VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 7/1/15, ACTION ITEMS

[OakRidgeStars]

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Not yet a VCDL member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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*** Please be particularly alert this holiday ***

1. ACTION ITEM: reports nationwide of unexpected NICS delays and denials
2. ACTION ITEM: VCDL needs help from a resident in the Town of Bedford
3. Another big thanks to Trader Jerry for supporting VCDL!
4. EM Matt Gottshalk gets prestigious award
5. VCDL member praises CHP response time from Harrisonburg/Rockingham
6. More on the Brady Center losing their lawsuit against the Luck Gunner
7. Amazing - public television suggesting concealed carry is good idea [VIDEO]
8. Obama's contempt for 2nd amendment on full display
9. A national tragedy and a partisan response
10. Even after Charleston, hopes are dim for new gun laws
11. Quick support for bill to slap the ATF hand
12. Father Pfelger: 'Title guns like cars'
13. Colt files for bankruptcy
14. [TX] 70 year old takes a bite out of crime

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1. ACTION ITEM: reports nationwide of unexpected NICS delays and denials
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One of our members, who is an FFL, has been hearing from other FFL holders across the country that they are receiving more denials and delays than in the past. And, what’s worse, an unusually high number of the delays and denials are on people who normally get instant approvals for past purchases!

If you are an FFL here in Virginia and seeing such *unusual* delays and denials, please let me know by contacting me at: president@vcdl.org


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2. ACTION ITEM: VCDL needs help from a resident in the Town of Bedford
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If you are a *resident* of the Town of Bedford and can help with a situation we have there, send me an email at: president@vcdl.org


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3. Another big thanks to Trader Jerry for supporting VCDL!
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Trader Jerry’s (724 4th St., Salem, 540-389-8095) allows VCDL to have a booth at their Customer Appreciation Day during the year. They just had one this past weekend and VCDL was there.

Besides of an opportunity for VCDL to sell memberships and other items, Trader Jerry’s donated a Ruger 22-250 rifle for a drawing, with all proceeds going to VCDL!

We thank Trader Jerry’s for the strong support they have given VCDL for many years now. I expect that Trader Jerry’s will be at the Richmond Gun show on July 11th and 12th. If you get a chance, be sure to stop by and thank them!


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4. EM Matt Gottshalk gets prestigious award
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EM Matt Gottshalk, who did the videography for the VCDL Lobby Day and iCarry videos, has won an Emmy from the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter for his post-production work on the American Veterans Center Honors. If you’ve seen his work, this comes as no surprise.

Here is the American Veterans Center Honors from 2014 that got Matt his award:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=5056&v=kce7JmnrQZ4


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5. VCDL member praises CHP response time from Harrisonburg/Rockingham
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Member Kadar M. Anwar sent me an email saying that he was very pleased that the Harrisonburg/Rockingham Circuit Court Clerk, Chaz Evans-Haywood, had gotten Kadar his renewed permit in exactly 3 weeks - half the time allowed by law.

There are, indeed, some very efficient clerks out there - I have had reports of some clerks getting renewals out in two weeks or less.


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6. More on the Brady Center losing their lawsuit against the Luck Gunner
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I’m having a hard time feeling sorry for the Phillips family (other than for the terrible loss of daughter). They should have known that suing an ammunition dealer who had stayed fully within the state, local, and federal laws was simply the wrong thing to do, both legally and morally. The lawsuit was meant to do serious harm to an innocent business and, in an act of Karma, it backfired.

http://blog.legalsolutions.thomsonreute ... s-parents/

or

http://tinyurl.com/ov3z8ve

Brady Center blamed for $200K legal fee ruling against Aurora victim’s parents
June 26, 2015

From Westlaw Journal Computer & Internet: A Colorado federal judge and an attorney for a website that equipped movie theater mass shooter James Holmes are blaming the Brady Center for $203,000 in legal costs assessed against the parents of a woman killed in the rampage and say the gun control group should pick up the tab.

Senior U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch ruled the $203,000 awarded to Lucky Gunner LLC, The Sportsman’s Guide and BTP Arms owner Brian Platt was reasonable to cover their costs defending against the lawsuit filed by Sandy and Lonnie Phillips.

