VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 3/18/15

Post by **OakRidgeStars** » Thu, 19 Mar 2015 08:31:02

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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. Clearing up confusion over SB 1191
2. Petition to repeal last year's 7N6 (5.45x39) ammo ban
3. Circuit Court Clerks should not charge $2 fee for credit card use with CHP application
4. Roanoke Times hit piece and counter hit-piece on guns
5. Antis set up fake gun store in New York for propaganda video
6. VCDL on Freedom and Prosperity Radio - audio online
7. Gun ownership declining? John Lott doesn't think so
8. Gabrielle Giffords gets a navy shipped named after her
9. Should you clean suppressors?
10. Attempted robbery of Chesterfield Post Office with semi-automatic weapon
11. Man shot by mother of toddler after breaking into home listed in stable condition
12. Obama's odd series of exaggerated claims
13. Bloomberg teams with AlJazeera: gun news in America from a hit man's daughter
14. Review: 'Strongest' research shows no link between gun ownership rates and higher crime
15. What you need to know about the armor-piercing bullet controversy
16. Another self-defense gun use that never happens
17. Caught on video: Bloomberg mayor doing perverted "gun rights" dance
18. [FL] Mother opened the door for a person she thought was a UPS deliveryman
19. [OR] Anti-gun filmmaker arrested after attacking gun rights supporter [VIDEO]
20. Screams, then gunfire as neighbor shoots attacking dogs
21. Man who shot dogs attacking neighbor says he fired warning shot
22. Senate confirms new surgeon general
23. Gun-hostile surgeon general confirmed
24. Why gun-control advocates lie about guns
25. What's behind growing gun rights support in the US?
26. [CT] Second Amendment protects dirk knives and police batons
27. [AZ] Complete repudiation: Pro-gun candidate wins Giffords' former house seat

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1. Clearing up confusion over SB 1191
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A few of you were confused about why VCDL would be supporting SB 1911, which would make it a felony to knowingly carry a firearm on K-12 school property. This has been explained several times over the last couple of months, but some missed it:

Under current law it is ALREADY a felony to bring a firearm onto school property (unless left in a vehicle in certain proscribed manners), even if you do so totally unknowingly. A teacher in Northern Virginia became a felon after just such a conviction. Unbeknownst to her, there was a handgun in a backpack that she left in the teacher's lounge. Another teacher decided to rifle through her backpack and found it. The prosecutor acknowledged that she was not a threat, but had to prosecute her anyhow.

SB 1911 adds the word "KNOWINGLY." That would have given the prosecutor a way out if he had no evidence to show that she knew the gun was in that backpack.

VCDL wants to allow CHP holders to be able to carry on K-12 school property and we continue our efforts toward that goal. SB 1911 does not help with that effort at all, but it does make the law more fair and focused on criminal intent and not destroying someone life over something unintentional.

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2. Petition to repeal last year's 7N6 (5.45x39) ammo ban
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Member Dave Bowles sent me a link to an article on last year's 7N6 importation ban that the BATFE put in place. There is also a link to a petition requesting the ban be reversed.

Here is the article:

http://www.guns.com/2015/03/12/legislat ... n6-ruling/

or

http://tinyurl.com/pbltwp7

and the petition:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petiti ... n/HCWTmm0B

or

http://tinyurl.com/pns72yx

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3. Circuit Court Clerks should not charge $2 fee for credit card use with CHP application
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Another example of a regular member getting a problem fixed. Marc Montoni noticed that the Rockingham County and Harrisonburg City Circuit Court Clerk charged him $52 for his CHP renewal. Upon checking with the Clerk, he was told they were allowed to charge a $2 credit card processing fee.

Pressed further by Marc for details, the Clerk, Chaz W. Evans-Haywood, researched the issue and then came back with this email:

"Marc:

Just an additional note as a follow up to the voicemail I left you.

The supreme court cover sheet regarding civil actions does not include CHP as an action type. For that reason, I have removed the $2 fee and will reimburse the folks that have filed in the past couple days.

Thanks again for calling me to task on this.

All my best,
Chaz"

Hats off to Clerk Evans-Haywood for digging deeper, acknowledging a mistake, and then correcting it.

Marc was tenacious and that's what gets the job done. Hats off to Marc, too.

I suggest everyone hang onto this Update in case one of your Clerks decides to charge you that same $2 credit card fee. If they do, be tenacious. If they still won't back off, then let me know and VCDL will step in.

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4. Roanoke Times hit piece and counter hit-piece on guns
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VCDL EM Greg Trojan sent me links to two pieces in the Roanoke Times.

First, a hit piece on guns that basically dances in the blood of the dead Virginia Tech students killed by Cho. It asks what will stop mass shootings if not more gun control. My answer: get rid of "gun free zones." That was the lesson from Virginia Tech and all the other mass shooting locations, except for one location. But such things will not influence the hoplophobics:

http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/weiner-a ... e83c2.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/o97unh8

-

Second, the response printed in the Roanoke Times by Bennett Teates:

http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/teates-g ... l?mode=jqm

or

http://tinyurl.com/nowo8ng

Gun bills: Lessons from history
By Bennett Teates

The Roanoke Times recently carried an article by Robert Weiner and Hannah Coombs entitled “Virginia gun bill shootdowns show little learned from Virginia Tech” (March 1 commentary) wherein they lament the fact that the current state legislature passed no new restrictions on guns; implying that our representatives have learned nothing from the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 and other school shootings in more recent years.

They begin their argument with the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution which reads “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” by saying the word militia means that only the National Guard, the military or regulated law enforcement are given the right to bear arms. This limited view of the Amendment is based on the single definition of militia which is defined as “a body of citizens enrolled for military service, and called out periodically for drill but serving full-time only in emergencies.”

But a second definition of militia which is: “the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary) obviates their premise. Even in this day and time of a voluntary military and one in which even females may also serve in the military, all males eighteen years old are required to register and hence by the second definition of militia and by the Second Amendment have every right to keep and bear arms. (By logical extension, I would argue so do women, although there is no current law requiring them to register. Indeed, here is a law that should be extended to women as they are already considered equals in military service.) Since the registration requirement is for all males, then there is no limitation on keeping and bearing arms, such as having to be in the National Guard or in law enforcement.

Turning briefly to the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007, those shootings were the actions of a person with mental issues. Indeed, I know of no mass school shootings (including the school shootings referred to in the article) that were not committed by a person with mental issues. Any laws needed should be directed toward limiting the freedoms of these people and not the deprivation of any freedom declared by our Constitution for our able-bodied men (and women) to keep and bear arms. If one takes a broad view of history, one can readily see that, over the centuries, defenseless people are the ones battered, controlled, and killed by those who control the weapons. Allowing the people to have, keep and bear arms at least mitigates, possibly even eliminates, the possibility of the sort of tyrannical domination so prevalent throughout the history of mankind.

While the article attempts to indicate that the Virginia Legislature has passed no gun bills that reflect any lessons learned from the Virginia Tech shooting of 2007, one lesson that ought to be obvious is if even one of those dead Virginia Tech students or faculty had had a gun, fewer to none of them may have been killed. Perhaps, rather than continuing any further diminution of the Second Amendment where all able-bodied men (and women) (eighteen years old) are permitted to keep and bear arms, the legislature should consider increasing the freedoms to keep and bear arms anytime, anywhere; even allowing guns on campus by appropriately screened faculty and staff members. In fact, this was one of the ideas introduced for discussion during this legislation’s session, meaning that lessons have been learned and appropriate laws are taking shape. [PVC: It should not be limited to faculty and staff members and having the legal right to own and carry a firearm should be sufficient screening.]

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5. Antis set up fake gun store in New York for propaganda video
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Board member Bruce Jackson sent me a link to an anti-gun propaganda video. Bruce noted this: "Let's go into a gun control CAPITOL [New York City] and feed them trash and then say you have scored when they walk away. Then you Youtube it and disable comments because you know you would get torn apart!"

