Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

----------------------------------------------------------------------
VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tuesday, March 2nd, there is going to be a special election in
House District 41 to fill the vacated House seat of the now Senator
Marsden.

One of the candidates, Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn, has actively
pushed gun control in the past. In fact, she is an extremist on gun
control.

Filler-Corn wrote a letter to the Connection newspaper in 2000 stating
that "Every person is at risk from a citizen carrying guns in malls,
movie theaters, restaurants and on highways."

Doesn't sound like she wants us to be able to protect ourselves
anywhere, does it?

Here are some more facts about her:

* Filler-Corn is a lawyer who used to represent Handgun Control Inc.

* Filler-Corn has actively opposed the right to carry in government
facilities and restaurants serving alcohol

* Filler-Corn advocates "zero tolerance" policies and has actively
opposed your right to carry and store guns in your car on school grounds

* Filler-Corn was vice president and legislative chairman of the
Northern Virginia chapter of the Million Mom March in 2001

* Filler-Corn, in her failed attempt to run against James Dillard back
in 2000, was endorsed by Handgun Control, Inc.

However, Filler-Corn is trying to hide her anti-gun agenda big time!
She does not mention it on her web site, her Facebook page, or in her
public statements.

*** Not surprisingly, FIller-Corn has not returned her VCDL survey.
Her opponent, Republican Kerry Bolognese, has returned the survey and
answered it 100%. ***

More on Filler-Corn here:

http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/cms/archive ... ?id=122831

-

Here is a blast from the past - in this Washington Post article from
1999. In this article, it says that Virginia Democrats see gun
control as their best hope of getting elected.

That didn't work out for them and they are now running away from gun
control -- hence Filler-Corn's silence on her true agenda.

But this article is a good reminder of just how things have changed in
the last 10 years:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/lo ... aign29.htm

Va. Democrats Pin Hopes on Gun Control
By Craig Timberg and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 29, 1999; Page A1

Virginia Democrats, faced with tough odds in Tuesday's state
legislative elections, have seized on gun control and the fear of
another Columbine-type school massacre as their best hope to stem a
decade of Republican gains in Northern Virginia and other suburban
battlegrounds.

With just days of campaigning left, Democratic strategists have
narrowed their list of vulnerable Republican incumbents in the
Washington area to four lawmakers who have spent the last few weeks
defending themselves on gun votes. A similar pattern has emerged in
races in suburban Hampton Roads.

Democratic challengers have used television ads, mailings and rallies
to portray Republican incumbents as beholden to the National Rifle
Association. Stumping for Northern Virginia Democrats this week were a
16-year-old student from Columbine High School and Jim Brady, perhaps
the nation's most visible advocate of gun control since his wounding
in the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Republicans call several of the ads gross distortions of their records
in a region where voters and lawmakers largely agree on the need for
some forms of gun control. And they warn there is a backlash among
voters unnerved by the exploitation of such an emotional issue,
particularly when the differences between candidates are relatively
slight.

"Even the Democrats don't believe that Republicans want to arm
schoolchildren," said GOP consultant Ray Allen, an adviser to Gov.
James S. Gilmore III.

The Democratic strategy reflects both the party's determination to use
an issue it believes is winning votes in the suburbs, and the
realization that little else is working in a year in which all 140
legislative seats and control of the General Assembly are at stake.

Transportation withered as a Democratic issue after Gilmore announced
his own package in August. And education, the Democrats' savior in
1995 legislative elections, has lost its edge now that Republicans are
focusing on traditionally Democratic themes such as hiring teachers,
shrinking classes and building schools, party leaders acknowledge.

For the Democrats, finding a winning issue couldn't be more urgent.
The GOP already controls the state Senate and all three statewide
offices, including the governorship. And with the House of Delegates
split down the middle, Republicans are confident they can win at least
the one seat they need to take control of that chamber for the first
time this century.

"I think it's the big issue for the Democrats, their one ace in the
hole, their one chance to hang on to something in state government,"
said political science professor Mark J. Rozell, of Catholic
University. Yet it's unclear that gun control is a strong enough issue
to swing voters.

"Putting something into law doesn't resolve it," Habib Khan, 61, a
former school psychologist from Fairfax, said yesterday. "The bottom
line is who's going to enforce the laws."

But Diane Curling, 50, a Reston resident and former teacher whose
husband is an assistant principal, said: "Gun control is our number
one issue. If push comes to shove, we will be single-issue voters on
this at every level, local state and national."

Democratic Party Executive Director Craig K. Bieber said guns are the
top issue in six House races statewide. In all but one, they are
Democratic challenges of Republican incumbents. Such races are vital
to the Democrats, who are defending five open seats, compared with one
for the Republicans.

"From my perspective, that is the single issue driving those
campaigns," he said. "And it is the reason why Democrats in those
districts are gaining traction and are putting themselves in a
position to win."

In Northern Virginia, guns are most prominent in the Democratic
challenges to Republican Del. James H. Dillard II in central Fairfax
County, Del. Roger J. McClure in western Fairfax and Del. Michele B.
McQuigg in Prince William County.

All three voted to support a Gilmore proposal to allow students to
bring hunting guns to school so long as they have a hunting license
and leave the guns locked in their cars. McQuigg and Dillard, blaming
a misunderstanding in the initial vote, changed their votes later that
same day, helping to kill the proposal. [PVC: Boy, isn't that an
unbelievable coincidence? Both of them "mis-voted" and caught it
later, killing the bill.]

McClure, who both Republicans and Democrats call the most vulnerable
of those three, voted for the Gilmore proposal a second time and also
is the region's top recipient of money from the NRA, which has its
headquarters in his district.

His opponent, Democrat James E. Mitchell III, called McClure's vote
for allowing hunting guns in school parking lots "a boneheaded idea."
McClure calls the attacks unfair and points to his vote to make it a
felony for a student to bring a gun into a school building. Of
Gilmore's proposal to allow hunting guns in cars, McClure said: "This
was a minor amendment and was not the heart and soul of our policy
against guns in schools. My opponent is focused on this, which is a
side issue."

Jim Brady and Handgun Control Inc., the Washington-based group headed
by his wife, Sarah, have endorsed both Mitchell and Dillard's
Democratic opponent, Eileen Filler-Corn.

Brady blamed Dillard for voting in 1995 to streamline the process for
getting a permit to carry concealed weapons--a bill Brady lobbied
against in Richmond.

"More guns does not make us safer," Brady said. "If that were true,
we'd be the safest nation on Earth."

Dillard said he has mostly supported gun-control bills and called the
attacks on him "a stretch." "To mislead the public and say I'm soft on
guns is not fair. . . . [Filler-Corn] has no record of her own, so all
she can do is poke holes in mine."

State Sen Jane H. Woods (R-Fairfax) held a news conference yesterday
to defend her position on gun issues. She also accused her Democratic
opponent, former U.S. representative Leslie L. Byrne, of being soft on
crime.

"Despite literature linking me to the 'radical gun lobby,' I have been
willing to stand up to the radical gun lobby and indeed to the
governor," Woods told reporters. She said she had voted against
allowing guns on school property and had voted to strengthen
Virginia's law on carrying a concealed weapon by including a provision
for fingerprint checks on permit holders, a provision that was
ultimately stripped from the law.

Responding to Woods's attacks, Byrne said she voted in Congress for
the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill that contained tough crime-fighting
measures. "My record is as strong an anti-crime record as anyone
else's you can name," she said. "It demeans Jane's office for her to
make these wild-eyed charges."


***************************************************************************
VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]