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1. Deja vous all over again - ignore grassroots gun owners at your own political peril
2. Election should help create another roadblock to federal gun control
3. Bad news for gun owners in Washington State - Universal Background Check referendum passes with help from anti-liberty billionaires
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1. Deja vous all over again - ignore grassroots gun owners at your own political peril
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Another very familiar scenario played out again last night: a candidate for a statewide election is told by a political consultant that he can ignore grassroots gun owners as long as he can secure an NRA endorsement. It is almost beyond comprehension that a candidate for VIRGINIA office would believe that gun rights issues important to Virginia voters can be ignored as long as one gets an endorsement from a national group.
That's what happened to Mark Earley when he was running for governor back in 2001. He touted his NRA support and weaved and dodged on the VCDL survey, never answering it. Mark Warner won that election and went on to sign two important gun bills into law: a local government preemption law for concealed handgun permit holders in 2003 and preemption for all gun owners in 2004. (Warner started going publicly soft on guns once he was elected to the Senate in 2008. During that campaign it was brought out that Warner had disparaged the NRA as far back as 1994 when he was the Democratic Party Chairman.)
It's also what happened to Jerry Kilgore when he was running for governor back in 2005. Like Earley before him, Kilgore was told by his political consultant that an NRA endorsement was all that he needed to convince gun owners that he was good on guns - no need to answer VCDL's grassroots gun-rights survey.
Kilgore was quite proud of having flown in a helicopter with the NRA Executive Vice-President, Wayne LaPierre, during an election appearance near Roanoke. Surely that would show gun owners that he was truly pro-gun! But the fun was short lived, as Kilgore had no sooner stepped off the helicopter when he was brought back down to earth yet again. This time by (then) VCDL Executive member Al Steed Jr. asking Kilgore about his missing survey. ;-)
In that election, both Bill Bowling and Bob McDonnell returned their VCDL surveys and quite handily won their races for Lt. Governor and Attorney General, respectively. Kilgore got shellacked by Tim Kaine, who DID turn in a VCDL survey. While far less than stellar, at least let gun owners knew where there was common ground with Kaine. While gun owners weren't the only reason for that shellacking, they were definitely a part of it - both Bowling and McDonnell got 60,000 more votes than Kilgore. If Kilgore was thinking that gun owners had nowhere else to go, he learned that they didn't have to pull the lever for him.
Flash forward to last night. Some of Mark Warner's bad votes on guns and his canned response letters and emails that told you nothing about how he would vote on gun issues had turned off many gun owners. He also had not returned the VCDL survey. So, here was a chance for Ed Gillespie to take advantage of that and get an important voting block on his side.
But, alas, Gillespie was using the same political consultant that Earley and Kilgore had used, ignored the VCDL survey and grassroots gun owners, and got the same result as Earley and Kilgore.
I know from emails I received that some of you decided to cast your vote for the Libertarian candidate, Robert Sarvis, largely because he had filled out the survey. Others said they were not going to vote for anyone on that part of the ballot.
I also must say that because Gillespie ignored grassroots gun owners before the election, I wouldn't have been surprised to get the same useless Warner-type canned email responses on gun issues had he been elected.
Oh, and what about the only major party federal candidate who responded to the VCDL Candidate Survey - Dave Brat? Not only did he win the primary against Eric Cantor, who also ignored grassroots gun owners, but he won his election handily by a 62% to 38% margin yesterday.
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2. Election should help create another roadblock to federal gun control
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Overall, last night's election should bode well for gun owners and badly for the gun controllers. Even Maryland now has a governor-elect that is more open to commonsense when it comes to guns.
In the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are no longer the power brokers. Good bills they have bottled up and bad bills they are pushing will probably have their fates reversed.
Gun-control bills will have a much higher threshold to reach before even being considered for a vote at all.
The change of power in the Senate should also help put a block on the appointment of more anti-ilberty federal judges who are nominated by Obama and help insure that any United Nations backed gun-control treaties are not ratified.