Yep - comments were disabled on the YouTube video. The antis are not big fans of the First Amendment applying to their opponents because the antis hate having light shining on their lies and distortions. They get cornered by logic and reason and then have nowhere to go.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the "customers" are merely actors, playing the part of "future gun owners."

Even if I'm wrong about that, there is a lot of things wrong with the video:

1. The "salesman" makes it sound like the gun a person is holding is the ACTUAL gun used to commit a murder or a suicide, not just the same model. That would shock anyone. If I walked into a store to purchase a baseball bat and the salesman handed me one and said, "This one was used to beat a 14-year-old to death last year." I'd be shocked, how about you?

2. One of the guns that the "salesman" shows the "customers" is a submachine gun. That is illegal in New York City. I wonder how many other laws were violated in making that video?

3. It is all emotion based - surprise, surprise! Short on facts, long on heart-string tugging.

4. Hmmm. No mention of the countless number of lives saved each year by guns in the hands of everyday people. This PSA could easily be reversed. As a customer picks up a gun, the salesman can say, "That Glock 19 model was used to save the entire family in Houston from a home invasion." Or, "This Kahr PM40 model was used by a concealed handgun permit holder to stop a mass shooting in an Oregon mall."

This link sent by member Ellen Schmidt has some additional commentary on the PSA and a link to the PSA itself:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... me-buyers/

or

http://tinyurl.com/lm9wbrs

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6. VCDL on Freedom and Prosperity Radio - audio online
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I was interviewed by Joe Thomas on Freedom and Prosperity Radio about a variety of gun-rights issues:

Part 1:

http://www.tertiumquids.org/031415%20D.mp3

Part 2:

http://www.tertiumquids.org/031415%20E.mp3

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7. Gun ownership declining? John Lott doesn't think so
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I'm either running into new gun owners or I'm running into people who are thinking about becoming gun owners all the time. The gun-rights pendulum continues to swing toward liberty. No way ownership is down.

Dr. John Lott agrees:

hhttp://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/03/12/is-g ... n-america/

or

http://tinyurl.com/ltuvhuo

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8. Gabrielle Giffords gets a navy shipped named after her
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Talk about something politically motivated by an anti-freedom Administration. Gabrielle Giffords has a navy ship named after her!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gabrie ... s_(LCS-10)

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9. Should you clean suppressors?
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Short answer: it depends.

http://www.shotgunnews.com/gear-accesso ... ppressors/

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10. Attempted robbery of Chesterfield Post Office with semi-automatic weapon
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Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:

From wtvr.com: http://tinyurl.com/naztzf5
http://wtvr.com/2015/03/11/attempted-da ... ic-weapon/

Attempted daylight robbery of Chesterfield Post Office, with semi-automatic weapon
by Alix Bryan
March 11, 2015

CHESTERFIELD, Va. – In broad daylight, with customers inside, two men attempted to rob a post office.

The crime happened around 4 p.m. Tuesday, at the Ampthill Branch in Chesterfield, off Meadowdale.

The U.S postal inspector said the men had a semi-automatic weapon when they demanded cash from clerks inside.

Witness said that men appeared to have black paint on their face and were seen driving away in a dark green SUV or large pick-up truck.

The postal inspector says crimes like this are rare.

“We take it very seriously,” he emphasized.

Even attempting to rob a post office is a federal crime. If caught, the two men face up to 20 years in prison. If you know anything about what happened call police at (804) 780-1000.

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11. Man shot by mother of toddler after breaking into home listed in stable condition
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From dailypress.com: http://tinyurl.com/pqcv25h
http://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp ... story.html

Man shot by mother of toddler after breaking into Denbigh-area home listed in stable condition, police say
The incident happened at a home in the 100 block of Grace Drive
By Sarah J. Pawlowski
March 12, 2015

A man is is in stable condition after he was shot when he broke into a Denbigh-area home Wednesday night, an official said.

Officers were called to the 100 block of Grace Drive just after 10:30 p.m. to a report of a burglary at the home, Newport News police spokeswoman Holly McPherson said in an email.

While officers were on their way to the residence, they learned that someone had been shot, McPherson said.

Police believe the 25-year-old man broke a window to get in the home where the mother and her toddler daughter were inside. At some point the 31-year-old mother shot the man, McPherson said.

The mom and the child were not injured, but the man was taken to the hospital with injuries that were initially life-threatening, according to McPherson.

By Thursday afternoon, the man was listed in stable condition, McPherson said.

The woman told police she did not know the man, and the motive for the burglary is under investigation McPherson said.

The case will be reviewed by the commonwealth's attorney to determine if any charges will be filed, she said.

Neighbor, James Cantrell, said he did not hear anything when the shooting happened, but saw the police cars when he woke up about 2:30 a.m.

Cantrell, 57, said he's lived in the neighborhood for about 22 years, and he described it as "quiet."

Grace Drive is a cul-de-sac with single-family homes at the end of Dora Drive.

Cantrell said he's concerned that he's heard about an increase in break-ins in his neighborhood over the last couple of years and more violent crimes across the Peninsula.

"Things have changed," he said.

"I'm just glad the lady and her daughter are OK," he said.

--

I'm in this WAVY news story talking about Virginia'a self-defense laws:

http://wavy.com/2015/03/13/woman-who-sh ... e-charges/

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12. Obama's odd series of exaggerated claims
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From washingtonpost.com: http://tinyurl.com/p2arssu
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fac ... un-claims/

Obama’s odd series of exaggerated gun claims
By Glenn Kessler
March 12, 2015

“What we also have to recognize is, is that our homicide rates are so much higher than other industrialized countries. I mean by like a mile. And most of that is attributable to the easy, ready availability of firearms, particularly handguns.”

“And as long as you can go into some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable — as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence.”

“People just say well, we should have firearms in kindergarten and we should have machine guns in bars. You think I’m exaggerating — I mean, you look at some of these laws that come up.”

–President Obama, remarks at a town hall at Benedict College, Columbia. S.C., March 6, 2015

This column has been updated

A reader asked us to examine these remarks, believing they showed a pattern of exaggeration by the president. (We also got a number of tweets about the statements.) The president’s comments came as part of a long answer in response to a question concerning programs to keep youth off the streets and away from gun violence.

These are an interesting set of remarks to fact check, because some of the analysis in part turns on what the listener believes the president was trying to say. We will look at each of these in turn.

The Facts

‘Our homicide rates are so much higher…by like a mile’

When we first saw this quote, we thought the president said the United States had the highest homicide rate among industrialized nations. So did our reader. After all, the president even used the phrase “by like a mile.”

We got some push-back from the administration on this interpretation so just to be sure, we surveyed six colleagues and asked them what they thought the quote meant. The result was unanimous: the president was telling students the United States had the highest homicide rate among the industrialized world.

That is factually incorrect.

The best proxy for “industrialized countries” is the membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. There are currently 34 countries in the OECD, but the agency also includes Brazil and Russia in its statistical data. (The two countries have been negotiating for membership but talks have been suspended with Russia because of the Crimea crisis.)

The OECD says the average homicide rate among the 36 countries is 4.1 per 100,000 people.

According to the 2014 data, at the top of the list is Brazil, with a homicide rate 25.5, or six times the average. Next on the list is Mexico, with a homicide rate of 23.4, followed by Russia at 12.8.

Then comes a tie for fourth place—Chile and the United States both have a homicide rate of 5.2. Estonia follows close behind with a homicide rate of 4.7.

So the United States certainly has a rate that is above average—and indeed, countries such as Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom all have homicide rates that are well below 1 per 100,000. But the president said that U.S. rate was higher “by a mile” when in fact the rate is five times lower than Brazil and four times lower than Mexico.

Brazil and Russia are not officially members of the OECD, though they are certainly industrialized nations. But even if they were excluded, Mexico easily exceeds the United States (and Chile) “by like a mile.”

