CCRKBA.org

BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- Mobile, Alabama Mayor Sam Jones has some explaining to do in the wake of a highly-publicized incident before Christmas during which he held a burglary suspect at gunpoint, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Jones, a Democrat, is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization that has campaigned for stricter gun control laws that affect average private citizens.

But Jones is no average private citizen.

Mobile, Alabama Mayor Sam Jones ~ Is he licensed to carry?

According to published reports, Jones was returning home from an errand, driving his private vehicle. “His bodyguard, who drives the mayor’s city vehicle, was not on duty,” the Press-Register newspaper reported. And now there are questions about whether the mayor has an Alabama carry permit.

“Here is a municipal mayor who has a bodyguard, and believes it is okay for him to carry a gun, but he belongs to an organization that consistently works to keep everyone else from carrying,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “If the mayor is legally licensed, why does he belong to a group that has fought to prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their self-defense right?

“If Mayor Jones doesn’t have a permit,” he continued, “then he is a poster child for the double standards that elites like Mayor Michael Bloomberg believe separates them from the citizens they serve. Either way, Mayor Jones owes it to his constituents to show them his carry permit, and to oppose any further attempts by Mayors Against Illegal Guns to prevent private citizens from exercising their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.

“It is no surprise that average American citizens are fed up with government officials at all levels,” Gottlieb observed. “We’re glad that Mayor Jones had the means and the willingness to protect his property, but we are stunned and disappointed that he belongs to an organization whose very essence is to make it virtually impossible for average citizens to do likewise.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.

Gun Owners of America

Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- Birds of a feather sure do flock together.

So it’s no surprise that the country’s most anti-gun Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, invited the U.S. Senate’s most anti-gun Republican member up to his New York City residence for cocktails and a fund raiser next Monday.

Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana never met a gun control bill he didn’t like, and his F-rating from GOA is well-deserved.

Bloomberg, of course, founded the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Bloomberg, conveniently, thinks virtually all guns should be illegal. So MAIG is simply yet another gun prohibition organization.

While Bloomberg and Lugar may get along fine, his Republican primary opponent, Richard Moudock, is reaching out to gun owners throughout the state.

The Indiana Republican primary for senate is one of the most important races in the country for gun owners, and we don’t have to wait around for November to hand the anti-gunners a massive defeat.

The May 8th primary features two candidates who are diametrically opposed on the Second Amendment:

• Dick Lugar does not agree that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.
• Richard Mourdock believes the message of the Second Amendment is clear: “shall not be infringed” is a restriction on federal power to regulate gun ownership.
• Dick Lugar doesn’t trust the people with firearms, so he supports banning semi-automatic rifles that he erroneously calls “assault weapons.”
• Richard Mourdock understands that gun bans don’t stop criminals, but only hamper the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves.
• Dick Lugar believes you should submit to a waiting period before you purchase a handgun, hence “enjoying” a little time to “cool off.”
• Richard Mourdock believes that it’s the Congress that should “cool off” and stop passing bill after bill that ignores the Constitution.
• Perhaps worst of all, Dick Luger supports UN efforts to pass the small arms treaty, a treaty that could impact every gun owner in America. Dick Lugar was the ONLY Republican Senator NOT to come out in opposition to the treaty.
• Richard Mourdock will never vote to hand over any authority to the UN.

This Senate election is particularly important in the event that Barack Obama manages to win another term. If Obama is reelected, Dick Lugar means one more vote for anti-gun Supreme Court justices, the small arms treaty and other anti-gun legislation.

The choice for Senator could not be more clear.

Make no mistake, however, Dick Lugar will be hard to beat. He’ll have almost unlimited money pouring in from the party establishment in Washington, and he’ll be calling in favors everywhere.

But Lugar can be defeated with the help of tens of thousands of gun owners and sportsmen from across the country.

Richard Mourdock, currently the State Treasurer of Indiana, is virtually tied with Lugar in the polls. This is our chance to defeat a politician who has been a thorn in the side of gun owners for more than three decades.

So please visit Richard Mourdock on the web at www.richardmourdock.com and chip in a few bucks to help his campaign. Lugar is spending millions of dollars, so please do all you can to help the Mourdock campaign go toe-to-toe with Lugar.

We don’t have to wait until next November to start beating the anti-gunners. Please help to get things rolling in Indiana today!

Sincerely,

Tim Macy
Vice Chairman

P.S. Dick Lugar has been voting against gun rights for more than 30 years. His opponent, Richard Mourdock earned the support of GOA-PVF for his strong stance for your gun rights. Please visit Richard online today to make a financial contribution.

About:
Gun Owners of America (GOA) is a non-profit lobbying organization formed in 1975 to preserve and defend the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. GOA sees firearms ownership as a freedom issue. `The only no comprise gun lobby in Washington’ – Ron Paul

Grass Roots North Carolina for Firearms Education

North Carolina --(Ammoland.com)- Now Greenville Mayor Pat Dunn leads a swan song cynical over-reach to circumvent HB 650. Apparently she refuses leave without also leaving her anti-freedom mark!

In violation of both the letter, and more importantly, spirit of the new state law that uniformly permits concealed carry within all North Carolina parks, the Greenville City Council, under out-going Mayor Pat Dunn, recently passed draconian legislation that mandates posting against carry in 25 broad areas and numerous sub-regions of Greenville parks - including a clear over-reaching ban in the city’s dog park!

• Dunn’s membership in New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s strident anti-gun MAIG organization was bad enough.
• Now, adding insult to injury, she seeks to make a final parting assault on lawful carry within Greenville’s recreational facilities.
• All this effort to disarm the law-abiding when violent crime in Greenville parks is a clear and present danger.
• Just last week Leroy Staton was brutally murdered in Jaycee Park. A park that will now be posted in seven areas.
• Every Greenville area that can be spun as a playground, an athletic field, a swimming pool, or athletic facility (and others that cannot) will be posted against lawful concealed carry.
• This type of exhaustive “kitchen sink” approach to bans is exactly what HB 650 was intended to prevent.
• This indiscriminate ban is clearly a cynical attempt to flout both state law, and Second Amendment rights.
• Such unreasonable and arrogant attempts to deprive free North Carolinians of their rights cannot and will not be tolerated!

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED:

Contact

• Contact Mayor Pat Dunn, Mayor-Elect Allen Thomas, and the City Councilors of Greenville, NC.
• Tell them that Greenville, NC refuses to become a defenseless small-town image of NYC, Washington DC and Chicago.
• All of which are represented by MAIG members,
• All of which disarm the law-abiding to the benefit of violent criminals.
• Tell them to rescind their illegal ordinance!

Cut and paste email list:

pdunn2@suddenlink.net, athomasemail@gmail.com, bryantkittrell@kittrellandarmstrong.com, ksmith@greenvillenc.gov, rglover50@suddenlink.net, info@marionblackburn.com, mjoyner@clementins.com

Deliver the message below:

Deliver This Message

Greenville City Representatives,

It has come to my attention that you intend to ban guns within extensive areas under city control in response to recent ratification of HB 650, “Castle Doctrine and Concealed Carry Permitted in Parks”.

You should be aware that, although this new law does permit posting against concealed carry in certain clearly and very narrowly-defined areas, your recently-passed anti-gun ordinance is overly-broad and violates both the letter, and more importantly the spirit of this new, freedom-promoting state law.

In particular, banning of carry within the city’s off-leash dog park, that cannot be reasonably considered a “playground” is clearly in violation of state law. This also makes it clear that the ordinance was prepared to indiscriminately ban otherwise lawful carry within every region of Greenville that can be construed, however torturously, to be permissible under HB 650.

HB 650 was intended to create statewide uniformity in the regulation of legal carry. Your ordinance is a clear and cynical attempt to thwart this effort, and therefore must be rescinded immediately.

North Carolinian Concealed Handgun permitees have shown themselves to be extremely responsible and are not a problem that you should be concerned about. Places within Greenville where citizens are not permitted to effectively defend themselves IS a problem that you NEED TO BEGIN working to solve.

A clear example of the need for law-abiding Greenville citizens to be permitted effective means of self-defense is the this week’s brutal murder of Leroy Staton in Jaycee Park, a small facility within which you intend to post seven separate areas.

I insist that you abandon plans to disarm responsible permit holders, and immediately rescind your illegal ordinance.

I will be following progress through Grass Roots North Carolina.

Sincerely,

A concerned NC voter

GRNC is preparing to take appropriate legal action and needs to identify local plaintiffs

• Plaintiffs are currently needed for actions within Kernersville, Greenville and Smithfield. Please contact alerts@grnc.org.
• Other municipalities may be added.
• Everyone should carefully monitor municipal ordinances, particularly those recently enacted.
• Any restrictions beyond “a playground, an athletic field, a swimming pool, or an athletic facility” should be immediately reported to alerts@grnc.org.

About:
Grass Roots North Carolina/Forum for Firearms Education is a non-profit, all volunteer organization devoted to educating the public about trends which abridge the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and engaging in grass roots activism to preserve those freedoms. Formed in 1994 to conduct a highly successful rally for the Second Amendment, GRNC has gone on to conduct projects like “Remember in November: A Gun Owner’s Guide to Voting,” bringing concealed carry to North Carolina. Visit:www.grnc.org

Wyoming Gun Owners

Wyoming --(Ammoland.com)- When Constitutional Carry was signed into law in Wyoming we knew that the anti-gun politicians would come out of the woodwork.

And they did…by using slick lawyer arguments and authority hungry police chiefs they have now exposed a monumental plan to implement gun control statewide.

Too bad for them we’re on to them.

Like usual they are selling their evil plan using the same old scare tactics, but you and I know better–this is just an attempt to chip away at your gun rights a piece at a time!

Here is what you need to know–at a recent Casper City business meeting the council members revealed they have built a coalition to lobby against your gun rights.

You heard it right–an anti-gun coalition right here in Wyoming.

In fact they have become so bold that Mayor Paul Bertoglio (Republican) and police chief Chris Walsh admitted that they are conspiring with other towns and lobby groups to challenge your constitutionally protected right to bear arms.

Incredibly the Casper council members are so paranoid they don’t even want you to have a pocket knife and intend to expand the city ordinance on sharp objects as well .

And you should have heard the City Attorney and police chief speak of other states prohibitions as justified–an irrational thinking process that suggests if New York does it so can Casper Wyoming.

Talk about working for outside interests.

Republican Mayor Paul Bertoglio and Republican council member Bill Brauer follow the lead of liberal Democrat Kim Holloway as they listen to police chief Chris Walsh push for tougher restrictions on gun rights.

You should note that during the Casper City business meeting not one of the council members spoke in support of the rights guaranteed by the constitution.

They believe it’s simply up to them to wield their might with a stroke of a pen. Who needs a constitution Right?

Wrong –and this is also a violation of state law– under Wyoming statute municipalities cannot make their own gun laws. The problem is there is no fine or penalty when they do.

But these slimy politicians always forget one thing –that by supporting gun control– they may have to pay a huge political price.

That’s why I need your help to flood Casper Mayor Paul Bertoglio’s with phone calls (307) 235-4726 and emails paulb@tribcsp.com, tell him to “leave your gun rights alone!

To Liberty,

P.S. Wyoming Mayors have joined the anti-gun stance of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and that’s why it is important for you to become a member of Wyoming Gun Owners to help defend gun rights.

Wyoming Gun Owners is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens’ organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1 Section 24 of the Wyoming Constitution.

Wyoming Gun Owners is the only organization taking action at this level–with an aggressive program designed to mobilize public support for pro-gun legislation as well as opposition to gun control.

Mailing Address: 1740H Dell Range Blvd.#149, Cheyenne WY, 82009. Phone:(307) 222-9357. Web Address: www.wyominggunowners.org

National Rifle Association

FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- While Congress investigates the involvement of federal law enforcement agents in the “Fast and Furious” Mexican gun trafficking scandal, Business Week reports that five current and three retired New York City police officers, along with a former New Jersey corrections officer and three other individuals, have been charged with trafficking M16s, handguns and shotguns – some with defaced serial numbers – as part of a $1 million scheme.

