VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 12/17/15

[OakRidgeStars]

VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 12/17/15

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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. ACTION ITEM: Comments flooding in on Governor’s gun ban
2. ACTION ITEM: Second Universal Background Check flyer ready for distribution
3. Article on McAuliffe’s state agency gun ban
4. Gun ban signs seen at ABC stores. Rest stops will probably ban guns, too.
5. Shooting plot thwarted at VA school
6. Court gives green light to lawsuit over Virginia activist (and VCDL member) held at gun point
7. Federal Bill would make suppressors much easier to purchase
8. NRA favorable rating leads Hillary Clinton's by double digits
9. I'm a liberal, but guns are awesome [VIDEO]
10. How to win the gun debate [VIDEO]
11. Two polls that smash through the case for more gun control
12. Americans see Democrats as 'outside the mainstream' on guns
13. A look at the facts on gun-free zones
14. NYC police officer dies after being shot in head
15. Top California official pushes ammo background checks [VIDEO]
16. [MI] 2 EMS workers stabbed with box cutter; suspect arrested
17. [MI] CHP holder shoots robbers [VIDEO]
18. [MI] Pastor shoots, kills hammer-wielding church intruder [VIDEO]
19. High volume shootout: The Harry Beckwith incident
20. The 'gun control' farce: part 2
21. Women disarming women
22. [SWEDEN] Gun-Control-Fail: Teacher, student killed in stabbing attack

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1. ACTION ITEM: Comments flooding in on Governor’s gun ban
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As I write this (4:02 PM on Thursday, 12/17), we are just 5 short of breaking the 2,000 comment mark against the Governor’s state-agency gun ban!

That’s not bad for two days, but we need to keep those numbers skyrocketing. Each of you probably knows ten other gun owners. Reach out to them and get them to leave a comment against the proposed regulation at:

http://www.townhall.virginia.gov/L/Comm ... ageID=7379

(You can also use that link to see the comments already posted and to watch as the count increases.)


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2. ACTION ITEM: Second Universal Background Check flyer ready for distribution
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We need to continue to educate gun owners and non-gun owners alike on the evils of Universal Background Checks. Here is a second flyer that you can print out and distribute to people you know.

This should also be handed out at gun shows at the VCDL booth.

If you hear someone say they support Universal Background Checks, hand them this flyer!

Here’s a link to the flyer in PDF format:

https://www.vcdl.org/sites/default/file ... yer_2a.pdf


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3. Article on McAuliffe’s state agency gun ban
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http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/g ... f11c8.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/zlzup9c


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4. Gun-ban signs seen at ABC stores. Rest stops will probably ban guns, too.
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I am getting reports of McAuliffe’s gun-ban signs in ABC stores. Sometimes outside the store and other times inside the store.

We may also be seeing those gun-ban signs showing up at rest stops around the state. But I haven’t seen any so far, nor have I had any reports of them.

Lobby Day is Monday, January 18th from 8:30 AM to 12 Noon in Richmond at the General Assembly Building.


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5. Shooting plot thwarted at VA school
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CHP holders being allowed to carry at K-12 schools would make them safer from things like this plot.

Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:


http://wtop.com/virginia/2015/10/police ... rg-school/

or

http://tinyurl.com/pa95kdn


Police: Shooting plot thwarted at Virginia school
by WTOP Staff
October 24, 2015

WASHINGTON – Two teens were arrested after police thwarted a plot “to commit acts of violence against the students and staff” at Riverbend High School near Fredericksburg, Virginia, according to the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s department.

A 15-year-old and a 17-year-old boy, whom police did not name, were arrested after a school resource officer learned of the plot. The teens were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and are being held at Rappahannock Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

According to police, one of the teens was arrested Oct. 12 on a charge of threatening violence by means of Internet. “[The school resource officer] felt that there was something that didn’t quite fit in what he was looking at the time, so he began to dig a little deeper — and thus uncovered this situation,” Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Capt. Jeffery Pearce said.

Police said that’s what led investigators to the second teen, who was arrested on Friday.

“It became apparent that these two were serious and in their planning stages to carry out acts of violence with firearms and with knives … and that they planned to do this in the school,” Pearce said.

No additional suspects are believed to be involved in this conspiracy.


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6. Court gives green light to lawsuit over Virginia activist (and VCDL member) held at gun point
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Member Lindsay Trittipoe emailed me this:


http://rutherford.org/publications_reso ... _gun_point

or

https://tinyurl.com/p4dxqg5


Victory: Court Gives Green Light to Lawsuit over Activist Held at Gun Point by Police, Handcuffed and Arrested for Lawfully Carrying a Rifle During a Protest
October 22, 2015

RICHMOND, Va. — A federal court has rejected an attempt by a Virginia police officer to dismiss a lawsuit filed by The Rutherford Institute on behalf of a man who was arrested as he was engaged in a First Amendment protest against President Obama while lawfully carrying a rifle. The order entered in Brandon Howard v. John Hunter, allows the lawsuit to move forward in which Rutherford Institute attorneys assert that the police violated Howard’s First Amendment right to free speech, Second Amendment right to bear arms, and Fourth Amendment right to be free from a groundless arrest when they confronted him with guns drawn and ordered him to the ground on the unfounded belief that Howard was violating the law by being in public with a rifle slung over his shoulder, when in fact his possession and display of the rifle was wholly legal and did not make him subject to an arrest. Soon after the incident, the City of Hopewell Police Department has admitted in writing that the incident involved a violation of department policy.

“As this case shows, if you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re under arrest from the moment a cop stops you,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Certainly, if you’ve been placed in handcuffs and transported to a police station against your will, that constitutes an arrest.”

On Monday, Aug. 26, 2013, Brandon Howard arrived at an overpass above Interstate 295 in the City of Hopewell, Va., and displayed a 6 foot by 4 foot sign that read “Impeach Obama.” Howard was carrying a DMTS Panther Arms AR-15 rifle slung over his shoulder on a strap, and a .380 caliber Bersa Thunder sidearm pistol in a belted holster on his waist. Howard lawfully owned each firearm and did not point or brandish them at any time while engaged in his First Amendment protest activity on the overpass. Howard displayed his protest sign for 30 minutes, but Howard did not directly engage with anyone. At about 5:30 p.m., a police officer pulled up to the area, remained in his car and observed Howard. Thereafter, three to five additional police cruisers arrived at the scene with emergency lights engaged. Approximately eight officers exited these vehicles with their guns drawn and ordered Howard to drop his sign and get on the ground with his hands spread above his head. Howard complied with the officers’ orders. Despite the fact that Howard at no time made any threatening action toward the officers or anyone else, one police officer allegedly asked Howard, “What do you think you are doing threatening people on my interstate?” Howard explained that he had not threatened anyone but was simply exercising his First and Second amendment rights. Howard was then handcuffed and transported to the police station, where he was left, handcuffed, in an interrogation room for 90 minutes, after which time he had his firearms returned and was released. A month later, the Deputy Chief of Police acknowledged in writing that an internal investigation had concluded that one of the officers violated department policy and would be disciplined and sent to remedial training. Attorney Raul Novo of Richmond, Va., is assisting The Rutherford Institute with the lawsuit.


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7. Federal Bill would make suppressors much easier to purchase
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Member Dave Adams emailed me this:


http://controversialtimes.com/issues/co ... -purchase/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nhlyeef


BREAKING: Federal Bill Would Make Silencers Much Easier to Purchase
By Hunter Roosevelt
October 22, 2015

In a move that gun rights advocates have been pushing for years, Congressman Matt Salmon (R-AZ) has proposed a bill to eliminate suppressors from the overbearing restrictions imposed by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). The bill is appropriately named the Hearing Protection Act.

“Suppressors significantly reduce the chance of hearing loss for anyone who enjoys the shooting sports,” Chris Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

“Despite common Hollywood-based misconceptions, the laws of physics dictate that no suppressor will ever be able to render gunfire silent. Suppressors are simply mufflers for firearms,” the American Suppressor Association wrote. “In addition to hearing protection, suppressors also mitigate noise complaints from those who live near shooting ranges and hunting lands.”

“Since day one, the goal of our association has been to remove suppressors from the NFA,” ASA President Knox Williams told Guns.com. “The Hearing Protection Act is the culmination of our efforts to enact pro-suppressor reform on both the state and federal levels.