Update: Some readers objected to the idea of Mexico (or Brazil and Russia) as being considered industrialized countries. If one uses instead the OECD “high-income” list, then those countries would drop off the list. But that still leaves Chile in a tie with the United States, and Estonia close behind. So we still do not see support for the president’s “mile” statement.

“It’s easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable’

This is just a very strange comment that appears to have no statistical basis. Perhaps one can just shrug it off as hyperbole, but is this really something the president of the United States should say to college students? As far as we know, there are no areas in the United States where background checks are needed to buy vegetables.

Update: Some readers have suggested the president was actually referring the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “food desert” locator, which shows areas of the countries in which it is difficult to buy fresh vegetables. That’s an interesting interpretation that puts the president’s comment in a different light. Not all gun sales require background checks, we should note. For what it is worth, the White House declined to provide an explanation for the president’s comment on vegetables and guns.

“Low-income neighborhoods often lack large grocery stores so it can be difficult to find fresh produce,” said Cathie Whittenburg of States United to Prevent Gun Violence. “At the same time, the majority of states allow for the private sale of handguns, one where no background check is required.”

“People just say well, we should have firearms in kindergarten and we should have machine guns in bars.”

The president added here: “You think I’m exaggerating — I mean, you look at some of these laws that come up.” But he is certainly putting a bit of spin on the proposals.

For instance, Georgia in 2014 approved a law that allowed firearms to be carried into bars and restaurants (unless the owner objected), but there was little if any discussion that the purpose was to allow machine guns in bars. The goal was to allow for hand guns and long rifles in bars and other public places.

Similarly, while there have been proposals to allow guns in schools, particularly college campuses, the proposals do not specifically address kindergarten. (A bill under consideration in Florida would allow some school personnel to carry guns, provided it is approved by school administrators. It would be limited to former or current law enforcement or military personnel and they must receive training at law-enforcement academies.)

“While it may be an exaggeration to say laws have been proposed to allow machine guns in bars it is not an exaggeration to say the same about guns in kindergartens,” Whittenburg said, pointing to bills in 17 states to allow guns in K-12 schools.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which supports gun restrictions, says “the vast majority of states – 48 of them – and the District of Columbia generally prohibit any person from carrying a firearm onto or possessing a firearm on school property, within safe school or gun-free school zones, on school-provided transportation, or at certain school-sponsored events.” Most states also require the expulsion of students who bring firearms onto school property, the groups says.

The Pinocchio Test

The president was playing fast and loose with his language here—to a group of college students no less. There’s little excuse for the claim that in some neighborhoods, it is easier to buy a gun than vegetable (see update above) — or to say he’s “not exaggerating” when he claims that some people have proposed laws that would allow machine guns in bars.

As for the U.S. ranking on homicides among industrialized nations, the president certainly would have had a stronger case if he said the United States was above average, or that it was in the top ranks. But instead he claimed the United States had rates that were higher “by like a mile.”

The gun debate is serious enough that it should not be poisoned by exaggerated claims and faux statistics. The president earns Three Pinocchios.

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13. Bloomberg teams with AlJazeera: gun news in America from a hit man's daughter
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Bloomberg will do whatever it takes to get his way.

Member Wales Watkins emailed me this:

From gunssavelife.com: http://www.gunssavelife.com/?p=15853

BLOOMBERG TEAMS WITH ALJAZEERA: Gun news in America from a mafia hit man’s daughter
March 9, 2015

Michael Bloomberg and his Everytown for Gun Control group has teamed up with Al-Jazeera America, the ISIS-loving Muslim news network, to announce the hiring of Jennifer Mascia, a mafia hit man’s daughter. Mascia’s job will be to advocate for more failed gun control laws, “personalizing the carnage”.

She claims she didn’t know her dad was a murderer until she was 22. He killed a half-dozen or more people that she knows of. She feels her work reporting on gun violence is an “atonement” for her father’s kills.

…As though gun control laws would have stopped her father from murdering people. Do you think her father cared about gun control laws when he was putting bullets into the people he killed for the mob?

She started her gun control reporting/advocacy at the New York Times. Yes, all the news that’s fit to print as written by a mafia hit man’s daughter. She wrote for a blog at the Times for a number of months before it was shut down.

Now, her new role as a working girl is reporting on America’s gun “violence” for Michael Bloomberg. al-Jazeera America touted her new role in a story titled “America’s best hope for tracking gun deaths is a mob enforcer’s daughter” with a subhead of “A former New York Times Gun Report researcher is reviving her daily gun violence reporting at Everytown for Gun Safety.”

We hope she does better reporting than she’s done in the past.

Then again, if she wasn’t smart enough to figure out her dad was a mob killer in her first 22 years on this earth, she might not be smart enough to recognize the truth if it mugged her.

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14. Review: 'Strongest' research shows no link between gun ownership rates and higher crime
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Member Joseph Gherlone emailed me this:

From realclearscience.com: http://tinyurl.com/n39frer
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/20 ... crime.html

Review: 'Strongest' Research Shows No Link Between Gun Ownership Rates and Higher Crime
by Ross Pomeroy
March 2015

Researching the link between gun prevalence and crime is inherently tricky. When society itself is your laboratory, it's almost impossible to properly account for confounding variables that might skew the results. All sorts of factors, ranging from unemployment to alcohol use, can get in the way.

Acknowledging the limitations of current research on the link between gun ownership and crime, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck sorted through dozens of studies to first separate the best from the worst, and then determine what the strongest studies tell us. His efforts were recently published in the Journal of Criminal Justice.

"All research is flawed, and all bodies of research are incomplete," Kleck noted, "but that does not mean we cannot distinguish the less flawed work from the more flawed, and draw tentative conclusions based on the best available research conducted so far."

Kleck included 41 studies that examined the association between measured gun levels and crime rate in his analysis, then used three specific criteria to gauge the strength of the studies.

First, he looked for a validated measure of gun ownership. In-depth surveys and percent of suicides with guns were two of the few acceptable measures. Second, he checked to see if confounding variables were properly controlled for and how many were included. Third, he checked to see whether the researchers used procedures that would rule out reverse causality, i.e. whether crime rates actually caused gun ownership to increase. (Past studies have shown that when crime rises in an area, gun ownership often increases, likely for purposes of self-defense.)

In all, the 41 studies produced 90 findings on gun ownership and various crime rates. Of these, 64% found no statistically significant positive affect between gun ownership and crime. However, 52% did identify a link between gun ownership and homicide.

When Kleck applied his three methodological criteria (valid measure of gun ownership, causality procedures, controlled for >5 confounding variables) to the studies, he found that the more criteria they met, the more likely they were to show no link between gun ownership and crime. The reversal was particularly noticeable for homicide. While 65% of the studies that met none of the criteria found a link between gun ownership and homicide, the three studies that met all of the criteria did not.

"The overall pattern is very clear – the more methodologically adequate research is, the less likely it is to support the more guns-more crime hypothesis," Kleck remarked.

Kleck offered two explanations for the finding.

"The most likely explanation is that most guns are possessed by noncriminals whose only involvement in crime is as victims, and defensive gun use by crime victims is both common and effective in preventing the offender from injuring the victim."

Kleck has been researching crime for over thirty years. In the past, he's published studies showing that capital punishment has no effect on homicide rates and that victims who resist rape attempts are more likely to escape and no more likely to suffer worse injuries. He's best known for the hotly debated National Self-Defense Survey published in 1994, which estimated that there were 2.5 million incidents of defensive gun use in 1993.

Kleck's current review indirectly conflicts with a widely cited review published last year by researchers from the University of California. They found that access to firearms in the home is linked to a 3.2x higher risk of suicide and a 2.0x higher risk of homicide.

Understandably, scientists have had a difficult time nailing down a correlation between gun prevalence and crime. In all likelihood, the relationship is not as simple as politicians and ideologues would like us to believe.

