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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. VCDL President to be on open carry round table Monday evening, March 24
2. VCDL Executive member Pat Webb to speak at Louisa Tea Party meeting on March 27th
3. VCDL President to speak at Hopewell Republican meeting on Apr. 3
4. Reminder: VCDL meeting in Marshall on April 10 - Delegate Webert to speak
5. VCDL membership meeting in VA Beach on April 16
6. VCDL membership meeting in Annandale on April 17
7. Power of Attorney is not necessarily used to disarm vets
8. Senator unveils 'Handgun Trigger Safety Act' to mandate smart gun tech
9. The go-to congresswoman on gun control packs it in
10. National Catholic Reporter (NCR): U.S. guns, not Obama, to blame for Mexican violence
11. FBI report shows violent crime decreased as gun sales increased
12. More guns, less crime
13. Citizens fearing tyranny embracing 2nd amendment
14. PJTV video highlights the untold story of blacks and gun ownership [VIDEO]
15. Gun control proponents push Visa to cut ties with the NRA
16. Growth chart of right to carry
17. Bloomberg's latest stats on school gun violence ignore reality
18. Criminologist: 'more youngsters killed in bicycle accidents' than with guns
19. Repeal stand-your-ground laws
20. Just another "accidental" activist
21. D.C. mom takes gun case to Supreme Court [VIDEO]
22. [CT] Round up (tens of thousands) gun registration scofflaws
23. [MI] Mom opens fire on home invaders in Detroit to defend children [VIDEO]
24. MO murder rate growth declined 15% after scrapping universal background checks
25. Opinion: Media cherry picks MO gun data to make case for more control
26. [MN] police sue NFL over off-duty gun ban
27. [GA] Centerville man shot in gas station robbery
28. [TX] Alleged robber fatally shot
29. [CA] First 'smart' pistol hits shelves in California
30. Ratings: Is CNN's Piers Morgan shooting himself in the foot?
31. *Graphic* Ukraine police shoot protestors with live rounds [VIDEO]
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1. VCDL President to be on open carry round table Monday evening, March 24
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At 8 PM on Monday, March 24, I will participating in a panel discussion that will be streamed live on the internet. The panel is being held by Open Carry Report. You can listen to the show and chat about it here:
http://opencarryreport.com/live/
You can also call into the show toll free by dialing 866-825-5301. The show will be recorded and released for download on Thursday.
The panel will be discussing ways to activate and energize group members to fight for our gun rights, the dangers of apathy for liberty, and what audience members should the pro-gun participants in a gun-rights debate reach out to.
My fellow panelists are:
Eddie Zaicek (President of Oklahoma Open Carry Association) and James Franklin (West Texas Regional Director for Come and Take it Texas).
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2. VCDL Executive member Pat Webb to speak at Louisa Tea Party meeting on March 27th
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EM Pat Webb has been invited to address the Louisa County TEA Party on Thursday, March 27. The subject will be firearm safety and responsibility. The public is invited to attend, you need not be a member of VCDL or the TEA Party. No RSVP necessary.
When: Thursday, March 27, 2014
7:00 p.m.
Where: Louisa County Library
881 Davis Highway
Louisa, VA 23117
http://louisavateaparty.cabanova.com/
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3. VCDL President to speak at Hopewell Republican meeting on Apr. 3
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Brandon Howard, Chairman of the Hopewell Republican Committee has invited me to speak at their Thursday, April 3 meeting.
The meeting runs from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM and is open to the public, so bring your friends, family and co-workers. (Those wishing to eat at the meeting should be there around 6:30 PM to order their meal.)
The meeting is being held at:
Rosa Italian Restaurant
4098 Oaklawn Blvd
Hopewell VA 23860
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4. Reminder: VCDL supper meeting in Marshall on April 10 - Delegate Webert to speak
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VCDL is going to have a membership supper meeting in Marshall, Virginia on Thursday, April 10. The meeting is open to the public and is being held at:
Old Salem Cafe
8366 W. Main
Marshall VA 20115
Ph: 540-364-1563
Fellowship begins at 6:30 PM and those wishing to have dinner can begin to order their meals at that time. At 7 PM the meeting will be called to order and it will run until 8:30 PM.
Besides of covering gun rights in Virginia, Delegate Michael Webert is going to speak at the meeting.
Bring your friends, family, and coworkers!
Thanks to member George O'Connell for making the arrangements for the meeting.
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5. VCDL membership meeting in VA Beach on April 16
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VCDL will have a membership meeting on Wednesday, April 16, in Virginia Beach at:
Virginia Beach Orberndorf Central Library
Auditorium
4100 Virginia Beach Boulevard
Virginia Beach, VA 23452
Fellowship starts at 6:30 PM and the meeting is called to order at 7 PM and runs until 8:30 PM.
The meeting is open to the public, so bring your friends, family and co-workers. As a public library, carry is allowed.
Thanks to Carl Bare for making the arrangements.
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6. VCDL membership meeting in Annandale on April 17
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VCDL will have its regular monthly meeting in Annandale on Thursday, April 17, at the Mason District Government Center. Fellowship starts at 7:30 PM and the meeting is called to order at 8:00 PM.
The meeting is open to the public, so bring along some friends and family.
Directions:
http://vcdl.org/node/180
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7. Power of Attorney is not necessarily used to disarm vets
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On item number 6 ("Military vets are losing their 2nd Amendment rights") appearing in the VCDL Update on 3/17/14, EM Mike Stollenwork noted in an email to me that a normal, routine Power of Attorney used by the military is NOT the kind used to take away gun rights. The kind that does affect gun rights is a Power of Attorney based on the inability of a person to handle his/her finances.
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8. Senator unveils 'Handgun Trigger Safety Act' to mandate smart gun tech
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Let the California police be the first required adopters of any such technology and let them prove the technology works over the next five years.
Any legislation that exempts law enforcement from such technology clearly acknowledges that 1) such technology is not reliable enough to ensure that the firearm can be used when needed in a life & death situation and 2) the lives of law enforcement personnel are more valuable and important than the lives of regular citizens.
Member Mark Colleluori emailed me this:
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From guns.com: http://tinyurl.com/lsf583s
Senator unveils 'Handgun Trigger Safety Act' to mandate smart gun tech on handguns
by Chris Eger
February 20, 2014
A U.S. Senator intends to introduce a bill called the 'Handgun Trigger Safety Act' into Congress that would require all handguns manufactured in, sold in or imported into the United States to incorporate 'personalized handgun' aka 'smart gun' technology within 3 years following the passage of the bill.
The act would also include grant money drawn from the coffers of the Department of Justice to retrofit older handguns with the technology before they are allowed to be sold by their private owners.
"No one wants children to get access to a handgun and hurt themselves or others," said Sen. Ed Markey in a press release.
"In the 21st century, we should use advances in technology to our own advantage and save lives, and the Handgun Trigger Safety Act will help ensure that only authorized users can operate handguns," he continued. "This is the type of gun safety legislation that everyone – regardless of political party or affiliation – should be able to support."
The bill defines a personalized handgun as one that "(A) enables only an authorized user of the handgun to fire the handgun and (B) was manufactured in such a manner that the firing restriction described … is (i) incorporated into the design of the handgun, (ii) is not sold as an accessory; and (iii) cannot be readily removed or deactivated."
The technology behind the bill is still in its infancy. A 2013 National Institute of Justice study on making 'smart guns' found that there was no commercially available gun in the United States at the time of the report and that the reliability of the prototypes being tested was a reoccurring concern since the inception of the technology 15 years ago.
The only gun currently on the horizon with an electronic lock-out is the $1,800 German-made Armatix iP1 pistol, which uses an RFID-equipped personal wristwatch as a near-area (within 10 feet) electronic key to the gun. Markey even mentions the Aramtix in a further press release for the bill, comparing it to James Bond's fictional "Skyfall" Walther, although the real Armatix does not have the same biometrics.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation conducted their own study on smart guns. In a national scientific poll of more than 1,200 Americans in October 2013, roughly three-quarters stated they would not buy a smart gun, would not trust the reliability of one, and that the government should not mandate such technology.
Lawrence Keane, Senior Vice President, Assistant Secretary & General Counsel of the NSSF, spoke with Guns.com about Markey's bill.
"We strongly oppose efforts to mandate the use of an immature technology that even the Holder Justice Department says is unproven and unreliable. Our survey shows that the overwhelming majority of consumers have serious concerns about the reliability of this concept and would not purchase an authorize user recognition equipped firearm," said Keane.
Given the hard reality about this fledgling technology, it leads one to speculate on the lawmaker's intention with pushing this bill.
"Of course, Sen. Markey's goal is not to advance the development of the technology but to use it as a backdoor means to a national handgun ban," warned Keane.
In 2002, New Jersey enacted the first so-called smart-gun law although it has not been invoked due to the infancy of the mandated technology.
