VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 4/22/15

Post by **OakRidgeStars** » Thu, 23 Apr 2015 12:28:18

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Not yet a VCDL member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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*** Still catching up. Older items start at number 10 ***

1. Veterans Association and FBI working together to disarm vets
2. Plenty of other hardware stores: Courtland Ace Hardware is posted “no guns”
3. VCDL president to speak at Shenandoah Valley Tea Party Patriots event on May 7
4. Bill Currington has backed out on anti-gun concert
5. Illinois permit holder stops mass shooter!
6. [OK] Gun owner stops burglary at neighbor’s house [VIDEO]
7. For antis, reality might be optional
8. [CO] Guns on a university campus - the Colorado experience
9. Pro-gun editorial by the Winchester Star
10. Why 'ladies only' hits the mark for females who want to shoot guns [VIDEO]
11. Opinion: The fight to keep Virginia gun-friendly must continue
12. Smart gun technology faces many hurdles
13. Slapped down again: Moms Demand kindly told to take a hike
14. Funny: The 2nd amendment: anti-gun edition [VIDEO]
15. Are guns "more likely to kill you than a car is"? No- Crime Prevention Research Center
16. How common are child gun accidents?
17. Herd immunity applies to guns as well as vaccinations
18. To shoot or not to shoot?-CNN [VIDEO]
19. Who really wants gun control and why
20. Hot Gunz - Stolen firearms database
21. Bloomberg's Everytown eats crow, apologies not enough says CCRKBA
22. [OH] Cop in Ohio praises armed citizen for carrying during traffic stop [VIDEO]
23. [PA] "The bad guy pulled a stickup...lost" [VIDEO]
24. [MN] New Hope City Hall shooter acquired gun illegally, background checks fail again
25. "The only thing that would have saved her was a gun”

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1. Veterans Association and FBI working together to disarm vets
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This is what I’ve been suspecting for a long time, I’m sad to say.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/21/va-se ... aken-away/

or

http://tinyurl.com/qgcby93

VA Sends Veterans’ Medical Info To FBI To Get Their Guns Taken Away
Patrick Howley, Political Reporter, 04/21/2015

Documents obtained by The Daily Caller and interviews with American veterans reveal a shocking government program: The Department of Veterans Affairs is disarming America’s veterans by getting them placed on the FBI’s criminal background-check list.

The VA sends veterans’ personal medical and financial information directly to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which can seize their guns in home raids.

Veterans deemed mentally incompetent or financially incapable are finally speaking out about the errors in the system and the fearful harassment they and their families face from the federal government. And it all starts when vets go to the VA to get medical help.

Here’s what we know:

VA medical information is used to block veterans from possessing firearms:

The Daily Caller obtained a “MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS AND THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION REGARDING THE NATIONAL INSTANT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK SYSTEM.”

The document, dated Feb. 27, 2012, makes clear the VA must send health information to the FBI for its gun background-check database.

“VA will provide an encrypted compact disc exchanged via mail to the FBI no less than quarterly for, inter alia, inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS),” the memo reads.

The memo defines the NICS database as a list of “persons prohibited under federal law from receiving or possessing firearms.”

“Data disclosed by VA to the FBI under the terms of this agreement is to be entered into the NICS Index…”

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2. Plenty of other hardware stores: Courtland Ace Hardware is posted “no guns”
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Courtland Ace Hardware has just been added to VCDL’s High-Risk Business list because of a prominent sign banning the carry of firearms on their premises.

Member Sean Clarkson sent me a photo of the sign on the door and I called to talk with the manager. Apparently the owner wants that sign on the door. I explained that criminals would laugh at that sign and see it as an advertisement for a robbery.

Address:

Courtland Ace Hardware
9795 Courthouse Rd
Spotsylvania, VA 22553
(T): 540-834-2231
(F): 540-834-0326
(W): http://www.courtlandace.com

The manager did what one would expect the manager to do: defended the sign and to told me that I didn’t HAVE to put the store on the High-Risk Business list.

Ah, but I explained that I MUST do so and so I have:

http://vcdl.org/taxonomy/term/56

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3. VCDL president to speak at Shenandoah Valley Tea Party Patriots event on May 7
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I have been invited to speak at a meeting of the Shenandoah Valley Tea Party Patriots on May 7 at 6:30 PM. The meeting is going to be held in the City of Staunton Public Meeting Room in Staunton City Hall (116 W. Beverly St. - use Central Ave. Police Dept. entrance, go to first floor).

I have been asked to speak on how to be more effective and better organized when dealing with legislators. Also, I will be fielding any questions dealing with firearms.

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4. Bill Currington has backed out on anti-gun concert
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/sty ... e-concert/

or

http://tinyurl.com/lmyq5v4

[SNIP]

After several days of critical backlash by gun-rights advocates over a Tim McGraw concert to benefit a Sandy Hook charity, opening act Billy Currington has dropped out of the show.

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5. Illinois permit holder stops mass shooter!
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Shannon Watts with Moms Demand Action says things like this never happen.

They happen all the time, Shannon. You need to subscribe to VA-ALERT!

Now that I have an Illinois concealed handgun license, I’ve found out that Illinois actually has very good self-defense laws - very similar to Virginia!

Also notice how the permit holder stopped the mass shooting and no one got hit in the cross-fire. Another “fear” expressed by the antis that isn’t based in fact.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... story.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/opdwnur

Uber driver, licensed to carry gun, shoots gunman in Logan Square

Gun-wielding Uber driver takes down man firing at crowd, prosecutors say. (WGN-TV)
By Geoff Ziezulewicz Chicago Tribune

Authorities say no charges will be filed against an Uber driver who shot and wounded a gunman who opened fire on a crowd of people in Logan Square over the weekend.

The driver had a concealed-carry permit and acted in the defense of himself and others, Assistant State's Attorney Barry Quinn said in court Sunday.

A group of people had been walking in front of the driver around 11:50 p.m. Friday in the 2900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when Everardo Custodio, 22, began firing into the crowd, Quinn said.

The driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at Custodio, hitting him several times, according to court records. Responding officers found Custodio lying on the ground, bleeding, Quinn said. No other injuries were reported.

Custodio was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic hospital, where he was treated for gunshot wounds to the shin, thigh and lower back, authorities said.

Custodio, of the 2900 block of North Ridgeway Avenue, was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful use of a weapon charges. He was denied bond during the Sunday court hearing.

The Uber driver, a 47-year-old resident of Little Italy, provided police with a valid concealed-carry permit and a firearm owner's identification card, Quinn said.

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6. [OK] Gun owner stops burglary at neighbor’s house [VIDEO]
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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04 ... 0Final-MON

or

http://tinyurl.com/pp5x2sp

Alvin Cleere doesn’t beat around the bush with it.

“I’m nosy. I’m a nosy guy,” he told KFOR-TV.

But for a rural neighborhood in Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, having a nosy neighbor paid off.

According to the news station, Cleere, who has lived in the area for 47 years, saw an unfamiliar white pickup truck at a neighbor’s home. Cleere stopped and looked in the back of the truck bed. Inside, he saw a mattress and fixtures like a kitchen sink.

That’s when Cleere took out his handgun because “that kind of helps out a little bit; I’m too old to fight anymore” and held up the suspected robber until the authorities arrived, the news station reported.

