VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 2/3/2016

[OakRidgeStars]

VA-ALERT: VCDL Update 2/3/2016

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Not yet a Virginia Citizens Defense League member? Join VCDL at:
http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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VA-ALERT archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/727/=now
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1. What to do if there's and active shooter nearby
2. Federal judge details armed robbery in 911 call
3. Organize state, local militias to defend
4. Chart of the day: More guns, less gun violence 93-13
5. CA Rep. Sanchez [D] decries 'multiautomatic round weapons' [VIDEO]
6. [CA] Boss tells employees to lock down building [VIDEO]
7. After San Bernandino, we need more guns, not more gun control
8. NY Times front page editorial 'End the gun epidemic'
9. The NY Times goes gaga over guns
10. Legally armed citizenry seen as mass shooting, terrorist deterrent
11. 355?! Why this number is meaningless when it comes to mass shootings
12. Hey Obama, guns deter terrorists here in Israel

**************************************************
1. What to do if there's an active shooter nearby
**************************************************

Thanks to member Tom for sharing this link:

FYI - this is a link to a Fairfax County page on preparing for an active
shooter incident. I wonder how they forgot to mention CHP?


http://tinyurl.com/p4nod93

or

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/news2/what ... er-nearby/


What to Do If There's an Active Shooter Nearby
December 3, 2015

Whether it’s an incident like the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., or
you are in the checkout line at the mall or drafting an email in your
cubicle – what would you do if you heard gun shots and realized an
active shooter was nearby?

Just like in any other emergency situation, the best thing you can do is
to be prepared with information on what to do next.

Take a few minutes to review the three options that will help you to
quickly determine how to protect yourself.

Run

- If there is an escape route, attempt to evacuate.
- Leave your belongings behind.
- Follow instructions of responding emergency personnel.

Hide

- Hide in an area out of the active shooter’s view.
- Block entry to your hiding place and lock the doors.
- Send a text message to 9-1-1 if you’re able, but ensure your safety
first.


Fight

As a last resort and only when life is in imminent danger.

- Attempt to incapacitate the active shooter.
- Act with physical aggression and throw items at the active shooter.


Information to Provide to 9-1-1

Whether you text or call, here’s what you should provide to 911:

- Location of the active shooter.
- Number of shooters.
- Physical description of shooters.
- Number and type of weapons shooter has.
- Number of potential victims at location.

When You Are in a Safe Place

When public safety personnel arrives, you should:

- Remain calm and follow instructions.
- Raise hands and spread fingers.
- Keep hands visible at all times.
- Avoid making quick movements toward officers such as attempting to
hold on to them for safety.
- Avoid pointing, screaming and/or yelling.

Video

Watch this video, which provides you with a real-life scenario using
these three options. Video courtesy of the City of Houston, Texas.

https://youtu.be/5VcSwejU2D0

Booklet

More information can be found in this booklet and other active shooter
resources:

http://www.dhs.gov/active-shooter-preparedness


**************************************************
2. Federal judge details armed robbery in 911 call
**************************************************

Thanks to EM Dave Hicks for this link:

Wonder if she'll have to recuse in all future home-invasions, armed
robbery, gun, etc. cases?


http://tinyurl.com/o5g4n6n

or

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/cr ... /76838574/


Federal judge details armed robbery in 911 call
by Cameron Knight, Patrick Brennan, Sharon Coolidge, Dan Horn and Kate
Murphy
December 9, 2015

Three armed men invaded the home of Federal Judge Susan Dlott and her
husband, attorney Stan Chesley, police said.

Officials said the couple was robbed at gunpoint inside their Indian
Hill home just before 11 p.m.

Dlott ran to a neighbor's house, who called 911, reporting a woman
(Dlott) in a nightgown was desperately banging on the front door. Dlott
then called 911 and told the dispatcher that three masked black men with
guns invaded their home and her husband and dog were still inside. She
also demanded the dispatcher call the U.S. Marshals because she was a
federal judge.

Another neighbor also called 911 around the same time to alert police
that all the doors to the house were open, the garage was beeping
loudly, a dog was missing and no one was home.

Officers arrived at the scene minutes later.

Madeira police arrested three men in connection with the robbery within
an hour of the incident.

Terry Jackson, 21, Darrell Kinney, 20, and Demetrius Williams, 20, have
each been charged with two counts of aggravated robbery and two counts
of abduction.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he would meet with federal
investigators and prosecutors next week to determine the best way to
proceed with the case, which he described as among the most serious crimes.

"Outside of murder, armed home invasions may be the worst type of
offender," Deters said. "They are willing to go into someone's home, a
locked home, with weapons. It's as bad as it gets."