Markey intends to submit his bill to the Senate in coming weeks while U.S. Rep. John Tierney, also a Massachusetts Democrat, has introduced a similar bill in the U.S. House.
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9. The go-to congresswoman on gun control packs it in
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Caroline McCarthy is calling it quits. Sadly she missed the real problem with gun control - it doesn't work and doesn't make anyone safer. So she wasted many years chasing after gun control laws.
In her zeal for gun control, she went so far as to try to ban barrel shrouds, but in an interview it was shown that she had absolutely no idea what it was she was banning.
She was launched onto the public stage by a doting media, who made a television movie about her tragedy and her election to Congress, which left the viewer with the impression that she was going to make gun control happen.
At the end of the day, she pretty much accomplished a big goose-egg on gun control. And that is how it should be.
Member James Durso emailed me this:
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From nytimes.com: http://tinyurl.com/l7eabcy
The Go-To Congresswoman on Gun Control Packs It In
by Francis X. Clines
FEB. 20, 2014
Representative Carolyn McCarthy hopes she can quit Washington for good before another group of families left grieving by gun violence arrives at her office. She suspects otherwise, since she's got another 10 months to go before finishing out her 18-year career at the end of the year, and she knows better than anyone in Congress the unyielding rhythm of the nation's gun trauma.
Twenty years ago, Ms. McCarthy was a nurse in an intensive care unit in the Long Island suburbs when her life was shattered by a gunman who rampaged aboard an evening commuter train and murdered her husband, Dennis, and five other passengers. Her 26-year-old son, Kevin, was left severely wounded in the attack. Groping for stability, Ms. McCarthy decided to leave nursing and run for Congress on the strength of what she called an irresistible "passion to reduce gun violence."
That passion has been severely tested. The issue of gun safety waxed briefly, then waned depressingly across the years as the gun lobby tightened its grip on Capitol Hill. And always, newly grieving families kept showing up at her Washington office. "The hardest thing was meeting the parents," said Ms. McCarthy. "I was basically the only person that kept talking about gun violence over all those years. Eventually, the newspapers and TV would call me up and ask, 'What are you going to do about it?' "
This grim routine was broken up by her immersion in other important issues like education and financial regulation. Her office displays eight of her enacted bills on issues like retirees' rights and childhood hunger signed by three presidents. But the flow of victimized families remained steady as they sought someone in Washington who could truly empathize, and not slip timorously past the gun issue with press releases of condolence.
"I knew what they were going through at that moment," she said of these visitors. "But I also knew what they'd be going through for many years to come." ("Dad's gone," Ms. McCarthy had to tell her son when he awoke partially paralyzed after the shooting.)
What she discovered about herself in reliving the commuter train massacre with each visitor was that her experience in intensive care proved to be a strange tonic on Capitol Hill. "We couldn't win every battle, but the lives we did save — it's the same motivation I brought to Congress," she said as if it were a triage ward. "As far as I was concerned, I was still a nurse."
At the age of 70, Ms. McCarthy is being treated for lung cancer, a problem she says is not the decisive factor in her retiring. For all of the abject failure to enact gun safety laws last year in the wake of the schoolhouse massacre in Newtown, Conn., Ms. McCarthy heard enough strong new voices in Congress willing to take up the cause that she decided it's time to leave.
Even after she leaves office, she knows she won't be able to get far away from the mass shootings that are certain to happen again; in recent times, shootings with multiple victims have increased to more than a dozen a year. "I will suffer as much as I do now when these incidents happen," she said. "Kevin immediately calls: 'Are you all right?' " after each new rampage, she said.
She recalled recently how her son proved decisive in her decision to run for Congress. "Kevin said, 'I promise you I'll be able to dress myself and feed myself the day you're elected,' " said Ms. McCarthy. "He kept that promise," she said. "Win or lose, at least I tried."
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10. National Catholic Reporter (NCR): U.S. guns, not Obama, to blame for Mexican violence
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Criminals, with the help of our BATFE, are the cause of violence in Mexico.
The National Catholic Reporter doesn't know much about guns or gun laws and doesn't do any research before putting this kind of baloney out. The criminals are getting FULLY-AUTOMATIC firearms from South America, China, and other places. They can't buy them in America (although the BATFE could provide them easily enough).
Member Bill Albritton emailed me this:
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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/qyt8xjp
NCR: U.S. GUNS, NOT OBAMA, TO BLAME FOR MEXICAN VIOLENCE
by AWR HAWKINS
February 15, 2014
In the second installation of a three-part series on "gun violence in Mexico," the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) continues to blame the U.S. for gun violence in Mexico, while viewing Fast & Furious as a legitimate attempt at law enforcement which just happened to go wrong.
According to NCR, Obama tried to reinstitute an "assault weapons" ban in the U.S. as a way to keep Mexico safer. He also pledged to "keep increasing the pressure on the gun traffickers."
NCR claims part of the pressure on traffickers included Operation Fast & Furious, which turned out to be a "botched 2009 operation to track gunrunners that resulted in ATF agents losing between 1,400-2,000 firearms," most of which were "assault weapons." Only half were recovered, and one was "used to kill a U.S. border agent," Brian Terry, in December 2010.
Ironically, NCR fails to note this "botched" operation rendered Obama's DOJ culpable in the very things Obama swore to fight against: "assault weapons" and gun trafficking.
After overlooking this, NCR shows Obama tried to fix the problems Fast & Furious created by passing more gun control for border states: specifically, a requirement that multiple purchases of rifles with detachable magazines and a caliber larger than .22 "merit [extra] documentation."
The result? Arms traffickers have adapted to this new rule and are "sending their straw purchasers to states farther north." There they are "buying smaller weapons with semi-automatic capacity."
According to NCR, "gun violence in Mexico" is the result of gun trafficking, straw purchasers, and weapons with "semi-automatic capacity" that can be found in the U.S. Obama has done his best with speeches, Fast & Furious, and new gun control measures for border states, but even these gun control measures were de-funded by a Republican-controlled Congress.
In other words, we are to believe that Mexican gun violence is the fault of the U.S., but Obama has done all he can to rectify it.
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11. FBI report shows violent crime decreased as gun sales increased
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Timothy Wise emailed me this:
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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/laphpmk
FBI REPORT SHOWS VIOLENT CRIME DECREASED AS GUN SALES INCREASED
by AWR HAWKINS
February 19, 2014
Violent crime fell during the first six months of 2013--at the same time the number of gun purchases was expanding.
According to preliminary FBI stats, "All offenses in the category of violent crime" fell during the first six months of 2013, compared to the same time period in 2012.
UPI reports that this included "murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, [and] aggravated assault and robbery." Specifically, "murders declined by 6.9 percent, forcible rapes declined 10.6 percent, aggravated assaults decreased 6.6 percent and robbery offenses were down by 1.8 percent."
On January 6, 2014, Breitbart News reported that background checks for gun purchases had skyrocketed in 2013, particularly in the early part of the year, which coincides with the period of time in which, according to FBI stats, crime fell.
Throughout 2013 as a whole, there were 21,093,273 background checks, compared to 19,592,303 in 2012.
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12. More guns, less crime
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Member Clayton Rhoades emailed me this:
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From wsj.com: http://tinyurl.com/p7nhz3v
More Guns, Less Crime
by Jason L. Riley
February 19, 2014
A new FBI report says that violent crime continues to fall nationwide, which might annoy liberals because gun purchases continue to rise.
In the first six months of 2013, murders fell by nearly 7 percent, compared with the same period in 2012. Aggravated assaults fell by 6.6 percent, and robberies are down 1.8 percent. "All of the offenses in the violent crime category—murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery—showed decreases when data from the first six months of 2013 were compared with data from the first six months of 2012," according to the FBI. Overall, violent crime in the U.S. fell by 5.4 percent. Burglaries, larceny and auto thefts also decreased.
The left likes to link violent crime to the proliferation of guns in the country, so it's worth noting that the crime reductions described in the FBI report correlate with a steady increase in firearm sales. "Gun records checks, fueled by a post-Newtown boom of gun sales, hit a new high in 2013, and industry analysts expect ammunition to be the big seller this year as consumers catch up to all of those firearms purchases," reported the Washington Times last month. "More than 21 million applications were run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System last year, marking nearly an 8 percent increase and the 11th straight year that the number has risen."
It's also worth noting that gun-ownership rates in the Midwest (39 percent) and South (50 percent) far exceed gun-ownership rates in the Northeast (22 percent), yet violent crime is down more in the Midwest and South than it is in the Northeast, according to the FBI statistics. And rural areas, where gun-ownership rates also are higher than average, saw a larger reduction in violent crime that metropolitan areas, where gun-ownership rates are lower than average.
Not that gun-control zealots, who are so certain of a causal link between firearms and violent crime rates, care about such details.
