Not yet a Virginia Citizens Defense League member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VA-ALERT archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/727/=now
----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. IMPORTANT: Buses being booked and you CAN carry at Lobby Day!
2. ACTION ITEM: We need to know how your Sheriff feels about McAuliffe’s gun ban
3. ACTION ITEM: Tell Congress not to use the “no fly list” to ban guns
4. 2016 Traveler’s Guide mail order sale and deadline (reminder)
5. Governor McAuliffe are you listening? “Gun violence” is DECLINING, EXCEPT in “gun-free zones"
6. Thoughts on the San Bernardino terrorist attack
7. YES! Liberty University president urges students to get a CHP and carry at school!
8. [US] Sheriffs are telling CHP holders to carry 24/7!
9. Anti-gun light show in Richmond to avoid
10. Kaine an anti-gun rant as usual, rated as saying TWO of the dumbest things about San Bernardino
11. Member’s thoughts on donations to VCDL
12. Funny pro-gun video - excellent! [VIDEO]
13. Shameful history of gun control [VIDEO]
14. Blue Ridge Community College President on campus security [VIDEO]
15. Fauquier middle school locked down after armed man seen nearby
16. EPA spends millions on military-style weapons, watchdog group reports [VIDEO]
17. [CT] What happened at this cafe is gonna leave the anti-gun crowd speechless
18. [TX] Sex toys to replace guns at UT-Austin campus carry protest [VIDEO]
19. [SC] Would be Waffle House robber dies after having been shot by customer
20. [CT] Gamer gets 12-month sentence for multiple swatting calls
21. Clinton gets THREE Pinocchios for claim that 40% of guns are sold at gun shows and over the internet
22. Hillary Clinton: Australia gun ban 'worth looking at' in U.S. [VIDEO]
23. After years of hesitation, Democrats rally around calls for gun control [VIDEO]
24. Harvard University study reveals astonishing link between firearms crime and gun control
25. Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?
25. The truth about America's favorite gun myths
27. Gun control and the progressive concept of human nature
28. How long does it take an armed citizen to take out a terrorist? [VIDEO]
**************************************************
1. IMPORTANT: Buses being booked and you CAN carry at Lobby Day!
**************************************************
First, I’ve been asked repeatedly if the Governor’s ban on guns in state-agency buildings applies to the General Assembly Building or to the Capitol and the answer is NO. If you have a CHP, you CAN carry on Lobby Day (or any other day).
Second, VCDL is booking buses from Roanoke, Lynchburg, Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Virginia Beach, and Newport News to Lobby Day this year. Times, locations, and call for reservations coming soon.
Speakers are being lined up and I will announce them soon.
LET’S HAVE A HUGE TURNOUT TO LET THE GOVERNOR KNOW THAT WE TAKE OUR RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE SERIOUSLY AND THAT WE OPPOSE HIS GUN BAN!
Lobby Day is Monday, January 18, at 8:30 AM at the General Assembly Building, which is at 9th and Broad streets in Richmond. Rally is at 11 AM and runs until noon.
**************************************************
2. ACTION ITEM: We need to know how your Sheriff feels about McAuliffe’s gun ban
**************************************************
Contact your local sheriff and ask them if they oppose McAuliffe’s state-agency gun ban. If they do OPPOSE the ban, please send their name, jurisdiction, and phone number to me at: president@vcdl.org
Thanks!
**************************************************
3. ACTION ITEM: Tell Congress not to use the “no fly list” to ban guns
**************************************************
Your name can be put on the “No Fly List” just because some nameless, faceless bureaucrat thinks you might potentially be a terrorist - no due process, nothing. The list is so vague that everyone with a similar name is also going to be blocked.
We must NOT allow the “No Fly List” to disarm us. Instead, why not adjudicate the bad guys on the list and arrest them? If they are in jail, they can’t buy guns.
Here is a link to a Gun Owners of America web page where you can easily send a message to your Congressman and our, sigh, Senators:
http://cqrcengage.com/gunowners/app/wri ... IwO2Y&lp=0
or
http://tinyurl.com/j3b87sp
**************************************************
4. 2016 Traveler’s Guide mail order sale and deadline (reminder)
**************************************************
The 2016 Traveler's Guide to the Firearm Laws of the Fifty States is being ordered and is expected to arrive about the 2nd week in January. If you do not want to wait until the next local gun show, do we have a deal for you!
The VCDL Fulfillment Center has a copy on order with your name on it! If you would like one, we need to receive your order by January 5th.
Orders will be processed in the order in which they are received.
There are two options:
If you want it sent in a sturdier envelope and by priority mail the cost will be $20.00
If you want it sent in a standard manila envelope and by first class mail the cost will be $18.00
If you include a copy of your current unexpired membership card (or a completed application) you can reduce the price by $2.
To order, please send a check or money order made out to "VCDL" to:
VCDL Fulfillment Center
PO Box 254
Garrisonville, Virginia 22463
ATT: Book Sales
NOTE: If you do not place "book sales" on the envelope your purchase could be delayed by as much as 3 weeks. Please help us help you!
Also, please consider including a donation to either the VCDL, the VCDL-PAC or BOTH!
(If you donate to the PAC, please make it a separate check and include your employer and job title. -- Thanks!)
**************************************************
5. Governor McAuliffe are you listening? “Gun violence” is DECLINING, EXCEPT in “gun-free zones”
**************************************************
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism ... ree-zones/
or
http://tinyurl.com/h6k5cmj
Washington Post: Gun Violence Declining, Except in Gun-Free Zones
by AWR Hawkins 4 Dec 2015
On December 3, The Washington Post reported that gun crime has been on the decline for about 20 years, except for high-profile shootings in gun-free zones; WaPo claims those shootings are on the increase.
According to WaPo, “In 1993, there were seven homicides by firearm for every 100,000 Americans. … By 2013, that figure had fallen by nearly half, to 3.6 [per 100,000].”
Breitbart News previously pointed to this decline and explained it correlated with a massive increase in privately owned firearms over the same period of time. For example, Congressional Research Service showed that the number of privately owned firearms increased from 192 million in 1994 to 310 million in 2009. And record background checks under Obama make it easy to see how tens of millions more privately owned guns have found their way into Americans’ hands since 2009.
So gun ownership increased for 20 years, but “gun homicides” decreased–except in gun free zones.
WaPo points to a study by Mother Jones that claims that high-profile shootings began increasing in gun-free zones in late 2011/early 2012. The examples Mother Jones provides are the Aurora movie theater, Sandy Hook Elementary, and the D.C. Navy Yard, all of which were gun-free zones.
Other examples of shootings in gun-free zones that could have been cited are Arapahoe High School (December 2013), Fort Hood (April 2014), Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (June 2015), Chattanooga military offices (July 2015), the Lafayette Grand Theatre (July 2015), and Umpqua Community College (October 1).