Covering the same story, the New York Times noted that “the arrests come at a difficult time” for the NYPD, because another several dozen of its officers are already accused or are likely to face charges of planting drugs, lying under oath, violating the civil rights of innocent victims, and fixing traffic tickets.

The slew of arrests also comes at a difficult time for the rest of the city. While the nation’s murder rate decreased five percent between 2009 and 2010, in New York City — where gun ownership is severely restricted – it increased 15 percent. Still moving in the wrong direction, thus far in 2011, the number of shooting victims in the city is slightly higher than during the same period last year.

And during a weeklong period earlier this month, the number of people shot there rose 154 percent over the 2010 tally.

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, whose hobbies include being the mayor of New York City and heading the anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, claimed at the end of 2009 that New York was “the safest big city in America.” Three months later, however, it became known that the city had experienced a 20 percent increase in murders while murders were declining elsewhere in America. Improvising with the best of them, Bloomberg blamed the city’s sorry trend on budget cuts reducing the police department’s manpower. However, data reported by the FBI showed that compared to other cities of over one million population, New York had more police officers per capita than Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix Las Vegas, San Antonio, San Diego, and Dallas, and about the same number as Chicago and Philadelphia.

All of those cities, save Chicago, have much less restrictive firearm laws than New York, of course. And five of the eight are in states that have “shall issue” Right-to-Carry permit laws. Lest permit holders who live in states other than New York become eligible to carry in the Empire State and its Big Apple, Bloomberg opposes H.R. 822, Rep. Cliff Stearns’ National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act. Bloomberg, who wants Congress to prohibit private sales of firearms in states where the legislatures steadfastly refuse to do so, says “When it comes to public safety, Congress has no business telling states, cities and police how to do their jobs.”

Obviously, he thinks that’s a job best left to him.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

CCRKBA.org

BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- While Michael Bloomberg has been running around blaming gun laws in other states for his city’s crime problems, eight New York City police officers were allegedly involved in a gun smuggling operation “right under his nose,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Reuters reported that eight officers have been charged in connection with the case. All were working in Brooklyn, and according to the District Attorney’s office, they “exploited their experience and credentials to assist in a variety of schemes involving the illegal interstate transportation…” of guns, cigarettes, counterfeit goods and slot machines, the news agency said.

“If I were a member of Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “I’d say it was time for Bloomberg to mind his own business. While he was busily suing legitimate gun dealers all over the country and going on television to brag about it, he should have been paying closer attention to what was happening in his own back yard. After all, it was his city employees that have been charged in this illegal gun trafficking scheme.”

Gottlieb said Tuesday’s revelation clearly underscores what is wrong with Mayor Bloomberg’s relentless campaign to “erode gun rights through the demagoguery of public office.”

“Bloomberg’s fiasco is steeped in irony,” Gottlieb continued, “because this New York gun trafficking operation was happening right under the mayor’s nose, and he didn’t even know about it. He was paying too much attention to telling everyone else what was wrong with their gun laws, when he couldn’t even keep his own cops from breaking the gun laws he thinks should be used as a model all over the country

“It may be time for Bloomberg to stop looking everywhere else for gun trafficking activity and focus his attention closer to home,” he observed. “It’s pretty hard to accuse citizens in other states of feeding New York’s illegal gun trade when some of Bloomberg’s own cops appear to be up to their badges in it.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.

Virginia Citizens Defense League

New York, NY --(Ammoland.com)- So Mayor Michael “Only police should have guns”…?

Bloomberg has some explaining to do.

EIGHT current and former police officers from New York City have just been arrested for smuggling M-16 MACHINE GUNS, OVER A DOZEN HANDGUNS, SHOTGUNS, all with serial numbers removed!

Funny, could Mayor Bloomberg be in on it. You know: Operation Fast and Furious envy?

But, now that I think about it, such gun running would allow Bloomberg to continue to point his finger at Virginia, while piously screaming that we need more gun control at federal levels.

But talk about bad timing – a “study” on gun trafficking was released today, of all days, and the author, Brian Knight, concludes that we need more federal laws to keep guns from being smuggled to New York!

I’ll bet Brian is slapping his head saying, “Doh!’

Here is a story on the gun-smuggling police officers: From the N.Y. Times: http://tinyurl.com/3lnetsp

8 Officers Charged With Gun Trafficking in U.S. Corruption Case

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Eight current and former New York Police Department officers were arrested early Tuesday on federal charges including gun trafficking and conspiracy to smuggle cigarettes, according to people briefed on the case.

The charges allege that the officers — five are still on the force and three are retired — were involved in illegally transporting more than a dozen handguns as well as M-16 assault rifles and shotguns and a variety of stolen property, the people briefed on the case said. The officers, along with a former New Jersey correction officer and three civilians, were arrested at their homes before sunrise by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and investigators from the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, the people said.

The gun-trafficking allegations strike at the heart of one of the New York Police Department’s most hard-fought and robust initiatives, and one that has been a central theme of the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: getting guns off the street of New York City….[ follow the link above to read more.]

Here is an article on the “study” on gun smuggling. Perhaps the conclusion should be that we need to keep guns out of the hands of the NYC PD  http://tiny.cc/qos73

About:
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. Visit: www.vcdl.org

My Gun Culture

USA --(Ammoland.com)- Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) spokesperson Senator Al Franken announced today formation of a new political organization – Mayors Against Legal Governing, or MALG.

Inspiration for the spinoff organization came out of a recent emergency meeting called to address the problem of inordinate numbers of MAIG members running afoul of the law. Since it’s formation in 2006, MAIG has suffered a rash of embarrassing incidents where member Mayors have been arrested, convicted, and even jailed for a broad variety of crimes.

Mayor Bloomberg (Photo nydailynews.com)

“I mean everyone knows that we don’t play by the same rules as common people. We finally decided, hey, why the secrecy? Let’s just be out in the open about it and organize and embrace the lawlessness,” noted MAIG and MALG Founder New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

MALG organizers stress the importance of planning and metrics to success of their long term mission.

“The pro-second amendment crowd likes to use lot’s of fancy statistics to prove things, so we decided we needed to whip up some of our own,” explained MALG organizer Bloomberg.

Inside sources indicate that Mayors Against Legal Governing is trying to make sure that their mayors have equal representation from all sorts of lawless behavior. So far, members have compiled an impressive list of illicit behaviors including Campaign Finance Scandal, Bribery, Counterfeiting, Domestic Abuse, Extortion, Money Laundering, Miscellaneous Corruption, Falsifying Evidence, Double-Secret Federal Charges, and Child Pornography.

“While we’re off to an impressive start, we’ve got some real gaps in the areas of armed robbery,  impersonation of clergy, and nude Llama wrestling,” observed Mayor Bloomberg. “If you know anyone, please give them my number.

“Originally we wanted to keep this organization exclusive and only allow membership to Mayors who are actual convicted felons or those who were in the process of being convicted,” explained Mayor Bloomberg. “But we’re really making a renewed effort to be inclusive so we’re going consider adding Mayors with Misdemeanors to the group.”

About: Tom McHale describes himself as a conservative gun-totin’ bible-clingin’ literary assault dude who enjoys finding humor in just about anything. His web blog My Gun Culture is an irreverent, twisted look at gun news bordering on the ridiculous. It covers shootin’ stuff, loud noises, defending your own, the occasional mall ninja, and about 200 years of the American way. “These are the (partially) true stories of… My Gun Culture” says Tom. Visit: www.mygunculture.com

CCRKBA.org

BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- At least 46 [ABC now Reporting 67 including Two Policemen] people were shot in New York City over the Labor Day weekend, prompting the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg how this could happen in a city with some of the toughest gun laws in the nation; laws that he would spread across the county.

“Mayor Bloomberg has advocated New York-style gun control for everyone, everywhere,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This included a 24-hour period from Saturday morning to Sunday morning during which 24 people were shot. That’s a pitiful demonstration of the abject failure of Bloomberg’s anti-gun policies.

“We will probably see Mayor Bloomberg adopt the ‘Obama protocol,’ blaming someone else, or the gun laws in other states, when the sad truth is that New York gun control laws have failed consistently,” he continued. “After this weekend, Bloomberg is going to have a hard time pandering his gun control agenda.”

According to the New York Post, the Labor Day weekend saw an “epidemic of shootings” including one that occurred not far from where he was marching in the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn.

“Michael Bloomberg’s blood-spattered anti-gun agenda is not simply wrong for New York,” Gottlieb observed, “it is wrong for the country. No better evidence of that can be found in the Big Apple’s Labor Day weekend shooting statistics. Maybe it’s time for members of Bloomberg’s ‘Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ to wonder just where his philosophy might take their cities, if they continue listening to his siren’s song of restrictive gun control.

“New York’s mayor is the Pied Piper of Prohibition,” Gottlieb stated. “Nearly four dozen shootings over a three-day weekend is proof positive that Bloomberg’s tune is seriously off-key. It is time for Mayor Bloomberg and other gun control extremists to admit that their strategies have failed. He has been running around the country blaming gun laws in other states for his city’s crime problems, but it is the laws of his own jurisdiction that have failed miserably, and he knows it.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.

ATF to Require Multiple Sales Reports for Sporting Rifles

National Association for Gun Rights

Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- The ATF is at it again and this time, it’s not just shotguns they’re after.

The new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) “rule” would require gun stores to report to the federal government the names of people who purchase more than one rifle in a week.

This new reporting requirement is nothing less than firearm registration in all but name.

The new BATFE rule change has been in place since January. It was trumpeted as a supposed “solution” to the problem with Mexican gun runners on the Southern border, but common sense tells us otherwise.

The BATFE’s exact rule states that anyone who purchases more than one rifle that is semi-automatic, larger than .22 caliber, and capable of using detachable magazines within five business days of each other, must be reported.

Although the BATFE claims that this requirement only applies to states along the southern border, the actual published rule has no geographic limitation.

That means they’re tracking the sale of shotguns and rifles across the country.

The idea for BATFE’s new requirement came from billionaire-playboy Michael Bloomberg’s henchmen at Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG). MAIG has been pushing the Obama administration to do this since August of 2009.

Anti-gunner Bloomberg released a statement calling the new rule “…a powerful new tool to catch the straw purchasers and illegal traffickers who are supplying Mexico’s cartel killers.”

His statement is typical anti-gun misdirection. While the BATFE is regulating guns that Americans buy, their “Gunwalker” program is funneling guns into the hands of the drug cartels in Mexico!

Shortly after the rule came into effect, the U.S. House passed an amendment to block the BATFE’s new power grab. This common sense amendment passed overwhelmingly 277-149.

Legislation has also been introduced in the U.S. Senate which would echo the House vote in blocking the ATF’s power grab. Solid pro-gun Senators like Rand Paul (R-KY), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and David Vitter (R-LA) are already on board with the legislation.

I need you to be aware of what’s going on because the ATF is going to open up a comment period in the future for thoughts on long-gun reporting just like they did on the Shotgun Study last month.

And I know I can count on you to be ready when your voice is needed.

Please call your senator and urge them to stand up for gun owners by supporting S.570.

We can stop this ridiculous power grab by the ATF, but only if we make ourselves heard loudly.

For Liberty,

About:
The National Association for Gun Rights was founded in 2001 to serve as a grassroots gun rights group focusing on building state-level gun rights groups and lobbying for pro-gun federal legislation. Brown has been a gun lobbyist for more than 17 years. Visit: www.nationalgunrights.org

Editorial Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed above do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, or other sponsors and partners. See the Editorial-Review Process for more details.

Mayor Bloomberg and Colonel Wilhelm Klink - One and the Same?

Virginia Citizens Defense League

Covington VA --(Ammoland.com)- I have been doing a bit of research on Bloomberg’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

They claim a membership of 593 mayors. Of these, 399 (over 67%!) are in only four states – New Jersey (40), New York (108), Ohio (71) and Pennsylvania(180). If you throw in California (21) and Florida (36), they account for 456 (over 76%) of their alleged membership.

There are approximately 8,291 mayors, nationally, of localities with over 30,000 citizens. Even disregarding the fact that a fair number of Bloomberg’s group are not even included in that count, due to small constituencies, this means that fewer than 7.2% of the nation’s mayors agree with his goals and methods enough to allow themselves to be counted among his supporters.

