VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 1/4/14

Post by **Taggure** » Sun, 05 Jan 2014 11:00:51

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Not yet a VCDL member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. Recent VCDL interviews [AUDIO / VIDEO]
2. Meeting reminders: Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, Roanoke
3. Carvins Cove Natural Reserve has illegal "no guns" sign
4. Comments on recent self-defense article
5. The next gun rights assault
6. ODU students alerted about 2 robberies Tuesday night
7. VA sets record gun sales on Black Friday
8. ATF told in May 2010 program would lead to officers' death
9. SAF launches poll: 'Do guns save lives?' [VIDEO]
10. Murder rate plummets as gun ownership soars
11. CNN Poll: Opposition to gun control up 23 percent since January
12. Commercial shows what REAL gun owners look like [VIDEO]
13. What we believe, part 5: gun rights [VIDEO]
14. Young women are driving record firearm sales
15. Armed to sell: Local women are taking protection into their own hands
16. Veterans being stripped of second amendment rights [VIDEO]
17. [WV] WV AG joining with other states in federal gun purchasing case
18. [NY] Unarmed man is charged with wounding bystanders shot by police
19. Why Newtown didn't lead to gun control
20. Antis exploitation of Newtown 'shocking' to CNN

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1. Recent VCDL interviews [AUDIO / VIDEO]
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In this interview, I discuss the recent "forum" on gun control and mental health that was held at UVA in Charlottesville in early December with Joe Thomas on his show:

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From soundcloud.com: http://tinyurl.com/lwaek3g [AUDIO]

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I was also interviewed by the ABC affiliate in Richmond about bills dealing with arming schools:

From wric.com: http://tinyurl.com/mws2pjk [VIDEO]

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2. Meeting reminders: Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, Roanoke
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FREDERICKSBURG - JANUARY 5

VCDL will have a membership meeting on Sunday, January 5, in the Fredericksburg area at:

The Scottish Horse Thief
110 North Main Street
Bowling Green, VA

The meeting will be called to order at 2 PM. We will be discussing Lobby Day (January 20th) and the gun bills that will be coming up during the session. We will also be discussing current events.

The meeting is open to the public, so bring friends, family, and coworkers!

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LYNCHBURG - JANUARY 7

VCDL will have a membership meeting in Lynchburg on Tuesday, January 7, at 7 PM. The meeting will be held at:

Lynchburg Public Library
2315 Memorial Avenue
Lynchburg, VA 24501

Like all VCDL membership meetings, this one is open to the public, so bring friends, family, and co-workers. We will be discussing Lobby Day and the legislation that is going to be considered in the General Assembly in 2014.

Thanks to member Kevin Novak for making the arrangements!

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RIVANNA RIFLE AND PISTOL CLUB - JANUARY 9

I have been asked to talk at the regular membership meeting of the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club (RRPC) in Charlottesville on Thursday, January 9. The meeting starts at 7:30 PM and I will talk about Lobby Day and about the future VCDL membership meetings to be held at their clubhouse at around 8 PM.

The meeting is open to the public and this would be a good chance for those of you who are not members of the RRPC to see their incredible facilities and to meet some of their members.

Directions to RRPC can be found here:

http://tinyurl.com/cq4aa3e

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ROANOKE - JANUARY 21

VCDL will have a supper meeting on Tuesday, JANUARY 21, at:

ODD FELLOWS LODGE
2615 ORANGE AVE NE (460 EAST)
ROANOKE VA 24012

PLEASE NOTE the NEW LOCATION for this meeting. The location is behind and above Commando Supply, just east of GUS NICKS
(go past the BP Station--next door to White Tire.)

Fellowship starts at 6:30 PM--food will be served at 7 PM.

FREE HOT DOGS and ALL THE FIXIN'S will be provided by VCDL Members Bill WASH & wife HEATHER!

We do ask local members bring some type of side dish or desert to go along with hot dogs.

Philip Van Cleave will discuss the Lobby Day event, which will have happened the day before.

This meeting is open to the public, so bring family and friends! There will be door prizes, too!

PLEASE RSVP with numbers attending to: al@vcdl.org so proper seating and food will be prepared!

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3. Carvins Cove Natural Reserve has illegal "no guns" sign
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Member Ed Martin brought some "No guns" signs at Carvins Cove Natural Reserve in Roanoke to our attention. The property is owned by the the city of Roanoke, making that sign illegal. I have contacted the City Attorney, who was pleasant and professional. I pointed him to the firearms preemption code (15.2-915) and he said he will check into the issue and get back to me shortly.

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4. Comments on recent self-defense article
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The recent mini-update on 12/27 dealing with self-defense brought out several comments on the first article where it discusses what to say to the police and/or the 911 operator after a self-defense shooting ("(4) Calling 911 - Reporting the Incident"). The statements below match advice given by VCDL previously on the topic of self-defense shootings.

Author Alan Korwin sent me this:

Hopelessly terrible advice!

"Tell them that you just shot an intruder"

Prosecutor's work is done.

Make no statements. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.

5th Amendment right against self incrimination.

Right to have an attorney present during any questioning and before making statements. Lawyers typically advise say nothing.

911 tapes are typically instrumental in convicting the shooter, especially in supposed SD shootings.

Police involved in shootings are removed from scene before they can say anything, you deserve equal treatment for the same reasons. They release statements in writing, never verbally.

Read After You Shoot: Your gun's hot. The perp's not. Now what?
http://www.gunlaws.com/AYS.htm

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David Gurule sent this:

The advice on what to say to 911, and *especially* talking to the police, without the presence of an attorney, is outright egregious.

If the shooter is innocent of a crime, nothing you say to the police can be used to help find you innocent. Police cannot testify for you in a courtroom based upon what you tell them because it is considered hearsay. Furthermore, when police officers are involved in a shooting they are typically given 3 days of admin leave to recover from the shock of the incident. It is only then that they make their written statement. This is so because it is a proven fact that during, and shortly thereafter, such an incident your memory will be impaired. All it takes for you to be discredited is for a couple witnesses to contradict you in their account of the incident.

YOU CANNOT, IN ANY WAY, HELP YOURSELF BY TALKING TO POLICE. You will only incriminate yourself.

I was advised by the Bose Law Firm to call 911, ask for an ambulance for yourself (because you are in shock), and say nothing more. Other people will call 911 and provide accounts of what they experienced, there is no need for you to do this. This is of course if you don't already have them on the phone. They further advised me to call them and say nothing, at all, to the police until they arrive.

Everyone who is prepared to use deadly force should find an attorney they can call at a moment's notice.

The 5th Amendment exists to protect the innocent, and once you begin to talk to the police, you waive that right.

Again, the sole purpose of police officers, when they are interviewing anyone, is to build a solid case for the district attorney to convict criminals. Waiting three days to make a statement will not hurt you in the least. It is allotted to police officers after they use deadly force; how are we any different from them?