Increases in gun ownership correlated with drastic reductions in firearm-related homicides, but creating zones where law-abiding citizens are denied the ability to be armed for self-defense have allowed high-profile attackers to find easy targets.
**************************************************
6. Thoughts on the San Bernardino terrorist attack
**************************************************
The terrorist attack in San Bernardino reminds us once again that in the first precious minutes of an active shooter or terrorist event, the only hope of saving lots of lives is for armed citizens at the event to take out the bad guys and do so quickly.
To have armed citizens at an event, you need:
1) A state where carry is lawful and easy to do
2) To not be in a “gun-free zone.” Sadly, that’s where all these public mass shootings (except 2 since 1950) have taken place.
Here is a pro-gun opinion piece in USA today:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /76700270/
or
http://tinyurl.com/j7zh65t
Even before the bodies were cold in the San Bernardino mass shooting, President Obama called for more gun control. to pass a law banning firearms purchases for people on the Transportation Security Administration’s unaccountable, unconstitutional no-fly list.
Wait. What? What would that have done to prevent the slaughter? By the same token, what would any gun control law do to prevent evil people from enacting their homicidal plans, be they Chicago gang-bangers or a religious zealot attacking a Planned Parenthood clinic? Nothing.
No assault weapons ban, no gun violence restraining order, no ammunition magazine capacity law would have prevented the San Bernardino slaughter. No gun control law has stopped Robert L. Dear Jr. from allegedly killing three people in Colorado.
There’s only one way to stop killers from killing: Put them where they can’t get access to a gun, knife, explosives, car or any other lethal weapon. Put them in jail or a secure mental institution.
How do we know whom to incarcerate, when and for how long? That’s a question worthy of debate — and due process. Certainly, criminals who commit violent offenses shouldn’t enjoy “revolving door” justice. And there are numerous examples of obviously and dangerously psychotic individuals, such as Newtown killer Adam Lanza and Aurora shooter James Holmes, who should have been institutionalized.
But there will always be people who fall through the cracks. There will always be evil men among us. Truth be told, they view gun control laws with the same contempt that they view laws against murder.
The incrementalist argument — that more or better gun control will derail some killers — ignores the fact that these measures make it harder for law-abiding Americans to exercise their natural, civil and constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. A right that protects them against those who would do them harm.
As the French terrorist attacks proved, gun control doesn’t work. Worse, civilian disarmament leaves innocent people defenseless against killers. Gun control enables — rather than prevents — homicide.
Robert Farago is the publisher of thetruthaboutguns.com.
——————
Shocker: guns used in San Bernardino massacre were not legal in California. But, but, but, I though Universal Background Checks and magazine limitations would have made the attack virtually impossible?!
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2015/12/4/ ... california
or
http://tinyurl.com/hhrzo3r
**************************************************
7. YES! Liberty University president urges students to get a CHP and carry at school!
**************************************************
You have got to love Liberty University!
Because the University’s President Jerry Falwell Jr. encouraged students to get a CHP and carry, the press and our wonderful Governor were all over him.
And, earning yet MORE of my respect, Falwell doubled down and is now going to allow CHP holders to carry in the only place they couldn’t before - the dormitories!
Notice to terrorists: there are NO gun-free zones at Liberty University any more.
Yet, of all people on Earth, Governor McAuliffe had the audacity to call Falwell’s comments “reckless, rash, and repugnant” !
Excuse me, Governor, but your state-agency gun-ban to pay back Bloomberg for his campaign donations is reckless, rash, repugnant, AND dangerous to the citizens of Virginia. I’m proud of Falwell and totally ashamed of you, sir.
The Governor also said, "My administration is committed to making Virginia an open and welcoming Commonwealth, while also ensuring the safety of all of our citizens.”
The Governor obviously misspoke. He meant to say, "My administration is committed to making Virginia an open and welcoming Commonwealth for terrorists and violent criminals, while also ensuring the safety of both groups."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/libe ... m-35596543
or
http://tinyurl.com/jmdxzn6
**************************************************
8. [US] Chief law enforcement officers are telling CHP holders to carry 24/7!
**************************************************
Governor McAuliffe, law enforcement is telling us to carry everywhere we go, and that includes state-agency buildings. The Virginia State Police won’t say that because you are their boss, but I’ll bet lots of Sheriffs will step up to the plate here in Virginia.
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2015/12/ca ... ns-to.html
Call of Law Officers for Citizens to Carry Accelerates, becomes Trend
Sheriffs and police chiefs from jurisdictions large and small are joining the trend of law officers calling for citizens to arm themselves to aid in the defense against terrorism, rampage killings, and violent criminals. The call is a simple recognition of the millennia old understanding that people can defend themselves and others better if they are armed.
It is only during the recent history of the last hundred years that the illusion of safety through disarmament has been promoted by the mass media. The mass media's chokehold on information flow has been broken and the illusion is failing.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio has called for help from citizens in his state to aid in defense against terror threat. Maricopa County, Arizona has a population of over 4 million residents.
Surrounded by his posse, Sheriff Joe Arpaio asked armed citizens to help protect malls this holiday season. Arpaio says nearly 250,000 Arizonans carry concealed weapons and many more are carrying in the open.
"I'm asking for that group to make sure that if some violent activity occurs that they take action to defend themselves, and also the people around them until law enforcement shows up," said Arpaio
Milwaukee County Wisconsin has a population of nearly a million. Sheriff Clarke has called for his citizens to arm themselves for self defense.
Detroit, Michigan has a population of over 700,000 people. Police Chief James Craig says that armed citizens can stop terrorists. From detroitnews.com:
“A lot of Detroiters have CPLs (concealed pistol licenses), and the same rules apply to terrorists as they do to some gun-toting thug,” Chief James Craig said. “If you’re a terrorist, or a carjacker, you want unarmed citizens.”
Oakland University criminal justice professor Daniel Kennedy agreed that terrorists would be reluctant to attack armed citizens.
“We don’t have laboratories where we can test these theories, but there is something to the argument that terrorists want a high body count — and if they can only shoot a few people before they’re taken out themselves, it wouldn’t have the kind of impact they want.
Brevard County, Florida has over half a million people in residence.
From cbslocal.com:
Arm yourselves against terrorists.
That’s the message from a Florida sheriff whose post on Facebook about gun ownership has gone viral.
“So let there be no mistake in what I’m about to say,” said Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
The post has over three-million views on Facebook alone, and over 120,000 shares.
Sheriff Wayne McKinney posted a call to arms for the citizens of Stephens County, Oklahoma. Stephans County has about 45,000 residents. From kfor.com:
"Our county is small in numbers and I feel that we are unlikely to be targeted by these evil people. However, over the last few years the citizens of Stephens County has seen the evil committed by criminals in our communities. As your Sheriff, I encourage all who are LEGALLY, ELIGIBLE, and TRAINED to carry concealed weapons to do so. I do not want any of us to be helpless victims if we should fall under attack.