The vast majority of states, 37, or 74% (see table below) could produce only 5 or fewer members, from the many hundreds of mayors in each state. In fact, they could not persuade a SINGLE mayor in 12 states to join in their conspiracy to subvert the Constitution (see table below).

I am saddened to see that they were able to dupe 9 of our own Virginia mayors. [PVC: Virginia does have some less-than-stellar Mayors. The members of Bloomberg's coalition should be on every gun owner's list to get unelected.]

Alabama – 3, Alaska – 1, Arizona – 0, Arkansas – 2, Colorado – 1, Georgia- 5, Hawaii – 1, Idaho – 0, Indiana – 5, Iowa – 2, Kansas – 3, Kentucky – 0, Louisiana – 4, Maine – 4, Maryland – 4, Michigan – 3, Minnesota – 3, Mississippi – 3, Missouri – 3, Montana – 0, Nebraska – 3, New Hampshire – 0, New Mexico – 2, Nevada – 0, North Dakota – 1, Oklahoma – 0, Oregon – 2, Rhode Island – 0, South Carolina – 2, South Dakota – 0, Tennessee – 3, Texas – 2, Utah – 0, Vermont – 2, West Virginia – 0, Wisconsin – 5, Wyoming – 0

About:
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. Visit: www.vcdl.org

Guns save between 800,000 and 2.5 million lives annually. That’s 2,100 to 6,800 people every day who successfully use firearms to defend themselves, or prevent a criminal attack.

CCRKBA.org

BELLEVUE, WA – -(Ammoland.com)- The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms mobile billboard truck is visiting Los Angeles at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the northwest corner of W. 1st and North Spring streets, near the Los Angeles Times building and City Hall to counter New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign of fear against California gun owners.

Bloomberg has teamed up with Mayors Against Illegal Guns to send a moving billboard truck around the country claiming that 34 Americans are “murdered with guns every day.” CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb said Bloomberg’s campaign “tells less than half of a story, so on Wednesday we’re setting the record straight in the Golden State with the help of Gene Hoffman from the CalGuns Foundation.”

“We’re answering Bloomberg’s flash with genuine substance,” he explained. “We telling people what Bloomberg isn’t telling them. Guns save between 800,000 and 2.5 million lives annually. That’s 2,100 to 6,800 people every day who successfully use firearms to defend themselves, or prevent a criminal attack. In the majority of those incidents, no shots are fired, and nobody is injured or killed. In some cases where shots are fired by armed citizens, several lives are saved.”

CCRKBA has teamed up with the Second Amendment Foundation, which is producing educational materials on firearms rights, the number of lives saved and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

“While Bloomberg is shooting blanks,” Gottlieb explained, “CCRKBA is hitting the bull’s eye with information Americans need to protect their civil rights.

“Bloomberg’s campaign is a smokescreen,” he continued. “America needs to look behind the facade to see that his ultimate goal is to convince Congress to implement New York-style gun control laws, ban most semiautomatic firearms, stretch background checks out to between six and nine months, and to put gun shows out of business.

“No mayor, regardless how wealthy he is, should dictate to Congress or the people of California the terms of their civil rights,” Gottlieb said. “Michael Bloomberg is spreading hysteria about gun rights. We’re spreading the truth.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org.

Guns save between 800,000 and 2.5 million lives annually. That’s 2,100 to 6,800 people every day who successfully use firearms to defend themselves, or prevent a criminal attack.

California Rifle and Pistol Association

Sacramento, CA --(Ammoland.com)-CCRKBA (Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms), SAF (Second Amendment Foundation), and the Calguns Foundation are holding a press event and “truth rally” to counter Mayor Bloomberg and MAIG’s (i.e., “Mayors Against ‘Illegal’ Guns”) most recent disinformation campaign.

Instead of debating the actual issues, Mayor Bloomberg is apparently trying to subvert the American democratic process by sending a “billboard truck” to major cities across the country to promote the bald-faced propaganda that firearms are a net “social cost,” and not the real truth that firearms are a net “social benefit.”

Gun owners will thus be unveiling their own “truth truck” billboard to counter Bloomberg’s campaign of fake propaganda.

MAIG doesn’t want the public to know truth. That truth is this – for every criminal who kills with a firearm in a crime, there are 64 law-abiding citizens who use a gun in self defense. And in light of Mayor Bloomberg’s apparent political lies and outright “propaganda campaign,” CCRKBA and its local partners have teamed up to ensure that the public is told the truth, once and for all.

The truth is that firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens are a human right, a civil right, a “net benefit to society,” and a total and complete life saver to those who are unfortunate enough to have use them. Reams of statistics show that the vast majority of defensive firearm use occurs without the intended victim even having to fire one single shot.

This makes the MAIG disinformation campaign even more repugnant and nonsensical, since it flies in the face of documented reality.

So come show your support for the truth!

Join with CRPA Executive Director John Fields and meet with fellow law-abiding gun owners at the Northwest corner of W. 1st Street and Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles at 11:30 on Wednesday, March 16, 2011 for the unveiling of the CCRKBA billboard “truth truck.” Chairman of the Calguns Foundation and CRPA Board Member Gene Hoffman will give a brief speech and then take questions from the media.

You will be representing all law-abiding gun owners – so dress to impress. Please wear at least a collared shirt and no camo and no unloaded openly carried firearms.

• Where: Downtown Los Angeles (across from City Hall). On Northwest corner of W. 1st Street and Spring Street. (Click here to view Google Map)
• When: March 16, 2011 at 11:30AM. *For more details of where to meet click here to see the Calguns.net event information page.

Thank you, and don’t forget to spread the word!

About:
The California Rifle and Pistol Association “CRPA,” founded in 1875, is dedicated to defending the rights of law-abiding citizens to responsibly use firearms for self-defense and the defense of their loved ones, for sport, and for all other legal activities. CRPA is the official state association of the National Rifle Association. A California non-profit association, CRPA is independently directed by its own Board of Directors. CRPA’s members include law enforcement officers, prosecutors, professionals, firearm experts, the general public, and loving parents. CRPA has always worked to reduce the criminal misuse of firearms and firearms accidents, while actively promoting and organizing the competitive shooting sports and Olympic training programs in California. We are proud to say that many CRPA competitors are among the best in the world. Visit: www.crpa.org

NRA - ILA

Charlotte, NC --(Ammoland.com)- This week’s Outrage comes to us from the City of Brotherly Love and its Mayor, Michael Nutter (D).

Nutter is a member of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control advocacy group, misnamed Mayors Against Illegal Guns. We recently reported on Bloomberg’s announcement that he had hired a driver to tour the country in a large truck, towing a billboard claiming (wrongly) that 34 people are murdered with guns each day.

Implying that there is a single solution to the entire problem of criminal gun use, the billboard refers onlookers to Bloomberg’s www.fixgunchecks.org website, which urges that federal law “require a background check for every gun sale in America.”

As Nutter was waiting for the “Bloomberg Express” to pull into town last week, he said that in his city, it is easier for children “to get a gun than to go buy a book.” Seriously?

Since it is illegal for a child to buy a gun from a dealer, we have to assume Nutter is referring to the chances of a child illegally purchasing a firearm from the black market on the streets of his fair city. This is a sad commentary on the city’s apparent failure to enforce existing laws.

To buy a black market gun, the child would first have to find a seller in a dangerous street environment, and would have to come up with enough cash for an item much more expensive than the average paperback. Not exactly a safe, prudent, legal, or easy prospect.

Compare that to a child walking into a bookstore and plunking down $9.95 for a book.

Making ludicrous statements, and trying to ride the coattails of Bloomberg for his own political gain earns Mayor Nutter this week’s “Outrage.”

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

National Rifle Association

Charlotte, NC --(Ammoland.com)- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has proposed that it be given emergency authority for six months, beginning January 5, to require about 8,500 firearms dealers along the border with Mexico “to alert authorities when they sell within five consecutive business days two or more semiautomatic rifles greater than .22 caliber with detachable magazines.”

A Washington Post story reporting on the BATFE proposal described that definition as being applicable to “so-called assault weapons,” but it would also apply to many rifles that have never been labeled with that term.

The reporting requirement will apparently be imposed under the “authority” the BATFE has used in the past to demand reporting of other types of transactions from certain limited groups of dealers over the past 10 years, but the new proposal is far broader than any previous use of this authority. Of course, there’s no law today that prevents dealers from reporting suspicious transactions (or attempted transactions) to the BATFE, and dealers often do so. The BATFE is also free to inspect dealers’ sales records—either for annual compliance inspections or during a criminal investigation.

NRA-ILA’s chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, denounced the attempt to establish a registry of Americans who purchase semi-automatic rifles that gun control supporters ultimately want to see banned. “This administration does not have the guts to build a wall, but they do have the audacity to blame and register gun owners for Mexico’s problems,” Cox told the Post.

“NRA supports legitimate efforts to stop criminal activity, but we will not stand idle while our Second Amendment is sacrificed for politics.”

The Post says “The plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revives a proposal that has languished at the Justice Department and in the Obama administration for several months,” and that the gist of the plan was proposed by Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) last year. It its August 2009 Blueprint for Federal Action on Guns, MAIG indeed proposed that “ATF should identify the long guns most linked to crime and require dealers to report multiple sales of such guns.”

The idea must have appealed to the BATFE, because in June of this year Congress’ Government Accountability Office released a report noting that BATFE officials had claimed that U.S. efforts to stop the smuggling of firearms to Mexico are hindered by “a lack of required background checks for private firearms sales, and limitations on reporting requirements for multiple sales.”

Curiously, in September, a draft of the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Office’s unfavorable review of BATFE’s Project Gunrunner, established to combat the trafficking of firearms to Mexico, didn’t mention multiple sales at all. But the final version of the review, released in November, mentions “multiple sales” 43 times and says “the lack of a reporting requirement for multiple sales of long guns – which have become the cartels’ weapons of choice – hinders ATF’s ability to disrupt the flow of illegal weapons into Mexico.”

Whether BATFE intends its plan as another expansion of its oft-criticized firearm sales record tracing empire, or to lay the groundwork for legislation or regulations restricting “assault weapon” sales, or to fatten the files the agency keeps at its National Tracing Center in West Virginia remains to be seen. And the legality of requiring sales reports on any long guns is also in doubt. When the Congress specifically imposed multiple sales reporting on handguns only, it implicitly stated its intention that the same requirement not apply to sales of long guns.

However, it is crystal clear that some in the Obama Administration agree with those who believe the answer to crime is always more gun control. In September, MAIG blamed crime in states that have “strong” gun laws, on states that don’t have the same laws. And ever since President Obama took office, gun control supporters have been blaming Mexico’s crime problem on America’s gun laws.

The fact that Mexico’s multi-billion dollar drug cartels have machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and other potent weaponry you cannot buy in the United States is, to gun control supporters, irrelevant. The fact that most of the cartels’ guns have never been on this side of the U.S. border is, as far as they are concerned, a trifling inconvenience. The fact that the cartels will never have enough “assault weapons” or any other guns from the U.S. to hand out to all the Mexican policemen, soldiers and politicians on their payrolls, is, in their view, an unimportant detail. And the fact that the murder rate in the United States is at a 45-year low, while crime in Mexico is through the roof (the murder rate in Juarez is 115 times higher than in El Paso) is, they would certainly say, a contradiction best ignored.

To read the BATFE’s Federal Register notice about the plan, and for information on how to send your comments, click here (http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-31761.pdf). Comments about the proposal will be accepted for two months; if you choose to comment, please state your firm but polite opposition to the plan.

Needless to say, the NRA will not only comment, but take whatever other action is appropriate to block this sweeping expansion of federal recordkeeping on gun owners. Stay tuned.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

National Shooting Sports Foundation

NEWTOWN, Conn --(Ammoland.com)- In a recent report by the Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) coalition, an anti-gun organization led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the group misuses firearms tracing data in order to push its own gun-control agenda.