The incident happened at this home when Cleere said he noticed a truck that he hadn’t seen before.

“He kind of had a deer in the headlights look and knew he was caught,” Cleere told KFOR of the alleged thief.

Given that this isn’t his first citizens arrest, Cleere shared a message with KFOR for those looking to cause trouble in his neck of the woods.

“Just go somewhere else. Dont come out east of Shawnee and everything will be good,” he said.

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7. For antis, reality might be optional
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None other than Walter Williams!

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles ... BeOptional

[SNIP]

Gun control advocates argue that stricter gun control laws would reduce murders. They ignore the fact that Brazil, Mexico and Russia have some of the strictest gun control laws but murder rates higher than ours. On the other hand, Switzerland and Israel have higher gun ownership rates than we but much lower murder rates. These are realities that gun controllers ignore.

Another reality completely ignored in the gun control debate is the reason the Founding Fathers gave Second Amendment protections. Alexander Hamilton wrote, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.” Thomas Jefferson wrote, "What country can preserve (its) liberties if (its) rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." I leave it up to you to decide what representatives and rulers the founders were talking about.

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8. [CO] Guns on a university campus - the Colorado experience
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26 women on campus used a gun successfully to thwart rape. That’s a 100% success rate! No mass shootings and no crime committed by permit holders.

I’m not surprised by any of that. VCDL will continue the fight to fix Virginia law until we succeed.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... t-holders/

or

http://tinyurl.com/pyv63ok

Colorado Campus Carry: 12 Years, No Mass Shootings, No Crimes by Permit Holders
by AWR Hawkins20 Apr 2015196

On April 20, The Washington Post ran a column showing that campus carry has been the law of the land in Colorado since 2003, and the results have not been anything like those currently fighting against campus carry claim it should be.

There have been no mass shootings and, apart from one incident in which a gun was accidentally discharged by a Colorado University employee, there have been no crimes by permit holders.

No one was injured in the accidental discharge, and the employee was fired.

The success of campus carry in Colorado is especially good news for women, who are able to level the playing field by being armed and better able to defend their dignity when under sexual attack.

WaPo explains:

"The U.S. Census Bureau conducts in-person interviews with several thousand persons annually, for the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). In 1992-2002, over 2,000 of the persons interviewed disclosed they had been raped or sexually assaulted. Of them, only 26 volunteered that they used a weapon to resist. In none of those 26 cases was the rape completed; in none of the cases did the victim suffer additional injury after she deployed her weapon."

So, in the 26 assaults in which a woman had access to a weapon, she was able to stop the rape and was not further assaulted.

Moreover, WaPo expounded on the NCVS results by including an in-depth study by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck.

Kleck “conducted a much broader examination of NCVS data. Analyzing a data set of 27,595 attempted violent crimes and 16 types of protective actions, Kleck found that resisting with a gun greatly lowered the risk of the victim being injured, or of the crime being completed.”

This is one hundred and eighty degrees from what campus carry opponents want us to believe.

For example, on February 24, MSNBC published an op-ed in which Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action claimed passing legislation to allow women to be armed on campus for self-defense could open the door for more people to “perpetrate sexual assault” against women on campuses. And four days later, Salon magazine published a piece in which they published figures from Everytown for Gun Safety suggesting women will be in even greater danger if the gun-free zones are eradicated.

But neither the NCVS, nor Kleck’s scholarly work, nor Colorado’s 12-year example support these claims. Instead, the NCVS and Kleck show that guns in the hands of law-abiding women allow those women to stop a sexual assault in its tracks, and Colorado’s campus carry experience shows concealed carry permit holders simply aren’t those committing crimes on campuses.

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9. Pro-gun editorial by the Winchester Star
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Nice to see.

http://winchesterstar.va.newsmemory.com ... =5d8c282a2

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10. Why 'ladies only' hits the mark for females who want to shoot guns [VIDEO]
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Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:

From wtvr.com: http://tinyurl.com/q3zb8tn
http://wtvr.com/2015/02/06/why-ladies-o ... hoot-guns/

Why ‘ladies only’ hits the mark for females who want to shoot guns
by Reba Hollingsworth
February 6, 2015

HENRICO, Va. — Soccer Mom Debra Smith even teaches men how to shoot a gun, but this class at Colonial Shooting Academy is for “Ladies Only”.
“I’m not afraid of guns at all. I would rather be prepared if someone is going to come at me with a gun,” says one of the class participants.

Another class participant, Dianne Hill admits that she has a ‘healthy fear of guns’. Dianne and Kacey are two of the women taking a two-day course at Colonial Shooting Academy in Richmond. It’s where the ladies learn how to handle and shoot a pistol safely without feeling like an outsider in a male dominated industry.

“I hear a lot of people say, “I don’t want a man to teach me. He’ll think I’m stupid and they’ll have a hard time coming to the range themselves,” said Debra Smith, shooting instructor at Colonial Shooting Academy.

Amy Kingery knows the frustration; she’s been shooting off and on for 20 years. Her husband is a retired police officer.

“He got very frustrated with me and I would get frustrated with him and he’s a little bit condescending,” said Kingery. “It didn’t work out that good.”

Not only are “Ladies Only” shooting classes booming, there are more female instructors.

“You can relate to girls,” explained Kingery. “There’s not of that macho stuff going on – no one being all big man. It’s just girls wanting to learn and doing it properly.”

The most recent Gallup poll on the topic shows that 23% of all women own a gun. That’s a 10% jump over a six-year period. A 2012 survey from the National Shooting Sports Association shows 6.4 million women are target shooting; a 67% jump from a decade ago.

“We’re moving away from looking at the man as the protector of women and protector of the family,” Smith said. “Women are taking on that role.”

And so they’re taking classes on how to defend themselves. CBS 6 anchor Reba Hollingsworth is one of those women. Reba comes from a family of gun owners. It’s a sport for her father, but Reba’s never touched a gun—until now.

The five ladies in the class all fired off the first round trying to hit their target, a white paper plate, from 15 feet away. Most of the ladies in the class are pretty much on target, but Reba struggled.

Instructor Debra Smith tried to help.

“When you jerk it, you’re going to move the gun and your shots are going to be a little bit off,” she said.

GUN SALES TARGET WOMEN AS CONSUMERS

The ladies may be focused on hitting a small target, but the powerful gun industry is eyeing an even bigger one. University of Richmond Professor, Laura Browder said women have become the bullseye.
“They kind of took advantage of the women’s liberation movement at the time and began marketing gun ownership as armed feminism,” Browder said.

Browder is the author of the book “Her Best Shot.” In it she explores the relationship between women and guns over two centuries, dating as far back as The American Revolution.

“When you had a prominent politician saying the difference between a citizen and a slave was the right to bear homes in defense of one’s country and since women were allowed to do that, they weren’t considered citizens,” said Browder.

That forced armed women to disguise themselves as men to go fight in war. In the late 1880’s, gun-toting Annie Oakley would become an American icon.

“One of the biggest shooting stars in the history of the U.S is Annie Oakley,” said Browder.

In the late 1980’s, Browder said gun sales were flat and male hunters were dying off, so the gun industry set its sights on women. They began making smaller guns and creating ads like a famous one of a mom tucking in her child with a gun on the nightstand.