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13. Citizens fearing tyranny embracing 2nd amendment
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Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
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From chronicle.augusta.com: http://tinyurl.com/off9l4k
Citizens fearing tyranny embracing Second Amendment
by Damon Cline
February 15, 2014
I've heard that word used so much during the past couple of years. It's in the news, on the Internet, in slightly hushed conversations among friends.
It's because people are worried about the future.
They worry their government is intruding into their lives more each day. They worry about privacy, and the ability to go about one's daily business unmolested. They worry about unsustainable national debt. They worry about total economic collapse.
They worry their country – a republic founded on democratic principles – is becoming something else.
AND RIGHT NOW, because they can see tyranny on the horizon, they worry most about their guns.
Signs are everywhere. "Don't Tread on Me" flags. T-shirts daring you to "Come and Take It." TV shows about "preppers" getting ready for martial law. Ammunition-hoarding. Bumper stickers declaring "Our Forefathers Would Be Shooting By Now."
You know the nation has reached a bending point when celebrities (other than Ted Nugent) are mentioning guns and tyranny in the same breath – celebrities as disparate as game show legend Chuck Woolery and rapper/actor Ice-T.
"Our Founding Fathers wanted every citizen to be armed equal to the army in case of takeover by a tyrannical government," Chuck Woolery says on a video posted to his website. "They wanted us to have protection from them."
Tracy Marrow, better known as Ice-T, was in England promoting a film when the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting occurred. His interview on Channel 4 London quickly veered into a gun control debate when the reporter asked Marrow if he himself owned a gun.
"Yeah, it's legal in the United States," he said smoothly. "The right to bear arms is because that's the last form of defense against tyranny, not to hunt. It's to protect yourself from the police."
ANTI-GUN CNN personality Piers Morgan steered country music star Dwight Yoakam into a gun control debate during an appearance less than two months after the Newtown, Conn., elementary school shooting. Morgan asked him "why anybody needs an AR-15," the popular semiautomatic sporting rifle used in the Colorado and Connecticut incidents.
"I think it's born out of the DNA," Yoakam told the British-born host. "You know, those colonies that broke free and that were having troops marshaled in their homes ... . It wasn't about hunting. It was about being able to defend yourself against tyranny.
"I don't trust the government," Yoakam continued. "I'm cynical. I'm a kid of the '60s."
I don't believe we've ever seen so many Americans drilling down to the essence of the Second Amendment as intended by the Founding Fathers, which is that citizens have the right – the duty – to fight a government that turns against them. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison made no bones about that in the Federalist Papers essays.
GUN CONTROL advocates in Washington, D.C. – enlightened and intellectual as they appear – can't outsmart the Founding Fathers. So they have to sell gun grabs as anti-crime solutions.
The door-to-door pitch goes something like: "No, silly-willy, we're not trying to make you defenseless against the state. We're the good guys! See, we just want to get those bad, bad guns off the streets to make everyone safer."
Trade in some liberty for the promise of safety and security – and hope the promise is kept. Same deal for the past 100 years.
Americans who are not total morons have long understood gun laws have negligible impact on crime because criminals tend to disobey laws, including gun laws.
THAT'S WHY AMERICANS flocked to gun stores in record numbers during the latest gun control push in early 2013, a deplorable rush-to-legislate attempt while the nation was still in shock over Newtown. The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which gun dealers use to screen customers, reported that in the past 15 years, seven of the top-10 highest-volume background check weeks occurred during the three-month period the legislation was proposed.
What's beginning to change, I believe, is that more Americans are realizing gun control is not about the "gun," it's about the "control."
Which brings us back to tyranny; oppression exerted by an unjust government. History abounds with examples of what happens when self-defense is outlawed and government goes bad.
It's called democide – death by government. More than 170 million people worldwide – equivalent to one in every three Americans – were murdered by their own governments during the 20th century alone, a death toll higher than all that century's wars combined.
Pick any slaughter – Armenian genocide in Turkey; the Nazi holocaust; Stalin's forced famine; China's "Great Leap Forward"; the killing fields of Cambodia; ethnic mass murder in Rwanda. All involved the systematic disarmament of the people. Registration, prohibition, confiscation. Then the killing commences.
Those who think the United States is above subjugating a disarmed populace have forgotten slavery, the removal of American Indians from native lands and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
WHO'S THE NEXT domestic enemy of the state? An ethnic group, as the Tutsis were in Rwanda; a religious minority, as the Christian Armenians were in Turkey; or a social class, such as the "bourgeoisie" in communist China?
If America gets hurt, to loosely paraphrase President Eisenhower, it will be at the hands of Americans.
So I hope you'll excuse some of us if we sound extreme for worrying about tyranny in this country. It's nothing personal. It's just that we'd prefer to die in bed of old age, surrounded by family and friends, instead of kneeling in front of mass graves with rifle barrels at our backs.
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14. PJTV video highlights the untold story of blacks and gun ownership [VIDEO]
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James Durso emailed me this:
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From pjmedia.com: http://tinyurl.com/q2svk4t
PJTV Video Highlights the Untold Story of Blacks and Gun Ownership
by Rick Moran
February 15, 2014
Fascinating new video from PJTV on the history of African American gun ownership.
A new book by Professor Nicholas Johnson of Fordham Law School, Negroes and the Gun:The Black Tradition of Arms, tells the story of guns and African Americans and their long history of self-defense.
Glenn Reynolds moderates.
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15. Gun control proponents push Visa to cut ties with the NRA
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Member Rollin L. Reisinger emailed me this:
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We need to contact Visa and let them know that if Visa gives into the gun grabbers, and cuts ties with the NRA, then we as customers will cut ties with Visa.
First it will start with the affinity card. If the gun grabbers get their way, what's next - losing the ability to process memberships and donations? Gun stores being cut off, and going out of business?
We have already seen numerous incidents where payment processing was used as a weapon against our rights, such as these:
Credit card firm cuts off nation's No. 1 gun store - for selling guns
From washingtonexaminer.com: http://tinyurl.com/lccl7vg
Bank of America tells gun manufacturer it no longer wants their business?
From hotair.com: http://tinyurl.com/85z5obj
Visa Contacts: (contact ALL)
Corporate Headquarters, Visa Inc.
900 Metro Center Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404
Phone: 650-432-3200 Fax: 650-432-2875
Investor Relations, Visa Inc.
Attention: Investor Relations
P.O. Box 8999, San Francisco, CA 94128-8999
Email: ir@visa.com
Phone: 650-432-7644
Media Inquiries
Visa Media Hotline: 650-432-2990
Staffed Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. E.T.
Visa Media Center
Email: globalmedia@visa.com
From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/mbtadwn
GUN CONTROL PROPONENTS PUSH VISA TO CUT TIES WITH THE NRA
by AWR HAWKINS
February 20, 2014
On February 20, gun control proponents gathered outside Visa's Washington offices to pressure the credit card giant to cut ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA).
According to The Hill, various members of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence "claimed purchases made with the NRA Visa" actually raise money to help the NRA fight against gun control.
The NRA encourages members to "defend freedom with the NRA Visa card" and has "raised more than $20 million to date" via member card usage.
Lori Haas attended the protests and asked why Visa "is in bed with the NRA?" Her daughter was shot in the heinous crime at Virginia Tech in 2007.
She said she was able to "meet briefly with [Visa] officials," who "listened but made... no commitment" and "no comments of any substance."
The NRA currently has over five million members.
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16. Growth chart of right to carry
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Not only is "shall issue" growing, you can also see the spread of Constitutional Carry (concealed and open carry without a permit).
EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:
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Nothing particularly new, but well presented, IMHO.
From washingtonpost.com: http://tinyurl.com/l7wjbg2
Growth chart of right to carry
by David Kopel
February 17, 2014
The chart below [PVC: The chart can be viewed at the above link for this article] shows how Shall Issue laws for the licensed carrying of firearms for self-defense have become the American norm.
As of 1986, slightly less than 10% of the U.S. population lived in states where there were objective and fair procedures for the issuance of concealed handgun carry permits. About a third of the population lived in states where there was not even a process to apply for a permit. The majority of the population lived in states where issuance in permits was highly discretionary, and many issuing authorities refused to issue to ordinary law-abiding citizens.
By 2014, the percentage of people living in the Red states, with no possibility of even applying for a permit, has declined to zero. Illinois' 2013 reforms ended the problem of states not even having a process theoretically available. (The problem persists in DC, but this chart is only for states.)
As of January 2014, about 2/3 of the population lived in a Green state, with a Shall Issue licensing statute.
Purple states (concealed carry is allowed without need for a permit) have increased from Vermont only in 1986 to several states comprising about 4% of the population. Currently, the Purple states are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Vermont, and Wyoming (residents only).
