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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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1. URGENT ACTION ITEM! Fast tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill could do massive damage to gun rights!
2. John Lott corrects the record on Hemenway’s claim that “academics support gun control"
3. Everytown ignores an “inconvenient truth” about gun control
4. Solution to the electrical “pass through” weakness in gun safes
5. Fourteen killers prove that Universal Background Checks will not make us safer
6. [WV] West Virginia becoming a “Gold Star” open carry state
7. Man saved by Hopewell police officer survives brutal beatings, shootout
8. Let's blame it on the color guard
9. Report reveals the top three states for criminals to get guns [VIDEO]
10. Attorney General Eric Holder wants to disarm the police
11. Gun industry's helping hand triggers a surge in college shooting teams
12. [GA] Airport employee smuggling guns
13. [OK] Robber Assaults 84-Year-Old Man, Heads Towards His Wife ? Satisfying Video Shows the Next Moments [VIDEO]
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1. URGENT ACTION ITEM! Fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill could do massive damage to gun rights!
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Gun Owners of America is pointing out that fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the contents of which are SECRET, would leave a huge loophole for President Obama to create his own gun control at will. Congress would have little ability to stop it.
More here and a pre-written email to Warner and Kaine to oppose the fast-tracking:
http://cqrcengage.com/gunowners/app/wri ... ntId=98514
or
http://tinyurl.com/pclsf9w
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2. John Lott corrects the record on Hemenway’s claim that “academics support gun control"
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http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.or ... n-control/
or
http://tinyurl.com/kducbny
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3. Everytown ignores an “inconvenient truth” about gun control
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Only Michael Bloomberg and his organization could come up with the incredibly naive idea that “loose gun laws” are what allow STOLEN guns to be used in crime! No doubt the Demanding Moms will be in tow, too.
Everytown exploits NY cop slaying by ignoring ‘inconvenient truth’
Yesterday’s New York Daily News reported that the anti-gun Everytown for Gun Safety “carped” that the gun used to murder New York Police officer Brian Moore was “an illegal gun from Georgia” but the Michael Bloomberg-funded gun prohibition lobbying group ignored an inconvenient truth.
http://www.examiner.com/article/everyto ... ient-truth
or
http://tinyurl.com/qbk3d5x
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4. Solution to the electrical “pass through” weakness in gun safes
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After seeing the Update on 5/6/15, item 4, about a member whose house burned down, member Michael Jordan sent me this:
Regarding item #4; the writer's blog states: "The fire rating of your
safe doesn't mean quite as much when there's a plastic electrical
pass-through in the back to power a dehumidifier."
One solution to this is to use an intumescent fire putty either over
the plastic pass through or replacing it entirely.
This is a fire rated barrier that will swell up to fill the void made
by melted wiring/fittings during a fire, maintaining the integrity of
the items on the other side of the firewall (i.e., inside the safe).
This is a link to 3-M's product: http://goo.gl/KxIIJJ
Fairly common in Data Centers where there are wires and cables going
all over the place.
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5. Fourteen killers prove that Universal Background Checks will not make us safer
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... -not-work/
or
http://tinyurl.com/msjgq9m
Fourteen Killers Who Proved Background Checks Will Not Work
by AWR Hawkins 6 May 2015
On Wednesday, CNN reported that the guns Garland attackers Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi used were “bought legally,” which means they were acquired through background checks.
This makes Simpson and Soofi the latest in a long line of high-profile attackers who have acquired their firearms via background checks.
But because it is easy for an isolated example here or there to pass us by without making an impact, Breitbart News has compiled a list of some of the other high profile attackers who got their guns via background checks or who legally possessed their guns at the time they attacked. Additionally, we have compiled the number of persons they killed, the names of those persons, and the number of the persons they injured.