“Gun manufacturers are appealing to women’s fears, whereas a 100 or 120 years ago it used to appeal to women’s strengths,” said Browder.

Back at the range, retired Henrico Police Officer Reese Haller helped Reba with her aim. Eventually she got better. But outside these walls, Americans continue to debate guns, especially in the wake of several high profile shootings.

At Colonial Shooting Academy, the women have no agenda; they’re arming themselves with knowledge more than anything else.

“Guns are out there and everyone needs to learn how to be safe with them and you can learn that without even shooting a gun,” said Debra Smith.

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11. Opinion: The fight to keep Virginia gun-friendly must continue
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From guns.com: http://tinyurl.com/qb8k957
http://www.guns.com/2015/02/03/opinion- ... -continue/

Opinion: The fight to keep Virginia gun-friendly must continue
by Gabriella Hoffman
February 3, 2015

Last Monday, the Virginia State Senate Courts of Justice Committee shot down another series of anti-gun legislation from Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The Senate committee rejected a bill that would have imposed background checks on private firearm sales and another bill that would have limited firearm purchases to one a month.

Additionally, this Republican-controlled committee passed a bill that would allow for lifetime concealed handgun permits and a subcommittee of the Virginia House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety scrapped some more anti-gun bills.

McAuliffe’s support for gun control shouldn’t come as a surprise. While campaigning for governor in 2013, McAuliffe pledged support for “mainstream and majority supported gun control measures like universal background checks, limiting the size of magazines, and a return to the 1-gun-per-month rule.” True to his word, McAuliffe introduced a series of gun control bills in January 2014–that were subsequently defeated in the Virginia House Militia, Police and Public Safety subcommittee.

Despite McAuliffe’s penchant for pushing gun control in our state and the impression it may give others about our feelings towards the Second Amendment, Virginians know how disingenuous the gun control lobby truly is.

A recent Roanoake College poll revealed that a majority of Virginians agree with protecting the Second Amendment rather than placing restrictions on it by a 50 percent to 42 percent margin. The state houses organizations like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America. In recent years we’ve witnessed the rise of “Guntry Clubs,” which are state-of-the-art gun ranges catering for new shooters — especially young, affluent, and female shooters. (One can be found an hour outside of D.C. in Manassas, Virginia.).

A sensible person would realize that it’s virtually impossible for gun control policies to be enacted in the Commonwealth of Virginia given Republican control of the General Assembly. However, this doesn’t dissuade McAuliffe and his anti-gun politicians in Richmond from pushing their “common sense gun reforms” on us.

Virginia is currently ranked the ninth safest state in the United States. What can this be attributed to? I believe it is our gun laws, which permit conceal carry and open carry, among many other things. Placing restrictions on gun ownership will not thwart crime here in Virginia nor in neighboring Maryland or D.C. Instead, good guys with guns will help thwart bad guys with guns.

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12. Smart gun technology faces many hurdles
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There is way too much that can go wrong with a “smart” gun. Take one that reads fingerprints - what if you have gloves on or have blood all over your hands? What if the battery dies? What if you have to grab the gun with your other hand? Or if you can’t get a full grip on it? What if you have a cut on your hand and are wearing a bandaid or if you have a blister?

And don’t get me started on wearing some kind of RFID-enabled band or other object on your body. If you are too close to the gun in a struggle, the criminal can still shoot you because your band will be in close proximity to the gun.

Member Mark Gill emailed me this:

Not surprisingly, it seems that gun rights advocates, gun manufacturers, and the NRA were left out of the discussion "but attendees and the panelists did discuss the issue of how smart-gun technology may be viewed with the Second Amendment in mind." I'm sure that was a fair and balanced discussion (not).

From homelandsecuritynewswire.com: http://tinyurl.com/okozuq8
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com ... ny-hurdles

Smart-gun technology faces many hurdles
February 2, 2015

At last Wednesday’s Seattle International Smart Gun Symposium, lawmakers, smart-gun industry representatives, and gun-safety advocates met to discuss the future of “authorized” guns which only discharge in the hands of pre-authorized owners. Representatives from Sentinl, maker of an add-on fingerprint sensor for existing handguns; TriggerSmart, an RFID-enabled system for existing and brand-new guns; and Allied Biometrix, a firm developing fully integrated biometric sensors which unlock a gun once they sense an individual’s “reflexive actions” and “grip style,” attended the event, though these companies do not yet have a ready-for-market product.

At last Wednesday’s Seattle International Smart Gun Symposium, lawmakers, smart-gun industry representatives, and gun-safety advocates met to discuss the future of “authorized” guns which only discharge in the hands of pre-authorized owners. Absent from the meeting were gun-rights advocate, gun manufacturers, or organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), but attendees and the panelists did discuss the issue of how smart-gun technology may be viewed with the Second Amendment in mind.

At the event, hosted by the Washington Technology Industry Association, New Jersey State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, the author of her state’s Childproof Handgun Law, reiterated the benefits of a smart handgun. “What gun owner wouldn’t want a gun that, if it got into hands of a child, would be rendered inoperable?” Weinberg asked. She noted that thousands of American children and teens go to emergency rooms every year due to firearm incidents. “As a mother, a grandmother, a lawmaker, and a citizen who believes in policy (to increase public safety), childproofing handguns was common sense.”

Under Weinberg’s 2002 legislation, once a handgun with a working user-authentication system was sold anywhere in the United States, a 30-month countdown would begin, after which all new guns sold in New Jersey would have to include some form of “smart authentication.” Unfortunately for Wenberg’s bill, the countdown has yet to begin because stores which moved to sell such guns, particularly the Armatix iP1, decided to stop selling them after receiving death and arson threats from people who described themselves as gun-rights advocates. The iP1 only functions when an RFID-enabled wristband is worn within ten inches of the pistol.

Putting faith in the free market to advance smart gun technology, Weinberg offered the NRA a deal: “If you encourage your members not to interfere with the research, development, manufacture, distribution, and retail sale of this technology, I will work to repeal the law in Jersey.”

“We never got an answer,” she told attendees in Seattle.

Ars Technica reports that representatives from Sentinl, maker of an add-on fingerprint sensor for existing handguns; TriggerSmart, an RFID-enabled system for existing and brand-new guns; and Allied Biometrix, a firm developing fully integrated biometric sensors which unlock a gun once they sense an individual’s “reflexive actions” and “grip style,” attended the event, though these companies do not yet have a ready-for-market product. Sentinl and TriggerSmart may have products available by the end of this year, but Allied Biometrix is taking a more measured stance on rushing to market.

“As marketers, one might think it’s counter-intuitive not to be the first to market,” Allied Biometrix CEO Alan Boinus said. “But this business is a little different. We have challenges beyond technology — challenges in legislation, challenges in the controversy. We can’t afford a 404 error code… and we don’t want bad actors entering the marketplace with less-than-reliable guns and causing fear in the gun community that this might, no pun intended, trigger the New Jersey laws.”