The Yellow states (arbitrary permitting) were the national norm in 1986, but they are now outliers. Unless the 9th Circuits' decision in Peruta is overturned, California and Hawaii will have to become Shall Issue states.
This will leave Yellow states at less than 1/7 of the U.S. population.
Moreover, some parts of the Yellow "may issue" states are already issuing permits as if they were Green. In New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Delaware, permits are issued by local authorities, and in some jurisdictions, local authorities issue in a manner consistent with respect for the right to bear arms. Permits are rarely issued in Maryland, and are extremely rare in New Jersey.
The six hold-out states are increasingly isolated. Not counting tiny Rhode Island and Delaware, the four larger hold-out states each are all bordered mainly by Green states. (Mass. by upper New England and Connecticut; NY by Penn., Vt., and Conn.; NJ by Penn.; Maryland by Penn., Vir., and WV). It should also be noted that in two of Delaware's three counties, permit issuance is often approximately what a Green state would do.
Rhode Island is sui generis. There are two licensing statutes: a "may issue" statute for the Attorney General, and a "shall issue" state for municipalities. Getting a municipality to follow the statute and issue a permit may require great persistence, and even that is not always successful.
It is interesting to compare the above chart to the map showing the demise of laws against "sodomy" (oral or anal sex), between 1970 and 2003. On the eve of Lawrence v. Texas, there were still 13 states which had sodomy statutes.
Thanks to Rob Vance for gathering the data and producing the chart.
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17. Bloomberg's latest stats on school gun violence ignore reality
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The other side believes the ends (gun control) justifies the means, so you have to watch their "statistics" and "facts" like a hawk.
James Durso emailed me this:
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From foxnews.com: http://tinyurl.com/mhau8lx
Bloomberg's latest stats on school gun violence ignore reality
By John Lott
February 17, 201
Are schools and colleges dangerous places, with lots of gun violence?
Some groups paint a picture of these places being particularly unsafe. Supposedly both murders and firearm suicides are very common at educational institutions. Last Wednesday, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's two groups, Moms Demand Gun Sense in America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, jointly released a report that received massive uncritical news coverage.
They claimed that 44 shootings occurred in schools and colleges nationwide since the Newtown, Conn. massacre on Dec. 14, 2012 and Feb. 10 of this year. Out of the 44 shootings, a total of 28 died. To dramatize their numbers, Bloomberg's groups emphasized that one of these attacks occurred every 10 days.
But their statistics are not what they seem. Included in the numbers are suicides. Also included are late night shootings taking place in school parking lots, on their grounds or even off school property, often involving gangs. As "shootings," they also include any incident where shots were fired, even when nobody was injured.
Look at some of the cases included in their misleading statistics:
• A student at Eastern Florida State College retrieved his gun from his car when two men attacked him. One of the men was striking the student with a pool cue, and the student fired his gun wounding him. The gun was legally stored in the student's car and the police found that he had acted in self-defense.
• A 19-year-old was killed at 9pm in a field near the Hillside Elementary School in San Leandro, California.
• A professor at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology committed suicide in an empty classroom.
• A 23-year-old man committed suicide late at night on school grounds when no one was around the Algona High/Middle School in Iowa.
• A 38-year-old man was shot to death at 2am on the grounds of the Clarksville, Tennessee High School.
• A 19-year-old man committed suicide in the parking lot of a Portland, Maine high school. No one at the school was threatened.
The list goes on and on. Overall,
• About 40 percent of the deaths (11 out of 28) were suicides.
• Out of the 28 K-12 school shootings, at least four, possibly as many as eight, were gang shootings. Several of the college cases probably also involved gangs.
Indeed, gangs are a major problem. But they aren't just a threat off school campuses. And some schools just happen to be located near dangerous areas, so the gang activity spills over to school grounds. Linking such violence to the Newtown tragedy is highly misleading.
Also, some perspective is needed. Contrary to what many people believe, high school shootings have actually been falling over the last two decades. To illustrate this let's compare the five school years 1992-93 to 1996-97 with the five school years from 2008-09 to 2012-13. During the first period, the number of non-gang, non-suicide shooting deaths averaged 25 a year. During the recent five-year period, it averaged less than half that, 10 per year – and that figure does include the horrific Newtown massacre.
To put these numbers in perspective, there are about 50 million young people between the ages of 6 and 17. Another 21 million people are enrolled in colleges.
One of the motivations behind the report put out by the gun control groups was that the media was ignoring these so-called "mini-Newtowns." Yet, all of these cases received extensive coverage. A gun at a school (or even near a school) is considered newsworthy. For example, USA Today ran at least one story on 24 of these cases.
Scaring Americans may be Bloomberg's only tool for drumming up support for gun control laws. But it ultimately shows how little faith that gun control advocates have in their case.
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18. Criminologist: 'more youngsters killed in bicycle accidents' than with guns
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I expect Moms Demand Action to set up stroller protests at bicycle stores around the country. (Not really - they are just another gun-control group and are not trying to actually save any lives.)
Member Bill Albritton emailed me this:
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Those high capacity, rapid pedaling bicycles should be banned!
From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/oawhtgc
CRIMINOLOGIST: 'MORE YOUNGSTERS KILLED IN BICYCLE ACCIDENTS' THAN WITH GUNS
by AWR Hawkins
February 17, 2014
Responding to a recent report that Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (MDA) and Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) conducted about the dangers of guns in public schools, Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox said the annual risk of gun-related death in school is "well below one in two million," and "many times more youngsters are killed annually in bicycle accidents."
Because of this, Fox said he "trusts [MDA and MAIG] would support a national helmet law as quickly as a gun restriction."
According to USA Today, the report by MDA and MAIG claims "44 shootings" took place in schools since the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012. Rather than argue with that figure, Fox shows that it is "lower than two decades ago when gang violence was especially problematic at school settings."
In other words, there is a downward trend.
And because of this trend, Fox warned that coating schools with cameras and metal detectors and practicing lockdown drills "not only fail to prevent some teenager or adult determined to wreak havoc on innocent children and their dedicated teachers, but they send the wrong and excessively scary message concerning the risk."
As Breitbart News reported on December 17, 2012, Fox has been studying "mass shootings" since the 1980s. Following Sandy Hook, he said, "There is no pattern, there is no increase." He said such attacks seem prevalent because of the amount of media attention given them.
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19. Repeal stand-your-ground laws
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Stand-your-ground laws shift the power to the innocent victim of violent crime and keep the victim's hands unbound so he can lawfully defend himself without being tried for murder.
From washingtonpost.com: http://tinyurl.com/p28bkxa
Repeal stand-your-ground laws
by E.J. Dionne Jr.,
February 19
The law is supposed to solve problems, not create them. Laws should provide as much clarity as possible, not expand the realms of ambiguity and subjectivity. Laws ought to bring about the practical results their promoters claim they'll achieve. And at its best, the law can help us to live together more harmoniously.
By all these measures, "stand your ground" laws are a failure. These statutes make the already difficult task of jurors even harder. They aggravate mistrust across racial lines. They appear to increase, rather than decrease, crime.
We should not have had to go through another racially charged trial in Florida to learn all this. Writing online for The Post, Mark Berman offered a succinct account of the facts of the Michael Dunn case that has aroused so much legitimate passion.
"In November 2012, Michael Dunn shot 17-year-old Jordan Davis in a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station parking lot. Dunn had approached a Dodge Durango holding Davis and three other teenagers and asked them to turn down their music. . . . An argument developed, and Dunn fired 10 times at the vehicle, including multiple shots fired as it pulled away.
"Davis died almost immediately after he was hit. . . . Dunn, who was in town for a wedding, returned to his hotel and drove back home to Brevard County the following morning; he was arrested later that day." Dunn said he saw a shotgun in the Durango, but there was no evidence of one.
Dunn was convicted on three counts of attempted second-degree murder, but the jury hung on the first-degree murder charge brought in connection with Davis's death.
The verdict came seven months after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the Sanford, Fla., killing of Trayvon Martin in another case where the stand-your-ground law was at issue. [PVC: Wrong! Stand-your-ground was NOT an issue in the Zimmerman case. The defense never raised it. The only ones who raise it were the anti-gun extremists who oppose self defense.] Both Martin and Davis were black teenagers. Should it surprise anyone that many African Americans fear that the law does not protect young males of color when they find themselves in confrontations with whites?
We shouldn't fault the Dunn jury, which seemed to struggle to reach a just outcome. Unlike Zimmerman, the 47-year-old Dunn was not acquitted and could spend the rest of his life in prison. The jury clearly saw no justification for his firing at a fleeing car. But the stand-your-ground law undoubtedly sowed confusion on the murder count.
Supporters of the law say it was technically not at issue in the case, but this overlooks the obvious role it played in the trial. Cory Strolla, Dunn's lawyer, mentioned it in his closing argument: "His honor will further tell you," Strolla said, "that if Michael Dunn was in a public place where he had a legal right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force." The judge, Russell L. Healey, was required to read the relevant stand-your-ground provisions to the jury.
