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Comedian Jay Leno’s decision to cancel his appearance at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) SHOT Show dinner left a lot of gun guys and gals disappointed. While the monetary blowback will be minimal – Leno has more money than God – the big question remains. Why? While Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America argued that Leno had come to his senses, it seems the former Tonight Show host was tricked – tricked I tell you! – into accepting NSSF cash for his time . . .

“When it came to his attention that this was actually a pro-gun lobby show, he immediately cancelled his appearance,” Bruce Bobbins, spokesman for Leno, told msnbc. The gig was presented to the comedian as a sportsman show, which he assumed focused on hunting, Bobbins added.

“He found out that it was not what he was originally told it was, and he decided to cancel,” he said.

So Leno’s a Fudd? Not likely. But the statement highlights the anti-gunners’ ongoing campaign to pretend to support the Second Amendment. Hunting good. All other guns, bad. And then there’s this:

Members of the Newtown Action Alliance said Leno called the chairman of their group Wednesday night to inform her of his decision and to reveal that he wasn’t aware NSSF is based about three miles from the site of the shooting rampage.

Methinks the Newtown Alliance made the geographic connection, not Leno. Because it makes no sense whatsoever. In any case, Leno is to be applauded for his concern for the victims of the Newtown massacre. But his ignorance about gun rights is unforgivable – as he’s made it a point of contention.

Then again, what do you expect? “I’m not conservative. I’ve never voted that way in my life,” Leno told LA Weekly in 2004.

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64 COMMENTS

    • Yep.

      Hasn’t anyone explained to these dunderheads that hardly anyone in the anti-gun groups is part of their core demographic, while the people they piss off when they give in to the anti-gunners are a HUGE part of their demographic?

      Maybe we could get someone to explain it to him in car terminology. High-capacity gas tanks, evil black sports cars (but other colors are fine), requiring throttle locks to prevent speeding, and having your car banned/impounded because others have used similar vehicles in illegal acts, even though your cars are always used legally…

    • I agree, many really seem to put an extra effort into being nitwits, don’t they? Some one once said that folks should keep their mouth shut and risk being suspected fool, rather than opening their mouth and removing all doubt.

  6. “Methinks the Newtown Alliance made the geographic connection, not Leno. Because it makes no sense whatsoever. In any case, Leno is to be applauded for his concern for the victims of the Newtown massacre. But his ignorance about gun rights is unforgivable – as he’s made it a point of contention.”

    What? Isn’t this a contradiction? If, as you presume, he didn’t make the connection, how is he expressing concern? And then, even though, as you say, he is expressing concern, you turn around and bash him for cancelling an appearance at politically sensitive event held next to a recent topically related tragedy?

  7. Why in the hell should it matter where NSSF is based? That’s stupid.

    70+ million individual Americans, plus the military and law enforcement have purchased firearms from the eeevil members of that trade organization based in Newtown. Leno just gave a wounded soldier a car. He’s a nice guy, and that’s a sweet thing to do, but who does he think supplied that soldier with his weaponry?

    His wife is a big women’s rights activist. What about all the women who’ve defended themselves with firearms? Feh.

  9. This is nothing to get our panties in a bunch about. It is of little consequence other than he won’t be at the show. So, what?

    • The bigger picture: MDA claims another “Win.”

      The shill group only gains traction by being shrill. Leno just handed them their next several months of “momentum.”

      THAT is important whether you want to see it or not.

      • I am also against underestimating them, but Jay Leno cancelling is not a big deal. They will try to fight bigger fights over carrying as well as over pending gun legislation and regulations, and those fights will be important for us and for them. Jay Leno is not.

        • True the Leno deal is not important in the long termbig picture. One of the bigger fights right now is their continued pressure on Kroger.

          But I predict Leno’s name will be mentioned in Tweets and HuPo Shannon-love-fest pieces at least some over the next several months. They’ll use Leno’s decision as fuel for another fight…perhaps even Kroger.

          His action has also likely emboldened them….”tweeting works!”

          Had Leno changed his mind on his own (for whatever reason…ANY reason), I personally would not care. It is rather unfortunate, however, that he caved to some pressure from harpie tweets and whatever else they did to push him over.

          MDAfGSA is a cancer to America. Any victory for them (real or perceived), no matter how small, is ground we have to make up in the culture war.

        • I don’t know that he “caved”. If he is left-leaning politically, he didn’t need much to change his mind. Worrying about everything they do, “no matter how small”, is a way to develop ulcers, not fight for gun rights. It puts one in the defensive rather than offensive mode of thinking, and we should stay on the offensive even if we lose some battles in the process. We have done well in many states in these elections, and we should focus on leveraging that to the maximum instead of worrying about who provides entertainment at a dinner party. Culture wars are also important, but the Leno episode is by far not the biggest skirmish in those either.