Washington’s King County Sheriff John Urquhart said that smart handgun technology was not “ready for prime time.” “I’m probably the only person in this room who has zipped kids into bodybags,” Urquhart told attendees. “We pick up kids who have killed themselves with other people’s handguns. We don’t like that.” He mentioned that more than 500 American police officers were killed in the past decade with their own handguns by apprehended suspects. “Any tech to make that better is a good thing. That being said, (smart gun technology) is not ready for my officers yet. If it worked 110 percent of the time, I’d be interested,” He said.

Several law enforcement departments are skeptical about smart gun technology. “With current guns, you can look at the parts. If we don’t clean them, they’ll go bad on us. But you can’t see electronics,” Urqhart said. He added that laser sights, the last major handgun innovation he could think of, remain uncommon across the country because police departments “don’t want officers to rely on such technology.” He added that if smart-gun technology proves to be reliable and comfortable for police officers, many police departments would likely support it. “If it was gonna save lives, and the lives of my officers, I’d spend that kind money, and the council would approve it.”

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13. Slapped down again: Moms Demand kindly told to take a hike
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I hope the Demanding Moms have comfortable shoes based on all the “hiking” they seem to be doing.

Member Harley Drag emailed me this:

From bearingarms.com: http://tinyurl.com/nv5xfue
http://bearingarms.com/slapped-moms-dem ... ampaign=nl

SLAPPED DOWN AGAIN: Moms Demand Kindly Told to Take A Hike By Chicken Chain
by Bob Owens
February 4, 2015

The bullying and harassment campaigns of Moms Demand Action continue to fail, as their latest target politely told the gun prohibitionist group to go pound sand:

Raising Cain’s Chicken Fingers simply wants to follow their business model without getting dragged into political debates. Like Kroger and their affiliated supermarkets, Raising Cain’s refuses to bow to Moms Demand’s irrational hysteria-mongering.

Moms Demand operates their social media bullying campaign using the same tired tactics, finding old pictures of open carry supporters in Texas who once used the tactic of long gun open carry into restaurants and stores to try to raise awareness of the fact that Texas is one of just a handful of states that bans the open carry of a holstered handgun. As the law presently stands in Texas, you can carry a handgun on your belt under an untucked shirt, but as soon as you tuck in your shirt and the gun is exposed, you’ve broken the law.

Yes, that’s right: same gun, same holster, same belt, same lawful gun owner, and the “crime” is committed by tucking in your shirt. It’s all quite absurd, which is why various open carry groups are pushing to have an open carry law adopted in this session of the Texas legislature.

Open carry groups had carried long guns into restaurants into businesses hoping to make a point, but open carry groups like Open Carry Texas have stopped using that form of protest once it was determined that the tactic wasn’t helping send the message that they wanted. The only group that we’re aware of that still uses this tactic is Open Carry Tarrant County, a small group of aggressive extremists that many of you have indicated in the comments of prior posts that you think are little more than a disguised gun control group… sheep in wolves’ clothing.

I applaud Raising Cain’s for deciding not to be drawn into a political debate, and feel bad that they are likely to be the subject of months of harassment by Shannon Watts and her small, shrill band of bullies. It might be worthwhile to let Raising Cane’s know that you support their decision to remain politically neutral.

You can leave a comment on their Facebook page, on Twitter, or via email, “snail mail” or phone via their contact page.

Raising Cain’s seems to be a company that shares a love of community that is common among most gun owners, and I hate that their being attacked by a group of zealots who are interested in nothing more than infringing on the basic human right to armed self-defense.

* * *

The tactics used by Moms Demand are characteristically dishonest. Like the 2013 photo of Kory Watkins carrying a slung AKM in a Fort Worth-area Kroger that Moms Demand used as the justification to try to push for a ban on the open carry of holstered handguns nationwide, the gun prohibitionist group is using a 2013 photo of an Open Carry Texas protest in attempt to bully Raising Cain’s Chicken Fingers.

This is the sort of characteristically dishonest behavior that seems endemic to the gun control movement. Moms Demand Action has been repeatedly called to the carpet for grossly exaggerating the number of school shootings in America since Sandy Hook (they claim 100, actual total is 1/4 that) by claiming that shots fired near schools, robberies with shots fired on college campuses, suicides, and drug deals gone wrong in school parking lots on weekends and at night are “school shootings.” Politifact, FactCheck.org, and CNN are just some of the left-leaning organizations that have pilloried Moms Demand.

Though proven to have lied, Moms Demand continues to push forward with the bogus “report,” knowing that their less honest allies in some media will still regurgitate their talking points.

Mike Bloomberg’s other gun-control group, Everytown for Gun Safety, also has a “truth problem.” Attempting to generate interest in Vermont for “universal background checks” (as a prelude to registration and confiscation), Everytown falsified a report claiming that “unlicensed sellers” were selling guns to criminals via the Internet. Of course, they could not prove that a single illicit sale too place in their misleading report, and also apparently defamed a licensed gun dealer in the process, and he is seeking legal action against them.

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14. Funny: The 2nd amendment: anti-gun edition [VIDEO]
**************************************************

Hilarious look at what antis think the Second Amendment actually says.

From youtube.com:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51clP7JRqv8

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15. Are guns "more likely to kill you than a car is"? No- Crime Prevention Research Center
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From crimepreventionresearchcenter.org: http://tinyurl.com/n7l95g5
http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.or ... car-is-no/

Anti-Gun Leader Upset Police Followed The Law
by John R. Lott
January 31, 2015

The Economist magazine had the headline in mid January: “A gun is now more likely to kill you than a car is.” It is a claim that has been repeated over and over again (see Forbes, The Atlantic, Slate (question 9), Vox (also at MSN News), RT, college newspapers across the country, Mother Jones, Raw Story, Oregonlive.com, Tucson Sentinel, and related pieces in the Washington Post). From The Economist article:

ACCORDING to data gathered by the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), deaths caused by cars in America are in long-term decline. Improved technology, tougher laws and less driving by young people have all led to safer streets and highways. Deaths by guns, though—the great majority suicides, accidents or domestic violence—have been trending slightly upwards. This year, if the trend continues, they will overtake deaths on the roads. . . .

Comparing the two national icons, cars and guns, yields “a statistic that really resonates with people”, says Chelsea Parsons, co-author of the report for the Centre for American Progress. Resonance is certainly needed. There are about 320m people in the United States, and nearly as many civilian firearms. And although the actual rate of gun ownership is declining, enthusiasts are keeping up the number in circulation. Black Friday on November 28th kicked off such a shopping spree that the FBI had to carry out 175,000 instant background checks (three checks a second), a record for that day, just for sales covered by the extended Brady Act of 1998, the only serious bit of gun-curbing legislation passed in recent history.

Many sales escape that oversight, however. Everytown for Gun Safety, a movement backed by Mike Bloomberg, a former mayor of New York, has investigated loopholes in online gun sales and found that one in 30 users of Armslist classifieds has a criminal record that forbids them to own firearms. Private reselling of guns draws no attention, unless it crosses state lines. . . .

Here is the letter that we submitted:

Dear Letters Editor:

Your “Bangers v bullets” (Jan 10th) misleadingly claims that car deaths have fallen more than guns deaths because cars face more safety regulations.

Compare similar categories. While 99.4% of car deaths arise from accidents in 2013, that percentage is only 1.5% for guns. 64% of gun fatalities are suicides. If increased safety regulations are the solution, why is it that between 2000 and 2012 accidental deaths from cars fell by 18% and those from guns by 35%?