Florida's statute allows someone to use force if he or she "reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other's imminent use of unlawful force." The "reasonable belief" standard is not unique to stand-your-ground laws, but it opens a vast loophole for extreme subjectivity when it is applied in conjunction with them. This has created problems that even the law's supporters should acknowledge.
A comprehensive 2012 examination of the law by the Tampa Bay Times concluded: "Seven years since it was passed, Florida's 'stand your ground' law is being invoked with unexpected frequency, in ways no one imagined, to free killers and violent attackers whose self-defense claims seem questionable at best." The law, the Times reporters wrote, has "confused judges" and has "allowed drug dealers to avoid murder charges and gang members to walk free."
A study by two Texas A&M economists found that such laws "do not deter burglary, robbery, or aggravated assault" but do "lead to a statistically significant 8 percent net increase in the number of reported murders and non-negligent manslaughters."
Stand-your-ground laws shift the balance of power on the streets to those who carry weapons. They thus provide an incentive for everyone to be armed, which is why the National Rifle Association has pressured legislatures in some two dozen states to enact them. We shouldn't have to wait for another death and controversial trial to recognize that this is a poor reason for laws that cause such palpable harm. It's time to repeal them.
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20. Just another "accidental" activist
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Article about the founder of Mothers Demand Illegal Mayors, or whatever they are called. ;-) She's not the person she tries to make herself out to be.
Member Dean Rogers emailed me this:
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From memoryholeblog.com: http://tinyurl.com/mgtknty
Just Another "Accidental" Activist
by James F. Tracy
February 16, 2014
Shannon Watts often explains how she's simply a reluctant activist. The plain ole everyday stay-at-home Midwestern mom founded Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (MDA) on December 15, 2012, just a day after the Sandy Hook School massacre. Boasting "tens of thousands of members and over 80 local chapters,"[1] the organization seeks to accomplish for gun control what Mothers Against Drunk Driving did for sobriety behind the wheel.
MDA joined Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) on February 12th to issue a new joint study highlighting at least 44 school and college shootings since December 2012. With a total fatality count of 28, the report emphasizes how the tragic events have surpassed that of Newtown itself.
"We are a developed country," Shannon declared in a fed-up tone upon the study's release, "and we have to ask ourselves what is wrong with our culture and laws that's creating an environment where not only do we have 44 school shootings in the past 14 months – but we are doing nothing about it."[2]
Is it beyond reason to ask, "Who exactly is Shannon Watts?" This is a question major news media outlets have predictably left unexamined. Again, the 43-year-old is a self-styled "mother of five children," a modest "stay-at-home mom in Zionsville, a suburb of Indianapolis, Indiana." Watts is also portrayed in glitzy promos and has been wholeheartedly embraced by venues such as MSNBC as simply "a mom who demands action" to stop gun violence–the kind of gal who wants "sensible" gun laws, much like Boss Michael Bloomberg, President Obama, and many Congressional Democrats.
Yet Watts' public persona was one she has only recently acquired. In fact, she has spent two decades quietly behind the scenes as an extremely ambitious executive at several major public relations firms and Fortune 500 companies. Watts' Linked In profile indicates that she formally left the PR profession in June 2012, just six months before the Sandy Hook event.
At that time Watts headed up her own "boutique" firm, VoxPop Public Relations, while working as a freelance consultant for clients of public relations behemoth Fleishman-Hillard. Watts began VoxPop in 2008, the same year she was recognized by the foremost public relations trade journal, PR Week, as one of its "40 Under 40," for notable achievements and future promise in the industry.
Overall, Shannon Watts, who until only recently went by the last name Troughton, began work fresh out of University of Missouri in 1993 as a public affairs officer for Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, the Missouri House of Representatives, and the Missouri Department of Economic Development.
In 1998 Watts (Troughton) moved on to further develop her propaganda acumen as Vice President of Corporate and Public Affairs at the major PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, where she remained until 2001. Watts then became Director of Global and Public Affairs at the Monsanto Corporation "where she led external initiatives designed to generate positive, proactive media coverage of the company's agriculture biotechnology products."[3]
Between 2004 and 2006 Watts served as Director of Global Communications for GE Healthcare, General Electric's $15 billion medical and diagnostics device unit. She then joined WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance corporation, as its Vice President of Corporate Communications.
At WellPoint Watts oversaw an impressive "30-person corporate communications team" until 2008, when she stepped down to begin VoxPop Public Relations. Watts "started the firm because she saw a need for boutique agencies that can provide the same service at a lower cost during the recession," PR Week observes.[4]
Watts' Linked In profile lists numerous proficiencies, including "New Media," "Crisis Management," "Crisis Communications," "Thought Leadership" [sic], "Publicity," "Integrated Marketing," and "Marketing Communications."
In other words, as a very highly-positioned and well-connected public relations maestro, Watts is an especially apt individual to head up MDA—perhaps too apt. Given her talents (that systematically go without mention in news stories) it is perhaps unsurprising that Watts has been embraced by corporate news media outlets that strongly back heightened gun control measures and routinely cite Sandy Hook as a transformative event in this regard.
For example, here's Shannon playing reluctant protester at the January 2013 "March on Washington for Gun Control." "I am not a politician. I am a mom from Indiana," Watts declares. "I am an accidental activist." [VIDEO]
Here's Shannon on MSNBC, where she is introduced not as a professional flack, but simply as the "Founder" of MDA and "Mother of Five Kids." [VIDEO]
More recently Shannon has appeared on MSNBC's "The Ed Show," where she provides her account of being accosted by a motley pack of "gun bullies" while on a simple coffee date with like-minded moms. Asked by host Ed Shultz whether she had previously been an activist, Watts responds, "Never in my entire life. I became an accidental activist on, uh, December 15, 2012, after Sandy Hook–the day after–and I will never go back …" [VIDEO]
Watts has also become a de-facto columnist for the Huffington Post, having written nine opinion pieces since January 2013—about one every six weeks—as the "stay at home mom" and former "communications executive" who has finally found her cause.[5] One piece appearing on Mother's Day, "Keep Your Flowers on Mothers Day, I want My Rights," predictably trotted out Sandy Hook as a rallying cry. "Twenty children and six adults had been slaughtered in the sanctity of an elementary school by an assault weapon designed for the battlefield," Watts tells HuffPo readers.
The horror of it was almost too much to believe or comprehend. This has to be the tipping point, I thought. This has to be what moved us as a country to change. But it wasn't. Twenty dead first-graders weren't enough to advance even the weakest of legislative measures.[6]
Here is yet another especially unusual development closely related to the Sandy Hook massacre. In this instance a highly experienced public relations practitioner apparently quits a very promising career, then just months later happens to start up a prominent non-profit activist organization that echoes the voices of Newtown parents–the day following the incident itself. The organization is also now closely aligned with Bloomberg's MAIG, a group that similarly clings to Sandy Hook, and will thus have more than ample resources going forward.
Over the past year MDA has generated publicity by pressuring retail chains Starbucks and Staples to issue policies preventing their law-abiding customers from possessing weapons inside their stores. It will soon be embarking on a campaign against McDonald's to enact similar measures.[7]
As an expert PR practitioner Shannon Watts appears to have a great deal in common not only with Sandy Hook's central players, but also the classic engineers of mass consent. By combining her personal identity and professional forte toward furthering a broader narrative intended to refashion public understanding and will, Watts demonstrates the greatest of moral forfeitures so common to modern governance–specifically, inducing a credulous constituency toward the false notion that a statist monopoly over killing technology will somehow achieve more secure communities and public spaces. History suggests such a concentration of power brings about quite the opposite.
Notes
[1] "Shannon Watts," (Contributor Profile), Huffington Post, n.d. See also, "'Grassroots' Gun Control Org "Moms Demand …" is Utterly Astroturf," DemocraticUnderground, November 8, 2013.
[2] Ed Pilkington, "Twenty-Eight Killed in 44 US School Shootings Since Newtown, Study Finds," UK Guardian, February 12, 2014.
[3] "Launce of New Public Relations Agency, VoxPop Public Relations LLC; Shannon Troughton Named 40 Under 40 By PR Week," PRNewsWire.com, n.d.
[4]. Ibid.
[5] "Shannon Watts."
[6] Shannon Watts, "Keep Your Flowers on Mothers Day, I Want My Rights," Huffington Post, May 8, 2013. The extent to which such "mass shooter" events are authentic requires more serious consideration than it has heretofore received. See, for example, Nona Willis Aronowitz, "Fake Blood and Blanks: Schools Stage Active Shooter Drills," NBC News, February 14, 2014; James F. Tracy, "Nationwide Post-Sandy Hook Shooter Drills: Real or Fake?" MemoryHoleBlog, August 22, 2013.