The goal is to press upon readers one simple fact — background checks do not stop persons with criminal intent but no criminal record. They never have stopped such persons and they never will. Background checks became the law of the land in the 1990s with promises of safety. In reality, however, they have just been one more step that high-profile killers take before savagely attacking innocents:
1. Jared and Amanda Miller (Las Vegas, June 8, 2014) – Passed background checks for their guns, then used them to kill police officers Igor Soldo and Alyn Beck. They also killed concealed carry permit holder Joseph Robert Wilcox as he tried to intervene.
2. Aaron Ybarra (Seattle Pacific University, June 5, 2014) – Used gun he legally possessed to shot and kill 19-year-old Paul Lee, and to wound 19-year-old Sarah Williams and 24-year-old Thomas Fowler. The Seattle Times reported, “Ybarra and the weapons were perfectly legal in Washington state.”
3. Elliot Rodger (Santa Barbara, May 23, 2014) – Passed background checks for his guns, registered them with the state of California, and obeyed the 10-round magazine capacity limit in CA. He then used a handgun to shoot and kill Veronika Weiss, Katherine Cooper, and Christopher Michael Martinez. He also stabbed 20-year-old Weihan Wang, 20-year-old Cheng Yuan Hong, and 19-year-old George Chen to death. The Guardian reports he wounded 14 others.
4. Ivan Lopez (Fort Hood, April 2, 2014) – Passed background check for his gun then used it to open fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. The Washington Post reported that he killed Sgt. 1st Class Danny Ferguson, Sgt. Timothy Owens, and Staff Sgt. Carlos Lazaney-Rodriguez, and wounded 16 others.
5. Darion Marcus Aguilar (Maryland mall, January 25, 2014) – Passed background check for a shotgun then used it to kill 21-year-old Brianna Benlolo and 25-year-old Tyler Johnson.
6. Karl Halverson Pierson (Arapahoe High School, December 13, 2013) – Passed background check for a shotgun he then brought into Arapahoe High. He shot fellow student Claire Davis, who later died.
7. Paul Ciancia (LAX, November 1, 2013) – Passed background check for rifle then used it to kill transportation officer Gerardo I. Hernandez inside LAX.
8. Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard, September 16, 2013) – Passed background check for shotgun then used it to attack and kill 12 at the DC Navy Yard. WSB-TV reported those 12 included 59-year-old Michael Arnold, 53-year-old Sylvia Frasier, 62-year-old Kathy Gaarde, 73-year-old John Roger Johnson, 50-year-old Frank Kohler, 46-year-old Kenneth Bernard Proctor, and 61-year-old Vishnu Pandit. The Washington Post reported that Alexis wounded 8 others.
9. James Holmes (Aurora theater, July 20, 2012) – Passed background check for his rifle then used it to attack movie goers as they viewed a screening of “The Dark Knight.” He killed 12 innocents. Fox News reported their names as 26-year-old Jonathon Blunk, 18-year-old Alexander Boik, 29-year-old Jessie Childress, 51-year-old Gordon Cowden, 24-year-old Jessica Ghawi, 27-year-old John Larimer, 27-year-old Matt McQuinn, 23-year-old Micayla Medek, 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 27-year-old Alex Sullivan, 24-year-old Alexander Teves, and 32-year-old Rebecca Wingo. 70 additional persons were listed as injured.
10. Jared Loughner (Tucson, January 8, 2011) – Passed background check for a handgun he then used to open fire in a Safeway Parking lot while then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was visiting with constituents. He killed 6 persons and wounded 13 others, including Giffords. CNN listed the names of the deceased: 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, 76-year-old Dorothy Morris, 63-year-old Judge John Roll, 79-year-old Phyllis Scheck, 76-year-old Dorwin Stoddard, and 30-year-old Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman.
11. Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood, November 5, 2009) – Passed background check for a handgun then used it to shoot fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. He killed 13 persons. HuffPo listed their names: 62-year-old Michael Grant Cahill, 52-year-old Maj. Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, 32-year-old Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 56-year-old Capt. John Gaffaney, 29-year-old Spc. Frederick Greene, 22-year-old Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 29-year-old Sgt. Amy Krueger, 19-year-old Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 22-year-old Pfc. Michael Pearson, 51-year-old, Capt. Russell Seager, 21-year-old Pvt. Francheska Velez, 55-year-old Lt. Col. Juanita Warman, and 23-year-old Pfc. Kham Xiong. Hasan injured at least 30 others.
12. Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007) – Passed background for a handgun then used it to kill 32 innocents and wound 17 others. NBCNews listed those killed: Liviu Librescu, Ryan Clark, Kevin Granata, Juan Ramon Ortiz, Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Christopher James Bishop, Brian Bluhm, Austin Cloyd, Jocelyn Couture-Nowak, Daniel Perez Cueza, Kevin Granata, Matthew Gwaltney, Caitlin Hammaren, Jeremy Herbstritt, Rachael Hill, Jarrett Lane, Matthew Le Porte, Henry Lee, G.V. Loganathan, Partahi Lombantoruan, Lauren McCain, Daniel O’Neil, Minal Panchal, Erin Peterson, Michael Pohle, Julia Pryde, Mary Read, Reema Samaha, Waleed Shaalan, Leslie Sherman, Maxine Turner, and Nicole White.
13. Naveed Haq (Seattle, July 28, 2006) – Passed background for his guns then used them to kill one and wound five. The Seattle Times reported the name of the deceased as Pamela Waechter.
In just these 13 examples, the total number killed was 90. The total number of wounded was approximately 173. All by persons who passed background checks to acquire their firearms.
Yet as recently as Monday, Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly told Oregonians that requiring background checks is “the responsible thing” to do. And on April 20, a defiant Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stood by his failed 2013 background check push by saying the push for background checks “made sense” in 2013 and “it makes sense now.”
Think about it–90 dead, approximately 173 injured. How does that make sense?
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6. [WV] West Virginia becoming a “Gold Star” open carry state
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West Virginia has had open carry for a long time, but they have cleaned up a few weaknesses in their law. We might want to do something similar with our long gun laws - a loaded magazine in a long gun without a round in the chamber would not be considered a loaded firearm.
http://www.examiner.com/article/west-vi ... ate-status
or
http://tinyurl.com/pbh8u5e
SNIP
"Effective 10 June 2015 a loaded magazine will no longer be considered a loaded longarm when in the woods or in a vehicle. And, finally, there will be a crossbow season for deer," added the WVCDL President, noting that WVCDL has been trying to clean up these open-carry issues for years, and sent a special thanks to Senator Karnes for his tireless efforts on these issues.
The 'Elk Bill's legalization of open carry throughout West Virginia, whether in a vehicle or on foot, means that "West Virginia will soon become a Gold Star open carry state," says John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org and a Virginia attorney specializing in 'gun trusts.' To gain Gold Star open carry status a state must "allow the open carry of properly holstered handguns without a permit on foot and in vehicles, and must generally preempt localities from banning open carry in public," adds Pierce.
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7. Man saved by Hopewell police officer survives brutal beatings, shootout
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Not a good idea to seek out your attackers. That's a job the police are paid to handle.
The victim is lucky to be alive. His attackers were not only willing to kill him, but a police officer, as well.
Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:
From worldnow.com: http://tinyurl.com/o95ra5u
http://meredith.worldnow.com/story/2857 ... man-beaten
Man saved by Hopewell police officer survives brutal beatings, shootout
by Mike Velerio
March 20, 2015
HOPEWELL, VA (WWBT) - A man who survived two brutal beatings found a Hopewell police officer Thursday morning, moments before two suspected attackers opened fire on the victim and the officer.
Hopewell Police arrested Devonte and Kunwane Taylor Thursday, charging both with robbery and assault & battery. Devonte Taylor is also charged with attempted malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, and shooting into an occupied dwelling.
In an interview Friday, the robbery victim identified as Adam said he was first beaten by one of the men on South 12th Avenue and Atlantic Street. He then decided to stand up for himself, and find his attacker.
