Tag Archive for: Gun Control

VIDEO: Playing Politics with a Tragedy

In this News Minute from the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, Jennifer Zahrn reports that gun control activists like Hillary Clinton and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe are exploiting the recent tragedy in Roanoke, Virginia to push gun control.

Research Findings a Blow to Anti-gun Academics

For decades, anti-gun academics have attacked firearms and firearm owners by conducting “research” that purportedly offers insight into the psyche of gun owners. The dubious findings of these psychology studies typically portray gun owners in a negative light, and are frequently published in uncritical academic journals, and then touted by gun control activists and the mainstream media as legitimate science. However, as a study published this week in the journal Science reveals, the entire field of psychology research warrants severe skepticism; and consequently the field’s frivolous attacks on gun ownership.

Perhaps the most famous item on this topic that has long been heralded by gun control activists is Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage’s, already largely debunked, “Weapons as Aggression-Eliciting Stimuli,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1967. This research popularized the notion of a “weapons effect,” where supposedly the mere presence of a firearm elicits aggression in an individual.

More recently, in 2012, researchers James R. Brockmole and Jessica K. Witt’s article “Action Alters Object Identification: Wielding a Gun Increases The Bias to See Guns,” was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. This paper contended that when individuals are armed with a gun, they are more likely to perceive others as being armed. Gun control advocates were quick to seize on the findings to promote the idea that gun owners are paranoid and prone to react with outsize responses to potential threats.

Some recent psychology studies have attacked gun owners more personally. A 2013 item published in PLS One titled, “Racism, Gun Ownership and Gun Control: Biased Attitudes in US Whites May Influence Policy Decisions,” tried to link gun ownership to racism. The researchers concluded “Symbolic racism was related to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in US whites.” Anti-gun publications, such as the New York Daily News, Huffington Post, and Salon.com were all-too-willing to parrot the findings.

The study recently published in Science is the result of a four-year effort to improve the accuracy of psychological science. A team of 270 scientists led by University of Virginia Professor Brian Nosek attempted to replicate 98 studies published in some of psychology’s most prestigious journals by conducting 100 attempts at replication. In the end, according to a Science article accompanying the study, “only 39% [of the studies] could be replicated unambiguously.”

In the same article, University of Missouri Psychologist and Editor at the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (which published the Berkowitz and LePage study) Lynne Cooper, was quoted as saying of the findings, “Their data are sobering and present a clear challenge to the field.” She went on to note that the journal is working on reforms that will push “authors, editors, and reviewers… to reexamine and recalibrate basic notions about what constitutes good scholarship.”

The scale of the problem could be even greater than the recent study reveals. In an article on the team’s findings, the journal Nature noted, “John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California, says that the true replication-failure rate could exceed 80%, even higher than Nosek’s study suggests.

Further, psychology isn’t the only field to suffer these problems. In reporting on this matter, the New York Times noted, “The report appears at a time when the number of retractions of published papers is rising sharply in a wide variety of disciplines. Scientists have pointed to a hypercompetitive culture across science that favors novel, sexy results and provides little incentive for researchers to replicate the findings of others, or for journals to publish studies that fail to find a splashy result.” For better, or worse, results involving guns might accurately be described as “sexy,” and the editors of the nation’s major newspapers appear willing to splash any gun control supporting findings all over their publications.

These findings and the accompanying comments by those in scientific research community encourage a healthy dose of skepticism when examining studies; regardless of how prestigious the journal, or the schools the authors hail from. The problems outlined in this study, along with pre-existing knowledge of the political bias in some portions of academia, should embolden gun rights supporters to further confront the findings of anti-gun studies, while hopefully also causing those who report on these topics to question research findings more critically.

White House, Media Mislead on Crime Trends, Ignore Evidence that Could Save More Lives

Tragedy strikes – and the White House immediately shifts into exploitation mode, trying to use raw emotion to push “solutions” that don’t fit the facts. From Charles C. W. Cooke at National Review comes a timely reminder, however, that despite well-publicized crimes, the nation as a whole is getting safer and less violent.