Sandy Phillips’ 24-year-old daughter Jessica Ghawi, who is Lonnie’s step-daughter, died along with 11 other people during Holmes’ July 2012 mass shooting in Aurora, Colo. Holmes’ murder trial is ongoing in the Arapahoe County, Colo., District Court. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The couple’s lawsuit sought to hold the websites liable for selling ammunition and equipment to Holmes without any background checks or other safeguards.

“It is apparent that this case was filed to pursue the political purposes of the Brady Center,” Judge Matsch wrote June 17, adding that it “appears to be more of an opportunity to propagandize the public and stigmatize the defendants than to obtain a court order.”

(Click here to view the order on WestlawNext.)

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence is a nonprofit organization that advocates to prevent gun injuries and deaths. In addition to its policy work and safety education outreach, the group files lawsuits on behalf of gun violence victims.

Brady Center attorneys in Washington worked with lawyers at Arnold & Porter in Denver on the Phillipses’ case, according to a Sept. 16, 2014, press release from the nonprofit.

Neither the Brady Center nor the Phillipses’ attorneys at Arnold & Porter responded to a request for comment before press time.

Attorneys representing Sportsman’s Guide and BTP said they would not comment on the judge’s June 17 ruling.

Lucky Gunner attorney Andrew A. Lothson of Swanson, Martin & Bell in Chicago said his client agrees with Judge Matsch’s order.

In its request for attorney fees and costs, Lucky Gunner asked Judge Matsch to hold the Phillipses’ lawyers jointly liable for any award, but the judge decided not to make that part of his ruling.

Even so, the judge suggested that the Brady Center should pick up the couple’s legal tab.

“It may be presumed that whatever hardship is imposed on the individual plaintiffs by these awards against them may be ameliorated by the sponsors of this action in their name,” Judge Matsch said.

Lucky Gunner said it will continue to do all it can to hold the Brady Center accountable for legal fees awarded in the case, and that it will donate the fees it does get.

“Any legal fees Lucky Gunner recovers will be given to 2nd Amendment supporting organizations as voted on by the shooting community,” Lothson said on behalf of his client, which set up a poll online.

Case dismissed

The Phillipses, who live in Texas, sued Lucky Gunner and the other online retailers in Colorado for negligence, negligent entrustment and public nuisance.

The suit asked for an injunction requiring reasonable changes to how the e-commerce defendants sell ammunition, body armor and tear gas online.

The defendants asked the District Court to dismiss the case.

Judge Matsch dismissed the suit March 27, finding Colorado and federal laws shield firearms and ammunition sellers from liability based on a customer’s wrongful acts. Phillips et al. v. Lucky Gunner LLC et al., No. 14-cv-02822, 2015 WL 1499382 (D. Colo. Mar. 27, 2015) (see also Westlaw Journal Computer & Internet, Vol. 32, Iss. 23).

Fees and costs

Based on a Colorado fee-shifting law, the website defendants asked the judge to award them reasonable attorney fees and costs.

The Phillipses argued against the fee award, saying they brought the suit in the public interest and only asked for an injunction rather than monetary damages.

They also said the amount the defendants requested was unreasonable and reflected duplicated efforts and inefficiencies.

Judge Matsch disagreed.

“Those who ignite a fire should be responsible for the cost of suppressing it before it becomes a conflagration,” he wrote in the June 17 order. “The Brady Center may be pursuing a righteous cause, but the defendants should not have to bear the burden of defending themselves in this inappropriate forum.”

While he found many of the defendants’ costs and fees to be reasonable, he did cut about $60,000 from their original request for $263,000.

The Phillipses appealed Judge Matsch’s dismissal order to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on April 28. Phillips et al. v. Lucky Gunner LLC et al., No. 15-1153, appeal docketed (10th Cir. Apr. 28, 2015).


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7. Amazing - public television suggesting concealed carry is good idea [VIDEO]
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“'...concealed carry is a very good idea. If God forbid something happened and you're unarmed, that's the worst of all scenarios,' said Del Rosso.”

YES, IT IS!