The suspects, all armed with guns, kicked in the basement door of the
home in the 9000 block of Camargo Drive, threatened to shoot Chesley and
Dlott, then ordered them around the house while taking items, according
to police reports.

Court records state that at one point Chesley was pushed down a small
set of stairs and injured.

Lt. Rich White of the Indian Hill Rangers said the suspects were leading
Chesley and Dlott into the garage of their home when they heard a
beeping noise and fled from the house the same way they came in.

After the men left, the couple made their way their through the woods to
their neighbor's house and contacted the police, White said.

Shortly after, Madeira police pulled over a car for a traffic violation
on Dawson Road. The three occupants of the car matched the description
of the suspects, and what appeared to be stolen property was found in
the car, White said.

Madeira police took the men into custody, but officers said one tried to
escape.

Kinney was cuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser when he
kicked out the window, jumped out and ran, police said. He was quickly
recaptured and taken to the Indian Hill Police Department along with the
other suspects. Madeira police said Kinney will also be charged with
vandalism and escape.

Kinney was released from jail this summer after serving a two-year
sentence stemming from a 2013 conviction for burglary.

Police said some of the items taken from the home were recovered in the
vehicle. Officers also reported one of the suspects confessed to the
incident.

All three men are being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center. They
will be arraigned in court Monday.

An investigation of the scene continued for several hours, White said.
He explained it is possible that more charges might be brought against
the three men.

Dlott and Chesley are one of the city's true power couples.

They got married in 1991, while Chesley was at the height of his career
as one of the nation's premier tort lawyers. Chesley was best known as
representing victims of the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire. He would go
on to lead civil litigation related to the Fernald uranium enrichment
plant, the downing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, and a
host of other national and international disasters.

Chesley has made headlines lately for his role in the fen-phen weight
loss drug case, in which he and other attorneys were accused of taking
too large a share of the settlement intended for people whose hearts
were damaged by the drug. He lost his law license in Kentucky over that
case and resigned his Ohio law license. That case is ongoing.

When Dlott met Chesley, who has been a major fundraiser for primarily
Democratic candidates, she was a well-known attorney who had worked as a
federal prosecutor. In 1995, President Bill Clinton nominated her to be
a U.S. District Court judge in Cincinnati. She's known as a fair, but
tough judge, especially related to child pornography cases.

Together in 2004 they bought a house in Indian Hill, which at the time
was the most expensive home in Hamilton County. The 25-room,
27,000-square-foot French-style chateau cost $8 million.

**************************************************
3. Organize state, local militias to defend
**************************************************

Thanks to member Bill Albritton for the link:


http://tinyurl.com/q2m98yy

or

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... -assaults/


Tancredo: Organize State, Local Militias to Defend Against Radical
Islamist Assaults
by Tom Tancredo
December 4, 2015


The Islamist assault in San Bernardino may prove to be the turning point
in the Islamist war on America. Americans are realizing that it’s time
to get deadly serious about self-defense.

- The cavalry is not coming: we must defend ourselves.
- We need a national movement for a trained, deputized Citizens
Reserve Militia.

Islamist assassins are here, and by “here” I do not mean in New York or
Washington, D.C. Islamist radicals are in every state and in your
community — in San Bernardino, Phoenix, Portland, Miami, Chicago, and
for certain, Minneapolis, Detroit and San Francisco. Also, in Peoria,
Aspen and Topeka.

The FBI has said there are 900 investigations under way in all 50
states, and 48 Islamists “deserve” round-the-clock surveillance. Most
likely there are 9,000 Islamists who deserve that 24-hour surveillance
and monitoring, but the FBI does not have the resources for that task.

So, here we are.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the New York Times are worried more
about the oceans rising two inches over the next 50 years than about
keeping radical Muslims out of our country. But that’s not the worst of it.

Our problem is no longer national security, it is hometown security.

The solution is not a bigger defense department, it is a homeland
reserve militia trained in self-defense – trained for defense of our
communities, our neighborhoods, our schools, our sports events, our
shopping malls — in short, the everyday defense of our way of life.

Consider the dire condition of our law enforcement capabilities.

- The FBI is not given the resources to do its job in preventing
radical Islamists from acting on their plans. Stopping nine out of
ten plots probably means a hundred mass killings not blocked.
- The CIA and other intelligence agencies issue warnings that are
ignored by our leaders—it doesn’t fit the head-in-the-sand
political narrative.
- The Republican-controlled Congress refuses to halt the flow of
refugees from regions known to be infused with radical Islamists.
- Our LEGAL immigration and asylum policies allow a half-million
Muslims into the country each year.
- The local police are great but are 5-to-10 minutes away after a
911 call.