As Mr. Cooke notes, the U.S. firearm homicide rate peaked in 1993 and has fallen dramatically since then. Meanwhile, he adds correctly, gun control has been rolled back and the number of firearms in private hands has increased dramatically. Yet 88% of the public were unaware of favorable crime trends in a May 7, 2013, Pew Research Center Poll. Mr. Cooke attributes this knowledge gap, in part, to the increasing prevalence of “round-the-clock news” and more powerful forms of social media.

It’s a sad commentary that more news and more communication may have somehow led to greater ignorance on important matters of public policy. Your NRA, for its part, has been doing its level best to keep the record straight, including with the reports mentioned here and here.

Yet it’s no accident on gun control advocates’ part that they mislead the public on the true state of affairs. As we’ve mentioned before, a PR firm hired to produce a gun control messaging guide advises, “Always focus on emotional and value-driven arguments about gun violence, not the political food fight in Washington or wonky statistics.” It also counsels advocates to act quickly after a highly-publicized event, while emotions are at their highest. As for the facts, gun control advocates are told, “Don’t wait for them.” Instead, “The clearest course is to advance our core message about preventing gun violence independent of facts that may shift on us over time.”

Once again, sadly, we see that advice in action. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, for example, was using Wednesday’s televised murders in Roanoke to call for universal background checks, even before the suspect had been apprehended and before news emerged that the perpetrator had, in fact, passed a background check to buy the gun he used.

Evil and violence are terrible things, and Americans understandably react with horror and sadness when confronted by them. Yet denying reality and exploiting emotions do not solve problems. Ensuring that peaceable, responsible people have the means to defend themselves is why NRA remains resolute in its mission to defend and protect the Second Amendment.

Rather than promoting “solutions” that offer false promises, like “universal” background checks, policy makers should study what’s working redouble their efforts on those fronts. Dismissing the crime deterring benefits of firearm ownership is neither smart nor compassionate. Empowering good people to defend themselves against violence is, and this defining principle will continue to drive everything that NRA does.

Reduce Firearm Ownership, Say Anti-Gun Researchers

A new “study” by David Swedler, trained at the (gun control crusader Michael) Bloomberg School of Public Health, and co-authored by longtime anti-gun researcher David Hemenway, of the Harvard School of Public Health, uses rigged methodology to conclude that law enforcement officers are more likely to be murdered in states that have higher levels of gun ownership. As a result, Swedler and Hemenway say, “States could consider methods for reducing firearm ownership as a way to reduce occupational deaths of LEOs.”

In what may be the understatement of the century, Swedler and Hemenway concede that it’s “possible” that law enforcement officers are more likely to be murdered than other Americans because they have “more frequent encounters with motivated violent offenders.” To say the least. According to the FBI, from 2004 to 2013, 46 percent of officer murderers had prior arrests for crimes of violence, 63 percent had been convicted on prior criminal charges, 50 percent had received probation or parole for prior criminal charges, and 26 percent were under judicial supervision, including probation, parole, and conditional release, at the time of the officers’ murders.

On the other hand, Swedler and Hemenway say, law enforcement officers are able to defend themselves because they carry handguns, an argument that on its face endorses the carrying of handguns by private citizens, which is certainly not what the anti-gunners intended.

In painstaking academic detail, economist John Lott shows that Swedler and Hemenway skewed their study by comparing the number of law enforcement officers murdered with firearms in each state, to the percentage of suicides committed with firearms in each state, pretending that the latter accurately measures each state’s level of gun ownership. Additionally, the anti-gun researchers didn’t extend their comparisons over time to determine whether law enforcement officer murders increased or decreased in each state or did so in comparison to other states.

The anti-gunners also try to measure gun ownership with survey data, which is problematic, because over-reporting takes place in states where people are more supportive of gun ownership, while under-reporting takes place in states where anti-gun viewpoints are more common.

For the obvious reason, Swedler and Hemenway didn’t point out that law enforcement officer murders have been decreasing while ownership of firearms has been increasing dramatically. From 1993 to 2013, the most recent year of data from the FBI and BATFE, the annual number of law enforcement officers feloniously killed with firearms dropped 61 percent, while the American people acquired 140 million new firearms. In 2013, the number of law enforcement officers feloniously killed with firearms was less than half the annual average of the last 20 years.