        • Gotta admit..I like your attitude. I get frustrated with those among us that get defeatist.

          So, let me just rephrase my “point” as “not really WORRIED about it so much as don’t want to overly downplay it.”

          Hope that makes sense. It’s a blip; just saying it’s a blip they MAY try to milk for far more than it is truly worth (they do lie and manipulate, after all).

        • Thanks. Downplaying the role of the anti-gun forces that have sprung up in the last two years is indeed foolish. I am actually not convinced, although also not certain, that the NRA decision on the background checks in 2013 was not the biggest factor in the anti-gun lobby having become as organized and well-funded as they are now. But then, we are where we are at this point, and that’s what we have to work with.

          The war will be waged on several fronts, electoral, legislative, and cultural. The MDA, or whatever they are called nowadays, have had the most success so far on the cultural front. We should certainly seek effective ways of countering them on this front, since in the long run losing the culture war will result in the loss of everything else, but in the shorter term, favorable gun laws are the biggest prize, and we should keep working undeterred and unintimidated on improving them.

        • #1 objective should be getting hunting related and gunsmithing (vocational tech) classes back into high schools. Got to get the kids hands onto firearms.

      • Perhaps, but it doesn’t look like Leno is being malicious. I also have a hard time imagining that MDA is actually helping the civilian disarmament movement much more than Westboro Baptist Church helped the defense of marriage folks. Rest assured that I realize that I may be wrong though – it happens a lot.

        • “I also have a hard time imagining that MDA is actually helping the civilian disarmament movement “

          They are…in their own minds at the least…THE key civil disarmament organization in force today. They are backed by Bloomberg’s gazillions, and HuPo loves ’em.

          They are mostly buffoons and Watts is a laughing stock at being a paid PR media shill, but they are not without teeth. They have the backing of a willing media to sing their praises and given them all the attention they want, and that same media sometimes even outright lies for them about outcomes (claiming losses as wins) and events (such as “stalkers”).

          And…they don’t have to directly get laws passed or lobby or anything. That’s not their role in the game. They are the “social media” soldiers in the culture war. They do not need to “win” so much as “be out there…be visible.” Social media is not about reality; it’s all illusion. Tweets and FB crap give the illusion to folks their movement is far, far more popular than it is, and they seek the bandwagon effect.

          This is why it remains important to discredit them ONLINE at every turn.

          Like any such group, we ignore or underestimate them at our own peril.

      • MDA has claimed to support the 2A and not opposed to (some) guns while supporting “common sense” and safety. How exactly an NSSF show violates those core beliefs is beyond me. Either thats some very sophomoric behavior on MDA’s part of they’re just not as gun friendly as they’d like everyone to think. But.of course we already knew that…

      • It’s going to take a lot of spin to make a major victory out of a retiring TV host’s cancellation of a speaking gig mean something. And even though they’re really good at spin, I doubt MDA’s average member even watches Leno. Past bedtime and all that.

        But if we want to play that route, we scored a major victory by making that gamer girl pack up her shit and not speak at Utah State. Go us! Spool the spinmaster!

  10. Now NSSF can do what it should have done in the first place, which is to find an entertainer who supports the goals of the organization. And who has a backbone.

  11. Not buying that lame excuse. And what does the “crimson chin”(look it up) think hunters use to kill BAMBI???

  13. Guns bad. All his cars are good? Cars kill little babies. Cars poison the air. Cars are destroying our precious planet. Leno is a murderer. Sell all those cars Jay. Matter of fact profiting on their sale would be horrible. Just drive them into the ocean.

    • This isn’t about what Jay Leno does or owns. Heck, I’d be amazed if he didn’t have a couple of guns around. This is about him holding the “correct” political opinion about gun owners. As long as he holds the “correct” opinion, Shannon cares naught about what he does.

      Why do you think you never hear MDA talking about the people who create 90% of America’s “gun violence”?

  16. ” Hunting good. All other guns, bad.”

    That will be the policy they employ, trying to drive a wedge between hunters and all other lawful gun owners. If that policy succeeds, they will join with PETA and work to ban hunting as a cruel, barbaric, anachronistic practice, unworthy of a modern civilized people.
    It’s just the ancient principle of “Divide et impera” being applied by the gungrabbers.

    • At first glance, I misread “gungrabbers” as “gangbangers”.

      Now that I’ve had about 30 seconds to think about it, that’s not too far a stretch. I mean, they are supporting the latter de facto simply by the intended outcome of their “righteous crusade”.

    • If you want to stay out of politics, you don’t sign up to entertain a group without knowing who they are, and then back out of your commitment like a coward when a small group of loud-mouths whine about it.