Let’s set the record straight:

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has repeatedly stated, “The appearance of [a licensed dealer] or a first unlicensed purchaser of record in association with a crime gun or in association with multiple crime guns in no way suggests that either the federal firearms licensed dealer (FFL) or the first purchaser has committed criminal acts. Rather, such information may provide a starting point for further and more detailed investigation.” (Crime Gun Trace Analysis Reports, ATF, 1998).

According to ATF, the average time to recovery in the U.S. is more than 10 years. In other words, from the time a firearm is first purchased at retail (following a background check) to the time it is recovered by law enforcement, more than a decade has elapsed. If one were to isolate the top 10 source states, the time to recovery stays a similarly high 9.9 years. These numbers, state ATF, are not indicative of firearms trafficking. Furthermore, every state, every one, is its own top source state for recovered firearms.

The MAIG report also alleges that states with strong regulations and oversight of firearm sales have less firearms trafficking than states that lack such measures.

Though countless examples to refute this claim exist, let’s focus on three: California, Virginia and South Carolina.

• The Golden State, with some of the strictest gun laws in the country, is the source state for 73 percent of its own recovered firearms. This means that nearly three-quarters of the firearms recovered in California were originally bought in the state. Neighboring Arizona, where the state legislature respects the Second Amendment and trusts its law-abiding citizens to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, has a paltry seven percent of the guns recovered in California. What’s more, that seven percent makes the Grand Canyon State the second highest source of recovered firearms for California!
• The Commonwealth of Virginia, though it restricts law-abiding citizens to only one-gun-a-month, is considered to be a top source state by the MAIG — a seeming disconnect with the organization’s claim that tough gun laws limit trafficking.
• In South Carolina, one-gun-a-month was repealed (allowing for more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens) and, like the rest of the U.S., South Carolinians experienced a decrease in violent crime. For the purposes of the MAIG study, South Carolina, without one-gun-a-month, didn’t even crack the top 10 on the MAIG list of source states.

The MAIG coalition criticizes the laws of the so-called “exporter” states. Yet, as gun ownership in the United States has soared, crime rates have plummeted in both the states MAIG likes and the states it dislikes. Mayor Bloomberg and his coalition fail to recognize that the laws of the states he criticizes are made by the democratically elected state legislators and represent what the citizens of those states want them to be (so long as they respect the Second Amendment).

Though Mr. Bloomberg may wish he was the Mayor of America, he’s not. He’s just the mayor of the City of New York, and the Second Amendment applies in Manhattan as much as it does in Mississippi.

About NSSF
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 5,500 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, log on to www.nssf.org.

National Rifle Association

Charlotte, NC --(Ammoland.com)- No one in this country knows better than New Yorkers what “devastation” looks like. On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center buildings and their surrounding area were reduced to rubble, burying nearly 3,000 Americans.

To this day, the images are difficult to comprehend; they show a concentration of man-made destruction unprecedented in the United States and perhaps anywhere on Earth.

New York’s current murder rate pales in comparison to that of 2001, of course. But it also pales in comparison to what it was in other years gone by. Due in part to crime-fighting programs adopted under former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, New York City’s murder rate is only a fifth of what it was 20 years ago.

Presumably, New Yorkers are well aware of the relative safety in which they live today. However, the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has a skewed perspective even though the September 11 anniversary is front and center in every news outlet today due to other controversies.

With New York City’s and the nation’s murder rates lower than anytime since the 1960s, Bloomberg sounded the alarm, saying “Illegal guns and their accompanying violence devastate communities across our country.”

Bloomberg revisited his perennial cause célèbre —gun control— because his anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), has issued an Issue Brief urging Congress to “close the gun show loophole”—gun control supporters’ Orwellian “doublespeak” for “prohibit private sales of firearms at gun shows and everywhere else.”

Since U.S. crime rates are so low, MAIG invoked Mexico’s war with its drug cartels, repeating the soundbite first heard in 2009, when Attorney General Eric Holder tried to use Mexico’s problem as the excuse for reinstating the federal “assault weapons” ban. “In fact, 90% of guns recovered and traced from Mexican crime scenes originated from gun dealers in the United States,” MAIG says.

Discovering that geography is more than a subject taught in elementary and middle schools, MAIG adds its revelation that “four in ten of the U.S. guns recovered in Mexico between 2006 and 2009 were originally sold by gun dealers in Texas. The three other states that share a border with Mexico – Arizona, California, and New Mexico – were the source for another one-third of the U.S. guns.”

Of course, the operative words in the “90 percent” soundbite are “and traced.” The GAO has already reported that most guns seized in Mexico, from cartels or anyone else, have not originated in the United States. For example, GAO noted, “In 2008, of the almost 30,000 firearms that the Mexican Attorney General’s office said were seized, only around 7,200, or approximately a quarter, were submitted to ATF for tracing.” The others were not submitted for tracing, presumably in many cases because their markings indicated that they were not traceable to the U.S.

For all their effort, Bloomberg and MAIG got scant coverage by the news media. But the debate will likely continue over how many guns are smuggled from the U.S. to Mexico, what percentage of the cartels’ guns originate in the U.S., and from which countries the cartels obtain their machine guns, grenades and other weapons that are unavailable in the United States.

One thing is sure, however: Americans have greater access to U.S. guns than does anyone in Mexico, and our murder rates pale in comparison to those of our southern neighbor. For example, the murder rate of Juarez is nearly 100 times higher than that of El Paso, just across the border.

If anything, that’s a criticism of Mexican laws, which prohibit honest people from getting guns with which to protect themselves.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

FirearmsTruth.com

Michigan --(Ammoland.com)- More than a year and a half ago numbers circulated that 80 percent of the guns used by Mexican cartels came from the United States, but then the numbers were examined more closely.

That 80 percent number was in fact only counting guns that were actually sent back to the United States for confirmation. In other words, not all the guns confiscated in Mexico even were actually submitted to American authorities, yet the 80 percent number stuck, and it was reported over and over again.

We note this because now ABC News is now reporting that “as many as three out of four guns used in crimes in Mexico can be traced to guns stores just across the border in the U.S.” This sounds all too familiar.

So let’s take a close look at what ABC News says, and more importantly what they don’t say.

First, the news organization notes: “the study, based on Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) data and prepared by the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, shows that three out of four guns used in crimes in Mexico and submitted for tracing were sold in the four U.S. states that border Mexico.”

What they said, “and submitted for tracing,” meaning we’re back to the situation a year and a half ago, or in other words this is pretty much a revised ”80 percent of guns” statistic.

What they didn’t say was how many guns are not submitted for tracing, which could be substantially higher than the number of guns seized. The news story noted some “19,000 guns used in crime in Mexico were traced to an original sale at a US gun dealer.” That’s amazing, but 19,000 for a border war this big sounds like a small number of firearms. Of course, there is no mention of the TOTAL number of guns seized in Mexico.

What they also said was that this study was based on ATF data BUT “prepared by the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.” Do we really believe that this group would want to say “less than 20 percent of seized guns in Mexico are even sent to the United States for tracing?” The story fails to note that this was hardly the most scientific of studies either.

ABC News adds, “…the bulk of the guns came from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.” The story later continues by stating, “The numbers showed that Arizona, Texas and New Mexico had an export rate 169 percent greater than any other states, which the authors suggest may be due in part to less-restrictive gun laws in those states.”

So why wasn’t California mentioned in the second quote, if that was the other border state where “the bulk of the guns came from,” except that it doesn’t fit so nicely with the study’s finding, or it doesn’t fit with the tone the authors at ABC News intended. In other words, California has fairly strict gun control laws, so it is noted for being a border state when it is convenient to make a point, but disregarded when another point needs to be made.

The fact that guns are coming from border states shouldn’t even be a surprise. Is it really the respective states’ laws on gun ownership, or the fact that it is easier to drive to Texas than say New Hampshire? There are probably more illegal immigrants in the border states, and probably more illegal drugs from Mexico in those four states than say Alaska or Maine! Why is promixity mentioned when it fits, but disregarded other times? The answer: biased reporting.

Finally, we have to question why the primarily source for the story was the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and yet the only “color” commentary for the piece actually comes from the groups founder, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was quoted as saying, “[It] again proves it is too easy for criminals and traffickers to get guns.”

Citing data and then having the author of the data saying, “it proves the point,” hardly proves the point. This story thus lacks any credible counterpoint on the above statement or the study. Talk about a stacked deck and a highly biased story!

Peter Suciu is executive editor of FirearmsTruth.com, a website that tracks and monitors media bias against guns and our Second Amendment rights. Visit: FirearmsTruth.com

National Association for Gun Rights

Colorado -–(Ammoland.com)- The rush is on to ban private firearm sales at gun shows under the guise of referring to these sales as a “loophole.”

Federal law does not currently restrict private firearm transfers between law-abiding citizens whether they take place at home or at a gun show, and NAGR is taking a stand to keep it that way.

As you no doubt already know, Michael Bloomberg and his millionaire cronies are pouring their money into a media blitz through their anti-Second Amendment group, Mayor’s Against Illegal Guns.

The MAIG media blitz is designed to pass H.R. 2324, a bill in Congress that would ban private sales at gun shows.

As usual, the anti-gun crowd is selling its lie with the rhetoric of tragic stories which are unrelated to their actual bill. They’ve also added a new trick to their playbook, and are claiming that gun owners support their ban on private sales. This rolling out of doctored statistics, claiming that gun owners support banning private sales, is a transparent attempt to manufacture consensus, but it’s been tried in the past.

Should the BATFE be notified every time a firearm is given as a gift to a family member, or sold to friend at a gun club?

To principled gun owners, it’s an easy answer: No.

Naturally, the solution to these lies is the activism and passion of the members of NAGR and readers like you. Throughout the summer, NAGR has been putting the pressure on politicians to stand up for the Second Amendment, while we’ve also been alerting our membership to the truth about this issue to combat the well-funded lies of these “Mayors Against Illegal Guns”.

The real danger of the anti-gun MAIG media blitz is their disguising of the actual goal of their legislation. While MAIG is spending Bloomberg’s millions around the country talking about a so-called “loophole” in the law, their real goal is to ban private firearm sales between individuals.

While Bloomberg himself is repeatedly delivering a line about a so-called “small change in the law,” they are in fact out to stop any transfer of firearms without BATFE involvement – in other words, Big Brother is watching.

In order to prevent this lie from becoming law, we must remain doubly vigilant, and be ready for all contingencies. These could come in the form of a quickly reformulated bill or even a late-night amendment to unrelated legislation.

The House version of the bill, H.R. 2324, would require anyone wishing to make a private sale at a gun show to be entered into a federal government database, complete with fingerprints and photographs.

Backed by the support of Michael Bloomberg’s millions and using Senator John McCain to claim bipartisan support, the radical left is using their so-called “gun show loophole” bill to move toward shutting down all private firearm sales.

NAGR is using an aggressive strategy of grassroots activism to counter the million dollar lie. To stay informed on the latest movements on this issue, make sure you are signed up for NAGR’s email alert system.

About:
The National Association for Gun Rights was founded in 2001 to serve as a grassroots gun rights group focusing on building state-level gun rights groups and lobbying for pro-gun federal legislation. Brown has been a gun lobbyist for more than 17 years. Visit: www.nationalgunrights.org

Editorial Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed above do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, or other sponsors and partners. See the Editorial-Review Process for more details.

AmmoLand Gun News

WASHINGTON, D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- On Wednesday, July 14, 2010, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), will hold a press conference call for members of the media to introduce her new legislation that will require reporting lost and stolen handguns to the police.

Statistics confirm that most crimes committed with guns, are committed using illegal handguns – obtained through trafficking, straw purchases, or theft. When police discover a handgun at a crime scene, it is usually possible to trace it back to an original purchaser. Straw purchasers often rely on the “I lost it and forgot to report it,” loophole to get off the hook. Lost or stolen handgun reporting would help seal that hole – with zero impact on responsible, law-abiding owners.

A 2008 study published by Mayors Against Illegal Guns discovered that the seven states already enforcing a similar requirement show a 67 percent reduction in the number of crime guns traced back to within their borders.

Your coverage is welcome.