That, however, is not what you want to point out if you’re jockeying for a cut of the $10 million that President Obama has asked Congress (p. 8) to throw at so-called “gun violence research” or to continue to promote an anti-gun agenda.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the NRA/ILA website.

Background Check Bill Seeks to Create Backdoor Gun Prohibition

Demonstrating why he’s rated an “F” by the NRA, anti-gun Representative James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would in effect vastly expand federal prohibited person categories. Worse, he is exploiting a recent tragedy and misinformation reported in the media to do so.

The bill, H.R. 3051, seeks to repeal a critical safety valve in federal law that allows for a firearm transfer to proceed three business days after a NICS check is initiated, provided “the system has not notified the [FFL] that the receipt of a firearm by [the buyer or transferee] would [violate federal law.]” This provision ensures that Americans’ rights to acquire firearms are not arbitrarily denied because of bureaucratic delays, inefficiencies, or mistakes in identity.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was designed to be just that: instant. Recognizing, however, that some determinations might require additional research to resolve authoritatively, the law states that if an immediate answer is not available, the transfer must be put on hold for three business days to give the FBI more time to research the matter.

After the three days, the FFL has the option to release the firearm to the buyer or transferee, so long as the FFL has no other reason to believe the person is prohibited from possessing it. The FBI will then continue trying to resolve the case for up to 90 days. If it turns out the recipient is determined to be prohibited, the FBI queries the dealer to see if the firearm was transferred. If so, the FBI notifies the BATFE, so appropriate action can be taken (for example, confiscation of the firearm and prosecution of the illegal possessor, if appropriate).

The safety valve provided by the three-day provision is necessary for several reasons. First, and most obviously, mistakes happen. Identities can be confused or records can be incomplete (for example, an arrest record could have been followed by dismissal of the charges or an acquittal at trial). Second, it encourages the FBI to administer the system quickly and efficiently. Third, it preserves a critical aspect of America’s constitutional system, the due process principle that the government cannot arbitrarily deprive a person of his or her rights without making its case against that person.

According the FBI’s most recent NICS operations report, 9% of FBI NICS checks in 2014 were delayed “for additional review.” The report does not go on to detail how many of those delays extended beyond three days. Nevertheless, based on the total number of NICS check the FBI ran in 2014, these delays affected some 743,102 people.

Meanwhile, the delays resulted in only 2,511 actions for firearm retrievals (or three-tenths of one percent of total delays). Thus, in over 99.6% of delayed cases, the delay was less than three days, the FBI could not substantiate the person was prohibited, or the FFL did not transfer the firearm.  That hardly seems to indicate a public safety crisis demanding congressional intervention. This is especially so, because where prohibitions are substantiated after firearms are transferred following the three day window, law enforcement authorities already have the tools to act under current law.

None of this matters to Rep. Clyburn, of course, who is hoping the recent tragedy in South Carolina will give his legislation the momentum it needs to succeed. Clyburn claimed in his press release announcing the bill that “[u]nder current law, the Charleston shooter should have been barred from purchasing a firearm from a licensed dealer.” That assertion is by no means clear, with media outlets now reporting that the suspect was arrested for a misdemeanor, not a felony, as originally reported. A single misdemeanor arrest, without more, is not cause for a denial under federal law (on the other hand, if the suspect had been formally charged with a felony, he would have been federally prohibited from buying a gun).

Should Clyburn’s bill become law, people who are unjustly subjected to NICS delays for reasons beyond their control would, in effect, be prohibited from exercising their rights to obtain firearms from dealers. In essence, every extended delay would become an extra-legal firearm prohibition. The FBI could affect denials without having to substantiate them, as they must under current law. Meanwhile, determined criminals can always obtain firearms illegally to carry out their plans.

Piling on the bandwagon, as usual, is Bloomberg’s front group, Moms Demand Action, who are now demanding that large firearm retailers like Cabela’s “voluntarily” adopt the restrictions Clyburn hopes to make law. As with Clyburn, they are insisting that the Charleston suspect was a prohibited purchaser at the time he obtained his firearm, although they have no legal basis for this claim. As with Clyburn, they also believe Americans should be presumed legally ineligible to possess firearms, even where the government lacks substantiation.

