Debby Yettter (courtesy courier-journal.com)

Over at courier-journal.com, reporter Debby Yetter [above] takes a look at the Bluegrass State’s civilian disarmament movement. The majority of her piece, ‘Ky., Ind. moms pushing for gun safety’, presents a history of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, including a lengthy profile of founder Shannon Watts. Yetter doesn’t offer much in the way of information about Kentucky’s anti-gun activists. Here it is, such as it is . . .

After her 4-year-old son was shot in the head with a loaded handgun he found at a relative’s home, Haley Rinehart, of Bowling Green, Ky., began searching for a support group of mothers concerned about firearms safety.

That was in 2002 and she found none. But as her son, Eli Parker, now 18, recovered from the bullet that entered his eye and passed through his brain, Rinehart kept looking.

It took 10 years. But after the 2012 mass slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary, where a disturbed gunman killed 20 small children and six adults, Rinehart said she learned of a newly formed group, “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.”

“A friend sent me information on ‘Moms,’ and I contacted them,” Rinehart said. “I’m like, ‘hook me up! I’m ready.’”

While there’s nothing wrong with profiling an activist or the cause to which he or she adheres, no matter how lonesome that crusader may be, you’d kinda hope that a seasoned reporter would make some mention of the size of that cause. How many members belong to the KY MDA? Or MDA generally?

It’s a fact that’s missing from virtually every report on MDA’s activities, which are frequently (and sympathetically) featured in the mainstream media. Instead we get throwaway references like this:

Kentucky is attracting a growing number of members, some of whom had never been political or involved in advocacy, said Pam Mangas, who handles communications for the Kentucky chapter.

They include Tracey Goodlett of Lebanon Junction, who signed up after the Newtown shootings.

“Sandy Hook threw me over the edge,” said Goodlett, a mother and grandmother. “The massacre at Sandy Hook could have happened at any elementary school in this country. I knew then I had to do something.”

Growing from what to what? How many? How fast? Why not provide that info? Including (paltry) membership numbers in an MDA profile wouldn’t necessarily detract from the purported “righteousness” of the anti-gun cause; it could even be spun as a David vs. Goliath factoid.

Saying that, the KY MDA Facebook page has 469 likes compared to The Kentucky Gun Owners’ Facebook page‘s 328 likes and The NRA Foundation – Kentucky Friends of NRA Facebook page‘s 578 likes. Saying that, I suspect that the number of dues-paying NRA members in Kentucky easily reaches five figures. (MDA’s Watts claims anyone who likes them on Facebook as a member.)

The Moms, through their numbers and facility with platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, have the potential to reshape opinion on gun violence, [pro-gun control U.S. Rep. John] Yarmuth said . . .

Much of the members’ work is spent traveling to county fairs, local festivals or other public events around Kentucky in an effort to spread the word about Moms and provide education about gun safety.

And they are already organizing members to show up for a rally when the NRA holds its 2016 national convention in Louisville next May.

“We need a big showing,” Mangas said. “We need to make sure the NRA knows we are here to stay to fight bad gun policy.”

Yetter’s copy clearly suggests that MDA has the force of numbers, without any citation (however dubious) to back her up. The omission shows that the Courier-Journal scribe has drunk copious quantities of the anti-gun Kool-Aid. So much so that I highly doubt that her subsequent reports on the 2016 NRA convention in Louisville will reveal how many MDA protestors are local and how many are bussed-in by the Bloomberg-funded national organization. And how much they’ll be paid (in terms of expenses) to be there.

To her credit, Yetter and the Courier-Journal provide some balance with a couple of quotes from pro-gun rights Kentuckians. Oh wait. Yetter doesn’t include a single quote from the MDA’s local, state or national opposition. Which just goes to show how low anti-gun journalists will sink. Until they sink even lower.

[NB: TTAG reached out to Ms. Yetter for comment. She has not responded to our phone call.]

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57 COMMENTS

  1. Shoot dang. I “liked” MDA’s main page so I could keep tabs on the drivel they put out. Know thy enemy, and all.

    I guess that makes me a member? *expletive deleted*

    • They kicked me out because I asked “reasonable” and “common sense” questions…

      • I like to ask ‘what gun control laws do you find unreasonable?’

        If it exists, I’ve been banned from it

    • Well if all we have to do is like them on Facebook to become a member, then can we vote on how the group is run?