WHAT: Rep. Carolyn McCarthy Press Conference Call Introducing Legislation Requiring
Lost and Stolen Handgun Reporting

WHO: Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04)
Thomas McMahon, Mayor, Reading, PA
Deputy Commissioner William Flanagan, Nassau County Police Department
Paul Helmke, President, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Joe Grace, Executive Director, CeaseFire PA

WHEN: Wednesday, July 14, 2010
9:30 a.m. EDT

CALL IN: Please call Communications Director, Aprill Turner at 202.225.5516 for dial-in information.

Note: Participants will be required to confirm submit their name and affiliation.

Gun Owners of America

New York, NY - -(Ammoland.com)- Clearly New York City Mayor Bloomberg exhibits his unique brand of common sense when it comes to any reasonable objection to his gun ban front special interest group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (“MAIG”).

A reliable source informed me that NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg commissioned a front company to file a patent application for microstamping firearms…, a procedure which cannot work. Hizzoner then gathered sponsors for his Assembly bill and its Senate Bill counterpart, S6005, on behalf of MAIG.

This bill, if passed, would require that any new firearm entering New York State have a microscopic imprint on the firing pin to identify the firearm’s purchaser. Once fired, the purchaser’s information would supposedly be imprinted onto the primer of the spent shell casing. This process doesn’t currently exist, and if the Senate bill does pass during this session, it would become law January 1, 2011.

The only thing this bill will accomplish is a defacto ban on any new firearms in New York State while enabling criminals who use illegal guns.

On Wednesday, June 15, 2010, Mayor Bloomberg exercised his “common sense” and condemned “those who voted ‘no’ on this ‘common sense measure of microstamping any new legally owned firearm’, of listening to the ‘special interests instead of the 100 mayors and 83 police chiefs and law enforcement organizations across New York State who supported it.”

What Bloomberg isn’t telling you is that S6005 would make legal guns suddenly illegal. Does this make “Common Sense”?

History tell us that banning guns is a murderous endeavor enacted and enforced by tyrannical government officials from WWII Germany to modern day South Africa. I personally know of South Africa, my cousin Micheal Rubinek was machine gunned to death there for no reason at all, strict gun control is law of the land there. Furthermore, our great nation was founded by fighting off a tyrannical government…with GUNS. Shall we bow to the crown of England once again?

I am a 28 year career law enforcement officer and Second Amendment advocate. My family miraculously survived Nazi occupation, medical experimentation, etc. in Eastern Europe during World War II by refusing to follow the gun ban and fighting for freedom until and after they escaped. My parents’ story, and those of the millions who perished in the Holocaust, illustrates that gun control is a tool of tyrants.

Let me make points regarding common sense:

1. Common sense is acknowledging that there is no evidence that a procedure to microstamp a firearm even exists; this technology thus cannot be applied. Common sense is understanding that this law would create a defacto ban on all new legal firearms entering the State of New York.
2. Mayor Bloomberg represents MAIG, a special interest group representing 100 elected officials with an agenda to curtail the gun rights of law abiding citizens. He absolutely does not represent millions of people who support constitutional rights-regarding possession of firearms or anything else- as they the Mayor would have New Yorkers believe. Common sense tells us the Mayor thinks he can buy his way to gun control as he bought a third term in Gracie Mansion.
3. 83 “law enforcement” officials who are either appointed or ordered with salary to testify in uniform are hardly representative of thousands of rank and file police officers, active or retired, who are opposed to gun control in general, not allowed to testify in uniform, and positively against microstamping due to the procedure’s non existence and no applicable proof of effectiveness. Furthermore, S6005, which came before the New State Senate this week, made no exemptions for active or retired law enforcement! Mr. Bloomberg would essentially turn active, off duty and retired law enforcement officers into moving targets for criminals, disgruntled parolees, etc.

Is THIS common sense, Mr. Mayor?

Is it common sense to pass a law which would have a negative, and in many cases deadly, impact on millions of law-abiding gun owners while criminals would have no duty to microstamp their illegal firearms and continue to murder police officers and innocent citizens of New York State?

I question the Mayor’s common sense and that of the elected officials who went along with MAIG’s disgusting guise for keeping New Yorkers “safe”: televising the mother of a slain police officer begging to do anything to stop the carnage of New York’s Finest.

The implications of gun control, as proven by the disarmament and genocide of millions of Christians and Jews during WWII, a little over sixty years ago, is once again right before our very eyes.

The face of gun control is Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

IF YOU HAVE COMMON SENSE, YOU WILL VOTE Politicians who vote for this charade out.

National Rifle Association

New York, NY --(AmmoLand.com)- This week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun control advocacy group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), began running television ads urging Congress to “close the gun show loophole.”

Page 34 of MAIG’s Blueprint for Federal Action on guns says that the group supports H.R. 2324 and S. 843 — bills that would require NICS checks on private sales of firearms at gun shows, and which also contain provisions designed to drive gun shows out of business.

MAIG’s ads claim “The Columbine school massacre … killers got their guns because of a gap in the law, called the ‘gun show loophole.’” And in a related press release, MAIG claims “All four guns used in the Columbine shootings were bought from private sellers at gun shows.”

The claims are lies, of course.
For starters, one of the Columbine criminals’ four firearms was not acquired at a gun show. More to the point, however, the other three firearms, while bought at a gun show, were bought for the criminals by a straw purchaser — a woman who was not prohibited from possessing or acquiring firearms, and who therefore would have passed a NICS check, if she had bought the firearms from a licensed dealer.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

National Association for Gun Rights

New York City, NY --(Ammoland.com)- Liberals in places like New York, Boston and Washington D.C. are riding high on the passage of President Obama’s health care reform bill. Emboldened by their backdoor success, liberal leaders are already setting their sights on the next round of political priorities.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his anti-gun front group Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) have sent the White House and Congressional leaders a 40-point report outlining the anti-gun measures they would like make into law.

You might be saying to yourself, “We’ve heard this song before, right?” Wrong.

The anti-gun elitist have changed their tactics. Instead of trying to pass legislation through Congress, they want these changes made by regulation and executive order.

Michael Bloomberg and his anti-gun stooges want to bypass the elected representatives of the people and allow unelected bureaucrats in the Obama Administration to violate your Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Bloomberg’s plan includes the creation of a Federal task force of over seven different agencies from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) to the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the White House Office of Budget and Management.

Elements of the proposal, which is titled “A blueprint for Federal Action on illegal guns”, includes a laundry list of anti-gun measures.

Just some of the proposed changes in regulation include:

• Bans on the importation of “non-sporting use” firearms
• Restructuring and expanding the authority of the radically anti-gun and out-of-control BATFE
• Mandatory federal “lock-up your safety” regulations
• Surprise “residency” checks on buyers who purchase multiple guns
• REAL ID and biometric validation of firearms purchaser information
• Increasing paperwork and hurdles for gun dealers to jump through

Simply put, the anti-gun lobby is trying to push its unconstitutional wish list through the federal bureaucracy and away from the eyes of voters across the country.

Rest assured, the National Association for Gun Rights will do everything in its power to expose this outrageous, backdoor attempt to force gun control upon the American people.

You can read the full text of the Mayors Against Illegal Guns proposal, here:

www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/blueprint_federal_action.pdf

(AmmoLand won’t hot link to MAIG, please cut and paste)

If you think this is outrageous as I do, drop by the National Association for Gun Rights blog, and join the conversation.

Keep fighting,

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association

Utica, NY --(Ammoland.com)- The Utica City Council is considering two resolutions in support of Mayor Bloomberg’s/MAIG’s anti-gun / anti-freedom efforts.

Resolution 13 is in support of HR-2159, prohibiting anyone on the terrorism watch list from buying a gun. Problem is nobody knows how people are put on this list or how to get off it. Ted Kennedy was denied boarding at an airport because he was on the list.

Resolution 14 is in support of HR-2324, closing the so-called gun show loophole. Basically prohibits private gun sales.

A copy of both resolutions are available on our website at http://www.nysrpa.org/files/Utica-RES13-14.pdf

Contact information for the City Council can be found at http://www.cityofutica.com/CommonCouncil/

Jacob J. Rieper, Vice President of Legislative & Political Affairs New York State Rifle & Pistol Association http://www.nysrpa.org http://www.nysrpa-pvf.org

About:
The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association is the state’s largest and oldest firearms advocacy organization. Since 1871, our organization has been dedicated to the preservation of Second Amendment rights, firearm safety, education and training, and the shooting sports. Our membership consists of individuals and clubs throughout the state. We are a not-for-profit 501(c)4 organization and the official NRA-affiliated State Association in New York. Visit:  www.nysrpa.org

Idaho Sport Shooters Alliance

Troy, ID --(AmmoLand.com)- Most of you are probably aware that a very important firearms case, McDonald v. Chicago is currently pending before the United States Supreme Court.

In this landmark case, the Supreme Court is expected to strike down Chicago’s draconian gun ban and finally hold that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies to states.

This is going to give pro gun advocates a powerful tool to challenge state and local gun restrictions across the country. An array of groups ranging from 38 state attorneys general (Idaho’s included) to Safari club have submitted briefs supporting the plaintiffs’ position in this case. Our own Idaho State Rifle and Pistol Association has joined with other state associations in filing an amicus brief in this case.

Good job!

A much smaller number of briefs have been filed which oppose incorporating the Second Amendment against the states.

To demonstrate how out of the mainstream this position is please note that the Brady Center submitted a brief that does not oppose incorporation of the Second Amendment but argues for a lower standard of scrutiny for firearms regulation.

While most of the anti-2nd Amendment amicus briefs were filed by the “usual suspects” (anti-gun politicians, professors, and activist groups) there is one brief that should be particularly troubling to those of us that respect the US Constitution:

• The U.S. Conference of Mayors has submitted a brief that argues (among other things) that “gun control laws play a central role in fighting violent crime” and “The Second Amendment protects a largely obsolete eighteenth-century right”.

The mayors of several cities here in Idaho and across the US are members of the US Conference. If you live in one of these cities with Mayors in this organization please consider contacting your mayor and asking them why they would belong to a group that is blatant in it’s disregard for the constitutional right to possess and use firearms.

About:
The Idaho Sport Shooters Alliance is the only statewide group dedicated solely to advocating for the interests of gun owners and recreational shooters in Idaho. Visit: www.idahossa.org

National Rifle Association

Baltimore, MD --(AmmoLand.com)- Mayor Sheila Dixon (D) has accepted a plea deal for perjury charges stemming from accusations that she did not report gifts she received from a local developer. In a teary announcement yesterday, she resigned her post as the Mayor of Baltimore as part of the plea.

As you will recall, Dixon, a vocal member of “Mayors Against Illegal Guns,” was convicted last month of pocketing gift cards intended for Baltimore’s needy families.

Dixon now joins the ranks of disgraced anti-gun politicians like former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (D) of Detroit. Perhaps these folks should focus on abiding by the law themselves instead of persecuting law-abiding citizens.

“Mayors Against Illegal Guns” (MAIG) was founded and is funded by activist anti-gun billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a front group to lobby Congress to oppose important pro-gun reforms and support new federal gun control restrictions.

Despite its very misleading name, this national group of anti-gun mayors has lobbied Congress against national reciprocity of state Right-to-Carry permits, against much-needed reform of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), for regulating gun shows out of existence, and for repealing the Tiahrt Amendment that protects the privacy rights of law-abiding gun owners and limits disclosure of sensitive firearm trace data to protect law enforcement personnel and protect lawful gun manufacturers from bogus lawsuits.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

National Rifle Association

New York, NY - -(AmmoLand.com)- Skilled marksmen know that parallax—caused by having your head in the wrong place when looking through your sights—can cause you to miss your target.

As New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has demonstrated yet again, having your head in the wrong place can also result in a miss where gun control is concerned.

Bloomberg’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has produced a 51-page “Blueprint for Federal Action” calling for seven federal departments and agencies—the Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security, the FBI and BATFE, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and the White House Office of Management and Budget—to implement 40 changes to federal gun law interpretation and enforcement. The manifesto doesn’t state what its recommendations are intended to accomplish. However, knowing that Bloomberg believes “More Guns Means More Crime,” we can safely assume that he intends to reduce gun sales.