Thanks to member Rick Evans for the link:

http://www.fox46charlotte.com/story/294 ... lebrations

or

http://tinyurl.com/pxyhfzl

POLICE: On High Alert for Terrorist Threats during July 4th Celebrations
By Caroline Fountain, Digital Journalist

Charlotte, N.C. (WJZY) -- Law enforcement is on high alert for possible acts of terrorism this July 4th weekend. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police made a clear call to action during a Tuesday news conference for the public to report anything they think is suspicious.

Police say their number one concern this holiday weekend is keeping an eye out for a lone wolf. That's someone acting solo to commit an act of terror. CMPD emphasizes the need for the community's help.

While close to 100 thousand people gather to celebrate our country's independence at this weekend's Skyshow in uptown Charlotte emergency personnel will be working to keep us free from potential threats.

"I don't want our citizens to be lulled in a sense of complacency to believe that it's just Charlotte 4th of July or whatever event it may be that we're off someone's radar. Unfortunately, there are people who are out there who are looking for such an opportunity. That's why I want all of us to be vigilant," said Deputy Chief Jeff Estes with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

A security expert and consultant to U.S. Special Operations Command says the threat of attacks is real. "Over 13 thousand individuals in the United States are in communication with jihad groups. They're being motivated, helping them plan, they're directing them," said Michael del Rosso.

Del Rosso - a counter threat consultant - says the FBI is investigating people allegedly connected to ISIS in all 50 states.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police asks you to be proactive if you see anything suspicious.

"If I put every officer that I had out there on every street corner, there would still be things that we'd miss. That's why we're so dependent on the community that when they see something suspicious, they say something," said Estes.

Security expert Del Rosso says there's also something else you can do.

"A concealed carry is a very good idea. If God forbid something happened and you're unarmed, that's the worst of all scenarios," said Del Rosso.

Police say, last year four adults were arrested during the Skyshow event. That's half the number of people arrested the year before.

The city of Charlotte is calling this weekend's Skyshow celebration an extraordinary event which gives police officers more leverage in questioning people they consider suspicious.


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8. Obama's contempt for 2nd amendment on full display
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From americanthinker.com: http://tinyurl.com/q353uut
or
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... rence.html


Obama's contempt for Second Amendment on full display at press conference
By Michael Filozof
June 19, 2015

The blood of the nine victims shot by a deranged criminal at a South Carolina church had barely dried when, as if on cue, President Obama and his “point man” on gun control, Vice President Biden, stepped up to the microphones to issue a thinly veiled call for more gun control.

“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times,” Obama began, prefacing his comments, as he always does, with concern not for the victims or the country, but for himself, as he did after the Sandy Hook shooting – characterizing it as the “worst day” of “my presidency.”

“We don’t have all the facts” – just like with arrest of Prof. “Skip” Gates, not having all the facts didn’t stop him from holding forth – “but we do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.” (Translation: We need to ban guns.)

Then came another of Obama’s signature rhetorical techniques: denigrate the United States and claim that other countries do things better: “This kind of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.”

Obama is simply flat-out wrong about that, on two counts.

First, “this kind of mass violence” does happen in other countries – and it happens in countries with ultra-strict gun control laws, like the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, and Germany. Some of those countries tightened already stringent gun laws following mass shootings; for instance, the United Kingdom banned and confiscated all civilian handguns in 1997 following the shooting of schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, but that didn’t stop a man from killing 12 people with a registered shotgun and bolt-action .22 rifle in Cumbria in 2010.

Second – and more important – is this: historically, most of the “mass violence” in “other countries” has been conducted by governments, not deranged individuals.

Nine American churchgoers shot by a criminal is certainly awful, but let’s put it in the proper perspective. Criminal violence by private individuals in the U.S. pales in comparison to what governments in “other advanced countries” have done. Germany, an “advanced” country that killed six million disarmed Jews, resorted to the “efficiency” of the death camp and the gas chamber for the “Final Solution” because shooting the Jews was too difficult logistically. The Germans knew this, because they tried it: they shot nearly 34,000 Jews in 48 hours in Kiev in 1941.

The Soviet Union, which was “advanced” enough to put a satellite in orbit before the U.S. could, killed some five million Ukrainians during the Holodomor of the 1930s, and Vasily Blokhin, Stalin’s top executioner, personally shot some 7,000 Poles in the Katyn Massacre during World War II – at a rate of one every three minutes.