We can wait to fix all of those obstacles to self-defense through the
political process, or we can act while we work on those fixes. We can
act to defend ourselves by arming ourselves. If attacked, do you call
911 and wait for police to arrive, or do you take the bastards down?

In San Bernardino, the police arrived in 4 minutes of the first shots,
and still 14 people were slaughtered. Next time it could be 140 or 400.

In San Bernardino, the assassins were two “self-radicalized” Islamist
jihadists, one of them an American-born Muslim of Pakistani immigrant
parents. The mastermind of the Paris attack of last month was not a
refugee, he was a French citizen born to Moroccan immigrants. The female
half of that pair of assassins had been “vetted” by two federal agencies
and awarded a visa.

It’s time to wake up and smell the ashes of self-delusion.

In response to radical Islam’s declaration of war on America, Barack
Obama plays golf and Hillary Clinton wants to have a “national
conversation” about gun confiscation. Let’s hope she continues with such
vapid stupidities, as it will be a fitting final chapter to her
political biography.

If President Obama or any president ever attempts gun confiscation in
America, there should be and will be a second civil war. An America
disarmed is an America in subjugation.

But there are things government can do — if citizens will demand it. In
the absence of statesmanship and leadership from above, it’s time for
states and communities to act in their own self-defense.

- Without any action by Congress, under the Tenth Amendment states
and local governments can organize local reserve militias, a
properly trained and deputized battalion of local citizens who
serve as backup to local law enforcement.
- Reserve militia members will be sworn to uphold the Constitution
and protect communities from violent assaults from any quarter.
- States and communities can also declare an end to so-called “gun
free zones,” which are nothing but suicide pacts formed by
delusional escapists.
- States and communities can allow and indeed encourage more private
citizens to obtain concealed carry permits and arm themselves.

To show we are serious about empowering 100 million citizens for
self-defense, we should seriously consider subsidizing the purchase of
firearms by low-income citizens. Terrorists and criminals already know
how to obtain guns, so why not help the defenseless? If we can afford
food stamps and housing subsidies, why not gun stamps to help urban
citizens survive the next Islamist assault?

We now live in a very polarized nation, divided not between Republicans
and Democrats but between those who want to defend our liberties and
those who want to defend politically correct stupidities.

Citizens should not wait for the politically correct and our cowardly
Congress to wake up; they can act now at the state and local level.
Before it really is too late.


**************************************************
4. Chart of the day: More guns, less gun violence 1993-2013
**************************************************

http://tinyurl.com/ph2ljhx

or

https://www.aei.org/publication/chart-o ... -and-2013/

Chart of the day: More guns, less gun violence between 1993 and 2013
by Mark J. Perry
December 4, 2015

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... /guns4.jpg

https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... guns31.png

The chart above was inspired by a similar one featured by Max
Ehrenfreund in his recent Wonkblog post titled "We've had a massive
decline in gun violence in the United States. Here's why." In contrast
to the widely embraced narrative, perpetuated by liberal politicians and
the media, that gun violence in America is getting worse all the time,
the data reveal that the exact opposite is true. According to data
retrieved from the Centers for Disease Control, there were 7
firearm-related homicides for every 100,000 Americans in 1993 (see light
blue line in chart). By 2013 (most recent year available), the gun
homicide rate had fallen by nearly 50% to only 3.6 homicides per 100,000
population.

Ehrenfreund says that "Even as a certain type of mass shooting is
apparently becoming more frequent, America has become a much less
violent place. Much of the decline in violence is still unexplained, but
researchers have identified several reasons for the shift." He then
points to factors explaining the decline in violent crime in general and
gun homicides in particular, including more police officers on the beat
making greater use of computers, a decline in alcohol consumption, less
lead exposure, and an improving economy.

But there's another possible reason for the decline in gun violence
overlooked by Ehrenfreund -- the significant increase in the number of
guns in America , illustrated above by the dark blue line in the chart.
Based on data from a 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report
(and additional data from another Wonkblog article "There are now more
guns than people in the United States"), the number of privately owned
firearms in US increased from about 185 million in 1993 to 357 million
in 2013. Adjusted for the US population, the number of guns per American
increased from 0.93 per person in 1993 to 1.45 in 2013, which is a 56%
increase in the number of guns per person that occurred during the same
period when gun violence decreased by 49% (see new chart above). Of
course, that significant correlation doesn't necessarily imply
causation, but it's logical to believe that those two trends are
related. After all, armed citizens frequently prevent crimes from
happening, including gun-related homicides, see hundreds of examples
here of law-abiding gun owners defending themselves and their families
and homes.