Williams conceded the push to get the measure through Congress may be uphill, but is worth the fight.

“While we don’t expect the HPA to pass overnight, we are confident that our continued educational and outreach initiatives will ultimately lead to the passage of this critical legislation,” he said. “Its enactment will result in safer and more enjoyable shooting and hunting experiences for generations of sportsmen and women to come.”

Since 1934, the federal government has treated devices designed to muffle or suppress the report of firearms as Title II devices that required registration under the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record and mandated transfers that included a $200 tax stamp.

“Instead, (if the bill passes) federal law would treat them as firearms which would allow suppressors to transfer through any regular federal firearms license holders to anyone not prohibited from possessing them after the buyer passes an FBI instant background check.”

Any suppressors bought after October 22, 2015 would be subject to a $200 refund for the current federal tax.


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8. NRA favorable rating leads Hillary Clinton's by double digits
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... le-digits/

or

http://tinyurl.com/q7jtrn6


POLLS: NRA FAVORABLE RATING LEADS HILLARY CLINTON’S BY DOUBLE DIGITS
by AWR Hawkins
October 23, 2015

An October 22 Gallup poll reveals the NRA’s favorable rating is 58 percent, while an aggregation of polls shows that Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s favorable rating is about 42 percent.

This means the NRA, which Clinton repeatedly attacked during the October 13 Democrat debate, is the same NRA that can now boast of beating her by double digits in the minds and hearts of Americans.

According to Gallup, the NRA’s overall favorable rating of 58 percent is five percent higher than it was in 1989, which is when Gallup began inquiring about Americans’ view of the NRA. Moreover, the percentage of Americans who view the NRA as “very favorable” is at an all-time high of 26 percent.

In contrast to this rising tide for the NRA stands Hillary, whose favorable rating is about 42 percent, according to the Huffington Post. And whereas the NRA’s current favorable rating of 58 percent is roughly equal with the favorable ratings they enjoyed in 2009, Hillary’s rating of 42 percent has fallen from the rating of 57.1 percent she enjoyed in 2009.

While a centerpiece of Clinton’s campaign is maligning the NRA, a clear majority of Americans have a favorable view of the NRA and the fight it undertakes to defend the Second Amendment from politicians just like Clinton.


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9. I'm a liberal, but guns are awesome [VIDEO]
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... e-awesome/

or

https://tinyurl.com/opbg5ss


I’M A LIBERAL, BUT GUNS ARE AWESOME
by Allum Bokhari
October 23, 2015

I recently visited a gun range and shot at things with not one, but two handguns. I’m told my aim was quite good for a rookie, but you can watch the video and decide for yourself. PS: I’m a liberal.

The experience was totally at odds with both my political and national identity. I’m from Britain, a country where any semblance of a gun culture has long been stamped out by the constitutionally unrestrained power of Parliament. Both liberals and Brits look at America’s love of guns with a mixture of disdain and bewilderment.

It’s not hard to see why. Putting aside the pragmatic reasons to own a gun, the joy and excitement of my fellow range attendees seemed pointless and stupid. There is no rational reason for anyone to enjoy firing a deadly weapon. Its primary appeal is in the adrenaline rush.

On the other hand, the same can be said about roller coasters. Or hang gliding. Or contact sports. Or anything that involves danger, real or simulated. Try as we might to rise above our instincts, humans evolved to respond to danger with a mixture of excitement and energy. And while guns are only dangerous in the wrong hands, their raw power is obvious, even in the safety of a range.

It’s telling that the most contemptuous critics of gun culture are so often liberal and progressive intellectuals. In other words, the people who probably spent their early years in the library, avoiding activities that indulged their inner caveman. It’s almost as if the high school war of jocks and nerds never ended, but continues to play out in the policy arena.

It’s not just elitism, of course. There is a misleading progressive argument which suggests that America has a particular problem with gun crime, and that a reduction in gun ownership will help alleviate the problem.

While the first part of this argument is correct, it is more accurate to say that American cities have a particular problem with gun crime. Rural states like Utah and Montana have exceedingly high levels of gun ownership, but exceedingly low levels of gun violence.

Proponents of gun control often argue that the U.S needs gun control because its gun culture is so much more violent than, say, Switzerland’s. But there are plenty of areas in the U.S that do resemble Switzerland. More importantly, when you look at statistics for the entire United States, a 120 million surge in gun ownership between 1993 and 2009 actually correlated with a decline in gun violence, which dropped by over 50 per cent in the same period. This, incidentally, is why the second part of the progressive argument is wrong – gun ownership does not correlate with gun crime.

I am not alone among liberals in acknowledging the now-obvious fact that gun ownership does not line up with gun violence. Columnists at The Atlantic and the Huffington Post now acknowledge that the route to ending gun violence is not more gun control, but an end to the war on drugs. Official estimates of the number of U.S homicides that are drug-related range between 25 per cent and 50 per cent. Decriminalizing the drug trade is likely to have a much bigger impact on gun crime (and crime in general) than gun control.

With even liberal columnists talking about alternatives to gun control, only the Democratic party continues to lag behind the times – they continue to use school shootings to push gun control legislation that attract ever-dwindling levels of support. Even the resolutely progressive Pacific Standard bluntly acknowledges the futility of the Obama Administration’s efforts: “To date, the President has delivered 11 speeches after 11 mass shooting, all to no avail.” With congress, a wide swathe of the public, and the facts of gun violence all pointing against gun control, it’s curious that the administration even bothers

There may be no pragmatic reasons to oppose gun ownership, but are there any pragmatic reasons to support it? Sure, they’re fun, but there are other ways to get an adrenaline rush. Unless you’re a really bad theme park manager, it’s hard to turn a roller coaster into a homicide weapon. So shouldn’t we just stick to that?

One counter-argument is that while it’s hard to kill someone with a roller coaster, it’s also hard to mount a citizen’s uprising with one.

Critics will argue that this argument is a product of paranoia. In many cases, they are correct – you often hear this argument from people who stockpile guns and compile 8000-word essays about FEMA camps. But just because they’re paranoid today, doesn’t mean they won’t be right some day in the distant future. People who believe democracies can never morph into tyrannies didn’t pay attention in their history classes.

But leaping to cliched and dramatic arguments about future revolutions isn’t even necessary. Guns don’t have to be used to serve as a check on government overreach. When racial tensions were reaching a peak in the 1960s, Lyndon B. Johnson told an aide that there would be “blood on the streets” if they did not take action against racial discrimination. Would he have been so determined to act were it not for the fact of gun ownership? (Whether armed citizens are always in the right and the government is always in the wrong is of course a moot point: a balance of powers doesn’t imply that any one center of power will be right all of the time.)

The essence of liberalism, beyond a belief in choice and individual rights, is a mistrust of center of power. As a liberal, I’m comfortable defending gun ownership. And although the Magnum does have quite a kick, I think I’m comfortable shooting them too. But the video is above – I’ll let readers be the judge.


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10. How to win the gun debate [VIDEO]
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http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/10/15/ho ... ate-video/

or

http://tinyurl.com/pqhjn6l


How to Win the Gun Debate (Video)
Julie Borowski's look at how to win the hearts and minds of gun-haters.
by Russ Chastain
October 15, 2015

Julie Borowski is a young woman who has become well-known proponent of liberty, including gun rights. Her straightforward and often-campy videos have helped spread the word of freedom in today’s online world.

In this video, she talks about the fear of guns that’s behind so many gun-haters and takes on the open-carry nuts who think it’s a swell idea to take their AR or AK to lunch with them in a popular restaurant just to freak people out.

Trust me on this: It’s not getting people used to seeing guns – it’s just reinforcing all the bad negative stereotypes about gun owners.

Check it out. It’s well worth a watch. Do you agree with her idea on how to win?


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11. Two polls that smash through the case for more gun control
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Member Diane Weber emailed me this:

Good news for us, especially with the milennials.


http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/21/two-p ... n-control/

or

http://tinyurl.com/oet6cc8


Two Polls That Smash Through The Case For More Gun Control
by Guy Bentley
October 21, 2015

Those hoping for a popular resurgence for gun control are having their ambitions smashed by two major opinion polls showing strong opposition to further restrictions and widespread support for concealed weapons.

A CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday shows 52 percent of Americans oppose more gun control laws compared to 46 percent who want the government to tighten regulations.