Enter the problem of parallax.
Within the last few weeks, the FBI has reported two sets of data that are not in dispute, both of which challenge Bloomberg’s presumptions. First, murders dropped more than 10 percent in 2009, extending to approximately 51 percent the steady decrease in the nation’s per capita murder rate since 1991. Second, since the November 1998 inception of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS, supported by the NRA and opposed by the Brady Campaign), the system has approved over 109 million firearm-related queries. The 10 percent drop in murder between 2008 and 2009 coincided with a 14 percent increase in NICS checks, and annual NICS checks have increased by 62 percent since the expiration of the federal “assault weapon” ban.

A normal person taking these facts into account would conclude that restrictions on gun sales are not what cause crime to decrease. After all, the nation’s murder rate has fallen to a 45-year low, while gun control restrictions have been mostly on the wane, and the number of privately-owned guns in the U.S. has risen to an all-time high, growing by over 4 million every year.

But Bloomberg isn’t seeing it that way. The mayors’ “blueprint,” includes calls for expanding the variety of firearms banned under the Gun Control Act’s “sporting purposes” test, requiring “REAL ID”-compliant identification for all gun purchases, requiring dealers to notify BATFE when transferring multiple handguns to their personal collections, maintaining certain NICS records for longer than the 24 hours currently allowed, conducting criminal enforcement operations against gun shows rather than against individual dealers suspected of violating the law, suppressing sales of firearms by private parties at gun shows, providing BATFE an additional $53 million to conduct FFL audits, requiring dealers to maintain records of trace requests, expanding BATFE firearm tracing operations, funding additional gun control research, and empowering the CPSC to regulate the manufacture of gun locks.

Fortunately, Bloomberg’s latest effort has been mostly ignored by legislators and the media. (Indeed, it was never publicly released, and only divulged in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.)

But it serves as a clear reminder that gun control supporters, who claim the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller gives a green light to all gun control other than a total ban, intend to make it as difficult as possible for lawful citizen to buy, sell and possess guns in general. And by promoting these initiatives to regulatory agencies, they want to achieve their real goal—undermining the Second Amendment—without bothering to get any new laws passed by a Congress that might not go along with their scheme.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association

Wilmington, DE – -(AmmoLand.com)- While the title above is not the correct title of the organization formed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg it more accurately describes its function than Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

If you read its promotional literature it is only interested in going after the bad guys. However if you look at what they actually do it is an entirely different picture.

Currently eight Delaware mayors are members of this group.

According to the group’s website they are:

• Wilmington – James Baker
• New Castle – John Klingmeyer
• Middletown – Kenneth Branner
• Delaware City – John Martin
• Millville – Donald Minyon
• Lewes – James Ford
• Blades – Michael Smith
• Dagsboro – Wayne Barker

The group’s material makes the obligatory mention of the Second Amendment and the right of law abiding citizens to “freely” own guns.

Yet they support restricting where you can have a gun. They oppose reciprocity between states for concealed carry licenses.

Note that this has nothing to do with bad guys and illegal guns because license holders have clean criminal records and are among the most law abiding citizens in the country. They support legislation that would end gun shows. In opposition to the BATFE and the FOP they oppose the Tihart Amendment and advocate for the opening of gun trace records which would jeopardize law enforcement investigations of illegal gun transactions.

They seek to give authority to the Attorney General for a no buy list for law abiding persons preventing them from obtaining a gun. Note this list is only for honest citizens because criminal are already prevented from obtaining a gun from a dealer. They oppose bipartisan legislation now pending in Washington to reform the BATFE. And they want to make criminals of citizens who fail to promptly report a stolen or missing gun.

Please contact your mayor if he is on the list and politely explain to him that you are very disappointed and upset that he has joined an organization that does not trust you as an honest citizen. Some mayors when confronted have claimed that they did not fully understand the nature of the group and accepted it on face value. If he promises to resign do not argue this point because our goal is get him off the list not to punish him for being naive.

At the same time our last newsletter went out the NRA sent postcards to its members in Newark and Dover. As a result of member response both Mayor Vance A. Funk and Carlton E. Carey have resigned.

I would like to thank both mayors for seeing the light and I congratulate the NRA and its members for their action.

About:
The DSSA promotes and protects the interests of gunowners in and around Delaware. If you believe in and want to maintain the private ownership of firearms, or simply hunt and fish, DSSA is for YOU. Visit: blog.delsports.net

FirearmsCoalition.org

Manassas, VA --(AmmoLand.com)- Mike Bloomberg and his group of gun grabbers, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG), caused quite a stir in the gun rights community recently when they released a poll declaring that gun owners and NRA members support the group’s gun control agenda.

The poll was conducted by Frank Lutz’s company “Word Doctors.” The media gleefully reported the poll as indisputable fact while NRA and others cried “Foul”, pointing out flaws in the pollster’s methodology and challenging the results.

The flaws and distortions are undoubtedly real, but it is important for rights activists to carefully examine this poll to find data we can use to help our cause.  In spite of its flaws, this poll demonstrates a serious failure on the part of rights groups and supporters in efforts to educate our less activist brethren.  We’re not preaching to the choir enough and not getting the right messages through to them.

This fact is clearly shown in the results for poll question number 25 which asked, “How familiar would you say you are with the Supreme Court case Heller v. DC?”.  I would venture that the vast majority of people reading this column would respond “Very familiar” or at least “Somewhat familiar.”

Since the Heller decision was without a doubt the biggest gun rights story of the past 2 decades, with extensive coverage in both the gun press and the general media, I would further expect my readers to predict that most average gun owners would be at least “Somewhat familiar” with the case.  The responses in the MAIG poll fell well short of such expectations.  Among those who identified themselves as NRA members, only 17% said they were “Very familiar” with the Heller case.  Non-NRA gun owners responded with a dismal 3% saying “Very familiar.” Only 34% of NRA members and 10% of non-NRA gun owners claimed to be “Somewhat familiar” with 19% and 17% respectively saying they were “Only a little familiar” with the case.  A full 30% of NRA respondents and 70% of non-NRA respondents said that they were “Not familiar at all” with the case.

Even with skewing, distortion, and “cherry-picking” participants, these results should be disturbing to the gun rights community.  The results attributed to NRA members are about what I would have expected from the general gun owning population and the answers posted by non-NRA gun owners are worse than I would have expected from a random sample of citizens who don’t own guns.  Those numbers are actually almost exactly the inverse of what I would expect the answers would be from our regular readers.

What this demonstrates is the mistake of assuming that our friends, family and fellow citizens are as interested, concerned, and knowledgeable as we are.  We must always remember that we (those of us who pay attention to politics and rights issues) are freaks.

Most people – even gun owners – are much more interested in what’s on TV than what the Supreme Court has to say about the Second Amendment and we need to act accordingly.  We must find the best words to frame each of our issues in the most understandable way and get that message in front of as many people as possible as frequently as possible.

No organization has the wherewithal to do the job all by themselves.  It must be a group effort and you are the most important part of the group because you have more influence with those around you than any organization does.  One of the ways this particular poll was skewed was by disproportionately loading the sample with females.  While there are many female gun owners and activists, there is nothing close to the almost 50/50 split depicted in the polling sample and women tend to be less involved in gun rights matters.  That’s not sexism, just fact.

The Executive Director of our organization is a female and she agrees with my contention.  What the numbers suggest is that the polling was conducted during the day with participants qualifying based on their household gun ownership as much as their individual gun ownership, and that an important target audience in need of education is within arms reach while we’re sleeping.

The pollster who developed this poll for MAIG, Frank Luntz, is on the record saying that it is easy to get a person to endorse conflicting ideas by asking the right questions and using the right words.  He demonstrated that with this poll, but he also demonstrated that we, the engaged rights activists, need to be doing a better job educating those around us about the critical issues of the day.

Perhaps this poll can be used as a teaching tool.  I am going to post the entire poll along with some alternate questions and some correct answers to help with that idea.  Look for it at www.FirearmsCoalition.org and see if you can use it to start an important conversation with someone close to you.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA.  Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

Firearms Owners Against Crime

Pennsylvania --(AmmoLand.com)-As is becoming a standard pattern and practice of the anti-gun groups (i.e. Cease Fire PA, Mothers Against Guns, etc.) to extort from the Pennsylvania State Legislature more gun control, Aliquippa becomes the 17th community to enact this legislation into law.

The anti-gun groups continue to demand the passage of this legislation even though the concept has never been proven to work although the effectiveness of any particular measure, or lack thereof, has never been an impediment to their agenda.

According to Aliquippa Mayor Battalini, “the ordinance is designed to give police a leg up on stolen firearms in the city, Mayor Anthony Battalini said.

“Most crimes committed with guns are committed by people who are already prohibited from having them,” Battalini said

“This aims to make it harder for criminals to get guns.” Battalini is a member of the Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition but he says his support of the new gun ordinance has nothing to do with gun rights. Further Battalini says

“I’m a gun owner, but I don’t work for the gun lobby — I work for Aliquippa,” and he then says that “I am not against guns — I am against illegal guns.”

All of this smoke and mirrors coming from Battalini is all the more interesting because he, himself, has a criminal record that would prohibit him from lawfully owning firearms.

The consideration of this measure came at the expense of openness because no one from this community responded to repeated phone calls and e-mails prior to its passage. I did receive a call on 7 December from the solicitor, Richard Start, in regard to my previous phone calls and when questioned about the legality of this measure he seemed almost gleeful in proclaiming that it was lawful until I mentioned the Atty. Gen. letter regarding the illegality of local gun laws that had been sent to each district attorney in the Commonwealth. I forwarded a copy of this Atty. Gen. letter to the solicitor for Aliquippa and have not heard back from him since.

Coupling Aliquippa with West Mifflin and the other 15 communities it is apparent that they’re thumbing their nose at the likelihood of anyone within the justice system prosecuting them for violating Pennsylvania law and is an outrageous example of civil disobedience for the constituents they represent.

About:
The Firearm Owners Against Crime (FOAC) is non-partisan, non-connected Political Action Committee organized to empower ‘all’ gun owners, outdoors enthusiasts and supporters of the 2nd Amendment to the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution Visit: www.foac-pac.org

National Rifle Association

New York, NY --(AmmoLand.com)- This week, anti-gun New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, released the findings of a poll conducted by a political consulting firm called “The Word Doctors,” whose slogan is “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” Word Doctors’ president is a pollster who has been reprimanded by the American Association for Public Opinion Research and censured by the National Council on Public Polls, and who says that the key to polling is “to ask a question in the way that you get the right answer.”

At some other time in our nation’s history, an organization like this would not have been commissioned to conduct a poll, and perhaps it would not even have existed. At a minimum, its poll would have been considered biased and rejected by every newspaper in the country.

But today, as the distinction between editorials and news has become blurred, information is treated so superficially that a catchy word or two is enough to get someone elected to public office, and some in positions of authority cannot conceive of the concept of shame.

Thus, earlier this week, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) excitedly called attention to the bought-and-paid-for Word Doctors “poll,” which claimed that a majority of NRA members and other gun owners support Lautenberg’s bills to prohibit the possession of firearms by people placed (often mistakenly) on the FBI terrorist watchlist (S.1317), to require gun show promoters to send ledgers of customer information to the federal government (S.843), and to let the FBI retain records for 180 days of every gun purchase approved by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) (S.2820). The poll also claimed support for Bloomberg’s proposal to rescind the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents unfettered release of BATFE firearm trace data. (Bloomberg, of course, wants to use the data in lawsuits against the firearms industry.)

But did the poll really show such strong support?

Certainly the participants didn’t have much information to go on. The poll didn’t explain that the watchlist has been under fire by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office and the ACLU for improperly including the names of innocent people, and that many innocent people have been mistaken for those who are on the watchlist. It didn’t explain that Lautenberg’s gun show bill would do much more than require NICS checks on private gun sales at gun shows.