We may never be able to stop someone from attempting to carry out a violent attack, but we, as armed citizens, can mitigate the damage,” the post read.
Police Chief Randy Kennedy of Hughes Springs Texas had a similar message. From kltv.com:
HUGHES SPRINGS, TX (KLTV) - An East Texas police chief sent a strong message to his city Sunday night in response to President Obama’s address to the nation.
“I strongly encourage you to arm yourselves, and be ready when the wolf comes to the door, because it's on its way,” said Hughes Springs Chief of Police Randy Kennedy in his Facebook video post.
Hughes Springs has a population of 1,766.
The trend is accelerating with more police chiefs and sheriffs recognizing the positive effects and the utility of armed citizens.
**************************************************
9. Anti-gun light show in Richmond to avoid
**************************************************
Member Clayton Rhoades sent me this:
Writing to notify you of an “anti-gun” light show at Meadow Event Park in Doswell, Virginia.
Web-site: http://www.illuminatelightshow.com
You will see the comment on their site of: No weapons, guns or knives allowed at the event. The Meadow Event Park and the State Fair of Virginia reserve the right to refuse admission.
I contacted them by email to ask that they re-consider and remove this prohibition that criminals always ignore or at least make an exception for persons with a valid Concealed Handgun Permit. I received a non-response ignoring all of it and wishing me well in enjoying the show.
I wrote back to confirm that this means they will not be removing the ban and I informed them that I would be notifying the VCDL as well. I would gladly update this information if they re-consider.
I traded emails with Sarah Hallett, Monica Burrow, and Sara Owens who were all copied on the emails. Their titles and contact info are listed on this page:
http://www.illuminatelightshow.com/contact/
**************************************************
10. Kaine an anti-gun rant as usual, rated as saying TWO of the dumbest things about San Bernardino
**************************************************
Here is Kaine, going after guns while ignoring criminals and terrorists:
http://wtop.com/government/2015/12/kain ... s-country/
—
Here is a video montage of the 10 most stupid things said about the San Bernardino attack. Our illustrious Senator Kaine is on that list not once, but TWICE: both FIRST and last!
https://grabien.com/file.php?id=67261&searchorder=date
**************************************************
11. Member’s thoughts on donations to VCDL
**************************************************
Randy J., a VCDL member, sent me this heartfelt message and requested it go out on VA-ALERT:
Fellow VCDL supporters,
Our cause of Second Amendment freedom is being attacked by very powerful and determined forces. We are in a cultural war for our freedom. In this war we fight with our vote and our money.
Our beloved Virginia is in a very dark time right now in the Governor’s house. We have been turning blue in major elections. This is not Maryland and God help us, never will be.
I urge you to please stand with me and contribute as much and as often as you can to VCDL, as well as the other worthy organizations (NRA, GOA etc.) who are on the front lines battling for us.
Thank you,
RTJ
**************************************************
12. Funny pro-gun video - excellent! [VIDEO]
**************************************************
This is hilarious! I wish I had this kind of talent.
Thanks to member David Mazanec for the link.
Enjoy:
https://www.facebook.com/mrctv/videos/1038950142794700/
**************************************************
13. Shameful history of gun control [VIDEO]
**************************************************
This oldie, but goodie, video shows the shameful history of gun control across the globe. The antis must will puff up with pride as they see the huge body counts that follow complete gun control.
http://youtu.be/oaDzKzKT6nM
**************************************************
14. Blue Ridge Community College President on campus security
**************************************************
The link is to an on-air interview of the president of the Blue Ridge Community College on a Harrisonburg, VA television station. During the interview, the host asks, "Didn't the school at one time allow concealed handguns on campus?" The president acknowledges that, and says, that all changed in the wake of Virginia Tech, when all Virginia community colleges came under a uniform (no guns) policy in accordance with state law. This last part, which he repeats a couple of times, is to what the original poster is reacting -- that being, he is questioning the policy having any basis in law. The interview continues with the president almost apologetically answering in response to the host asking, "But what if mental health fails, and there is still a shooter?", to which the president responds, "We have agreements with local law enforcement and hopefully they could respond in time.” [PVC: “...hopefully they could respond in time” Yeah, that makes me feel much better.
]http://www.whsv.com/home/headlines/1on1 ... 27661.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/pb2m9zz
Blue Ridge Community College President on Campus Security
October 9, 2015
HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -- BRCC President John Downey talks about the College's gun policy and campus security.
**************************************************
15. Fauquier middle school locked down after armed man seen nearby
**************************************************
If schools want to be silly and go into lock down every time somebody is lawfully carrying a gun, then so be it. Truth is that if a terrorist is wishing to attack a school, their weapons won’t become visible until they are actually on school property and ready to go.
This kind of overreaction only traumatizes the students needlessly.
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
http://m.fredericksburg.com/news/crime_ ... a2b19.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/ouqkgj2
Faquier middle school locked down after armed man seen nearby
by Dawnthea Price
October 2015
Reports of an armed man near Cedar Lee Middle School in Fauquier County prompted a lockdown of that school as well as neighboring Liberty High School and Miller Elementary school.
Initial reports of a man with a visibly holstered firearm near the school came in around 2:30 p.m. Thursday, according to a news release from Karen Parkinson, coordinator of information for Fauquier schools.
A school bus driver and another person reported the man to the school's resource officer, who later observed the man driving away on Remington Road, according to a news release from the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office.
As a precaution, all three schools were placed on lockdown, but students were dismissed at the end of the school day without incident.
Neither the man nor the vehicle he left in had been on school property, but the incident remains under investigation.
**************************************************
16. EPA spends millions on military-style weapons, watchdog group reports [VIDEO]
**************************************************
Now the EPA wants to be armed like the military? SWAT teams to go after someone who catches the wrong frog?
Member Bill Albritton emailed me this:
"The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 ?special agents? to fight environmental crime."
Why is the EPA equipping their agents like the military?! Who are they going to attack?
Another reason to rid of this useless agency.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... pons-repo/
or
http://tinyurl.com/o2b6nlz
EPA spends millions on military-style weapons, watchdog group reports
By Kelian Howell
October 10, 2015
The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 “special agents” to fight environmental crime.
Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.
“Protecting the environment just got real. With millions of dollars spent on military style weaponry, the EPA is now literally ensconced with all institutional force,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books and the author of the report.
“Our report discovered that when the EPA comes knocking they are armed with a thousand lawyers, arrest/criminal data, credit, business and property histories, plus a ‘Special Agent’ with the latest in weaponry and technology,” Mr. Andrzejewski added.
The agency spends nearly $75 million each year for criminal enforcement, including money for a small militia of 200 “special agents” charged with fighting environmental crime.
Congress granted police powers to the EPA in 1988, during the Reagan administration.
The special agent “enforces the nation’s laws by investigating cases, collecting evidence, conducting forensic analyses and providing legal guidance to assist in the prosecution of criminal conduct that threatens people’s health and the environment,” according to the EPA’s website.