All of this just goes to show what we all already know. Gun control advocates are shameless in their willingness to exploit tragedy to achieve their agenda. We urge you to contact your Congressional representative and urge him or her to oppose H.R. 3051.

EDITORS NOTE: Readers may contact your U.S. Representative at 202-224-3121 or use the “Write Your Lawmakers tool.

Anti-Gun Politicians Get Woman Killed in New Jersey

Carol Bowne

Carol Bowne / Courier-Post

Add Carol Bowne to the ever-lengthening list of people who have been killed because gun control supporters in elected office prohibited them from defending themselves.

In the most direct sense, Bowne, a resident of Berlin Township, New Jersey, was murdered, on June 3, by a violent ex-con she had prior reason to fear. But in a broader sense, anti-gun politicians also bear responsibility for Bowne’s avoidable death. It is they who forced her to choose between obtaining a handgun quickly and carrying it with her for protection — at risk of imprisonment, fines or worse at the hands of New Jersey’s law enforcement authorities and courts — or subordinating her self-preservation instincts to the dictates of those same politicians — at risk of death at the hands of her eventual killer.

To the eternal regret of those of us whose memory of this sickening story will not be erased by the banal arguments gun control supporters raise, as they try to escape the blame they very much deserve, Bowne, as a law-abiding citizen, paid the ultimate price.  In short, New Jersey’s extreme gun control laws provided Bowne’s murderer with exactly what he needed to perpetrate this horrific crime — a defenseless victim.

Bowne applied with her local police department for a permit to merely purchase a handgun — a permit to carry a handgun being out of the question in New Jersey — and waited. By law, state officials were required to process her application within 30 days.

They didn’t. As Charles C. W. Cooke noted this week, in Jersey, they rarely do. “Instead, would-be gun owners report waiting for three, four, six, and even nine months for permission to exercise what the Second Amendment makes clear is an unalienable individual right,” Cooke said.

In short, New Jersey’s extreme gun control laws provided Bowne’s murderer with exactly what he needed to perpetrate this horrific crime — a defenseless victim.   Much taller and heavier than Bowne, her assassin stabbed the defenseless Bowne with a knife in her driveway, repeatedly, twice walking away and returning to stab her again, then kicked her after she fell.

Someone of low moral caliber might ask “what difference does it make?” that the killer used a knife instead of a gun. But anyone who has to ask the question is incapable of understanding the answer. It is, simply, that gun control laws do not disarm murderers, they disarm their victims.

Because they deserve much of the blame for Bowne’s death, gun control supporters — if there are any who have a shred of decency and any sense of shame — should remain silent, while the sane among us go about the long overdue business of repealing New Jersey’s despicable gun control laws and any like them in other states. Several legislators in New Jersey have said they will take the very small — but important — step to introduce legislation requiring that handgun permit applications be expedited for women in Carol Bowne’s situation. But the far better solution is clearly to scrap the state’s absurd gun control laws altogether.Someone of low moral caliber might ask “what difference does it make?” that the killer used a knife instead of a gun. But anyone who has to ask the question is incapable of understanding the answer. It is, simply, that gun control laws do not disarm murderers, they disarm their victims.

Gun control supporters will not remain silent, of course. They will continue to press for more of the same restrictions that got Carol Bowne killed, and worse. One might ask “why,” but at some point, it doesn’t matter why gun control supporters do what they do — whether it is because of ignorance, a desire to control others, or a feeling of inferiority to, and disdain for, people willing and able to protect themselves. What matters is what they do, and what they do gets people killed.

Henceforth, let the gravest of risks be to the political careers of those who impose laws devoid of logic and contrary to the founding documents of this great country which jeopardize the lives of the people they are supposed to serve. On Election Day, in New Jersey and elsewhere, let’s remember Carol Bowne’s and that in all cases, elections truly do have consequences.

