VA-ALERT: Charlottesville meeting Tuesday, Jan. 13., more...

[OakRidgeStars]

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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 pre-Lobby Day membership meeting in Charlottesville on Tuesday, Jan. 13!
2. Article on non-existent "Gun Show loophole"
3. Lobby Day is next Monday. We still have some empty bus seats!


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1. Reminder: VCDL pre-Lobby Day membership meeting in Charlottesville on Tuesday, Jan. 13!
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From EM Pat Webb:

On Tuesday, January 13, 2015 the Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club (RRPC) will host their first VCDL meeting of 2015. This may be the most important meeting of the year because we will be discussing strategy for Lobby Day, January 19, 2015.

Lobby Day is the single most important event that VCDL organizes. We form groups and hand-deliver a legislative packet to every Delegate in the General Assembly. This packet outlines VCDL’s position on all firearms related bills introduced in the General Assembly, but more importantly it explains WHY a bill is good or bad. Most of your representatives really appreciate this. They also respect the fact that you, a busy private citizen, took time out of your schedule to voice your opinion in person! Participation is easy, even if you have never done anything like this before. You will be paired with an experienced group leader and the guided step by step. This is your chance to influence the fate of Virginia gun owners!

Please mark your calendar for both the VCDL meeting on 1/13 and Lobby Day on 1/19 (8:30 AM at the General Assembly Building at 9th and Broad Streets in Richmond).

We will begin the VCDL meeting with a potluck dinner at 6:30 PM, followed by the meeting from 7:00—9:00. Bring your family, friends and neighbors. As always, the main course and drinks will be provided. If you can bring a side dish to share please do. If you can’t, don’t worry there will be plenty to eat! We hope to see you there!

Again we thank RRPC for their continued hospitality and support!

Where: Rivanna Rifle & Pistol Club (RRPC)
1570 Old Lynchburg Road
Charlottesville, VA

Directions: From I-64, take exit 120 South (5th Street Exit), go 4 miles to range on the right

Time: Dinner 6:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Meeting 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

RSVP if attending dinner to:

Pat.Webb@vcdl.org

Include meeting date and the number eating in the subject line. (i.e. 1/13 meeting 3 for dinner).


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2. Article on non-existent "Gun Show loophole"
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In the article, below, it is admitted that requiring private sales at gun shows to go through a background check will do little to stop criminals from getting guns. Instead, the claim is made that Virginia needs "universal background checks" to stop the flow of guns to criminals.

Universal background checks will not stop criminals from getting guns, either. States that have implemented it still have plenty of criminals running around with guns. That's because a straw purchase can get around all background checks easily.

When universal background checks fail to stop criminals getting guns, there will be calls for "universal registration" to enforce the universal background check law. And, at that point, confiscation will be right around the corner.

Private sales being exempt from background checks is an important safety valve to protect our liberty as it keeps the government from knowing exactly what guns we have.

The article discusses how the number of people blocked by NICS from purchasing a gun has dropped percentage-wise even more than the number of background checks being run. But, the article claims, the number of people arrested AS A PERCENTAGE OF DENIALS has actually gone up.

Why? Better policing? More accurate records? More straw purchases? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

The real question is how many people were successfully prosecuted after being denied a firearm purchase? I'm betting it's a very, very small number. It's got to be, as only 169 people were denied in the first place last year. And, if history provides any lessons, the lion's share of those were false denials. Indeed the article below implies that a mere 29 people were actually arrested after being denied. And frequently those with “felony records” arrested for lying on the form are people living exemplary, law abiding lives who didn’t recall or realize that a non-violent offense decades ago forever prohibited them from a right to self-defense.

These background checks are a colossal waste of time and resources, for both the government and gun owners. If they went away tomorrow, I don't think we'd miss them at all.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/politics/gu ... 94f0c.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/nsk2xk9

'Gun show loophole' discussion takes place amid rise in arrests

Posted: Sunday, January 11, 2015 9:08 pm
By Mark Bowes Richmond Times-Dispatch

As state legislators prepare to consider a proposal by Gov. Terry McAuliffe to close the “gun show loophole,” new state data show that the percentage of arrests at gun shows among people denied approval to buy firearms has increased for a third consecutive year.

The volume of gun show sales, purchase denials and arrests all declined in 2014 — a year in which all commercial gun sales in Virginia dropped an estimated 15 percent from 2013. But in an increase, 35 percent of the people denied permission to buy firearms were then charged with being legally prohibited to possess a gun.

The denial-to-arrest figure has climbed for three years in a row and suggests an upward trend by state police in enforcing firearm laws at Virginia gun shows.

That percentage rose from 10.6 percent in 2011 — the first year that state police began tracking gun show transactions — to 12.4 percent in 2012 and to 27 percent in 2013.

“This is a positive sign that people are being arrested for illegally trying to obtain firearms [at gun shows],” said criminologist Thomas Baker, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, who analyzed the recently released state police firearm transaction data for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

State trooper D.M. Sottile, who has worked gun shows in Henrico County for five years, said stronger enforcement by police and the placement of a Virginia Firearms Transaction Center employee at gun shows to conduct background checks has helped boost the denial-to-arrest rate in recent years.

“Having someone from the firearms unit … on-site is a major help,” Sottile said. “Before, we actually had to do everything by phone, which was time consuming. Having someone there that can print things out for you makes a world of difference.”

Closing the gun show loophole, which would require criminal background checks for both commercial and private sales at those events, is one of a series of election-year gun control proposals being pushed by McAuliffe in the legislative session that convenes on Wednesday.