[7] Clare O'Connor, "After Starbucks Success, Gun Control Advocates Target Staples," Forbes, September 26, 2013; Awr Hawkins, "Bloomberg Joins Moms Demand Action to Pressure Businesses for Gun Control," Breitbart.com, December 22, 2013.
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21. D.C. mom takes gun case to Supreme Court [VIDEO]
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From washingtontimes.com: http://tinyurl.com/n77kafq
D.C. mom takes gun case to Supreme Court
by Kelly Riddell-The Washington Times
February 19, 2014
Amanda Welling has traveled a long, twisting road to transfer her handgun from her former Texas home to her new one in Southeast D.C. — a road that has led her to the Supreme Court.
An experienced gun user, Mrs. Welling wanted her Glock pistol for protection when her family moved to Anacostia in 2011. But the District's only vendor with a federal firearms license had lost the lease on his store, temporarily shuttering his duties and leaving the 30-year-old stay-at-home mom with no legal way to bring her weapon from Texas.
"We were just getting settled in with the baby, and there were all of these break-ins and robberies — someone was shot point-blank not too far from where we were living," she said. "I felt we needed the gun for home protection."
Her challenge to the federal Gun Control Act of 1968 is bundled with several other gun rights cases that the Supreme Court is to decide by Friday whether to hear. The law allows only federally licensed firearms vendors to receive and process handguns purchased or brought from out of state.
Her attorney, Alan Gura, said that if her lawsuit succeeds, residents of any state will be able to buy or transfer any handgun that can be sold legally in any state and take possession of it without the intercession of a federally licensed middleman.
"The standing issue that we're seeing with our case could be utilized to ban any number of things," Mr. Gura said. "Nothing in the 4th Circuit [Court] decision would suggest its logic is limited to firearms."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit dismissed the case in December 2012, ruling that any injury Mrs. Welling may have incurred resulted from the District's lack of a federally licensed vendor and not the 1968 law that requires out-of-state handgun purchases to be made from one federally licensed dealer to another. Rifles and shotguns are exempt.
"The national marketplace for owning a handgun has really been restricted because everyone has to go through these [federally licensed firearms dealers]," Mr. Gura said. "The courts are going out of their way to deny Second Amendment rights to people."
While the case was making its way through the 4th Circuit, the District remedied its problem by allowing its one vendor, Charles Sykes, to operate within the Metropolitan Police Department. The District also enacted a law last year that requires the mayor to appoint another federally licensed dealer should Mr. Sykes go out of business.
Trevor Burrus, a constitutional scholar at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, has been following the case. He said it has a chance of being heard by the high court because of its standing issue.
For instance, he said, if the federal government wanted to prohibit bookstores from selling books to out-of-state residents, those residents could sue, citing a violation of their First Amendment rights. Substitute guns for books and First Amendment for Second Amendment, and you have a different story, Mr. Burrus said, citing an example Mr. Gura made in his petition to the Supreme Court.
"It's absolutely unbelievable. If this were any other retail item, there would be complete outrage, but since it's a gun, we're OK with it," Mr. Burrus said.
He also noted that the federally licensed vendor law is obsolete in regard to handguns because it was enacted before instant background checks became available.
Lindsay Nichols, a lawyer with the San Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates stronger gun control nationwide, said tough restrictions and federally licensed firearms requirements keep criminals from obtaining guns and helps prevent violence.
"Owning a gun is just a matter of filling out a couple of forms, getting a background check completed and sometimes taking a gun safety class," Ms. Nichols said, ranking the District's gun laws among the country's strongest. "All of these are reasonable restrictions that don't infringe on anyone's Second Amendment right."
Mr. Gura and Mrs. Welling respectfully disagree.
About a year later and $500 the poorer, she was able to get her gun.
"It was a huge hassle," said Mrs. Welling. "Between finding [a federally licensed] vendor, the transfer fees, fingerprinting, ballistics testing, gun safety classes and waiting around the [police department] — I wouldn't want to do it again." [PVC: And that is exactly what the D.C. City Council is hoping for.]
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22. [CT] Round up (tens of thousands) gun registration scofflaws
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Do registration laws punish the real criminals? NO. But if you lived in Connecticut and TRIED to comply with their registration law, but mailed your registration a little too late, you are the one who is going to get hammered. The Connecticut government is denying such people the registration and now has their name, address, and exactly what guns they have that are now illegal.
Gun owners, by large margins, are NOT complying with Connecticut's unconstitutional registration law. They are not in as much trouble as those that tried to register, but failed.
And criminals are not in trouble at all - the Supreme Court ruled years ago that criminals don't have to register their guns as it would violate their Fifth Amendment rights. And so it would.
Member James Durso emailed me this:
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From reason.com: http://tinyurl.com/l7u7au3
Round Up (Tens of Thousands of) Gun Registration Scofflaws, Rants Hartford Courant Editorial Board
by J.D. Tuccille
February 18, 2014
A bit of miltary wisdom has it that you should never give an order you know won't be obeyed. Issuing such an order accomplishes nothing except to undermine your authority and expose the extent to which, no matter what enforcement mechanisms are in place, you rely upon voluntary compliance. But now that Connecticut's resident class of politically employed cretins has awoken to the fact that, in their state, like everywhere else, people overwhelmingly disobey orders to register their weapons, they're acting like this is a shocking revelation. They're also promising to make those who tried to comply, but missed the deadline regret the effort (proving the point of the openly defiant). And the politicians' enablers in the press are screaming for the prosecution of "scores of thousands" of state residents who, quite predictably, flipped the bird at the government.
Three years ago, the Connecticut legislature estimated there were 372,000 rifles in the state of the sort that might be classified as "assault weapons," and two million plus high-capacity magazines. Many more have been sold in the gun-buying boom since then. But by the close of registration at the end of 2013, state officials received around 50,000 applications for "assault weapon" registrations, and 38,000 applications for magazines.
Some people actually tried to comply with the registration law, but missed the deadline. The state's official position is that it will accept applications notarized on or before January 1, 2014 and postmarked by January 4. But, says Dora Schriro, Commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, in a letter to lawmakers, anybody sufficiently law-abiding but foolish enough to miss that slightly extended grace period will have to surrender or otherwise get rid of their guns.
This, of course, is the eternally fulfilled fear of those who oppose registration of things governments don't like—that allowing the government to know about them will result in their eventual confiscation. Such confiscation, despite assurances to the contrary, occurred in New York, California, and elsewhere. Connecticut has accomplished something special, though, by making "eventual" a synonym for "right now."
You know who won't have to surrender their weapons? People who quietly told the state to [expletive deleted] off.
This successful example of mass defiance horrifies the editorial board of the Hartford Courant, which shudders at the sight of the masses not obeying an order that, history, tells us, never had a shot at wide compliance. According to them:
It's estimated that perhaps scores of thousands of Connecticut residents failed to register their military-style assault weapons with state police by Dec. 31....
...the bottom line is that the state must try to enforce the law. Authorities should use the background check database as a way to find assault weapon purchasers who might not have registered those guns in compliance with the new law.
A Class D felony calls for a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Even much lesser penalties or probation would mar a heretofore clean record and could adversely affect, say, the ability to have a pistol permit.
If you want to disobey the law, you should be prepared to face the consequences.
Such shock! Such outrage!
But compliance with gun registration would have been a historical aberration. Gun restrictions of all sorts breed defiance everywhere they're introduced. About 25 percent of Illinois handgun owners actually complied when that state's registration law was introduced in the 1970s, according to Don B. Kates, a criminologist and civil liberties attorney, writing in the December 1977 issue of Inquiry. Then, when California began registering "assault weapons" in 1990, The New York Times reported after the registration period came to a close that "only about 7,000 weapons of an estimated 300,000 in private hands in the state have been registered."
Similar defiance occurred in Australia, Canada, and many European countries. People, unsurprisingly, seem to think that being armed is not a bad thing, and that governments can't be trusted.
Can't imagine why.
Here's the thing: Laws rely, almost entirely, on voluntary compliance, with enforcement efforts sufficient for a tiny, noncompliant minority. If a large number of people to whom a law applies find the law repugnant—and a majority of a group, consisting of scores of thousands of people, constitutes a large number—than the law is unenforceable, no matter how many politicians and newspaper editorial writers think it's a swell idea. Governments that try enforcement, anyway, will be stuck in a pattern of escalating brutality and declining legitimacy.
Gun registration, let alone confiscation has, always and everywhere, fallen into that "unenforceable" category. We saw the same phenomenon with Prohibition, and we've also seen it with drugs.
To insist, now, that Connecticut authorities try to chase down "scores of thousands" of gun owners (using background check records that don't actually prove they still own the forbidden firearms) displays wild ignorance of the limits of government power. It also expresses disgusting deference to authority at the expense of any respect for liberty—an immature morality that sees no good beyond obedience to rules. And, it's sheer lunacy.