Opposition to gun control has grown since CNN’s last poll in June that showed the public was split with 49 percent on either side of the issue.

The support for gun rights has grown despite the Umpqua Community College shooting Oct. 1 that killed nine people.

Twenty-six-year-old student Christopher Harper-Mercer massacred classmates and teachers with firearms purchased legally. The incident provoked outrage and a volley of proposals for stricter gun laws.

In the aftermath of the shooting, President Barack Obama said “each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough.”

“It cannot be this easy for someone who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.” On Oct. 5, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration was considering whether the president can take executive action to enforce stronger gun control rules.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton also threatened executive action to crack down on guns if she is elected president and if Congress fails to act.

But a tougher stance on guns may be an electoral liability for Clinton, with public opinion flowing so strongly in the opposite direction.

Not only do most Americans oppose more restrictive laws but they also believe more concealed weapons will make the country safer.

A Gallup poll released Tuesday shows 56 percent of Americans believe that if more people carried concealed weapons after passing a criminal background check and training course the U.S. would be a safer place.

Aside from gun owners and Republicans, young people between the ages of 18-29 are the most favorable toward concealed weapons, with 66 percent saying an increase will improve public safety.


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12. Americans see Democrats as 'outside the mainstream' on guns
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Boy, is that an understatement. I have started to refer to them as "the Party of Gun Control.”

Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... ream-guns/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nrlh32c


POLL: AMERICANS SEE DEMOCRATS AS ‘OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM’ ON GUNS
by AWR Hawkins
October 20, 2015

In a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the majority of Americans said they see the Democrat Party as “outside the mainstream” on guns. Ironically, almost an identical majority view the Republican Party as “within the mainstream” as it pertains to guns.

Democrats are pro-gun control and Republicans are pro-Second Amendment.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 52 percent of Americans see the Democrats as “outside the mainstream” on guns while just 38 percent see them as “within the mainstream.” The numbers are reversed for the Republicans, with 38 percent saying the GOP is “outside the mainstream” while 51 percent say they are “within the mainstream.”

The Democrat position has been clearly set forward over the past two weeks via presidential hopefuls Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)16%
and Hillary Clinton, both of whom support massive amounts of new gun control.

Sanders is clearest on his support for an “assault weapons” ban and new regulations on gun shows. As of late he is also warming to the idea of allowing shooting victims to sue gun manufacturers for the criminal misuse of firearms.

Clinton supports these same positions, plus she wants to go after gun stores, to change the definition of “domestic abuse” to include non-married persons–thereby creating a whole new category of persons banned from gun ownership–and believes the gun control approaches used in Australia are “worth looking at” for U.S. gun policy.

On the other hand, current Republican presidential front-runners Ben Carson and Donald Trump both make clear no new gun controls are necessary. In fact, Carson has been calling for the repeal of gun controls that create the gun free zones mass attackers love to target on school campuses and Trump stresses that “concealed carry is a right, not a privilege.”

It is interesting to note the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also shows that the driving force behind any continuing degree of support for gun control is found almost exclusively in the Democrat Party. While just 31 percent of Republicans and 51 percent Iof ndependents voiced support for more gun controls at the point of purchase of a firearm, a full 81 percent of Democrats rallied behind such a proposal.


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13. A look at the facts on gun-free zones
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/4 ... ry-laws-do

or

http://tinyurl.com/o4ftf5d


A Look at the Facts on Gun-Free Zones
by JOHN LOTT
October 20, 2015

Some have a hard time accepting that criminals can be deterred from committing crimes. They don’t believe that potential mass shooters have second thoughts when faced with the prospect of armed citizens who can fight back. They seem to think that everyday Americans can’t help stop attacks.

But it is getting hard to ignore that mass public shooters keep choosing to attack locations where victims can’t defend themselves. It’s little wonder that gun-control advocates resort to desperate tactics.

There have been a series of articles from Politico, the Huffington Post, Slate, and the New York Daily News with similar titles meant to cast doubt on defensive gun use, such as “the myth of the good guy with the gun.”

Since at least 1950, all but two public mass shootings in America have taken place where general citizens are banned from carrying guns. In Europe, there have been no exceptions. Every mass public shooting — and there have been plenty of mass shooting in Europe — has occurred in a gun-free zone. In addition, they have had three of the six worst K–12 school shootings, and Europe experienced by far the worst mass public shooting perpetrated by a single individual (Norway in 2011, which from the shooting alone left 67 people dead and 110 wounded).

Mass killers have even explicitly talked about their desire to attack gun-free zones. The Charleston, S.C., church shooting in June was instead almost a college shooting. But that killer changed his plans after realizing that the College of Charleston had armed guards.

The diary of the “Dark Knight” movie-theater killer, James Holmes, was finally released just a few months ago. Holmes decided not to attack an airport because of what he described in his diary as its “substantial security.” Out of seven theaters showing the Batman movie premiere within 20 minutes of the suspect’s apartment, only one theater banned permitted concealed handguns. That’s the one he attacked.

Or take two cases from last year. Elliot Rodger, who fatally shot three people in Santa Barbara, Calif., explained his reasoning in his 141-page “manifesto.” He ruled out various targets because he worried that someone with a gun would stop his killing spree. Justin Bourque shot to death three people in Canada. On Facebook, Bourque posted a picture of a defenseless victim explaining to killers that guns are prohibited.

Shooters have good reason to be concerned. Here are some examples from the past few years.

— Conyers, Ga., May 31, 2015: A permit holder was walking by a store when he heard shots ring out. Two people were killed. The permit holder started firing, and the killer ran out of the store. Rockdale County Sheriff Eric Levett said: “I believe that if Mr. Scott did not return fire at the suspect, then more of those customers would have [been] hit by a gun[shot]. . . . So, in my opinion he saved other lives in that store.”

— Chicago, April 2015: An Uber driver who had just dropped off a fare “shot and wounded a gunman [Everardo Custodio] who opened fire on a crowd of people.” Assistant State’s Attorney Barry Quinn praised the driver for “acting in self-defense and in the defense of others.”

— Philadelphia, Pa., March 2015: A permit holder was walking by a barber shop when he heard shots fired. He quickly ran into the shop and shot the gunman to death. Police Captain Frank Llewellyn said, “I guess he saved a lot of people in there.”

— Darby, Pa., July 2014: Convicted felon Richard Plotts killed a hospital caseworker and shot the psychiatrist that he was scheduled to meet with. Fortunately, the psychiatrist was a concealed-handgun permit holder and was able to critically wound Plotts. Plotts was still carrying 39 bullets and could have shot many other people.

— Chicago, July 2014: Three gang members fired on four people who had just left a party. Fortunately, one of these four was a military serviceman with a concealed-handgun permit. He was able to return fire and wound the main attacker while keeping the others at bay. The UK’s Daily Mail reported, “The night might have had a very different outcome had the incident occurred a year earlier [before Illinois’s concealed-handgun law was passed].”

— Plymouth, Pa., September 2012: William Allabaugh critically wounded one man inside a restaurant and murdered a second man on the street outside. Luzerne County Assistant District Attorney Jarrett Ferentino said that without the concealed-handgun permit holder who wounded Allabaugh, “we believe that it could have been much worse that night.”

— Spartanburg, S.C., March 2012: Armed with a shotgun, Jesse Gates kicked in a door to his church. Concealed-carry permit holder Aaron Guyton drew his gun and held Gates at gun point, enabling other parishioners to disarm Gates. Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright called the churchgoers heroes. Though Gates was stopped before anyone was harmed, he was still charged with one count of kidnapping and three counts of pointing and presenting a firearm.

None of these stories received national news coverage. Many received only one or two local news stories. Yet, if a permit holder hadn’t stopped these attacks, these cases would surely have received national attention.

There are some other older cases in which permit holders saved the day in remarkable fashion and gained national attention. In December 2007, permit holder and former police officer Jeanne Assam defended her church from Matthew Murray who had just killed four people; Murray carried more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Assam was being stalked by an ex at the time and had asked her pastor if she could carry her permitted concealed handgun. The pastor accommodated her request by allowing her and other permit holders to act as volunteer security guards.