In a December 2013 Breitbart article, “Congressional Study: Murder
Rate Plummets as Gun Ownership Soars,” Awr Hawkins referred to the CRS
report referenced above and connected the two trends:

So after all the pro-gun control grandstanding and the relentless focus
on how the so-called easy availability of guns drives up crime, the CRS
report shows that more guns--especially more concealable guns--has
actually correlated with less crime.

Bottom Line: Even if you're not convinced that increased gun ownership
reduces violent crime and gun homicides, you should be totally convinced
of this indisputable fact: Gun violence has been decreasing
significantly over time, not increasing as you'll frequently hear from
anti-gun politicians and progressives. The gun-related homicide rate of
3.6 deaths per 100,000 population in each of the years 2010, 2011 and
2013 makes those recent years the safest in at least 20 years, and
possibly the safest in modern US history, since "older data [before
1993] suggest that gun violence might have been even more widespread
previously," according to Ehrenfreund.



**************************************************
5. CA Rep. Sanchez [D] decries 'multiautomatic round weapons' [VIDEO]
**************************************************

https://tinyurl.com/p7tmdne

or

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/03/democ ... ons-video/


Democratic Rep. Sanchez Decries 'Multiautomatic Round Weapons' [VIDEO]
by Steve Guest, Media Reporter
December 3, 2015

California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez claimed that "multiautomatic
round weapons are easily available, even though not in California."

Appearing on MSNBC Live with Tamron Hall on Thursday, Sanchez made up a
term to describe a gun while blasting congressional inaction.

"The reality is that Congress has been trying to get up some of these
issues [relating to mental health] for the last five years, and we
haven't been able to," she said.

"We let the assault weapons ban, which was led by our senator Dianne
Feinstein, we let that lapse. So you know, multiautomatic round weapons
are easily available, even though not in California, but they can cross
the state line, as you know," Sanchez insisted.

"The second thing is, we really haven't done that much about mental
health. I've been working with my colleague, Grace Napolitano here out
of the Los Angeles area to try to get mental health services more
available for people, and it hasn't happened."

"And then lastly, there are a lot of loopholes in our current laws. So
we can ask people to be registered. We can have waiting periods. A lot
of the law-abiding gun purveyors, sellers that sit in our districts,
they are following those," Sanchez said. "But then we have this thing
called gun shows, which come into town, sell everything, don't do these
background checks. And there are way too many problems in trying to get
this done. And the Congress has a responsibility to close those
loopholes and make it safer for Americans."

**************************************************
6. [CA] Boss tells employees to lock down building [VIDEO]
**************************************************

http://tinyurl.com/nvleehd

or

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12 ... he-street/


Boss Tells Employees to Lock Down San Bernardino Building -- Then Grabs
His Sidearm, Steps Outside and Walks Toward Gunfire Across the Street
by Dave Urbanski
December 3, 2015

Glenn Willwerth has owned a gun for more than 20 years with nary a
reason to pull it from its holster.

Until Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.

Willwerth is the general manager of a paper company across the street
from the scene of yesterday's shooting massacre -- in fact, his office
window faces the Inland Regional Center -- and he told CNN Thursday he
heard gunfire and then saw a person "run by my window very quickly."

Willwerth said he "raced up to the front door to meet the person" and
saw the "sheer look of panic on his face." When he opened door, the
terrified man said, "They're shooting everybody!"

With that Willwerth told people in his office to lock down the building
and for the man who just told him what was happening to stay put.

Then Willwerth got his gun.

"I grabbed my sidearm, I holstered it up, and I went out toward where
the shooting was coming from," he told CNN's Brooke Baldwin. "I could
immediately hear the shots being fired."

“So you left your building?” the astonished host asked.

“Yes,” Willwerth replied.

Baldwin inquired further, incredulously: “So as you’re hearing the
shots, you’re going toward the shots?”

“Yeah, that’s correct,” he answered, noting that his “employees all have
families” and his wife was in the building with him.

“I wanted to make sure it didn’t travel to my location,” Willwerth
explained. “So I decided to go ahead and set up my own perimeter.”

He told Baldwin he “hunkered down” by a water truck about 50 to 60 yards
from the gunfire but couldn’t see well through the foliage. He said he
heard another 10 to 15 shots, then silence and soon “a lot of people
scattering.”

Except for one individual.

Willwerth said a “slow-moving person” got his attention amid the panic,
and this individual hopped into a black SUV, which also pulled away
slowly — “not in a hurry at all,” he remembered.

“I immediately thought to myself, ‘Whoever just did that [is] probably
in this SUV right now,’” Willwerth told Baldwin.

