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Abbreviations used in VA-ALERT: http://www.vcdl.org/help/abbr.html
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Lobby Day at the General Assembly in Richmond, Monday, January 21st, is coming up quickly!
Please make arrangements NOW to stand with us on that day. Mark your calendars and make the commitment to help protect and defend our right to keep and bear arms.
We need as many members and supporters as possible to organize into our lobby teams led by a team leader, which will visit and network with lawmakers to help advance our pro-rights agenda in the critical upcoming legislative session.
This is one of the most important days of the year for VCDL, and WE REALLY NEED YOU in one of our teams. No experience necessary. Our numbers are our strength! For now, just set the date aside. More information will be forthcoming!
To show how important Lobby Day is, see the articles at the end of this alert on how many Republicans are sounding weak-kneed when it comes to improving out right to defend ourselves. We need to make sure the Republicans and Democrat understand that we expect them to restore our right to keep and bear arms and we do that with NUMBERS.
We also need TEAM LEADERS.
If you have acted as a Lobby Day Team Leader in the past, or even participated in a previous lobby day team, we need you to lead an assigned team to the offices of each Delegate or Senator whose name is in the packet VCDL will provide. You will be asked to politely introduce the group at each stop as a VCDL delegation, provide the legislators or their aides with the VCDL guide to anticipated legislation, and ask them to support VCDL's position on behalf of Virginia gun owners. We will also provide you a questionnaire to fill out on each assigned contact, to help us determine and assess important information about each legislator as we move into the legislative session.
If you are interested in being a Team Leader, send an email to Dennis O'Connor at LobbyDay@vcdl.org.
SOME REPUBLICANS ARE ALREADY STARTING TO ACT WEAK-KNEED!
My comments are embedded.
From the washingtonexaminer.com: http://tinyurl.com/d5sjcks
Virginia GOP split on gun agenda for 2013
December 8, 2012 | 8:00 pm
Steve Contorno
Virginia lawmakers this year lifted the state's long-standing restriction on handgun sales, but pro-gun Republicans are now divided over whether to push aggressively for new gun rights in the upcoming General Assembly session or to lie low for a while.
Gun advocates scored a major victory when Gov. Bob McDonnell in March signed a bill that abolished the limit on handgun sales to one a month. Some Republicans are content with the win and aren't looking to stir up more controversy after a legislative session overwhelmed with divisive social issues like abortion. [PVC: Apple and oranges, the divisive social issues are not a specific constitutionally protected right.]
"I hope everyone is sort of taking a deep breath and re-evaluating these things," said Del. Dickie Bell, R-Staunton. "We got wrapped around it last year and I think we need to be careful on what we bring forward." [PVC: Careful? Every time we loosen up the restrictions on gun rights, people get their freedom restored and nothing bad happens. There is no need to be careful on the subject of removing gun control.]
Bell introduced a bill last session that would have allowed residents to kill an intruder entering their home, but he dropped the "castle doctrine" legislation and doesn't plan to bring it up again. The fatal shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin last February by a man claiming self-defense under the state's "stand your ground" law helped halt the Virginia bill and is a reason Bell isn't proposing it again next year.
Bell said there shouldn't be a rush to pass every bill that Democrats previously blocked just because Republicans now control all the levers of government in Richmond. [PVC: If not now, WHEN Delegate Bell? On the contrary - there SHOULD be a rush to restore the gun-rights stolen from the citizens of Virginia.]
But others in Bell's party want to press on. The GOP now controls an evenly divided Senate because Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling holds the tie-breaking vote, but Republicans could lose that control -- and the opportunity to push through their agenda -- if Virginians elect a Democrat to succeed Bolling in 2013. [PVC: YES - we need to move NOW. We never know what the future will bring. Virginia gun owners have no interest in gambling with their rights on the results of the next election.]
Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson, plans to bring back a bill next year that would allow Virginians to carry concealed weapons on state property, including college campuses. [PVC: Not all are weak-needed. We need to use Lobby Day to get the General Assembly behind Senator Carrico's bill!!]
"A lot of Republicans are not as comfortable as I am with the fact that if you're a law-abiding citizen and you haven't committed any crimes, you get to carry a gun and no one should have a right to take that away," Carrico said.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League also wants a bill that allows any weapon to be carried in a concealed manner.