Gun deaths are rising because there has been a 28% increase in firearm suicides. But non-firearm suicides increased even faster (56%) –something is causing suicides generally to rise.

Despite your claim, domestic violence simply doesn’t account for a large share of gun deaths — only 3% of gun deaths in 2012 involved murders of immediate or extended family members.

The regulations you mention do real harm. About 99 percent of background check denials under the Brady Act are false positives, not criminals. Some denials mean people can’t defend themselves.

As for gun deaths for 15-24 year olds, most involve gang fights. One solution: Try legalizing drugs.

Regards,

The claim that total automobile deaths have fallen relative to firearm deaths can be seen in this figure, though it is also clear that the drop occurred during the recession of 2008 and 2009 (part of that drop is due in part to some reduction in driving).

The types of deaths by cause show that auto accidents are overwhelmingly accidental deaths and those by firearms are suicides.

There are two problems with the claim that regulations are responsible for the drop in accidental motor vehicle deaths . First, virtually the entire drop occurred in two years during the recession (2008 and 2009) and it is hard to think of any new regulations that would produce such a sudden and large drop (most regulations would have a gradual impact over time has new cars with those features made up a greater and greater share of the cars on the road). Most likely the drop occurred because of changing driving habits (such as some reduction in how much people drove). It is because of this point that we are unlikely to see firearm deaths exceed motor vehicle deaths in 2015.

The long sustained high gasoline prices since the beginning of the Obama administration also had an impact. From the beginning of 2011 until the end of November 2014, the price of gasoline never fell before $3.00 a gallon. One has to go back to the beginning of the Obama administration to find gas prices as low as they have now gone. The new lower prices of gas at about $2 will probably also increase driving distances, particularly if the prices stay low for a while.

Second, the drop in accidental firearm deaths fell almost twice as much as the drop in accidental motor vehicle deaths, but gun control advocates are claiming that there were no new firearm regulations.

The increase in firearm deaths is due to the increase in firearm suicides (accidents fell, homicides were essentially flat, and suicides increased by 28%), but this doesn’t seem like a problem with firearms per se as the increase in non-firearm suicides was twice as large as the increase in firearm suicides.

As to the claim that background checks are the great regulation that will save lives, the discussion ignores all the research that fails to find that these regulations reduce crime rates. In addition, the discussion ignores who the background checks actually do stop — overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens.

If we had space in the letter, there were other errors in their article that could have been included. For example, the article claims that “the actual rate of gun ownership is declining” is presumably based on one survey — the General Social Science survey. The GSS survey is the outlier in terms of gun ownership rates.

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16. How common are child gun accidents?
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Member Ben Tomhave emailed me this:

From realclearpolicy.com: http://tinyurl.com//l7fqjww
http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/201 ... s_666.html

How Common Are Child Gun Accidents?
by Robert VerBruggen
September 29, 2013

The New York Times has a big new investigation on the topic, and some left-leaning bloggers have been going out of their way to highlight horrifying anecdotes about children and firearms lately. The NYT's major finding is that about half of accidental child firearm deaths are misclassified in the statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control.

Obviously, this is a huge problem in terms of data collection. But the report's authors seem to think it's also a game-changer in terms of how we should think about accidental gun death, which gun-rights supporters have argued is very rare. (See yours truly in National Review here.) The authors don't provide too many actual comparisons, though -- they just say that adjusting for the reporting problem would make guns rise from the ninth-leading cause of unintentional child death to the fifth or sixth. And strikingly, despite looking at data from four states dating back to 1999, from a fifth state dating back to 2007, and from several smaller jurisdictions that make records available, the authors produced just 259 cases in which a child 14 or younger was accidentally killed with a firearm.

So, let's do some more detailed statistical work. According to the CDC, about 5 in every 100,000 children ages 1 to 14 die from accidental injuries every year. (This is a pretty low number in terms of lifetime risks; accidental deaths skyrocket when you hit the 15-19 age group.) Here are the top ten causes in chart form; I've included both the CDC's number for guns and an adjusted number (double that):

You can see by looking at the X axis that guns do, indeed, move up several places in the rankings when you double the number. But you can see from the Y axis that gun accidents remain a rare cause of unintentional death for children. More than half of such deaths are from cars and water, and shuffling the rankings below fourth place doesn't really change the overall picture. The official CDC stat is that 0.11 in every 100,000 children die from gun accidents every year; doubling that brings it to 0.22 -- just 4.4 percent of the overall rate of 5 per 100,000, in a country in which around 40 percent of households have guns.

The adjusted figure (124 deaths per year) is not even a disproportionate number of the total fatal gun accidents in the U.S. each year -- about 600 according to CDC data, plus 62 for the NYT adjustment for misreported child accidents, plus an unknown number to account for the fact that adult accidents are sometimes misreported too. About 19 percent of the U.S. population is between the ages of 1 and 14, so even if adult accidents are reported perfectly, children make up a lower proportion of gun-accident deaths than you'd expect based purely on population. (I imagine age makes a big difference in terms of how accidents happen, though: Kids rarely have access to guns but misuse them when they do; adults have access whenever they want it and are sometimes careless.)

Further, while the accidental-death risk posed by guns is undoubtedly higher than the risk posed by some other optional household products (e.g. even trampolines cause very few deaths), we tolerate much higher risks in certain items, especially residential swimming pools, which account for about three-quarters of child drowning deaths. Steven Levitt famously calculated that a swimming pool on your property is 100 times more likely than a gun to kill your child by accident; make the NYT adjustment, and it's still 50 times. And swimming pools don't pose the constitutional and self-defense tradeoffs that guns do.

The adjusted number also pales in comparison with the 11,000 gun and 5,000 non-gun homicides that take place each year in this country, the total U.S. population of over 300 million, and the number of guns here (which is also around 300 million).

Of course, none of this is to say that 124 lives per year aren't worth saving, but it's hard to see how we could make such a rare event even rarer -- if the risk of killing a child (often one's own child) isn't motivation enough for a gun owner to behave responsibly, a law against having unlocked guns around kids might not matter, either, though perhaps we should regulate and prosecute negligent behavior more in the interest of justice. And the most dramatic solutions -- making all gun owners lock their weapons up even when children aren't around, mandating expensive technology to keep everyone but a gun's owner from firing it -- raise Second Amendment concerns and could make guns harder to use in self-defense.

The simple fact is that when it comes to accidents that kill children, the heart of the problem lies in cars, water, and fires -- and that when it comes to firearms, the heart of the problem lies in what people do intentionally. Statistically speaking, the issue of kids who die in gun accidents has received far more attention than it should.

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17. Herd immunity applies to guns as well as vaccinations
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Member James Durso emailed me this.

From pjmedia.com: http://tinyurl.com/qzt8loo
http://pjmedia.com/blog/herd-immunity-a ... cinations/

Herd Immunity Applies to Guns as Well as Vaccinations
By Paul Hsieh
February 2, 2015

Don’t own a gun but have a safe neighborhood? Thank a gun owner.

The recent measles outbreaks have sparked a national debate over vaccinations and the concept of “herd immunity.” The basic idea behind herd immunity is that “the vaccination of a significant portion of a population provides a measure of protection for individuals who have not developed immunity.”

The concept of “herd immunity” applies to gun ownership and crime rates just as it does to vaccinations and infectious disease.

Crime rates in Chicago dropped dramatically in 2014 after the state of Illinois allowed legal concealed carry. From the Washington Times:

[T]he number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent from last year, according to police department statistics. Reports of burglary and motor vehicle theft are down 20 percent and 26 percent, respectively. In the first quarter, the city’s homicide rate was at a 56-year low.

As Richard Pearson of the Illinois State Rifle Association observed:

It isn’t any coincidence crime rates started to go down when concealed carry was permitted. Just the idea that the criminals don’t know who’s armed and who isn’t has a deterrence effect. … The police department hasn’t changed a single tactic — they haven’t announced a shift in policy or of course — and yet you have these incredible numbers.

According to AWR Hawkins, national FBI statistics also showed a significant decrease in crime in the first half 2014 even though gun sales soared in 2013:

The number of murders declined 6.0 percent, the number of rapes (revised definition) declined 10.1 percent, aggravated assaults decreased 1.6 percent, and robbery offenses decreased 10.3 percent.

This is a continuation of the longer-running trend described by Dylan Polk in Guns & Ammo: “Crime rates have dropped as gun ownership has risen, despite a population growth” over the 1993-2013 period.

As always, it can be difficult to conclusively prove a direct causal link between gun ownership and falling crime rates. But such statistics certainly undercut any claims that more guns will lead to more crime.

The recent experience of college students Nour Skargee and Sable Nehme support the thesis that guns can prevent violent crime. When home invaders burst into their apartment, Sable “ran to her bedroom, retrieved her gun and pointed it at the culprits.”

Her quick thinking and bravery paid off. The assailants fled immediately. As Skargee noted:

If we didn’t have a gun, it would have been game over. They were bigger than me, bigger than both of us … We had no way of stopping them. The gun was the one thing that made them run.

(My friend Ryan Moore tells a similar story in his interview: “Carrying a Gun Saved My Life.”)

Richard Pearson estimated that 100,000 Illinois residents will have applied for concealed weapons permits in 2014 (out of a total population of 12 million). This works out to approximately 0.8% of the population.

In other words, “the 1%” of concealed weapons permit holders in Illinois have created a measurable benefit for “the 99%.” Not a bad payoff!

The Crime Prevention Research Center claims similar results nationally:

In 10 states, more than 8 percent of adults hold concealed carry permits, and all are among the states with the lowest crime rates. Lott claims his group’s analysis shows that each one percentage point increase in the adult population holding permits brings a 1.4 percent drop in the murder rate.

The medical theory of “herd immunity” posits that enough vaccinated individuals in a population can reduce the risk of contracting a disease — even for those who aren’t vaccinated. From the experience in Illinois and around the country, a relatively small number of armed people can similarly reduce the risk of crime — even for those who aren’t armed.

So if you don’t own a gun but you are enjoying safer nights out on the town or sleeping more easily in your bed at night, give a little thanks to your neighbors who are gun owners. You’re the beneficiary of gun “herd immunity.”

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18. To shoot or not to shoot?-CNN [VIDEO]
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Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:

From www.cnn.com: http://tinyurl.com/qhv77l9
http://www.cnn.com/videos/justice/2015/ ... a-orig.cnn

To shoot or not to shoot?
by Associated Press
February 1, 2015

It's a difficult question cops ask themselves almost daily. Ex-NYPD officers take us inside a high-tech law enforcement training facility.

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19. Who really wants gun control and why
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From www.ammoland.com: http://tinyurl.com/pj66omg
http://www.ammoland.com/2015/02/who-rea ... z3Qe6C2k7O

Who Really Wants Gun Control and Why? View From The High Ground
by Gregory K. Taggart
February 2, 2015

Shortly after the Newtown murders, in defense of the flood of un-constitutional and anti-liberty legislation that was produced in knee jerk reaction, a prominent anti-gun personality plaintively asked “if what we propose will save even one life- isn’t it worth it?”

The short answer is, of course “no“, because if a certain action saves one life, but costs 500 more, then it certainly is not “worth it”. If this certain action reduces a citizen in distress to the status of a hapless victim, unable to protect himself and forced to merely wait for help from agents of the government, it is certainly not worth it. If the action causes loss of personal dignity and the destruction of a civil right that predates the Constitution, it is not worth it.

Regardless of what gun control proponents claim, attempts to disarm the public are most certainly NOT about “saving lives “; if saving lives is the goal, let teachers carry in school.

Why then, is there always such a vigorous push against firearms civil rights?

First, let us see who is against the right of law-abiding citizens to have arms – what motivates them, and can they have their minds changed?

The anti-gun bunch is basically divided into 4 groups.

1) The Magick Fearers

These folks truly believe that guns themselves represent some nexus that concentrates evil and badness in their vicinity. They cite flawed academic studies that say ”people with a gun in the house are more likely to get shot than others who do not.” Magick Fearers believe statements like that mean something. When you point out, quite logically that it is obvious and actually means nothing, the response is “what do you mean and how can you say that?” Simply offer the obvious counter that people who don’t drive are less likely to be involved in an auto accident. This has little to do with the inherent “danger of misuse” of a particular object and far more with its general availability.

The response I have gotten back is :”…of course, but cars are good, so we put up with car accidents and even intentional car homicides, because you know, cars are good. Guns are bad, so we cannot put up with gun accidents and gun homicides, because guns are bad.”

These folks are literally afraid of me and thee and Joe Schlabotnik if they know we have a sidearm on our person. To these folks, it is THE GUN which creates the threat. In their minds they have imbued a simple object with a life of its own; it causes people to do bad stuff. It is people like this who are horrified at the idea of teachers carrying guns in school – the evil “magick” that is emitted by the gun may cause injury to the children, or it may cause Mrs. Jones the 6th Grade Science teacher to run amok.

The Magick Fearers can sometimes be changed in their thinking, but it is heavy lifting. A good start is to ask:” if someone is armed, but wearing a badge, why do you feel more comfortable than if they were not wearing a badge? ” At least they will be forced to do some self-examination.

2) The Pacifists

These folks don’t like firearms, as they are means to dispense “deadly force”, and they do not believe any human being is justified in applying deadly force to another. They are anti-violence. This is a moral position for them, and while I strongly disagree with them about the morality and ethics (and I believe Christian Imperative) of self-defense at least true Pacifists are logically consistent. A variant on this is the “victim as MORAL victor”; refusal to fight the evil places the victim in a superior moral position to someone who has used violence to defend themselves. I think it was Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) who suggested that for people like these, it is morally preferable to have a dead woman strangled and raped rather than the same woman explaining to responding peace officers why she shot her assailant 8 times.

I must respectfully disagree with the Pacifists. Violence is always regrettable, but they make the gross error of failing to see that the morality of violence is independent of the act itself. Morality of violence is based on whether it is supporting evil or protecting against evil. I think there are some of these pacifists who do not wish to go out on a limb and judge acts as being “good” or “evil”.

