the 1870s, if the town existed back then...

"Is a gun store, rather than, say, an Apple store, something that would make our downtown sizzle...?"

Because there's nothing that says "historical, agrarian feel" like an Apple store...

[beevul]

5. "Just say no..."

Gee, where have we heard that before?


Just say no, to just saying no.

[Eleanors38]

6. Yep, try a .22 and it's a gateway to the "A" turret on the U.S.S. Iowa.

[stone space]

7. The USS Iowa? I remember that action.

Plowshares Fugitive Held In Va. Protest Action

Posted: April 05, 1988

Federal fugitive Gregory Boertje, who failed to appear for sentencing in Philadelphia after conviction for damaging military aircraft at Willow Grove Naval Air Station, was arrested Sunday in Norfolk, Va., for allegedly throwing blood on cruise-missile housings aboard the battleship Iowa.

Boertje, 32, of Baltimore, was arrested with four other anti-war protesters, including Philip Berrigan, 64. They were charged with trespassing after using hammers, bolt cutters and vials of what appeared to be blood in the symbolic attack.

On Nov. 17, U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Broderick revoked Boertje's $50,000 personal recognizance bond and ordered him arrested for failing to appear for sentencing.

Boertje was convicted, along with three others, of entering the Willow Grove military base early Jan. 6, 1987, and smashing a P-3 Orion anti- submarine plane and two helicopters with sledgehammers. The government estimated damage at $165,602.

Boertje will be given a detention hearing today in Norfolk, and federal authorities in Philadelphia expect him to be returned soon for sentencing in the Willow Grove incident.

Max Obuszewski, a spokesman for Plowshares, a peace group founded by Berrigan eight years ago, said the activists in Sunday's incident selected the battleship as a target because "they see the Iowa as a symbol . . . of superstate madness."

The four wandered away from a group touring the ship at 3:50 p.m., a Navy spokesman said, "and threw what they claimed to be blood on two of the ship's armored-box launchers," which house the Tomahawk missiles.

The protesters were apprehended by Iowa crew members, the spokesman said. There was no apparent damage.

At a hearing yesterday in Norfolk, U.S. Magistrate Tommy Miller told the suspects they could not have a jury trial, because they faced only misdemeanor trespassing charges.

Those arrested, in addition to Berrigan and Boertje, were Andrew Lawrence, 28, of Baltimore, and Sister Margaret McKenna, 57, of the city's Fox Chase section, and a member of the Medical Mission Sisters.

Miller set bond at $2,500 and continued the hearing until April 15, when a trial date will be set. If convicted, ther maximum sentence would be six months in jail and a fine of $500.

All four are members of the Nuclear Navy Plowshares, an offshoot of the Plowshares-Disarmament Actions, which has conducted numerous protests on nuclear weapons. The group takes its name from the Biblical passage "and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Lazerwitz in Philadelphia said Boertje faced up to 11 1/2 years in prison and a $250,000 fine in the Willow Grove case.

In that incident, Lin Romano, 31, of Washington, was sentenced to two years and 100 days in federal prison and five years on probation and fined a total of $100. Two Catholic priests, the Revs. Dexter Lanctot, 37, of Norristown, and Thomas McGann, 36, of Chester, were sentenced in October to 100 days in prison for their role.

http://articles.philly.com/1988-04-05/news/26253777_1_gregory-boertje-philip-berrigan-max-obuszewski