I highly recommend watching this video.

http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc

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5. The next gun rights assault
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Jeff Knox discusses VCDL's approach to tackling the next wave of gun control.

Member Jeff Knox emailed me this:

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The Next Gun Rights Assault
by Jeff Knox
December 4, 2013

Rights advocates around the country need to be on the lookout for an insidious new tactic being launched by Mike Bloomberg and his mercenary minions. Their latest line of attack is mental health. This actually isn’t so much a new approach as a refocusing and turbo charging of an older plan.

The strategy is to use the wide acceptance of the idea that the mentally ill should not have access to firearms, as a front for prohibiting a broad array of “normal” people from possessing guns or ammunition. As with most things, the devil is in the details. What is mental illness? Who is mentally ill? How mentally ill must one be to warrant revocation of a fundamental human right? Who makes that determination? Who is “normal,” and how “normal” do they have to be to own guns?

Recently, one of Bloomberg’s pet politicians, Ralph Northam, whom Bloomberg spent over a million dollars to get elected as Lt. Governor of Virginia, spelled out the plan during a “gun violence” symposium. The event turned out to be a gun control meeting discussing a strategy of trickery and deception to get firearm restrictions passed through legislatures by hiding it in bills dealing with mental health. My friend Philip Van Cleave, the President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, was at the meeting and reported that Northam was very candid about the plan and the sneak attack strategies for bypassing committees and public comment, and preventing rights groups from being able to mount opposition until it’s too late. He particularly lauded the Connecticut and New York models where both states used “emergency” legislation to pass draconian bills with no hearings, no committee votes, and no public input. He also discussed strategies to gain support from rights leaders by quietly negotiating deals to keep a bill “clean” and leave out overt anti-rights provisions, while concealing the provisions that seriously threaten rights.

It isn’t often that we hear anti-rights extremists openly admitting their true strategies and objectives. Someone has probably since suggested to Mr. Northam that the first rule in executing an effective, secret plan might be to not announce the details of the plan in advance. Thankfully that advice can only come too late because the cat’s out of the bag and rights advocates are mobilizing.

VCDL is taking a very smart approach to this challenge. They have already begun assembling a working group of mental health professionals and civil rights attorneys to review all mental health-related legislation and make recommendations. Other grass roots organizations will undoubtedly be following their example and seeking out knowledgeable assistance. The ACLU, a group, which has historically shown animosity or indifference towards the Second Amendment, is seriously concerned about threats to privacy, due process, and equal protection that often arise in mental health bills, and they could be an important ally in the coming fights.

While this anti-rights sneak attack is just getting underway, you can be sure it is well planned and well-funded, so expect to see a flood of bills dealing with mental health in general, and firearms access by the mentally ill in particular, introduced in Congress and state legislatures nationwide in the coming months. These bills will be promoted as “common sense,” but they will contain definitions so broad that hundreds of thousands – possibly millions – of regular folks who have been, or are being, successfully treated for common, minor, mental and emotional issues will be denied their right to arms as “mental defectives.” People suffering from mild depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, even women treated for PMS, could be lumped in with violent schizophrenics and the criminally insane.

In Connecticut, they banned firearm possession by anyone who voluntarily checks themselves into a mental health facility for any reason. While that ban is temporary for now, expect it to be incrementally increased in the future, just as the new law increased the duration of bans for people involuntarily committed. The result of the prohibition for voluntary commitments will undoubtedly be that some people who should remove themselves from the troubles of the outside world for a time to get needed help, will choose to forgo that option rather than be treated like a criminal. This is of particular concern for our returning veterans.

Rights advocates are going to have to be extremely diligent to catch the threats that are on the way. One advantage we have is the arrogance of our opponents. Just as Northam arrogantly described the sneaky plan – without anyone in the “legitimate” media taking note of the proposed chicanery – expect Mike Bloomberg to make his support for the bad bills rather obvious. An easy way to tell if any legislation is bad – or at least that it deserves extra scrutiny – will be support from Bloomberg and his various front organizations.

Liberty is a never-ending struggle. Be prepared to respond to these bills, and take action now to warn your elected representatives about the coming sneak attacks.

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6. ODU students alerted about 2 robberies Tuesday night
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Member Wales Watkins emailed me this:

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OK, let me get this straight. In the article, the police suggest walking in pairs. So, two women walking together get jumped by three men. And that's safer than carrying a concealed weapon? Give me a break! [PVC: I wonder if the police follow their own advice and walk only in pairs or call for an escort? Oh, wait - police have GUNS! Never mind.]

From hamptonroads.com: http://tinyurl.com/m4sok3f

ODU students alerted about 2 robberies Tuesday night
by Cindy Clayton, The Virginian-Pilot
December 4, 2013

Students at Old Dominion University received an alert overnight about two robberies – one behind Whitehurst Hall and the other on West 39th Street.

The first incident was reported to university police about 9:15 p.m. after a student who was walking alone behind Whitehurst Hall near the water was assaulted by three males, according to the alert. The student was not seriously injured, but did have personal property stolen.

The second incident happened about 10:30 p.m. as a student walked alone in the 1000 block of W. 39th St. That student also was approached and assaulted by three males and had personal items taken.

The students told police that no weapons were involved in the robberies.

The alert described one of the males as 6 feet tall and 190 pounds. He wore a T-shirt, jeans and black hooded sweatshirt. The second male is 5-feet-eight, 150 pounds and wore a white shirt, red T-shirt and black pants. The third male is 6-feet-2, 180 pounds and wore a dark shirt, jeans and white tennis shoes. All three were described as black and in their 20s to 30s.

Police are reminding students to walk in pairs when practical, follow paths that are well-lighted, avoid carrying large amounts of cash or displaying valuables and use the SafeRide van service. Students also can call university services for an escort at 757-683-3477.

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7. VA sets record gun sales on Black Friday
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Member Timothy Wise emailed me this:

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From freebeacon.com: http://tinyurl.com/ns2njz3

Virginia Sets Record Gun Sales on Black Friday
by Washington Free Beacon Staff
December 4, 2013

Virginia gun sales reached a new record for number of firearms sold on Black Friday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports.

Gun transactions in Virginia totaled 3,902 on Black Friday, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous record of 3,856 transactions on the same day in 2012, according to the latest Virginia State Police figures of mandatory criminal-background checks of gun buyers.

The Black Friday numbers helped boost Virginia’s overall gun transactions to 429,154 through the end of November, or 17.5 percent more than during the same period last year, Virginia Firearms Transaction Center data show.

With an additional 2,539 transactions processed during the first two days of December, Virginia will easily surpass last year’s record of 432,387 transactions. As of Monday, the state had processed 431,693 transactions, just 694 shy of the record.

An assistant professor at Virginia Common Wealth University told the Times-Dispatch that the recent election of Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor could be a driving force behind gun sales. A push for new national gun control legislation could also be driving sales.