During Mao’s “Great Leap Forward,” an estimated 25 million Chinese died; Pol Pot had nearly half of Cambodia’s population shot in the mid-1970s; and the Turks killed some 1.5 million Armenians in 1915.

The people who carried out these crimes wore the uniforms of their countries and did their duty for their government. The Founders bequeathed us the Second Amendment because they knew perfectly well that the likes of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter; Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter; and Dylann Roof, the accused South Carolina church shooter, could just as easily have ended up wearing the uniform of the SS, the Khmer Rouge, or the NKVD, and done far more damage than they did as private citizens. That’s a lesson we ought not forget as the braying for more gun control begins in the media. (It’s worth noting that the last time the nation’s attention was focused on Charleston was in April, when an unarmed Walter Scott was fatally shot in the back by a police officer wearing a government badge).

If Dylann Roof had hung around that Bible study group long enough to actually learn something, one of the things he would have learned is that Jesus was killed not by a deranged criminal – but by the government.

Recent polling data has indicated that Christianity is in steep decline in America. Perhaps there is a link between the willingness of criminals to commit mass murder and increased atheism – after all, the murderous governments of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Red China, Cambodia, and Ottoman Turkey were all either officially atheist or, in the case of Turkey, non-Christian.

“At some point,” Obama concluded, “it’s going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it, and for us to be able to shift how we think about the issue of gun violence collectively.”

Perhaps, Mr. President, the American people need to come to grips with the decline in Christianity instead. The last thing we want to do is emulate all those other “advanced” countries.


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9. A national tragedy and a partisan response
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Member George Overstreet emailed me this:

This article makes several good points about gun control. I was in Charleston two weeks ago and saw first hand how little Liberty is available in South Carolina. Lets work to see that the disease found there does not spread to Virginia and leave us as defenseless as the people in that church.


From frontpagemag.com: http://tinyurl.com/nzmkfsx
or
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreen ... -response/


A National Tragedy and a Partisan Response
by Daniel Greenfield
June 19, 2015

Why do black lives only seem to matter when white people take them? Why does the president of the United States think it’s proper to take a horrible racial tragedy in Charleston South Carolina as an excuse to bash America as the violence capital of the “advanced” world, and a prop for Democrats’ lust for gun control legislation in a state that already has it?

Last year 82 people were shot over the Fourth of July weekend in Chicago. 16 of them died. The victims and the shooters were black.

Now two 15-year-olds have already been shot in a single Chicago neighborhood in two days.

These are tragedies every bit as terrible as what took place in a church in Charleston, but the mass shootings of black people doesn’t attract much national attention when white people aren’t involved.

Chicago’s bloody weekends show us that the politicians and reporters haven’t turned their attention to Charleston because they care about dead black people.

They are there for the psychotic killer, Dylann Storm Roof, not for his victims. They are there for a Southern state with a Republican governor who can be safely blamed the way that their Mayor of Chicago can’t. They are there to use the voiceless dead as convenient props in their campaign for gun control – in a state that already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the South. They don’t care about black people. They care about their political agendas.

Obama made that clear when he blamed Republicans for the shootings in his statement. The formatting of the statement on the White House website with its paragraphs about healing and the church in small print and the call for gun control and accusations of racism set out in giant bold type show with stark clarity what the president’s priorities are.

His priority is not, “Now is the time for mourning and for healing.” It is, “Someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun” and “this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries” to impose his burden of collective guilt on all Americans.

By complaining that “the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues”, Obama blamed the Charleston shootings on Republicans even as he was hypocritically calling for “mourning and healing.” Six and a half years of divisive politics and disregard for representative government should show that the last thing Barack Obama wants is a national healing.

It is a shameless new frontier in the political exploitation of a human tragedy diminishing both the black victims and their black and white mourners alike. But for Obama, politics is the priority. The mourning is secondary. And forget about the healing.

Obama and Hillary insist that the country needs gun control, but what it really needs is a coming together of its ordinary citizens. It isn’t just Charleston that needs a new unity. It’s Democratic cities Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit – all centers of violence, all zones where strict gun laws rule that need it as well.

