Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

LERT: VCDL Update 4/2/13
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. Police: Man robbed at Christopher Newport University Sunday night
2. Member shares LTE he submitted to a paper
3. Armed man turned out to be art student
4. Hundreds of people attend day one of R&R Gun & Knife show
5. Poking fun at Shotgun Joe Biden [VIDEO]
6. AP Enterprise: Nixon wished for total handgun ban
7. Making the world safe from armed Mallards
8. Star Parker: Background checks won't make us safer
9. Permanent gun law changes in Senate irk gun control advocates, democrats
10. Pro-gun voters put heat on Democratic senators
11. How gun control ends: not with a bang, but a whimper
12. Democrat's 'Universal Background Check' bill discriminates against same-sex couples
13. NRA winning the influence battle over gun control
14. Wayne LaPierre has a few thoughts on guns and rape [VIDEO]
15. Guns & Ammo Magazine ranks the best states for gun owners in 2013
16. Is there a 'constitution-free' zone where cameras can be seized without cause?
17. Why do we oppose gun registration? Because we know the history
18. NRA: The untold story of gun confiscation after Katrina [VIDEO]
19. Marine with concealed carry permit stops man from beating woman [VIDEO]
20. Church celebrates 2nd amendment, kids make pop-tart guns during sunday school
21. California seizes arms as owners lose gun rights
22. Colorado democrats pass magazine ban, 5 of 7 gun control bills
23. True scope of gun control bill questioned [VIDEO]
24. Man faces 3 years in jail for pulling 'unlicensed' gun on burglar inside his home
25. Police: Woman carjacked, stabbed, daughter raped
26. Upstate NY murders suspect shot, killed by police
27. NY Lawmaker moves to exclude kids from gun shows
28. Bloomberg: 'lot of momentum' for gun legislation [VIDEO]
29. After Aurora: How Mayor Bloomberg planned to make the next massacre count

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1. Police: Man robbed at Christopher Newport University Sunday night
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Who needs a gun at Christopher Newport University?


Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From dailypress.com: http://tinyurl.com/at95hhg


Police: Man robbed at Christopher Newport University Sunday night
by Tara Bozick, Daily Press
March 12, 2013

NEWPORT NEWS—Christopher Newport University police are boosting patrols around Ferguson Center for the Arts after a reported robbery there Sunday night, a university spokeswoman said.

A 25-year-old Newport News man not affiliated with the university told police that he was approached by an unknown man with a handgun who demanded his wallet, said Lori Jacobs, a university spokeswoman. The victim gave him the wallet and the man fled on foot, she said.

The university notified students and staff of the robbery in the area of the center's parking lot through its alert system at 9:15 p.m., Jacobs said.


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2. Member shares LTE he submitted to a paper
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Dale Hawley sent me this:

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I wrote a small op-ed piece a while ago in response to someone telling me that as a CHP holder I was "paranoid".


"Paranoid"

Once upon a time...

I wanted a firearm for personal protection.

They said I was "paranoid."

I said "I disagree and I still want one."

They said "we're not sure you can be trusted."

I said "how can I prove myself to your satisfaction?"

They said "Well, here's a list of things that would satisfy us."

So the list was followed with scrupulous care.

Money was paid, time was spent, investigations were allowed into personal history, mental status, friends, and anything else they could think of. Time was taken from work to meet their schedules for fingerprinting and investigations and two aborted attempts to pick up a permit. History, habits, associates, mental status....all demonstrated to be squeaky clean and above-board.

I did everything they asked, my history was now known, I was "on record" I was a State-Certified "good guy".

Still the trust is given reluctantly, if at all, and sometimes I am specifically targeted for restriction or vilification.

Who is "paranoid" again?


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3. Armed man turned out to be art student
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So when did Arlington gain the authority to prohibit the possession of firearms in county parks?

They haven't, of course. This makes the Arlington PD look unprofessional.


From arlnow.com: http://tinyurl.com/ca3hatm


Armed Man Turns Out to Be Art Student
by ARLnow.com
March 13, 2013

There was a tense moment for Arlington County Police today as officers confronted a man dressed in camouflage and armed with a shotgun near Rosslyn.

The incident happened just before noon on the 2100 block of N. Scott Street, in the North Highlands neighborhood. A resident called police, reporting a man dressed in camouflage in the woods of Dawson Terrace Park. The man was pointing a shotgun at something, the caller said.

Officers located the man, ordered him to drop the weapon and then took him into custody. Upon further questioning, officers determined that the man was an Art Institute student videotaping himself for a school project, according to Arlington County Police Department spokesman Dustin Sternbeck.

The man was informed that possessing a firearm is prohibited in county parks, then released without charges.

“He was not aware that he was in the wrong,” Sternbeck said. “No charges were filed. He just packed up his truck and left.”


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4. Hundreds of people attend day one of R&R Gun & Knife show
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VCDL EM John Wilburn is interviewed in this story.

Jay Minsky sent me this:

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From bdtonline.com: http://tinyurl.com/d843b6q


Hundreds of people attend day one of R&R Gun & Knife Show
by Bill Archer, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
March 10, 2013

BRUSHFORK — Hundreds of people from the area came out Saturday to the National Guard Armory in Brushfork for the opening day of a two-day R&R Gun & Knife Show that concludes today at 3 p.m.

The annual event features scores of exhibitors showing a variety of firearms, several vendors that feature knives of all kinds, coin collectors and informational booths.

John Wilburn, an executive member of the Virginia Citizens Defense League Inc., said that he typically doesn’t participate in gun shows in West Virginia, but since the show at the armory was so close to the state line, and since he lived in Bluefield in the early 1990s, he decided to help staff the booth on Saturday.

“The VCDL goes to shows throughout Virginia,” Wilburn said. He said that last year, at the annual Hillsville, Va., Labor Day gun show, we gave out 18,000 blaze orange stickers that contained the message: “Guns Save Lives.” This year, a new red, white and blue sticker contains the message: “Freedom is not a Loophole.”

“This show is a lot more well-attended than it has been in recent years,” Wilburn said. “I think that’s probably due to the present political climate and attitudes toward the second amendment.” Wilburn quickly pointed out that anything he might say to a reporter is his opinion and does not reflect the opinions of the VCDL. He did, however, said the organization has about 5,500 members, and provided a phone number to call the VCDL for a comment.

That was generally the rule for the morning. One male said: “A recent NBC poll says that 90 percent of Americans are in favor of gun control laws,” he said, and pointed to the packed aisles of the Armory. “Look around here today,” he said. He did not want his name used for the purposes of this story.

People of all ages packed the armory and studied what the vendors had to offer. Randy Gibson of Bramwell purchased a .22 rifle that was the same model as a rifle he sold to someone several years earlier. “I promised myself that if I ever saw another one like it, I would buy it,” he said. Gibson is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and remains active with the Marine Corps League.

Entire families attended the show together and enjoyed checking out everything there was to see. Young people asked questions about the various firearms and the older adults with them answered. “It is like a family atmosphere here,” Nancy Gunnoe of R&R Gun & Knife Shows said. “People here get along.”

Gunnoe checked every individual who entered the armory, checked any firearms they may be bringing inside, and placed plastic ties in the firing mechanisms to prevent accidental discharge.

“Do you have any guns with you?” Gunnoe asked a man who was paying his admission to the show.

“Not yet,” the man responded, prompting laughter among people lined up waiting to enter.

“We’ve been here 6 or 7 times before, but over all, this is the most of a morning crowd that we’ve ever had here,” Gunnoe said. She’s well aware of the concerns about the so-called gun show loophole, but she said that the vendors perform background checks on the firearms they sell. She said that she works with many of the same vendors, but added that not all of the same vendors participate in every show.

“We have shows in Martinsburg, Morgantown, Parkersburg ... Really, we go all over the state,” she said.

Surprisingly, there were far fewer discussions about the politics of the day, and more discussions about the availability and the cost of items up for sale. In spite of the number of people in the armory, people seemed to move easily through the aisles.


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5. Poking fun at Shotgun Joe Biden [VIDEO]
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Hilarious video on Shotgun Joe.

Warren Roche shared this:

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From youtube.com: http://tinyurl.com/d78k5jv


Poking fun at Shotgun Joe Biden
by warrenroche
February 19, 2013

Last evening Joe Biden gave an interview where he suggested to the women of America they should buy double barreled shotguns AND, in the event of hearing an intruder, the woman should make her way outside and fire BOTH BARRELS into the air! Never mind that if doing so doesn't scare off the intruder both barrels would now be EMPTY!

There are no lengths the gun grabbers won't go to try to convince us to give up our weapons!

The 2nd amendment isn't merely about the right to self defense and / or hunting. The 2nd amendment exists so that WE THE PEOPLE would have the ability to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government; ie: the likes of Joe Biden and his boss, Barack Obama!

Given the nonsensical nature of the remarks made by "Shotgun Joe Biden" we thought it only appropriate to reciprocate in kind with this video!


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6. AP Enterprise: Nixon wished for total handgun ban
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Besides Watergate, "tricky Dick" wanted our guns, too?

Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From washingtonexaminer.com: http://tinyurl.com/c76oknb


AP Enterprise: Nixon wished for total handgun ban
by AP Staff Writer, The Associated Press
March 11, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Few presidents in modern times have been as interested in gun control as Richard Nixon, of all people. He proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons.

Several previously unreported Oval Office recordings and White House memos from the Nixon years show a conservative president who at times appeared willing to take on the National Rifle Association, a powerful gun lobby then as now, even as his aides worried about the political ramifications.

"I don't know why any individual should have a right to have a revolver in his house," Nixon said in a taped conversation with aides. "The kids usually kill themselves with it and so forth." He asked why "can't we go after handguns, period?"

Nixon went on: "I know the rifle association will be against it, the gun makers will be against it." But "people should not have handguns." He laced his comments with obscenities, as was typical.

Nixon made his remarks in the Oval Office on May 16, 1972, the day after a would-be assassin shot and paralyzed segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace. As president, Nixon never publicly called for a ban on all handguns. Instead, he urged Congress to pass more modest legislation banning Saturday night specials, which were cheaply made, easily concealed and often used by criminals.