Baker said McAuliffe’s proposal to require background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows might curb some illegal transactions, but said that ending private sales at such events would do little to stop private sellers from making legal “parking lot sales.”

“Unless the private-sale loophole is entirely closed, requiring background checks at gun shows alone may do little to curb people who are legally prohibited from buying or possessing a firearm from buying one from a private seller,” Baker said.

In September, Baker published an article titled “Reducing Gun Crime in Virginia: Trends and the Need for Clear Thinking in Public Policy” in The Virginia News Letter, a Weldon Cooper Center publication on public policy issues.

“I don’t think making background checks limited only to sales that take place in public venues like gun shows and stores is going to stop the type of sales that lead to criminals buying guns,” said Baker, who supports the Second Amendment right to own a firearm but favors reasonable restrictions in obtaining guns, including universal background checks. “To have real teeth and dissuade people from selling guns to criminals, all firearm sales should require a background check.

“Doing that would place the burden not only on criminals to not pursue firearms but also on people looking to sell guns, too,” Baker added. “This has the potential to limit the available markets in which those legally prohibited from buying firearms are able to do so. Governor McAuliffe’s current proposal only partially gets at one of those markets.”

McAuliffe’s proposal, contained in a bill submitted by Del. Ken Plum, D-Fairfax County, would prohibit “firearm show vendor(s)” from transferring weapons at gun shows to prospective buyers without a criminal background check. Under current law, only licensed firearm dealers must conduct such a check.

The bill also requires that gun show promoters provide vendors access to licensed dealers who would conduct the background check.

A separate bill introduced by state Sen. Donald McEachin, D-Richmond, would make it a Class 2 misdemeanor for a person who is not a licensed firearms dealer to sell, buy, rent, trade or transfer a firearm to any person who is not a licensed dealer. The bill would exempt certain transfers, such as between immediate family members. The bill’s language is not specific to gun shows.

Legislative committees during the General Assembly’s 2013 session scuttled a number of bills to close the gun show loophole.

There were 79 gun shows held in Virginia last year, or 22 percent more than 2013, and the most since 2011. But the number of gun show transactions — and a corresponding number of background checks — declined 23 percent, from 43,497 in 2013 to 33,484 last year.

“We saw this pattern with gun sales generally in Virginia, but the drop at gun shows was even more pronounced,” Baker said.

Gun show transactions represented 8.2 percent of Virginia’s total of 405,838 transactions in 2014 involving all commercial sales, state police figures show.

Not surprisingly, Baker said, the number of people whose background checks were denied also fell, from 263 in 2013 to 169 last year.

“While we would expect to see a drop in denials with a drop in the total number of background checks, the proportion in which the denials dropped was quite a bit larger than the proportion in which background checks dropped,” said Baker, noting that background checks fell 23 percent while denials dropped 36 percent.

The number of denials represents a miniscule fraction of total gun show transactions. In 2013, roughly 0.6 percent of all background checks were denied. In 2014, 0.5 percent of all background checks resulted in denial.

“Still, more of the denials that occurred in 2014 resulted in arrest versus denials in 2013,” Baker said. [PVC: Arrest does NOT equal conviction necessarily.]

Typically, many of those arrested are charged with falsely misrepresenting personal information on the background check form, such as whether they had been convicted of a felony or had been involuntarily committed for mental illness.

Last year, 18 people who police said had felony records were charged at gun shows with lying on firearm transaction documents and attempting to buy guns. Eleven people were charged with falsely claiming they had no mental health prohibition to buy a gun, records show.

Baker said the drop in background checks and denials at gun shows reveals very little about sales between private citizens that took place at those events.


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3. Lobby Day is next Monday. We still have some empty bus seats!
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Let's fill up those seats on the Lobby Day buses!

(We have 4 seats that have been donated, so if you want to go to Lobby Day, but can't budget it in, don't be shy - let me know.)

Here is the latest schedule for all the buses:

• Charlottesville (6:15 AM / 4 PM)
• City Hall, 605 E. Main St.
• Fairfax County (6 AM / 4 PM)
• Park & Ride at the Fairfax Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway
• Fredericksburg (7 AM / 3 PM)
• Gander Mountain, 3708 Plank Road
• Hampton (6:45 AM / 3:30 PM)
• Hampton Colliseum, 1000 Coliseum Drive. From Mercury Blvd pass lights on Coliseum drive, make first right into parking lot
• Harrisonburg (6 AM / 4:15 PM)
• City Municipal Building, 345 South Main Street
• Lynchburg (5 AM/ 5:30 PM)
• City Hall, 900 Church St.
• Roanoke (4 AM / 5:10 PM)
• Park and Ride on I-81 exit 140
• Virginia Beach (6 AM / 4 PM)
• HRT Silverleaf Park and Ride, 4300 Commuter Dr

Each bus holds 55 passengers and we are taking reservations for seats now - first come, first serve.
The cost is $25 per seat for VCDL members and their party and $30 per seat for non-members and their party. We will also gratefully accept additional contributions to help defray the rest of the cost for the buses (which is actually around $32 per seat).

To make your reservation, send an email to: bus@vcdl.org

Include the following information in the email:

• The locality where you will be catching the bus
• The number in your party
• For each member of your party, include:
• Their full name
• Their email address (if they have one)
• Their cell phone number (if none, then their home phone)

ONCE YOU HAVE GOTTEN A CONFIRMATION THAT YOUR SEATS ARE RESERVED, then you can pay for your seats by clicking here:

https://mobipledge.mobi/vcdl/webpledge/

(You can pay for all the seats with one payment and, again, you can donate more if you wish to help defray more of the cost for the buses.)

Just bring the receipt with you when boarding on January 19th.




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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/]