Hollywood Elite to Erect Memorial to all Dead Home Invaders

HOLLYWOOD, CA – The silver screen’s most elite names and faces gathered at a discrete location, to discuss their disastrous participation in Michael Bloomberg’s first annual Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 2nd.

Wear orange

The stars had every reason to be concerned after their collective wearing of orange shirts to commemorate all those who have lost their lives to gun violence went largely unnoticed by the general public. Attended by Sean Penn, Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore, and Jane Fonda, to name just a few, the discussion over cocktails and entrées extended into the late evening, until all celebrities came to a consensus that the best way to raise awareness for the victims of gun violence was to erect a statue of an unarmed man with a flashlight and a bag over his shoulder, climbing through a window.

Wear orangePenn, the leader of the Coalition of Film Actors Against Gun Violence, explained his support for the memorial.

“We live in a nation of small-minded, gun-toting ignoramuses who fail to realize that the reason for economically challenged individuals to enter strangers’ homes is not that they are criminals out to do them harm, but in actuality it manifests the desire of the disadvantaged classes to obtain items of materialistic culture that our capitalist society conditions them to think they need,” he stated.

“Deprived by the system of the means to afford expensive things, they try to acquire them the only way they can, by entering someone’s home and taking it. The so-called ‘burglars’ and ‘home invaders’ are, in fact, nothing more than casualties of America’s perpetual war on the poor and racial minorities,” said the star of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Adorned with a golden plaque saying, “To all those lost to the mindless pull of a trigger,” the memorial is expected to appear in the center of the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which will make it officially the first monument erected at a U.S. cemetery for political motives. Despite objections by locals and right-wing groups, Penn and his celebrity alliance claim that the monument will bear as much dignified significance as any war memorial in American history.

Jane Fonda supported Penn’s statement by saying, “It takes a lot of courage to enter a home of a complete stranger. We should honor their bravery, while at the same time recognize their sacrifice as a shameful legacy of conservative policies. Hopefully, this sacred memorial will raise awareness and help end the bloodshed,” said the actress famous for her portrayal of a gun-toting interstellar beauty in Barbarella.

The movement has been able to raise over $250,000 in donations since its inception yesterday, with most of the money coming from California’s wealthiest gated communities, protected by private security companies and teams of armed bodyguards.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Peoples Cube.

Amnesty, legalizing marijuana and gun control: Creating a “cartel of death” in America

There has been much discussion about amnesty for illegal aliens in Congress. Democrats, led by President Obama, want amnesty at all cost. I recently had a conversation with Kelly Kirshner, the former Mayor of Sarasota, FL. He is planning a demonstration to promote “immigration reform”, which is code for amnesty. Kirshner believes he is doing good, when in fact he is promoting policies that will bring violence to America.

Dr. Lawrence W. Reed from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, created the Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy. Reed’s third principle states: Sound [public] policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.

Amnesty (immigration reform) is inextricably linked to efforts to legalize drugs and control gun ownership in America. These three movements are joined at the hip and will, in the long term, lead to a “cartel of death” in America. By not taking into account the long-run effects and all people these policies will wreak havoc on our society, especially our youngest and most vulnerable.

Mexican_drug_cartels_2008

The major Mexican drug cartels. For a larger view click on the map.

Many have documented how our borders are not secure. Dennis Michael Lynch in his documentary “They Come To America” focuses on the land border between the United States and Mexico. Many ignore the border states along the Gulf of Mexico. Drug cartels, like the Gulf Cartel, use these porous borders to come to America transporting not only illegal aliens but also drugs and the certain violence that is part and parcel of the drug business.

There is a push by Libertarians, Democrats and some Republicans to legalize medical marijuana. This effort is only the first step, like in Colorado, to the full legalization of marijuana, like in Florida. By legalizing marijuana you legalize the cartels and the culture of death that comes with them and their drugs. President Obama gave banks permission to do business with marijuana distributors.

Sheila Polk in her op-ed column “Legalized marijuana: Colorado kids are paying the price” writes:

On Jan. 1, Colorado opened its doors to this nation’s first legal sale of recreational marijuana. Lost in the buzz is the documented impact of legal marijuana on Colorado children.