The poll mischaracterized the issue of NICS record retention. Instead of informing poll participants that the accused Ft. Hood murderer had been investigated by the FBI and found to not constitute a terror threat months before he went through a NICS check to purchase the gun he allegedly used in the murders, the poll simply asked whether “the FBI should be able to access and keep information about gun purchases by terror suspects in cases similar to [the accused Ft. Hood killer's]?” Worse, Word Doctors misinformed poll participants by telling them that the accused killer was still under investigation at the time he purchased the gun.

The poll also asked if participants agreed that “The federal government should not restrict the police’s ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws,” when in fact the Tiahrt Amendment fully allows access to trace information, as long as it’s related to crimes that they’re actually investigating.

And the poll also claimed that a majority of gun owners want to “balance” their rights against the need to stop criminals from getting guns. But what it actually asked was whether gun owners agreed that “We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them.” Coupled with the poll’s findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners believe “Criminals . . . should be punished to the maximum extent of the law” and “Law-abiding Americans should have the freedom to choose how to protect themselves, based on their personal situation,” it’s fair to conclude that gun owners understand the two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. Since the ideas are compatible, they don’t require a “balance,” as suggested by gun control supporters.

Notably, Lautenberg mentioned none of the poll’s findings that undercut the anti-gun agenda, and Dionne mentioned few.

These include findings that an overwhelming majority of gun owners:

• Thinks President Obama will try to ban guns;
• Agrees that the Supreme Court’s decision in last year’s Heller case was correct;
• Agrees that the Second Amendment should prevent all levels of government from infringing the right to arms;
• Agrees that people should be allowed to carry guns for protection in national parks;
• Agrees that people should be allowed to transport firearms in baggage on Amtrak trains;
• Agrees that gun laws should be less strict or left as they are; and
• Opposes or is neutral about gun registration and an “assault weapon” ban.

One final note: Since Word Doctors had no access to NRA membership lists, there’s no way the pollsters could verify that any of the “NRA members” actually were NRA members. While this is a fatal flaw, we mention it at the end only because the poll’s other flaws were even worse.

Virginia Citizens Defense League

Virginia - -(AmmoLand.com)- Members of the VCDL will address the Newport News City Council, and particularly mayor Frank, concerning his membership in Bloomberg’s “Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Bloomberg’s organization has had a number of mayors to rescind their membership once they discovered the true agenda of the MAIG.

Not suprisingly, some of the members also have criminal records, and oddly enough, some are not even mayors!

The city council meets the second and forth Tuesday of each month.  The meetings start at 7PM and anyone wishing to speak must be signed up in advance of the meeting. We will be there the second Tuesday of December – THIS TUESDAY, December 8, 2009

VCDL EM Ron Lilly will be speaking to the mayor and invites and encourages others to sign up to speak also speak to the mayor.  Mayor Frank needs to hear from us concerning his shameful decision to join the northeastern mayor in an open attempt to suppress the rights of law abiding citizens to own or carry guns here in the commonwealth.

Directions to the city hall: http://tinyurl.com/ybn9pn6

Come out and join us in voicing our opposition to the leftist’s goal of infringing on our rights.

About:
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.

WASHINGTON, DC - -(AmmoLand.com)- U.S. Congressman Todd Tiahrt (pronounced TEE-hart), R-Kan., released the following statement in response to heinous accusations from Mayor Bloomberg’s anti-gun rights political organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

On Monday the Bloomberg organization paid for a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post assigning blame for the Fort Hood massacre, in part, to firearm policy authored by Tiahrt and approved by Congress since 2002.

“The mayors who politicized the tragic deaths of those whose lives were taken along with the dozens who sustained injuries at Fort Hood should immediately issue a public apology to the victims and their families,” said Tiahrt. “Their use of soldiers’ deaths, their smear campaign against me, and their attempt to deceitfully change public policy disgraces their reputations as public servants. Using the Fort Hood massacre to advance a devious ad campaign dishonors the freedoms our men and women in uniform have paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect. Americans everywhere should be outraged and demand that each of these mayors be held accountable.

“The Tiahrt trace data amendment prevents the release of confidential law enforcement data to the public while making certain it is provided to local, state and federal law enforcement officials for use in criminal investigations. That’s why the Fraternal Order of Police, the world’s largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers, supports the Tiahrt trace data amendment.

“Contrary to what Mayors Against Illegal Guns have asserted, the Tiahrt amendment does not affect background check outcomes, does not affect who is permitted to own a firearm, and does not restrict law enforcement officials from accessing and effectively using all available firearm data for criminal investigations. Allowing the federal government to maintain a firearm registry of law-abiding American citizens who have passed a background test will do nothing to prevent terrorist attacks. Retaining a federal registry for 45 days or even 45 years will not make us any safer but will expose which citizens own guns and how many they own – something every violent criminal would like to access.

“Unfortunately, many opponents of the Tiahrt language, including Mayor Bloomberg, appear to be more interested in lawsuits against firearm manufacturers than about protecting law enforcement officers, the public, and privacy rights of law-abiding citizens who own firearms.”

For more information about the Tiahrt trace data language, click here.

National Rifle Association

New York, NY - -(AmmoLand.com)- In another transparent attempt to undercut the Second Amendment fresh on the heels of his hidden-camera attack on gun shows, Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has alleged that the terrorist attack resulting in multiple murders that took place on Ft. Hood recently could have been prevented by changes in federal gun laws.

In an ad in the Washington Post on Monday, Bloomberg’s group claimed that the Ft. Hood terror suspect’s “gun purchase could have been key to the FBI’s investigation into his association with terrorists.”

Incredible
It has already been reported that before the suspect purchased the gun allegedly used in the murders, the FBI knew that between December 2008 and June 2009, he had sent 16 emails to a radical Islamic cleric based suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda. In one, he told the cleric that he could not wait to join him in the afterlife.

Nevertheless, after reviewing the e-mails, the FBI and other federal agencies concluded that the suspect was not a threat, and it has since concluded that the crimes of which he is suspected were not part of organized terrorism.

On November 9, the FBI stated

“Major Hasan came to the attention of the FBI in December 2008 as part of an unrelated investigation being conducted by one of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). JTTFs are FBI-led, multi-agency teams made up of FBI agents, other federal investigators, including those from the Department of Defense, and state and local law enforcement officers. . . . Investigators on the JTTF reviewed certain communications between Major Hasan and the subject of that investigation and assessed that the content of those communications was consistent with research being conducted by Major Hasan in his position as a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Because the content of the communications was explainable by his research and nothing else derogatory was found, the JTTF concluded that Major Hasan was not involved in terrorist activities or terrorist planning. . . . [T]he investigation to date indicates that the alleged gunman acted alone and was not part of a broader terrorist plot.”

Bloomberg says that if the federal law requiring the FBI to purge the NICS system of records of approved gun purchasers had not been in place, the FBI would have known that Hasan had bought a gun and changed its judgment about him. But while few Americans exchange e-mails with radical clerics suspected of ties to al Qaeda, there are about 12 million NICS firearm checks annually.

To Bloomberg, apparently, buying a gun is reason enough to be suspicious.

Bloomberg also says that Congress should approve legislation introduced by, long time gun banner,  Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), to allow Americans placed on the FBI’s terror watchlist to be prohibited from buying firearms, but to deny them the right to confront their accusers and the “evidence” against them. Both concepts received a nod from the Obama Administration on November 18. During hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked Attorney General Eric Holder whether the administration supported legislation to allow to FBI to retain NICS gun purchase records, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked Holder whether the administration supported legislation “closing” the so-called “Terror Gap.” Holder responded in the affirmative on both counts.

You would think that someone who can spend $200 million of his own money to get elected mayor of New York City three times could afford copies of the U.S. Code and the Constitution. Not only does federal law stipulate the specific grounds for denying a person the right to arms, the Fourteenth Amendment states that no one shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law.

And while he is at it, he could buy a copy of another well-known publication, Webster’s Dictionary, and look up the word “obsession.”

To see Bloomberg’s Washington Post ad, and whether your town’s mayor is allied with his group, see www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/terror_gap_ad.pdf.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military.

New York, NY --(AmmoLand.com)- It is clear NYC Mayor Bloomberg is inadvertently aiding and abetting terrorism on American soil.

Unlike Israel which has learned from the Holocaust and modern day haters of the Jewish people.

Several recent incidents has resurrected Nazi enabling legislation in the United Nations which in essence is the same laws ensuring genocide and government sanctioned democide as defined in pre-Nazi Germany.

Anti-Israel condemnation, Holocaust denial as well as hatred of the Jewish people brings back memories of the past.

Mayor Bloomberg you are dead wrong pursuing failed gun control policies. Aren’t you knowledgeable about Jewish partisans during World War II? Gun control insured Nazi control of the masses.

The very laws enacted prior to Hitler insured the Nazis rise to power. The end translated in mass murder.

Recent acts of terrorism occurred in legislatively enacted gun free zones and by individuals who by law were defined as ineligible to possess firearms is alarming as well.

Not only did these individuals disregard every federal and local ordinances designed to prevent illegal gun possession, they were further motivated by the fact no one would be able to stop them. Mayor Bloomberg, you want more of these Laws?

Here are some facts:

On 9/11 not one shot was fired, almost 3,000 Americans died in less than 1 hour because a 1968 gun law prevented qualified persons from possessing any weapons on American commercial air craft. Israel’s national airline, EL/AL simply arms their crews. The result not one hijacking. Gun control kills.

The Fort Hood mass killing of United States Military personnel by a suspected terrorist on a FBI terror list enrolled in our own military in the rank of Major knew his victims could be easily murdered as Military law enacted during the Clinton administration outlawed any firearms by military personnel on US bases. In fact our military had to call 911 and wait, 14 died and countless maimed by the atrocious act by a sick coward. In Israel, military personnel are armed. Gun control kills.

For decades, our law enforcement and military personnel had their hands tied trying to end illicit narcotic trade which formulation also was developed by the Nazis. This trade also funds terrorists and the illicit sale of all types of guns/bombs and violence domestic and foreign.

Here in the United States you do not have one political leader with the demeanor and bravery to stand tall against the true cause of violence… DRUGS.

Instead you have individuals like NYC Mayor Bloomberg on a pulpit trying to destroy the absolute vestige which sets apart a free society of citizens based on rational security from a lawless totalitarian nation encouraged by power to control its subjects.

My parents came to America as refugees, survivors of Hitlers final solution… They taught me along with other survivors the ideologies of the left… Mayor Bloomberg and the current atmosphere in Washington DC alarms my inner most instincts based upon my family history.

As men, women and children needlessly die because of failed policies which insure more victims and fear… I know and understand how enabling legislation brings about the end of liberty.

Mayor Bloomberg’s approach may be wrapped in benevolence but history teaches us it contains the blood of millions of innocent lives, past, present and future.

Mayor Bloomberg, I despise violence as well as hatred. I see the suffering of victims of crime everyday and awed my 28 years in law enforcement unblemished by a society lost in a charade.

Criminals, terrorists and those who hate liberty will always access weapons… History defines direction and America has veered off course.

We must stand up for America’s institutions of freedom before lessons of history are lost forever.

Virginia Citizens Defense League

Richmond, VA --(AmmoLand.com)- Very interesting and long night at the Richmond City Council meeting tonight. We had over twenty members present. The Dark Side had five.

I had signed up to speak at the meeting three weeks ago by contacting the City Clerk, who dutifully took down my name and said I was good to go for November 23rd. She also asked what I was going to be talking about.

But, tonight when City Council finally got to public comment, they called 6 names only, 3 of which were anti-gunners who praised the Mayor for joining up with Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition.

MY NAME WAS NEVER CALLED and they moved on to other business quickly.

I got up and walked to the front of the room and proceeded over to a police officer who was stationed near a door and explained the situation, but he didn’t really know how I could get City Council a message about having skipped me. (I was told that while I was walking along the front of the room looking for the correct person to talk to, the City Council President, Kathy Graziano, and Vice-President, Ellen Robertson, were watching me and smirking. I think they figured that I was “shut out” of speaking.)

Next thing I knew, Council was calling for public input on another matter and I stepped up to the microphone and explained that they had not called me, I had signed up, and I was there to address them.