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15. What you need to know about the armor-piercing bullet controversy
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Member Dan Miller emailed me this:

From bloomberg.com: http://tinyurl.com/nx4w69c
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ontroversy

Photographer: George Frey/Getty Images
What You Need to Know About the Armor-Piercing Bullet Controversy
The furor over a proposed federal ammo ban is largely a distraction—one that favors the NRA.
by Paul Barrett
March 12, 2015

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives proposed banning armor-piercing ammunition. Gun-rights activists objected. On Tuesday, the ATF meekly backed down. What gives?

The ATF fears the gun lobby

The federal agency had proposed blocking the manufacture and sale of the armor-piercing 5.56-millimeter "M855 green tip" rifle round because gun owners were using the bullet in certain unusual handguns. Since handguns are easier to conceal than rifles, the ATF reasoned, the M855 green tip poses a threat to police officers, most of whom wear body armor. The National Rifle Association rallied its troops, branding the bullet ban a harbinger of broader gun restrictions. Even before the public comment period was due to end next Monday, the ATF said it received more than 80,000 e-mails and other responses, the "vast majority" of them opposing the ban. The ATF ran up a white flag. "You spoke, we listened," the agency said in a Twitter post Tuesday. Who says taxpayers don't get prompt service from Washington?

Seriously, though, if anyone still needed evidence of the NRA's potency as a political-pressure operation – or of the ATF's spinelessness – there it is. The ATF said it will study the issue further. Guess how that's going to come out. (OK, I'll tell you: no ban.)

Here's the really bad news

The whole issue is marginal at best. For decades, gun stores have (legally) sold millions of green-tip bullets to hunters and target shooters, who typically use them (lawfully) in AR-15 military-style semiautomatic rifles. The ATF nevertheless proposed earlier this year to reclassify the round, concluding that when loaded into concealable pistol versions of the AR-15, it could pose a threat to police officers. Gun-control proponents cheered the proposal.

But is this really an important battle? The AR-15-type handguns in question are relatively expensive, heavy, and about two feet in length. You haven't read much about them because they're not turning up at crime scenes. Green tips, moreover, haven't contributed discernibly to shooting waves, let alone skeins of cop killings. (I'm unaware of a single police shooting that involved the ammo in question; if you know of one, please point it out.) If bad guys want to use rifle ammunition to kill police officers, they can do so right now – and they have a vast array of rounds to choose from.

Banning one variety of ammo, as the ATF proposed, is reminiscent of the misbegotten attempt in the 1990s to ban certain rifles labeled "assault weapons." Manufacturers tinkered with cosmetic features, and the rifles became more popular than they'd ever been before. This time around, gun owners have cleared store shelves of green tips. You read that correctly: What the ATF's faint-hearted gesture accomplished is the exact opposite of what gun-control advocates say they were after.

Of course, the NRA is distorting matters

The gun-owners' lobby thrives on hyperbole. That's what causes gun owners to reach for their checkbooks. Celebrating his victory, the gun group's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, reminded dues payers to remain at the barricades. "Every gun owner in America needs to understand Barack Obama's hatred of the Second Amendment has not changed," he said in a prepared statement. "We will remain vigilant and continue to fight against President Obama's attempt to dismantle the Second Amendment."

If anything, Obama has been notably tentative on gun control. The NRA and its friends in the Senate defeated his proposals in the wake of the December 2012 Newtown (Conn.) elementary school massacre. Since then, the president has basically dropped the issue. Dismantle the Second Amendment? Obama has embraced the Supreme Court's interpretation that the amendment protects an individual right to own firearms. The 300 million guns in private hands in the U.S., and all the ammunition one could possibly need, speak to the availability of firearms and the solidity of the Second Amendment.

We need to focus on actual crime and the criminals who commit it

Rather than theoretical discussions about bullets that might be used to assassinate cops, we ought to stress relentlessly the need to keep all ammunition and all firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable. "Crime control" should replace "gun control" as a liberal banner. No, the NRA will not help in such an endeavor. But here's an approach that would be difficult for the NRA to oppose: Look at New York City. Violent crime in the five boroughs has declined drastically since 1990. During the quarter-century of improvement, local gun control laws, though strict, have remained essentially unchanged, so that's not the variable that has made life for most New Yorkers safer. What has worked (and what hasn't, for certain neighborhoods that remain hellishly violent)? Study that and then replicate the policies elsewhere. There's your crime control agenda.

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16. Another self-defense gun use that never happens
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From thebangswitch.com: http://tinyurl.com/lhgh8of
http://www.thebangswitch.com/another-se ... r-happens/

ANOTHER SELF-DEFENSE GUN USE THAT NEVER HAPPENS
by Matt
March 11, 2015

Yesterday while working, a bunch of coworkers and I responded to a shooting that took place in an apartment complex, one that we visit on a fairly regular basis. This was by no means the first shooting in this complex, BUT this one was definitely different.

All the other shootings at this complex during recent years, at least the ones where I was present, were pretty well covered by the local media, but the media was conspicuously absent yesterday. Could it be because the shooting was a completely justified, self-defense shooting? Could it be because the person who got shot (the suspect) was a crazy guy who was stoned out of his mind? Could it be because the shooter (the victim) used an evil semi-auto rifle to defend his home and family? Could it be because the shooter (victim) was a black man and the guy who got shot (suspect) was white? Could it be because the shooter (victim) was a black man and all the cops were white, yet we did not arrest him? Even in anti-gun Commiefornia?

Could it be the media did not cover this incident because in so many ways, this incident flies in the face of all of their various agendas? Or was it because this one day was the one day that none of the 5 local stations were listening to their scanners?

Reader’s Digest version of the incident: Cops got several calls because crazy, drugged out of his mind white guy is running around a shopping center trying to fight people and steal things. Cops arrive and cannot find him. A couple of citizens direct cops to the apartment complex across the street where the crazy guy was last seen. As cops pull into the complex, they hear a gunshot. Crazy white guy runs out and flops on the ground with gunshot wounds to both legs.

A few minutes later, a black male teenager comes over and tells cops his uncle just shot a guy in their apartment. We (the cops) go to the apartment and a black male in his 40’s comes out with his hands up and tells us he just shot a guy who broke into their apartment and that the gun is inside the apartment. Not knowing what happened, we detained the uncle, talk to a bunch of neighbors and other witnesses.

Turns out crazy white guy booted open the apartment door armed with a large shard of broken glass and begins yelling at the five (5) residents inside that he is going to cut their throats. The black male had already grabbed his gun when the crazy white guy started trying to boot the door open. Crazy white guy starts to come into the apartment and the resident fires one shot which strikes the suspect in both legs. Suspect flees and the cops find him bleeding like a stuck pig just around the corner. Suspect went to the hospital, and once cleared, will be off to jail. The man who shot him sat in a cop car for about an hour while we investigated the scene and spoke to witnesses. He cooperated fully, told us his version or what happened, which matched the witness statements and the physical evidence, was released and went back to his apartment with his family.

Everything worked out like it is supposed to, and no one other than the people involved would have ever heard about it because the media either did not care, or consciously chose not to report it.

Here is the kicker. Here in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia, they have tried to pass laws reclassifying the M1 Carbine as an “assault weapon”, you know, the type of weapons that are only used for horrible acts of evil… The gun used in this legal, fully justified self-defense shooting? WWII vintage M1 Carbine manufactured by Inland, with a legal (owned prior to the CA ban) “high capacity” 30 round magazine.

So much for all those narratives by the media… Evil, racist white cops did not arrest a black man who shot a crazy, drugged up white guy with an evil semi-auto “assault rifle”, the very type of gun that is never used in a home defense scenario.

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17. Caught on video: Bloomberg mayor doing perverted "gun rights" dance
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From dailycaller.com: http://tinyurl.com/p9d2f4z
http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/09/caugh ... hts-dance/

Caught On Video: Antigun Bloomberg Mayor Doing Perverted “Gun Rights” Dance
by Heather Marchese, 1 Million Moms Against Gun Control
March 9, 2015

Mayor Danny Jones (R) of Charleston, W. Va., has been caught on tape recently making a disturbing display of lewd comments and gestures in an effort to mock gun owners.