I think each of us as citizens is permitted to make such an assessment, indeed it is required to maintain our civic peace. The above referenced rapist is “evil” and committing an evil act to which no one should be forced to submit and it is moral and commendable to use deadly force against him. The man who sticks a gun in my face and demands my wallet is threatening to kill me because he wants my stuff. What he is doing is evil, and to give in supinely is to promote his evil. It is moral to fight back; and if I am bound by morality and ethics to fight back, a pistol is more effective than a nail file or pocket knife.

On a larger scale, when the Brown Shirts come to destroy the synagogue and kill the rabbi, you bet deadly force is moral and justifiable.

Sadly, a true Pacifist will not agree. We aren’t likely to get a Pacifist to change his/her mind, without a Damascus Road experience on their part.

3) The Afraid

These folks are frightened of the mechanism, and cannot conceive that such items can be safely operated. They are not Magick Fearers, or Pacifists. Such people may be fearful of guns the same way some folks fear chainsaws or wood-chippers. They are potentially open-minded. We can reach out to these types of people. They can be introduced to the safe and fun use of firearms. Slowly, gently, without bombast and pushiness, these are a possibility.

We have to understand against whom we fight – These folks we can possibly reach with education, training and demonstration.

4) The Elitist-Statists

These folks just don’t like the idea of you and me and Bubba having a gun. Many of these people are elite politicians, or celebrities of some type. They don’t like guns in the “wrong hands”. They aren’t really against guns- after all their personal police and private bodyguards have guns. Most of these feel that they are better, smarter, more morally advanced and more broadly educated than the general public. The Elitists-Statists have progressive ideas and know that the great unwashed are unarmed, we will be less likely to object effectively to their grand plans to recreate. Elitist-Statists run the gamut from Piers Morgan to Diane Feinstein and Michael Bloomberg, Russell Brand and Liam Neeson to V.I. Lenin, Adolf Hitler and Hugo Chavez. They want all guns to be under the exclusive control of the State so the hoi polloi cannot object to the grand schemes of the Party or State.

It is these people decry the Second Amendment as obsolete or suggest that it only applies to muskets because the Founders could never have envisioned rapid fire firearms. It is ironic that they write their First Amendment-protected columns and opinion articles claiming the obsolescence of the Second Amendment on computers for publication on web sites, rather than penning them with ink for publication on a manual press. They would bridle at the suggestion that the First Amendment did not cover a TV broadcast, because, you know, the Founders never envisioned electronic publication.

Of course such a position is absurd, but it is trotted out regularly by TV talking heads. The irony somehow escapes them.

Elitist-Statists will never change their minds, they are enemies of Liberty. Firearms in the hands of the people prevent them from achieving their political ends; they mean to win, so firearms and other civil rights must go.

The Statists make use of the The Magick Fearers, The Pacifists, and The Afraid to attack our rights, but the latter three are just tools.

It is the Statists who are the enemies of firearms civil rights and of Liberty in general – they want the general citizenry to be disarmed for a reason – as the bumper sticker says “Politicians Prefer Unarmed Peasants”.

The Statists want CONTROL. We must be vigilant against the Statists because they will not sleep or relent, and they want our rights.

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20. Hot Gunz - Stolen firearms database
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

Very interesting site for stolen guns.

http://www.hotgunz.com/

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21. Bloomberg's Everytown eats crow, apologies not enough says CCRKBA
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If Everytown actually got the facts right once in a while, THAT would be news.

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this

From www.ccrka.org: http://tinyurl.com/olxdr3m
http://www.ccrkba.org/?p=4678

BLOOMBERG’S EVERYTOWN EATS CROW; APOLOGY NOT ENOUGH, SAYS CCRKBA
January 30, 2015

BELLEVUE, WA – Breaking news that Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying group has had to retract claims it made about some gun dealers in Vermont should have the nation questioning everything else the group has said, including claims made to influence a Washington initiative campaign last year and a current effort in Nevada, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

News sources are reporting that an Everytown “report” about online firearms sales “wrongly identified” four dozen advertisements that allegedly were placed by unlicensed dealers “leading potential buyers to bypass background checks.” One of those “misidentified” dealers is now threatening a lawsuit.

“This is not the first time a Bloomberg-funded gun control lobbying group has played fast and loose with facts,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Everytown and Moms Demand Action have been challenged for falsely inflating the number of school shootings since Sandy Hook, and who can forget the gun control bus tour funded by Bloomberg that included the names of criminals and a suspected terrorist as victims of gun violence?”

Everytown has issued an apology for its error, but gun dealer Bobby Richards, who operates CrossFire Arms in Mount Holly, is reportedly considering legal action.

“If Bloomberg’s Everytown group is wrong about this,” Gottlieb questioned, “what else have they been wrong about? Did they deliberately misrepresent the facts in hopes they wouldn’t get caught?

“Bloomberg has been using his wealth to push his brand of gun control all over the country,” he observed. “First it was Washington, now Nevada and next Arizona and maybe Oregon. At what point does America tell this guy to get lost, and take his gun prohibition lobbying groups with him?

“Mike Bloomberg doesn’t only owe that gun dealer an apology,” Gottlieb concluded. “He owes every gun owner in America an apology.”

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22. [OH] Cop in Ohio praises armed citizen for carrying during traffic stop [VIDEO]
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From www.gunssavelives.net: http://tinyurl.com/kfhu2yy
http://gunssavelives.net/blog/video-cop ... ffic-stop/

Cop in Ohio Praises Armed Citizen for Carrying a Gun During Traffic Stop
by Dan Cannon
February 2, 2015

With all of the negative stories about police officers in the news it’s easy to forget that there are plenty of good, upstanding officers out there.

Case in point, a man in Ohio was pulled over for a traffic violation. The man recorded the encounter with a camera from his passenger seat.

Rather than the cop giving the man a hard time, he actually praised him for obtaining his carry permit and carrying a firearm.

Here is the description that was posted to Youtube along with the video:

Jackson township ,canton Ohio ..I was speeding 15 over the limit. I advised Him I was carrying and he was nice enough to give me a warning and then compliment me for carrying ..nice cop!

The officer cites an increase in violent crime calls as the primary reasons that he supports concealed carry.

Well done officer!

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23. [PA] "The bad guy pulled a stickup...lost" [VIDEO]
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Guns Save Lives!

EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:

From www.bearingarms.com: http://tinyurl.com/ksb6yz2
http://bearingarms.com/bad-guy-pulled-s ... robber-pa/

“The Bad Guy Pulled A Stickup… Lost.” Concealed Carry Kills Armed Robber In PA
by Bob Owens
February 5, 2015

A still unidentified twenty-something-year-old male jumped out of the bushs and attempted to rob a 67-year old man who was walking through Cobbs Creek Park in Upper Darby, PA, yesterday afternoon.

He chose his intended victim … poorly.

An investigation is underway after police say a man attempted to rob a 67-year-old man and he shot and killed the alleged suspect.

Police say the man was walking near Cobbs Creek Park around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday when the suspect attempted to rob him.

The 67-year-old had a concealed carry permit and authorities say he shot the alleged robber in the head, killing him.

The robber jumped out of the bushes near a paved walking trail and ran at the victim from behind. The victim heard the robber running up behind him, and turned to face the threat.

Instead of complying with the robber’s demands, the senior citizen grabbed the robber’s gun hand, and struggled for control of the weapon. The victim was thrown off balance during the struggle, but managed to draw his concealed handgun and fire one shot as he went down.