The EPA estimates that each Special Agent costs taxpayers $216,000 per year in salary, travel, equipment, training and other expenses, according to the report.
The EPA’s military weapons spending is just one example of the agency’s questionable purchases highlighted in the 40-page report.
Open the Books, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group based in Illinois, scanned tens of thousands of the agency’s spending contracts totaling more than $93 billion from 2000 to 2014.
Among the findings were hundreds of millions of dollars on high-end office furnishings, sports equipment and “environmental justice” grants to raise awareness of global warming.
The report also reveals that seven of 10 EPA employees make more than $100,000 a year and more than 12,000 of its 16,000 employees were given bonuses last year despite budget cuts.
The EPA also employs more than 1,000 attorneys, making it one of the largest law firms in the country.
The agency also sent over $50 million since 2000 to international organizations, including groups in Mexico and China.
**************************************************
17. [CT] What happened at this cafe is gonna leave the anti-gun crowd speechless
**************************************************
Guns saving lives in Connecticut.
Member John Taylor emailed me this:
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/10/443988- ... ts-robber/
or
http://tinyurl.com/oryr6hj
What Happened at this Cafe Is Gonna Leave the Anti-Gun Crowd Speechless
by Virginia Kruta
October 14, 2015
Shots rang out early Sunday morning at Cafe Azzurri in Waterbury, Connecticut.
According to witnesses, a robber armed with a handgun entered the establishment, intending to rob the cafe and the customers inside.
As luck would have it, the robber wasn’t the only person in the establishment who was armed. Another customer, who just happened to have a legally-permitted handgun, turned and confronted the robber.
He fired at least once.
Witnesses were aware that anything could have happened and expressed gratitude that a legally carrying customer happened to be among them that night:
“I believe that everyone should have the right to bear arms, if they’re doing it right, legally…God knows what would have happened if he hadn’t been there.”
The would-be robber was pronounced dead at the scene. The shooter surrendered his weapon and is said to be cooperating with police. No charges have been filed.
In contrast, the recent mass shooting at an Oregon community college took place in a ‘gun-free zone,’ where 9 innocent people were killed before authorities made it to the scene.
**************************************************
18. [TX] Sex toys to replace guns at UT-Austin campus carry protest [VIDEO]
**************************************************
Nice try, but no cigar. A sex toy strapped onto a backpack to protest a new college carry law in Texas would be considered “open carry,” while the new Texas law would require concealed carry for firearms.
So for the analogy of sex toys to guns to be correct, those sex toys would have to be carried concealed. That, of course, would mean no one would know there was even a protest going on. But that’s fair since with concealed carry no one would know that people are carrying guns on campus, either.
Oh, and sex toys don’t save lives from violent criminal attacks like guns do every day.
Member Ellen Schmidt emailed me this:
http://www.chron.com/local/education/ca ... 563276.php
or
http://tinyurl.com/pbtcrv2
Sex toys to replace guns at UT-Austin campus carry protest
by Lauren McGaughy
October 12, 2015
AUSTIN - Hundreds of students at the University of Texas at Austin will protest a new law that will allow more guns on campus not with signs or sit-ins, but by "strapping gigantic swinging dildos to our backpacks."
Their mantra? #CocksNotGlocks
Jessica Jin, who set up the "Campus (DILDO) Carry" event on Facebook, invokes the argument that allowing more guns on campus will make students safe is a fallacy. She's urging students to send campus leaders that message by strapping on the plastic phalluses.
"'You're carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I'm carrying a HUGE DILDO,'" Jin says in the group's description. "Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play."
More than 4,100 people had signed up to participate by Monday morning. The "strap in" will occur on Aug. 24, 2016, the first day of next year's fall semester.
The event was created the same day one student was killed and another wounded in a shooting at Texas Southern University, and just days after other deadly shootings on campuses in Oregon and Arizona.
Pro-campus carry advocates have said allowing concealed handguns on campus will enable people to defend themselves in the event of a live shooter, while those against it say it makes little difference and could even add to the chaos.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 11, the campus carry law, in June. Starting in August 2016, the law will allow properly-licensed firearms owners to carry concealed handguns into most buildings on campus. The law also gives a certain amount of latitude to campus presidents, however, to designate so-called "gun-free zones."
At two public forums held in the last month, dozens of UT-Austin students, faculty and staff spoke against the law, urging President Greg Fenves to severely limit campus carry at the flagship. Last week, a professor emeritus in the school's economic department announced he would be giving up teaching over concerns about his personal safety.
Campus carry does not apply to private schools, and doesn't go into effect for community colleges until August 2017.
But the day it does for Longhorns, concealed carry license holders might not be the only one's packing heat on campus. Jin could not be reached for comment Saturday morning, but the San Antonio native and violin performance major encouraged widespread participation in the event.
"ANYBODY can participate in solidarity: alum, non-UT students, people outside of Texas," she wrote on the group's page. "Come one dildo, come all dildos.”
**************************************************
19. [SC] Would be Waffle House robber dies after having been shot by customer
**************************************************
Waffle House bans guns. Over the years, gun owners who were unaware of the ban have been able to defend themselves instead of being murdered in a “gun-free zone.”
EM Pat Webb emailed me this:
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/2 ... /151019902
or
http://tinyurl.com/oso7lxy
Would be Waffle House robber dies after having been shot by customer
By Deanna Pan
October 10, 2015
The Waffle House crew was busily going about its typical early-morning ritual — smothering and scrambling breakfast, clanking through the dirty dishes — when a robber jolted them out of their routine.
A customer decided he was having none of that and opened fire in the North Charleston eatery, thwarting the holdup Saturday by fatally shooting the suspect.
The young man who tried to rob the restaurant was rushed to Medical University Hospital, but he later died, police spokeswoman Angela Johnson said.
The intervening customer, who has not been identified, had a permit to carry a pistol, authorities said.
A restaurant employee expressed gratitude for the customer’s action.
“He saved us, that’s what he did.”
Said an officer at the scene: “It says something about firearms ... for good people with firearms being in the right hands.” The policeman said he was not authorized to speak for the North Charleston Police Department.
Shortly after 5 a.m., police responded to reports of an armed robbery and shots being fired at the Waffle House at 6907 Dorchester Road. When officers arrived, they found the suspect had been shot.
The Charleston County Coroner’s Office and the police department turned to the public for help identifying the suspect. The Coroner’s Office later identified the suspect as 19-year-old Joshua Jermaine Davis. It is unknown where Davis resided, but the family believes he lived with a friend in downtown Charleston, according to Johnson.
Johnson said police are not pressing any charges against the customer at this time.
Waffle House employees spent the morning sweeping shards of broken glass in the doorway, preparing for a noontime reopening.
Brandon Rogers, division manager for the restaurant chain, said nothing was stolen in the incident, the first he could recall there since it opened a year ago.
“No one was hurt, which is the best part,” Rogers said. “No one was injured — besides the suspect.”