Not all of the president's men appeared to share his passion on the issue. The recordings and memos show that Nixon administration officials saw gun control as a political loser.

Nixon, a Republican, did say publicly that if Congress passed a ban on Saturday night specials, he would sign it. But in a sign of how potent the NRA was even 40 years ago, this narrow piece of legislation never made it to his desk, and there is no sign that he ever sent a draft bill to Capitol Hill.

Today, President Barack Obama faces similar hurdles in trying to ban assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines. Gun control advocates say no one needs such powerful weapons to kill an intruder or take down an animal. In Nixon's time, the argument of such advocates was that Saturday night specials were too poorly made to be relied on for self-defense or hunting.

"Let me ask you," Nixon said to Attorney General John Mitchell in June 1971, "there is only one thing you are checking on, that's the manufacture of those $20 guns? We should probably stop that." Saturday night specials sold for $10 to $30 at the time. Mitchell responded that banning those guns would be "pretty difficult, actually," because of the gun lobby.

"No hunters are going to use $20 guns," Nixon countered.

"No, but the gun lobby's against any incursion into the elimination of firearms," said Mitchell.

The term Saturday night special originated in Detroit, where police observed the frequency with which the guns were used to commit weekend mayhem. Lynyrd Skynyrd memorialized the weapon in its 1975 song, "Saturday Night Special," in which the Southern rock band sang: "Ain't good for nothin'/But put a man six feet in a hole."

Nixon's private comments were not always supportive of gun control, particularly measures that would go beyond handguns. For example, in a taped conversation just a few days after saying that people shouldn't have handguns, the president asked rhetorically, "What do they want to do, just disarm the populace? Disarm the good folks and leave the arms in the hands of criminals?"

But most of his comments on the tapes, available at the websites of the National Archives and of the University of Virginia's Miller Center, were in favor of stronger gun control.

At a June 29, 1972, news conference, about six weeks after Wallace's shooting, Nixon said he'd sign legislation banning Saturday night specials. Later that year, the Senate did pass such a bill, but the House never acted on the legislation.

The bill's sponsor, Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh, said in a recent interview that the NRA helped prevent his bill from getting through Congress. The Nixon administration supported an unsuccessful Republican alternative Senate bill on Saturday night specials that had a definition the NRA preferred.

The shooting of another politician put gun control back on the radar the following year. On Jan. 30, 1973, two robbers shot Sen. John Stennis, D-Miss., and surgeons initially thought he would die. Stennis survived and lived until 1995.

The day of the shooting, Nixon told White House special counsel Charles Colson, "At least I hope that Saturday night special legislation, at least we're supporting that, you know. We're not for gun control generally, but we are for that. God damn it that ought to be passed. Or was it passed?"

When Colson told him it hadn't, Nixon instructed his counsel, "We better damn well be for it now, huh?"

At a news conference the next day, the president repeated his call to ban Saturday night specials. He also volunteered a comment that few national politicians would make today: "Let me say, personally, I have never hunted in my life. I have no interest in guns and so forth."

By March 1973, aide John Ehrlichman was telling Nixon that gun control was a "loser issue for us."

"You've got a highly mobilized lobby," he told the president. "I think what we have to do is carve out a little piece of it, and Saturday night specials, of course, has been our tactic."

Other White House officials also argued against doing much, including Tom C. Korologos, a White House deputy assistant for legislative affairs who later was an outside lobbyist for the NRA and ambassador to Belgium under President George W. Bush.

"The thing that worries me is that the president's hard-core support comes from the gun-folk and obviously we need support these days," Korologos wrote in an Aug. 31, 1973 memo, referring to the Watergate scandal that would undo Nixon's presidency.

"Lurking in the background is the president's personal statement: 'I'm a liberal on gun control,'" Korologos said. Nixon might have made this statement privately; there is no record of him saying it publicly.

Korologos' conclusion: "I vote for a 'talk' meeting and then 'tough it out' by doing nothing and hope nobody gets shot in the next three years."

The effort to ban Saturday night specials receded in recent decades as the focus of gun control advocates shifted to rein in more powerful weapons.

Nixon's focus soon shifted, too.

In June 1972, a little over a month after his chat about banning handguns, Nixon had a recorded conversation that showed him trying to get the FBI to stop investigating the break-in at Democratic offices at the Watergate office building by burglars tied to his re-election committee.

Few remember the tapes about handguns. History forever remembers the tape that gave Nixon's Watergate pursuers their "smoking gun."


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7. Making the world safe from armed Mallards
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Senator Dianne Feinstein actually thinks there is a season on humans.

Bill Watkins sent me this:

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From americanthinker.com: http://tinyurl.com/bt4lecc


Making the world safe from armed Mallards
Russ Vaughn
March 13, 2013

Dianne Feinstein is the absolute, living demonstration in support of the concept of term limits for Congress. No pol has been more aggressive than Old Dame Feinstein in seizing on the recent school shooting tragedy in Connecticut to advance her über liberal, gun-grabbing agenda. This old Left Coast tool has recently advanced her silliness to the point of making herself the subject of outright ridicule. Here's a comment from her ongoing efforts to push through illegal and unconstitutional gun control laws in the Senate:

We have federal regulations and state laws that prohibit hunting ducks with more than three rounds. And yet it's legal to hunt humans with 15-round, 30-round, even 150-round magazines.

Obviously the senator has never spent any time in a duck blind or she would know the logical fallacy of her argument. Unlike home invaders and drug-fueled criminal crazies of every description who homeowners may need heavy firepower to contend with, ducks usually aren't armed and even if they should be, the ones I've encountered have always restrained their impulses to shoot back. I'd really like to hear from any occupant of a duck blind who's had to duck incoming rounds from their aerial adversaries.

Of course, I'm unfamiliar with California ducks, which if they are as weird as their politicians, may be, and quite possibly are, armed to the very tips of their vicious, yellowed, homicidal beaks. That's an alarming thought when you consider the reality that those malicious mallards may have brains only slightly larger than their elected representatives.

They're coming for you, Dianne…


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8. Star Parker: Background checks won't make us safer
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Board Member Jim Snyder sent me this:

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From washingtonexaminer.com: http://tinyurl.com/aweagrq


Star Parker: Background checks won't make us safer
by Star Parker, Examiner Columnist
March 9, 2013

In April 2007, a mentally disturbed student showed up at the campus of his school, Virginia Tech, brandishing two semi-automatic pistols. He murdered 32 students, teachers and school employees and wounded 17 others before taking his own life.

It was the one of deadliest mass shooting incidents in American history.

The nation was in shock, as it is now following the December mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

The press and public outcry was the same then as now. How can we stop horrors like this from occurring? We've got to stop criminals and nut cases from getting their hands on guns.

The tragedy spurred passage of the first major piece of federal gun control legislation since the assault weapons ban of 1994. The new law, signed by President George W. Bush in January of 2008, appropriated $1.3 billion for states to get the names of those deemed mentally ill into the FBI national database used for gun-purchase screening. This was supposed to solve the problem of lax state compliance and make the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, more effective.

If only this had been the law of the land a year earlier, commentators opined, the Virginia Tech tragedy might not have happened.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it would "close the wide gaps in our nation's firearm background-check system to ensure violent criminals and the mentally ill no longer slip through the cracks and gain access to dangerous weapons."

But a more sober message came at the time from the now-late professor, American Enterprise Institute scholar and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient James Q. Wilson.

He wrote then: "The tragedy at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control."

Even if there were tougher background checks, Wilson continued, "access to guns would be relatively easy ... many would be stolen and others would be obtained through straw purchases by a willing confederate. It is virtually impossible to use new background-check or waiting-period laws to prevent dangerous people from getting guns. Those they cannot buy, they will steal or borrow."

Five years after Bush signed the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 into law, we have "deja vu all over again." Not only have we tragically witnessed another deranged young man entering a school and murdering innocent youth, but we now must witness again politicians offering the same nonsolution to the problem: wider background checks. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who is pushing legislation for universal background checks, was one of the original sponsors of the law that Bush signed five years ago.

It is even worse now. Adam Lanza, the deranged young Sandy Hook murderer, used a rifle from his mother's collection in their home. No background check could have prevented something like this.

Schumer will not solve the problem, yet he will make things worse by making it harder for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights to bear arms and protect themselves.

And exactly how might expanded checks impinge on both our privacy and our rights? Those who have ever seen a psychologist may be at risk. Those who have any kind of infraction on their record may be at risk.

Some states require doctors to counsel women considering an abortion that the procedure can result in various emotional problems. Might women receiving abortions in these states have difficulty purchasing a gun?

Let's stop playing games. The problem is people, not guns. Our society suffers from a deficiency of personal responsibility -- not from an excess of personal freedom.


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9. Permanent gun law changes in Senate irk gun control advocates, democrats
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Executive Member Dave Hicks sent me this:

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From rollcall.com: http://tinyurl.com/afvkh55


Permanent Gun Law Changes in Senate CR Irk Gun Control Advocates, Democrats
by John Gramlich, Roll Call Staff
March 14, 2013

Gun control advocates and some congressional Democrats expressed frustration Thursday that the continuing resolution being debated on the Senate floor this week seeks to make several permanent policy changes related to firearms.

Four policy riders included in the bill would bar federal funds from being used in the current fiscal year — “or any fiscal year thereafter” — in ways that gun control advocates say could help crack down on the illegal use of firearms.

One provision would require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to emphasize in reports that its gun trace data “cannot be used to draw broad conclusions about firearms-related crime.”

Another would keep in place a broad definition of antique guns and ammunition that may be imported into the United States. And yet another would ban any federal rule requiring gun dealers to conduct physical inventories to determine whether firearms have been lost or stolen.

The fourth would prohibit the ATF from refusing to renew a gun dealer’s license “due to a lack of business activity,” a provision that gun control groups contend would make it harder to identify potentially rogue dealers who are not involved in legitimate business transactions.

Although all of those policy directives have been included in annual appropriations bills since at least 2004, they have not been permanent changes, a Democratic Senate aide said.

