For those of us who live in rural areas, our local gun shop may not be entirely devoted to selling firearms, ammunition, an accessories. The nearest place for me to purchase ammunition, for instance, is a gas station/deli/outdoor shop that also serves as our local check-in station during deer season, and both of the gun stores in Farmville, Virginia are also pawn shops.
Well, the anti-gun activists at Brady aren’t happy about these dual purpose stores, and as our friends at Mom at Arms report, the group is now targeting Ace Hardware; accusing them of having unsafe and irresponsible policies when it comes to stores that also have FFL licenses.
Brady notes that only about 175 of the 5,000 or so Ace Hardware stores actually sell firearms, but they claim that a number of those stores have “transferred guns to straw purchasers,” most notably in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, who allegedly had a friend buy a gun for him at a Wisconsin store. Dominic Black is now facing charges for the gun purchase, but there’s no indication that any store employee knew that the rifle was intended for someone else. If investigators had any evidence of that, Black wouldn’t be the only one staring down the possibility of a felony conviction and prison time.
Not that the gun control group really cares about that. No, this is more about picking a fight to raise their own profile than anything else. There’s just one problem for Brady: even their supporters don’t seem to care.
When it comes to strong policies to safely responsibly sell firearms, many gun stores fall short — and that includes @AceHardware.
We are urging Ace to adopt a safer policy and become a national model for other businesses.
SIGN OUR PETITION: https://t.co/kIuFvdS742 pic.twitter.com/AsuEzUJ8Nm
— Team ENOUGH (@Team_Enough) September 19, 2021
As of Friday, the Brady tweet has had far more responses from gun owners and Second Amendment supporters than fans of gun control. In fact, Ace Hardware’s response to Brady has received more positive responses than the gun control group’s original tweet.
Each store is independently owned and operated, which includes items sold, such as guns. Please reach out to your local store with this request. Here's a link to our store locator where you can find the phone number for your local Ace https://t.co/hAx8266zRi.
— Ace Hardware (@AceHardware) September 20, 2021
Now, Brady’s “Team Enough” Twitter account has less than 4,000 followers, so maybe the apathetic response on the part of gun control activists is due to the fact they they simply didn’t see the tweet. I doubt it, however, since a similar tweet pushed out from Brady’s main Twitter account hardly fared better, despite its 73,000 followers.
Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum were killed in the 2020 #Kenosha shooting.
The gun was purchased from @AceHardware.
Ace should be the place with responsible gun sale policies.
Join us and urge Ace to adopt a safe policy at https://t.co/k9N3reoEhhhttps://t.co/6zuUn2aiQ0
— Brady | United Against Gun Violence (@bradybuzz) September 17, 2021
Six retweets, and not a single response in support of Brady’s campaign against Ace Hardware. That’s downright embarrassing for the gun control group, but it’s also another example of the difference between the pro-Second Amendment movement and the gun prohibitionists. There’s simply a far larger group of people who are ready to passionately defend their right to keep and bear arms than there are those who are eager to take them away. We have grassroots. They mostly have Astroturf.
Now that doesn’t mean that groups like Brady are simply going to disappear. While they may be lacking in hardcore supporters, the gun control lobby is incredibly well-funded thanks to billionaires like Michael Bloomberg who are willing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into electing anti-gun politicians. But despite their cash advantage, the gun control lobby still can’t match the enthusiasm and passion found on the pro-civil rights side of the gun debate, as Brady’s recent (f)Ace-plant amply demonstrates.