**************************************************
20. [CT] Gamer gets 12-month sentence for multiple swatting calls
**************************************************
Good news - SWATTER gets a year in jail. Too bad it wasn’t longer, as lives are maliciously endangered by this kind of crime.
Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:
http://www.guns.com/2015/10/09/gamer-ge ... ing-calls/
or
http://tinyurl.com/nfu6d5d
Gamer gets 12-month sentence for multiple swatting calls
By Daniel Terrill
October 9, 2015
A Connecticut man was sentenced in federal prison for prank calls that elicit the services of SWAT teams, bomb squads, police and other emergency responders, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Oct. 6.
Matthew Tollis, 22, of Wethersfield, was sentenced to a year in prison followed by three years of supervised release and 300 hours of community service for participating in at least six swatting calls.
According to court documents, Tollis was a part of a Microsoft X-Box gamers who referred to themselves as TeAm CrucifiX or Die. The group TCOD used online services like Skype to make hoax calls involving bombs, hostage taking, guns and mass murder.
Of the incidents Tollis is accused of doing include calling in a bomb threat to UConn’s Admissions Department on April 3, 2014; another one to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center; Boston University; two high schools in New Jersey; and a high school in Texas.
He pleaded guilty to the charges on June 23.
**************************************************
21. Clinton gets THREE Pinocchios for claim that 40% of guns are sold at gun shows and over the internet
**************************************************
Member Randall Ashburn emailed me this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fa ... -internet/
or
http://tinyurl.com/p3wgqcn
Clinton's claim that 40% of guns sold at gun shows and over the internet
By Glenn Kessler
October 16, 2015
“Forty percent of guns are sold at gun shows, online sales.”
–Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton, remarks on gun violence at Manchester Community College, N.H., Oct. 5, 2015
Clinton made this statement while decrying what she called a “loophole” in the law that permitted guns sales without a background check. “We need to close that loophole so that when we have universal background check, it will cover everybody,” Clinton said.
In 2013, when the gun debate heated up after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., we closely examined the origin of the claim that 40 percent of gun sales are done without a background check. It’s a very stale figure, based on data about two decades old, though some tantalizing new research may shed additional light on the issue. Given that gun violence has again become a hot political issue, it looks like it’s time for a refresher course.
The Facts
First, the “loophole” mentioned by Clinton refers to “person-to-person” sales, primarily by people who do not earn a livelihood from firearm sales. People engaged in the business of selling guns by contrast need a Federal Firearms License (FFL), but unlicensed sellers can sell to a neighbor, a friend, at a gun show or over the Internet.
But many sellers at guns shows actually have an FFL and conduct background checks, while 17 states (including California, New York and Illinois) have passed laws which require at least background checks on all handgun sales at gun shows.
So where does the 40 percent figure come from? It is derived from studies that were based on data collected from a survey in 1994, the same year that the Brady Act requirements for background checks came into effect. In fact, the questions concerned purchases dating as far back as 1991, and the Brady Act went into effect in early 1994 — meaning that some, if not many, of the guns were bought in a pre-Brady environment.
The survey sample was relatively small — just 251 people. (The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.) With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.
The analysis concluded that 35.7 percent of respondents indicated they did not receive the gun from a licensed firearms dealer. Rounding up gets you to 40 percent, although the survey sample is so small it could also be rounded down to 30 percent.
Moreover, when gifts, inheritances and prizes are added in, then the number shrinks to 26.4 percent. (The survey showed that nearly 23.8 percent of the people surveyed obtained their gun either as a gift or inherited it, and about half of them believed a licensed firearms dealer was the source.)
The original report carefully uses terms such as “acquisitions” and “transactions,” which included trades, gifts and the like. This subtlety is lost on many politicians such as Clinton, who referred to “sales.”
Why is it important to make a distinction between purchases and transactions? For one thing, the failed Senate compromise bill that would have required background checks for gun shows and Internet sales specifically made an exception for gifts (and even sales) among family members and neighbors. Including the data on such transactions can change the results.
The Fact Checker in 2013 asked one of the co-authors of the study, Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago, to rerun the numbers, just looking at guns purchased in the secondary market. The result, depending on the definition, was 14 percent to 22 percent were purchased without a background check. That’s at least half the percentage cited by Clinton.
Unpublished data from the 2004 National Firearms Survey, provided by Lisa Hepburn of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, show that about 30 percent of firearm transactions were gifts or inheritances and 70 percent were purchases (42 percent came from a store, 9 percent from a private sale, 8 percent from a family or friend, 7 percent from a gun show, 2 percent from a pawn shop and 1 percent “other”).
A majority of the private, family and “other” sales, as well as some of the gun-show sales, were likely not from a licensed dealer. But gun shows make up a relatively small percentage.
Meanwhile, a still-unpublished survey of 2,000 firearm owners recently conducted by the Gfk KnowledgePanel — a respected online survey — might finally update the two-decade-old statistic. Deborah Azrael, director of research at the Harvard center, said the survey indicated that 70 percent of firearm owners purchased their most recent firearm while 30 percent obtained it through other means (such as a gift, trade or inheritance). That’s pretty similar to the 2004 survey.
Azrael said that about two-thirds of the firearm buyers reported that they went through a background check, while about one-third of those who did not buy a firearm went through a background check. That adds up to about 60 percent of all firearm transactions – but as we noted before, that’s different from sales.
Azrael said further research will be needed to break down where the firearms were purchased, such as at a gun show, pawn shop or over the Internet.
The Clinton campaign supplied numerous examples of the 40-percent figure being cited by gun-control advocates, but otherwise had no comment.
The Pinocchio Test
By any reasonable measure, Clinton’s claim that 40 percent of guns are sold at gun shows or over the Internet — and thus evade background checks through a loophole — does not stand up to scrutiny.
As we demonstrated, the 40-percent figure, even if confirmed in a new survey, refers to all gun transactions, not just gun sales. A large percentage of the gun transactions not covered by background checks are family and friend transactions – which would have been exempt from the universal background checks pushed by Democrats. Indeed, many gun-show sales are made by licensed firearm dealers — and 17 states even have that requirement, at least for handguns.
Clinton earns Three Pinocchios.
**************************************************
22. Hillary Clinton: Australia gun ban 'worth looking at' in U.S.[VIDEO]
**************************************************
Hillary Clinton is eyeing gun confiscation by using Australia as the model for gun control.
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... oking-u-s/
or
http://tinyurl.com/nmhtv4b
Hillary Clinton: Australia gun ban 'worth looking at' in U.S.
by AWR Hawkins
October 16, 2015
During an October 16 town hall meeting at Keene State College, Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said Australia’s confiscation of firearms via a national buyback provides “a good example” for how other countries responded to mass shootings and she said it is “worth looking at” when considering gun policy in the U.S.
Clinton made these statements in response to a questioner who asked if we could ban handgun ownership in the U.S.