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3. Bad news for gun owners in Washington State - Universal Background Check referendum passes with help from anti-liberty billionaires
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Washington State gun owners were handed a serious gun-control defeat yesterday in a referendum. By a 60% - 40% vote, they are going to be saddled with a Universal Background Check law. This is the first step toward what will eventually be Universal Registration of all their guns. Confiscation being the end goal of the scheme.
While you may wonder how this might affect you, it is one of those things like the "assault weapon ban" in 1993, where the anti-liberty groups are counting on deception and ignorance to strip away your rights. They will now be trying to do this in other states, including ours, eventually. To avoid this becoming our fate, we need to start a massive education effort for both gun owners and non-gun owners alike. More on that in an upcoming alert announcing the beginning of that campaign and how you can help.
This was a case of getting all the gun control that money can buy. Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and other anti-liberty billionaires poured millions of dollars into Washington State to pass this atrocity using deceptive ads.
Gun-rights groups are looking at challenging the law on constitutional grounds, amongst other things. Let's hope they are successful.
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Here's an article on the referendum, titled "The Gun-Control Movement is Learning How to Win:"
http://google.com/newsstand/s/CBIwkoLO5B8
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Here is a description of the new law from a Washington State government web site. You can bet that all the exceptions in the law will come under fire and will be removed as time goes on. For now they've put a little sugar on the poison pill:
This measure would apply the background check requirements currently used for firearm sales by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers where at least one party is in Washington. Background checks would thus be required not only for sales and transfers of firearms through firearms dealers, but also at gun shows, online, and between unlicensed private individuals. Background checks would be required for any sale or transfer of a firearm, whether for money or as a gift or loan, with specific exceptions described below. Background checks would be required whether the firearm involved is a pistol or another type of firearm. Violations of these requirements would be crimes.
The measure would establish a number of exceptions to the background check requirement. A background check would not be required to transfer a firearm by gift between family members. The background check requirement also would not apply to the sale or transfer of antique firearms. It also would not apply to certain temporary transfers of a firearm when needed to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm. Background checks would not be required for certain public agencies or officers acting in their official capacity, including law enforcement or corrections agencies or officers, members of the military, and federal officials. Federally licensed gunsmiths who receive firearms solely to service or repair them would not be required to undergo background checks.
Certain other temporary transfers of a firearm would also not require a background check. These include temporary transfers between spouses, and temporary transfers for use at a shooting range, in a competition, or for performances. A temporary transfer to a person under age eighteen for hunting, sporting, or education would not require a background check. Other temporary transfers for lawful hunting also would not require a background check.
A person who inherited a firearm other than a pistol upon the death of its former owner would not be required to undergo a background check. A person who inherited a pistol would either have to lawfully transfer the pistol within 60 days or inform the department of licensing that he or she intended to keep the pistol.
Firearms could only be sold or transferred through licensed firearms dealers. If neither party to the sale or transfer of a firearm was a firearms dealer, then a firearms dealer would have to assist in the sale or transfer. Before a sale or transfer could be completed, a firearms dealer would perform the background check on the buyer or recipient of the firearm. If the background check determined that the buyer or recipient of the firearm was ineligible to possess a firearm, the firearms dealer would return the firearm to the seller or transferor. The firearms dealer could charge a fee for these services.
Firearms dealers could not deliver any firearm to a buyer or recipient until receiving background check results showing that the buyer or recipient can legally possess the firearm. But a firearms dealer could deliver a firearm if background check results were not received within ten business days (as opposed to the five business days currently allowed to conduct the check). If the buyer or recipient did not have a valid permanent Washington driver's license or identification card, or had been a Washington resident for less than 90 days, then the time period for delivery of a pistol would be extended from ten days to 60 days, the same as under current law.
If a firearms dealer violates this measure, his or her license could be revoked. The violation would also be reported to federal authorities.
Sales tax would not apply to the sale or transfer of firearms between people who are not licensed firearms dealers, so long as they comply with all background check requirements. Using a licensed firearms dealer to assist with such sales or transfers would not result in sales or use tax.
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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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