The world’s worst mass shootings have happened in other advanced societies – not America as Obama claims. They happen in countries like Norway, a social democracy, France, a country ruled by anti-gun socialists and South Korea. Making guns hard to get does not stop a determined killer. It prevents his victims from stopping the rampage. Dylaan Roof stopped to reload his gun 5 times in the Charleston AME Church. If only one of the bible study members had possessed a firearm, most of the victims would still be alive. The demonization of firearms takes place in societies that let go of personal responsibility. It leaves even law enforcement helpless down to the disarmed Paris police officer cringing before the heavily armed Charlie Hebdo Jihadists and the fumbling Norwegian police who let Breivik kill 69 people in one shooting before he was stopped.

Despite Obama’s slander of the country of which he is the putative president, the difference between America and the rest of the world is not that they have mass shootings and we don’t. Mass shootings have taken place in European countries with very tough gun laws. The difference is that when two terrorists with assault rifles dressed in body armor came for the Mohammed cartoonists in Texas, they were stopped by a middle-aged man with a handgun. Or when a jihadist beheaded a woman in Oklahoma and was slicing off the head of another, he was stopped by an individual who appeared with a rifle and took the law into his own hands.

America is a country where it is easier to buy a gun and where it is easier to stop an armed gunman. The victims in the church followed the law in South Carolina and didn’t bring their guns into the church.

The gunman didn’t follow the law and killed them.

America is a nation with a boundless generosity of spirit as we have seen in Charleston and with leaders who are unworthy of their people as we have seen in Washington D.C.

Hillary Clinton decided to use the tragedy in her stump speech, insisting, “In the days ahead, we will again ask what led to this terrible tragedy and where we as a nation need to go. In order to make sense of it, we have to be honest. We have to face hard truths about race, violence, guns and division.”

The hard truth that Hillary does not want to face is that our division does not come from disturbed lone gunmen, but from politicians like her who turn every tragedy into a campaign speech. Hillary, who ran a divisive racial campaign against Obama, now wants to lecture the country on race and division.

Obama and Hillary managed to pull off a divisive racial campaign within their own party and now they sound as if Dylann Storm Roof represents a racist nation that needs their hypocritical lecturing.

While people in Charleston, black and white, have generously come together, Obama and Hillary selfishly pursue a divisive attack on the Second Amendment and their usual divisive racial program.

Obama paints America as a terrible place of mass shootings that is, as usual in his skewed view of the country, substantively worse than the rest of the world. Unlike the mass shootings in Europe, our mass shootings are a burden of collective guilt that he uses to reinforce a negative image of America. And, unlike the mass shootings in Chicago or Detroit, they are also a burden of collective racial guilt.

The solution to gun violence won’t be found in waging war on the Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment does not kill people. America is not a violent place because of the Constitution.

And the solution can’t be and won’t be found in the rejection of personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility means accepting that Dylann Storm Roof was responsible for his actions, as the gang members in Chicago are responsible for their actions and as we are all responsible for our actions.

And it also means believing that black lives and all lives matter everywhere; not just when they’re convenient for scoring political points.

The life of a black woman killed in a church by a white gunman should not matter any less than the life of a black woman taken by a black gang member in Chicago over another bloody weekend.

To send any other kind of message is divisive and only contributes to the problem.

No group of worshipers should ever be massacred in a church, but the best way to fight violent bigots is not by pursuing divisive political programs. It is by uniting law abiding citizens against violence and hate.

True leaders do not respond to tragedy by dividing the nation along the lines of race or into the camp of those who believe in the Bill of Rights and the camp of those who do not. These divisive instincts have only helped lead to a fractured society in which violent killers filled with anger and hate proliferate.

There was a time when Americans looked to Obama for unity. Unfortunately he chose the path of division. Hillary had the opportunity to urge unity among Americans after this horrible massacre, chose instead to put her own agenda first and subordinate the tragedy to the talking points of her political campaign.

Again.

If the politicians exploiting the Charleston shootings really care when black people are murdered, they will have the opportunity to show it this weekend in Chicago. And if they remain silent and unheeding, then they will have demonstrated that they don’t really care about the victims in Charleston. At least not that much.


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10. Even after Charleston, hopes are dim for new gun laws
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As they should be. The Charleston massacre was about evil, not guns.