The aide characterized the permanent provisions as a trade-off in negotiations that occurred late last year with House appropriators, who had sought to make additional gun-related riders permanent in the continuing resolution. Other riders — such as one banning the activities of the ATF from being transferred to another government entity, such as the more powerful FBI — are included in the Senate bill but not on a permanent basis.

According to the Senate aide, House appropriators also sought to include another provision that Democrats and the White House viewed as far more objectionable.

The aide said the Senate “fought off” a House effort to ban the ATF from requiring gun dealers in four southwestern states to notify it when they sold two or more of a certain kind of semiautomatic rifle to the same buyer within five days. The Obama administration has issued that rule covering gun dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, but many gun rights advocates view it as a veiled form of government gun registration.

‘Poison Pills’

Although the Senate’s gun language was agreed to late last year — before the fatal shooting of 20 first-graders at a Connecticut elementary school — gun-control advocates and some Democratic members of Congress said the deal now looks like poor timing. They said it undermines a concurrent effort in both chambers to crack down on gun violence.

Rep. Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat who is sponsoring legislation (HR 427) that would require the kind of gun store inventory-checking that the Senate language seeks to ban in perpetuity, said he would oppose the Senate’s continuing resolution if the House votes on it. He said he is “going to start getting the word out” to his House colleagues about the Senate language in an effort to get them to oppose the bill.

“I get what they’re trying to do in response to the House. Unfortunately, it’s a very critical part of the legislation,” Quigley said. “It’s just as frustrating as it could possibly be. This town is famous for poison pills, but this is our one bite at the apple [on gun control]. This is our one chance.”

Over the last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced legislation to ban assault weapons (S 150), require expanded background checks for gun sales (S 374) and crack down on gun traffickers (S 54).

Quigley said the Senate rider dealing with gun inventories is the “antithesis” of his bill and specifically undermines the Senate’s own gun trafficking proposal. He said the Senate is “pounding its chest” by saying publicly that it is cracking down on gun traffickers while quietly taking up appropriations language that makes it harder for federal authorities to track illegal guns.

Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, said he saw the influence of the National Rifle Association in the Senate appropriations language, noting that the powerful gun rights group has worked to include the language in spending bills for years.

“It shows that the NRA is always on offense and rarely on defense,” said Kessler, a former legislative director for Sen. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is spearheading an effort to require universal background checks for all gun sales. “Even in a very adverse situation for them, in which many in Congress and the White House are trying to do something constructive to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and crazy people, the NRA continues to advance its agenda.”

Kessler said gun-related legislation “should move through regular order, not some back-room stopgap spending bill. It’s time for that
practice to stop.”

The NRA did not respond to an inquiry about whether it lobbied in favor of the policy riders. The White House also did not respond to requests for comment.


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10. Pro-gun voters put heat on Democratic senators
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Bill Albritton sent me this:

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From foxnews.com: http://tinyurl.com/b72s8mp


Pro-gun voters put heat on Democratic senators
by Associated Press
March 09, 2013

HELENA, Mont. – U.S. Sen. Max Baucus has been here before.

Back during the Clinton era, the Democrat faced a choice: support an assault weapons ban urged by a president from his own party and risk angering constituents who cherish their gun rights, or buck his party. He chose the ban, and nearly lost his Senate seat.

Now, as he begins his campaign for a seventh term, Baucus faces the question again. For weeks, gun foes have sought assurances he would oppose the assault weapons ban. But it was only this past week he said he would oppose it.

That decision alone doesn't settle the issue for his re-election campaign. His opponents are watching closely, eager to pounce as he navigates a series of other gun control proposals, including an expected call for universal background checks.

Baucus' predicament is one that a group of Democrats like him in the West and South are facing. They hail from predominantly rural regions of the country where the Second Amendment is cherished and where Republicans routinely win in presidential elections.

From Montana to Louisiana, these anxious voters have made at least six Democratic senators a little uneasy heading into next year's election season. Both sides are aware that gun-owners' rights are taking shape as a campaign issue that could shift the balance of power in the U.S. Senate.

"Make no mistake -- it is a very delicate dance for rural state Democrats," said Barrett Kaiser, a Democratic political consultant.

"I would be stunned if the Montana congressional delegation said anything but `hell no' to gun control measures," he added.

Part of the concern comes from a proposal by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity clips. The plan is a response to calls for new gun restrictions from President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school.

Gun control is a top-agenda item for many Democrats, and they'll need all the votes they can to push changes.

Baucus knows, though, that a gun control vote "opens the door for whoever challenges him, because Montanans do not want the federal government restricting guns. That is clear as day," said Republican state Rep. Scott Reichner, who was Mitt Romney's campaign chairman in Montana.

"It would be a monumental mistake on his part" to support federal gun control legislation, said Republican state Rep. Scott Reichner.

Gun rights carry sway in Montana. The state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks says Montana "boasts more hunters per capita than any other state in the nation." State lawmakers have been discussing measures to expand gun rights. And a pro-gun group, the Montana Shooting Sports Association, has set up a website that is updated with Baucus' public statements on gun policy.

Other Democratic senators that Republicans are watching closely include Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Democrats control the Senate, but if Republicans pick off these seats they could take the chamber.

Pryor already has said he won't support an assault weapons ban, and the measure is unlikely to clear the Senate. Gun activists still worry that other restrictions they oppose are in the works.

"I don't think the assault rifle ban, the semi-auto ban, has been the real objective," said Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association. "I think that is where the rubber meets the road, federal gun registration."

The gun rights crowd considers mandatory registration as an unconstitutional overreach of federal authority and the close attention paid to all discussions on the topic show how carefully Baucus and others must tread.

Baucus would appear to be a shoo-in for re-election. He's the third most senior U.S. senator, chairman of finance committee that lets him prioritize many Montana projects and a consummate dealmaker who routinely collects endorsements from Republican-allied groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And he's worked hard over the years to become the only Senate Democrat with an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association.

But one wrong gun vote could energize his opposition.

Though Baucus specifically rejected the assault rifle ban, he stopped short of mentioning expanded background checks by name. Baucus indicated he prefers the focus was elsewhere.

"Instead of focusing on new laws, Max believes the first step should be effectively enforcing the laws already on the books," Baucus spokeswoman Jennifer Donohue said Thursday.

The entire debate represents a potential replay of the most difficult fight of his career, when Baucus voted for the 1993 Brady Bill that established background checks and the original 1994 ban on assault rifles and high-capacity clips.

Those votes led to the closest election in four decades of politics for Baucus, a narrow victory in a bitter campaign against Republican Denny Rehberg.

The other Democratic senators in rural states could find themselves in similar fights and have been cagey over the issue. Most have taken a wait-and-see approach.

The NRA last month launched an advertising campaign aimed squarely at this group, sending a strong message. The organization did not return a call seeking comment.

Democratic political operatives say the NRA could be overplaying its hand this time, arguing some sportsmen may be willing to listen to moderate proposals.

Still, Baucus and his colleagues aren't likely to take risks and by next year's election, he and others could seek to turn the issue to their advantage by using a pro-gun stance to appeal to conservative and libertarian-minded voters.

"Why wouldn't he want to talk about guns?" said Montana State University political scientist David Parker. "Sen. Baucus is as about as middle of the road as they get in the United States Senate. What he doesn't want to do is have himself painted as a national Democrat or as an Obama Democrat."


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11. How gun control ends: not with a bang, but a whimper
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Bill Watkins sent me this:

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From swampland.time.com: http://tinyurl.com/ale8cmg


How Gun Control Ends: Not With A Bang, But A Whimper
By Massimo Calabresi
March 11, 20130

Here’s a hard truth: all the emotion and outrage and sadness that followed the Dec. 14 shooting of 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook elementary school may make almost no difference in federal gun control laws. How little is the Hill going to do on gun control? As things stand, Congress may not even pass two gun control measures that even some elements of the powerful gun lobby have suggested they could support. But if post-Sandy Hook gun control measures are badly wounded, they’re not finished yet. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle insist there’s still a chance to do a deal; here’s the state of play.

After months of negotiation, four bills came to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, reflecting President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s agenda for post-Sandy Hook action. The first makes straw purchasing and gun trafficking a felony and boosts the penalties for those crimes. Another would expand background checks to include private sales at gun shows and elsewhere. A third would boost spending on school safety programs. And lastly there’s a push to ban assault weapons and large ammunition magazines.

The gun trafficking measure passed out of committee last week with the backing of Democrats and one Republican, the ranking minority member Chuck Grassley. It is likely to pass the full Senate next week and should eventually pass the House and become law. But it has less to do with Sandy Hook than with Fast and Furious. Over the last two years Republicans alleged that the White House and Justice Department conspired in a botched gun running investigation in Arizona called Fast and Furious. It was a whacky theory and was debunked by a widely praised Inspector General’s report. But it’s now hard for Republicans to oppose a bill that makes gun running a felony and boosts penalties for the crime after they made such a big deal of the case.

The most extreme Fast and Furious conspiracy theorists said the administration allowed gun running on the U.S.-Mexican border to build support for federal gun control. So the bill’s passage would be a rare example of true irony (or if you’re a fact-free type, proof the conspiracy theorists were right all along). In any case, gun backers may not have much to worry about. The three other bills, which nominally are intended to address specific elements of the Sandy Hook massacre, were delayed in committee last week and face an uncertain future the Senate floor and in the House.

The assault weapons ban is already near death, and so is the ban on large capacity magazines. Even Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has declined to support a ban and voted against the 1994 bill that expired in 2004. Grassley and other Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans are already out against both the assault weapons ban and the prohibition on large capacity magazine clips.

The other two measures remain possible in part because at times gun lobbyists have said they could support versions of them in principle. But they are in trouble. The school safety bill, introduced by Barbara Boxer of California, was originally going to spend $800 million to increase surveillance and deploy National Guard troops in schools, among other measures. That price tab made it a near impossibility as Congress wages non-stop battles over the budget. The bill likely to emerge from committee this week will be cheaper, and privately Republicans say they expect it to pass the Senate. But ultimately it will require cuts in other programs to pay for it; the GOP has suggested cutting education programs like one on financial literacy to help offset the cost. Democrats are balking.

The most promising post-Sandy Hook measure is an effort to expand background checks. At the moment, only licensed sellers must run a check on a buyer to make sure he isn’t barred from owning a gun because of a criminal background, mental illness or other reasons. But many guns are sold privately at gun shows and elsewhere. Democrat Charles Schumer of New York and Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma have been negotiating a bill but broke last week over record keeping. Under current law, licensed sellers must keep a record of what guns they sell. No identifying information on the buyer is kept. Schumer wants the same rule for private sales.

Senate Republicans say any measure to expand record keeping, even sell-side information, will never pass the House. They argue getting background checks at gun shows even without record keeping is a big win and Democrats should settle for that. They also argue that the bill’s other major provision would be a win. Though all states are required to provide the federal government with sell-side information, only 13 do. The bill would provide grant money to incentivize the other 37 states to comply too.

A Schumer bill with the expanded record keeping will pass out of committee this week without Republican support. Republicans expect to substitute a bill on the floor of the Senate with the record keeping removed, but the expanded background check and the reporting incentives in place. That bill could pass the Senate with bipartisan support, giving it at least an eventual conference with whatever limited bill the House passes.

If Congress ultimately produces a combined bill that turns gun trafficking into a felony, expands background checks to private sales and spends some money on school safety, perhaps the public outcry after Sandy Hook won’t have been entirely fruitless. But there are plenty in Washington who expect next to nothing to come of the massacre at Newtown, and believe that if compromise can barely survive the committee process it will certainly be doomed in the full Congress.


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12. Democrat's 'Universal Background Check' bill discriminates against same-sex couples
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EM John Pierce shared this:

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From monachuslex.com: http://tinyurl.com/dxjvumk


Democrat’s ‘Universal Background Check’ bill discriminates against same-sex couples
by John Pierce
March 14, 2013

As if same-sex couples were not faced with enough social and legal bigotry, the so-called ‘Universal Background Check’ bill being pushed by Democrats adds the threat of being made a felon for simply going on a long business trip.

“What?” I hear you cry. “How is that possible?”

The answer is simple. It is possible because the bill is not what it appears to be. Contrary to the rhetoric being mimicked by the media, it is far more than a mere extension of background checks to private sales.

The bill being pushed by Democrats requires background checks and documentation for all ‘transfers’ of firearms, not merely sales. And they define ‘transfers’ expansively to include practically any situation in which a firearm might be out of your control, even for a second.

Specifically, it addresses the issue of transfers between those living within the same home where the two parties are not ‘spouses, parents and their children, siblings, or grandparents and grandchildren’.

And because of DOMA, the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriages even if the couple live in a state which has recognized their right to marry. Therefore, they cannot avail themselves of the exception for spouses.

The bill does have another exception that might apply. It allows such transfers if ‘the firearm is not removed from the home’ and ‘ the transfer has a duration of less than 7 days.’

So … the consequences of this bill begin to mount.

Under this bill, same-sex couples could no longer jointly own a firearm. And if the partner who has ‘legal’ ownership of the firearm were to leave town on a business trip that ultimately lasts more than 7 days then both partners would be felons!

Even if the business trip lasted fewer than 7 days, if the partner remaining in town decided to go to the shooting range, they would both be felons!

Unmarried heterosexual couples are similarly affected as are step-children.

And it gets even worse. Other felonies created by the bill include:

A soldier deploying overseas who leaves his guns with a friend = felony!
Loaning a firearm to a friend to go to the range = felony!
Loaning a firearm to a friend for hunting the day before the season opens = felony!
Allowing a friend to shoot your gun on your own land = felony!
The real intent of this bill is not to close some imaginary loophole. Rather, it is to make it so legally dangerous to own a firearm that people will give up their rights rather than attempt to comply.

Don’t believe me? Read the bill yourself and then tell your Senators and Representatives to vote against this discriminatory bill!


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13. NRA winning the influence battle over gun control
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Keep in mind that to the main-stream media, for better or for worse, considers ALL gun groups to be the "NRA."

Deborah Jane Anderson sent me this:

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This Forbes article shows that gun rights advocates are wining the battle over the gun control crowd, and that we have more stamina to stay the course, as well. To see the accompanying charts, check out the online version of the article.


From forbes.com: http://tinyurl.com/bxcr76c


NRA Winning the Influence Battle Over Gun Control
by Bruce Rogers, Forbes Staff
March 1, 2013

The gun control debate is clearly one of the most contentious and controversial issues in America today. And the battle over gun control is now being waged through intensive media campaigns from both sides of the political spectrum to influence public opinion and to assert pressure on policy makers. So who’s winning? To find out, we turned to objective data provided exclusively to Forbes Insights by Appinions, the influence marketing platform. Keep in mind Forbes Insights has no agenda other than to shed research light on the process of measuring influence and what we can learn from it. The facts are objective, whatever your perspective on the issue may be. We certainly don’t aim to promote either side and are just stating the facts of influence and who is leading or gaining ground through the lens of influence.

Forbes Insights and Appinions looked at the data for the week prior to the Sandy Hook tragedy and trended the data over the subsequent 5 weeks to determine the ebb and flow over the gun control debate. We found that the NRA and the pro-gun rights voices are winning the influence battle and will continue to be strong and more influential if the pro gun control voice remains fragmented. On the flip side, the pro gun control voice could certainly gain influence if they establish a more united voice. Here are some other interesting observations from the data:

Republican politicians are missing from the debate. The debate is an influence battle between President Barack Obama’s Democrats and Wayne LaPierre’s NRA. Of the top 25 stakeholders in the debate, there is only 1 prominent Republican politician (Chris Christie – who is pro-gun control). Barack Obama leads the pro-gun control voice with a net influence score of 268. LaPierre leads the anti-gun control side with a net influence score of 240.

It’s a Marathon, not a sprint. It seems the NRA has the stamina to out-run the pro-gun control movement. They are persistent, un-yielding and gaining influence. It will be interesting to see how the pro-gun control voice responds and how the influence between the two groups changes as the debate persists.

The pro-gun rights voice is rapidly gaining influence while the pro-gun control voice has tapered in recent weeks. Momentum is shifting and the gun control debate is becoming a platform benefiting gun rights advocates.

The pro–gun control group is fragmented whereas the pro-gun rights voice is united and strong. Of the top influencers on the pro-gun rights side, the majority of the most prominent voices are from the NRA. The pro-gun control voice is split between Obama and several gun control advocacy groups which dilutes the message.


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14. Wayne LaPierre has a few thoughts on guns and rape [VIDEO]
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Roy Scherer sent me this:

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Article in VANITY FAIR, wherein the writer presents her views of comments by Wayne LaPierre. Outrageous, though not in the way they intended.


From vanityfair.com: http://tinyurl.com/bmkpfy9


Ready Your Outrage, Aim, and Fire: Wayne LaPierre Has a Few Thoughts on Guns and Rape
by Juli Weiner
March 15, 2013

It’s been awhile since America last heard from Wayne LaPierre, National Rifle Association mascot and grossly unfair gun-owner stereotype. Thankfully, the sexless hordes at CPAC were treated to one of LaPierre’s “famous speeches,” wherein he always manages to sound crazier than the time before.

Here’s the craziest of those crazy soundbites: “The one thing a violent rapist deserves to face is a good woman with a gun.” The crowd loved it! Medieval justice for everyone! This country will see your rape, rapists, and raise you manslaughter! (Somewhere in the back of the room, Todd Akin whispers to his friend, “I agree in principle but it really depends on what kind of a rape it was. . .”)

Here’s the second-craziest, and it concerns universal background checks and a federal registry of gun owners: “What’s the point of registering lawful gun owners anyways? So newspapers can print those names for gangs and criminals to access?” To combine both of Mr. LaPierre’s excellent points, if there were a national registry of gun owners, violent rapists would know in advance which women to avoid.


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15. Guns & Ammo Magazine ranks the best states for gun owners in 2013
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Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From gunsauction.com: http://tinyurl.com/cnwjwkt


Guns & Ammo Magazine Ranks the Best States for Gun Owners in 2013
March 15, 2013

(GunAuction.com) — Guns & Ammo writer James Tarr analyzed all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and ranked them to find out which are the most pro-gun. Tarr said states could amass a perfect score of 50. No state attained a perfect score, though two states came awfully close.

States were measured on gun rights/friendliness to gun owners by the following criteria:

CCW/Open Carry: Only states that don’t require a permit for concealed or open carry scored a perfect 10 in this category. Everybody else was judged accordingly.

MSRs: States with no restrictions on the kind, type or number of modern sporting rifles (ARs, AKs, etc.) that can be owned or purchased scored a 10 in this category.

Class 3/NFA: The majority of states allow their citizens to own Class 3/NFA-type firearms (machine guns, suppressors, short-barreled rifles, etc.), provided they follow the federal licensing standard, but not every state is yea or nay.

Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground: States’ scores were determined based on how strong your the law is regarding self-defense in and out of the home, and whether in the right you’re immune from civil prosecution.

Miscellaneous: How pro-gun the state culture is has a lot to do with scoring in this category. Scores are based on the percentage of gun owners in the state, if there are any restrictions on gun or ammunition purchases or magazine capacity, pending pro- or anti-gun legislation, CCW reciprocity, and any restrictions on guns that not covered in the other categories.

As was expected, Washington, D.C., was at the bottom of the list with zero points, and other anti-gun Meccas such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California weren’t far behind.

Topping the G&A list of pro-gun states were Arizona, Vermont, Alaska, Utah and Kentucky.


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16. Is there a 'constitution-free' zone where cameras can be seized without cause?
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While this article talks about cameras and recording devices, might such a zone also deal with guns?

Jonathan Taylor shared this:

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Stumbled across an interesting and terrifying article on one of my frequented photography blogs. While the ACLU typically doesn't deal greatly in firearm-related cases, this applies to any photographing, video-taping, or audio-recording of just about anything lawful.


From petapixel.com: http://tinyurl.com/cuk3m79


Is There a ‘Constitution-Free’ Zone Where Cameras Can Be Seized Without Cause?
by Michael Zhang
March 08, 2013

The ACLU writes that there’s a 100-mile-thick buffer around the borders of the US called “The Constitution-Free Zone,” in which electronic devices (e.g. laptops and cameras) can be searched and seized without suspicion. Wired writes that a man’s laptop was seized in this zone in 2010 and returned 11 days later:

At an Amtrak inspection point, Pascal Abidor showed his U.S. passport to a federal agent. He was ordered to move to the cafe car, where they removed his laptop from his luggage and “ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password,” according to the lawsuit.

Agents asked him about pictures they found on his laptop, which included Hamas and Hezbollah rallies. He explained that he was earning a doctoral degree at a Canadian university on the topic of the modern history of Shiites in Lebanon.

This zone made quite a few headlines early last month. Scott Bomboy of the National Constitution Center looked into this issue, and concludes that the ACLU’s argument is confusing at best.


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17. Why do we oppose gun registration? Because we know the history
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Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From extranosalley.com: http://tinyurl.com/cjhlofr


Why Do We Oppose Gun Registration? Because we know the history of Gun Registration
by Stranger
March 13, 2013

Those who want so-called “universal background checks,” actually universal gun owner registration, seem to be unaware of the reason America’s law abiding gun owners oppose the “sensible measure” they support. Obviously, they are completely unaware of the bloody history of gun control.

Front Page Magazine has a report on South Africa, where gun registration has become genocide within eighteen short months.

Briefly quoting the extensive, in interesting, Front Page Magazine report linked above:

Like so many societies where demonstrating who’s in control becomes a necessity, disarming the population becomes a priority. In 2010, the ANC-led regime changed the Firearms Registration Act, demanding that all legal guns be re-registered by July 31, 2011. In the process of re-registration, more than half the applicants were turned down, and 90 percent were turned down again on appeal. Thus, white farm families were forced to relinquish their last line of defense against the tens of thousands of criminal gangs roaming the countryside–armed with AK47s. and as Genocide Watch noted on its website last July one more step was taken as well. “The government has disbanded the commando units of white farmers that once protected their farms, and has passed laws to confiscate the farmers’ weapons,” it reported. “Disarmament of a targeted group is one of the surest early warning signs of future genocidal killings.”

Those genocidal killings began in late 2012, with a series particularly brutal murders and increasingly frequent murders, intended to force whites out of South Africa.

Gun registration is intended to do one thing. Disarm a people, and make a numerically small ruling minority the undisputed masters of a country. If Russia had not disarmed its peasantry, the Kulaks would not have been destroyed, the Holodomor would not have wiped out six to ten million Ukrainians – and Germany’s armies would have met far greater resistance. If Germany had not disarmed the captive peoples, the extermination programs would have been far more difficult. And on and on.

This world must be full of the spirits of those disarmed and murdered totalitarian regimes. Between 160 and 200 million dead in the 20th Century alone. So those of us with common sense oppose gun registration.

Those who lack common sense support it.


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18. NRA: The untold story of gun confiscation after Katrina [VIDEO]
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The ugly, ugly face of confiscation. Can't happen in the U.S.? It already has.


Bill Sly sent me this:

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From youtube.com: http://tinyurl.com/cxuprsp


NRA: The Untold Story of Gun Confiscation After Katrina
by NRAVideos
March 7, 2007

The video you will see on this web site is horrifying. The crimes committed against law-abiding gun owners are beyond comprehension. The arrogance of anti-gun politicians and government officials and their hate of freedom will churn your stomach.

The law is the law, the Constitution is the Constitution. If ONE local mayor or police chief can decide what the Second Amendment means, it opens the door to tyranny—where ANY mayor or police chief can say what the Second Amendment means.

You've seen this brand of abuse of freedom in the history books—in the pages about days of gun confiscations leading to the terror of Stalin, Mao and Hitler. But you'd never in a million years think it could happen in America.

Well, it can and it did. And it will happen again unless we take action today.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Police Superintendent P. Eddie Compass unleashed a wave of confiscations with these chilling words:
"No one will be able to be armed. We will take all weapons. Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns."

Thousands of firearms were then confiscated from law-abiding gun owners. The police gave no paperwork or receipts for those guns. They just stormed in and seized them.

With your help we're going to make the first time in New Orleans the LAST time in America. Thank you!

Now, one year later, these crimes against gun owners have snowballed into a far greater threat to our freedoms.
Even though NRA secured a court order demanding their immediate and unconditional return, almost every single confiscated firearm remains locked in government trailers.

With the stroke of a pen, Mayor Nagin and Police Superintendent Compass are getting away with "murder"—a savaging of the second, fourth and fourteenth amendments of our Constitution. And they have put America on notice that they're going to keep seizing lawfully owned guns under any pretense.

New Orleans gun owners are showing up at these trailers, with serial numbers of their firearms, expecting Mayor Nagin and his band of anti-gunners to respect the Federal courts.

They are met by stony-eyed bureaucrats who say serial numbers aren't enough—and that gun owners now need PROOF OF PURCHASE of these firearms.

How many of those gun owners do you think had original receipts for those firearms? And even if they did, how many do you think could find those receipts in the wreckage of a hurricane?

Many of these firearms were passed down from father to son, generation to generation. Some are precious heirlooms. Some are collector's pieces won in our wars. And they were all lawfully owned and they must be returned to their owners.

With your help we're going to make the first time in New Orleans the LAST time in America. Thank you!


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19. Marine with concealed carry permit stops man from beating woman [VIDEO]
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Guns Save Lives.

From fox6now.com: http://tinyurl.com/aftk68f


Marine with concealed carry permit stops man from beating woman
by Henry Rosoff
March 12, 2013

WEST ALLIS (WITI) — A Marine Corps veteran was able to stop a man early Tuesday, March 12th from nearly kicking a woman to death. It happened near 102nd and Lincoln, and Wisconsin’s concealed carry law made his efforts possible.

Charlie Blackmore was driving home from work at 4:00 a.m. along Lincoln Avenue when he saw something on the sidewalk. Blackmore didn’t realize it was a woman on the ground being kicked in the head and stomach until he got closer.

That’s when he jumped out of his car and sprung into action.

“I said ‘stop’ and he starts coming towards me and that`s when I drew on him. He started getting closer and I said ‘get down on the ground,’” Blackmore said.

Blackmore held his gun on the suspect and called West Allis police. He says several times while waiting for police to arrive, the attacker moved toward him.

“I mean I’ve already made it up in mind that if he came at me I was going to have to take him down and I told him that. I warned him multiple times not to come towards me because he was a big guy and I wasn’t playing around and he didn’t seem like he was playing around,” Blackmore said.

Blackmore says police eventually showed up and had to force the suspect to the ground. They then asked to see Blackmore’s concealed carry permit.

“I put my hands up turned around and said ‘you can grab it out of my wallet.’ Checked my permit, gave me my wallet back, and then interviewed me for their paperwork,” Blackmore said.

West Allis police say that paperwork is not yet available. For that reason, the name of the attacker and his victim have not yet been released.

“She had a really big laceration by her eye and it looked like her nose was broken,” Blackmore said.

Blackmore didn’t catch any names either, but said the victim told him the man is an ex-boyfriend.

“She was not with him anymore and he had stalked her that day or something and he attacked her on her way to work,” Blackmore said.

Blackmore says situations like this are why he supports Wisconsin’s concealed carry law, and the rights of gun owners.

“We do good things. Not all of us are bad or crazy gun nuts. There are good people,” Blackmore said.

The West Allis police chief says these types of situations really are judgement calls for gun owners. While they don’t encourage this behavior, they appreciate citizens watching out for each other as long as they do it legally and are willing to accept the consequences.


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20. Church celebrates 2nd amendment, kids make pop-tart guns during Sunday School
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Deborah Anderson sent me this:

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You've just gotta love this! A church in the Chicago suburbs did something really pro-2nd Amendment with the kids, in planning last weekend's Sunday school lessons “...around the Biblical understanding of the value of life, the directives to protect that life and the right to bear arms in doing so. We deconstructed the myth of the pacifist Jesus and connected the dots between the second amendment and the Bible."


From clashdaily.com: http://tinyurl.com/bkndvjz


Church Celebrates 2nd Amendment, Kids Make Pop-Tart Guns During Sunday School
By Clash Daily
March 14, 2013

This past Sunday, a Chicago area church sponsored a Second Amendment Sunday filled with “assault” pop-tarts, “combat” cupcakes and a sheet-cake that featured a chocolate semi-automatic Glock handgun with a quote from Jesus that read “Blessed are the peacemakers.” John Kirkwood, Pastor of Grace-Gospel Fellowship in Bensenville Illinois said the idea came to him after reading a column by Doug Giles entitled “Christian Parents Should Have Their Kids Play With Toy Guns.”

“Giles has a way of exposing the absurdity of the left,” said Kirkwood, “his article was in response to some Pastor from St. Louis and his ‘toy gun’ buyback program. That and the news about 7 year olds getting suspended for threatening pop-tarts and menacing cupcakes led me to stand up for true American values and the Biblical wisdom that underlies them.” The Pastor, referring to two recent cases in which a pop-tart shaped like a handgun and cupcakes topped by plastic soldiers brought on what many felt was over-the-top school discipline, decided to respond in kind.

“We had an ‘assault’ pop-tart challenge in our Jr. Church where each child who wanted to participate chewed a pop-tart into the shape of a gun and the top four would win prizes; in this case a toy gun,” said Kirkwood, “the guns were named for celebrities.”

“Second runner up received a double barrel shot-gun that we nicknamed ‘The Biden,’ and when we presented it we made sure to say what ‘not’ to do with it in a real situation. The prize for runner up was a Navy Seal sniper rifle that we named ‘The Chris Kyle’ in honor of the American Sniper. We felt that it was appropriate,” added Kirkwood, “given the insulting way that this administration ignored the death of this American hero, yet had the crust to send a delegation to the memorial service for Hugo Chavez.”