  2. Lol, I remember their first attempt being called something like “million mom march” or some bullshit like that. Good times.

  3. No surprise.

    A couple decades back I read a piece on how the KKK membership was on the rise in California.

    Yeah – by three members.

    Blarney sells.

  4. Meh. Michigan Open Carry has almost 11,000 likes,on our main page and our fb “Group” page has 5,649 members.

    • I’m a dues paying MOC member, but not part of either number you just quoted. No FB for me. Or Twitter for that matter.

  5. MDA has no members. They have facebook followers.

    There is a difference. My mother has facebook followers.

    • Good point. Are we talking actual members or people visiting their web page? As far as members go, I would say 30 max, judging from the Indy turnout.

    • When CNN still allowed comments on their articles, I engaged a self proclaimed “mom” with a simple question. I asked, “How much does it cost to join MDA and what does your membership card look like?” She brushed off my question and instead went on a long screed about the “important work” they were doing (plus some standard NRA bashing). Question answered.

      • Well here I tx and around the country OC groups and the SAF and NRA and GOA are getting work done. Hawaii, NY,NJ , MY and let’s of CA are rough and we may lose WA. But we are still gonna have most states and even most of the population.

    • You can buy Facebook likes and twitter followers on line via brokers, just like gamers buy points from internet sweatshops that put people in front of terminals for hours. How did you think Obama got so many? Or Kim Kardashian?

      Usually hosted in HongKong, it appears judging by the grammar, of the many hits on Google, heres a couple.
      http://youlikecash.com/
      http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/09/business/virtual-think-tank-likefunding-hong-kong/index.html

      The fact that MDA has to resort to this, and has so little success is another validation of what a complete joke Bloomturds astro-turfing operation has been all along. MAIG->MDA->Everytown->Trace.

      The Littlest Nanny’s egomania and totalitarian agitprop would be laughable if it weren’t so ominous.

  7. Why don’t we organize a day where every gun advocate unlikes and unfollows MDA? If it drops the number by even a few thousand it could prove their numbers as the bs it is.

  8. How Many Members Does Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America Have?

    As many as Little Mike Bloomberg is willing to pay for.

  9. Their last rally in Minnesota had a stunning six, yes that is correct, 6 people attend but it was cover by the MSM (cute things you can do with a wide angle lens).

    In 2013, the last year when the Democrats pushed gun control, the local Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (and the NRA) brought near 1000 people in marooon shirts to the Capitol for 3 consecutive days of hearings. That required two overflow rooms with CCTV. The Democrat chairman even let the anti-gun group leader “present” the bills after her Chief legislative Author ran off. But they still lost on every bill. This year the pro-gun side passed 5 bills including one allowing sound suppressors. Victory goes to those who show up.

    • Their last rally in Minnesota had a stunning six, yes that is correct, 6 people attend

      That’s what we have in mid-Michigan, too. But the newspapers make a big deal when those six show up at Kroger.

    • Someone already did that is why they are “moms against…”, not called ” angry women that can’t keep their hands off of my guns”

      • Lol Jeff. Good one. I can understand someone being upset and wanting to do something when their child is maimed or killed with a gun. But for God’s sake why don’t they try to do something productive like support gun safety classes or suicide support hotlines instead of trying to disarm the rest of us and pretend that is the solution? They are very misguided IMO.

        • Because disarming normal citizens will lead the criminals to disarm themselves, too. That’s how they see it, I think.

      • New groupage…Dads with guns meets angry moms. Sort like marriage encounter with cordite.

        • Carlos, the sad reality is some guys will with anyone.

          Even if it’s one of those drunk, high, on a bet, and-or stupid things.

          *sigh*

  11. “Moms Demand Action” sounds like something I need to delete from my browser history.

  12. Moms are smart caring people. These are not Moms in my book.

    What is, “…bad gun policy.” ? They seem to be the ones who invent policy. The MDA is a nonsense based program of which there is no true membership.

    • Look at HSUS, PeTA, Fund for Animals and WWF. Their “members” are just paid up supporters (dupes) while the NRA has 5.2 MILLION voting members who pay DUES and get benefits. Same for North American Hunting Club, Buckmasters and others.

      Ray

  14. Question no one asks: Why are so called “Progressive” women so ugly?

    Cause or effect?

    • “Question no one asks: Why are so called “Progressive” women so ugly?

      Cause or effect?”

      Years back Limbaugh opined that ‘Feminist’ (and likely Progressive) women were nothing more than women who were unable to get a date.

