It’s not unusual to see an increase in support for the partisan lobbying groups following a national event like the school shooting in Connecticut. Heck, I’m pretty sure the AARP gets another donation every time someone skates on the sidewalk in front of my Grandmother’s apartment. But according to the Brady Campaign, they’ve received so much traffic that it basically DOS’ed their site . . .

From the Huffington Post:

While it is not unusual for nonprofit organizations to see an uptick in donations following a devastating event, anti-gun violence organizations reported on Friday afternoon the number of gifts they had received far surpassed the bump in charitable giving they usually see after mass shootings.

[…]

“Our site crashed today, and its bandwidth had been boosted after Aurora,” said Caroline Brewer, a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign, a nonprofit organization that lobbies for gun-control laws, referring to the movie theater slaughter in the Colorado town. “Americans are reaching out in extraordinary numbers.”

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence also had a banner day:

Sarah Hench, director of development at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a nonprofit research and policy organization in Washington, said her organization had a record number of gifts Friday, surpassing the surge that followed the Aurora movie theater shooting that killed 12 and wounded at least 50.

FYI, we’ve also had our biggest day ever in terms of traffic today. And the day’s not over. But you don’t see us dancing in the blood of the victims while the bodies are still warm. You also don’t see our site crashing, thanks to they people at Zippykid.

It takes a ton of traffic to bring a major website to its knees. Working in network security, I see it almost every day. But for an individual site it’s a “black swan” sort of event. Someone mentions a company on Oprah or a chef goes on a talk show and their website is instantly hammered with traffic, each one taking a bite out of the available bandwidth until there’s none left. Hint: scalability is the key.

Anyway, while the Brady Campaign is getting a transfusion of cash, I somehow doubt that the same is happening to the Second Amendment Foundation or the NRA right now — the entities that we rely on to keep our rights secure from knee-jerk reactions and opportunistic legislation.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. With a rejuvenated war chest, a lame duck congress, an emotional president and a major event on their side we might just see the dreaded legislation that I thought we still had time to fight get pushed to the forefront of the national debate. The pendulum was swinging in our favor, but that can always change. We might just be seeing our own Dunblane unfolding before our eyes.

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26 COMMENTS

  1. And none of their proposed “solutions” will do anything about mentally defective people, who are a danger to themselves and others with nothing more than their own hands, feet and teeth.

    At some point, someone has to stand up and point a finger at the legal community who turned the crazies loose upon polite society.

    • At some point, someone has to stand up and point a finger at the legal community who turned the crazies loose upon polite society.

      Amen to that, but it will never happen. BTW, I knew some of the lawyers who made the law what it is today. The fools actually thought that they were doing something good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

    • It is morally reprehensible that vulnerable, defenseless, innocent children are left utterly undefended in large groups in this day and age.

      Hoplophobia is not a security policy.

  2. Folks, this is where it’s time to act pre-emptively.

    In 1994, fun owners truly believed the Assault Weapons Ban would not pass so they sat back. Of course the AWB became law and gun owners got real serious real damn fast – and we got the Gingerich led Republican takeover of Congress.

    That’s great and all but we still had 10 years of the AWB.

    Don’t fall into the same trap this time! Write our State and Federal Congressmen and Senators, your Governor, and your Mayor (most helpful in major cities but still helpful everywhere). You can do that tonight online and let your opinion be known.

    Now for the hard part – call their offices Monday. Call the office in Washington and the local office. Make sure they know where you stand and how you feel about the attacks on the Second Amendment.

    I am not certain the threat is imminent but I am certain we need to make our views and our numbers known as a reminder that this is not an issue we will budge on.

  3. Congratulations on your highest traffic day ever. I’m sad for two reasons. First, the horrible reason behind the traffic. Second, because some of that traffic came from blatant sensationalism. I know, you’re sick of hearing about it. Yes, I’m harping on it, because I think it’s that important. I think I’m done now, though. I’m pretty sure y’all have gotten it.

    As far as site stability, I have to say that while you didn’t go down, there were several times over the course of the day where the site just stopped responding, and had to be reloaded. In particular, it was horrible on mobile, and the initial BREAKING: Shots Fired at Newtown, CT School thread hard-crashed my phone several times, though that may have been the fault of the NBC video at the top of the page.

    I’m disappointed but not surprised at the surge that Brady and CSGV are reporting, although the cynic in me wonders how much exaggeration there is in their reports. I can picture someone watching the servers groan under the load and “warning” the higher-ups, with thinly-veiled glee, that the “system might go down due to all the traffic.”