What was the top award? Kirkwood smiled and noted, “You know, I stood in the toy aisle for a good half an hour to choose just the right one and it turned out to be the biggest Nerf gun that I could find, and the kicker – the box was marked ‘semi-auto’ and ‘high capacity,’ so we named that one ‘the Feinstein.’”

The church had signs, sold t-shirts and even had a chili cook off to honor the day but it wasn’t all about mocking political correctness. “I instructed my teachers to plan their lessons around the Biblical understanding of the value of life, the directives to protect that life and the right to bear arms in doing so. We deconstructed the myth of the pacifist Jesus and connected the dots between the second amendment and the Bible,” Kirkwood remarked.

David Steiger, the church coordinator of Bible Boot Camp, added, “At Grace Gospel Fellowship we take words seriously, especially those of God and the founders. That’s why this past Sunday ‘we the people’ sought to honor ‘in God we trust’ by examining God ordained rights in the light of the Declaration, the Bill of Rights and most importantly the revealed Word of God. We celebrated 2nd Amendment Sunday as an assembly because we know … if Christians don’t do it, if Christians WON’T push back, the single most important experiment in the history of the world will come to an ungodly end.”

What was the general response to this rather unique worship service? “Well one couple did walk out, though I was told it was for another engagement, but overall the response was tremendous and we plan on doing it every year … and next year the prizes will be even better. Our Bible Boot Camp class (High School age) will be challenged to come up with a 5 minute speech on the right to bear arms and the winner will walk away with a Ruger 10/22,” said Kirkwood, “who knows, maybe by then we’ll have sponsors.”

As for the odds on this becoming a national phenomenon among fellow pastors, Kirkwood smirked, “you’re kidding me right? The reason this country is in this condition is not because sinners act like sinners, it’s because Christians don’t act at all. And pastors? They’re notorious cowards … anything that will come between a filled pew and a filled collection plate … the hirelings scamper away. Having said that, I have been contacted by three other pastors each from a different state who want to know more and asked me to send them material.” The pastor went on to say, “There will always be a remnant … I hope to see a new Black Robe regiment rise up and man the wall.”


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21. California seizes arms as owners lose gun rights
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More confiscations.

Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From businessweek.com: http://tinyurl.com/a564umq


California Seizes Arms as Owners Lose Gun Rights
By Michael B. Marois and James Nash
March 12, 2013

Wearing bulletproof vests and carrying 40-caliber Glock pistols, nine California (STOCA1) Justice Department agents assembled outside a ranch-style house in a suburb east of Los Angeles. They were looking for a gun owner who’d recently spent two days in a mental hospital.

They knocked on the door and asked to come in. About 45 minutes later, they came away peacefully with three firearms.

California is the only state that tracks and disarms people with legally registered guns who have lost the right to own them, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris. Almost 20,000 gun owners in the state are prohibited from possessing firearms, including convicted felons, those under a domestic violence restraining order or deemed mentally unstable.

“What do we do about the guns that are already in the hands of persons who, by law, are considered too dangerous to possess them?” Harris said in a letter to Vice President Joe Biden after a Connecticut school shooting in December left 26 dead. She recommended that Biden, heading a White House review of gun policy, consider California as a national model.

As many as 200,000 people nationwide may no longer be qualified to own firearms, according to Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. Other states may lack confiscation programs because they don’t track purchases as closely as California, which requires most weapons sales go through a licensed dealer and be reported.

“Very, very few states have an archive of firearm owners like we have,” said Wintemute, who helped set up the program.

Funding Increase
Harris, a 48-year-old Democrat, has asked California lawmakers to more than double the number of agents from the current 33. They seized about 2,000 weapons last year. Agents also took 117,000 rounds of ammunition and 11,000 high-capacity magazines, according to state data.

“We’re not contacting anybody who can legally own a gun,” said John Marsh, a supervising agent who coordinates the sometimes-contentious seizures. “I got called the Antichrist the other day. Every conspiracy theory you’ve heard of, take that times 10.”

The no-gun list is compiled by cross-referencing files on almost 1 million handgun and assault-weapon owners with databases of new criminal records and involuntary mental-health commitments. About 15 to 20 names are added each day, according to the attorney general’s office.

Probable Cause
Merely being in a database of registered gun owners and having a “disqualifying event,” such as a felony conviction or restraining order, isn’t sufficient evidence for a search warrant, Marsh said March 5 during raids in San Bernardino County. So the agents often must talk their way into a residence to look for weapons, he said.

At a house in Fontana, agents were looking for a gun owner with a criminal history of a sex offense, pimping, according to the attorney general’s office. Marsh said that while the woman appeared to be home, they got no answer at the door. Without a warrant, the agents couldn’t enter and had to leave empty- handed.

They had better luck in nearby Upland, where they seized three guns from the home of Lynette Phillips, 48, who’d been hospitalized for mental illness, and her husband, David. One gun was registered to her, two to him.

“The prohibited person can’t have access to a firearm,” regardless of who the registered owner is, said Michelle Gregory, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.

Involuntarily Held
In an interview as agents inventoried the guns, Lynette Phillips said that while she’d been held involuntarily in a mental hospital in December, the nurse who admitted her had exaggerated the magnitude of her condition.

Todd Smith, chief executive officer of Aurora Charter Oak Hospital in Covina, where documents provided by Phillips show she was treated, didn’t respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comment on the circumstances of the treatment.

Phillips said her husband used the guns for recreation. She didn’t blame the attorney general’s agents for taking the guns based on the information they had, she said.

“I do feel I have every right to purchase a gun,” Phillips said. “I’m not a threat. We’re law-abiding citizens.”

No one was arrested. Most seized weapons are destroyed, Gregory said.

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22. Colorado democrats pass magazine ban, 5 of 7 gun control bills
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Colorado Democrats are ruining the state. I'll bet in the next election they will find out that payback is a, well, you know.

Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From kdvr.com: http://tinyurl.com/b66avx7


Democrats pass magazine ban, 5 of 7 gun control bills; sponsors kill campus ban, assault weapons measure
by Eli Stokols
March 8, 2013

DENVER — Thirteen hours into a marathon debate on seven Democratic gun control measures, Colorado lawmakers took swift action on the three most controversial bills, with the bill sponsors killing two of them and passing a controversial ban on high-capacity magazines after nearly five hours of debate on that measure.

In all, five of the seven measures passed. A final, recorded vote is set for Monday.

Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, brought the day to a quick close by killing his own bill, Senate Bill 196, aimed at making assault weapons manufacturers and retailers liable for related crimes.

Moments earlier, Sen. Rollie Heath, D-Boulder, killed his own legislation aimed at banning concealed weapons on college campuses, a move that was rumored all day but still a matter of much speculation until after 10 p.m.

“This bill is intended to prevent death,” said Heath. “The fact that it has been massaged to say it allows rape on college campuses is reprehensible.”

Ultimately, Democrats decided a floor debate on the campus ban wasn’t worth the political cost of allowing Republican lawmakers to attack them for rendering college women defenseless against attackers, as they’ve done since Monday, when Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, challenged a rape victim who testified in a committee hearing against the bill.

And, it was clear to Morse that he lacked the votes to pass his own bill; thus, the late decision Friday to table both controversial measures, for which Senate Republicans had saved a ton of political ammunition.

Despite losing two bills, the key pieces of the Democratic gun control package survived in tact; Republicans left the Capitol Friday night celebrating the defeat of two measures and newly invigorated about their chances in 2014.

“Just as everyone is writing the Republican Party’s obituary, Colorado Democrats have committed political suicide tonight,” said Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray.

Magazine ban lasts five hours

Both sides planted an emotional flag on House Bill 1224, the ban on magazines of 15 rounds or more, and debated it for roughly five hours.

Confident they had the votes to pass it, Democrats were forced to let Republicans argue against the bill for as long as they wanted — and resisted the impulse to return rhetorical fire.

Lawmakers began debate on House Bill 1224 around 4:30, after four other less controversial proposals were given initial approval.

When the day began, Democrats knew they had the 18 votes – but no more — needed to pass the measure. As that reality became clear to Senate Republicans, frustration mounted, with GOP lawmakers charging that Colorado Democrats were taking their orders from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and the White House.

The Democratic case, made swiftly by the sponsor, was simple.

“High-capacity magazines are designed to kill a large number of people in a short amount of time,” said Sen. Mary Hodge, D-Brighton, the bill’s sponsor.

Hodge rattled off a list of places that have seen mass shootings in which the gunman used high-capacity magazines: Newtown, Oak Creek, Tucson, Aurora, Fort Hood and Blacksburg, Virg.

She also addressed Magpul Industires, the Erie-based manufacturer of high-capacity magazines threatening to leave the state should the ban be law.

“It’s their choice to leave,” Hodge said, noting that the legislation was amended last month in the House so that the company can continue to manufacture high-capacity magazines here for sale in other states.

“And it’s our choice as lawmakers to pass this bill to make our community more safe.”

Hodge specifically mentioned a FOX31 Denver report that Magpul had sought state tax incentives last year; Brophy said that the story was planted by the governor’s office that is being controlled by Bloomberg’s group.

Two Democrats voted against the bill, but three Democratic no votes were needed to prevent the bill from reaching the desk of Gov. John Hickenlooper, who supports the bill and is promising to sign it.

One of those Democrats who opposes the bill, Sen. Lois Tochtrop of Thornton, was set to offer an amendment that would have raised the limit to magazines of 30 rounds or more.

That temporary threat to the bill’s very survival, which spooked Senate Democrats for a moment, dissipated after Tochtrop, realizing she didn’t have the votes to pass the amendment, decided not to offer it.

Republicans, who came ready to spend hours arguing against all seven Democratic gun bills, brought visual aids to the floor to illustrate their case against the magazine ban, showing how 10-round magazines can be adapted to hold additional rounds and a map of all the local companies dependent on Magpul’s business.

“We’re choosing to send these jobs out of Colorado,” said Sen. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs.

Many GOP lawmakers read letters from constituents and from Magpul employees and its suppliers.