“You shouldn't be afraid to walk home at night, and not a lot of people speak up,” Adam said. “I don't know if they're afraid or what. But people need to stand against this.”
Blood can be seen pooling within Adam's left eye, just above deeply bruised skin. Part of his left ear was also left bleeding by the end of the encounter, along with a bruised forehead.
In a cruel coincidence, when Adam asked a nearby man if he had seen his attacker, a second figure moved into view and began to approach Adam.
It was at that moment Adam realized in the darkness covering the neighborhood, he had asked one of the assault suspects for help.
“The first one hit me upside the head; that stunned me,” Adam said. “Then as I fell back, the other one hit me. I fell to the ground. That's when he started kicking, stomping on me. So I just folded up, trying mainly to protect my face.”
After Adam realized his money, I.D. and Social Security cards were gone, he stammered down the street and found a Hopewell Police officer patrolling South 8th Avenue.
“The cop turns the corner, I wave him down,” Adam said. “And as soon as he steps out of his car, they start shooting at both of us.”
Both took cover behind the officer's cruiser, as the two suspects ran from the scene. According to Hopewell Police, the officer did not return fire.
“It sounded like they emptied an entire clip,” Adam said.
With assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, officers brought the two suspects into custody.
The name of the officer who protected Adam was not immediately clear as of early Saturday, but the 22-year-old said he is grateful the officer was in the neighborhood to protect him.
“I'm very fortunate he was there,” Adam said. “I didn't even know [the suspects] had a gun on them. So they could have at any time decided to shoot me.”
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8. Let's blame it on the color guard
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Member David Fritz emailed me this:
I just shake my head when I read opinion articles like this one in the Alexandria Times. Lets blame it on the color guard??? I though the folks who commented online made some good points about other things (that) kill, so do we want ban them as well? [PVC: Tsk, tsk, tsk, David! Do NOT confuse the antis with logic and reason. Just stick with mindless emotion.
]From alextimes.com: http://tinyurl.com/lsd68zo
http://alextimes.com/2015/03/your-view- ... a-parades/
YOUR VIEW: GUNS DON’T BELONG IN ALEXANDRIA PARADES
by Eric Meade
March 16, 2015
To the editor,
Following the Newtown shooting on December 14 2012, I and many other parents across the country have spoken to our young children about guns. We told them that if they ever found themselves around a gun, they should get out of there and tell an adult. A couple of months later, my family and I were watching the 2013 President’s Day parade in Old Town when my 5-year-old daughter Charlotte turned to me with a deeply concerned face and said, “Daddy, they have guns!”
It was the Alexandria Fire Department marching by with rifles on their shoulders, since — I guess — firefighters carry guns? Realizing I was undermining everything I had told my daughter about guns during the previous two months, I told her that in this case it was OK since they were the firefighters.
Similarly, at this weekend’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, a group dressed as Star Wars characters marched by carrying weapons that closely resembled real-life assault rifles. In fact, the rifles were actually aimed at spectators as they marched by. This time, I had to convey to my 3-year-old son that while guns in general are dangerous, there’s nothing wrong with people pointing an assault rifle at you while they walk through Old Town. What?
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we put parents in the position of having to tell their kids that guns are dangerous, except that sometimes they’re not? Could we please just set a standard of not having guns in our parades?
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9. Report reveals the top three states for criminals to get guns [VIDEO]
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An attempt to artificially create “hysteria” over states with good gun laws by the antis.
Looking at the rioting and lawlessness in gun-control-heaven Baltimore along with gun-friendly Virginia’s much lower crime rate, I’d say that Maryland is where criminals prefer to live and do business, not Virginia.
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
From msnbc.com: http://tinyurl.com/kll46lp
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/report-revea ... s-get-guns
Report reveals the top three states for criminals to get guns
by Michele Richinick
March 12, 2015
For felons looking to trade guns, look no further than Arizona, Alaska and Wyoming – the top three states to buy, sell or traffic firearms, according to a new report.