In the video, which was posted to YouTube by “WVWildMan” and was claimed to be filmed while Danny Jones was awaiting the election results, he is speaking to a meeting attendee about gun owners and proceeds to rub his chest area and shake his hips while saying, “God knows what gun rights groups [do]. These people look at guns like sex objects. They oil them up and rub them.”

I don’t know what gun rights group does that with their firearms, but I do know he was referring to West Virginia Citizens Defense League and other groups who are fighting for SB347, the Constitutional Carry bill authored by the members of WVCDL, and the citizens of West Virginia.

I reached out to Mr. Jones this morning via phone. I asked him for his side of the story, and if he would like to offer an apology for his actions. He denied doing anything wrong, saying this incident was not public, and he wasn’t aware there was a child present. He noted once he realized there was a child he apologized and changed the subject.

He then hung up on me without further explanation. Because of the abruptness in ending the call, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and called back, thinking I may have dropped the call on him. When he answered, he said “I’m not accepting your apology and I want you to share that video everywhere.”

“What apology?” I told him. “I never offered you one, I asked for you to apologize to your constituents.”

Now, think about that for a moment. A man who is elected to be leader would stoop so low as to sexually mock his citizenry, even though he claims himself to be a gun owner. Not only that, but to do this in the presence of a child is just wrong.

You see, Danny Jones is a proud member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, one of Bloomberg’s shill groups. So it doesn’t surprise me that this isn’t the first time Danny has made sexual remarks when referring to gun owners.

Whether you are a gun rights supporter or not, his actions and behavior alone do not fit those of an elected official and he is an embarrassment to the entire state of West Virginia.

I will, however, grant his wish by sharing this video.

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18. [FL] Mother opened the door for a person she thought was a UPS deliveryman
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From theblaze.com: http://tinyurl.com/kryth6z
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03 ... FINAL-TUES

Mother Opened the Door for a Person She Thought Was a UPS Deliveryman, Then ‘He Put the Gun to My Face.’ That’s When Her Brother With a Shotgun Stepped In.
by Liz Klimas
March 10, 2015

An Orange County, Florida, mother was held at gunpoint in her home, her toddler crying in the next room, after she opened the door thinking UPS was delivering a package.

According to WKMG-TV, 24-year-old Belgie Tapia opened the door Monday when she saw a man outside who appeared to be wearing a UPS uniform carrying a box.

“I proceeded to open the door and that’s when he put the gun to my face and told me to lay down on the ground,” Tapia told the news station. “They proceeded to put the gun to my head and threaten me. If I didn’t find them anything of value, they were going to shoot me.”

WESH-TV reported that two suspects, later identified as Kayla Oharrow and Travis Brown, tied up Tapia with zip ties and duct tape.

Fortunately, Tapia’s brother saw the suspects on the home’s security system and took action. He called 911 and then chased the suspects off with a shotgun.

“He overhead screaming in the house and he looked on the home surveillance system, just like you can buy from any company, and saw what was going on,” Orange County Sheriff’s Office Detective Jason Sams told WESH. “He had a shotgun and armed himself, which probably prevented any more harm to the rest of the family.”

Watch WESH’s report on the incident:

According to the news station, deputies saw the suspects running when they arrived at the home. The pair were apprehended after crashing their getaway car into a fence.

“I was praying the whole time,” Tapia told WKMG. “I’m thankful to God that my daughter’s safe.”

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19. [OR] Anti-gun filmmaker arrested after attacking gun rights supporter [VIDEO]
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Anti-violence producer/filmmaker attacks and seriously hurts a pro-gun videographer. Anyone surprised by yet another violent anti?

From bearingarms.com: http://tinyurl.com/opct7c9
http://bearingarms.com/anti-gun-oregon- ... supporter/

Anti-Gun Oregon Filmmaker Arrested After Attacking Gun Rights Supporter
by Bob Owens
March 11, 2015

William Saunderson runs the popular YouTube channel Laughing At Liberals, where he pokes fun at the hypocrisy of leftists in general and the clueless rants of gun control supporters in specific.

He posted this video only yesterday.

Saunderson presumably posted the video at some point before he was allegedly attacked and robbed by documentary filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald, after Saunderson allegedly caught Fitzgerald in a lie on camera, according to The Common Truth (our bold below):

The two were meeting at a local Gresham restaurant to discuss a preview of the film being pitched by Fitzgerald and seen by Saunderson. Saunderson was upset that the film which had been touted for his input as neutral, was in fact, anti-gun biased.

The film trailer and appeal for funding was placed on Indiegogo but has since been removed. The film content however is accurately described in the link here – OREGON DIVIDE

Details of the entire meeting and attack are included below by the eyewitness, Chris Cochran so we will not repeat them here. We will comment however; this brutal attack is just a sample of what we in the pro-gun movement has said all along. Gun owners seem to show more responsibility and restraint, while the anti-gun movement has repeatedly shown a violent streak.

The victim of this latest attack, Mr. Saunderson, is currently undergoing surgery on his left arm which was seriously (and potentially permanently) injured. His upper arm is broken in 3 places with the ball broken completely off and shoulder dislocated. The doctor says he will be lucky if he recovers 80% use.

We have no way of confirming the extent of Mr. Saunderson’s injuries as reported above, but we can report that he was transported to a hospital in the area for treatment by a private vehicle according to Gresham police.

We can also confirm that anti-violence producer/filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald turned himself in to a neighboring law enforcement organization after the attack, which was witnessed by numerous people. Based upon those accounts, Fitzgerald has been charged with felony robbery, misdemeanor theft, and misdemeanor assault. If the injuries to Mr. Saunderson are as severe as The Common Truth suggests, then it seems possible that the assault charge may be upgraded by prosecutors.

Fitzgerald is attempting a novel defense of his actions.

@repblumenauer @BurdickGinny @jakeweigler Here is beginning of fallout after defending myself when a CHL holder reaches for weapon

— Skye Fitzgerald (@Spin_Film) March 11, 2015

[We should probably note that the three people that Fitzgerald turned to on Twitter for help after attacking Saunderson are two rabidly anti-gun Oregon Democrats and a lobbyist for Michael Bloonmberg.]

I asked Gresham Police directly about this claim. There was no evidence whatsoever that there were any firearms at the scene, concealed or otherwise, on the persons of the victim or any of the witnesses.

Fitzgerald appears to have become upset that he was caught in a lie, and that his reaction was being (legally) recorded. He then allegedly attacked Saunderson both inside and outside the restaurant, and stole two cameras, then attempted to excuse his behavior with yet another apparent lie.

It is not known at this time if Fitzgerald destroyed or erased the film in these cameras before turning them in to authorities.

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20. Screams, then gunfire as neighbor shoots attacking dogs
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Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:

From wtvr.com: http://tinyurl.com/lhoduvu
http://wtvr.com/2014/12/15/neighbor-sho ... king-dogs/

Screams, then gunfire as neighbor shoots attacking dogs
by Wayne Covil
December 15, 2014

Chesterfield, Va. — A Chesterfield man was rushed to the hospital, after being attacked by a dog around 9 a.m. Monday, in the 1500 block of Walnut Drive.

The attack ended with a neighbor grabbing a gun.

Neighbors said that neighborhood’s usual quietness was shattered by screams for help and multiple gunshots.

Many in the neighborhood were getting their children to the bus stop.

“I heard you know, sounded like gun shots and I told my husband, sounded like gun shots, and so anyway, I heard about three,” said Joann Nichols.

“I just jumped up because I heard a scream, immediately afterward, and all I could think of was the kids were at the bus stop and it scared me to death,” said Sherry Robertson.

Chesterfield County police said the homeowner was attacked by one of the two dogs in his yard. Both dogs belonged to one of his relatives.

A neighbor who heard the attack shot both dogs, and killed one.The victim has serious but non-life threatening injuries.