He said he couldn’t see inside the vehicle but the “high-powered shots”
he heard convinced him to stay put, as he had only a sidearm.

But then the SUV began driving toward him.

“I unholstered my gun and I did point it at them,” Willwerth said,
“which was really irritating to have a gun for over 20 years and never
have to do something like that. And you get some people who put you in a
position to have to live with something like that — that’s just
ridiculous to me.”

Willwerth said he didn’t have to fire his gun and that the SUV changed
directions and left the area. He then gave police a description of it
and where it was headed.

Willwerth and another employee ended up staying at his office all night.

**************************************************
7. After San Bernandino, we need more guns, not more gun control
**************************************************

Thanks to member Walter Jackson for this link:


http://tinyurl.com/jj2qk2d

or

http://www.breitbart.com/california/201 ... n-control/


After San Bernardino, We Need More Guns, Not More Gun Control
by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly
December 4, 2015


Before the bodies of the 14 slain in San Bernardino, were even cold,
President Obama launched into his usual hysterical invective about how
we need more “gun control.”

It was as predictable as the inability of the political and media
establishment simply to state the obvious: the killings were most likely
inspired by Islamic extremism.

Naturally, their solution to this ideological insanity is to disarm
Americans.

At least that’s the direction California is headed.

Democrat Gavin Newsom, running for governor in 2018, wants to limit how
many bullets you can have in your gun to shoot back. Newsom, who is the
Marxist progressives’ next great white hope, is pushing a 2016 ballot
initiative that would force you to surrender any magazines capable of
holding more than 10 rounds.

That means my original magazine for my M1 Carbine–a WWII era
semi-automatic short-barreled beauty (pictured above)–would have to be
sold out of state or surrendered to a California peace officer because
it can hold 15 rounds.

For me, yesterday, this became very personal issue. For those chilling
hours when the San Bernardino Killers were on the loose, I prepared for
the possibility they might flee to my neighborhood in the mountains,
only a short drive away. After all, Cop killer Christopher Dornan holed
up here.

And we had no idea who they were, what they looked like, or why they did
it. I laid out a few of my firearms, and selected those highest in the
following order: knockdown power, magazine capacity and ease of reloading.

If Gavin Newsom or any other government official thinks they’re going to
limit how many bullets I can have to shoot back against a cold-blooded
killer, they’d better think again. Making me and millions of other
law-abiding Californians into criminals isn’t going to stop a single
mass-murderer—whether she’s an Islamic Jihadist, or he’s simply a
garden-variety sicko.

The only way you can stop someone hell-bent on killing innocent people
in a free society, is by arming yourself, and being prepared to act in
that critical moment. Leftists only trust guns in the hands of “trained
personnel,” by which they mean their bodyguards or police.

The irony is that these are the same leftist, who support the
#BlackLivesMatter movement’s war on the cops, who they claim–you guessed
it–can’t be trusted.

The price of freedom, and living in a free society, is risk. Political
correctness, defined as the inability to speak truth for fear of
offending someone, is much more dangerous than the availability of guns.

Neighbors of Sayd Farook and his jihadi bride, Tashfeen Malik, ignored
their instincts and failed to alert cops for fear of being called
“racist,” According to a CBS News report, “he noticed a half-dozen
Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to
report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.”

Whether or not it was part of an Islamic jidahist plot, or a workplace
grudge, or a combination of both, really doesn’t matter. Our government
officials have proven they cannot identify or speak about the true
nature of evil posed by Islamic extremism, so we can’t expect they’ll do
anything to address it.

And since our government cannot protect us, we must protect ourselves.

When our government officials decide to disarm us instead of keep out or
root out the evildoers among us, that’s when it becomes a question of
life and death.

Does the government have the right to disarm you in order to pretend
it’s taken action and “done something” about mass shootings? Or do you
have a moral obligation to oppose a law that willfully infringes your
natural, civil and constitutional right to defend your own life and
freedom from all threats, foreign and domestic?

That’s the question. And every American will answer it in his or her own
way.

But as for me and my house, we are ready to send every mass murderer to
the depths of hell, where there’s no chance of finding 72 virgins, and
save the government the money of a trial.

Former California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is the host of the Tim
Donnelly Show. Email him at Tim@TimDonnellyShow.com


**************************************************
8. NY Times front page editorial 'End the gun epidemic'
**************************************************

Thanks to EM Dave Hicks for the link:


http://tinyurl.com/gocu63a

or

http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/04/media/n ... ney_latest


'End the gun epidemic' - New York Times front page editorial
by Brian Stelter
December 5, 2015

In its first front-page editorial in nearly 100 years, The New York
Times is calling for a drastic reduction in the availability of guns in
America.