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23. [MI] Mom opens fire on home invaders in Detroit to defend children [VIDEO]
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Do NOT threaten the children of an armed parent!
Member William Goodman emailed me this:
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From wxyz.com: http://tinyurl.com/mnxwmct
Mom opens fire on home invaders in Detroit to defend children
by Simon Shaykhet
February 18, 2014
(WXYZ) - A Detroit mother opened fire Monday night when three suspects broke into her home.
Surveillance cameras caught it all.
The mother tells 7 Action News she "didn't have time to get scared." When she heard the door to her home on Woodrow Wilson being kicked in, she immediately warned the three teenage intruders and then opened fire.
One of the teens dropped a handgun on his way out the door. He then tried to get back inside the house a second time, but was again met with gunfire. Once again, he took off and all three were arrested shortly after the incident by Detroit Police.
Recalling the panic she felt, the mom says "I let them know I had a gun once they were in the house. They said no you don't so I shot off the first round. I wasn't feeling anything at the moment, I got scared afterwards."
We still don't know what they came to steal, but the mother was committed to protecting her two small kids at any cost with her loaded rifle.
Her daughter told her "Oh no mommy, I don't want them to take my piggy bank or my toys."
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24. MO murder rate growth declined 15% after scrapping universal background checks
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Be sure to read the next item after reading this one.
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
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From breitbart.com: http://tinyurl.com/oq64qe8
MO MURDER RATE GROWTH DECLINED 15% AFTER SCRAPPING UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS
by AWR HAWKINS
February 21, 2014
In 2007, Missouri rescinded the state's "universal background check" requirement and witnessed a murder rate that grew fifteen percent slower than it had in the previous five years.
In the five years prior to rescinding the law, Missouri's murder rate had risen by 32 percent.
Simply put, the Show Me State's murder rate grew faster when its universal background check law--which included a mandate for background checks at gun shows--was in place.
But as Fox News reports, media outlets like CBS, MSNBC, PBS, The Washington Post, and the BBC are "breathless" over a pending report that seizes on the fact that the murder rate still grew once the universal background checks were rescinded. To do this, they ignore that the growth was 15 percent slower than before.
Besides ignoring the decrease in the growth of the murder rate, these media outlets also turn a blind eye to the fact that "Missouri's violent crime rate fell 7 percent faster than the violent crime rate for the rest of the United States from 2006 to 2012."
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25. Opinion: Media cherry picks MO gun data to make case for more control
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Member Rick Evans emailed me this:
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John Lott is such a great asset to our side. His analysis are invaluable to rebutting much of the media's statistical baloney.
From foxnews.com: http://tinyurl.com/ljkbz6d
Opinion: Media cherry picks Missouri gun data to make misleading case for more control
By John Lott
February 21, 2014
With headlines claiming "Study Shows Gun Control Works," media outlets such as CBS, MSNBC, PBS, Washington Post, and BBC were breathless over a soon-to-be-released study by Daniel Webster in the Journal of Urban Health. The claim is that when Missouri in 2007 made it easier to buy handguns, the murder rate went up relative to the U.S. murder rate.
Prior to August 2007, Missouri law had established what is known as a universal background check, closing down the so-called gun show loophole.
While it is true that the murder rate in Missouri rose 17 percent relative to the rest of the U.S. in the five years after 2007, it had actually increased by 32 percent during the previous five years. The question is why the Missouri murder rate was increasing relative to the rest of the United States at a slower rate after the change in the law than it did prior to it. Missouri was on an ominous path before the law was ended.
Simply looking at whether murder rates were higher after the law was rescinded than before misses much of what was going on. Most likely, getting rid of the law slowed the growth rate in murders.
But there are other reasons not to accept the conclusion touted by the press.
-There are currently 17 states with these background check laws, down from a peak of 19 states. Missouri is just one of them.
-If you are going to insist on looking at just one state, Missouri adopted the law in 1981 and rescinded it in 2007. Why not test if the murder rate fell after 1981 and whether it increased after 2007?
-Why only look at just the murder rate for this one state? Why not the overall violent crime or robbery rates?
The reason for this cherry picking is obvious. Only those conditions produced the desired results. For example, Missouri's violent crime rate fell 7 percent faster than the violent crime rate for the rest of the United States from 2006 to 2012.
Researchers should not cherry pick one state to examine. Consider the following. You flip a coin 20 times — ten heads and ten tails. If you specifically picked just five heads, you might well conclude the coin was biased. Since most readers don't know the data, researchers need to make clear why they are only examining a small portion of the total sample.
There is already ample research on these universal background checks across all the states. Indeed, the third edition of More Guns, Less Crime provided one study on this, and, unlike the Webster study, it shows no reduction in murder rates from these expanded background checks. Indeed, there was even a slight 2 percent increase in murder rates, but the result was not statistically significant.
For those interested, a discussion of the other problems with Webster's study is available here. [PVC: http://tinyurl.com/k6qdfdf ]
If one wants to look at the impact of licensing, again there is national research, again such as More Guns, Less Crime, on all sorts of licensing rules from licenses to carry a gun to licenses to own one. For example, if you wanted to look at what happened in one state where murder and robbery rates soared after gun licensing was imposed, look at the disaster that happened in Massachusetts. [PVC: http://tinyurl.com/k4kg8xo ]
It is presumably too much to hope that reporters will understand empirical work. But alarm bells should always go off when only one example is studied when many places have adopted the same types of laws. Reporters should always ask themselves why that one state was examined. Why didn't the researcher even look at what happened when the law was adopted?
Unfortunately, the Webster study isn't alone. There have been a rash of recent news stories on other misleading studies funded by Michael Bloomberg as well as on the risks of guns in the home.
It would be nice if there were easy fixes to keep guns away from criminals. But when gun laws primarily disarm the law-abiding, as Missouri's permitting system used to do. Crime gets worse. Webster's study actually provides yet more evidence that is true.
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26. [MN] police sue NFL over off-duty gun ban
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When the police get a taste of the medicine the rest of us have to swallow, they sure don't like it. The police and everyone else who is lawfully carrying a gun should be allowed to attend the game.
EM Dave Hicks emailed me this:
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From policeone.com: http://tinyurl.com/jvogo2o
Minn. police sue NFL over off-duty gun ban
Official says when off-duty police bring guns into games, they increase the potential for "blue-on-blue" confrontations with working officers
by David Hanners, Pioneer Press
February 19, 2014
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota's largest police group and police union are suing the NFL and the Vikings, claiming the league's new ban on off-duty cops carrying their guns to games is illegal.
The Minnesota law that allows businesses to bar weapons specifically exempts "active licensed" peace officers, and state law trumps NFL rules, the lawsuit says.
But the National Football League disagrees, saying the law doesn't apply to it. Although an NFL spokesman declined to comment on the suit, when police officials complained about the policy last fall, the league's security chief said a ticket to a game is a license that teams can revoke at will — and being an armed off-duty cop is reason enough.
The NFL said that between on-duty officers assigned to games and rent-a-cops, there are enough guns inside NFL stadiums, and the league worries about "blue-on-blue" shootings.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Hennepin County District Court by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association and the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. The latter is the bargaining unit that has 900 members.
Defendants are the NFL, the Vikings and the regents of the University of Minnesota. The Vikings will play the next two seasons at the U's TCF Bank Stadium while their new arena is built on the site of the Metrodome.
Vikings officials did not immediately return a call for comment. Chuck Tombarge, director of public relations for the U, said the school's general counsel had not yet seen the suit and therefore could not address it.
Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the statewide peace officers association, said the group sued because "the Vikings cannot be allowed to, in essence, thumb their nose at Minnesota law."
"The NFL or a private entity has no authority to supersede state law," said Flaherty, whose group represents 8,500 peace officers.
At issue is a subdivision of Minnesota's statute governing where people can carry guns if they have a permit. It allows business owners to ban guns in their premises if they post signs or orally tell people guns are prohibited.
But a portion of the law says it doesn't apply to "an active licensed peace officer" or a security guard "acting in the course and scope of employment."
The NFL adopted its policy last fall and sent a letter to the teams Sept. 11. The policy said guns were "strictly prohibited" within
NFL facilities; the only exceptions were law enforcement personnel assigned to games and private security contractors who were licensed to carry a gun.
People or teams who violate the policy can be fined, suspended or fired, the policy said.
In October, after learning of the new policy, Flaherty wrote to Jeffrey Miller, an NFL vice president and its chief of security. Flaherty noted that some departments "require off-duty officers be able to enforce the law and to react to crimes committed in their presence," and that the "safety of officers and the public requires that the officer be armed," the suit says.
