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Flood The CO State House AND Also Do This

February 15, 2013 by

The NRA is calling on gun rights supporters to flood the galleries of the Colorado State House tomorrow morning “to hold your state Representative accountable by making sure they vote NO on these restrictive bills.” The gun prohibitionists are trying to ram their gun control bills through the State House as fast as they can. They’ve ignored the testimony of hundreds opposed to these bills and passed them out of committee on a party line vote.

Session will convene at 9:00 a.m. on Friday. Please make plans to arrive no later than 8:30 a.m. to ensure a seat. If you are unable to attend session, please call AND e-mail your state Representative using the contact information provided here.

Magpul Industries reports that even if a manufacturing exemption is added to the bill, they will leave Colorado and take their jobs with them. They say they can’t disappoint their customers and ignore their convictions.

Magpul reports that they have met with representatives of Gov. John Hickenlooper’s administration and delivered that message. They are asking everyone, Coloradans and non-Coloradans alike, to contact the Governor’s Office to urging him to oppose this and the other gun control legislation.

Contact Governor Hickenlooper right now and urge him to oppose HB1224 and all other proposed firearm legislation to save Colorado jobs and support freedom in Colorado. His Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/JohnHickenlooper / John W. Hickenlooper , his Twitter is https://twitter.com/hickforco and you can email him your opinion of legislation at http://www.colorado.gov/govhdir/requests/opinion-leg.html Legislators’ email boxes and voicemail boxes are overflowing, keep up the momentum and let Governor Hickenlooper know how damaging this legislation will be. Share this, retweet it, help us get the word out.

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“It’s Not About Keeping Kids Safe In School” – Wayne LaPierre

February 15, 2013 by

Wayne LaPierre, NRA CEO and Exec. VP, gave the NRA’s response to the State of the Union address at the 37th Annual Convention of the National Wild Turkey Federation. He discussed how the emphasis has shifted from keeping kids safe in school to the gun control agenda. As he pointed out, President Obama made no mention of school safety in the State of the Union address.

“Less than two months after saying we had to look at our schools, the
president made not one mention, in his entire speech, of the need to
improve security for our schoolchildren.” says NRA CEO and EVP Wayne
LaPierre in response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address
from the 37th Annual Convention and Sport Show of the National Wild
Turkey Federation in Nashville, Tennessee. “They only care about their
decades old agenda — ban every gun they can, tax every gun sold and
register every gun owner.”

I think Wayne did a decent job in this address. He got the point across and that’s what matters.

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Practice For When Ammo Is In Short Supply

February 14, 2013 by 3 Comments

When ammo is in short supply or rising in cost, many people don’t get in the practice that they need to stay proficient with their handguns. This new video from the National Shooting Sports Foundation discusses an alternative – dry-firing. Charlie McNeese of Gunsite Academy discusses the many important skills that you can hone with dry-fire practice at home. These include trigger control and reset, your presentation and draw, and magazine reloads. Some of these skills are hard to practice at public ranges as they often prohibit things like drawing from a holster or speed reloads.

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Local Media In Colorado Pick Up The Magpul Story

February 14, 2013 by 2 Comments

As reported earlier, Colorado HB 1224 would ban the manufacture of standard capacity magazines in that state. This, of course, would directly impact Boulder-based Magpul and their 200 workers. On Tuesday, the bill passed out of committee on a party-line 7 to 4 vote and was sent to the full Colorado House for action.

It looks like the local Colorado media has finally picked up on the story. Fox31 News out of Denver interviewed company officials and toured the production line.

One of the things I noticed in the video was that the majority of the workers assembling magazines appeared to be Hispanic. The representatives voting to close down their jobs, by contrast, consist of five whites, one Hispanic, and one African-American. This is just an interesting observation about progressive priorities.

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Support For Kachalsky Petition From States

February 14, 2013 by 1 Comment


Attorney Generals from 20 states have filed an amicus brief in support of the Second Amendment Foundation’s petition for a Writ of Certiorari before the US Supreme Court. This brief is in addition to supporting briefs from the NRA, the Cato Institute, and others.

BELLEVUE, WA – Twenty state attorneys general have filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Second Amendment Foundation’s petition for a Writ of Certiorari in a case challenging New York’s gun permitting statute, along with several other interested parties that have filed their own briefs.

The case is known as Kachalsky v. Cacace and was argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. SAF is represented by attorney Alan Gura, who won both the Heller and McDonald Second Amendment cases before the Supreme Court.

“We are delighted at the support being shown by attorneys general in Alaska, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Mexico and 13 other states, and particularly for the leadership of Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli in bringing them all together,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “This case is all about an individual’s right to carry a firearm outside the home for personal protection, and it is gratifying to see so much support.”

In addition to the brief filed by the attorneys general, supporting amicus briefs have also been filed by the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence represented by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, the National Rifle Association represented by former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, plus the American Civil Rights Union, Academics for the Second Amendment, Cato Institute, the Second Amendment Preservation Association, New Jersey Second Amendment Society and Commonwealth Second Amendment, Inc.