The reality about today’s marijuana, an addictive substance whose average potency has dramatically increased from 3 percent THC in the 1990s to almost 15 percent, should change everything that people think they know about the drug.

[ … ]

Past 30-day use of marijuana by teens 12 to 17 is highest in medical-marijuana states. In Denver between 2004 and 2010, past 30-day users of marijuana ages 12 and up increased 4.3 percent, while the increase for the nation was 0.05 percent.

By 2010, past 30-day use for this age group was 12.2 percent, compared to 6.6 percent for the country. One in six kids who start using marijuana becomes addicted.

Read more.

The below video is by the National Rifle Association. It is a different approach for the NRA in that it links the violence and the effort to demonize guns by President Obama, Michael Bloomberg, candidate for Florida governor Charlie Crist and others. We now know due to the work of bloggers and authors like Katie Pavlich, that these guns were provided by our own government in an operation named “Fast and Furious.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCDEFGH[/youtube]

Polk concludes with:

What can Arizona learn from this?

Lesson Number 1: We should not rush to experiment with an entire generation of our young people by legalizing marijuana. Use of marijuana by Arizona’s 8th, 10th and 12th graders has already increased by 14.4 percent from 2008 to 2012.

Lesson Number 2: We must build an environment in which every child can learn and thrive. That must include funding public education to heighten awareness about the harms of marijuana. Every child can succeed when adults believe in them and create safe communities for them.

Marijuana is never part of that equation.

A wise warning indeed. Drugs, children, violence and guns make for a toxic combination.

EDITORS NOTE: Sheila Polk is the Yavapai County Attorney and co-chair of MATFORCE, the Yavapai County Substance Abuse Coalition. The featured image is courtesy of  activist Thomas Good, who is in costume – “recruiting” for the military as the Grim Reaper, October 2007. The photograph was taken by the subject’s 14-year-old son, Nathaniel Good. In March of 2007 the photo was reprinted as the cover shot on “Peacework” magazine, a publication of the American Friends Service Committee.

RELATED COLUMN: Swiss model helps curb heroin addiction | FLORIDA TODAY | floridatoday.com

FL Rep. Dane Eagle Introduces HB 733 – Second Amendment Preservation Act

Florida State Representative Dane Eagle (R-Cape Coral) introduced the Second Amendment Preservation Act, House Bill 733. The provisions of H.B. 733 are simple and easy to understand. Florida officials would be barred from enforcing federal gun control laws and would be fired if they did.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) in an email states, “Whatever the intent of the 1968 Gun Control Act, it has become a monstrosity. It has been used to strip more than 150,000 veterans of their constitutional rights without due process. The ATF is now using annual inspections to Xerox 4473’s and compile a national gun registry.”

“And the Obama administration is now setting the stage for using medical information to strip tens of millions of Americans of their constitutional rights — again, with no due process. This includes individuals with ADHD and PTSD — plus those with common anxiety disorders or Alzheimer’s. And while no one has been able to identify any ‘danger of gun violence’ posed by people with Alzheimer’s, many of them do have very large and valuable gun collections which they would like to pass on to their children,” reports GOA.

GOA warns, “Unfortunately, like prisoners who have come to identify with their captors — called the “Stockholm Syndrome” — a few gun owners have become addicted to federal infringements.”

GOA observes:

  1. Under the Supreme Court’s Printz decision, Florida has no obligation to be a regulatory lap dog for President Obama.
  2. Even without Federal Law, Florida has more than enough laws regulating firearms ownership.
  3. Contrary to promises, the Brady Act hasn’t worked particularly well, producing “false positives” in roughly 95% of the cases where gun owners are denied by the Brady Check. Not only that, the law sure hasn’t stopped calls for more gun control.

To those who have become addicted to having their constitutional rights taken away, we would say this: “You will get used to freedom, and you will really like it.”

GOA ACTION: Contact your State Representative. Tell our representative how you feel about House Bill 733.

HOW TO CONTACT-WRITE YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES:

  1. Go to http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/myrepresentative.aspxand type in your street name and city.
  2. Click on the “Full Detail” banner under the picture of your state representative.
  3. Click on the “Email Representative” banner.
  4. Once you are at your legislator’s webmail site, you can fill in your name and address, and then copy-n-paste the letter below.