The victim has serious but non-life threatening injuries.

The investigation is on-going.

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21. Man who shot dogs attacking neighbor says he fired warning shot
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Ugh. Do NOT fire warning shots! Leave that to Hollywood.

Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:

From wtvr.com: http://tinyurl.com/qzdjmjh
http://wtvr.com/2014/12/16/man-who-shot ... ning-shot/

Man who shot dogs attacking neighbor says he fired warning shot
by Nick Dutton and Lorenzo Hall
December 16, 2014

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. — A man is in the hospital after a vicious attack by two dogs that finally ended when a neighbor stepped in and shot one of the animals.

Kenny Bowe, the man who shot one of the dogs, said that after witnessing the brutal attack playing out in his neighbor’s yard he had no other choice but to open fire.

Bowe said he remembers exactly what happened in his neighbor’s yard Monday morning because he has not been able to get the images out of his head.

“I realized something wasn’t right. I yelled at my daughter to get my handgun,” Bowe told CBS 6 anchor Lorenzo Hall.

Bowe said that around 9 a.m. he shot two of his neighbor’s dogs that were attacking a relative who also lived in that home.

But before that moment, Bowe said he was in bed and heard someone screaming uncontrollably.

“I just kept hearing, ‘Help me, please. Help. Help.’ It was just horrifying,” he said.

It was so extreme that Bowe said other neighbors were screaming at the dogs in an attempt to get them to stop, but they would not let go of the victim.

That’s when Bowe said he fired one warning shot at the ground.

“It didn’t faze them and he continued chewing on the gentleman,” Bowe said.

As a result, Bowe said he fired again— sending one dog running while the other kept biting away at the man’s arm.

That’s when he fired a third shot, killing the dog.

Bowe said that since the incident, his neighbors have thanked him for saving their family member’s life. But being a pet owner himself, Bowe said he in no way feels like a hero.

“Does it make you feel good? No, but the man’s alive,” he said.

CBS 6 was unable to reach Bowe’s neighbors, but he said they told him the victim is having another surgery so doctors can see of they can save his arm.

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22. Senate confirms new Surgeon General
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EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:

From cnn.com: http://tinyurl.com/mt6lpo7
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/politics/ ... n-general/

Senate confirms new surgeon general
By Eric Bradner, CNN
December 16, 2014

The Senate confirmed Vivek Murthy as surgeon general on Monday night as Democrats -- in the final days of their majority control of the chamber -- overcame stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association.

The 51 to 43 vote ends more than a year of uncertainty over Murthy's nomination. Obama had tapped the founder of the pro-Obamacare group Doctors for America for the post in November 2013.

But a confirmation vote had been held up after the gun lobby pointed to a letter Murthy had signed calling for new gun control measures in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings, and promised to score a vote in Murthy's favor against senators in its ratings of how strongly lawmakers support gun rights.

Murthy, 37, is America's youngest-ever top doctor, and he is also the first surgeon general of Indian-American descent.

Obama lauded Murthy's confirmation, saying he will help the United States combat the threat of Ebola.

"As 'America's Doctor,' Vivek will hit the ground running to make sure every American has the information they need to keep themselves and their families safe. He'll bring his lifetime of experience promoting public health to bear on priorities ranging from stopping new diseases to helping our kids grow up healthy and strong," Obama said in a statement.

"Vivek will also help us build on the progress we've made combating Ebola, both in our country and at its source," he said. "Combined with the crucial support for fighting Ebola included in the bill to fund our government next year, Vivek's confirmation makes us better positioned to save lives around the world and protect the American people here at home."

But soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican whose party will take control of the chamber once new members are in place next month, called Murthy a political appointment.

"The surgeon general is known as America's doctor and the men and women chosen to fill that role in the past have usually been highly qualified individuals with substantial experience in patient care," McConnell said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, Dr. Murthy's nomination had more to do with politics -- he was a founder in 2008 of a group called Doctors for Obama, and has been an outspoken political advocate of Obamacare and gun control -- than his medical experience," he said. "With America facing the challenge of Ebola and other serious health challenges, it's unfortunate that the President chose a nominee based on the candidate's political support instead of a long career delivering patient care and managing difficult health crises."

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23. Gun-hostile surgeon general confirmed
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Member Montford Oakes emailed me this:

From washingtonpost.com: http://tinyurl.com/punf5nd
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pos ... confirmed/

Surgeon general nominee Vivek Murthy, opposed by gun lobby, confirmed
By Ed O'Keefe and Brady Dennis
December 15, 2014

President Obama's pick to serve as the next surgeon general was confirmed Monday evening more than a year and half after being nominated, the first of nearly a half dozen of the president's picks set for confirmation this week as Democrats prepare to cede control of the U.S. Senate.

Senators voted 51 to 43 to confirm Vivek Murthy, a Harvard and Yale-educated doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, whose nomination had been in limbo amid concerns about his experience, and opposition from the gun lobby.

As surgeon general, Murthy, 37, will serve as the nation’s top spokesperson on public health issues. Boris Lushniak has served as acting surgeon general since July 2013.

Senators in both parties had questioned whether he was too inexperienced for the job, or whether his efforts to get Obama elected and support the president's health-care law made him too polarizing a figure.

But by far the most vehement opposition to Murthy’s confirmation came from the National Rifle Association, which called him a “serious threat to the rights of gun owners” because of his support of tighter gun control laws. That animosity in part dates to a tweet Murthy sent out in 2012: "Tired of politicians playing politics w/guns, putting lives at risk b/c they're scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue."

Earlier this year in a hearing on Capitol Hill, Murthy said if confirmed, he would focus on public health topics of broad agreement such as the need to fight the country’s obesity epidemic. “I do not intend to use the surgeon general's office as a bully pulpit for gun control,” he said at the time.

Murthy has received public support from scores of medical and public health organizations, as well as from former Surgeon General David Satcher.

But his comments prompted opposition from moderate Democrats from states with strong gun cultures, briefly raising the specter of a rare defeat for an Obama nominee.

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.), who voted against Murthy, said in a statement Monday that the surgeon general "serves as America’s leader on public health services and chooses what health policies we should prioritize. For that reason, I don’t believe it’s appropriate for America’s number one doctor to participate in political activism."

And Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), an orthopedic surgeon, credited Murthy's academic credentials but said he is still unqualified for the position.

“Is Dr. Murthy a renowned expert in treating patients or researching diseases? No, not at all. He's not. Has he actually built a career teaching medicine or leading public health organizations? No, not yet," he said in a floor speech on Monday.

Obama said in a statement that Murthy will bring "his lifetime of experience promoting public health" to the role and help guide the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis. "Vivek’s confirmation makes us better positioned to save lives around the world and protect the American people here at home," he said.

Murthy was the first of 23 nominees expected to be confirmed this week, as Democrats get ready to hand Senate control over to Republicans next year. Democrats secured an agreement from Republicans on those confirmations when senators met during a marathon session prompted over disagreements over how to approve a sweeping $1.1 trillion spending bill.

In addition to Murthy, the final batch of nominees included 10 other picks for Executive Branch posts and 12 nominees for lifetime appointments to federal district courts in eight states and the District of Columbia.

On Monday, senators set up a Tuesday morning confirmation vote for Daniel J. Santos, who has waited more than 500 days to be confirmed as a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, one of the longest waits ever for an Obama pick. Others set for confirmation on Tuesday include Antony Blinken to be a deputy secretary of state; Frank A. Rose to be an assistant secretary of state; and Sarah R. Saldaña to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Confirmation of the others is expected later Tuesday or Wednesday.

Opening the day’s business on Monday morning, Reid said the Senate could quickly resolve unfinished business, but warned that the final tasks could stretch on for days.

“We’re going to have to be here to finish our work, whether that’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday,” he said. “So everyone should understand – we can’t be leaving.”

