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Not yet a VCDL member? Join VCDL at: http://www.vcdl.org/join
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VCDL's meeting schedule: http://www.vcdl.org/meetings
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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. Reminder: VCDL supper meeting in Vinton TONIGHT, Tuesday
2. Reminder: VCDL supper in NoVA TONIGHT, Tuesday
3. VCDL President on gun-control panel at Radford University on Thursday, April 25
4. VCDL President to speak at Albemarle Charlottesville Republican Womens League on Wednesday, May 8
5. Pro-Gun Provisions of Manchin-Toomey are Actually a Bonanza of Gun Control
6. Political mass meetings a good place to tell attendees about VCDL
7. Pennsylvania no longer honors Virginia NON-RESIDENT CHPs.
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1. Reminder: VCDL supper meeting in Vinton TODAY, Tuesday
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My fault on this event being poorly advertised.
There is a VCDL supper meeting at Famous Anthonys restaurant in Vinton, TONIGHT, Tuesday, April 16.
Early birds start arriving at 6:30 PM with food to be ordered from the menu at 7 PM.
Open to all members, families and guests.
RSVP and/or questions to al@vcdl.org (so we have a head count.)
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2. Reminder: VCDL supper in NoVA TONIGHT, Tuesday
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Members Deborah Jane Anderson and Mark Anderson have arranged a VCDL supper at a Fairfax Italian restaurant which has stood unwaveringly with VCDL and gun owners. The owner, Rosa, has kept VCDL materials on the restaurant's counter faithfully for a long time. She's had to do things like stop a gun-hater from stealing all the VCDL materials from that counter (the anti-freedom crowd also hates the First Amendment, unless the free speech agrees with their philosophies). She's had a few others try to make a scene to embarrass her, but to no avail.
The supper serves two purposes - to bring VCDL members to have a good time and great fellowship and to thank the restaurant for its loyalty. This is purely a social event and there will be no speakers.
To allow as many people as possible to participate, the VCDL dinner time will run from 5 PM to 10 PM on Tuesday, April 16. So come in and eat whenever your wish and leave when you are ready to leave!
The restaurant is:
Mamma Lucia's
Fair City Mall
9650 Main Street (#40)
Fairfax, VA
The restaurant is at the intersection of Pickett Road and Route 236 (a.k.a. Main Street or Little River Turnpike).
Heres a link to their Faceboook page: http://tinyurl.com/d4mxwyv
And, heres a link to a MapQuest map: http://mapq.st/Yp4FdM
See you there!
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3. VCDL President on gun-control panel at Radford University on Thursday, April 25
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I will be participating in a panel on gun control at Radford University on Thursday, April 25, at 7 PM. The meeting is being held in Heth 014.
Others on the panel include, Dr. Hendrix. Dr. Hochstein, Justin Blankenship, Peyton Youngblood
I am checking to confirm if this is open to the public or is just for students.
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4. VCDL President to speak at Albemarle Charlottesville Republican Womens League on Wednesday, May 8
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I will be speaking at the Albemarle Charlottesville Republican Womens League on Wednesday, May 8. The meeting is open to the public and starts at 6:30 PM. It is being held at:
Northside Library
300 Albemarle Square on 29 North
Charlottesville, VA 22901
The topic will be "Gun Control and the Second Amendment"
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5. Pro-Gun Provisions of Manchin-Toomey are Actually a Bonanza of Gun Control
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The more we look at the Manchin-Toomey amendment, the more bad things we see. For example, anyone under 21 will almost be blocked completely from purchasing a handgun. They cannot purchase from a dealer, but can purchase from a private sale legally. Since a dealer will have to do a background check on most private sales, and the dealer can't transfer a pistol to anyone under 21, the younger adult is left out the cold. Just another in a list of issues. Here is more analysis by a well-respected pro-gun attorney:
From volokh.com: http://tinyurl.com/c3uew6e
The Pro-Gun Provisions of Manchin-Toomey are Actually a Bonanza of Gun Control
David Kopel April 15, 2013 2:20 am
The Toomey-Manchin Amendment which may be offered as soon as Tuesday to Senator Reids gun control bill are billed as a compromise which contain a variety of provisions for gun control, and other provisions to enhance gun rights. Some of the latter, however, are not what they seem. They are badly miswritten, and are in fact major advancements for gun control. In particular:
1. The provision which claims to outlaw national gun registration in fact authorizes a national gun registry.
2. The provision which is supposed to strengthen existing federal law protecting the interstate transportation of personal firearms in fact cripples that protection.