The new ranking comes from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a group working to strengthen background checks for gun sales, which launched its latest state scorecard Thursday comparing gun laws’ ability to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals or abusers. A loophole in the federal system currently allows people to buy firearms sold online and at gun shows without first passing a background check.
The Brady Campaign analyzed 33 gun policies in each state and found that many make it “far too easy” for criminals and people with severe mental illnesses to obtain guns. Some of the areas the organization looked at include laws requiring companies to videotape all gun sales, stores to verify inventory through dealer records, individuals to report lost or stolen weapons and businesses to prevent bulk purchases of handguns to potential traffickers.
Twelve states – Louisiana, Montana, Arkansas, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, Nevada, Maine, Mississippi, Idaho, New Mexico, and Alabama – also earned the group’s “2015 Criminals’ Choice Award.” And 10 states made the “Traffickers’ Top 10” list for laws accommodating criminals who buy guns in bulk in states with weak gun laws and then resell them in states with strong gun laws.
The grades are showcased on a parody website, CrimAdvisor.com, which highlights the “friendliest states” for criminals to buy, carry or traffic guns. Their satirical motto reads: “A criminal’s best shot at finding a gun … No matter who you are or what you’ve done.”
The top states with gun-control legislation, referred to on the website as the “least friendly states,” include California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, ranked in order. Law enforcement officials in California, for example, have full discretion when deciding who is lawfully able to carry a gun, the Brady Campaign points out.
In neighboring Arizona, however, residents can carry a loaded hidden gun without a permit and non-residents can get a carry permit through the mail. Four years ago, a gunman opened fire outside of a supermarket in Tucson, killing six people and wounding 13 others, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, had acquired his gun legally and was not prohibited from owning one.
The majority of gun laws enacted in the past two years have originated in state houses across the country, not in the halls of Congress. Thirty-seven states have passed an unprecedented 99 laws to strengthen gun regulations since 2013, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Five states – Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, and Washington – have expanded background checks to all gun sales since the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. As a result, one in three Americans now live in states that protect them with expanded background checks.
But federal lawmakers haven’t taken up the issue since the Senate failed to expand background checks on all commercial gun sales in April 2013. It wasn’t just a big victory for the National Rifle Association and a defeat for those looking to reduce gun violence in America. It also created a narrative that gun rights groups were winning the political fight over the issue. But, nearly two years after Republican leadership blocked the bill, a bipartisan group of legislators last week reintroduced a gun-control bill aimed at preventing criminals and people with severe mental illnesses from buying guns during every commercial sale.
The only piece of gun legislation agreed on by both the House and Senate in 2014 was the Omnibus Appropriations Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law last December.
The Brady Campaign has ranked states by their gun policies since 1998. This year, they focused entirely on what states are doing or not doing around keeping guns out of criminals’ hands.
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10. Attorney General Eric Holder wants to disarm the police
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I think what he really wanted is for only the federal police to have guns or to federalize state and local police. I certainly hope our state and local police are paying attention to what was just said. In the end, we could all be targets of disarmament if we don't stand together. The State Police were pushing gun control this year and that is foolish on their part.
Member Billy Huckleberry emailed me this:
From mississippigunnews.com: http://tinyurl.com/leozy7y
http://www.mississippigunnews.com/2015/ ... he-police/
Attorney General Eric Holder Wants to Disarm the Police
by Dana Criswell
March 14, 2015
After a press conference about the recent Ferguson, MO shooting of two police officers, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls to disarm the police.
You read that correctly, Holder not only believes he should have the authority to take guns away from average law-abiding citizens, he also want to take the guns away from the police officers.
In an interview following his press conference Holder told Newslo
“As long as there are guns out there, trouble and death will just keep claiming innocent people. That’s why I feel that gun control is the way to go, especially in flammable environments like Ferguson, where the situation can escalate quite rapidly, as we’ve all witnessed, unfortunately. But, if neither the criminals nor the police have guns, peace and the process of healing will have a much greater chance of coming to life. Violence is just not the way to go, ever,” Holder concluded.