Reading from a card, the elderly questioner asked: “[Regarding] handguns…Australia recently managed to take away tens of thousands–even millions–of handguns, and in one year they were all gone. Can we do that? And if we can’t, why can’t we?”
Hillary replied:
You know, Australia’s a good example, Canada’s a good example, [and] the UK’s a good example. Why? Because each of them had mass killings, Australia had a huge mass killing about 20 or 25 years ago. Canada did as well, so did the UK. In reaction, they passed much stricter gun laws. In the Australian example, as I recall, that was a buyback program. The Australian government as part of trying to clamp down on the availability of…weapons offered a good price for buying hundreds of thousands of guns and basically clamped down going forward, in terms of having more of a background check approach–more of a permitting approach.
Clinton suggested that by using a buyback to confiscate guns “the [Australian] government was able to curtail the supply and set a different standard for gun purchases in the future.” She went on to say “it would be worth considering doing it on the national level” here.
On October 3, Breitbart News reported that President Obama hinted at Australian-like gun confiscation in reaction to the heinous attack at Umpqua Community College.
Obama said:
We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.
**************************************************
23. After years of hesitation, Democrats rally around calls for gun control [VIDEO]
**************************************************
The Party of Gun Control is rolling the dice in the elections in 2016.
I don’t think it is going to turn out well for them.
Member James Durso emailed me this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/pg6upr8
After years of hesitation, Democrats rally around calls for gun control
By Philip Rucker and Robert Costa
October 14, 2015
LAS VEGAS — The Democratic presidential candidates have thrust gun control forward as a dominant issue for the national election, signaling a sea change in the politics of a controversial subject that recent Democratic nominees have often avoided.
After years of deadly mass shootings across the country, and with President Obama voicing deep frustration with inaction by Republicans in Congress, the Democratic candidates led by Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed in a debate here Tuesday night to toughen restrictions on gun owners and gun manufacturers.
Most seemed not merely willing but determined and eager to lead the push for gun control into next year’s general election and effectively declared war on the National Rifle Association.
“We have to look at the fact that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence,” Clinton said at the CNN event. “This has gone on too long, and it’s time the entire country stood up against the NRA.”
But many Republicans say they welcome the turn, arguing that Democrats are underestimating the power of the pro-gun-rights movement and risk overplaying their hand on the issue.
In a sign of how potent this issue has become among Democratic primary voters, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — who represents a rural state with a rich hunting tradition — has shifted position after past Senate votes in favor of gun rights. He now says he supports a comprehensive approach that includes expanding background checks for gun purchases, eliminating what is commonly known as the gun-show loophole and addressing the scourge of mental illness.
Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley has been particularly passionate in discussing guns. He frequently notes that as governor in 2013, in the wake of the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., he ushered in sweeping new gun laws.
“We did it by leading with principle, not by pandering to the NRA and backing down to the NRA,” he said at this week’s debate, adding later: “It’s time to stand up and pass comprehensive gun-safety legislation as a nation.”
On Wednesday, O’Malley held a news conference on gun safety in Las Vegas and met with Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter, Jessie, was killed in the 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.
Both O’Malley and Clinton named the NRA when asked Tuesday whom they considered their enemies. The NRA responded by warning that by championing gun control, Democrats risk a backlash in the general election.
“The only problem with the Democrats’ anti-Second Amendment strategy is that the vast majority of Americans disagree with them on this issue,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.
Grover Norquist, a conservative activist who is on the NRA’s board, went so far as to predict Democrats would “now lose the presidency” for speaking out on guns.
“When they start to say that people with guns are the problem, that they don’t trust people with guns, and that people with guns are somehow connected to mass murders, that’s what turns voters off,” Norquist said.
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), a moderate who has co-sponsored legislation to expand background checks, applauded the debate but also cautioned that Democrats need to be careful how they frame the issue. “Coming from a state with a gun culture, we need to remember to talk about plain gun sense rather than gun control,” Manchin said. “I’m a gun owner and like to hunt and shoot and enjoy all that.”
Democrats argue that the numbers are on their side. Support for background checks is extremely high — 85 to 92 percent in recent polls — and wins backing from both gun-owning households and other households. Support is also high for laws preventing those with mental illness from purchasing guns and for a federal gun database.
At the same time, only about half the public feels an impetus for greater restrictions on gun ownership. People are also split on the effectiveness of stricter gun laws or background checks in stopping convicted criminals from buying guns.
In addition to the presidential race, guns are also likely to be a factor in some Senate contests next year as several Republicans elected in the 2010 GOP wave defend their seats in blue or swing states — and their party’s slim Senate majority. In Pennsylvania, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R) broke with his party to become a point man on Capitol Hill for expanded background checks and is up for reelection in 2016.
The Democrats’ evolution on the issue has been vivid. More than a decade ago, while serving as chairman of the party, Terry McAuliffe cautioned Democrats to bypass gun control, especially in swing states. Now as Virginia’s governor, McAuliffe has become a leading advocate for universal background checks and has called himself “the most aggressive candidate ever in Virginia history talking about safe, common-sense gun regulations.”
In the 2008 campaign, the Democratic candidates studiously avoided talking about guns. After Barack Obama was criticized for saying people “cling to guns or religion,” he rarely brought up the issue again, including in his 2012 reelection campaign. Then came Newtown and a string of mass shootings in the three years since.
“The political calculus has changed,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, the group started by former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I). “Candidates are now running on gun safety.”
Arkadi Gerney, who focuses on gun safety at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said that “leading Democrats today feel that being for strong laws on issues like background checks is a winner in general elections and an absolute necessity in primaries.”
Clinton’s ardent pitch on guns fits in with her overall campaign strategy. Rather than putting an emphasis on winning over moderate voters or demographic groups such as “NASCAR dads,” Clinton is doubling down on the coalition that propelled Obama into the White House: African Americans, Latinos and women, especially those in the suburbs in swing states such as Virginia and Ohio. Many of those voters support bolstering gun restrictions.
Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist with Third Way, noted how few Republican candidates and leaders jumped to the NRA’s defense in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s debate.
“The politics have changed, and the NRA has become a pariah for much of the country,” Bennett said. “In a Republican primary, nobody’s going to attack the NRA, but they get that in a general election the NRA is not going to be useful for them. It’s shifted in the same way that gay marriage shifted.”
But Brian Walsh, a GOP consultant and former spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that Clinton will almost certainly tone down her talk on gun control if she makes it to the general election.
“I don’t expect the same rhetoric from Clinton next fall,” Walsh said. “Is she going to go into eastern Ohio and talk to blue-collar Democrats and others in the same exact way on guns? Unlikely.”
**************************************************
24. Harvard University study reveals astonishing link between firearms crime and gun control
**************************************************
Harvard University Study finds (amazing): "According to a study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, which cites the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations International Study on Firearms Regulation, the more guns a nation has, the less criminal activity."