Lets start with registration. Heres the Machin-Toomey text.
(c) Prohibition of National Gun Registry.-Section 923 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
(m) The Attorney General may not consolidate or centralize the records of the
(1) acquisition or disposition of firearms, or any portion thereof, maintained by
(A) a person with a valid, current license under this chapter;
(B) an unlicensed transferor under section 922(t); or
(2) possession or ownership of a firearm, maintained by any medical or health insurance entity..
The limit on creating a registry applies only to the Attorney General (and thus to entities under his direct control, such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives). By a straightforward application of inclusio unius exclusio alterius it is permissible for entities other than the Attorney General to create gun registries, using whatever information they can acquire from their own operations. For example, the Secretary of HHS may consolidate and centralize whatever firearms records are maintained by any medical or health insurance entity. The Secretary of the Army may consolidate and centralize records about personal guns owned by military personnel and their families.
The Attorney General may not create a registry from the records of a person with a valid, current license under this chapter. In other words, the AG may not harvest the records of persons who currently hold a Federal Firearms License (FFL). Thus, pursuant to inclusio unius, the AG may centralize and consolidate the records of FFLs who have retired from their business.
Under current law, retired FFLs must send their sales records to BATFE. 18 USC 923(g)(4); 27 CFR 478.127. During the Clinton administration, a program was begun to put these records into a consolidated gun registry. The program was controversial and (as far as we know) was eventually stopped. Manchin-Toomey provides it with legal legitimacy.
The vast majority of FFLs are small businesses, often single proprietorships. Only a tiny fraction of FFLs are enduring corporate entities (e.g., Bass Pro Shops) which will never surrender their FFL. By consolidating and centralizing the records of all out-of-business FFLs, BATFE will be able to build a list of most people in the U.S. who have bought a gun from a store. The list will not be fully up-to-date for every gun owned by every individual, but the list will identify the very large majority of gun owners.
(The maxim discussed above is sometimes rendered as Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.)
Now for transportation. The 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act immunizes from state law prosecution the transportation of an unloaded and inaccessible (e.g., in the trunk of your car) firearm through a state. 18 USC 926A. So if you are driving from Pennsylvania to Vermont to go hunting there, you can travel through New York State without needing to acquire a NY pistol permit. (Which NY wont issue anyway, since NY only issues to residents.) Toomey-Manchin includes some explicit language to make clear what was already implicit in FOPA, that such travel can include situations in which, while traveling, you stop to eat, refuel, or rest:
SEC. 128. INTERSTATE TRANSPORTATION OF FIREARMS OR AMMUNITION.
(a) In General.-Section 926A of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
926A. Interstate transportation of firearms or ammunition
(a) Definition.-In this section, the term transport-
(1) includes staying in temporary lodging overnight, stopping for food, fuel, vehicle maintenance, an emergency, medical treatment, and any other activity incidental to the transport; and
(2) does not include transportation-
(A) with the intent to commit a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding 1 year that involves a firearm; or
(B) with knowledge, or reasonable cause to believe, that a crime described in subparagraph (A) is to be committed in the course of, or arising from, the transportation.
But notice part (2) of the new definition: a new exclusion for any firearms crime punishable by more than year of imprisonment. In some states, such a crime includes merely not having a state-issued gun permit. So now lets suppose that the Pennsylvanian is going to Maine. On the way, he travels through Massachusetts. Under current law, FOPA protects him. Under Manchin-Toomey, Massachusetts can arrest and imprison him, and he will have no federal defense. In Massachusetts, possession of a firearm without a state permit is punishable by imprisonment up to to 2 years. Possession outside ones home or business is a sentence of 2.5 to 5 years, with a mandatory minimum of 18 months. New Jersey and New York City also have penalties of over one year for simple possession without a local permit.
