Tonight I spoke at a Lynchburg Tea Party event, held at Liberty University. WSET television (ABC affiliate, channel 13 in Lynchburg) was at the meeting and interviewed me about a survey that Bloomberg commissioned that said that over 80 percent of Virginia's gun owners want more gun control! Looks like Bloomberg got the answers he paid for from that survey.
The reporter, Mark Kelly, did a very professional job and I think the piece turned out very well (except the lighting in the room made me look like an old man!
)Here is the video:
http://www.wset.com/global/category.asp ... Start=true
Here is the story (basically a transcript of the video):
http://www.wset.com/Global/story.asp?S=14185229
And here is the survey. I don't care for how it was worded ("Should gun laws be changed to require background checks of nearly all gun buyers, and at gun shows?"), but we need to make sure we take a second to respond to it (about 1/2 down the page on the left side). As of 12:30 AM on March 4th, pro-gun "No" votes are ahead by 51% to 41%:
http://www.wset.com/Global/category.asp?C=189681
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I was interviewed by the Richmond Times-Dispatch about that Bloomberg "Survey" yesterday. Here is the story:
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011 ... ar-879477/
Virginians favor tighter gun control, survey finds
By Jim Nolan Published: March 03, 2011
A coalition of U.S. mayors Wednesday released a survey that claims broad support in Virginia for tighter background checks on the purchase and sale of firearms in the commonwealth.
According to the survey, conducted by the Democratic polling firm Hart Research for the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns:
=9584 percent of Virginians support requiring gun dealers to notify police when someone fails a background check.
=9588 percent of Virginians support a law to require background checks for all guns sold at gun shows.
=9585 percent of Virginians support tracking the bulk purchase of semi-automatic assault rifles.
The survey coincided with the introduction of the Fix Gun Checks Act of 2011, introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.
The legislation would require federal agencies to disseminate records on people who are prohibited from purchasing guns, such as felons, drug abusers and the mentally ill. It also would require nearly all gun buyers to pass a background check.
The 550-member mayor's group, supported by families of victims of the Virginia Tech shooting massacre, claims that "millions of records of dangerous individuals are still missing" from the National Criminal Information System.. It says a law passed after the Tech massacre to facilitate the process has not been fully funded.
Gun-control advocates have tried, unsuccessfully, for years to require that all firearms purchasers at Virginia gun shows undergo a background check. Currently, only federally-licensed dealers are required to do checks on purchasers in the state. Private sales are not subject to background checks.
Philip Van Cleave, president of the grass-roots gun-rights group Virginia Citizens Defense League, said the survey is "so slanted as to be laughable."
"The real survey you need has been out there for a while: Those pushing gun control in Virginia haven't done very well," Van Cleave said. [PVC: Not in the story, but I related how Senator Jean Marie Devolites lost her seat after pushing a bill to close the non-existant "gun show loophole." I also mentioned how anti-gun Congressman Gerald Connolly just barely squeaked out a win against a more pro-gun opponent last election in a district that is strongly anti-gun!]
"None, not a single one, of the gun-control bills survived, while 10 pro-gun bills are headed to the governor's desk," he added. "How's that for a survey?"
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