GOA Pre-written letter:

Dear Representative:

Please cosponsor and support the Second Amendment Preservation Act (H.B. 733).

The provisions of this bill are simple and easy to understand. Florida officials would be barred from enforcing federal gun control laws and would be fired if they did.

Whatever the intent of the 1968 Gun Control Act, it has become a monstrosity. It has been used to strip more than 150,000 veterans of their constitutional rights without due process.

The ATF is now using annual inspections to Xerox 4473’s and compile a national gun registry.

And the Obama administration is now setting the stage for using medical information to strip tens of millions of Americans of their constitutional rights — again, with no due process. This includes individuals with ADHD and PTSD — plus those with common anxiety disorders or Alzheimer’s. And while no one has been able to identify any “danger of gun violence” posed by people with Alzheimer’s, many of them do have very large and valuable gun collections which they would like to pass on to their children.

Sincerely,

EDITORS NOTE: Kansas and Alaska have enacted Second Amendment Preservation Acts.

TAKE ACTION: Republican Immigration Reform will lead to 8 million more Anti-gun Voters

“[A] Pew poll suggests that illegal immigrants, if given citizenship, would vote for liberal, anti-gun candidates by an 8-to-1 margin.” – GOA’s Erich Pratt, commenting on Pew poll findings as reported in The Washington Post (7/22/13)

Gun Owners of America (GOA) in an email states, “Next Wednesday, the House Republican leadership will announce a set of “principles” for immigration reform.  Supposedly, if these ‘principles’ are not well-received, the House will shelve the issue for the remainder of the year. To be blunt:  The health of the Second Amendment relies on demolishing these ‘principles’.”

“Immigration reform will add over 8,000,000 anti-gun voters to the voting rolls.  There may be as many as 11.5 million persons illegally in the United States.  And, a Pew poll from last year indicated that if illegal immigrants were given citizenship, they would vote for liberal, anti-gun candidates by an 8-to-1 margin,” notes GOA

Pratt notes, “This is exactly what happened to California — which was once a Red State.  Because of the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty bill of 1986, the state lurched violently to the left and now can’t pass gun control restrictions fast enough. If this were to happen at the national level, we would lose the ability to stop massive gun bans and gun registration schemes.  And all of this occurs at a time when a Fox poll shows the American people oppose Obama’s immigration policies by a margin of 36% to 54%.”

The first reality is this:  If the House passes ANYTHING, the Senate will tack on its amnesty bill and send it to conference.  And the national conversation will turn off of ObamaCare and onto immigration.

And guess what?  Every gun-hating institution which moved heaven and earth to pass gun control will move heaven and earth to get the House to retreat — if not to a “pathway to citizenship,” to a “pathway to legalization.”

They will have created the biggest and most motivated Obama-loving movement in the country — devoted to electing anti-gun politicians and retaining Harry Reid’s control of the Senate.

What will Republicans get, in exchange for creating an army of pro-Obama election warriors?

Very little.  (Be sure to read GOA legislative counsel Michael Hammond’s analysis, which shows, in great detail, how the Republican leadership’s “principles” will end up backfiring on gun owners.)

The bottom line is that there is a reason why Barack Obama and his “puppet press” have been campaigning for a year to force the Republican House to wade into “immigration reform.”  It is nothing but benefits for anti-gun politicians, and nothing but pain for pro-gun legislators.

Who would be stupid enough to inflict that level of pain on themselves?

ACTION:   Contact your Representative.  If he is a Republican, the pre-written letter will ask him to reject the ridiculous “immigration principles” being hawked by the leadership — principles that will eventually destroy the pro-gun movement in America.  The pre-written letter for Democrats is a generic opposition letter.

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE:  Remember that clicking on the first “submit” button on the GOA Engage site (where you input your name and address), only submits your information so that your correct legislators can be identified. Hence, the first “submit” button does not actually send your letter.  Instead, it brings you to the next page where you can actually review the pre-written letter. The second “submit” button actually sends the letter.