Member James Durso emailed me this:


From thehill.com: http://tinyurl.com/ndmq7jg
or
http://thehill.com/policy/national-secu ... w-gun-laws


Even after Charleston, hopes are dim for new gun laws
By Julian Hattem and Tim Devaney
June 19, 2015

A sense of resignation has settled over gun control advocates.

While some proponents of new limits insist they could yet be revived, few people beyond the most optimistic activists are suggesting that a brutal mass murder at a historic African-American church on Wednesday will do anything to spark new legislation to rein in guns.

The consensus is that if Congress couldn’t act in the wake of the 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults were killed, it’s clear that the deaths of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., will do little to motivate lawmakers.
“We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because somebody who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” President Obama said in emotional remarks in the White House briefing room on Thursday, shortly after a suspect in the Charleston case was arrested.

“Let's be clear: At some point we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries,” he added. “I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of those avenues right now, but it’d be wrong for us not to acknowledge it.”

Wednesday evening’s shooting, which officials are labeling a hate crime, left nine people dead at the church. The suspect taken into custody on Thursday, 21-year old Dylann Storm Roof, appeared to have white supremacist sympathies.

Gun control groups such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and former Rep. Gabby Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) Americans for Responsible Solutions were quick to decry the tragedy as yet another incident in which guns facilitated deadly violence.

“Once again, a senseless act of gun violence has brought terror, tragedy and pain to one of our communities,” Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, said in a statement.

But the chances of action on Capitol Hill remain effectively nill.

"There’s always hope,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). "The odds are against us, but I am unwilling to walk away from this fight."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has fought to change the nation’s gun laws, said that she keeps at her home an image of the front page of the New York Daily News from the day after the Senate dropped an effort to ban assault weapons in 2013. The front page includes pictures of the 20 children murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012, with the caption “Shame on U.S.”

“I look at it all the time, and I wonder how we don’t respond,” she said on Thursday.

“First it was high schools, then middle schools, then grammar schools, now churches,” she added. “How much is this nation going to take?”

The failure of the 2013 Senate effort to expand background checks for guns, which came on the heels of the shooting at the Connecticut school, was seen as a death knell for the chances of gun reform in Congress in the foreseeable future.

"Congress is becoming complicit,” Blumenthal told The Hill on Thursday.

Gun critics blame the massive clout of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has repeatedly shown an ability to bring down both national and statewide officials who seek to limit access to guns.

“I am absolutely frustrated with these lawmakers who have decided that it’s easier to ask Americans to stand up to a gunman than to stand up to the gun lobby themselves,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. “Too much of their focus has been on doing the bidding of the gun lobby instead of doing what’s right for their constituents.”

Yet Watts said she remains "full of hope" that Congress will one day reform the nation's gun laws.

“This isn’t going to happen overnight,” Watts explained. “This is a marathon. It is not a sprint.”

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But other opponents of new gun rules deny that firearms are to blame.

"I do not relate it to guns being a problem,” said Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who seemed visibly shaken over the shooting in his home state. “It's the criminal, the murderer, who's the problem.”

"The president wants to blame an inanimate object — the gun," Erich Pratt, spokesman for the Gun Owners of America, said in a statement. "But that just deflects blame away from the real culprit: Gun control policies that leave people defenseless in the face of evil perpetrators who are never effectively prevented from acquiring weapons."

The group suggested that the massacre could have been avoided had church members been armed themselves.

Congress has failed to substantively act on every front in the wake of mass shootings, including efforts to increase treatment for mental health. That, too, seems unlikely to change.

“What’s offensive to me is that it's not that we’ve only given up on changing the gun laws; we’ve also given up on trying to address the needs of law enforcement or our broken mental health system,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), another gun control advocate.

“There’s a bigger conversation beyond changing guns laws that we’re not having either.”


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11. Quick support for bill to slap the ATF hand
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From examiner.com: http://tinyurl.com/q4ljvqv
or
http://www.examiner.com/article/quick-s ... and-of-atf


Quick support for bill to ‘slap over-reaching hand’ of ATF
by Dave Workman
June 12, 2015

[SNIP]
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms on Friday became the latest group to announce support for legislation introduced Wednesday by Utah Republican Congressman Rob Bishop to fix the “sporting purposes” language in the 1968 Gun Control Act; a measure that should gain plenty of traction among gun owners.