If you don’t believe they are coming after your guns you are not paying attention. Holder, Obama, Bloomberg, and the Democrat Party have a stated open agenda to disarm every decent law-abiding citizen of the country and that includes any police officer not under their direct control.
To many this may sound radical or crazy but how else do you explain statements such as this made by Holder. They seize every opportunity to further their agenda of disarming the American people.
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11. Gun industry's helping hand triggers a surge in college shooting teams
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Member Timothy Wise emailed me this:
From washingtonpost.com http://tinyurl.com/m5ytl53
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/gun ... story.html
Gun industry’s helping hand triggers a surge in college shooting teams
by Michael Rosenwald
March 15, 2015
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In between completing problem sets, writing code, organizing hackathons, worrying about internships and building solar cars, a group of MIT students make their way to the athletic center, where they stand side-by-side, load their guns and fire away.
They are majoring in biological engineering, brain and cognitive sciences, aeronautics, mechanical engineering, computer science and nuclear science. Before arriving at MIT, nearly all of them had never touched a gun or even seen one that wasn’t on TV.
“Which is strange because I’m from Texas,” said Nick McCoy, wearing a T-shirt advertising his dorm and getting ready to shoot.
McCoy is one of the brainiacs on MIT’s pistol and rifle teams, which, like other college shooting teams, have benefited from the largesse of gun industry money and become so popular that they often turn students away. Teams are thriving at a diverse range of schools: Yale, Harvard, the University of Maryland, George Mason University, and even smaller schools such as Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and Connors State College in Oklahoma.
“We literally have way more students interested than we can handle,” said Steve Goldstein, one of MIT’s pistol coaches.
Although some collegiate teams date to the late 1800s, coaches and team captains say there is a surge of new interest from students, both male and female, finally away from their parents and curious to handle one of the country’s most divisive symbols. Once they fire a gun, students say they find shooting relaxing — at MIT, students call it “very Zen” — and that it teaches focusing skills that help in class.
Some also find their perceptions about guns changing.
“I had a poor view, a more negative view of people who like guns than I do now,” said Hope Lutwak, a freshman on MIT’s pistol team. “I didn’t understand why people enjoyed it. I just thought it was very violent.”
And that’s precisely what the gun industry hoped it would hear after spending the past few years pouring millions of dollars into collegiate shooting, targeting young adults just as they try out new activities and personal identities.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a powerful firearms lobbying group, has awarded more than $1 million in grants since 2009 to start about 80 programs. A couple who own a large firearms accessories company created the MidwayUSA Foundation, funding it with nearly $100 million to help youth and college programs, including MIT’s. The National Rifle Association organizes pistol and rifle tournaments, including the national championships next weekend in Fort Benning, Ga.
Zach Snow, who oversees the college shooting program for the NSSF, said, “This is something the industry overlooked for a number of years.”
And now that the industry is paying attention, the growth has been phenomenal. The upcoming collegiate clay target championships — George Mason has won 11 titles, including in 2013 — has swelled from a few hundred shooters in 2010 to more than 700 this year.
Though industry groups distribute booklets to students counseling them on how to start programs and deal with reluctant administrators or communities — tips: write letters to the editor in the school paper and sponsor bake sales — officials say the teams have not generated as much pushback as they expected. Shooting is even publicized as a recruiting and teaching tool.
MIT offers shooting classes that fill up in mere minutes. A recent post on the MIT admissions office’s blog featured student Lydia Andreyevna Krasilnikova writing about a class rifle competition.
“We had five minutes for five rounds,” Krasilnikova wrote. “It was my first time aiming below the bull’s eye. At this point I was extremely nervous. My arms were shaking. I tried to time my breaths to pause when the jitters paused, fire when they coincided with my breath, and stop between rounds to pace myself. And I won!”
Shooting has taught her many metaphors to live by, including: “Focus on the shot you’re lining up now, not the one you just took, not the ones you’ll take in the future.”