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Articles/ ... k.aspx?p=5
or
http://tinyurl.com/n9fm9n4
**************************************************
25. Would banning firearms reduce murder and suicide?
**************************************************
WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE? A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL AND SOME DOMESTIC EVIDENCE
by DON B. KATES AND GARY MAUSER
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/org ... online.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/yobqcz
**************************************************
26. The truth about America's favorite gun myths
**************************************************
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/t ... gun-myths/
or
http://tinyurl.com/nlvamwu
The truth about America's favorite gun myths
By Mary Ramirez
October 10, 2015
Thomas Edison once said that “the three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”
Opinions on Thomas Edison aside, he was right. Nothing was ever won or maintained easily, without struggle, and without the basic principles of common sense.
The same is true for our Second Amendment rights.
Simply put, the gun debate is riddled with myths, emotions, half-truths, and artfully presented facts — all of which make it almost impossible to distinguish truth from farce.
Readers, a common sense look at some of America’s most popular gun myths:
Myth #1: Police Should Just Handle the Problem
This one’s simple.
No matter where you live, it’s going to take minutes—not seconds—for the police to respond to a call for help.
In contrast, a 9mm bullet flying out of a Glock 34 travels at a whopping 1,400 feet per second.
The target can be you, or your assailant. You choose.
Myth #2: Concealed Carry Owners Are Reckless and Violent
The number of concealed carry permit holders has more than doubled since 2007, from 4.5 million to 11.1 million—alongside a significant drop in crime: “the murder and violent crime rates are lower in the 25 states with the highest permit rates compared to the rest of the U.S.”
That’s just 0.03 percent of the entire U.S. population, and yet their studied impact on the reduction in crime is astounding.
Compare this figure to the number of purported “non-self-defense killings” by concealed carry ownersas compiled by the Violence Policy Center: “at least 516 people have been killed since May 2007 in non-self defense incidents involving private citizens legally allowed to carry concealed handguns.”
That represents an infinitesimal 0.00004649 percent of all concealed carry permit owners in the United States.
Are they really the problem?
Myth #3: We Shouldn’t Look at the Whole World When Comparing Gun Crime Stats; Only the Developed World
When you see studies that outline how the United States is responsible for 80 percent of all firearm deaths across a study of 23 developed, high-income countries, it’s hard to argue that we don’t have a major problem with gun violence.
Except, our country’s population sits at 319 million, while the largest population of any other country in this study was just 127 million (Japan)—and the rest sit significantly below that.
The point? All other arguments aside, of course a country whose population eclipses a significant portion of the rest of the participant countries is going to have more crime than the others in the study, of any kind. There are more people. It’s a matter of simple mathematics.
But what about the rest of the world? Why is it that we brush off the violence of nations like Honduras and Venezuela simply because they are developing nations, as if somehow this should negate or excuse violence? (I’m not belittling the social strife in those countries—but the deaths are still real nonetheless.) Why is it that so many quintessential gun control/gun violence country comparisons (like this one) refuse to observe the totality of violence worldwide?
If we assume gun ownership automatically equals higher murder rates, the United States should rank No. 1 across the board, all the time.
But it doesn’t.
Yes, we have the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world. Yet, we’re not even in the top 10 for murder. Honduras, at No. 1, suffers from 90.4 murders per 100,000; Colombia, at No. 10, suffers from 30.8 murders per 100,000.
The United States sits at just 5 murders per 100,000—remaining static during the last several years despite a significant rise in gun purchases.
Myth #4: Suicide is so Much Easier With a Gun, Therefore We Need to Restrict Gun Ownership
Yes—of the more than 41,000 suicides in 2013 in the U.S., over half of them were carried out by a firearm.
But stop and think about something for a moment. There are those who go into it with some hope of being stopped (think: people who sit on the edge of a bridge and contemplate jumping), and there are those who are absolutely set on taking their lives.
Those who use guns to commit suicide aren’t messing around—their intention is to die, and they’ll do so by whatever means they can. Making a gun more difficult (or impossible) to obtain won’t stop this.
Furthermore, if gun ownership makes suicide more pervasive, U.S. suicide rates should outpace most of the world.
Instead, Lithuania and South Korea top the list, at 28.6 and 26.3 per 100,000, respectively. By the above logic, Lithuania and South Korea should be off the charts in gun ownership—when the exact opposite is true. Lithuanian gun laws are “quite restrictive,” with just around 100,000 guns in a population of nearly 3 million people, and private gun ownership is entirely prohibited in South Korea.
Here’s some final perspective: the U.S. ranks No. 1 in the world for civilian gun ownership, but just 33rd in the world for suicides (of any kind).
Myth #5: More Gun Ownership Doesn’t Equal More Safety
Consider Chicago—home to some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and one of the highest murder rates in the country.
Still, some argue that Chicago can’t be held up as the anti-gun control poster child, since it’s relatively “easy” to get guns outside city limits, and thus, that weakens the effect of Chicago’s laws.
Further, they argue that the city has a “high level of gang activity, and that gangs are both adept at procuring guns illegally and prone to involvement in shooting incidents.”
Explain then, the fact that crime in Chicago is going down in tandem with an increase in concealed carry permits:
“Since Illinois started granting concealed carry permits this year, the 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.”
Myth #6: Mental Health and/or the State of a Perpetrator’s Family is a Cop-out; Guns are Still the Real Problem
After deinstitutionalization in the 1960s put the severely mentally ill back into mainstream American public, today we have a mental illness rate in U.S. prisons that is “five times greater than in the regular population,” and “people with serious mental illness are three to four times more likely to be violent than others.”
It’s a common tale: from Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook) to Jared Loughner (Tucson shooting) and many in between, so many showed clear signs of severe mental illness before they exacted their crimes.
There’s also another stunning pattern: the pervasiveness of broken families.
Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook shooting), Dylann Roof (Charleston church shooting), Chris Harper Mercer (Umpqua Community College shooting) to name a few—they all have the exact same thing in common: a troubled family life.
Myth #7: There’s a Gun Show Loophole and It Makes It Easy to Skirt the Normal Process
I’m going to let the good folks over at The Federalist explain this one. No matter how much Hillary Clinton says she’s going to close it, “there is no loophole in federal law that specifically exempts gun show transactions from any other laws normally applied to gun sales. Not one.”
Myth #8: Mass Shootings Are on The Rise
In 2014, the FBI released a study that indicated mass shootings were on a significant (16 percent) uptick over from 2000-2013; a study that the FBI had to backtrack from after it was revealed that it had been based on “ flimsy criteria used in discerning what was or was not a mass shooting.”
The exact opposite was true.
Mass shootings have been flat for 40 years, and violent crime overall dropped massively during that same time studied—as gun sales hit record highs. In fact, despite the way they burn in our memories when they do occur, “mass shootings make up only a small fraction of the country’s overall gun crime.”
At the end of the day, what’s most important is that this right to bear arms—despite the roar of the debate—has been settled ever since pen was set to paper on the Bill of Rights.
Remember, you’re not fighting to win the right to bear arms; you already have that.
You’re fighting to keep it.
**************************************************
27. Gun control and the progressive concept of human nature
**************************************************
Member Billy Huckleberry emailed me this:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles ... ature.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/qjoebxb
Gun control and the Progressive concept of human nature
By Michael Bargo, Jr.
October 10, 2015
There are some very interesting implications of the way progressive Democrats handle the shooting incidents and the way they handle other aspects of human behavior. Progressive Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders rebel against the idea that the only way for citizens to protect themselves from gun violence is to carry guns themselves.
Of course, they, like the liberal Hollywood movie stars who speak out against gun violence, are complete hypocrites. They want one set of rules for themselves and another set for everyone else. The obvious proof of this is that these people, such as Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer and all other well known anti-gun Progressives insist that carrying guns is not a solution, yet they themselves would not step out of their cars or homes without a bodyguard standing close by toting a loaded handgun. And Hollywood movie stars who occasionally jump on the anti-gun ownership bandwagon have made millions in films that glorify gun violence.
That’s the obvious hypocrisy. But there exists a political hypocrisy at a deeper level. This hypocrisy is expanded when they insist that ordinary citizens jump through all sorts of legal obstacles in order to legally carry a gun, while they know full well that criminals can easily carry guns and in addition, that in the most violence cities like Chicago those who commit crimes with guns are not prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They only want the full extent of the law to be applied to legal gun ownership.
What’s interesting is that after the gun murders committed at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Hillary Clinton claimed that it’s offensive to state the position that people need guns to protect themselves from guns. It comes down to this: Progressive Democrats refuse to accept as a fact, that there are people out in public places who will, for whatever reason, unexpectedly kill other people. For some reason it’s always the gun’s fault that the murders were committed.
The fact is, for every four murders committed with a handgun one person is murdered with a knife, yet Hillary Clinton has never ranted against knife ownership or said we need more knife control. Neither has any other political candidate, mayor, or public official who call themselves a progressive concerned with protecting the innocent.
The refusal to acknowledge the fact that it is an unfortunate fact of human nature that some people will always choose to kill others, by whatever means available, is what drives the denial of murder. This tendency of people to kill each other is repeatedly denied, yet progressives are never reluctant to affirm that human nature will always lead people to discriminate against people of color, that corporate executives will always be greedy, that Wall St. hedge fund managers will cheat the tax system as much as possible, and so on.
That some people refuse to heed the better angels of their nature only applies to gun ownership. And as a side note there is irrefutable evidence that banning guns not only does not prevent gun murders but the opposite is true; that banning handguns promotes handgun murder. When Chicago banned handgun ownership for 25 years the murder rate increased by 44%. This is based on information from the FBI and the Chicago Police, who are in a better position to know the facts than some progressive who wants to run for President -- while having armed bodyguards.
Hillary Clinton and her ilk only accept bad behavior when it’s to their political advantage. They refuse to accept that violent people can only be stopped with guns, yet they have passed hundreds of community-based programs to fight against poverty, joblessness, and the lack of available birth control. They have no trouble or hesitation assuming that people do bad things with regard to racial profiling, bullying, or the use of politically incorrect language; yet with regard to shooting innocent people they are in denial that they only way for decent citizens to protect themselves is to own a gun. They do not propose community based programs for security guards and employees in schools carry guns as a solution.
Another issue is that by focusing on gun control they make the silly impression that the people who commit mass murders were not violating any other laws. The person who shot the victims in Oregon committed dozens of other crimes, and the fact that these other crimes, such as discharge of a weapon in a public no-gun zone, bringing a loaded weapon into a no-gun zone, assault with a deadly weapon, intent to kill, and murder are already serious crimes doesn’t matter. It’s not the major issue. Only the fact that the murders were done with a gun is the issue.
Progressive Democrats know for a fact that more gun laws will not stop somebody from murdering people in public. Proof of this is the fact that they always have bodyguards. And they know that more gun laws won’t stop it either, since the murderers commit dozens of crimes and none of those laws deterred them.
It’s only brought up as a campaign issue, to show that they are all for the innocent victims, when in reality if this college had had a number of armed teachers, maintenance employees, and so on, fewer people may have been killed.
But critical thinking is not something Progressive Democrats want to teach their potential voters. They intentionally choose to pursue issues that have no clear cut answer. This enables them to gain the sympathetic support of voters --- whom the Democrats hope will look past their armed bodyguards --- and make some political hay out of it.
The reason Progressive Democrats will not accept the fact that armed guards at schools will help is that they want this to be a campaign issue. After all, Hillary Clinton certainly can’t run on the idea that as Secretary of State she helped broker peace in the Middle East, or that the Obama administration improved the economy, balanced the budget, and lowered taxes for the middle class and poor, and reduced gun violence in black neighborhoods. These have all gotten worse under Hillary and Obama.
What should be more offensive to voters is the fact that Democrats control cities where the black ghettoes are found, and that these innocents are murdered every day. But since these areas are under their complete control they don’t want to appear to be responsible. They only want to spin the issue so that the Republicans are NRA look responsible. The facts are always against them, so they need to spin the situation to run from the facts and turn their voters against Republicans.
**************************************************
28. How long does it take an armed citizen to take out a terrorist? [VIDEO]
**************************************************
Member Perry Hecker emailed me this:
http://concealednation.org/2015/10/warn ... 7-seconds/
or
http://tinyurl.com/ojs9hhn
How long does it take an armed citizen to take out a terrorist? About 17 seconds
By Brandon
October 13, 2015
The video above is not for the faint of heart. The decision to show it on our website was not taken lightly, but it highlights just how quickly someone could act to a situation like this if they were armed.
This is not to turn into a political discussion, however here is what supposedly happened:
According to the above video, a “Palestinian terrorist rams Israeli pedestrians in Jerusalem with his car and then uses an ax to stab the wounded.”
From jpost.com:
A Palestinian terrorist drove his vehicle into a group of several people waiting at a bus stop. He then exited his car with a meat cleaver and began attacking the wounded and others with the implement.
Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky, 60, was killed, apparently both from the vehicular attack and the axe wounds while two other people were seriously injured.
From theblaze.com:
A police commander in the Ra’anana area told Israeli media that civilians chased the perpetrator and caught him.
Benzi Sau, Israel’s acting police chief, acknowledged civilians for acting to quickly subdue attackers.
The armed citizen, who happened to be in the immediate area, fires on the suspect and immobilizes him almost immediately. As other people start to come over to the scene, the suspect musters up the strength to stand again, but is quickly taken down. It is not clear whether the armed citizen fired again, but we do see the terrorist fall to the ground and stop moving.
Moments later, the area is flooded with police and bystanders.
The damage that this terrorist could have done beyond what he was able to could have been much worse, had it not been for the armed person in the area.
Carry on.
***************************************************************************
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/]