"Throwing stars, a machete, whatever," said League President Philip Van Cleave. "There's a lot less lethal options people can carry than a gun."
Other gun lobbyists, however, can sense the reluctance to push on.
"At the end of the election and with another one coming up," said David Adams of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association, a state affiliate of the National Rifle Association, "there was a rumbling that there were so many gun bills that went through the General Assembly last [session] there's not a stomach for it." [PVC: Then we need to provide Legislative TUMS to the General Assembly.]
ANTI-GUN DEMOCRATS ATTACK VCDL AS DRIVING FORCE FOR GUN RIGHTS
I'll take a back-handed complement from the other side any day! This story is a reminder of how successful and important that Lobby Day is for VCDL. My comments embedded below. Thanks to member Jay Minsky for the link.
From delray.patch.com: http://tinyurl.com/d69t86m
Northern Virginia Lawmakers Say Gun Control Remains a Tough Fight
Trying to get more stringent gun control legislation through the Virginia General Assembly is something of a losing battle, according to at least two state lawmakers representing Northern Virginia.
Sen. Dick Saslaw (D-35th) lamented that he's tried multiple times to tighten up Virginia's gun rights, but to little avail.
He told audience members of a state legislative forum held at Alexandria's City Hall that three years ago he introduced a bill after a man shot and killed two police officers before shooting and killing himself.
Saslaw said in response, he introduced a bill making it illegal in Virginia to bring a gun onto police grounds. The Senate then narrowed that measure by making it illegal to bring a gun into a police station. House members ultimately killed the bill.
"When you can't get a bill through to ban private citizens from bringing guns to the secure area of a police station…," Saslaw said, throwing up his hands exasperatedly. [PVC: There is NO reason to prohibit good people from taking a gun into a police station. Bad people will do so with or without a prohibition. At least a police station is full of people who can, and will, fight back if a criminal comes in with evil on his mind. Criminals attacking police stations don't get very far, unlike those who attack gun-free-zones, such as Virginia Tech.] Saslaw serves on the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, which is responsible for legislation dealing with public safety. He also unsuccessfully fought against the repeal of the one-gun-a-month law, which limited handgun purchases in Virginia to one per 30 days for an individual.
What would it take to see more stringent controls, asked Saslaw. If someone with a gun acting irrationally goes into the building near I-66 and Route 50 (the headquarters of the National Rifle Association), "you might get sensible gun control," he said. [PVC: Nope. Read what I just said about police stations, where people can, and will, fight back.]
Saslaw added that of the 39 gun-related bills making their way through the Virginia state house last session, the NRA was involved in just four of them.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League was the voice involved in most of them, Saslaw said. The senator described the league's members as pulling out of the NRA and forming their own group because they saw the NRA as too liberal. [PVC: We didn't pull out of the NRA, we were never affiliated with the NRA. However, most of us are NRA members Many of us are also GOA and SAF members. But, hands down, VCDL IS the driving force for gun rights in Virginia.]
The nonprofit Virginia Citizens Defense League is dedicated to advancing the fundamental human right of all Virginians to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment and Article 1, Section 13 of Virginia's constitution, according to its website.
Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-30th) said he intends to introduce a bill during the upcoming session that would require people to report stolen guns, although he also noted that gun-control legislation never quite sails through the chambers. [PVC: Just more anti-liberty "special treatment" for gun owners.]
Saslaw also recounted that he received an email from an army captain who called Saslaw an idiot for trying to put more stringent controls on gun use and said the captain wrote "I'd never dream of walking down the streets of Kabul without a gun."
Saslaw said people need to realize that Fairfax County is not Kabul. [PVC: It would be a lot more like Kabul if Senator Saslaw gets his way! ;-) ]
"These people, where are they coming from?" he said, adding, "Certainly not from Northern Virginia." [PVC: That is elitism-speak for, "Anyone who disagrees with me is a dumb hick." Remember, Saslaw is the one who said gun owners were like the cast of Deliverance. The truth is what will keep Virginia free is to keep disagreeing with Saslaw and Ebbin and making sure they don't get their way! Lobby Day is Monday, January 21st.]
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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/]
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