The recent Politico article “The Myth of the Good Guy with the Gun,” by Matt Valentine, not only misses these cases, but mischaracterizes other ones. In the case from Pearl, Miss., where Assistant Principal Joel Myrick stopped the shooter, Politico notes that the killer was leaving the high school but fails to mention where he was headed. In fact, the killer was heading across the street to the middle school. Politico makes it sound as though stopping the attack at that point did not save lives. Concerning the Wilcox case in Nevada, the article omits the fact that while Wilcox didn’t stop the killers, his intervention gave Walmart customers time to flee from the shooting.

But the deterrent and life-saving effects of concealed-handgun laws on mass public shootings aren’t just anecdotal. Bill Landes of the University of Chicago and I gathered data on mass public shootings from 1977 to 1999. We studied 13 different types of gun-control laws as well as the impact of law enforcement, but the only law that had a statistically significant impact on mass public shootings was the passage of right-to-carry laws. Right-to-carry laws reduced both the frequency and the severity of mass public shootings; and to the extent to which mass shootings still occurred, they took place in those tiny areas in the states where permitted concealed handguns were not allowed.

Umpqua Community College, scene of a recent mass shooting, was yet another gun-free zone. Oregon law allows permitted concealed handguns on university property, but public educators have undermined the law by putting bans in faculty and student handbooks. For students and faculty, the threat of expulsion or termination is surely threat enough. Faculty members may lose not only their jobs but also their career. Students are unlikely to ever be admitted to another school and must live with the fact that they will never get the college degree that they were working on.

In Oregon, students and faculty are prohibited from carrying firearms on public university campuses. Only people unaffiliated with the college are allowed to carry. But even they are subject to a 2011 Oregon appeals-court decision that allows schools to ban guns in their buildings.

This ensured that no one — students, faculty, or unaffiliated bystanders — was able to defend against that deadly shooting.

As evidence that the school wasn’t a gun-free zone, some have pointed out that one student, a veteran, still carried his gun despite the college’s warnings. Unfortunately, the student was far removed from the attack.

But to appreciate the impact of the school rules, you have to realize how exceptionally law-abiding most permit holders are. Permit-holder firearms violations are quite literally one in a million occurrences. Indeed, it is hard to think of any other group that is anywhere near as law-abiding — not even the police. And yet, Matt Valentine in Politico would have us believe that “you’re more likely to get shot by an ordinary gun owner who loses his temper than by a mass murderer.”

If you’re going to shoot people, why bother going through the process of getting a permit for a concealed handgun?

Obviously, gun-control advocates don’t think that deterrence works. Despite statements from the killers themselves, they don’t think that rampage shooters factor the presence of guns into their plans. Most of these shooters want to go out with a bang and take a lot of people with them. They tend to be antisocial, attention-starved people. They want their names to be remembered.

These killers know that the more people they murder, the more media attention they will get. And they also know that the longer it takes for someone with a gun to appear on the scene, the more people they can kill.

If you still agree with gun-control advocates about deterrence, ask yourself if you would post a sign on your home announcing it was a gun-free zone. So why do we post these signs at public locations? There’s simply no good reason for it.


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14. Gun Control Fail: NYC police officer dies after being shot in head
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Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:

Gun control serves as a spectacular failure in Michael Bloomberg's very own city.


http://wtop.com/national/2015/10/new-yo ... s-is-shot/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nzbt83d


New York City police officer dies after being shot in head
By The Associated Press
October 21, 2015

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City police officer died after being shot in the head in a gun battle while pursuing a suspect following a report of shots fired, police said.

“He is the fourth New York City police officer murdered in this city in the last 11 months,” Police Commissioner William Bratton said during a press conference at Harlem hospital where Officer Randolph Holder, 33, was pronounced dead Tuesday night. “That’s about as bad as it gets,” he said.

Dozens of Holder’s fellow officers stood outside the hospital early Wednesday morning and saluted as the ambulance carrying their fallen comrade left. Afterward, many embraced one another.

“Tonight, he did what every other officer in the NYPD does when the call comes — he ran toward danger,” Bratton said. “It was the last time he will respond to that call.”

The shooting in Manhattan’s East Harlem neighborhood happened while the 5-year veteran and his partners were responding to a call of shots fired.

Witnesses told the officers a man had fled on a foot path and the officers encountered another man who told them an assailant had stolen his bicycle at gunpoint.

Holder and another officer confronted the armed man and there was an exchange of gunfire at East 120 Street and the FDR Drive, Bratton said. The officer was struck and the shooter fled on foot. The suspect was caught several blocks away with a gunshot wound to his leg.

Bratton said the suspect was expected to be released from a hospital early Wednesday and transferred to police custody. The suspect was not identified.

“We are humbled by Officer Randolph Holder’s example, an example of service and courage and sacrifice,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “Our hearts are heavy. We offer our thoughts and our prayers to his family.”

De Blasio said Holder, who joined the force in July 2010, had an “exemplary record” as a police officer.

Holder was a native of Guyana. In the NYPD, he worked in the division that polices the city’s public housing developments. His father and grandfather both were police officers in Guyana, Bratton said.

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said: “New York City police officers everyday go out and carry themselves like superheroes but the reality is when we’re attacked we bleed, when we bleed we die and when we die we cry.”

So far this year, 101 police officers have died in the line of duty in the U.S. — 33 of those deaths caused by gunfire — according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. By early Wednesday, Holder’s name already had been added to the list.


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15. Top California official pushes ammo background checks [VIDEO]
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As soon as the anti-gun “expert” misquotes the purpose of the “well-regulated” part of the Second Amendment, you know he doesn’t know which end of a gun the bullet comes out of.

Stupid ideas such as a background check for ammo purchases seem to always come from California, New York, or New Jersey.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10 ... nd-checks/

or

http://tinyurl.com/oe3vz78


Top California official pushes ammo background checks
by FoxNews.com
October 19, 2015

Gun control advocates are launching a new regulatory push in California to impose first-in-the-nation instant background checks for ammunition sales, a move that comes as gun violence surfaces as a lightning rod issue in the 2016 presidential race.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democratic candidate for governor in 2018, joined with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in announcing the initiative last week.

The November 2016 ballot initiative, which already is being slammed by the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups, would make changes on several fronts.

It would require owners to turn in "large-capacity" magazines -- those holding 11 rounds or more -- and report when their weapons are stolen. Perhaps the most controversial provision would handle ammo sales like gun sales by requiring "point-of-sale background checks" for ammunition purchases; dealers also would need a license similar to those required to sell firearms.

As New York has backed off a similar initiative, California would be the first state to enact such background checks, if the initiative is successful. Four states -- Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey -- require ammunition purchasers to obtain permits ahead of time, according to the initiative's supporters.

The proposal comes in the wake of high-profile killings nationwide and three in the San Francisco Bay Area that were tied to stolen guns.

"Stuff doesn't just have to happen," Newsom said last week, responding to comments by Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush about a recent mass shooting on an Oregon college campus. "We have the ability to step in with some common sense. We have the ability to protect our families."

But the National Rifle Association said Newsom's effort would chip away at Second Amendment rights.

In #California, no amount of gun control will ever be enough http://t.co/i8DHxuINES #2A
— NRA (@NRA) October 18, 2015

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom's proposed initiatives read like a laundry list of recent, failed #California legislation http://t.co/i8DHxuINES #2A
— NRA (@NRA) October 18, 2015

The NRA has been tangling with Democratic presidential candidates in recent days after several made gun laws a rallying cry at the lead-off 2016 primary debate.

Asked at the debate which "enemy" he's most proud of, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said: "The National Rifle Association." Hillary Clinton also included the NRA on her enemies list.

Aside from the ammo background checks, the California proposal also would require felons to relinquish weapons, and ensure that data is shared with the federal firearms database on residents who are prohibited from owning guns.

Gun control advocates welcomed California's proposal, pointing to the lack of political will at the federal level. Newsom made his announcement in San Francisco near the site of a 1993 gun massacre that helped spur federal restrictions on assault weapons.

"Congress has failed to pass even the most basic laws to help keep guns out of dangerous hands and save lives," said Kate Folmar, spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "The states have and will continue to take action to reduce gun violence despite the gridlock in Washington."

Polls have shown California voters are generally more supportive of restricting access to guns than voters in other states.


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16. [MI] 2 EMS workers stabbed with box cutter; suspect arrested
**************************************************

An example of why EMS and fire personnel should be armed for self-defense. VCDL fully backs having armed EMS and firefighters.


Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:


http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2015/10/20/ ... the-loose/

or

http://tinyurl.com/pozwumz


Two EMS Workers Attacked, Stabbed With Box Cutter In Detroit; Suspect Arrested
October 20, 2015

DETROIT (WWJ) – Officials say two paramedics are in serious condition after they were attacked and stabbed repeatedly while trying to help a woman on Detroit’s west side.

The incident happened just after 12 a.m. Tuesday in the 3400 block of Third Street, in a neighborhood just east of the Lodge Freeway along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The suspect and the injured woman were taken into custody late Tuesday evening in connection with the incident.

“It was a horrific scene,” said Fire Commissioner Eric Jones. “It was a stabbing and a slashing.”

The paramedics, identified as Alfredo Rojas and Kelly Adams, had been called to the area to treat a woman with an ankle injury when a man who was with the woman became “agitated” and attacked.

“They were together on the sidewalk when EMS arrived,” Jones told reporters. “The male subject was upset at the assessment of the EMTs so as they were treating her — I can’t get inside of his head, I don’t know what he was agitated about, but he was upset for some reason — and at some point during the encounter, he produced this weapon.”

The suspect first went for the Rojas, who has been working with the department for about two years. When Adams, a 13-year department veteran, stepped in to help her partner, the suspect turned his attention — and his weapon — to her.

Both paramedics were stabbed and slashed repeatedly before making it back to their vehicle. Adams then drove she and her partner to Detroit Receiving Hospital where both remain in serious condition.

“It was a horrific scene. The EMS rig, the scene inside of the rig is horrific. Their injuries are horrific,” Jones said, adding that both paramedics will have significant scarring. “Both of the EMTs are going to require some extensive surgeries. The injuries — they came to within inches of dying.”

The suspect took off running after the attack and is currently being sought by police. His description was not immediately released.

Jones said he plans to meet with Police Chief James Craig later Tuesday to discuss “de-escalation training” and defensive tactic training to prevent another attack like this from happening in the future.

“I understand the situation that the men and women of the Detroit Fire Department and the Detroit EMS are experiencing and I am working aggressively to get them the training and the equipment that they need,” he said. “They’re working in some dangerous conditions… they’re concerned. I mean, police officers are concerned, firefighters are concerned, EMTs are concerned. They’re professionals but it is dangerous and they go into some very dangerous situations.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan spoke to reporters after visiting the injured pair in the hospital later Tuesday morning.

He called Adams’ effort to protect her partner an amazing act or heroism.

“What I can tell you is, at Detroit Receiving Hospital — which many of you know I ran for nine years — they consider the EMTs are part of the family. Those ambulances are in and out of there all the time,” Duggan said. “They are being totally embraced by the doctors and nurses. And, as I told them, everybody in this community is thinking about them and our thoughts and our prayers are with them.”

Area residents like Robert Armstrong are just trying to make sense of the crime.

“The EMS is one of the most important people for this area — there’s always something bad happening around here,” he said. “And for that to happen is really stupid, man, it’s really stupid.”

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17. [MI] CHP holder shoots robbers [VIDEO]
**************************************************

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10 ... last-week/

or

http://tinyurl.com/olby6mk


Police Say Armed Suspects Got Excited, Distracted When They Found $220 on ‘Victim.’ Then They Learned What He Obtained Just Last Week
by Jon Street
October 20, 2015

Three robbery suspects in Detroit were caught off guard after police say they nabbed $220 from a victim who had obtained his concealed pistol license just recently.

Tremain, who didn’t want to be identified, said his 23-year-old brother had just gotten off work and was waiting at the bus stop when three teenagers tried to rob him. One of the teens pulled a gun and demanded that he give them his money.

“They threatened him and told him if he moved they were going to blow him, which is a term for ‘I’m going to kill or shoot you if you move,’” Tremain told WJBK-TV.

Tremain said that is what happened, but pointed out that two of the three robbers were the ones who got shot – not his brother. After the suspects stole $220 right out of the man’s pocket, they got distracted by what they got. That allowed Tremain’s brother just enough time to reach for his pistol.

He ended up shooting the 16-year-old suspect in the chest and the 17-year-old suspect in the leg. The third suspect, who is 19, ran away, WJBK-TV reported.

The wounded suspects went to a nearby hospital on their own where they told the emergency room they were held up and shot. Meanwhile, the victim called the police.

But investigators later pieced it all together and realized the teens who went to the emergency room were actually the robbers. One of them eventually confessed to not only this crime, but also to others. Police retrieved further evidence from their Facebook pages.

No charges have been filed yet.

As for Tremain, he said this is exactly why both he and his brother have their concealed pistol licenses.

“We are glad that he didn’t lose his life and he protected himself,” Tremaine said. “He was in fear of his life. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know this was going to happen to him.”


**************************************************
18. [MI] Pastor shoots, kills hammer-wielding church intruder [VIDEO]
**************************************************

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/19/pa ... -cops-say/

or

http://tinyurl.com/nsp6dbv


Detroit pastor shoots, kills hammer-wielding church intruder
by FoxNews.com
October 19, 2015

A pistol-packing pastor shot and killed a man who was allegedly trying to attack him with a brick on Sunday in the vestibule of a Detroit church, police said.

Cops say Deante Smith, 25, attacked the unidentified pastor and threatened several parishioners of The City of God church with a brick and hammer, FOX2 reported. Police said the attack was not random; the pastor and Smith knew each other and the two have had problems in the past.

Assistant Detroit Police Chief Steve Dolunt said a previous police report had been filed against Smith, The Detroit Free Press reported.

“The pastor had had issues with the man before,” Dolunt told the Detroit News. “He had been threatening to do him bodily harm. He walked into the service and went after the pastor with a brick. The pastor pulled out his Glock and fired several shots. I think he hit him four or five times, and the man died.”

Sunday’s incident occurred just before 2 p.m. as church was ending, Detroit Police Sgt. Cassandra Lewis told WWJ.

“We’re not sure at this point whether the man had mental problems or what,” Dolunt said. “It’s still under investigation.”

No one else was hurt during the episode, according to FOX2. The pastor has been questioned by police.

City of God is a non-denominational church, according to its Facebook page.

“The reality is, things can happen anywhere now,” City Councilman Andre Spivey told the Detroit News. “[Church] is a haven of rest and safety…when you cannot be safe in God’s place of worship, where can you be safe?”


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19. High volume shootout: The Harry Beckwith incident
**************************************************

EM Dave Vann emailed me this:

If you've never seen this before it's well worth the read and answers the question quite well of "why would anyone need a high capacity magazine".


http://www.afn.org/~guns/ayoob.html


High Volume Shootout: The Harry Beckwith Incident
The Ayoob Files
American Handgunner
September/October 1995

Situation: A gun dealer faces robbers, again. Tonight the odds are seven to one against him.
Lesson: When the wolf pack has you, an armed citizen needs high capacity defensive weapons.

Harry Beckwith's Guns in Alachua County, Florida, is probably my favorite gunshop. It isn't just that smell of gun oil, cigar smoke, and old, worn leather that reminds me of the gun shops of my youth. It isn't just the fabulous Luger collection that resides there, nor the excellent buys, especially on collectibles. Harry's place has a karmic touch of the armed citizen about it that you don't find in the atmosphere of your average firearms emporium.

The revolver always visible at Harry's belt is nothing new for the gunshop habitude. Sometimes he wears a modest Charter Arms .44 Bulldog, and sometimes a Smith & Wesson Model 60 .38 Special with the fabulous Tiffany silver grips that you normally only see in the coffee table gun books.

No, what's different about Harry's is that as soon as you step out of your car in the spacious parking lot, you notice the bullet holes in the concrete outer walls of the building. Inside you see more holes in the walls.

There's a photo of a rifle champion next to his bullseye target and there's a hole in the bullseye - a REAL hole, which also pierces glass and backing.

"I like to tell folks that I put that one there intentionally," says Harry with a puckish grin. At 68, Harry admits that his recollection is a bit cloudy, but he figures that in his 35 years in the retail gun business he has experienced right at 35 robberies and burglaries. He proudly notes that in all those rip-offs and heist attempts, only two firearms were not recovered.

He also remembers the only three times when the thieves were unfortunate enough to face him. Each time, it evolved into a gun battle. Each time, he shot them and they didn't get to shoot him.