Maybe the Pennsylvanian might qualify for some exemption under the laws of Mass., NYC, or NJ. Or perhaps not. What we know for sure is that today the Pennsylvanian is protected by FOPA, and if Manchin-Toomey passes, he will not be.
There are several other states where the relevant penalty is up to one year. Every one of them can exempt itself from FOPA by simply increasing the penalty to 367 days.
The 1986 FOPA is also known as Volkmer-McClure, for its prime sponsors, Democratic Rep. Harold Volkmer of Missouri, and Republican Sen. James McClure of Idaho. Michael E. Hammond was McClures manager for the bill. Hammand has identified a variety of other potential problems in Manchin-Toomey.
There are fairly small number of attorneys with serious expertise on federal firearms laws. Senator Charles Schumer, who works closely with Michael Bloombergs lobby, is likely to have had the full legal resources of that very well-funded organization. Conversely, based on off-the-record inquiry, I have not found any indication that Senator Toomey had any specialist expertise on his own side.
The result of the disparity is pro-gun provisions which are actually very strong anti-gun provisions: The supposed ban on federal firearms registration authorizes federal gun registration. The supposed strengthening of FOPAs interstate transportation protection exempts two of the worst states (the reason why FOPA was needed in the first place), and provides any easy path for every other abusive state to make FOPA inapplicable.
FOLLOW-UP: The proponents of Schumer-Toomey-Manchin are making a big deal about the criminal penalty of up to 15 years for violating the bills narrow restrictions on some forms of federal gun registration. A federal prosecution would, of course, have to be initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice, which is to say the very Department which would have violated the anti-registry provision in the first place. Expecting felony self-prosecution seems highly unrealistic. A far more effective anti-registry deterrent would have been a civil cause of action, with liquidated damages and attorneys fees, against any individuals who participated in the creation of a registry.
As for transportation, far more significant than explicit language allowing drivers to take bathroom breaks would have been a civil cause of action, with attorneys fees, for violations of the existing federal statutory prohibition on arresting someone for lawful interstate transportation. Without this remedy, some rogue local law enforcement can continue to violate FOPA with impunity, as they did in the infamous case of Torraco v. Port Authority.
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6. Political mass meetings a good place to tell attendees about VCDL
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Member Joe Ferguson sent me this:
I assume you know that Virginia localities are having mass meetings this month in preparation for the upcoming state Republican convention in May, where the candidates for Gov, Lt. Gov, and AG will be decided.
Tonight, I attended the mass meeting for Isle of Wight County where I live.
During the announcements period, I stood and told the audience about VCDL and pointed out how the candidates had just bragged to the crowd how well they rate with the NRA. I said that was nice, but what matters in VIRGINIA is how they rate with the VCDL! I told how VCDL is the 2A force to answer to in this state, and how aggressive and successful we are in moving the laws here in favor of our Liberties.
I invited people to look up the website, and consider joining, or at least getting the free email ALERTS, just to see how much we have affected things in the Old Dominion. After the meeting six people came up to me and asked me to write down the website for them, and asked more questions, enthusiastically.
Maybe we could mention this in the next ALERT, to get our members to make a plug for VCDL in these Mass meetings before they are over, especially now, at this critical time for the 2A.
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7. Pennsylvania no longer honors Virginia NON-RESIDENT CHPs.
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Gary Slider (with handgunlaw.us web site) sent me this:
Pennsylvania and Virginia have amended their agreement. Pennsylvania no longer honors Virginia Non Resident permits. Pennsylvania also amended their agreement with Arizona. No more Non Resident Arizona permits in Pennsylvania, either.
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/uploaded ... t_2013.pdf
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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/]