"Certain kinds of weapons, like the slightly modified combat rifles used
in California, and certain kinds of ammunition, must be outlawed for
civilian ownership," the editorial board of The Times says.

"It is possible to define those guns in a clear and effective way and,
yes, it would require Americans who own those kinds of weapons to give
them up for the good of their fellow citizens."

The editorial will be published on Page One of Saturday's newspaper, in
a space typically reserved for news coverage, not opinion.

Editorials are written by a staff of editors who operate independently
from the newsroom. Newspapers like The Times usually emphasize and
enforce a divide between the news side and the opinion side.

But not this time. The placement of the editorial on the front page is
intended to stoke public debate about stricter gun regulations.

In a statement, The Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger said he wanted to
"deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about
our country's inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns."

He did not respond to a request for further comment on Friday night.

His newspaper's editorial does not mince words: the writers say "it is
past time to stop talking about halting the spread of firearms, and
instead to reduce their number drastically — eliminating some large
categories of weapons and ammunition."

They also call it "a moral outrage and a national disgrace that
civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill
people with brutal speed and efficiency."

The message will certainly resonate with many of The Times' subscribers
in urban areas. Regular readers know that the newspaper's liberal
editorial board strongly favors firearm restrictions.

In July, for example, the editorial board said that "despite the gun
lobby's absolutist outcries, the right to bear arms remains a qualified
one, subject to reasonable controls."

But with this front page piece, The Times is going further, and it is
sure to raise the ire of some subscribers and others.

According to the newspaper, its last front-page editorial came out on
July 13, 1920. It was about Warren G. Harding being nominated for
president by the Republican party.

Page One is the most valuable real estate The Times has; I should know,
because I worked there for six years and fought to get my stories on there.

Sulzberger acknowledged in his statement that there hasn't been a front
page editorial in many decades.

"Even in this digital age, the front page remains an incredibly strong
and powerful way to surface issues that demand attention," he said.
"And, what issue is more important than our nation's failure to protect
its citizens?"

**************************************************
9. The Times goes gaga over guns
**************************************************

http://tinyurl.com/nka2dje

or

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2 ... 140849.php


THE TIMES GOES GAGA OVER GUNS
by John Hinderaker
December 5, 2015

Today the New York Times ran an editorial on its front page for the
first time since 1920. Well, that makes sense. These are dark times--the
Middle East in turmoil, ISIS on the march, Iran moving steadily toward
the bomb, terrorism in Europe and the U.S., an immigration crisis here
at home, a stagnant economy and a looming fiscal catastrophe. There's
lots of material there for front page editorials.

Just kidding, of course: the subject of the Times editorial was--gun
control! End the Gun Epidemic in America. Because guns are like smallpox.

The Times pretends to be concerned about violence, specifically
homicide. Weirdly, however, the editorial fails even to mention the fact
that the homicide rate in the U.S. has been steadily falling for some
years, to the point where it is at a historic low, only around half what
it was in the early 1990s–you remember, the golden age of the Clinton
administration. (It may have started rising again this year on account
of the anti-police movement, which the Times endorses.) Many experts
attribute our declining homicide rate in part to more widespread
ownership of handguns, which acts as a deterrent to violent crime. But
the Times–untroubled, as usual, by the facts–fails to discuss any of this.


[JS: Go to http://tinyurl.com/nka2dje to read the rest of the article.]


**************************************************
10. Legally armed citizenry seen as mass shooting, terrorist deterrent
**************************************************

https://tinyurl.com/gvtm4n8

or

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... rorism-de/


Legally armed citizenry seen as mass-shooting, terrorism deterrent
By Valerie Richardson and Tom Howell Jr., The Washington Times
December 3, 2015

Democrats ramped up their push Thursday for more firearms restrictions
even as alarm over recent mass shootings, including one linked to
Islamic terrorism, fueled calls for citizens to play a greater role in
their own protection.

The Senate defeated two gun control amendments, one that would have
expanded background checks for guns purchased online and at gun shows,
and another that would have prohibited suspected terrorists from buying
firearms.

It’s unclear whether either measure would have prevented Wednesday’s
deadly San Bernardino shooting, given that California law already
requires universal background checks and the two perpetrators were
apparently on no terrorism lists.

While Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, decried
Republicans for being “complicit” in recent mass shootings, several law
enforcement authorities said Thursday that there is a case to be made
that licensed gun owners may act as deterrents to mass shooters.

“I think after Paris, and as we learn more about this event [in San
Bernardino] we need to be nimble enough and pragmatic enough to
recognize that there’s definitely a small number of documented
mass-casualty shootings that have been ended by off-duty law enforcement
and civilians,” said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor at the John Jay
College of Criminal Justice in New York.