Virginia is set to reach a new annual record.

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8. ATF told in May 2010 program would lead to officers' death
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Member Bill Albritton emailed me this:

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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/jwtz2qm

FAST & FURIOUS TELL-ALL: ATF TOLD IN MAY 2010 PROGRAM WOULD LEAD TO OFFICERS' DEATHS
by Matthew Boyle
December 4, 2013

The opening prologue of the new tell-all book from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) special agent John Dodson shows the ATF was made aware of concerns that someone in U.S. law enforcement might die as a result of the program Operation Fast and Furious as early May 2010.

Several months later, on Dec. 15, 2010, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered with Fast and Furious weapons that Mexican drug cartel operatives in the region were using.

Dodson is the man who single-handedly brought the truth about Operation Fast and Furious to the American people as a whistleblower and has published a tell-all book about the program and his struggle to get the story out. The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious hit shelves on Tuesday and has already garnered attention of several major media outlets. The book details Dodson’s activities with the ATF, his and others’ roles in Operation Fast and Furious, and his decision to go to Congress to blow the whistle on the program.

In the prologue, Dodson opens with a blistering scene from May 2010 when he walked into his office with fellow ATF agent Hope MacAllister—someone who was initially very supportive of Fast and Furious while Dodson opposed it internally at Phoenix’s Strike Force office.

“On an early morning in May 2010, sliding through the metal doors just as they were about to close, I encountered Hope MacAllister,” Dodson writes.

She and I were both assigned to the newly formed Strike Force. Although comprising several federal agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (more commonly known as ATF), the Strike Force was located on the fourth floor of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s building in Phoenix. Hope was the case agent for the ongoing investigation she had dubbed "Fast and Furious."

Dodson lays out how he had been, for “nearly half a year” at that point, “waging” a “battle” with regard to Fast and Furious—what Dodson describes as “the Phoenix ATF office’s most prized operation, one that the brass in Washington had taken an unusual interest in.”

“I felt confused, frustrated, and pissed-off with my front- row seat to an impending train wreck,” Dodson writes. “Sharing twenty awkward seconds with the person driving the locomotive did little to make it better.”

Dodson sets the scene of riding the elevator—and all the awkwardness that comes with doing so. Then MacAllister turned to Dodson and asked about Fast and Furious: “John, what do you really think about this case?”

“My mouth opened and for a second or so I didn’t say a word,” Dodson writes about his thoughts in response.

Really? What do I think about this case? For months now, our office had been watching known small-time criminals purchase hundreds of weapons... AK-47 variants, AR variants, .50 cals... all “weapons of choice” for drug traffickers... and then hand them off to drug cartels in Mexico. There was no question in anyone’s mind that these weapons were being trafficked and that we were not only allowing it but in fact facilitating it. A few of us pleaded with our superiors to allow us to arrest these buyers—more commonly known as "straw purchasers"—interdict their load of guns, or seize their money before the purchase. To do something, anything to take some kind of enforcement action. To do our jobs.

Dodson notes that several times, he and his fellow agents who wanted to enforce the laws were told “to stand down.”

“Hope, don’t ask me questions that you don’t want to know the answers to,” Dodson writes of how he responded to MacAllister.

“I do want to know,” MacAllister responded, according to Dodson, noting that she “seemed sincere.”

“What do you really think?” she asked.

After walking off the elevator with her, then down a hallway to their office, Dodson replied:

We’re walking guns. How many guns have we flooded the border with? How much of the crime down there are we responsible for? We are just as culpable as if we had sold them ourselves. We’re never going to get anywhere with this case. We’re not going to climb the ladder. At best, you’re only going to get back to the DEA wire. That’s as high as you can go. We haven’t learned anything. The only thing that’s changed from the very beginning is the number of guns we’ve let walk.

At that point, Dodson and MacAllister had reached their office and had “drawn the attention of everyone in the room.”

“All the agents in our Strike Force Group VII turned to watch, as did the Gun Runner Impact Team (GRIT) guys who were there on detail from all around the country, called in to help us with Fast and Furious,” Dodson writes. “Even David Voth, our group supervisor, had stepped out of his office.”

Dodson says his “eyes were still focused on Hope, but my fury was directed more broadly to all of those complicit in Fast and Furious, a number of whom were within earshot, especially the guy who was now listening closely.”

He asked them all: “What you need to ask yourself is this: Are you prepared to go to a border patrol agent’s funeral or a Cochise County deputy’s funeral over this? Are you prepared to watch that widow accept that folded flag?”

The room went silent.

“Around me jaws dropped, fingers stopped jabbing at keyboards, all attention now intensely focused on us,” Dodson writes. “I had just said what we all knew deep down inside. Everyone in that room knew this was what I thought, but no one had ever expected me to say it aloud, so bluntly, so publicly. I knew what I was doing. I was telling the truth. We were going to get people killed.”

At that point, Dodson gave another dire warning to those present: “It isn’t a matter of ‘if.’ It’s only a matter of ‘when.’ And everyone in this room knows it.”

Seven months later, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered in Peck Canyon near Nogales, AZ, several miles inside the U.S. Border with Mexico.

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9. SAF launches poll: 'Do guns save lives?' [VIDEO]
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Board Member Dave Welch emailed me this:

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From examiner.com: http://tinyurl.com/nscatsz

SAF launches poll: ‘Do guns save lives?’
by Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
December 5, 2013

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) late yesterday launched a video poll asking people whether they agree that Guns Save Lives; the latest chapter in a duel between gun rights advocates and gun prohibitionists.

The video is a key component of the build-up to national “Guns Save Lives Day,” scheduled Sunday, Dec. 15 in cooperation with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) and several other organizations around the country. It might be comparable to the battle in Washington state between the “dueling initiatives,” but on steroids.

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb launched the effort to present “the other side” of the gun rights issue as anti-gun organizations are now fully engaged in exploiting the upcoming Dec. 14 anniversary of the Newtown tragedy. They are already trying to silence gun rights advocates, as witnessed by an e-mail circulated over the past 36 hours by the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Seattle-based group pushing Initiative 594, the 17-page gun control measure financed largely by wealthy Seattle-area liberals.

SAF, according to Gottlieb, has purchased air time on Fox News, DISH TV, and Glenn Beck’s Blaze Network, on national conservative radio talk shows, SiriusXM satellite radio and major radio stations to broadcast the video. To participate in the poll, dial 800-970-0998.

CCRKBA and other statewide groups representing hunters, law enforcement, gun collectors and competitive shooters are backing Initiative 591, which prohibits government gun confiscation without due process, and requires that background checks conducted in Washington comply with a uniform national standard.

In the Wednesday e-mail, WAGR campaign manager Zach Silk laments that the response to a letter calling for the cancellation of Guns Save Lives Day “is not enough.” So far, he says, 5,795 signatures have been gathered. The mere involvement of WAGR in an effort to silence Second Amendment advocates nationwide shows a much broader agenda than just pushing an extremist gun control measure in the Evergreen State.

At the national level, the anti-gun Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) launched their own video a few days ago, titled “No More Silence.” It does exactly what Silk complains about in his e-mail: exploits the Sandy Hook tragedy. While arguing that Guns Save Lives Day “sheds light on a group that doesn’t think twice about using the murder (sic) of 20 children to promote its own narrow political agenda,” the same could easily be said about the Mom’s group and MAIG, because their agenda of public disarmament could hardly be more narrow or exploitive.

The “No More Silence” video contends that there have been 26 school shootings since Sandy Hook, but an on-line check suggests otherwise. Of the 19 incidents listed, one involved the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, and a few others may have no real connection to schools, other than that they happened in parking lots or open grounds on school property between individuals.

Yesterday, the blog “No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money” pointed to a story in The Hill earlier this week that detailed how the Obama campaign arm-turned-political advocacy group, Organizing for Action (OFA) is “encouraging supporters to host ‘anniversary events’ marking one year since the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting.” The efforts are to “remind” people that “we as a nation need to do more to prevent gun violence and keep our communities safe.”

Perhaps others, including many residents of Newtown, see a different approach to that safety issue. As the New York Daily News reported in August, requests for gun permits in Newtown have doubled since last year.

All of this appears to be building toward a confrontation between two clashing philosophies, one which points to state and federal constitutional protections of a fundamental civil right, and the other which ultimately insists those protections, and the right, do not exist.

Washington State will be a major battleground, perhaps the “Gettysburg” of this cultural civil war.

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10. Murder rate plummets as gun ownership soars
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Member Bill Albritton emailed me this:

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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/kwbdoe2

CONGRESSIONAL STUDY: MURDER RATE PLUMMETS AS GUN OWNERSHIP SOARS
by AWR HAWKINS
December 4, 2013

A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report shows that while gun ownership climbed from 192 million firearms in 1994 to 310 million firearms in 2009, crime fell—and fell sharply.

According to the report, the "firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide" rate was 6.6 per 100,000 Americans in 1993. Following the exponential growth in the number of guns, that rate fell to 3.6 per 100,000 in 2000.

This rate rose from 2004 to 2005 and got as high as 3.9 in 2006 and 2007, but it then resumed falling in 2008, the year the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that individual firearm possession is Constitutionally protected—particularly for self-defense. This figure fell to 3.2 per 100,000 by 2011.

In other words, as the number of firearms almost doubled over a nearly 20-year period, the "firearm-related murder and non-negligent homicide" rate was more than halved.

Additionally, the overall murder rate dropped from 9.0 per 100,000 in 1994 to 4.7 in 2011. The overall number of estimated murder victims fell from 23,326 in 1994 to 14,612 in 2011. For estimated firearms-related murder victims, those numbers are 16,333 in 1994 and 9,903 in 2011.

The firearm category that led the way from 1994 through 2009 was handguns. And these were "mostly pistols, revolvers, and derringers," the most concealable types of guns.

So after after all the pro-gun control grandstanding and the relentless focus on how the so-called easy availability of guns drives up crime, the CRS report shows that more guns—especially more concealable guns—has actually correlated with less crime.

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11. CNN Poll: Opposition to gun control up 23 percent since January
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Reader James Durso emailed me this:

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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/l5xvtbj

CNN POLL: OPPOSITION TO GUN CONTROL UP 23 PERCENT SINCE JANUARY
by AWR HAWKINS
December 4, 2013

According to a poll by CNN and ORC International, opposition to gun control has risen 23 percent since January. As a result, a majority of Americans no longer support gun control.

Released on December 4th, the poll shows that 50 percent of Americans oppose more gun control. This is up from 27 percent in January.

49 percent Americans still support gun control to one degree or another, but this number down from a high of 55 percent in January as well.

CNN Polling Director Keating Holland says the drop in gun control support is due to regional differences: "Demographically speaking, the drop in support for stricter gun laws is mostly based on where people live, with a 10-point decline in the Midwest and a 15-point drop in urban areas having a lot to do with the overall decline nationally."

Holland said support for gun control can still be found in the Northeast and the West.

The poll was conducted November 18-20.

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12. Commercial shows what REAL gun owners look like [VIDEO]
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

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From bulletsfirst.net: http://tinyurl.com/qgll4za

Commercial Shows What REAL Gun Owners Look Like; Stark Contrast To Media Sensationalized Caricatures
by bulletsfirst
December 5, 2013

While the gun haters/controllers try to paint those who choose to exercise their right to keep and bear arms as vigilantes, cowboys and wannabe cops in order to try and marginalize the more than 80 million gun owners in America, there are others who actually like to promote little things like, you know, the truth.

And the truth of the matter is that gun owners, by and large, are just regular folks going about their business and understanding that when the moment comes, they are on their own to protect themselves. Sure, the police can come later and file a report or make a chalk outline but the chances of an officer being present to protect an individual personally are slim at best.

Think about it. How many rapes are stopped by police intervention? How many home invasions are PREVENTED due to an officer being there by happenstance? How many mass shootings are PREVENTED due to police?

Sure, the police can arrive and stop its continuation, or take a report and investigate and search for the culprit, but as far as STOPPING crime, that is not what the police do.

That IS what regular citizens can and have done. And they don’t have to be former military special forces or retired cops in order to protect themselves with a gun. I recently wrote an article entitled “Old and Bad-Ass” that detailed a half dozen instances where private citizens in their 60′s, 70′s and 80′s who used a firearm to PREVENT a crime being taken place.

Now these octogenarians aren’t some vigilante gun happy cowboys going out of their way to shoot someone. They were just regular people living their lives and understanding that their protection was in their own hands.

That notion is what makes the following commercial so good.

These are the faces of people who carry. They come in all types, old and young, those with kids and those who are single, different races, different incomes from high to low. These are the people who carry. Just normal people. They open carry, the carry concealed, they carry to protect themselves, they carry to protect their children.

Too often the gun hating media sensationalizes a negative in order to try and cast a shadow over all the gun owners and carriers in the nation. If that is all people are being fed eventually they will think that what is reported is actually the truth.

Fortunately we, as gun owners, have begun to wage our own campaign in order to let those uniformed about guns know that the people who carry are their neighbors, their friends, their co-workers. That carrying a firearm is a normal thing and that it shouldn’t be vilified, stigmatized or ostracized.

And it seems to be working.

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13. What we believe, part 5: gun rights [VIDEO]
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Great talk on the 2A.

Sam Houchins emailed me this:

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From youtube.com: http://youtu.be/kRAw3VWVyD8

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14. Young women are driving record firearm sales
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Not good news for the gun-ban crowd, the majority of whom are women.

Member James Durso emailed me this:

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From pjmedia.com: http://tinyurl.com/owfwgef

Young Women Are Driving Record Firearm Sales
by Bryan Preston
December 3, 2013

This article in the Colorado Daily Camera is fantastic, but it’s missing something.

The Well Armed Woman — their slogan is “Where the Feminine and Firearm Meet” — advertises stylish purses designed for concealed carry.

Another online retailer, Pistols & Pumps — “Concealed and High Heeled” — offers pink camouflage hats and bra-mounted holsters.

Gungoddess.com – the name, apparently, is sufficient — sells a variety of “gun bling,” including leopard-print handgun grips and zebra-print ear protection.

Such items may seem odd to some, but these retailers understand their customer base — a group of young, strong, determined and armed women. And just because their bullets may be fired from pistols with rhinestone-studded grips doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be taken seriously.

These women are among a growing population of gun owners who fiercely fight for their right to own and carry a gun for self-protection.

“A woman with pepper spray is smart, a woman who takes self-defense is prepared, but a woman with a gun is scary,” said Rachael Makowski, a 25-year-old nanny in Westminster, Colo. “And when it comes down to my life or theirs, I want them to be just as afraid of me as I am of them.”

Self-reported gun ownership — among both men and women in the U.S. — is the highest it has been since 1993.

At the same time that the Democrats are trying and trying again to make “gun control” — making it harder to buy and own your own gun — a winning political issue for them. If only there was a political party out there that was a) pro gun rights and b) smart enough to use its support of gun rights to win over young female voters. Wouldn’t that be nice? If such a world existed, I would very much like to live in it.

At any rate, as I mentioned, the article is fantastic and I recommend reading the whole thing. It profiles what might be called archetypes of today’s female gun owner: the teacher, the students, the cheerleaders — gun owners all. What it lacks is this ad, to show how a gun might be used for self-defense.

It also lacks visual examples of women who own guns.

At PJ Media, we’re here to help. Consider it a public service.

So here’s Shelbie Murry. She’s a Houston Texans cheerleader.

The Texans are losers this year, but Shelbie Murry isn’t.

She likes guns. Long guns.

And hand guns.

So there’s our cheerleader. The teacher is a little harder to find.

Cheryl Torrenueva isn’t exactly a teacher. Sort of. She’s a designer on the cable show Restaurant: Impossible. She teaches restaurant owners how to update their drab spaces.

Let’s take a look at her blog. Hm. What’s this?

She says she got that from Urban Outfitters. I’ve seen those at gun shows.

Whatever she has in that case, I’m betting that it didn’t come from Urban Outfitters.

Not only is Cheryl Torrenueva one of the hottest interior designers on TV…I think she likes guns. And she’s a pretty good shot.

So there’s our cheerleader and our teacher. We need students.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure that Nikki Jones isn’t a student. I’m also pretty sure that I don’t care.

Jennifer Lawrence was playing a student in this movie. Close enough?

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15. Armed to sell: Local women are taking protection into their own hands
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

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I have been a Real Estate Appraiser / Broker for over 38 years.

Some of the female agents that know that I am into firearms are showing interest in being armed for protection. [PVC: Good for them! Selling real estate can be dangerous when done alone. There are plenty of cases where agents are asked to show someone a remote house and then are raped and/or murdered.]

From santamariasun.com: http://tinyurl.com/ma9vbcl

Armed to sell: Local women real estate agents are taking protection into their own hands
by Wendy Thies Sell
December 4, 2013

White and pink crystals glued to the gun’s grip shimmered in the morning light as she pulled the .45-caliber pistol from her purse.

Two sparkling hearts positioned precisely where this young woman clutches an undeniably lethal weapon create a curious paradox.

“It can kill somebody. This is not a toy,” she said about her Springfield XD semi-automatic pistol. “If you get shot with that, you die.”

She is an attractive, self-assured 30-something Santa Maria real estate agent who agreed to talk with the Sun on the condition of anonymity. We will call her Amanda*.

“There are too many stories of women being raped and too many stories of women being murdered,” Amanda said about her real estate colleagues nationwide who fall victim to violence. “I don’t want to be one of those statistics.”

Amanda bought the handgun 10 years ago after two alarming events happened just months apart.

When she was in her early 20s, a man broke into her home near Allan Hancock College while she slept, but he ran off when he heard a barking dog.

“It made me realize I didn’t have any way to protect myself,” she said.

The second incident could have been worse.

A bank asked her to inspect an abandoned house on Santa Maria’s northwest side to provide a broker price opinion.

She unlocked the front door, entered the home, and was surprised to find six teenage boys inside.

“They were in there smoking weed and drinking and partying, and here I am this 21-year-old girl walking in on this, with a bunch of these gangster-wannabe kids,” Amanda recalled.

As they started to surround her, Amanda
realized no one else knew she was there. No one else would know if she was harmed. No one would come help her.

“My adrenaline starting pumping—I almost passed out, I was so nervous,” she recalled.

She turned around and ran out to her car. She decided then and there it was time to pack heat.

Within days, she was handing over $750 at a Santa Maria gun store for a .45-caliber Springfield XD, the same handgun that the Santa Maria Police Department issues to its officers.

After testing a wide range of firearms, Amanda said the Springfield felt the most comfortable in her hand. She liked the size of the grip and the feel of the slide, and most importantly she wanted the safety features.

“The reason I bought this gun is it lets me know if there’s a round in the chamber and if it’s cocked. It can’t accidently cock itself,” Amanda explained. “This gun is a lot safer because you have to physically cock it.

“It’s a big gun,” she said matter-of-factly. “I wanted something ‘real’ instead of a small gun where the bullet goes right through [an assailant’s] shoulder and they can still come at you.”

Over the years, she has trained with a variety of instructors and has logged hundreds of hours target shooting.

“It’s not like riding a bike,” she said. “You have to practice regularly.”

Amanda still visits empty, bank-owned properties for her job. Her handgun usually comes with her. When her pistol isn’t in her purse, it’s locked in her safe at home. As many as 15 times in recent years she has entered homes in Santa Maria she believed to be vacant, but were actually inhabited by squatters—people who unlawfully stay in an unoccupied house.

Amanda announces herself before entering such properties, at which time most squatters climb out of a window and run away. But some exhibit aggressive behavior.

“If they show a reluctance to leave—if they’re more likely to stand and leer or try to talk poop to me—at those times I’ll pull the gun out of my purse and I’ll just hold it in my hand where it’s visible, not in a threatening manner, and just have it there,” Amanda admitted. “And usually that’s just enough to get people to stop with the aggressive behavior and just go.

“I try to do everything as legally as I can and still be able to maintain it as a level of safety and protection,” she said. “If having [my pistol] in my hand is enough to diffuse the situation, I will do it every time. … It does lend me a level of security and comfort and strength.”

Real estate realities

According to national statistics, each year real estate professionals are robbed, assaulted, or even murdered while doing their job, showing homes to strangers.

In October of this year, a 29-year-old sales agent in Ohio was attacked and robbed by two masked men in a model home.

In 2011, a 27-year-old real estate agent was shot to death in Iowa during an open house.

A 67-year-old Ohio woman was strangled, robbed, and killed in 2010 when two men, targeting agents, set ablaze the house that she was showing.

In 2008 a 71-year-old Wisconsin grandmother and real estate agent was attacked and killed by a man posing as a prospective buyer.

In fact, 26 real estate and rental professionals were homicide victims in the workplace in 2012, according to the most current data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and hundreds more are victims of non-fatal attacks on the job each year.

Robbery is usually the motive and crimes like these usually happen in remote vacant homes, when the real estate professional is alone.

Following recent attacks this fall, the National Association of Realtors sent out an alert reminding its members to be careful and to access its numerous safety tips, webinars, and resources to help them stay safe at work.

Real estate agents in Santa Barbara County have had close calls over the past several years, but have escaped serious physical harm.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley told the Sun her office hasn’t prosecuted any such cases in recent memory.

“I know there are other areas that have had some horrible things happen,” said Shea Hutchinson, president of the Santa Maria Association of Realtors. “We’re lucky that nothing has taken place [here] for years of that nature.”

Unsolved realtor assault

Approximately 25 years ago, a real estate agent in Santa Maria was brutally attacked while selling a house. We’ll call her Susan*.

Susan’s friend and fellow real estate agent Pamela*, who asked the Sun not to reveal her identity, described the disturbing events.

While Susan was holding an open house at a home for sale in Santa Maria, a man slipped in unnoticed, hid upstairs, and once everyone else left, he called out to her. Susan went upstairs, where she was ambushed.

“He beat her, cracked her sternum—she had to have stitches in her head—cracked her knuckles, and tied her with cords. He was truly there to frighten her,” Pamela said.

“Clearly, he could have killed her if he opted to. She had to get herself together, untie herself, and go to a neighbor’s house for help,” she said. “We didn’t have cell phones then.”

Pamela said Susan was attacked in the same house where just a few weeks earlier a man had seriously beaten the homeowner with a bat.

Susan soon teamed up with Pamela for protection, never showing a home alone again.

There are steps that most real estate agents take to safeguard themselves, such as working in teams, asking clients for identification, and letting their offices know their whereabouts during the day.

One real estate agent told the Sun when she meets a new male client alone at a house, she photographs his car’s license plate and texts it to her significant other.

The Sun spoke with several real estate professionals; some carry a handgun, others keep guns at home, and more are considering buying a firearm.

A law enforcement perspective

Amanda doesn’t have a Carry a Concealed Weapon permit (CCW), which makes bringing her loaded gun to work, hidden in her purse, illegal.

Such a license is difficult to obtain in Santa Barbara County because Sheriff Bill Brown has a strict policy on concealed weapons.

According to Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Kelly Hoover, they “currently have 53 CCWs issued in Santa Barbara County. Out of those, five are issued to females.”

In most circumstances, if police catch an otherwise law-abiding citizen with a concealed firearm without a CCW, the crime is considered a misdemeanor.

Lompoc Police Sgt. Deanna Clement advises the public to leave it to the professionals to deal with perpetrators, rather than using a firearm for self-protection.

“The most important thing for people to do is to call 911 and get help on the way from people who are trained on how to use guns properly,” said Clement, who has been on the force in Lompoc for 23 years.

Nationwide, gun ownership is increasing rapidly, especially among women. A 2011 Gallup poll reported that 23 percent of American women personally own a gun—at least 20 million women. That’s up from 13 percent in 2005, an increase of 77 percent.

A 2013 Gallup poll found that the overwhelming reason Americans own a gun is for personal safety/protection (60 percent).

“I would say if anybody decided they wanted to own a gun for protection … learn how to use it properly,” Clement said. “Many times they shoot it and they have no idea of the power behind the gun; it will fall out of their hand, it will knock them backward if they’re shooting a shotgun or a rifle.

“To remain proficient you have to have to continue to shoot. You can’t just go out and shoot a gun one time and expect 10 years later to be in a threatening situation where you have to use it, and be able to fire and protect yourself,” she said. “You have to keep up on your training and you have to be shooting it often.”

Ready … aim … fire!

Employees of Tacti-Cool Guns & Gear in Santa Maria have trained thousands of local women and men on how to properly handle a firearm.

“The local demand from women around here is pretty incredible actually,” owner Brian Anton said. “We get everybody from housewives, school teachers, attorneys, doctors—all walks of life.”

Anton said half of his female students tell him they want a firearm for personal protection; others want to be familiar with a gun, if there’s already one in the home.

“They want to be able to educate their family, their kids, that guns are not toys, to have respect for them,” Anton explained. “A lot of parents, mothers especially, want to take the curiosity out of firearms with their families and at least be competent enough to explain why you shouldn’t mess with one.”

The store, located on Preisker Lane, specializes in tactical and self-defense firearms and accessories. It also has Santa Maria’s only indoor three-lane pistol and rifle shooting range, which is open to the public and frequented by the California Highway Patrol and other law enforcement agencies for training.

Anton, who previously worked in law enforcement, says a firearm should be the last choice in self-defense.

“Situational awareness is the main thing, especially if you’re a Realtor who’s going to show a home or something with a man that you’ve never met before,” Anton said. “Situational awareness: You have to listen to that little voice in the back of your head or the hairs on the back of your neck.

“There are other options before you get to a firearm; much like a police officer has a use-of-force continuum, any person should too. There are things like pepper spray, Tasers, stun guns. There are levels of self-defense before you get to a firearm,” he said.

“A man usually is going to be much bigger than a woman, so you have to consider that to be a lethal threat too,” he added. “So, depending on the situation, a firearm may be the thing that [women] need.”

Tacti-Cool offers a variety of firearms training classes, including a popular series of women’s classes with room for about 30.

“It’s usually full within 24 to 48 hours of us opening the registration,” Anton said.

Tacti-Cool starts registration for the next Women’s 101 firearms training series in January.

What homeowners should know

Longtime Central Coast real estate broker Bunny Maxim is aware that her profession can be dangerous. She has been in precarious situations herself, but she puts it into perspective.

“It’s a way of life. I enjoy it,” Maxim said. “If I were a long-haul truck driver, I’d have risks there, and so do many other professions. It takes awareness, it takes preparedness, and it takes luck.”

Maxim has a request of the home-buying public: “Don’t feel invaded when I’m asking for information.”

Maxim asks that when real estate agents request a name and phone number, clients give the information willingly. There’s a legitimate reason that she wants contact information—her protection.

“Tell us who you are so we know we’re dealing with a truly legitimate person and that it makes sense. Just understand and be forthcoming,” Maxim said. “I’m not going to pursue you like a creditor. That’s not how I build relationships.

“At the very minimum, [clients] need to understand [that] a little bit of information is essential before you ask someone to meet you as an anonymous person,” she added. “I think anybody can be in danger at any time. We just need to balance the odds−you need to improve the odds for yourself.”

*This name has been changed at request of the source.

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16. Veterans being stripped of second amendment rights [VIDEO]
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/mtky4pf

VETERANS BEING STRIPPED OF SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS
December 4, 2013

NRA News Commentator episode from former Navy Seal Dom Raso who highlights a bureaucratic flaw that’s unfairly stripping veterans of their Second Amendment rights…

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17. [WV] WV AG joining with other states in federal gun purchasing case
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VCDL is part of an amicus brief filed in this particular case.

Member George Overstreet emailed me this:

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From wvmetronews.com: http://tinyurl.com/n67xr2j

West Virginia AG joining with other states in federal gun purchasing case
by MetroNews Staff in News
December 04, 2013

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia and 25 other states and a territory are joining together to fight an attempt by the federal government to prosecute the sale of guns between legal gun owners.

State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Wednesday the group has filed an amicus, or friend of the court, brief with the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the matter.

“Our Office is proud to lead a bipartisan group of 27 states and territories in this brief to oppose the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to unilaterally create a federal restriction on firearm sales between law-abiding citizens,” said Morrisey in a release.

In the case, Abramski v. United States of America, the federal government is challenging the legality of citizens legally buying a firearm from a licensed dealer with the intention of then selling that gun to another private citizen who also may legally own and purchase firearms.

The government claims that the citizen who buys and then sells the gun is acting as a “straw purchaser,” which they claim is illegal under several federal statutes.

The states, however, argue that there is currently no federal law that prohibits such a transaction between two legal gun owners.

“The State of West Virginia does not discourage private gun sales, but the Department of Justice wants to ensnare innocent West Virginian gun owners in a web of criminal laws if they try to sell their guns,” Morrisey said in the release.

At most, the federal laws currently in the books prohibit private citizens from selling guns to people who are prohibited from owning firearms, such as minors, convicted felons, or people who have been diagnosed as having mental illnesses.

Morrisey mentions that it is up to the states and their citizens to decide whether to implement additional regulations on private gun sales.

“This federal overreach is a blatant attempt to overstep state regulations and Congress in order to steer more gun sales to federally licensed dealers, who then make federal records of every transaction,” stated Morrisey.

The states’ amicus brief is in support of a former Roanoke, Va., police officer, Bruce Abramski, who purchased a gun in 2009 using a law enforcement discount and sold it to his elderly uncle, who lived in Pennsylvania. Abramski and his uncle were legally allowed to own firearms and the transaction was made
in accordance with Pennsylvania gun laws.

The federal government , however, prosecuted Abramski on the grounds that he made false statements on the gun purchase form. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the conviction this past January.

“While no one wants guns to end up in the hands of a potential or real criminal, the administration’s interpretation oversteps the law and could make criminals out of innocent citizens,” Morrisey said.

Oral arguments are scheduled for Jan. 22, 2014, with a decision to come by the end of the court’s session in June.

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18. [NY] Unarmed man is charged with wounding bystanders shot by police
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New York City PD seems to spend way too much time shooting bystanders. That is not something you hear about very often ion other localities.

Member Martin Cooley emailed me this:

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From nytimes.com: http://tinyurl.com/mr7g2es

Unarmed Man Is Charged With Wounding Bystanders Shot by Police Near Times Square
by James C. McKinley Jr.
December 4, 2013

An unarmed, emotionally disturbed man shot at by the police as he was lurching around traffic near Times Square in September has been charged with assault, on the theory that he was responsible for bullet wounds suffered by two bystanders, according to an indictment unsealed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The man, Glenn Broadnax, 35, of Brooklyn, created a disturbance on Sept. 14, wading into traffic at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue and throwing himself into the path of oncoming cars.

A curious crowd grew. Police officers arrived and tried to corral Mr. Broadnax, a 250-pound man. When he reached into his pants pocket, two officers, who, the police said, thought he was pulling a gun, opened fire, missing Mr. Broadnax, but hitting two nearby women. Finally, a police sergeant knocked Mr. Broadnax down with a Taser.

The shootings once again raised questions about the police use of firearms in crowded areas and drew comparisons to a shooting a year ago, when officers struck nine bystanders in front of the Empire State Building when they killed an armed murder suspect.

Initially Mr. Broadnax was arrested on misdemeanor charges of menacing, drug possession and resisting arrest. But the Manhattan district attorney’s office persuaded a grand jury to charge Mr. Broadnax with assault, a felony carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years. Specifically, the nine-count indictment unsealed on Wednesday said Mr. Broadnax “recklessly engaged in conduct which created a grave risk of death.”

“The defendant is the one that created the situation that injured innocent bystanders,” said an assistant district attorney, Shannon Lucey.

The two police officers, who have not been identified, have been placed on administrative duty and their actions are still under investigation by the district attorney’s office, law enforcement officials said. They also face an internal Police Department inquiry.

Mr. Broadnax’s lawyer, Rigodis Appling, said Mr. Broadnax suffered from anxiety and depression and had been disoriented and scared when the police shot at him. He was reaching for his wallet, not a gun, she said. “Mr. Broadnax never imagined his behavior would ever cause the police to shoot at him,” she said.

After his arrest, Mr. Broadnax was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he told a detective that “he was talking to dead relatives in his head and that he tried throwing himself in front of cars to kill himself,” according to a court document released on Wednesday.

A judge ordered a mental evaluation, and a psychiatrist later found Mr. Broadnax competent to stand trial, Ms. Appling said.

On Wednesday, Justice Gregory Carro set bail at $100,000 bond or $50,000 cash.

Mariann Wang, a lawyer representing Sahar Khoshakhlagh, one of the women who was wounded, said the district attorney should be pursuing charges against the two officers who fired their weapons in a crowd, not against Mr. Broadnax. “It’s an incredibly unfortunate use of prosecutorial discretion to be prosecuting a man who didn’t even injure my client,” she said. “It’s the police who injured my client.”

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19. Why Newtown didn't lead to gun control
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Member James Durso emailed me this:

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From commentarymagazine.com: http://tinyurl.com/jwk9xs8

Why Newtown Didn’t Lead to Gun Control
by Jonathan S. Tobin
December 4, 2013

Today’s release of the 9-1-1 tapes from the Newtown massacre has caused America to relive the horror of the awful day on which a mad gunman killed 20 first-graders and six staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. This has prompted a spirited debate in the media about the wisdom of broadcasting these tapes and news organizations have differed in their decisions. Count me as being on the side of those who chose not to expose the public to the tapes since they add little if anything to our understanding of the event and only serve as a form of crime porn to titillate viewers. But the main question members of the liberal mainstream media are asking today is the same one they will be posing in 10 days when we get to the first anniversary: why didn’t the disgust Americans felt at this atrocity lead to the enactment of stricter gun-control laws? But while they wonder how it is possible that the liberal media offensive didn’t buffalo politicians last winter, they’re even more perplexed as to why Newtown didn’t change public opinion on the issue. Indeed, as a new CNN/ORC poll reveals, a majority of Americans today oppose stricter gun-control laws.

The CNN poll shows that last January, at the height of the media offensive—and after President Obama decided to make the issue the centerpiece of his second-term legislative agenda—on behalf of gun control, 55 percent of the public backed tougher gun-control laws. The new poll shows that number down to 49 percent. This has to shock liberal pundits and journalists who have been operating under the assumption since Newtown that only a crazed minority of gun nuts and NRA members were opposed to the president’s gun agenda.

But the answer to their question isn’t much of a mystery. The majority of Americans understand not only that more legislation won’t stop lunatics from shooting people with legal or illegal guns, but they also don’t trust the government to enforce stricter laws fairly or to respect the constitutional rights of gun owners.

Liberals counted on a wave of emotion in the wake of Newtown to help bulldoze both Congress and the public into adopting their long-cherished dream to restrict gun ownership and make it more difficult to legally purchase weapons. In the first weeks after the massacre, they seemed to be right and polls reflected a surge in support for more gun laws. But after the nation started to look at the facts, the numbers changed. As CNN writes on their website:

The survey indicates that the intensity of opinion on the issue of gun control, once an advantage for gun control advocates, no longer benefits either side. In January 37% of all Americans strongly favored stricter gun laws, with 27% strongly opposed to them. Now that 10-point difference has completely disappeared, with the number who strongly oppose and strongly favor stricter gun control at essentially the same level.

Though the president and many in the media did their best to exploit the bloodshed, once it became apparent that the remedies proposed by the president had nothing to do with the crime, their momentum was stalled. No amount of rhetorical excess from President Obama or the pundits could cover up the fact that even if every item on his gun-control laundry list had been passed prior to the shooting, none of them would have prevented Adam Lanza from stealing weapons from his mother before killing her and then heading to the school where he committied senseless slaughter.

It is true that support for some measures like increased background checks and closing gun show sales loopholes do have strong support. But even there, resistance to those laws is fed by a sense that the liberals who claim they have no interest in taking anyone’s guns away aren’t telling the truth. As a Rasmussen poll conducted in September showed, 62 percent of those polled don’t think government can be trusted to enforce the laws fairly and 71 percent said it wasn’t possible for new laws to stop future Newtowns from occurring. A subsequent Rasmussen poll showed even more support for enforcing existing laws rather than trying new ones. The focus on so-called assault weapons was also quickly revealed to be more about cosmetics than firepower, further reducing the credibility of gun-control advocates.

The bottom line is that contrary to the expectations of liberals, the American people aren’t stupid. They understand that ideas like resurrecting assault-weapon bans and even more reasonable measures like background checks are items on the liberal legislative wish list, not an authentic response to a problem. While gun crimes are abhorrent, there is little reason to believe the liberal gun project will prevent them. All they will accomplish is to make it harder for law-abiding citizens to own guns. That’s why support for such laws is far lower today than it was 20 years ago when the Brady Bill passed.

More mental health initiatives may do something to stop the Adam Lanzas of the world from killing innocents, but the sense prevails that the push for gun control has more to do with a long-term war on the Second Amendment. That is why although Americans remain scarred by their memories of Newtown, they are even less likely to back liberal gun-control efforts than they were in the aftermath of the crime. Once emotion subsided, reason prevailed.

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20. Antis exploitation of Newtown 'shocking' to CNN
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Dave Workman emailed me this:

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From examiner.com: http://tinyurl.com/qzm7zk5

Antis exploitation of Newtown ‘shocking’ to CNN
by Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
December 6, 2013

Yesterday’s CNN headline said it all: “Shocking new gun control ad released around Newtown anniversary” and they weren’t talking about Thursday’s release of a “Guns Save Lives” advertisement that began airing yesterday on the rival Fox News channel.

The “No More Silence” ad is sponsored by the anti-gun Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG). It depicts small children in a classroom having a moment of silence in memory of the Sandy Hook victims, as someone takes something from a duffel bag and walks through the schoolhouse doors.

If an advertisement promoting gun control can “shock” a headline writer at CNN, conventional wisdom suggests the content must be pretty bad. This column mentioned the advertisement yesterday, and as the anniversary of the Sandy Hook attack looms in eight days, the hypocrisy of the gun prohibition movement is fully exposed.

After “Guns Save Lives Day” was initially announced in late September by Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, he was castigated by gun control proponents who complained that the event was pure exploitation of a tragedy to push a political agenda.

Even this week, the anti-gun Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility (WAGR) – yet another re-packaging of the term “gun control” by a group of elitists trying to hide the true nature of their effort – sent an e-mail appeal asking people to sign a petition demanding that “Guns Save Lives Day” be cancelled. Rather than allow gun banners to monopolize the discussion about gun rights, using Sandy Hook as the backdrop for promoting their traditional gun ban agenda, Gottlieb launched the “Guns Save Lives” ad, which is a poll asking people whether they agree or disagree that guns can prevent and stop lethal attacks.

Coincidentally, CNN yesterday released results of a survey showing public support for stricter gun control laws has waned, with more people opposed than in support of tougher new gun laws. Only 49 percent of the respondents want more gun regulation. That’s down six percentage points from January, when the nation was still reeling from the Newtown school shooting.

What has happened in the interim, according to Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, has been something of a public realization that none of the proposals from the gun prohibition lobby in reaction to the Newtown tragedy would have prevented it. Sanetti spoke yesterday with Examiner, and he has an especially keen perspective because the NSSF headquarters is in Newtown, not far from the scene of the attack.

Recall how Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, was ridiculed and demonized for arguing in favor of armed security at schools? Eleven months later, a number of school districts have quietly done that very thing, but because it was their idea rather than the NRA “Shield” program, the press has been rather quiet about it.

Hypocrisy is nothing new in the gun control movement. While Bloomberg pushes to disarm average citizens, he has his own armed security. While gun prohibitionists pan Gottlieb for exploiting the Connecticut attack, they launch an advertisement that clearly bares their own attempt to capitalize on tragedy, and they want to silence the opposition in the process.

The advertisement that shocked the CNN headline writer clearly is designed to evoke an emotional response, a strategy taken straight from page 6 of the gun control playbook: “Always focus on emotional and value-driven arguments…”

One might observe how curious it is that the “Guns Save Lives” advertisement seeks public opinion and provides an opportunity for gun opponents to express theirs. Meanwhile, the gun ban crowd wants to silence gun owners completely.

Which approach should raise public concern?

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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/]
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