The President looked like she had just bit hard into a fresh lemon. Clearly she absolutely did not want me to speak, but spat out that I could have my 3 minutes after their current business was over. I said, “OK” and sat down.

Member Joe Lignon, who had tried to sign up to speak earlier that day and was told that only eight were allowed and all slots were filled, went to the mike after me to complain that only 6 had spoken and not 8 as he had been told. He tried to ask why he couldn’t be given a slot.

The President in a very hostile way said that Joe was out of order and demanded that he sit down. Joe gave up and sat down.

(BTW, my thanks to Joe who was set to fill in for me if I didn’t get back from Mack Elliott’s visitation in time to speak.)

Finally I got my chance to speak toward the very end of the meeting. (In fact they made me wait through several extra agenda items before recognizing me.)

Besides speaking about Bloomberg, I also spoke on City Council’s legislative agenda, of which there were copies at the meeting. I said that I objected to City Council wishing to restrict the otherwise lawful carry of guns into government buildings and recreation facilities and their wishing to close the non-existent “gun show loophole.”

City Councilman Martin Jewell called me back to the microphone to ask me why I hadn’t gone into detail about what Bloomberg was doing that wasn’t aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. I explained that I only had 3 minutes and there wasn’t time. But since he asked, I explained a little about Bloomberg.

Afterwards twelve of us went to eat and as luck would have it, about fifteen minutes after we arrived, in walks Councilman Jewell! We all saw this as an opportunity to get him to understand exactly what Bloomberg is really up to.

He engaged us in conversation and we had a polite back and forth with him for about 10 minutes. There was quite a bit he didn’t know about Bloomberg and Bloomberg’s disgraceful history here in Virginia. I think we got his curiosity up.

Unfortunately, the antis underhanded tactic of not letting me speak when I was supposed to meant that many had left the meeting, including the press, by the time I finally got my chance.

But, you know what they say about he who laughs last… Let’s see what happens when the rubber meets the road in the General Assembly in January.

Remember: VCDL Lobby Day is on Martin Luther King’s birthday – Monday, January 18th. Mark your calendars and be a part in making 2010 a truly great year for gun owners.

About:
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. Visit: www.vcdl.org

AmmoLand.com

New York, NY - -(AmmoLand.com)- The gun banning front group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, headed by New York’s Mayor Bloomberg, came out with a full page ad in the Washington Post recommending that the Federal Government now link the secret No Fly list to National Instant Background Check System (NICS) and use this to prevent gun owners on the list from buying guns.

And just last week, Attorney General Eric Holder endorsed this legislation on behalf of the Obama Administration. Fortunately for US gun owners, Congress has failed to act and that is why Bloomberg’s MAIG is now pushing to connect the two.

According to the Government Accountability Office, over the past five years people on the terrorist watch list, also called the No Fly List bought guns more than 850 times. This is a Secret List kept by the federal government that has no rhyme or reason as to who gets on it and no known way to get off it.  Remember, this is the same secret list that the late Senator Kennedy was listed on for a period of time, preventing him from flying on commercial airlines.

In addition to the No Fly list MAIG is also calling for closure of the imaginary Gun Show Loop Hole and a repeal of Tiahrt Amendments which require the FBI to destroy records of approved background checks performed on gun purchasers within 24 hours.

ACTION 1: Check the Mayors Against Illegal Guns website and see what Mayors belonging to MAIG live in your state and call them and demand they resign from a group that’s mission is banning legal gun ownership and infringing on your second amendment rights. http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/

ACTION 2: Write your congressman and demand that they Vote down any attempts by the Obama Administration and MAIG to introduce any bills that would allow the secret government No Fly list to be linked with the National Instant Background Check System.

National Rifle Association

New York, NY --(AmmoLand.com)- Billionaire anti-gun zealot Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, recently appeared on “Meet the Press.” Host David Gregory asked him, “How can you muster the clout and the power to take on the NRA?” Bloomberg raised some eyebrows with his response.

“If you look at what the real numbers are, I think that we can pull together here and raise enough money . . . to take on this issue and explain to Congress this is just an outrage,” said Bloomberg.

Having called your Second Amendment rights an “outrage,” Bloomberg went on to add, “I`m going to not only do that myself, I`m going to ask plenty of other people to do it. If you want to beat the NRA, you have to go out and get your message out. And it costs money to do that.”

But not all is well in the ranks of Bloomberg`s supporters.
His anti-gun lobbying group, “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” (MAIG), is in a state of turmoil. That may explain why Bloomberg has had to provide more than 95 percent of the funding for his anti-gun crusades from his personal fortune.

Bloomberg proudly cites the number of mayors in his group. But at least 25 members of his group are not mayors at all. Another five members have already lost their re-election campaigns or have retired.

The superstitious might wonder if joining Bloomberg`s group brings bad luck to its members. But read the rest of this column before you decide, because that`s just the beginning. There`s more. Much more.

Nine members of the group–all of them actual mayors, at least for the moment–were arrested or indicted on criminal charges. These include the perennial misdeeds of corrupt politicians at the lowest levels of government–bribery, corruption and money laundering. The list of charges hanging over Bloomberg`s members also includes conspiracy, tax fraud, possession of child pornography and sexual assault on a child.

Criminal cases involving five other members of the Bloomberg corps have already been completed, with the mayors in question convicted of the charges against them. Again, we have the garden variety of government corruption–bribery, extortion and conspiracy. But we also see charges for assault and even assaulting a police officer.

That particular ex-mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit, faced 10 felony charges in two cases before he made a plea deal. He has been erased from MAIG`s official membership roster, but is still counted when Bloomberg proudly states that “over 450 mayors from more than 40 states have joined” his group. He doesn`t talk about how many have left his group (and political office) in disgrace.

But corruption charges and criminal trials aren`t the only reason mayors have resigned from MAIG. More than 40 other mayors have resigned from the group when they were made aware of its true legislative agenda.

Oldmans Township, N.J., Mayor Harry Moore resigned his membership in a letter to Bloomberg, which said in part, “I joined your coalition because of its purported purpose to combat the criminal acquisition and misuse of guns, which is a goal shared by all Americans. Regrettably, it has become abundantly clear to me that you are using this coalition of mayors to advance a hidden agenda of bringing lawsuits against members of the firearms industry and spreading anti-gun propaganda.”

Moore also protested Bloomberg`s illegal “sting” operations, which jeopardized the safety of actual law enforcement personnel.

“The Department of Justice warned you to refrain from these actions … I do not want the blood of a police officer on my hands so that you can advance your anti-gun litigation campaign,” wrote Moore.

Another resignation came from Mayor Marlene Anielski of Walton Hills, Ohio.

Her letter forcefully stated, “Mayor, you and your coalition of allies have misrepresented yourselves to the mayors of America and its citizens,” and closed by saying, “I can only hope that you will see my departure and the recent departure of other mayors from your coalition as a sign that things must change. We are all on the same side when it comes to stopping criminals from getting guns. Where you lose me is in your true quest–to end lawful firearms ownership and destroy a lawful American industry.”

One current MAIG member, Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., actually reinforced our point when he said,

“I`m not concerned about law-abiding citizens having access to guns. Not one shooting in my city last year was by somebody who went, had a background check, bought a gun and shot somebody in my city. Does not happen.”

Bloomberg apparently did not hear Booker`s wisdom, despite the fact that they were sitting next to each other on the same Sunday show when Booker made the comment.

Is your mayor on Bloomberg`s list? You can find out by visiting our website at www.NRAILA.org/mayors, or by calling us at (800) 392-VOTE. If so, we have seen that polite protests from local voters do have an impact.

Don`t let your city`s or town`s good name be used against your Second Amendment rights. Check the list today–and if your mayor is on it, it`s time for City Hall to hear from you.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military.

Virginia Citizens Defense League

Virginia - -(AmmoLand.com)- Yesterday 24 VCDL members showed up at the Portsmouth City Hall to support VCDL urging the Mayor to drop his membership in the disgraceful Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) – a front for generic gun control run by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The first problem we had was a requirement that you sign in and show photo ID. Board member John Fenter is working to get that fixed. Under the Freedom of Information Act they cannot turn someone away from a public meeting because they didn’t bring any ID.

John and I went up to the City Hall chambers to work that issue, only to be told by a police officer that guns were not allowed in City Hall chambers!

WHAT?!?!?!! My reaction was to break into laughter and to tell John that this would be one heluva law suit. We explained 15.2-915 to the officer.

The officer, to his credit, realized that perhaps he had best check this out. He told the other officers to just wait a minute and not turn away any armed citizens.

Upon checking with the City Attorney, the officer returned in a couple of minutes and sincerely apologized for his error and he said we were more than welcome to enter the chambers.

Dennis O’Connor was also involved and approached Sheriff Watson on the issue and filed this report:

Apparently, no one had ever carried firearms to a Portsmouth city council meeting before, because the security and police seemed not to know how to handle it, and at one point a city officer was attempting to deny us entrance. This was resolved by the city attorney, but thankfully, Portsmouth Sheriff Watson was also on site and was very aggressive about ensuring no one’s rights were infringed. He was a shining example of a professional law officer who was well versed in both the law and the constitution, even making making numerous pro- second amendment statements throughout.

He stated that as an elected constitutional officer, he would not allow anyone’s right to bear arms to be violated. Sheriff Watson related to me that when someone initially approached him, excitedly exclaiming that people were coming in who had guns, he simply replied ‘so do I.’

Sheriff Watson make a point of giving me his personal cell phone number, saying if any of our group were excluded or harassed in any manner for carry of firearms to call him immediately and would intervene and correct the problem.”

Thank you, Sheriff!

We had no further issues with the police or the Sheriff’s deputies and we thank them for their professional handing of the event.

Once inside 3 of us spoke, asking the Mayor to resign from MAIG.

The Mayor did not comment, nor did anyone from City Council, but I’m sure Council, and perhaps the Mayor, didn’t realize until last night the implications of the Mayor being a part of MAIG.

As far as Portsmouth’s illegal gun ban on their lakes and surrounding properties, Ken Richards got this email from the City today after contacting them about that ordinance:

Mr. Richards,

Thank you for bringing this concern to the members of the Portsmouth City Council’s attention.

It is the intention of the City Council to consider repealing the referenced ordinance at it’s November 24th Meeting.

If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Portsmouth City Council.

Thank you, Thank you for bringing this concern to the members of the Portsmouth City Council’s attention.

It is the intention of the City Council to consider repealing the referenced ordinance at it’s November 24th Meeting.

If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Portsmouth City Council.

Thank you, Debra White City Clerk

About:
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.

Grass Roots North Carolina for Firearms Education

Durham , NC --(AmmoLand.com)- As has been noted, Mayor Bill Bell of Durham is a member of NYC Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun organization, Mayors Against “Illegal Guns” (MAIG); among their goals is closing the fictional “gun show loophole.”

Voters going to the polls in Durham next Tuesday, November 3, 2009 have a choice!

Steve Williams offers an alternative to anti-gun Bill Bell. When asked by a citizen about Bell’s involvement with MAIG and whether he would continue this alliance should he win election, Williams responded:

“Absolutely Not! The Constitution of the United States of America affords all of its citizens the right to bear arms. Therefore, I will not support any initiative banning that fundamental right.”

Visit Steve Williams website for more information:

http://stevenwilliamsformayor.com/

Go to the polls on Tuesday November 3, 2009. GRNC recommends you vote for Steve Williams for mayor of Durham.

Please note: due to normally light turnout in an off year mayoral election, your vote will carry a greater than usual impact in this election.

ESSENTIAL VOTING INFORMATION

Durham County Board of Elections Website:

http://www.co.durham.nc.us/departments/elec/

Go to your polling place on Tuesday November 3, 2009.

The election alert was authorized and paid for solely by the Grass Roots North Carolina Political Victory Fund.

About:
Grass Roots North Carolina/Forum for Firearms Education is a non-profit, all volunteer organization devoted to educating the public about trends which abridge the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and engaging in grass roots activism to preserve those freedoms. Formed in 1994 to conduct a highly successful rally for the Second Amendment, GRNC has gone on to conduct projects like “Remember in November: A Gun Owner’s Guide to Voting,” bringing concealed carry to North Carolina.