The first was a pure pistol fight. Harry drew and shot the robber, who lost all interest in carrying on the fight. This saved his life; when the wounded gunman surrendered, Harry Beckwith, a moral man, didn't shoot him again.

In the second shootout, the gun dealer interrupted a felon about to drive off with guns he'd heisted from the store. Though not a Class III weapons dealer, Beckwith was federally licensed to possess such arms for his own use. When the thug raised a .45 auto pistol at Harry, Beckwith trumped his ace with a burst of full automatic fire from a Smith & Wesson Model 76 9mm submachine gun. Struck in the forehead, the gunman dropped his pistol and screamed, "I'm hit!"

"Get out of the car," Beckwith roared back. The man did, and realizing he was still alive despite a gunshot wound in the forehead, he ran. Once more, Beckwith held fire.

The man was captured later and treated for an ugly but minor head injury from a flattened- out 9mm hollowpoint round that had lost most of it's energy piercing the safety glass of the windshield.

That incident took place in 1976, the Bicentennial of our nation's independence. A Class III weapons owner had delivered a splendidly appropriate demonstration of the independence our nation was celebrating. In the "the spirit of "76," he stopped a violent criminal with a Model 76.

But neither of these had prepared Harry Beckwith, then 63, old enough to collect Social Security and qualify as a Senior Citizen, for the incident that left his place of business bearing the distinctive scars you can see there to this day.

The night of November 12, 1990, promised to be a quiet one. The regular bowling pin shoot had finished up less than an hour ago. The gunshop was securely locked up, and so was the separate indoor shooting range building located behind it.

Harry Beckwith was at home with his wife in their beautiful hacienda, separated from the business structures by about 100 yards of beach sand and trees. A picturesque setting that would make the quintessential Florida postcard.

Harry was relaxed and watching TV. It was 9:50 p.m. Suddenly, two discordant sounds pierced the night. One was the distinctive crash of a heavy vehicle being driven through the steel-reinforced glass door in the concrete entryway of the gunshop. The other was the yelping of the burglar alarm.

Beck with moved instantly. He knew his rural location was remote; even though the police would be rolling immediately, he wasn't sure they could get there in time.

He moved smoothly and certainly, with the economy of motion that comes with age and with planning. He knew his wife would get on the phone and put a gun in her own hand, in a safe place. That left his mind free to cope with the problem of dealing with the marauders.

He reached for the weapons he had laid out for just such a contingency.

First was a Charter Arms Bulldog revolver in an old Bucheimer crossdraw paddle holster. It slipped easily into place in front of his left hip. It was loaded with five rounds of his favorite .44 Special ammunition, Winchester Silvertip hollowpoint.

Next came the Model 76 submachine gun. One magazine was in place, the bolt properly closed, "condition three." More magazines were rubber-banded to the extended stock. Beckwith had found this to be a faster way to access them than to attach a pouch in the same place. He slung the licensed submachine gun over his right shoulder.

He picked up an AR-15, a gun he has always described as a "Colt Sporting Rifle." It contained one magazine downloaded to only 15 rounds. Another such magazine was banded to its plastic stock as well.

With the other hand, he scooped up a Remington Model 1100 12 gauge semiautomatic shotgun, already fully loaded.

Figuring he was ready for anything, Harry Beckwith quietly stepped out into the shadows, moving away from the house in the direction of the shop, some 100 paces distant.

He could see that two vehicles were there, both '88 Oldsmobiles, one blue and one white. Numerous adult male figures were scurrying in and out of the shop, bearing armloads of guns to the cars through the door they'd crashed. He couldn't make out color or age, only that they were grown men, and that they were maybe seven of them.

At a point between the shop and the house, he carefully laid the shotgun down out of sight. It would be a fallback weapon if he had to retreat in that direction. He took the AR-15 in both hands, ready, and moved forward again.

But there was a full moon out, and the same moonlight that had allowed him to observe the criminals allowed them to see him. Beckwith knew then he'd been "made".

"I should've been more in the shadows," Beckwith would tell me years later. "He gunned the car straight at me. I'm too old to run. I fired off my shoulder at him and the vehicle."

When the butt of the rifle hit the shoulder pocket, Beckwith opened fire, manipulating the trigger as fast as he could. Suddenly, the AR was not responding; he had run dry.

The vehicle was still coming at him, rapidly closing the 50 yards distance.

A skilled man can reload an AR-15 almost as quickly as a Colt .45 auto, and Harry Beckwith is skilled at arms. As his right index finger punched the mag release, his left hand broke the spare magazine free of the rubber band and slammed it home with a practiced motion, his left thumb almost simultaneously pressing the bolt drop paddle on the left side of the frame.

He resumed fire, as fast as he could work the gun.

The high-pitched crack of the AR-15 could not drown out the dull chong sound of the .223 ball rounds punching through the auto body, nor the distinctive sound of heavy glass breaking. The vehicle swerved off course, and Harry ran dry again.

As he dropped the now useless rifle, the blue Oldsmobile veered away from him, cutting to its left. It threw a giant rooster-tail of dust as the driver accelerated away from the old man he had tried seconds before to crush to death. Beckwith saw the car disappear onto Route 441.

Beckwith turned his attention back toward the shop. Five more of the burglars were there, most holding guns, pistols and longer weapons.

Silhouetted in the moonlight, too old to run, still facing five-to-one odds against men with all kinds of guns capable of easily killing him from 50 yards away and who could easily have loaded up with some of the thousands of rounds they'd had access to for some time now, Beckwith knew he was still in deadly danger.

He swung up the Smith & Wesson submachine gun, racked the open bolt back and cut loose on full automatic.

"I fired high, over their heads, to keep them down," he would explain later. "I used short bursts."

He saw them duck. He knew it had bought him a moment. But his near-death experience with the blue Oldsmobile bearing down on him was fresh in his mind. If they crawled up the covered side of the car, they could do the same with the white Olds.

And if two magazines of .223 hadn't disabled the other identical vehicle, what could he hope to do with 9mm fire? He realized that the time to disable the felons' second car was now.

He swept it from one end to the other, reloaded, and continued. Every window in the Oldsmobile disintegrated as the copper jacketed bullets tore through. Beckwith had stagger- loaded the magazines with hardball and Remington 115 gr. jacketed hollowpoints. The tires deflated with an audible hiss.

Beckwith saw the surviving perps moving away from the vehicle. Now the big danger was being shot instead of being run down. A second empty S&W magazine hit the ground, and Beckwith opened another burst of diversionary fire with a third stick.

The perpetrators had enough. He saw them run around the corner of the building. He took a cover position and waited.

The first police car pulled into the scene approximately one minute later. To Beckwith, it seemed as if he waited an hour.

However, reconstruction of the incident would show that it had been only three minutes from when the alarm sounded to when the first responding Alachua County deputy made it into the gunshop. The incident itself had lasted less than two minutes.

During that time, Harry Beckwith had fired 105 shots.

By 2 a.m. all surviving perpetrators had been arrested and were in custody. Six were at the jail and one at morgue. Roger Patterson, age 18, was found dead in the wreck of the shot up Oldsmobile. He'd gotten across the line into Marion County with one tire shot away, driving 13 miles before he lost control and crashed. Cause of death was a .223 rifle wound through the chest.

The second man in the blue car was captured near the scene.

Both cars had been hot-wired and stolen. Some 20 stolen firearms were found in each car. The white Olds had been so badly shot up it had to be towed from the scene.

Patterson was the only one hit. This was because he was the only one Beckwith fired at. Most of his shots had been directed at keeping the other men's heads down and dissuading them, and at disabling their second vehicle, goals he achieved with spectacular success.

Beckwith told me later, "I could have killed all five of them, at the end, when they were running away and exposed to me. But I was no longer in danger from them, so chose not to shoot them."

Beckwith had high praise for the professionalism of the Alachua County Sheriff's Deputies in general, and particularly for those who responded that night - with one possible exception.

There is still anger in his voice when he relates, "One of them wanted to read me my rights!" However, the anger fades when he continues, " And then a sergeant said to the guy, "He's the victim, for Christ's sake!''

He is still bitter about having to speak before the grand jury. Most Florida jurisdictions bring justifiable homicides before a grand jury as a matter of course, but being in there alone without legal counsel still has a "star chamber" feel to it that leaves you with no warm fuzziness about the experience at all.