Bishop’s H.R. 2710 is being best defined by its supporters at CCRKBA, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and National Rifle Association. In a press release introducing his bill, Rep. Bishop pulled no punches about the reasons behind the legislation, which might be seen as a direct poke in the eye of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The measure may be read here.

The agency has come under increasing criticism over the past several years for such fiascos as Operation Fast and Furious in Arizona, Operation Fearless in Milwaukee and the attempt to re-classify popular ammunition for the AR-15 rifle as “armor piercing.”

“The founding fathers recognized that the right to bear arms is fundamentally tied to self-defense,” the congressman said. “This is as true today as it was over two centuries ago when the Bill of Rights was ratified. The ATF has exploited vagaries present in federal gun law to chip away at basic rights. This legislation will slap the over-reaching hand of the federal government and restore some of the freedoms our grandparents enjoyed.”


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12. Father Pfelger: 'Title guns like cars'
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Titling guns like cars is simply a contorted way of calling for gun registration. And gun registration does nothing to prevent crime - just look at states that already have it.

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/owa7669
or
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... like-cars/


FATHER PFLEGER: BAN ‘HIGH CAPACITY MAGAZINES’ AND ‘TITLE GUNS LIKE CARS’
by AWR Hawkins
June 15, 2015

On June 11, Father Michael Pfleger said it is time to “ban high capacity magazines” and to “title guns like cars.”

According to Fox 32, Pfleger was speaking at St. George Catholic Church when he said, “We should ban assault weapons in America. We should ban high capacity magazines in America. We should title guns like cars in America.”

He also discussed his plan for cutting funds to the “gun lobby” by cutting sales for gun companies:

And when the gun manufacturers make less money, the gun lobbyists get paid less money. So that’s why they don’t want responsibility. That’s why they don’t want to stop easy access. Because it’s a business and nobody wants to touch the money. Well, the hell with the money. Life is more important than money.

It should be noted that the “assault weapons” Pfleger wants to ban are already banned in Chicago. It should also be noted that a Virginia Tech review panel that studied the heinous April 2007 attack on that campus determined a ban on “high capacity” magazines “would not have made that much difference in the incident.”

Elliot Rodger proved this in his May 2014 Santa Barbara attack, an attack in which every magazine in his possession held ten rounds or less.

Pfleger’s recent statements came a week after he said the “NRA will pay for the murder” of children in crime-riddled, gun-controlled Chicago.


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13. Colt files for bankruptcy
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From americanthinker.com: http://tinyurl.com/oevddfg
or
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... uptcy.html


Colt files for bankruptcy
By Mike VanOuse
June 16, 2015

On June 15, 2015, Colt Defense filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. How can that possibly be?

In Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, he warned the Nation of the growing influence of a vast “Military Industrial Complex.” In the next decade plus, 2,709,918 Americans served in Vietnam, witnessing astronomical amounts of ordnance dumped on the Southeast Asian jungles, the manufacture of which made many in the Military Industrial Complex obscenely rich.

Most of the troops were issued M-16 Rifles, provided by Colt, presumably one of the members of the complex that reaped the benefits.

The newest iteration of the M16 Rifle is the M4 Carbine, which was the standard issue weapon for our latest excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Colt makes those too.

How can a company whose largest customer is gullible enough to pay $400 for a hammer and $600 for a toilet seat go broke?

According to Bloomberg, Colt lost the military contract to provide the standard issue M4 (that procurement went to Fabrique Nationale Herstal USA) in 2013. Since then, only 7% of Colt’s business goes to military contracts. That means 93% of their business is dedicated to servicing the civilian and law enforcement markets.

Okay, let’s consider that: After the Sandy Hook Massacre, guns sales skyrocketed due to murmurings of increased gun control measures. The most popular weapon flying off the shelves was the AR15 – the civilian version of M16, missing the fully-automatic fire-selection. So Colt should be rolling in the dough, right? After all, that’s 93% of their market.

According to Bloomberg:

In 2009 and 2010, meanwhile, Colt somehow missed out on the "Obama surge," a run of strong civilian gun sales prompted by fears whipped up by the National Rifle Association that the Democratic president would stiffen federal gun control. The panic-based buying that lifted the small arms industry has now eased, making it even more difficult for Colt to move the military-style semiautomatic rifles it had hoped would be its salvation. "The industry's recent rapid growth is expected to slow over the next five years, increasing at a more modest average annual rate of 4.1 percent," according to the research firm Ibisworld.