  4. Sick how liberal scum uses bodies like this. The NRA doesn’t do this they stay quiet for several days to be respectful to the victims.

    Come on Nick we can hopefully fight back soon.

    • Really? Like the way this site has been quiet to respect the victims?

      I think the NRA site should be quiet. After all, they opposed every common-sense measure that would make mass shootings less likely. They opposed trigger lock legislation, for example.

      So yeah, every time a terrorist or a psychotic takes advantage of lax gun laws in the U.S. to stage a mass killing, the NRA should spend at least one weekend in quiet reflection: “Why, again, are we supporting people who kill children?”

      Then, on Monday morning, they can get back to their usual agenda of lies, half-truth, condolences, and obstruction. And, of course, raking in the money.

      • “I think the NRA site should be quiet. After all, they opposed every common-sense measure that would make mass shootings less likely. They opposed trigger lock legislation, for example.”

        How does trigger lock legislation make mass shootings less likely? That doesn’t make sense.

        The truth is the anti gun legislation caused gun free zones which disarms the stable, responsible gun owners. All of the shootings lately have occurred in gun free zones and the body counts have been very high as a result. The fact is that because of your fear of guns, you have increased the body count through ignorant legislation.

        The problem is that Anti-gun people don’t understand the consequences of what they do, they don’t consider how they might be wrong. Guns aren’t the problem, mental people and foolish legislation is the problem. Like stated all over the website, Israel armed their teachers after a school shooting in the 70’s, since then there have been no school shootings. Criminals and predators target the unprotected, not the protected. So if you want someone to blame, you should look in the mirror and your fellow believers and hold your heads in shame.

      • You blame the NRA, Second Amendment, etc. for massacres. Then do you blame massacres in a place like Mexico, a place with strict gun control laws, on the NRA etc.?

  5. If the grabbers get their way you will be looking at years in the federal pen for noncompliance.

    The hypocritical, drone-using, drug warrior, illegal gun-peddling state terrorist government bastards will call you a terrorist while looking down their guns.

    The grabbers will dance with glee as fellow Americans are shot down or imprisoned by the state in torturous conditions for simply owning something they don’t like.

    We can’t let this happen.

  6. Kind of want to get it over with IF that’s what they’re going to do. I want Obama to issue an illegal EO outlawing all semiautos. Then I want freedom lovers to band together, sending officer 82nd air born and officer high n’ tight home in bags. We won’t stand together though-after all, the ball game’s on.

    • “…We won’t stand together though-after all…”

      Unfortunatley I find this to be true. No offense brothers and sisters in arms but as a whole I dont forsee is comming together to fight the grabbers.

      We are so against ourselves its not even funny. So many think that all liberals are anti ans all conservatoves are pro but thats just not true. Sure maybe most of us here know that but not ALL of us.

      I know many hunters who think this isnt their fight. They dont have handguns or ARs or AKs and that they dont need to worry about the NRA or Brady or anything related.

      I am generaly optimistic but I am just on the fence over where this will all go. We can not come together as a community and that will be our downfall even with constitutional law on our side.

    • Im not about to submit, I know that. But we all need to come together or might as well roll over and die.

      • Well brother if you are as close as your name implies I for one will stand with you!!! I am just a little bit Northwest of Memphis across the line!!
        Anytime we need to get off our asses and go stand on our politicians door step let me know. Will be there in a couple of hours!!
        BTW: is Beale Street still as rough as it used to be or have they cleaned it up any?!

  8. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

    My thoughts too. Last week, I renewed my membership donation with the SAF, JPFO, and OFF Oregon Firearms Federation. I’m almost as disgusted with the people who owned the unsecured guns that the recent murders stole as I am with the murderers.

  9. if you look back at the location of these type of shootings, almost all of them happened in gun-free zones. i forget where i read it, but something i read said that all mass shootings (over the last 10 or so years) that killed 3 or more people occurred in gun free zones. sorry, no reference.

  10. In the aftermath of every incident like this, I read that the people hit the gun shops the next day & I don’t expect this to be any different as reality sets in. How many AR’s are going to be sold now that Obama opened his big mouth. The bradys want less guns lol? Now they get a lot more, Randy

  13. Never let a crisis go to waste, it’s the Chicago way. Look for an outright ban on possession real soon. This is what tipped it in England so many years ago, a school shooting along the same lines.

  14. Nothing gets sociopaths excited like a mass killing to spark their agenda of oppression. Would we expect any less from the Brady Campaign to Promote Tyranny?

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