The single shot struck the robber in the head, killing him instantly.

The victim of the attack was taken the the hospital with chest pains due to the stress of the events, but is expected to be okay.

The robber’s handgun turned out to be a “toy” according to authorities, which we take to mean an airsoft gun.

Police saw no reason to detain the licensed concealed carrier, and frankly, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood seemed to admire the man when as Chitwood conducted an interview about the shooting with CBS-3 in Philadelphia.

Local residents were not surprised by the attack, and one local resident interviewed said that he’d be assaulted in the park himself.

Another resident summed up the day’s events nicely.

“People are getting fed up, so you have to protect yourself these days,” said neighbor Kathryn Cooper told Eyewitness News.

Different police departments report crime data differently on the state and federal level, so there isn’t good empirical data showing that the expansion of concealed carry is responsible for more criminals meeting their ends due to the increase of legal concealed carry. We can tell you, however, that as a site which chronicles “guns saving lives” stories and other defensive gun uses (DGUs), local media nationwide certainly seem to reporting on these events with greater frequency in the past few years. Whether that reflects an increase in the number of concealed carriers shooting criminals, or just reflects the media’s willingness to report these stories, is something that we simply can’t know at this time.

We do suspect that the substantial number of concealed carriers in the United States—more than eleven million with permits, and perhaps another half-million in states that don’t require a permit to carry—is making an impact on violent crime, which continues a long term decline even as the number of gun owners in the United States reaches a new all-time high every single day.

It is worth noting that the National Rifle Association has filed lawsuits against a number of Pennsylvania cities that have unlawfully passed local ordinances that ban guns in public places including parks, in clear violation of the state’s preemption laws.

Supporters of gun control are of course furious that the NRA would fight against these illegal ordinances, and for the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.

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24. [MN] New Hope City Hall shooter acquired gun illegally, background checks fail again
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From www.bearingarms.com: http://tinyurl.com/lvebxjm
http://bearingarms.com/new-hope-city-ha ... ws-failed/

New Hope City Hall Shooter Acquired Gun Illegally. Background Check Laws Failed. Again.
by Bob Owens
January 29, 2015

Tell us again, gun grabbers, how effective your universal background checks are at stopping violent crime:

The gunman who was shot and killed Monday at New Hope City Hall after wounding two police officers had called court officials earlier in the day, then bought ammunition for the gun he fired that night, authorities said Wednesday.

In laying out a timeline for the confrontation that left R______ K____* , 68, dead, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek also sent out this message Wednesday: “If you fire on a police officer, they are trained to fire back.”

Noting that K____ had been civilly committed twice for mental health problems, Stanek said, “He should not have had access to any type of weapon.”

Authorities do not know how K____ got the gun, which the sheriff described as a “pistol-grip shotgun” with the serial numbers “obliterated.”

The man who attacked New hope City Hall had a long history of making terrorist threats against public officials, and had been committed involuntarily to mental health facilities numerous times. He was incurably mentally ill, but he was set free because there aren’t enough beds in long-term mental health care facilities to warehouse people like him who are clear threats to the public, but who haven’t yet acted on their violent threats.

Well, K____ finally acted on his years of violent threats, and there wasn’t a single gun control law on the books or proposed that impeded him in any way from obtaining a firearm. Fortunately for all concerned, he wasn’t able to use his weapon to kill anyone before officers neutralized him, permanently.

You’ll note that Sheriff Stanek pointed out that the serial number on the shotgun K____ used had been “obliterated.”

Typically firearms that have had there serial numbers obliterated are firearms that have been stolen by criminals. They destroy the serial numbers to keep them from being tied to the specific theft where the firearm was taken and other items that may have been taken, because the difference between misdemeanor and felony theft are crimes in most states is total value of the items (typically $500) stolen during the crime. By destroying serial numbers, the criminals are hoping to avoid being tired to a specific theft and avoiding more and stiffer charges.

Once a firearm has its serial number obliterated, it cannot be sold on the open market. All transactions with firearms so defaced are illegal, and are sold/traded only from criminal to criminal.

If the shotgun in question is less than 22 years old, it purchased legally from an FFL with a NICS background check performed on the original purchaser. At some point it was stolen, either from the original owner or a subsequent owner, and then defaced. It isn’t possible to know how many times this specific weapon was transferred among criminals, or home many crimes it might have been used in prior to being sold to K____ illegally.

K___ then used the stolen weapon to carry out his and its final crime, the assault on New Hope City Hall.

Universal background checks wouldn’t have stopped this attack.

Universal background check laws haven’t been proven to have stopped a single attack.

Not one.

Most mass and spree killers—including those at Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and the Washington Navy Yard—buy their firearms after having undergone background checks. Others—such as the killers at Columbine, Sandy Hook, and the attempted mass shooting at Clackamas Town Center Mall stopped by concealed carrier Nick Meli—the weapons were acquired illegally, through straw purchases, murder, and theft.

Universal background checks are proven to be useless when it comes to stopping or deterring violent criminals, and only serve to let the government know who has which guns.

Intelligent people must wonder why supporters of gun control and prohibition are so fiercely dedicated to pushing universal background checks on a law-abiding citizenry.

The answer is sadly self-evident.

Saving lives has never been the point of universal background checks.

Learning the identify of every gun owner, discovering which guns they own, and where they keep them, is only useful for future legislation aimed at firearm confiscation.

Universal background checks only exist to be used as a weapon against law-abiding citizens.

* Bearing Arms does not publish the names of mass or spree killers, whether or not they were successful in their attempts.

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25. "The only thing that would have saved her was a gun"
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Another fail for Everytown.

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:

From bearingarms.com: http://tinyurl.com/pvkxv65
http://bearingarms.com/thing-saved-gun- ... ms-sister/

“The Only Thing That Would Have Saved Her Was A Gun.” Everytown Stooge Is Told Off By Shooting Victim’s Sister
by Bob Owens
February 1, 2015

In this recorded call, Ann Wright, “Coalitions & Outreach Advisor” for Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, attempted to recruit Jennie Cochran to push for more gun control laws in Oregon.

Wright reached out to Cochran because Cochran’s sister Jessie Doyle was murdered in a domestic violence killing by her estranged felon husband Josh Cavitt in October of 2013.

The thing is, Cavitt was a prohibited person who could not legally have a gun in the first place. Like all criminals, Cavitt simply went around the law to murder Cochran’s sister with a weapon he acquired illegally, and no new gun laws would have changed that.

Cavitt plaed guilty to the murder and to being a felon in posession of a firearm, and was sentenced to life in prison.

In the call, Doyle’s sister Jennie Cochran allows Wright to make her pitch, then explains that she is pro-gun, as was her sister.. She then explains to Wright that the policies that Everytown is pushing make it more difficult and more dangerous for women who want to defend themselves against domestic violence.

Everytown and their anti-gun Democrat allies are attempting to to use domestic violence as an excuse to create more gun laws under the false promise of “gun safety.”

It is apparently Ann Wright’s job to try to exploit the families of shooting victims to undermine your basic human right to self-defense.

Expect to see a lot of this abuse of victims from Everytown in the year ahead.

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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/]