For many, a breather
MIT’s pistol and rifle teams practice about four times a week underneath a gym. The range seems Paleolithic compared with higher-end establishments with expensive electronic target retrieval systems. Students send and retrieve their targets on a metal wire by winding a hand crank. Shooting booths are separated by window screens.
Students use air guns and standard .22-caliber competition rifles and pistols. In a pinch, they have made tiny replacement parts for grips with a 3-D printer, giving them an advantage over less tech-savvy schools. The school and team captains are obsessed with safety, and the coaches make sure that students handle their school-issued guns properly.
Pistol team members walk slowly to the firing line, pointing their unloaded guns straight up. They practice squeezing the trigger without any rounds loaded. Then they load up, set their stances as methodically as a baseball player getting comfortable in the batter’s box, and fire away. Goldstein, a former MIT student shooter, periodically offers kernels of wisdom during breaks from firing.
“You want to be calm,” he told a student the other day, “but you don’t want to be passive.”
Most of the MIT students say shooting is the one tranquil moment in long days filled with complicated problem sets, lab meetings and lectures, not to mention pressure from their parents.
“It’s a way to block out all the horrors of MIT and every other thing stressing you out,” said Abra Shen, a junior on the rifle team, which is coached by Melissa Mulloy-Mecozzi, a former member of the U.S. Olympic shooting team. “It’s taking a break from the mental chaos and calming down.”
For some students, particularly those who grew up shooting things on their TV screens, it’s not what they expected.
“I thought it would be more active, moving around and stuff, like a SWAT team,” said Kevin Ng, a sophomore rifle team member who is also in the Chinese Lion Dance Club. “I said, ‘Oh, I guess it’s not, but let’s give it a shot and let’s see how I do.’ I liked it.”
The teams compete in about a dozen matches and tournaments a year against other schools, including Army. Students treat competitions as seriously as a final exam, if not more so.
Afraid of his firing hand shaking, Thuan Doan, the pistol team’s captain, does not drink caffeine during the season. (He sometimes cheats on Fridays, when there is no practice. Shhh.) Team members even adjust their sleep schedules depending on match start times. For the upcoming national tournament, Doan said, “We have to get up at 8, which is just obscene.”
A new experience
MIT’s rifle team has varsity status and competes in NCAA-sanctioned matches with funding from the athletic department. The pistol team has club-sport status, meaning it must get its funding elsewhere. For that, it relies heavily on the MidwayUSA Foundation, which sets up an account for each school that alumni or others donate to. The foundation then matches donations and invests the money. Teams can draw 5 percent of their funds each year. The pistol team’s account balance is more than $363,000.
Dick Leeper, the foundation’s director, insists that the couple behind the charity, Larry and Brenda Potterfield, did not start the foundation because they wanted more customers for their business.
“They wanted people to experience what they’ve experienced all their lives,” he said. Asked why shooting had taken off in recent years on campuses, Leeper said, “You can go look up the club sports and do soccer, badminton, bingo whatever — this is something that’s a lot more exciting.”
At MIT, students who successfully pass classes in shooting, sailing, archery and fencing are given a ceremonial pirate’s certificate.
Some students plan to continue shooting after they graduate, but others say it will depend on family situations and how tough regulations are wherever they wind up.
And they acknowledge that many in society don’t think about firearms the way they now do — that it’s less about the gun, as one student put it, and more about who is using it.
Sometimes their friends ask, “Are you, like, a gun nut now or something?”
Doan, the captain of MIT’s pistol team, has been on the team four years — without telling his parents back home in California.
“I know they’d freak out about the safety aspect,” he said. “They are very cautious, and I don’t want them to worry.”
(It is not clear whether they read The Washington Post.)
But other parents have come around.
At first, Ng’s parents asked: “Are you going to get shot? Is some crazy guy going to shoot you? Are you going to get in trouble with the state for shooting guns?”
Now, he said, “It’s just really casual. They just want to know if I’m still doing my schoolwork.”