      Backing out of a confirmed commitment tells me a lot about a person’s integrity; at that point, I don’t need to know much about their politics, as they have already been placed into scumbag status unless they can provide a REALLY good reason for the change. He didn’t.

  19. When was Jay Leno ever funny anyways? Seriously, I’ve never laughed at a single thing he’s said. He’s corny. The only reason he ever got any love from conservative circles was because he was rumored to be conservative. Now he doesn’t even have that. I’d rather watch a guy whose politics I may disagree with who’s actually funny than pretend to be into some corny old joke man with whom I may share a belief or two. My advice? Get someone to drive Clint Eastwood in, tell him it’s a political commercial, set him up with a stage of empty chairs and watch the hilarity ensue.

  20. “So Leno’s a Fudd? Not likely.”

    Why not? His statement- or one through his spokesman- certainly seems so.

  22. What a dweeb. He and his armed bodyguards should just stay home. As far as I am concerned, he is no longer an American.

  24. Leno on NSSF Cancellation: “I Thought It Was a Hunting Show”

    That’s odd. I thought Leno was a comedian. I guess we were both wrong.

    • I know this is old but I had to respond to this myth.

      Clint Eastwood is NOT pro-gun. Not by a long stretch. He does not even allow his bodyguards to carry.

      That being said he isn’t going out of his way to ban guns like MDA does. He just does not like them. And he doesn’t like them “assault weapons” either.

      -King, Larry (May 22, 1995), “Clint not Exactly Making NRA’s Day”, USA Today, page 2D.

      http://extranosalley.com/?p=19647

      There was also another source from Small Arms Review interviewing a big name who has worked for Knights Armament (currently there), Colt, Barrett, H&K, FN who has met Clint Eastwood, Bill Clinton, and big names in the gun industry (Stoner, Kalashnikov) who said Eastwood told him he did not like guns.

  26. Yup, Jay is entitled to his politics, but pretending he didnt know better is even more craven.
    A wuss, and a liar.

    I never saw Leno as worth watching, personally. Wonder what Johnny Carson would have said?

  27. I’m starting to think maybe Jay just had a few close insider friends who were gun-control. And once they found out, they knew which buttons to push to get him to back off. Just a theory.

    Perhaps NSSF should make a 5 minute documentary on youtube just for Jay so he can get the truth about what happens there, and who attends. Make him understand who tricked who?

    As for the gun-control crowds who are calling the NSSF a “gun lobby”; ls it just me who see’s a marketing opportunity here: Go to the NSSF website and it is FULL of gun-safety (the real kind): Over 70 million child safety locks given away, safety kits given away to local towns, training for both civilian and police, working with the ATF to stop straw purchasing (don’t lie for the other guy) and gun trafficking. Things that the gun-control side claim to be, the NSSF is doing. Irresponsible “gun lobby”? Doesn’t look like it to me.

    Combine the above with a comment from Moms Demand Action facebook page on Leno canceling:
    “We will change the culture and make guns even more socially unacceptable than cigarettes. As they should be, since guns put all of us at risk.”

    There’s lemonade to be made from all these lemons laying around. I hope someone with better marketing and production skills than me takes advantage of it, and takes back the negative label the gun-control groups are working to label on us:

  28. Not a conservative — obviously. But not a liberal, either; liberals believe that individual lives are valuable. Hubert Humphrey, who was an actual supporter of the Second; I’m not really sure what today’s supposed “liberals” really are.

  33. when the guy whose job is spin control is the only one speaking, regardless of who he is, who in their right mind automatically takes that as truth?

    The timing makes it all suspect. How long was this gig booked, and only after harassment by Bloomberg funded racketeers did the booking get cancelled?

    MDA is like the worst of the Mafia. “Nice media presence ya got there, Mr. Leno. It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

  35. who knows: perhaps his women’s rights activist wife Mavis, advised him otherwise??

    she’s apparently done commendable outreach and fundraising for a pro-Afghan women’s rights charity, for a long time:

    http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/03/entertainment/et-cause3
    http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/video/mavis-leno-wife-of-jay-leno-on-the-situation-for-women-in-afghanistan/1445719106001

    being anti-gun is part and parcel of “3rd Wave” FemiNazi bullshitism, no?

  36. I’m not a conservative and i’ve never voted that way in my life and I support guns as much, if not more than anyone here. That said, there is no way in hell that I would make an appearance at that show when it’s 3 miles away from the site of that shooting. What callous prick thought that would be a good idea in the first place?

    • Guns didn’t cause Sandy Hook, a psycho who should have been institutionalized did. So, why shouldn’t SHOT show take place nearby? Had even a single SHOT show attendee been there, armed, the whole thing would have been prevented.

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