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24. Why gun-control advocates lie about guns
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Member Monford Oakes emailed me this:

From nationalreview.com: http://tinyurl.com/pud5dpn
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/3 ... -c-w-cooke

Why Gun-Control Advocates Lie about Guns
by Charles C. W. Cooke
December 15, 2014

The facts aren’t on their side.

Angered by the news that American voters are now more supportive of the Second Amendment than they have been in two decades, the New York Daily News’s Mike Lupica used his weekend column to vent. Over the course of 900 words, Lupica lambasted the public for continuing “to protect gun nuts,” chided the “mouth-breathing” NRA for its murderous myopia, and contended emotively that “there are no words” available to describe the horror of “a recent poll that says a majority of Americans believe it is more important to protect the right to own guns than it is for the government to limit access to guns.”

And then, having established his moral bona fides for all to see, he tried to sneak a brazen lie past his audience:

The flyers on the table feature a picture of a beautiful, smiling girl with a pink bow in her hair, with Christmas and her whole life ahead of her until Adam Lanza walked into her school on a Friday morning with an automatic weapon — the kind of gun we are told must be protected or the Second Amendment is turned into a dishrag — and started shooting.

That Lupica would knowingly write these words should be of great concern to anybody who is concerned with the truth. There were no “automatic” weapons used at Sandy Hook. Rather, Adam Lanza used a standard semi-automatic rifle of the sort that millions upon millions of Americans have in their homes. Moreover, Mike Lupica knows this full well, for on every other occasion he has written about the AR-15, he has described it correctly. In March of 2013, Lupica called for the federal government to ban “a semiautomatic rifle called the AR-15.” A few months later, railing against the same weapon, he explained to his readers that AR-15s are “semi-automatic” — and explained not just once, but twice. Elsewhere, he has proven himself to be more than capable of identifying different gun types when it has suited him to do so. Why, then, the change?

The answer, I suspect, lies in this famously dishonest piece of advice from the Violence Policy Center’s radical founder, Josh Sugarmann:

Assault weapons – just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

Bingo.

Still, effective as it may be to conflate and to confuse, pace Lupica and Sugarmann, the distinction matters greatly. How much? This much:

As you will see, “semi-automatic” does not mean “slightly weaker machine gun,” but is instead a technical term used to describe any firearm that requires its user to pull the trigger each and every time he wishes to expel a round. “Automatic,” by contrast, denotes something very different indeed: namely, any gun that keeps firing for as long as the trigger is depressed. “Automatics” have been heavily regulated since 1934 and are almost never used in crimes of any sort; “semi-automatics” have been available at almost every gun store in the country for almost a century. One can easily understand why Lupica hopes that the public will mix the two up: Their doing so is the only way he’s going to get anywhere with his crusade. But that he has elected to use his position as a “journalist” to help it along is little short of disgraceful.

Apparently, it is also somewhat typical. “So,” he sighed in yet another anti-AR-15 column last year, “it takes nine months and two days from Newtown, from 20 dead children and six adults, for someone else to carry the same kind of AR15 that Adam Lanza carried into Sandy Hook Elementary School into the Washington Navy Yard.” The cover line for his story? “Same Gun, Different Slay.”

Unfortunately for Lupica — and for the Daily News — the Navy Yard shooter did not actually use an AR-15 but instead carried out his killing spree with a legally purchased, garden-variety shotgun. After a few days, the Daily News admitted its error and appended a correction to the online version. Lupica, however, said nothing about it — and still hasn’t. The piece remains online, a propaganda victory for the ages.

Remarkably enough, this was not the column’s only humiliating error. Throughout his jeremiad, Lupica had repeatedly pretended that the AR-15 is a SuperWeapon of sorts — a “rifle for the ‘sport’ of hunting humans,” in one choice phrase; the gun “to have with you when you decide to go hunting other people” in another. The shooter at Newtown, Lupica warned, could not possibly “have killed as many children as he did as fast as he did on that Friday morning in Newtown if he were simply using a handgun.” Why then, he asked in conclusion, are civilians permitted to own “guns that make it this easy to hunt and kill humans off the street”?

This charge — that one cannot murder scores of people “simply using a handgun” — is false. It is a matter of fact that the worst mass shooting in all of American history was carried out at Virginia Tech by a disturbed young man who had nothing more than two handguns in his possession — one of them a thoroughly unimpressive .22-calibre Walther. How, one wonders, does Lupica explain this? Moreover, one wonders what evidence he can marshal to support his presumption that AR-15s are causing particular havoc on America’s streets. In 2011, FBI data show, 6,220 Americans were killed with handguns, 356 were killed with shotguns, and 323 were killed with all types of rifle. In the same year, 1,694 Americans were killed with knives; 728 were murdered by “hands, fists, feet, etc.; and 496 were slayed with blunt instruments. The number of incidents involving AR-15-style “assault” rifles, meanwhile, was so tiny that the FBI didn’t even bother to keep statistics.

But who cares, right? Black gun scary. NRA crazy. Shootings sad. Automatic, shmautomatic. The real question: Are you on the right side? No? Me good. You bad. Let’s not get bogged down in the facts.

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25. What's behind growing gun rights support in the US?
**************************************************

EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:

From bbc.com: http://tinyurl.com/lzxmj6w
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30485978

What's behind growing gun rights support in the US?
By Taylor Kate Brown, BBC News, Washington

A slim majority of Americans now support protection of gun rights over gun control. What's driving this support?

On Monday the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Bushmaster Firearms International, a company that makes the AR-15, one of the guns Adam Lanza used in the December 2012 massacre.

The suit claims the firm knew the gun was unsuitable for public sales because it was designed for military use.

The shooting led to a push for new laws to restrict the sales of firearms nationally.

But efforts to change national laws failed, spurring backlash in some states.

Now researchers at the Pew Center have found that, two years after the shootings, support for gun rights has increased to 52%, a majority for the first time in the survey's history.

The number is up 8% since the aftermath of Sandy Hook.

Increased support for gun rights is a long-term trend that has become more pronounced since Barack Obama took office, says Carroll Doherty, director of political research at Pew. The issue is still strongly divisive, largely along partisan lines.

"This is not a reaction to any specific gun proposal," Doherty says, adding Pew saw "across-the-board change" since 2012 in favour of gun rights, with the exception of a few groups - self-identified liberal Democrats among them.

There is an increasing familiarity with guns in the US, and more states are passing "shall issue" laws - making gun licensing less discretionary, says Dr Jennifer Dawn Carlson, an American sociologist who teaches at the University of Toronto.

With an estimated 300 million guns in the US, Carlson says, "clearly there are more guns that are not involved in crime versus the opposite". Such firearms are associated with family and protection instead of crime.

"It's actually something that you make a part of your everyday life," Carlson says.

It's also important what gun owners are doing with their firearms. In many states, gun owners may "open carry" their firearm on their person, unconcealed. Others states require a licence to do so or ban it outright.

The open carry movement has pushed for more people to carry guns in public, and Texas could roll back its ban on open carry next year.

Such a public presence, Carlson says, desensitises people from the shock of seeing a gun and reduces the taboo around gun ownership.

"Gun ownership is increasingly seen as part of what it means to be a responsible citizen," she says.

"It's not just a right to self-defence but a duty to protect your family and community."

Protection was on the minds of those surveyed by Pew - 57% said they believe gun ownership protects people from becoming victims of crime, up from 48% in 2012.

In 1999 most Americans told the Pew survey they owned guns primarily for hunting. By 2013 it had flipped - the survey suggested Americans now owned guns primarily for protection.

The number is striking considering the violent crime rate in the US has halved in the last 20 years. But a recent survey suggested more than 60% of Americans believe crime is increasing.

This may be due to an overrepresentation of violent crime in television, film and local news coverage, says Dr Mark Warr, a researcher at the University of Texas, Austin.

"The public is presented with what I call a mirror-image or upside-down view of the world - what is truly rare is common on television, and what is truly common is rare," Warr says.

When people are asked to estimate the incidence of crime, they are more likely to use something called an "availability heuristic" - estimating the frequency of anything by the ease with which they can recall examples.