A former police officer, Mr. O'Donnell said about half of mass shootings
are finished before the first officer arrives, given that “these are
people that are coming in to kill.”

“They’re coming in to kill as many people as they can, as quickly as
they can, so the old model — the police would get there, they would
cordon the place off, you could talk people through — a large number of
these events are going to be over before the cops get there,” Mr.
O'Donnell said.

Ulster County Sheriff Paul J. Van Blarcum encouraged residents of his
New York jurisdiction Thursday to carry their firearms if licensed.

“In light of recent events that have occurred in the United States and
around the world, I want to encourage citizens of Ulster County who are
licensed to carry a firearm to PLEASE DO SO,” Sheriff Van Blarcum wrote
in a Facebook post.

The sheriff, whose county is about two hours north of New York City,
also reminded retired and active-duty police officers to “please carry a
weapon whenever you leave your house.”

He issued the reminder hours after two gun-wielding assailants stormed a
San Bernardino regional government office, killing 14 people and
wounding 21, in an attack that has been linked to Islamic terrorism.

“We are the thin blue line that is entrusted in keeping this country
safe, and we must be prepared to act at any given moment,” said Sheriff
Van Blarcum.

A day before the San Bernardino attack, Detroit Police Chief James Craig
said legally armed citizens can discourage terrorists. He told the local
CBS-TV affiliate, “If you’re a terrorist, or a carjacker, you want an
unarmed citizenry.”

Democrats, led by President Obama and presidential front-runner Hillary
Clinton, have sounded the cry for Congress to pass additional
restrictions on firearms in the wake of two mass shootings in the past week.

“No matter what motivation these shooters had, we can say one thing for
certain — they shouldn’t have been able to do this,” Mrs. Clinton said
in a Thursday post on Twitter.

The Senate voted 45-54 to reject an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
California Democrat, that would bar people on the terrorist watch list
from acquiring firearms or explosives if they are likely to use them to
commit violence.

Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican locked in a tough re-election
fight, bucked his party and voted for the measure, which would have
needed 60 votes to succeed. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota was the
only Democrat to vote against it.

Opponents of the proposal raised concerns about the risk of law-abiding
citizens winding up on the list mistakenly or for political activism.
Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, offered an alternative that would
have given federal authorities 72 hours to step in and offer probable
cause to deny a gun sale to someone on the watch list.

If the authorities fail to act, Mr. Cornyn said, it would be unfair to
let the federal government swoop in and deny someone their
constitutional right to bear arms.

Though it would not become law — Mr. Obama is poised to veto the
underlying bill — Democrats wanted to put senators on record in the
aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting and last week’s attack on a
Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, which left three dead and
nine injured.

Mr. O'Donnell is hardly an National Rifle Association guy — he believes
there are “too many guns available to the wrong people” — but argued
that “we have to take off our partisan political blinders and recognize
that there could be situations where law enforcement, off duty, and gun
owners could play a role here.”

“I think that this requires a pragmatic, honest approach, and it should
be driven by data and analysis, and not by emotion and the need to win a
political debate at this point,” Mr. O'Donnell said.


**************************************************
11. 355?! Why this number is meaningless when it comes to mass shootings
**************************************************

Thanks to member Timothy Wise for sending this:


http://tinyurl.com/ovgufd4

or

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/03/355-w ... shootings/


355?! Why This Number Is Meaningless When It Comes To Mass Shootings
by Blake Neff
December 3, 2015

The Washington Post and several other media outlets made hay after
Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino by claiming the attack was the
355th mass shooting in the U.S. since the beginning of 2015. The reality
is a lot more nuanced.

Post reporter Christopher Ingraham doesn’t disguise the argument he’s
trying to make.

“Speaking after the Colorado Springs shooting last week, President Obama
urged Americans to not let this type of violence ‘become normal,'”
Ingraham writes. “But the data show that this type of incident already
is normal. There have been more mass shootings than calendar days so far
this year.”

The implication of the Post’s reporting was that San Bernardino wasn’t a
stand-out event, but instead just the latest incident in a nearly daily
deluge of so-called “mass” shootings. The Post’s narrative was imitated
by several other outlets, such as the Los Angeles Times and NBC News.

Things aren’t so simple, though. First of all, the Post’s definition of
a “mass shooting” isn’t an official one taken from law enforcement, but
is instead taken from activists operating on the website Reddit. The
activists, who track shootings at the website Shooting Tracker, define a
mass shooting as any shooting where 4 or more people are injured or killed.