(*Author’s Note: The NRA, of which this Writer is not a member, did not whip up fears. The Obama administration was very vocal in their intention to “stiffen” gun control efforts in the wake of Sandy Hook, which was preceded by their incompetent attempt to fabricate the illusion of Mexican drug cartels being armed with American weapons via the bollixed “Fast and Furious” imbroglio, as a pretext for the imposition of stiffer gun laws. Americans who responded by stockpiling weapons and ammo were not led-by-the-nose by the NRA or any other lobbying organization: They rationally perceived the writing on the wall.)

In Colt’s defense, Bloomberg mentioned that the firearms industry is traditionally a volatile market, pointing out that were it not for the Civil War, Samuel Colt himself would have faced dire financial straits. On the other hand, stock market reports for Sturm Ruger and Smith and Wesson show that they’re faring well. It is possible then for a contemporary firearms manufacturer to prosper in the current environment.

So the Civil War bailed out Sam. Why haven’t our Mideast nation-building expeditions bailed out Sam’s progeny?

Bloomberg:

[T]he main reason the company hasn't weathered rocky market conditions since the winding down of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the New York financiers who control the company borrowed too much and paid themselves lavishly…

[T]he private equity firm Sciens Capital and its affiliates loaded Colt with debt since the mid-2000s while taking cash out in the form of "distributions" and "advisory fees."

So those who control the company were gorging themselves on the eggs before they hatched. But what about: “Colt somehow missed out on the ‘Obama surge?’” That’s not rocket science either. Colt no longer corners the market on their signature products: 1911 model .45 cal. pistols and AR15 (M16) family rifles. There are myriad manufacturers of those types of weapons competing for those customers. It’s only the firearms snobs that insist on paying several hundred dollars more to get the trademark Colt pony, rearing up, stamped on the side of the receiver.

A Remington 1911 retails at $730. Ruger runs at $860. Colt $880. Auto Ordnance (Thompson) $ 590. Rock Island $460. They’re all the same pistol. $880 minus $460 equals $420 difference. Colt AR15 Rifle $1136. Bushmaster AR15 $1099. CMMG AR15 $790. Smith & Wesson $540. Colt @ $1136 minus S&W @ $540 equals $596, just to have the pony stamped on it. They’re the same weapon.

That’s how Colt somehow missed the “Obama surge.” Fabrique Nationale won the military contract for M4 Carbines solely because they under-bid Colt and Remington. Colt has priced themselves out of the market for the products they introduced, and their executives have bought their yachts and mansions based on the misconception that the legacy of their brand would carry them.

If they want to survive, they’re going to have to learn how to compete.

Nobody wants America’s most renowned firearms manufacturer to go the way of the dinosaur. But somebody in Harford, Connecticut needs to extract their projectile from their breech.


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14. [TX] 70 year old takes a bite out of crime
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Remember, this story is from TEXAS, where you can defend property with deadly force. You CANNOT do that here in Virginia. You can use force, but not deadly force (unless the criminal attacks you with deadly force, of course).

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/nbdamsj
or
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/06/ ... -of-crime/


70-YEAR-OLD TAKES A BITE OUT OF CRIME
by Rob Milford
June 14, 2015

San Antonio police were busy early Thursday morning, with a pair of calls on the city’s east side.

A 70-year-old security guard at Triple R Auto Parts, in the 2700 block of East Rigsby, called the cops to report he had fired at someone trying to break into his van parked behind the building, while he was sitting it and watching the property. He then fired two shots from his .38 revolver as the suspect ran away. The guard told officers the man ran to the other side of Rigsby, where he lost sight of him. Minutes later, a call for EMS came in, from a man across the street, complaining of arm pain.

EMS found two gunshot wounds to his arm and lower back, and they connected with police at the scene of the shooting.

According to the San Antonio Express News, the 70-year-old security guard has not been identified. The suspect, in his 50’s, was transported to the nearby San Antonio Military Medical Center for treatment, and is reported to be in stable condition and under arrest.



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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/]