"Since crime is such a common news topic, people have little problem recalling numerous incidents of it," he says.

The feeling of needing guns to protect oneself from crime is also connected with a lack of confidence and trust in law enforcement.

"The idea that guns make sense because police won't always be there is pervasive across pro-gun discourse," Carlson says, and that's true among both white and black Americans.

In the Pew survey, the proportion of black Americans who say guns make people less likely to be the victim of a crime jumped between 2012 and 2014 - 29% to 54%. Yet black people are still among the staunchest supporters of gun control.

But support for protecting gun ownership does not necessarily mean no gun control at all, Doherty says. A separate survey done by Pew suggests more than 80% of Americans supported certain gun policy proposals, including increased background checks for those buying guns.

And Carlson says that there is a difference between more political advocates - those who argue ownership is a "God-given right" - and those who have taken to firearms out of more pragmatic reason.

"There are many pro-gun Americas," she says, adding: "Once you can exercise a right, it becomes a lot more meaningful to you."

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26. [CT] Second Amendment protects dirk knives and police batons
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Pay attention, Virginia General Assembly! You should have passed Senator Garrett's bill to legalize a variety of weapons this year.

We'll be back.

From washingtonpost.com: http://tinyurl.com/np9p45b
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volo ... ce-batons/

Second Amendment protects dirk knives and police batons
by Eugene Volokh
December 16, 2014

So holds the Connecticut Supreme Court, in the just-released State v. DeCiccio. Here’s an excerpt of the reasoning as to police batons, which also applies in large measure to dirks, and which, I would argue, should apply to stun guns and Tasers (paragraph break added). (Disclosure: I represent the Association of Women Against Rape and Endangerment, as amicus curiae, in Commonwealth v. Caetano, now pending before the Massachusetts high court; that cases involves the question whether stun guns and Tasers are “arms” for Second Amendment purposes; we argue that they are.)

This widespread acceptance of batons within the law enforcement community also supports the conclusion that they are not so dangerous or unusual as to fall outside the purview of the second amendment. To this end, the fact that police batons are inherently less lethal, and therefore less dangerous and less intrinsically harmful, than handguns, which clearly constitute “arms” within the meaning of the second amendment, provides further reason to conclude that they are entitled to constitutional protection. Cf. People v. Yanna, supra, 297 Mich. App. 145 (“[T]he prosecution also argues that Tasers and stun guns are so dangerous that they are not protected by the [s]econd [a]mendment. However, it is difficult to see how this is so since Heller concluded that handguns are not sufficiently dangerous to be banned. Tasers and stun guns, while plainly dangerous, are substantially less dangerous than handguns. Therefore, [T]asers and stun guns do not constitute dangerous weapons for purposes of [s]econd [a]mendment inquiries.”); D. Kopel et al., supra, 47 U. Mich. J.L. Reform 184 (“[K]nives are far less dangerous than guns. Any public safety justification for knife regulation is necessarily less persuasive than the public safety justification for firearms regulation.”).

Indeed, expandable batons are intermediate force devices that, when used as intended, are unlikely to cause death or permanent bodily injury. For these reasons, we are persuaded that the police baton that the defendant had in his vehicle is the kind of weapon traditionally used by the state for public safety purposes and is neither so dangerous nor so unusual as to fall outside the purview of the second amendment’s right to keep and bear arms.

The court also holds that the total ban on transporting such weapons in a vehicle violates the Second Amendment (some paragraph breaks added):

[T]he prohibition against transporting a dirk knife and a police baton to a new home constitutes a significant restriction on the right to possess those weapons in that new home. Indeed, aside from an outright ban on possessing those weapons, it is difficult to conceive of a greater abridgement of that right than a restriction that bars the use of a vehicle to transport either of those weapons from one home to another.

Moreover, under § 29-38, it is unlawful for an ordinary citizen, like the defendant, to transport those weapons from the place of purchase to the purchaser’s home. As a consequence, the statute’s complete proscription against using a vehicle to transport the two protected weapons deprives their owner of any realistic opportunity either to bring them home after they have been purchased or to move them from one home to another. In fact, at oral argument before this court, the state acknowledged that, in light of that statutory prohibition, there may be no lawful means of doing either….

In light of the nature and extent of the restrictions at issue in the present case, we agree with the state that intermediate scrutiny represents the applicable level of constitutional review. “[A]lthough addressing varied and divergent laws, courts throughout the country have nearly universally applied some form of intermediate scrutiny in the [s]econd [a]mendment context.” … Nevertheless, to establish the requisite substantial relationship between the purpose to be served by the statutory provision and the means employed to achieve that end [under intermediate scrutiny], the explanation that the state proffers in defense of the provision must be “exceedingly persuasive.” …

Post-Heller case law supports the commonsense conclusion that the core right to possess a protected weapon in the home for self-defense necessarily entails the right, subject to reasonable regulation, to engage in activities necessary to enable possession in the home. Thus, the safe transportation of weapons protected by the second amendment is an essential corollary of the right to possess them in the home for self-defense when such transportation is necessary to effectuate that right. Conversely, in rejecting second amendment challenges to measures prohibiting the possession of handguns outside the home, courts have deemed it significant that those regulatory schemes contained provisions including, in addition to the right to possess handguns in the home, limited exceptions permitting the transportation of handguns between homes, or between home and dealer or repairer.

We conclude that the state has not provided sufficient reason for extending the ban on transporting dirk knives and police batons to a scenario, like the present one, in which the owner of those weapons uses his vehicle to move them from a former residence to a new one.

The court’s holding that the right to bear arms includes non-firearms, such as knives and batons, is consistent with the bulk of modern precedent on the subject; for other cases striking down bans on such weapons, see State v. Griffin, 47 A.3d 487 (Del. 2012) (knives); People v. Yanna, 824 N.W.2d 241 (stun guns and Tasers); 1986 Fla. Op. Att’y Gen. 2 (stun guns and Tasers); State v. Delgado, 692 P.2d 610 (Or. 1984) (switchblades); State v. Blocker, 630 P.2d 824 (Or. 1981) (billy clubs); State v. Kessler, 614 P.2d 94 (Or. 1980) (billy clubs); Barnett v. State, 695 P.2d 991 (Or. Ct. App. 1985) (blackjacks). But see City of Seattle v. Evans (Wash. 2014) (concluding that kitchen knives aren’t constitutionally protected, but not deciding about knives more broadly); State v. Swanton, 629 P.2d 98, 98 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1981) (holding that nunchakus are not arms, because “arms” is limited to “such arms as are recognized in civilized warfare and not those used by a ruffian, brawler or assassin”).

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27. [AZ] Complete repudiation: Pro-gun candidate wins Giffords' former house seat
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Except for surviving an attempted assassination by a mentally unstable person, Gabby Giffords can't buy a break. The winner of her old seat ran on a pro-gun platform.

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/mesvnsk
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ouse-seat/

Complete Repudiation: Pro-Gun Candidate Wins Gabby Giffords' Former House Seat
by AWR HAWKINS
December 17, 2014

On December 17, pro-Second Amendment candidate Martha McSally (R) was officially declared the winner in the race for Arizona’s second congressional district over pro-gun control Representative Ron Barber (D-AZ-2.)

Arizona’s second district is gun control proponent Gabby Giffords’ former seat and the contest she campaigned hardest for during the months prior to the November 4 mid-term elections.

According to Roll Call, McSally won the election by “167 votes.” Barber released a statement congratulating her and “wishing her well in serving southern Arizonans.”

Breibart News previously reported that Barber was trying to get re-elected on a gun control platform, while McSally was running as a pro-Second Amendment candidate. On September 20, Breitbart News reported that Giffords ads against McSally were filled with such vitriol that The Arizona Republic described them as “base and vile,” and said Giffords was harming Barber and her own image more than she was hurting McSally.

McSally’s win gives the GOP a historic majority in the House.

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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/]