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New Government Report Undercuts Anti-Gun Agenda

report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS-a component of the Justice Department) shows that firearm homicides in general, and violence at schools, have decreased substantially during the last two decades; the percentage of homicides committed with firearms has decreased; and only a tiny percentage of state prison inmates imprisoned for gun offenses obtain their guns from gun shows.

As the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin characterizes it, the report is “wonderful news for the country and rotten data for anti-gun advocates.” 

To make matters worse for anti-gun advocates, the story has been picked up by the national news media. In an article for U.S. News and NBCNews.com, veteran reporter Pete Williams points out that the BJS report shows that 40 percent of criminals get their guns from friends and family members, and another 37 percent get theirs from theft or other illegal sources. Lest gun control advocates accuse the BJS or Williams of having a pro-gun political agenda, Williams notes that “The report is strictly factual.”

In his article for the Washington Post, Jerry Markon says that while “gun shows were central” to the recent debate in the U.S. Senate over expanding background checks to cover private firearm transactions, “Less than 1 percent of state prison inmates who possessed a gun when they committed their offense obtained the firearm at a gun show,” according to the report. The figure reported by the BJS is 0.8 percent.

NRA members probably are not surprised at the gist of the BJS report.

In the NRA’s magazines and NRA-ILA’s Grassroots Alerts, we’ve been reporting the decline in violent crime, the relative safety of schools, and the relative rarity of criminal acquisition of firearms at gun shows, for nearly 20 years. But for the general public, the contents of the BJS report may come as a revelation, especially given the way that many in the media have reported on the gun control issue over the last few months.

As another U.S. News article and a Fox News article that covered the BJS report point out, a recent Pew Research Center poll found that while “The gun homicide rate in 2010 was the lowest it had been since [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] began publishing data in 1981,” 56 percent of respondents believe that gun crime is higher than it was two decades ago, against 12 percent who believe it is lower.

To be clear, 2010 is the most recent year for which the CDC has released homicide data. For the record, FBI data show that the murder rate dropped again in 2011, and again in the first half of 2012.

Florida Rep. Steube files bill “to arm school personnel”

On February 27th , Florida Representative W. Gregory “Greg” Steube,  filed HB 1097 – School Safety, which takes a hard look at safety in Florida’s schools. Rep. Steube, an Army paratrooper and Iraq War combat veteran, states, “The safety of our school children and the dedicated teachers and personnel who educate them is a paramount concern to all communities.”

“We are all deeply concerned about the well-being of our children and we must come to a consensus on how to prevent violent crimes from occurring on school grounds. As a father and a son of a teacher, I feel a responsibility to my community and my state to address the safety of our students and teaching personnel. With this bill, schools will be better equipped to protect their faculty and students,” notes Rep. Steube.

HB 1097 would allow a school principal to designate one or more members of school personnel to carry a concealed firearm or weapon while performing his or her official duties. 

The bill requires that “designated personnel must complete additional training and coursework that covers emergency procedures, life safety, methods of prevention, terrorism awareness and firearm proficiency to ensure they are prepared to respond appropriately in the event that a threat arises on campus. Also, the bill would require each school to have a school safety officer present on campus, unless the principal has already designated a member of school personnel to carry a weapon or firearm on that campus.”

Below, you can find more information regarding HB 1097, as well as important tools that may help you advocate for your concerns.

HB 1097

HB 1097 Press Release

Legislative Tracking System

EDITORS NOTE:

Greg Ridgeway, Ph.D., Deputy Director National Institute of Justice, in a recently released document states, “On average there are about 11,000 firearm homicides every year. While there are deaths resulting from accidental discharges and suicides, this document will focus on intentional firearm homicides. Fatalities from mass shootings (those with 4 or more victims in a particular place and time) account on average for 35 fatalities per year. Policies that address the larger firearm homicide issue will have a far greater impact even if they do not address the particular issues of mass shootings.”

This document provides a cursory summary of select initiatives to reduce firearm violence and an assessment of the evidence for the initiative. To read the document click here.

Watch this video statement by Christian Ziegler, State Committeeman from Sarasota, FL: