VA-ALERT: VCDL Mini-update 1/5/15

[OakRidgeStars]

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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. Reminder: VCDL Meeting in Stafford on Wednesday!
2. Still no surveys from candidates for tomorrow's special elections
3. Article and some thoughts on the police
4. "Gun Dude" opens shop in Falls Church

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1. Reminder: VCDL Meeting in Stafford on Wednesday!
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VCDL Meeting in Stafford!

Member Sam Houchins II has arranged a library meeting room for Wednesday, January 7, 2015. We will be discussing Lobby Day and the upcoming legislative session. If you have never attended Lobby Day this is the time and place to start! We will explain the process (it's really very easy) and discuss VCDL's position on the bills that have been submitted.

This year Gov. McAuliffe has announced a long list of anti-personal defense bills aimed directly at law abiding citizens. The best way to defend against these assaults on your freedom is to show up for Lobby Day! If you have never attended, this is the time. Join us in Stafford on January 7th to learn just how easy it is to participate in the legislative process.

Place:

Central Rappahannock Regional Library
England Run Branch
806 Lyons Boulevard
Fredericksburg, VA 22406

Time:

6:30 - 7:00 Fellowship
7:00 - 8:45 Meeting
9:00 - ? Continued fellowship at a local restaurant

RSVP: Pat.Webb@vcdl.org Please note, the room only holds about 45 people so please RSVP early so that we will know if we need to request more space.

As always, VCDL meetings are open to both members and non-members. Please invite your friends and neighbors to attend. VCDL is effective because of you, the members! We hope to see you at a local meeting and count on seeing you at Lobby Day!


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2. Still no surveys from candidates for tomorrow's special elections
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We have not received any VCDL candidate surveys back for the special elections tomorrow. Member Stephen Hood did report to me that Democrat Barbara Murphy, who is running against Republic Craig Parisot in the 34th Virginia House District (the one vacated by Barbara Comstock), stated in the January 1 edition of "Leesburg Today" that she supports "expanded background checks for gun purchases."

Here is more on the two races being determined tomorrow:

On Tuesday, January 6, 2015, there will be two Special Elections in House of Delegates Districts 34 & 63 to fill vacancies created by the incumbents being elected to other offices.

All four candidates running for these two positions were sent the VCDL 2014 Candidate Survey. So far, no candidate has responded.

The survey questions can be found at: http://www.vcdl.org/survey_2014_ga

If you live in either of these Districts, please contact the two candidates in your district and politely, but firmly, insist that they complete the VCDL survey and send it in immediately. If they have misplaced their survey, have them contact me, Jim Snyder, at vp@vcdl.org and I'll email them another copy.

You can view a maps of these two districts:

District 34: http://tinyurl.com/oh36kwx
District 63: http://tinyurl.com/ln9cemy

Not sure if you're in these Districts? You can find out at:
http://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov

The Candidates Email Phone
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34 Kathleen Murphy (D) electkathleenmurphy@gmail.com 703-662-1334
34 Craig Parisot (R) info@craigparisot.com 703-356-0240

63 Joseph E. Preston (D) josephepreston@gmail.com
63 W. H. Jones, Jr. (I) wmousejones@yahoo.com

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If any of the candidates are afraid to take a public stand on these issues now, BEFORE the election, then they are unlikely to be very responsive to your views AFTER the election.

Failure to return a completed survey frequently indicates indifference, if not outright hostility, toward the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Thanks for your help in motivating these candidates to take a public stand on these issues by answering the VCDL Candidate Survey!


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3. Article and some thoughts on the police
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Recent "assassination"-type attacks on police officers in several states have got me asking myself if there is anything we, as gun owners, could do to help protect our police officers.

I know that sounds backwards, but disaffected domestic terrorists have been targeting police lately to bring chaos and anarchy to America.

I know a few of you have told me that you will sometimes pull over when you see a lone officer handling a traffic stop where he is dangerously outnumbered. The idea being that if the officer ends up in dire straights, you might be able to help him.

Here are some of the problems with that as I see them:

1. The office doesn't know who YOU are. Are you there to help? Are you just someone who stopped to observe? Or are you a buddy of the guys he just stopped? The last thing on Earth that you want to do at such a time is to distract that officer from the job at hand. If you stop at least 50 yards behind him, stay in your vehicle and simply observe, that might not be too distracting to him.

2. Is your stopped vehicle a road hazard or in someway impeding traffic? If so, you are again adding to the officer's headaches.

3. If something did happen and you came to the officer's aide, would he know you were there to help him? Would arriving officers know you were there to help?

It is a very dangerous situation for the gun owner. Even off-duty or plainclothes police have gotten shot by on-duty police who didn't realize who they were.

At least an off-duty officer has a badge he can either show or wear to indicate his "good guy" status. (CHP badges are not a good idea, either.) We have nothing to indicate our "good guy" status. No secret hand motion or some special way to flash our car lights. No uniform. Nothing.

The ideal thing would be to send a signal to those who are being stopped that the officer is not alone. That there is at least another person there to back him up if things go wrong. Those being stopped by the officer don't know who you are either, and might assume you are another officer serving as back up.

There are over 370,000 CHP holders in Virginia alone, out numbering the police many, many times over.

If you are one of the police officers who are on VA-ALERT and you have thoughts on how, or if, gun owners can help, please reach out to me. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Here's an article to remind everyone just how important that "thin, blue line" is to our way of life:

http://www.mantecabulletin.com/section/ ... le/119164/

Don’t like the police? Then let’s have a ‘Purge’ 24/7
POSTED January 3, 2015 12:10 a.m.

Just how thin is the thin blue line?

Averaging various studies the United States has 248 law enforcement officers per 100,000 residents or the 34th lowest in the world. Those figures include anybody with the authority to arrest such as FBI agents, Immigration & Customs Enforcement and a whole slew of A to Z federal and state agencies with enforcement powers in addition to the men and women who respond when you call 9-1-1.

When you get down to officers that work for local law enforcement — the ones we rely on to keep our neighborhoods and streets safe — there are roughly 100 per 100,000 residents.

In Manteca it is less than that.

And at any given time there are significantly less officers on duty. You do the math. There are 72 uniformed Manteca Police officers who have to cover shifts 24-7, seven days a week, 365 days a year while factoring in vacation, sick leave, and court time.

Simply put, there isn’t a lot of cavalry.

No one is going to argue that there aren’t officers who have no business being in law enforcement. The same can be said for other professions from teaching and medicine to driving cabs.

Nor should officers get a pass from following rules due to the type of job they have.

But the thought that an extremely small but growing handful of protestors are pursuing that somehow we live in a police state therefore it’s open season on officers is just as a dangerous threat to the republic as were the terrorists that hijacked three planes and slammed them into targets on American soil on 9-11.

Civilization exists only when there is order.

Although the political correct extremists are trying to make speech or action that they don’t like illegal, those who wear the badge aren’t thought police.

They are defending our communities against crime whether it is violence, stealing, wanton destruction, or irresponsible driving.

They encounter people every day suspected of undermining civilization who are often not predisposed to cooperating or being arrested. They will sometimes make threatening moves toward police officers. That may include moving to pull something from their pocket while advancing, lunging at an officer to try and cause them great bodily harm or grab a weapon, or to plunge some sharp object into them.

If someone raises a realistic looking toy gun against them they can’t tell the difference in a split second it would take that person to pull the trigger. Few of us would be crazy enough if we had a way of defending ourselves with our own weapon to simply stand there and play Russian roulette. Officers have a right to still be alive when their shift ends.

Nor can they tell if a gun being raised and pointed at them is empty or loaded or if the person has no real intention of shooting. They aren’t psychics.

And in those cases when someone is violently resisting they do not know if they have a weapon they can pull, are on PCP, or can overpower them.

That’s why they are trained to use chokeholds and such to control a situation before it results in serious injury or death to themselves, a bystander or the suspect.

Officers can’t tell whether someone attacking them has a heart condition or other serious hidden health ailments. So if they opt to use less than lethal force — a taser — and the person later dies of a heart attack how much of that blame, if any, should fall on a police officer?

Again, there are instances of officers exceeding their authority and reasonable restraint. The full Rodney King video underscores that point. For perhaps the first 50 second or so, officers were in a violent struggle to control King, but for the final minute of the video it is clear they were beating him mercilessly.

If you post threats on line, why are you surprised that you get arrested? Give your child a replica automatic weapon to play with, why are you incensed that an officer shoots them when he aggressively points it at them? Take a swing at an officer when they are trying to arrest you, how can you be incensed they used force?

Yes, less than lethal force can lead to death if all of the circumstances are right. Would you prefer officers not use tasers, chokeholds, and other less-than-lethal weapons and go right to firing their guns?

Would you rather not have an officer draw a gun when they determine they have no other choice and embolden the lawless?

You don’t call a protestor in Oakland when there is a drive-by shooting in your neighborhood, a gunman walking down your street, your home is being burglarized or you see someone being beaten up or robbed.

That isn’t to say police don’t cross the line.

But let’s also make it clear protestors also cross the line.

Advocating violence against police officers is the same as declaring it an open season on all law-abiding citizens.

The men and women or law enforcement are the only ones stopping American streets from turning into a domestic Kabul. But instead of ideological terrorists the people no longer being kept in check would be the domestic terrorists who rape, rob, steal, plunder, maim and kill.

Just think what your world would be like without police officers.

Everyday would be like the world depicted in the movie “Purge” where all laws are suspended and officers would never respond.


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4. "Gun Dude" opens shop in Falls Church
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"The Gun Dude" has finally found a location in NoVA for a brick and mortar store. Here is the web page:

https://www.thegundude.com/

And the grand-opening press release:

http://authoritypresswire.com/the-gun-d ... ington-dc/




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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/]

[MNMGoneShooting]

Anyone from King George heading down for Lobby Day who wants a ride, give me a shout out.


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