      Not nice, but perhaps with a grain of truth…

    • Note also that many Leftist females who start out as nice looking-flat out jaw droppers begin to lose their attractiveness the further they go into Leftism, then a cycle (the farther Left they go the faster their looks fade causing them to go even further Left which accelerates their attractiveness decline) begins to take hold. Conversely, those on the Right who are already attractive tend to stay that way despite becoming even more conservative w/ those who have great minds but are unlikely to draw male attn for much else tend to either stay that way or improve to a point. Don’t know why it is but it’s a tendency I first noticed about 25yrs ago & have been observing since then, ‘funny’ thing is that as I’ve continued testing this theory it’s reached the point that I can usually tell what a given female looks just by reading what she’s written/said w/ an accuracy rate of about 80% minimum for Lefties but w/ a usually lower ‘hit’ rate for Righties. There are exceptions like Kirsten Powers on the Left & Andrea Tantaros or Kimberley Guilfoyle on the Right, but as a general proposition the theory holds up.

      Should give some serious pause for thought to many about whether the price they may pay for an ideology’s worth it.

  15. The response rate for support by going to a local event is probable around 2%. If you minus staff, media, security, caterers, etc the remaining portion would be about 2% of actual members. So if one hundred show up at an event with sixty excluded you have a support base of approximately two thousand.

    Saul Alinsky rule number one:

    “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

  16. Just yesterday I took a day off and when the kids decided that we should eat a Chick-Fil-A for lunch I happened to overhear to moms discussing on getting fingerprinted for a ccw and how she was even considering getting a silencer. The other was asking to be taken to the range as she was considering a ccw as well.

    Not all moms have been duped.

    • My wife has organized a bi-monthly get together at the range for about 8 other stay @ home moms.

      Shannon can s**k it. 🙂

  17. If the standard for membership of an organization is simply following some folks on facebook, than by MDA logic I’m a member of the Denver Broncos, the Red Bull Renault Formula 1 team, and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

    • I’m a member of The Luscious Ladies on Facebook. And by member, I mean “I’ll be in my bunk.”

  18. If you include household cats, the Hysterical Mother’s minions number in the dozens.

  19. The MDA’s purpose is not to build a grassroots structure.

    It is to provide the old media with a means to pretend that there is a grassroots structure.

    It is purely a propaganda exercise, a means to “manufacture consent”.

  20. If 90% support universal background checks why did the Washington vote not succeed by a 9 to 1 margin, especially when Bloomberg’s minions outspent our side on advertising by such a huge margin? Additionally wasn’t there something similar passed in Colorado? In that case if 90% of the people support universal background checks on all firearm sales and 40% of all firearms sales prior to this new law were private sales why did the increase in background checks only go up by something like 4%? There is a mathamatical impossibility here someplace.

  22. This is funny, I actually went on a date with her daughter when we were in middle school. The courier-journal is a VERY biased production and I’ve vowed to never pay for a subscription. KY is a great gun state but Louisville has plenty of the typical anti-gun crowd.

    As a side note I flew out of Louisville Thursday afternoon and saw 2 ladies in MDA t-shirts walking through the airport. I didn’t even believe these people existed but apparently there are a few.

    • “This is funny, I actually went on a date with her daughter when we were in middle school.”

      Don’t let Dirk hear that…

      🙂

      “As a side note I flew out of Louisville Thursday afternoon and saw 2 ladies in MDA t-shirts walking through the airport. I didn’t even believe these people existed but apparently there are a few.”

      Proves nothing.

      I bet MDA had Bloomie’s money buy tens of thousands of t-shirts to hand out to anyone who was stupid and-or willing to take ’em.

      Shannon’s garage is likely stuffed with boxes of that crap.

    • I’ve read other reports of them in airports, presumably because they are being flown around so much (Bloomberg pays better than bus fare)

  26. MDA is a Gun Safety organization?

    That’s like saying that Planned Parenthood is a fetus safety organization.

  27. Thanks for the news about the 2016 convention. Feel free to OC in Kentucky. I’m guessing the pistol carriers will significantly outnumber demanding moms.

  28. This isn’t a surprise, the Louisville & Lexington papers are extremely liberal. KY is a conservative state & a pro-gun state, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the main newspapers. The Lexington paper has been going massively downhill in subscriptions, employees, etc. It is actually amazing how out of touch these papers are with how Kentuckians feel.

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