Via WBEN
Tuesday afternoon, Buffalo’s gun-hugging right wing lost. its. shit. You know what this means – angry, tweenish drama queendom and a segment on knee-jerk freak-out radio.
Evidently, all the immigrants had been demonized, all the poors had been denigrated, all the liberals had been insulted, the notion of people having health care had been called a socialist trainwreck, all the health care bills had been repealed, Cuomo had been called a monster dictator, and climate change had been sufficiently denied, and science rejected for the day.
And so, it inevitably turned to guns. It was alleged that the Erie County Fair was hateful of the 1st and 2nd Amendments, refusing to let a local he-man gun-hugging club to distribute free bumper stickers; that lie got halfway around the world before the truth had a chance to get its pants on.
The “Second Amendment ain’t about Duck Hunting”, no. It also “ain’t about overthrowin’ the gubmint, neither”. Also, “SCOPE”:
And some people need to be part of the equation.
Of course, this became a BREAKING NEWS ZOMG topic on right wing drama queen radio station WBEN during its new afternoon drive show. As it turns out, there was no controversy.
Instead, the Erie County Fair has a standing policy against allowing any exhibitors from handing out free stickers, because kids take them and stick them every which place, and the Fair has to clean them up. Furthermore, if SCOPE and the gun-huggers had simply called the Fair’s administration, they’d have discovered that their signs weren’t being excluded.
The Shooters Committee on Political Education (SCOPE) is claiming that they are being shut out of the fair because of a political bias against their pro-gun stance.
Fair Spokeswoman Lou Ann Delaney says that’s not the reason they’re being shut out.
“The first time that I was aware of them contacting the Fair was this morning, to hand out stickers” Delaney said. “We don’t allow any stickers to be given out by any organization because kids put them where they shouldn’t put them.”
Delaney also says that the process for allowing vendors at the Fair starts in January, and SCOPE was very late in attempting to be included.
SCOPE president Stephen Aldstadt doesn’t see that to be the case.
“It seems more like they have taken a particular political position on that particular issue and they are not welcome of dissenting views” Aldstadt said.
Delaney once again disagrees with Scope, saying that the Fair is not at all taking one side of a political issue. “The Erie County Sheriff’s Department is doing several times throughout the fair Gun Safety on different stages. We just have to have certain policies in place, and that’s for our guest’s benefit.”
The Erie County Fair is neither run nor funded by any governmental entity.
Erie County Agricultural Society is a private not-for-profit membership corporation, which annually produces the Erie County Fair. The Society is the oldest civic organization in western New York, established in 1819. The Society does not receive funding from New York State or from the County of Erie.
As a private entity and private event, the fair’s organizers could, if they wanted to, reject and exclude any group, message, sign, or sticker they feel like for any reason whatsoever. It also means there’s no 2nd Amendment issue, nor any 1st Amendment free speech issue, either. Imagine these constitutional scholars attempting to infringe the fair’s right to allow whatever things or people it wants at its event. It would seem as if what they perceive to be their rights trump everyone else’s actual rights.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear stickers shall not be infringed.
The Buffalo Record 