Miller wrote back Oct. 29. He said that while he had "the highest level of respect for people in law enforcement," the NFL decided football stadiums weren't safe when off-duty officers had guns.
"(T)he NFL believes the safest environment for all fans is achieved by limiting the number of firearms and weapons inside stadiums to those required by officers that perform specifically assigned law enforcement working functions and game day duties," Miller wrote.
He said on-duty officers at the games "are specially trained and required to participate in weekly meetings pertaining to pre-game day and game day security and law enforcement planning, strategy, and emergency response procedures and protocols."
Off-duty officers, he wrote, "attend games as spectators. They are unknown to working law enforcement officers. They may not have the same training and do not participate in the weekly preparation meetings."
Miller told Flaherty that when off-duty police bring guns into games, they increase the potential for "blue-on-blue" confrontations with working law enforcement officers.
Miller also said off-duty officers might be boozing it up while watching the game.
In his letter to Flaherty, Miller said he is aware of Minnesota's law involving concealed weapons but maintained it doesn't apply to the NFL. The reason: You can only get into a game with a ticket, and the ticket "constitutes a license that reserves to the licensor, in this case the Minnesota Vikings, discretion to deny admission to any ticketholder (except on grounds that would violate anti-discrimination or similar statutes)."
In an interview, Flaherty said he didn't know of any problems caused by off-duty officers who carried weapons into the Metrodome over the 31 years the Vikings played there.
"I am not aware of any incident there has ever been around or in the Metrodome involving any kind of problem with an officer — on or off duty — and a firearm," he said.
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27. [GA] Centerville man shot in gas station robbery
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Just give the criminal what he wants and… get shot in the face.
Rollin L. Reisinger emailed me this:
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From macon.com: http://tinyurl.com/k88uf8j
Centerville man shot in gas station robbery
by Jennifer Burk
February 13, 2014
A Centerville man was shot in the face Wednesday night during a robbery at the Pure gas station on Houston Lake Boulevard, said police Chief Sid Andrews.
About 10:20 p.m. a man walked into the gas station's convenience store and demanded money. After the clerk, Rohitkumar Patel, complied, the robber shot him in the face, Andrews said.
Patel, 38, was at The Medical Center of Central Georgia and was last known to be in "critical but stable" condition, Andrews said.
Andrews described the robber as black, about 5 feet tall, wearing all black with a mask over his face.
The Warner Robins Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are assisting in the case. Anyone with information is asked to call Centerville police Detective Sgt. Phillip Pritchett at 478-953-4222 or Macon Regional CrimeStoppers at 478-742-2330.
The store, located at the corner of Collins Avenue, remained closed Thursday afternoon and blocked off with yellow crime scene tape.
Telegraph writer Wayne Crenshaw contributed to this report.
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28. [TX] Alleged robber fatally shot
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Or, if you don't want to get shot in the face as in the previous article, pull a gun and shoot the bad guy instead.
Member Rollin L. Reisinger emailed me this:
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From mysanantonio.com: http://tinyurl.com/kwqd2kr
Alleged robber fatally shot
by Mark D. Wilson, San Antonio Express-News
FEBRUARY 14, 2014
SAN ANTONIO — A man police say tried to rob a convenience store Friday night on the Northeast Side died after being shot by the store's clerk.
San Antonio Police Sgt. Greg Garvelli said officers responding to a call for a shooting at the Boulevard Spirits liquor store at 5715 Randolph Blvd., around 9 p.m. found the man's body outside the shop when they arrived.
Garvelli said the man, between 25 and 30, was armed with a Taser when he tried to rob the store. A clerk pulled out a handgun and fired multiple shots, police said, but it was unclear how many times the man was hit.
He died at the scene.
Officers said it was unclear whether the clerk would face charges.
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29. [CA] irst 'smart' pistol hits shelves in California
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Oh, yeah - people are going to knock down the doors in California to spend $1,798 for a .22 LR pistol.
I guess if you can afford the gun, the current cost of .22 ammo won't make you bat an eye.
Member Bill Hine emailed me this:
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From foxnews.com: http://tinyurl.com/nore9te
First 'smart' pistol hits shelves in California
by Brendan McGarry
February 20, 2014
The first so-called "smart gun" has hit the shelves at U.S. retail outlets, including one of the biggest firearms stores in California, according to the Washington Post.
The Smart System iP1, a .22-caliber pistol made by the German gun-maker Armatix GmbH, can only function with an accompanying wristwatch, which is sold separately.
When the RFID-equipped watch is activated by a PIN number and placed near the gun — like when a shooter grips the handle — it sends a signal to unlock the gun and a light on the back of the weapon turns green, according to the report. Otherwise, the firearm stays locked and the light on the back remains red, it stated.
The pistol sells for $1,399 and the watch retails for another $399 — more than double the cost of .40-caliber Glock handgun, according to the article.
The company is betting that demand for the technology will increase as consumers seek guns modified for safety.
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30. Ratings: Is CNN's Piers Morgan shooting himself in the foot?
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Piers Morgan is his own worst enemy. Americans sent Piers a simple message by tuning him out: we DO NOT WANT MORE GUN CONTROL.
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
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From variety.com: http://tinyurl.com/kjo2z7z
Ratings: Is CNN's Piers Morgan Shooting Himself in the Foot?
by Rick Kissell
February 20, 2014
In the end, are guns what killed CNN's "Piers Morgan Live"?
The show, hosted by anti-gun crusader Morgan, continues to struggle in the Nielsens. And this month, the start of the Michael Dunn loud-music murder trial in Florida has put the issue of gun control back in the forefront. February has also produced six of the show's smallest 10 audiences since it bowed in January 2011.
Tuesday's telecast, which included coverage of the uprisings in Kiev and an interview with Rudy Giuliani, drew the show's second smallest audience to date in the key news demo of adults 25-54 (50,000). It also drew just 270,000 total viewers, according to Nielsen, the show's ninth smallest gathering ever.
"Piers Morgan Live" has fallen below the 300,000-viewer mark on seven other occasions in February. And while the Winter Olympics on NBC may be to blame for some of the audience loss this month, "Piers Morgan" is drawing just a fraction of the audience attracted by competing shows on CNN and MSNBC.
Opposite "Piers Morgan" on Tuesday, "The Kelly File" on Fox News Channel drew 2.07 million viewers (including 354,000 adults 25-54) while MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show" attracted 906,000 (including 227,000 in the demo).
"Piers Morgan Live" isn't CNN's only problem in primetime, of course, as the entire lineup has struggled and CNN topper Jeff Zucker has promised that 2014 would be a year of "shake up." On Tuesday from 8 to 11 p.m., the network averaged just 64,000 adults 25-54 — not far from its all-time low of 57,000 in May 2000.
Morgan has long been an outspoken critic of U.S. gun laws, but the drumbeat has grown louder in the two years since George Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin. On his CNN show in December 2012, Morgan got into a heated exchange with gun-rights activist Larry Pratt, asking at one point: "You're an unbelievably stupid man, aren't you?"
There's no way to quantify how much of a factor the discussion of gun control on "Piers Morgan Live" has contributed to its ratings (which were never all that great to begin with), but the show's numbers have fallen more sharply since it became a frequent subject on the show.
Monday's installment included discussion of the Dunn murder trial and Zimmerman's assertion in a CNN interview with Chris Cuomo earlier that day that he was a victim.
HLN host Nancy Grace was among the guests, and she didn't want to hear more gun-control talk from Morgan.
"Are you back on gun control again?" she asked. "If it weren't for the British, we wouldn't even have to have protections to carry guns. It was the British way back when they founded America. They were running through all of our homes trying to take our stuff. So we're protected under the Constitution.
"So it's not really right for a Brit to jump up and start talking to us about gun control."
Morgan said he vehemently disagreed, but after a moment's pause, he said: "Let's not talk about gun control because Nancy's made her statement and I was riposted."
On Tuesday, an interview with Giuliani touched on several subjects but closed on the issue of guns, with Morgan bemoaning that "all the time now, in America, we're hearing of this casual loss of life through guns. At what point does the gun itself not become a major issue?"
Wednesday's hour, which featured Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Gayle King talking about the science of loneliness and its possible correlation to violence, grew to 345,000 viewers. The word "gun" wasn't uttered once, according to a CNN transcript of the program.
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31. *Graphic* Ukraine police shoot protestors with live rounds [VIDEO]
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A government suppressing its own people with live rounds. Looks like none of the protesters were armed - just sitting ducks waiting for government snipers to murder them.
Member Walter Jackson emailed me this:
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From guns.com: http://tinyurl.com/khsebb7
**GRAPHIC** Ukraine police shoot protestors with live rounds (VIDEO)
by Brent McCluskey
February 21, 2014
Hundreds have died in the continuous clashes between anti-government protestors and Ukraine police. In this graphic video, protestors are shot with live rounds.
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