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12. [GA] Airport employee smuggling guns
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This won’t bother Bloomberg because it is a government employee smuggling guns into New York.
The smuggler screwed up because he should have worked for the BATFE instead of an airport. Then he could have been part of Fast and Furious and got a raise for doing the exact same thing! Perhaps even a high-level position if he had gotten enough guns in to the hands of drug-cartel members!
Board Member Dennis O'Connor emailed me this:
From mynews13.com: http://tinyurl.com/kozctjs
http://www.mynews13.com/content/news/cf ... rrest.html
Gun smuggling arrest in Atlanta prompts call for TSA changes
by David Bodden
March 20, 2015
ORLANDO -- The Transportation Security Administration, responsible for making air travel safer by screening passengers, is now under the microscope for not screening airport employees.
Recent gun and drug smuggling arrests have a number of lawmakers, including Senator Bill Nelson, demanding answers.
If you’ve traveled by air, you’ve dealt with the TSA screeners. You remove shoes, belts and everything else that might set off alarms. But Nelson said alarms are going off in Washington, after a baggage handler at Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport was found to be involved in a gun smuggling ring.
The senator said the employee had access to sensitive areas and never had to undergo any type of search and for six months was sneaking backpacks full of guns onto airplanes bound for New York. Nelson said once the guns arrived, they were sold on the streets.
Senator Nelson and other members of the Senate Commerce Committee will grill TSA brass on what they plan to do to keep situations like that from happening again.
Nelson met with security personnel at Orlando International Airport Friday to look at procedures they have in place to stop security breaches. In 2006 an employee was caught smuggling guns and marijuana to Puerto Rico.
Airport security reassessed the access points and reduced the number of doors employees could enter and exit into sensitive areas. On the remaining doors, screeners were put in place at a cost of millions of dollars per year. But the move worked and Nelson said Orlando International’s security plan is one airports across the nation could learn from.
The senator said of 450 major airports in the country only Orlando and Miami International have made security changes to screen employees and limit their accessibility to sensitive areas.
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13. [OK] Robber Assaults 84-Year-Old Man, Heads Towards His Wife — Satisfying Video Shows the Next Moments [VIDEO]
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This criminal should be in the olympics! Amazing just how fast he can run when someone is pointing a gun at him.
From theblaze.com: http://tinyurl.com/qcj67fy
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/03 ... t-moments/
Robber Assaults 84-Year-Old Man, Heads Towards His Wife — Satisfying Video Shows the Next Moments
by Jason Howerton
March 19, 2015
A robber in Tulsa, Oklahoma, became the latest criminal to learn how dangerous it is to put a man’s wife in danger.
Doug Jandebeur, 84, was getting into his truck parked outside of his Tulsa business on Monday night when he was approached by a robbery suspect. His wife was over on the passenger side.
Surveillance video obtained by KOTV-TV shows the suspect sneaking up behind Jandebeur. He reportedly ordered the man, “Don’t turn around, don’t turn around.”
The 84-year-old said he initially thought some of his friends were playing a prank on him. But then he felt the painful sting of a punch to the side of his face, letting him know the situation was serious and dangerous.
The robber then took Jandebeur’s wallet out of his pocket and started to make his way in the direction towards the man’s wife on the other side of the truck. That would prove to be a near-fatal mistake.
When he was done looking inside the wallet, the robber looked up and realized his life was in immediate danger. At that point, he ran for his life.
“I pulled out my automatic and was getting ready to ventilate him,” Jandebeur said. He added, “Once he saw my gun he decided to leave.”
The report didn’t specify what type of firearm the man was carrying.
The suspect escaped, but his face was captured on surveillance video so he likely won’t be free for too long. Jandebeur was left with a bruise on his face, but he didn’t seem very concerned about it.
Jandebeur, who has acquired a lot of life experience over 84 years, also offered some advice to his fellow Americans.
“Anybody who doesn’t arm themselves is asking for trouble,” he said.
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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/]