This is a critical sleight of hand that ends up disguising the reality
of most shootings. While “mass shooting” conjures images of bloodbaths
like San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, or Columbine, 147 of the shootings
tracked by Shooting Tracker actually didn’t result in a single death.

More than 40 percent of all 2015’s mass shootings didn’t kill anybody.
Another 104, just under 30 percent, had a single fatality, which means
more than two-thirds of all “mass shootings” aren’t even multi-homicide
events.

Of the 355 “mass shootings” noted by the Post, only 40 of them (about 11
percent) meet the threshold of a “mass murder” as defined by the FBI,
meaning there were at least four fatalities. But even these weren’t all
mass shootings in the conventional sense. As pointed out by the
Washington Free Beacon, many of them were instead grisly
murder-suicides, gangland massacres, or robberies, eliminating at least
15 more “mass shootings” from the list.

The FBI found only 160 “active shooter incidents” between 2000 and 2013,
when gang-related shootings were excepted, but those where nobody was
shot or killed were included.

The Washington Post uncritically mentioned the high number of shootings
while adding no additional context or explanation, and ignoring the
nuance of the Shooting Tracker’s numbers.


**************************************************
12. Hey Obama, guns deter terrorists here in Israel
**************************************************

Thanks to member Walter Jackson for this link:


http://tinyurl.com/jsrlf9e

or

http://www.breitbart.com/national-secur ... in-israel/


Hey Obama, Guns Deter Terrorists Here in Israel
by Aaron Klein
December 4, 2015


JERUSALEM – There’s an entire country that would probably differ with
the White House’s off-key assertion that gun control will help deter
terrorists.

The latest so-called wave of terror in Israel has been a case study in
how guns actually stop jihadist attacks. So much so that the mayor of
Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, asked residents with gun licenses to carry their
weapons at all times. “If you check, you’ll see that in many cases,
those who neutralized terrorists were citizens who aren’t necessarily
police officers, like former soldiers,” he said.

Last month, Israel eased restrictions on firearms possession across the
country. The entire city of Jerusalem and 41 other cities, towns, and
local councils were declared “high-priority” areas in which qualified
residents receive expedited gun permits.

There’s a reason terrorists here understand that any kind of attack is a
suicide mission. The armed guards at cafes, schools, shopping centers,
and other soft targets, combined with the prevalence of gun-carrying
off-duty soldiers and civilians with permits, make it a virtual
certainty that the terrorist will be killed, usually in less than three
minutes.

If you shoot up a bus station in Israel, you will be killed pretty
quickly. If you stab Israelis, you will be killed within minutes.
Today, a 20-year-old Israeli was moderately-to-seriously wounded by a
terrorist who was shot dead at the scene.

It is unheard of here in Israel for an attacker to shoot at civilians
inside a facility for nearly fifty minutes, entering different parts of
the building, reloading and murdering at will, as was the case with the
Columbine High School massacre.

The death toll in the Paris jihad would have been much lower had the
attacks occurred on Israeli soil precisely because of the abundance of
weapons in the hands of those qualified to use them. It’s a statistical
probability that someone inside or near any sports stadium or concert
hall will be armed.

And let’s not get started on “gun-free” military bases, which stems from
a 1992 directive to limit and control firearms in military zones. When I
tell my Israeli friends about that brilliant regulation they usually
think I’m joking.

Israelis are not sitting ducks because of common sense gun laws that are
quickly being eased even further. How many lives could have been saved
by even one armed civilian inside the Inland Regional Center in San
Bernardino, California?

Perhaps that’s the question to pose to President Obama, who apparently
believes gun control will keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists,
ignoring the fact that weapons can stop terror attacks.

Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest:
“President Obama yesterday jumped to say that this mass shooting means
it’s time for common sense gun laws. Does the President really think
that common sense gun laws would deter terrorists now that he has
admitted that these two may have been terrorists?”

Earnest replied: “Yes. The president believes that passing common sense
gun laws that makes it harder for people with bad intentions to get
guns, makes the country safer.”

Doocy retorted: “But so the president thinks that when there are
potentially two terrorists sitting around planning a mass murder they
may call it off because President Obama has put in place common sense
gun laws?”

Earnest: “Well Peter, we’re still learning of the precise motives of the
individuals who carried out this heinous act of violence yesterday. One
thing we do know is the four firearms they were wielding were legally
purchased under the laws in place now. That’s a fact. So, that might
lead some to conclude that we should have made it a little harder for
them. Would that have changed the entire outcome? We’re still
investigating the situation, but I guess the question is, why wouldn’t
we? Why wouldn’t we make it harder for them? What’s the explanation for
that?”



***************************************************************************
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/]