As any high school civics student knows, the function of a grand jury is to determine if you've committed a crime. That's a bitter pill to swallow when someone just ripped you off and tried to run you down like a possum in the road. Harry Beckwith still bitterly refers to his cross-examination before the grand jury as an "inquisition."

However, the system generally works, and Shakespeare was right when he said, "The truth will out." The grand jury returned a verdict of no true bill, in effect, designating the incident a justifiable use of lethal force.

What leaves Harry Beckwith most unhappy today is that these perpetrators, initially charged with felony murder, were allowed to plead down to attempted burglary. They turned out to range in age from 16 to 21.

Harry Beckwith fired two magazines of 15 rounds each from the Colt .223 rifle, and two full mags and part of a third from the S & W submachine gun. Only one bullet caused death.

The great majority of his gunfire fell into the "warning shot" category - suppressive fire if you will. We can argue at length about the concept of the warning shot, but the fact remains that in this case, it fulfilled its intended purpose.

It was not lost on the grand jury that exculpated Harry Beckwith that he could have killed all seven perpetrators, and chose not to. It was likewise to his benefit that twice before in his life, he had shown mercy and not killed men he'd shot when they gave up the fight after he wounded them.

Every case I've seen of a shooting with a lawfully owned Class III weapon has gone to a Grand Jury. Some of those grand juries have indicted.

However, every time it was provably self-defense, the subsequent Petit jury has also acquitted the shooter. Still, such trials are extremely expensive for the defendant.

(Interestingly, Florida is one of only two states, the other being Washington state, where an accused citizen found "not guilty" at trial can be reimbursed legal fees and costs by the local government.)

A good general rule for avoiding trial in a justifiable shooting would be, "Semi-auto yes, full-auto no."

In the November, 1990, incident, Beckwith fired more rounds than any armed citizen has probably fired in legitimate self-defense since the Indian Wars. I'm glad he got out of it ok.

Beckwith's domination and unscathed survival of this incident is owed in large part to the fact that he was allowed to lawfully possess high cartridge capacity, rapid-fire weapons for self-defense, the sort of "assault weapons" our current Administration would forbid other Americans to possess.

When Ted Gogol of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America was putting together a group of citizens who had used such firearms to protect their own lives and those of other innocent people, I put him in touch with Harry Beckwith, who would have gone to testify before Congress but for the fact that his wife was ill and he couldn't leave her.

But Harry Beckwith didn't need to testify in Congress to show that he's the kind of tough American who can stand up for his rights, temper justice with mercy, and take care of himself, even against seven-to-one odds if someone is trying to kill him.

As long as he is allowed to own and use the kind of weapons that give him parity against the sort of brutal criminal that runs in packs, and tries to run down and kill senior citizens who would dare to interfere with their lawless depredations.


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20. The 'gun control' farce: part 2
**************************************************

Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:


http://townhall.com/columnists/thomasso ... i-n2064751

or

http://tinyurl.com/ol3mszl


The 'Gun Control' Farce: Part II
by Thomas Sowell
October 14, 2015

The grand illusion of zealots for laws preventing ordinary, law-abiding people from having guns is that "gun control" laws actually control guns. In a country with many millions of guns, not all of them registered, this is a fantasy and a farce.

Guns do not vanish into thin air because there are gun control laws. Guns -- whether legal or illegal -- can last for centuries. Passing laws against guns may enable zealots to feel good about themselves, but at the cost of other people's lives.

Why anyone would think that criminals who disobey other laws, including laws against murder, would obey gun control laws is a mystery. A disarmed population makes crime a safer occupation and street violence a safer sport.

The "knockout game" of suddenly throwing a punch to the head of some unsuspecting passer-by would not be nearly so much fun for street hoodlums, if there was a serious risk that the passer-by was carrying a concealed firearm.

Being knocked out in a boxing ring means landing on the canvas. But being knocked out on a street usually means landing on concrete. Victims of the knockout game have ended up in the hospital or in the morgue.

If, instead, just a few of those who play this sick "game" ended up being shot, that would take a lot of the fun out of it for others who are tempted to play the same "game."

Even in places where law-abiding citizens are allowed to own guns, they are seldom allowed to carry concealed weapons -- even though concealed weapons protect not only those who carry them, but also protect those who do not, for the hoodlums and criminals have no way of knowing in advance who is armed and who is not.

Another feature of gun control zealotry is that sweeping assumptions are made, and enacted into law, on the basis of sheer ignorance. People who know nothing about guns, and have never fired a shot in their lives, much less lived in high-crime areas, blithely say such things as, "Nobody needs a 30-shot magazine."

Really? If three criminals invaded your home, endangering the lives of you and your loved ones, are you such a sharpshooter that you could take them all out with a clip holding ten bullets? Or a clip with just seven bullets, which is the limit you would be allowed under gun laws in some places?

Do you think that someone who is prepared to use a 30-shot magazine for criminal purposes is going to be deterred by a gun control law? All the wonderful-sounding safeguards in such laws restrict the victims of criminals, rather than the criminals themselves. That is why such laws cost lives, instead of saving lives.

Are there dangers in a widespread availability of guns? Yes! And one innocent death is one too many. But what makes anyone think that there are no innocent lives lost by disarming law-abiding people while criminals remain armed?

If we are going to be serious, as distinguished from being political, we need to look at hard evidence, instead of charging ahead on the basis of rhetoric. Sweeping assumptions need to be checked against facts. But that is seldom what gun control zealots do.

Some gun control zealots may cherry-pick statistics comparing nations with and without strong gun control laws, but cherry-picking is very different from using statistics to actually test a belief.

Among the cherry-picked statistics is that England has stronger gun control laws than the United States and much lower murder rates. But Mexico, Brazil and Russia all have stronger gun control laws than the United States -- and much higher murder rates.

A closer look at the history of gun laws in England tells a very different story than what you get from cherry-picked statistics. The murder rate in New York over the past two centuries has been some multiple of the murder rate in London -- and, for most of that time, neither city had strong restrictions on the ownership of guns.

Beginning in 1911, New York had stronger restrictions on gun ownership than London had -- and New York still had murder rates that were a multiple of murder rates in London. It was not the laws that made the difference in murder rates. It was the people. That is also true within the United States.

But are gun control zealots interested in truth or in political victory? Or perhaps just moral preening?


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21. Women disarming women
**************************************************

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles ... women.html

or

http://tinyurl.com/o3abcqj


Women Disarming Women
By Mary C. Michel
October 22, 2015

The gun control movement has become the new feminist battleground. Courtesy of millions of dollars flowing from Michael Bloomberg to women-fronted groups, the face of "gun control" is now decidedly female. Feminization of the issue is not by happenstance. It is a deliberate strategy designed to appeal to gender voters, to beta males, to those who make decisions based on emotion rather than fact, and to those who are ill-informed but know what is best for all. If this movement is successful, the consequences will be tragic and deadly -- especially for women. Women who choose to arm for self-protection in an increasingly dangerous society will be denied that right and instead, will be forced to become easy prey and crime statistics. Make no mistake: gun control is the real war on women and civilian disarmament is the goal. Michael Bloomberg has endorsed gun confiscation and Hillary Clinton is onboard. That women are the vanguard of an effort to make all women weak, dependent submissives is a stunning repudiation of feminism's supposed foundational principle: a woman has the right to make her own life choices.

Female-centric groups, such as Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Everytown for Gun Safety, are portrayed by sympathetic mainstream media and promotional websites as grassroots organizations comprised of safety-focused "caring, concerned moms." Led by a former Democrat operative, these wise nurturers march, boycott, and demand "common sense solutions" to the ubiquitous "epidemic of gun violence" and "mass shootings." This sisterhood predictably has expanded to include liberal celebrities and politicians. Julianne Moore, she of the "#not one more" tweets, is recruiting other Hollywood actresses of great intellect to the cause. Gabby Giffords and, of course, Hillary, who has just embraced the cause out of political desperation, are also vying to become the preeminent anti-gun Valkyrie.