“These letters are probably their business epitaph,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, demonstrated how even a 10-round magazine could be banned because it’s “readily adaptible”, meaning that additional magazines can be attached to it, increasing the capacity beyond the bill’s 15-round limit.

Cadman also noted that the very Magpul magazines viewed so negatively by Democrats because they’ve been used by gunmen with mental illnesses were also used by some of the country’s recent heroes, the men of Seal Team Six, one of whom was using Magpul magazines during the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s home in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

“These are products mostly used by law-abiding citizens, like me,” Cadman said. “And by some of our greatest heroes.”

Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, offered an amendment that would have exempted members of the military, veterans and their families from the ban, but it was voted down along party lines.

Hodge, in asking her caucus to oppose the amendment, drew the ire of some Republicans and observers seated in the gallery for noting that some veterans have mental health issues.

Above all, Republicans said — in seemingly a hundred different ways — that the ban on magazines is a major infringement of the Second Amendment.

“I would much rather take my chances dying in a country that’s free than living in a country that’s not,” said Cadman near the end of the debate.

First four Democratic gun control bills approved

By 4:30 p.m., the first four of seven Democratic gun control measures were all given initial approval by the Colorado state senate, including the centerpiece of the package, a bill to require universal background checks on all gun sales.

That proposal, House Bill 1229, got initial approval from the Senate on a voice vote around 3:30 p.m., after three hours of debate on the bill.

Following the approval of House Bill 1228, which imposes a fee on CBI background checks, the Senate began debating perhaps the most controversial bill, House Bill 1224, a proposed ban on high-capacity magazines, around 4:30 p.m.

“The eyes of the world are on Colorado today, your constituents are watching what you do here and close to two-thirds of them are opposed to what you are doing,” Brophy warned Democrats just before the vote.

Polls show that universal background checks are supported by more than 80 percent of Coloradans, but Senate Republicans argue that this legislation is too broad and will criminalize law-abiding citizens who let their friends and relatives borrow their firearms.

“Background checks work to reduce violence,” said Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora, the bill’s sponsor. “In every state where they’ve been put into effect, the number of gun crimes and violent incidents have gone down.

“As a member of the Aurora community that has been repeatedly impacted by senseless gun violence, I can tell you it is time to modernize Colorado’s gun laws so that no one can buy a gun without a background check.”

Republicans argue that the legislation is an infringement of the Second Amendment that will make law-abiding citizens less safe and likely cost Colorado jobs.

“There is no government that has the right to take away our inalienable rights,” said Sen. Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch, who read a transcript of Monday’s testimony by Krista Ceresa, whose mother was murdered by Gary Davis, the last person put to death by the state of Colorado.

“By diluting these rights, my rights, you will only make people like myself an easy target,” Ceresa said, according to Harvey.

Brophy argued that the background check bill won’t reduce crime but will burden law-abiding gun owners and, potentially, criminalize them too for allowing family members and friends to borrow or temporarily use their firearms.

“This bill is dangerous,” said Brophy.

Cadman spoke about Outdoor Channel’s threat to stop film production in Colorado and the potential job losses that could result.

First bill voted on is key to Democrat’s political strategy, messaging

With people watching from around the state and the country, Republicans promised a long filibuster, spending more than two hours debating the first of seven Democratic bills scheduled to be debated and voted on by the Senate Friday.

“There are 15 people here who believe that this is no less than a fight for the survival of our country,” said Brophy.

Democrats scheduled the seven bills so that the most controversial proposals are debated last.

The first bill debated, S.B.197, is key to the Democrats’ political strategy.

Senate Bill 197, which restricts access to firearms for those facing protection orders or convicted of domestic violence, cleared the Senate on an initial voice vote; a final recorded vote will come next week.

Just as Republicans believe Democrats will suffer political consequences by supporting many of these proposals, Democrats believe that forcing Republicans to vote against S.B. 197 will provide additional political ammunition for them heading into 2014′s elections.

“It sounds good on the surface but it will imperil the ability of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves,” said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud. “It sounds so good, but it doesn’t work.”

After nearly two hours of debate, Cadman went to the well, told an emotional story about his abusive father and asked Democrats to table the bill until next week so both sides can work out a compromise.

“At our core, we would like to support this,” said Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Parker.

Democratic Majority Leader Morgan Carroll urged her side to oppose the motion, noting that lawmakers have had plenty of time to work on the legislation up to this point.

“I think it’s terribly partisan not to extend us that courtesy,” said Brophy.

The motion to lay the bill over failed on a straight party-line vote, prompting murmurs of disgust from the Republican side of the room.

“Game on,” one of them said.

Concealed carry permit loophole bill draws bipartisan support

The second bill debated, which closes the loophole that currently allows people to get concealed carry permits simply by going online, was approved quickly, after just 15 minutes of debate — and with bipartisan support.

Lundberg announced he’d support the bill after his amendment, which will allow some of the concealed carry training to be online, was approved.

Sen. Steve King, R-Grand Junction, and Sen. Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City, also pledged their support for the bill.

The sponsor, Tochtrop, announced that she doesn’t view her bill, S.B. 195, as part of the Democratic gun control package.

Tochtrop actually opposes three of the more controversial proposals, including the ban on high-capacity magazines and the assault weapons liability measure.


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23. True scope of gun control bill questioned [VIDEO]
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EM Ian Branson sent me this:

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The true scope of the Colorado mag ban is dissected in this video report from 9 News in Denver. Basically, the mag restriction limits magazines to 15 rounds and has language banning a mag that can be readily converted to hold more than 15. This means just about all magazines with removable base plates for cleaning would be banned under CO law.


From 9news.com: http://tinyurl.com/d5lhzo5


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24. Man faces 3 years in jail for pulling 'unlicensed' gun on burglar inside his home
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Yeah, government will protect us. Or, in this case, coddle the criminal and punish the victim.

Matthew Cyr shared this:

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From washingtontimes.com: http://tinyurl.com/a24mgmr


Man faces 3 years in jail for pulling ‘unlicensed’ gun on burglar inside his home
by Jessica Chasmar-The Washington Times
March 14, 2013

A Manhattan millionaire faces three years in jail for drawing an unlicensed gun on a burglar inside his home.

George Bardwil, who owns linen company Bardwil Home, was in his E Street apartment when an intruder came into his home in January, The Daily Mail reports.

Mr. Bardwil, 60, threatened the intruder with a loaded .40 cal Sig Sauer. The man fled and Mr. Bardwil called the police.

After showing the cops footage from his home surveillance cameras, they arrested him under suspicions of owning an illegal firearm.

The businessman’s lawyer, Michael Bachner, told the New York Post that the gun is legally registered to the defendant’s bodyguard.

“There’s no dispute that George was being burglarized,” Mr. Bachner said. “George had been the victim of multiple burglaries, and the DA’s office concedes that it was used in self defense.”


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25. Police: Woman carjacked, stabbed, daughter raped
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Helpless in New York - a mother murdered and her 10-year-old daughter raped. Man, all that New York gun control really works wonders!

Perry Hecker sent me this:

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From usatoday.com: http://tinyurl.com/cj4jlgc


Police: Woman carjacked, stabbed, daughter raped
March 15, 2013

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York man previously charged with having child pornography cut an electronic monitoring device off his ankle before carjacking a woman, fatally stabbing her and raping her 10-year-old daughter, authorities said.

David J. Renz, 29, abducted a school librarian and her daughter as they left a gymnastics class at a mall in the Syracuse suburb of Clay at about 9 p.m. Thursday, state police said Friday.

Troopers said he bound both victims, raped the child and drove a short distance to a spot where the girl managed to escape and was found by a passing motorist.

The motorist told 911 dispatchers he saw a man running away from the scene, allowing police to quickly send in officers on the ground and a sheriff's helicopter in the air. Renz was caught a short time later near a wooded area.

It wasn't clear how the girl escaped or when her mother was killed.

"We're still trying to piece the timeline together," said Trooper Jack Keller.

The child was being treated at a hospital Friday. Her mother died from multiple stab wounds.

Renz had been charged in January with possession of child pornography and allowed to remain free under terms that included staying off the Internet and away from places including schools, parks and arcades. Federal authorities said he cut his electronic monitoring device off his ankle shortly before Thursday's attacks.

He was arraigned Friday morning on murder, rape and kidnapping charges. Ken Moynihan, the lawyer assigned to his case, didn't initially return a call seeking comment. Renz was being held without bail.

The Associated Press doesn't publish information that could identify potential sex-crime victims and isn't naming the woman to protect the child's identity.

According to an FBI criminal complaint, agents who went to the North Syracuse apartment where Renz was living in June found four computers in his bedroom that he told them he used to view adult pornography.

Agent Alix Skelton said Renz eventually admitted using the Internet for the past six years to download child porn to a drive on one of the machines, which he turned over to the agents. Technicians determined in November that it had an encrypted hard drive and Skelton said Renz provided the encryption key. Agents reviewing the drive in December found about 100 gigabytes of child porn comprising more than 500 videos and more than 3,000 images, according to the complaint.

Among the images were two showing sex acts involving prepubescent girls, said Skelton, a member of a unit that targets people involved in online exploitation of children.

Renz was charged on Jan. 9 in federal court with possession of child pornography. On Jan. 29, a judge granted a prosecutor's request for an extension of the time required for grand jury action so investigators could continue going over "numerous items of electric media" for additional evidence.

Renz, who authorities said had no prior police record, was released after agreeing to stay at home at night with an electronic monitor and away from any place he might encounter people under the age of 18.

Renz removed the monitor, Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan told The Associated Press. He said federal probation officials were investigating what happened, including whether Renz was able to get around an alert that is supposed to go off if the ankle bracelet is removed.

James Greenwald, the federal public defenders lawyer assigned to Renz in the child porn case, did not return a call for comment Friday.


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26. Upstate NY murders suspect shot, killed by police
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Bill Hine sent me this:

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From nbc12.com: http://tinyurl.com/bnort9c


Upstate NY murders suspect shot, killed by police
By RNN Staff
Posted: Mar 13, 2013 12:18 PM EDT

HERKIMER COUNTY, NY (RNN) – On Thursday, police killed the man suspected of fatally shooting four people and injuring others at a car wash and barbershop.