What are these "common sense solutions?" The amorphous mantra encompasses any and all impediments to legal carry and gun ownership. The Moms boycott and bully businesses into imposing, through store policy, greater restrictions than those enacted by citizen vote or otherwise imposed by the laws of the jurisdictions in which those stores operate.They want to ban any kind of carry on college campuses, ban open carry where open carry is legal and seek to lengthen the waiting time imposed by federal law before a customer can take possession of a legally purchased firearm. The fact is, not one of these "solutions" would have prevented any of the criminal shootings the Moms ghoulishly propagandize. These incremental restrictions, however, do advance the ultimate goal of civilian disarmament.

In the midst of our increasingly dangerous, combustible world, how is it that women can agitate to strip other women of their right to arm for self-protection? Well, they do so by denial, en masse, of certain inconvenient yet incontrovertible truths.

The first undeniable truth is that women, generally, are smaller in stature and have less muscle mass than men. The size and strength differentials make women easier, less physically resistant targets for criminals. Depending on the circumstances, if a female is attacked she might be able to yell for help, dial 911 and hope police respond in time, blow that rape whistle, fight off her attacker, beg for mercy, or just submit. Or she can equalize the fighting field and compensate for her lesser physical power by having a firearm. As Samuel Colt, the father of the modern personal firearm industry realized in the 1800s, the gun is "the great equalizer." Like no other weapon, a firearm affords a woman a fighting chance to thwart and to survive a criminal attack.

The second truth is that "reasonable" gun restrictions actually put women at more risk. Tragically, we can't ask Carol Bowne of New Jersey her opinion of stringent gun control because she was murdered while waiting for a government permit to buy a firearm for self-protection. Ms. Bowne was a victim of domestic violence and was being actively stalked. She did everything the gun control crowd says will keep women safe: she obtained a judicial restraining order, installed a home security system and an exterior surveillance system. She also applied for a permit to buy a handgun. By law, the permit process is to take 30 days. In practice, the government sits on the applications with impunity while a 14-point investigation is conducted. On day 41, Ms. Bowne inquired about her permit and was told it was not yet processed. Two days later, she was viciously stabbed to death in her driveway by her stalker; a man who was not stopped by a piece of paper or surveillance systems. Ms. Bowne had not a fighting chance to stave off the attack thanks to the wisdom of the gun control crowd. And what consequences for the police department that failed to timely grant her permit? None at all. Berlin Township Police Chief Leonard Check issued no statement of remorse or sorrow for the murder or the inexcusable permit delay. This man, who should be stripped of his office and vilified by women everywhere, shamefully, still holds his position.

What did the Moms say about this tragic murder? Crickets. Julianne Moore must have taken a day off from tweeting, since she was silent as well. A supporter of Everytown, Executive Director Jean Shivas of New Jersey's Coalition for Battered Women said: "We will never know whether a gun would have saved Carol's life." What a bloodless, dismissive statement from one woman about the brutal murder of another! Ms. Bowne, apparently, is acceptable collateral damage to the new feminists braying for civilian disarmament. She will not be the only casualty if this deadly agenda progresses.

The third inconvenient truth is that guns in the hands of women do save lives. While the Moms flatly deny that a good person with a gun has ever saved someone from a bad guy with a gun and the mainstream media rarely report such stories, "Ms. Dee" of Detroit is a hard person to ignore. This woman, a cancer survivor, obtained a gun license several years ago when her home was broken into. In June of this year, the same month Carol Bowne was brutally murdered, Ms. Dee awoke in her bed to a man shoving a gun in her face and four more men crawling through her bedroom window. She was able to reach her own gun, fired at the men and they ran away. Caught in a life or death situation, Ms. Dee saved her own life thanks to self-reliance and a police chief who encourages firearm ownership because the police cannot be everywhere.

Nor do the Moms ever acknowledge that firearms save the lives of children. Eighteen-year-old Sarah McKinley and her 3-month-old baby were home alone in Oklahoma City less than a week after her husband died of cancer. Two men, one armed with a 12-inch hunting knife, were breaking into Sarah's home. She grabbed a shotgun, locked herself and her baby in the bedroom, where she grabbed a pistol as well and called 911. One of the men broke down her bedroom door and charged her with the knife. Sarah shot and killed the criminal. She was on the telephone with the 911 operator for 21 minutes, and the police still had not arrived. But for her self-defense with a gun, there would have been two more tragic victims to mourn. http://abcnews.go.com/US/okla-woman-sho ... hoot/story?

The right to protect self and family is the most precious of our constitutional and God-given rights. To all of the Moms who choose to outsource this right to police or a random Good Samaritan, I say, that is your choice. If you as a woman choose to respond to a home invader by cowering in a closet with your children and hoping help arrives in time,,that is your choice. If you prefer to plead for mercy from a criminal who does not value your life, instead of defending your life with a gun, that is your choice. You are free to choose to be a helpless victim. I, and millions of other women, however, choose to be self-reliant and armed so that we have a fighting chance to protect ourselves and our families. We refuse to be defenseless prey for criminals. The Second Amendment gives us that choice and you will not take it from us.


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22. [SWEDEN] Gun-Control-Fail: Teacher, student killed in stabbing attack
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Member Mark Shinn emailed me this:

Gun control serves as a spectacular failure--again!


http://wtop.com/world/2015/10/police-ma ... rn-sweden/

or

http://tinyurl.com/p4qg2q6


Teacher, student killed in stabbing attack on Swedish school
By The Associated Press
October 22, 2015

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A sword-wielding masked man who students thought was playing a Halloween prank stabbbed four people at a school with a large immigrant community in southern Sweden on Thursday, killing a teacher and a student before being shot dead by police.

The 21-year-old assailant, who posed with students before beginning his deadly rampage, roamed the halls of the Kronan school in the industrial town of Trollhatan, knocking on the doors of two classrooms and slashing those who opened them, authorities said.

The identity of the assailant was not released, though a police investigator, Thord Haraldsson, told reporters that a racist motive was “part of the picture.” He did not elaborate.

The attack stunned Sweden, where violent crime is relatively rare, though there has been a recent spate of arson attacks on asylum centers in the south of the country as the influx of migrants has surged. Immigration officials estimate that some 190,000 will arrive this year, second only to Germany in western Europe.

“This is a black day for Sweden,” Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said of the attack, the deadliest ever to target a school in Sweden. “It is a tragedy that hits the entire country.”

Laith Alazze, a 14 year-old student, said at first he thought the attacker — who was clad in black and wearing a helmet that masked his eyes — had something to do with Halloween.

“One of my friends walked over to him to challenge him, but when we saw he stabbed (the teacher), we ran away,” Alazze told Sweden’s TV4.

“He walked sort of like a soldier with a sword in his hand,” another student, identified only as Edona, told the station.

Panicked students fled the school, as police and ambulances rushed in. They found a dead male teacher and three people seriously wounded — two boys, aged 11 and 15, and another male teacher. One of the students later died of his wounds. None of the victims was identified.

Officers fired two shots, hitting the attacker with a bullet in the lower chest, and he died later at a hospital.

Speaking at a news conference, Haraldsson said the assailant entered the school through a cafe in its lobby that is open to the public, then knocked on the doors of two classrooms, stabbing his victims. Police later searched the attacker’s home and found “interesting” things for their investigation, he added, without elaborating.

Several news outlets, including Dagens Nyheter, one of Sweden’s largest national newspapers, posted a photo of a black-clad man they identified as the attacker wearing a military-style helmet and a black mask with a sword in his hand. The media reports said the killer posed with two students before he started his rampage.

According to media reports, the school had held a meeting Thursday morning prior to the attack to discuss teachers’ fears they could not control access to the school as students had to go through the public cafe to reach the school’s cafeteria and other parts of the school.

Late Thursday, dozens of people gathered quietly to pay their respects outside the school, whose pupils range in age from pre-school to high school, many of them the children of immigrants. Some 20 percent of Trollhatan’s 56,000 inhabitants are foreign-born.

Lofven, who cancelled his scheduled program and rushed to Trollhattan, declined to comment on Swedish media reports that the attacker had right-wing sympathies, saying that police were still trying to establish his profile.

News of the attack brought expression of somber dismay. Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf said the entire nation was “in shock” and that the royal family received the news “with great dismay and sadness.”

Sweden’s last school attack was in 1961, when a 17-year-old man opened fire at a school dance hall in the southwestern part of the country, wounding seven students, one of whom died later. Violent crime is rare in the country, which has strict gun-control laws. In 2013, there were 87 homicides reported in Sweden, a country of some 10 million people.



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Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

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