The shootout between authorities and the suspect ended a standoff lasting several hours. Police stormed the abandoned building he was hiding in and opened fire after the man shot at a police dog, according to the Associated Press.

SWAT teams went in around 8 a.m., the AP reported. The police dog died, but no other officers were hurt.

Officials said Myers set his home on fire around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, then got into his car and drove to a local barber shop. After having words with those inside, he allegedly shot four people, two of whom died on the scene. The two other victims were taken to a local hospital, where they were listed in critical condition.

He left the barber shop, driving to a local oil change business, allegedly firing more rounds and killing two people there.

Myers then fled to an abandoned building, where officers say he fired rounds at them from inside. He remained there throughout Wednesday.

"We're concerned about officer safety so we're in no rush to bring to this a conclusion," said Joseph d'Amico with the New York State Police. "We want to make sure no one else gets hurt today."

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo said there is no "rational motive" for the shootings. [PVC: Just curious, Mr. Cuomo, what would be a "rational motive" to shoot 4 people?]

The suspect is reportedly a white male, 5'11", slender with white hair and a white beard.


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27. NY Lawmaker moves to exclude kids from gun shows
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More indoctrination of children into the belief that guns are bad.

Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From gunauction.com: http://tinyurl.com/btdc6jd


In the Gun Ban State: NY Lawmaker Moves to Exclude Kids from Gun Shows
March 15, 2013

(GunAuction.com) — New York lawmaker Linda B. Rosenthal wants to prevent kids under 12 from going to gun shows in the state, and she’s introduced a bill to accomplish that.

A March 14 tweet from Rosenthal (@LindaBRosenthal) said, “I just intro'd bill to prevent kids under 12 from going to gun shows. Kudos to @AGSchneiderman for agreement on Model Gun Show Procedures.” She’s a New York State Assemblymember (D/WF, Upper West Side).

So, in the Gun Ban State, it might soon be a crime to show 11-year-olds how firearms can be displayed safely and purchased by law-abiding citizens.

Obviously, what Rosenthal is trying to do is ensure that the tradition of firearms ownership can’t be passed on to the next generation, and that the safe and lawful use of firearms becomes a crime one step at a time.


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28. Bloomberg: 'lot of momentum' for gun legislation [VIDEO]
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How do you know if Bloomberg is lying?

Just watch this elitist egomaniac talk about controlling elections to take away our right to keep and bear arms. Notice how he says 90% of the public wants universal background checks. More lies from a gun grabber. He will say anything and do anything to achieve his personal goal of disarming all of us to make up for some kind of inferiority complex he has. He has 5 or 6 armed guards, yet guns are bad for the rest of us.

Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/bvod4tn


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29. After Aurora: How Mayor Bloomberg planned to make the next massacre count
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For him, mass murders are useful tools.

Walter Jackson sent me this:

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From politicker.com: http://tinyurl.com/afamoac


After Aurora: How Mayor Bloomberg Planned to Make the Next Massacre Count
By Hunter Walker
March 12, 2013

When the smoke cleared at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in the wee hours of a Friday morning last July, 12 people were dead, 58 were injured and Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in New York, readying an assault of his own.

The campaign that Mr. Bloomberg and his “gun team” came up with in the hours and days after Aurora involved carpet-bombing Washington with millions from the mayor’s immense fortune and a media blitz that would be deployed following the next massacre.

“He was so frustrated by the lack of conversation around this issue … that he decided to force the conversation himself,” Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications, told Politicker.

By 5 a.m., just a few hours after the shooting, Mr. Bloomberg was emailing members of his staff, preparing a media offensive against President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and what he perceived as their campaigns’ silence on gun control.

At 8 that morning, the mayor came out swinging during his regular appearance on WOR’s John Gambling Show.

“Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities. Specifically, what are they going to do about guns?”

The moment had come—in fact, it had come and gone several times. The next time a tragedy like Aurora went down, he would be ready.

In his years building the business empire that made him a billionaire, Mr. Bloomberg developed a unique fluency for numbers and learned to view the world through a statistical prism. Multiple people close to Mr. Bloomberg have said that the figure he’s most preoccupied with is the number people in his city who die of preventable causes. This obsession with bringing down the death rate has driven the mayor’s notorious crusades against smoking and sugar, and according to John Feinblatt, the mayor’s chief adviser, it was a major factor behind his decision to step into the national gun control debate several years ago.

“This was part head, part heart. The head part was, he had been extremely successful, with [NYPD Commissioner Ray] Kelly and others, in driving crime down during the first term, but I think there was a recognition that, to continue to drive it down, one had to do something about guns. I think that the mayor is always driven by data, and there’s one data point that’s sort of hard to miss, which is that 85 percent of the crime guns in New York City come from out of state, so you knew that to really address this, you had to address this nationally,” explained Mr. Feinblatt. “I think the heart part was … every mayor gets that call at 2 in the morning and has to arrive at the emergency room and break the news that’s going to break somebody’s heart … You see gun violence up close [and] personally in a way that federal officials just don’t.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s first national initiative was called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group he co-founded with Boston Mayor Tom Menino in 2006 to address what Mr. Menino described at the time as “a crisis on the streets of our nation.” In the years that followed, the group grew from 15 mayors who attended the inaugural summit at Gracie Mansion to more than 900. They shared gun control strategies and launched a PR campaign that included two Super Bowl ads.

It took the Aurora shooting to propel Mr. Bloomberg to kick those efforts into high gear. Both Mr. Wolfson and Mr. Feinblatt said the shooting was the event that defined the mayor’s current approach to gun violence. “It all flows immediately from that moment,” Mr. Feinblatt said.

Mr. Bloomberg’s anti-gun battle plan would be driven by data and paid for largely with the mayor’s vast personal fortune, allowing him to fuel the national conversation on gun control. Mr. Wolfson said this strategy “didn’t really crystallize until after Aurora” and stemmed from the mayor’s “real disappointment with the lack of focus last fall on this issue and the sense that the NRA had the field to itself.”

On December 14, 21 weeks after the Aurora shooting, Adam Lanza opened fire on an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 children and teachers. This time, Mr. Bloomberg was ready.

Three days later, he appeared at City Hall, flanked by more than 30 people who had been touched by gun violence, to unveil the “Demand a Plan” initiative his aides had been working on since Aurora. It included three “common sense public safety measures” he called on Congress to enact: requiring criminal background checks for all gun buyers, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and making gun trafficking a federal crime. Work on the “Demand a Plan” website had begun within 72 hours of the Aurora shootings.

Along with pushing the conversation on gun control—on the cover of Time magazine, and in numerous other media outlets—the mayor’s initiatives also shaped the White House’s own response. Mayor Bloomberg and his “gun team,” which has been working “seven days a week” since the killings in Connecticut, according to Mr. Feinblatt, have made multiple trips to Washington to speak with lawmakers and provide both polling and logistical data on the feasibility of various gun control policies.

In January, the president sent a plan to Congress that included all three of the key elements from Mr. Bloomberg’s plan.

With Mayors Against Illegal Guns functioning as the propaganda arm of Mr. Bloomberg’s anti-gun movement, its military arm is Independence USA PAC, a political action committee that the mayor created in October and tapped Mr. Wolfson to lead. The so-called super PAC is dedicated to electing politicians who support his gun control proposals—and defeating those who don’t.

Using approximately $10 million of the mayor’s money, the PAC saw three of the six candidates it backed in November House races go on to win; the impact of the mayor’s money on those races was hard to gauge, however, given the relatively small amount of time between the PAC’s October launch and election day. Even with a mixed record of success, Mr. Bloomberg’s election spending put Washington on notice, adding muscle to his other anti-gun violence efforts.

“Putting the PAC together with his, what I’ll [call] purchasing power, it absolutely keeps him on everyone’s radar, you know, no different than a Sheldon Adelson,” Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm told us during a December conversation about Mr. Bloomberg’s stature in Washington. “This is a guy that by virtue—just by the virtue of his financial means, is a player whether you like it or not. I mean he is because he has the clout to be that.”

Last month, the PAC notched its first unequivocal victory when Democrat Robin Kelly defeated former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson in a special primary election to replace Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who resigned in late November before pleading guilty to federal campaign finance fraud charges.

Ms. Kelly was supported by approximately $2.5 million in ads paid for by Independence USA that, according to Mr. Wolfson, “helped make the race a referendum on guns.” The New York Times, MSNBC and others all called the race a “win for Bloomberg.”

“We elected somebody who’s going to be a real champion on this issue. There’s going to be a vote in this House. She will be a reliable—not just a reliable vote, but a champion for the president’s proposals, and that’s really important,” said Mr. Wolfson of Ms. Kelly’s victory.

In many ways, the anti-gun violence strategy hatched by the mayor and his advisers after Aurora was uniquely Bloombergian. Both of his gun control initiatives are extraordinarily well-financed and, as a result, are backed by top political consultants. Demand a Plan—which was redubbed Demand Action this month after the president revealed his Bloomberg-friendly gun control plan—is also driven by data, with all of its legislative recommendations backed by extensive polling and research.

Whether or not Congress passes the president’s gun control plan, Mr. Wolfson described the mayor as “in this for the long haul.”

Mr. Bloomberg is currently headed into the home stretch of his 12 years in City Hall. Though he and his close aides have remained tight-lipped about his future, it seems clear he will be substantially engaged in advocacy on the issues closest to his heart, which, in addition to gun control, include immigration reform, gay rights, climate change and education reform. Mr. Bloomberg won’t say where or how he will strike next, but his gun control initiative provides a blueprint for the type of effective, expensive approach he could bring to this post-mayoral political activity.

“Look, the mayor has an enormous platform and will continue to have influence on the issues he cares about,” Mr. Wolfson said of the mayor’s future plans. “He spent roughly 10 million dollars last November. He described that as sticking his toe in the water.”




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VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc.
(VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization
dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The Right to
Keep and Bear Arms is a fundamental human right.

VCDL web page: http://www.vcdl.org [http://www.vcdl.org/]