“This is an important case,” Gottlieb said, “and that’s why so many parties are interested and supportive of our issue.”

SAF and the five individual plaintiffs are challenging whether the state can arbitrarily restrict the Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home by requiring people to prove a special need to the satisfaction of a government official.

“Our case is about equal protection and the arbitrary authority of government officials to essentially decide on a whim whether average citizens can have the means of self-defense outside the confines of their home,” Gottlieb said. “Most crimes happen away from the home, and it is in public places and on public streets where a citizen is most likely to encounter a life-threatening situation where he or she might have to defend themselves.”

UPDATE: Dave Hardy of the Of Arms and the Law blog has links to all the pro-Kachalsky amicus briefs. You can find them here.

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A Look At Gun Prohibitionists In State Legislatures

February 13, 2013 by

After my post on gun control legislation in Minnesota and its impact on jobs in that state, I started looking at the legislators who were sponsoring this legislation. Other than the fact that they were all Democrats, or as they are called in Minnesota – Democrat-Farmer-Labor, they had another similarity. They had made their careers, for the most part, in the public sector. Some, like Rep. Alice Hausman and Rep. Phyllis Kahn, even listed their occupation as “Legislator”. Look at the list below of the sponsors of HF 241 which is Minnesota’s version of an assault weapons (sic) ban.

Rep. Alice Hausman
(DFL-St. Paul)
Legislator/fmr Teacher
Rep. Frank Horstein
(DFL-Minneapolis)
Community Organizer
Rep. Erik Simonson
(DFL-Duluth)
Asst Fire Chief
Rep. Jim Davnie
(DFL-Minneapolis)
Financial Educator
Rep. Linda Slocum
(DFL-Richfield)
Teacher
Rep. Rena Moran
(DFL-St. Paul)
Parent Leader Coord.
Rep. Raymond Dehn
(DFL-Minneapolis)
Sustainability
Consultant
Rep. JoAnn Ward
(DFL-Woodbury)
Retired Teacher
Rep. Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis)
Legislator/University
Research Assoc.

This made me wonder if the sponsors of gun control legislation in other states shared the similar characteristics of being primary from the public sector. With hearings on gun control legislation in Colorado and New Jersey scheduled for this week, I looked at those two states in particular.

Yesterday, the Colorado House held their hearing on some particularly onerous bills. According to the reports I’ve read, the legislators in question had their minds made up and weren’t really there to listen. Lets look at the list of sponsors for these bills as well as the sponsors for their State Senate counterparts.

Rep. Lois Court (D-Denver)
Community College Instructor
Rep. Crisanta Duran (D-Denver)
Attorney
Rep. Mark Ferrandino (D-Denver)
Legislator
Rep. Rhonda Fields (D-Arapahoe)
Legislator
Rep. Randy Fischer (D-Larimer)
Consulting Eng.
Rep. Mike Foote (D-Boulder)
Attorney
Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-Boulder)
Ret. Gov’t Affairs
Rep. Claire Levy (D-Boulder)
Attorney
Rep. Beth McCann (D-Denver)
Legislator
Rep. Jovan Melton (D-Arapahoe)
Consultant
Rep. Dominick Moreno (D-Adams)
Legislator
Rep. Dan Pabon (D-Denver)
Eng./Attorney
Rep. Cherylin Peniston (D-Adams)
Ret. Teacher
Rep. Paul Rosenthal (D-Arapahoe)
Teacher
Rep. Su Ryden (D-Arapahoe)
Legislator
Rep. Joseph Salazar (D-Adams)
Civil Rights Attorney
Rep. Sue Schafer (D-Jefferson)
Educator/Small Bus. Owner
Rep. Angela Williams (D-Denver)
Business Owner
Sen. Morgan Carroll (D-Arapahoe)
Attorney-Disability Law
Sen. Rollie Heath (D-Boulder)
Legislator/Ret. Pres of Johns Manville Corp
Sen. Mary Hodge (D-Adams)
Property Mgmt/fmr. Teacher

Looking over this list, you can see that with few exceptions, the gun prohibitionists come out of the public sector. The only real notable exception on this list is Sen. Rollie Heath of Boulder County who had a significant business career culminating in his being President of building products company Johns Mansville.

Let’s move on to New Jersey where the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee is holding hearings today on a whole host of gun control proposals. Are the proponents of gun control legislation in New Jersey any different than in Minnesota and Colorado? The answer is yes and no. The “no” comes from the fact that they are all Democrats and that they mostly come from the public sector. What makes New Jersey different are the number of actively serving law enforcement officers that are State Assemblymen proposing this legislation. To me this seems like an outrageous conflict of interest but I don’t live in the state of New Jersey and know their local political customs.

Assemblyman Joseph
Cryan (D-Union)
Undersheriff
Assemblyman Jason O’Donnell (D-Bayonne)
Dir. Of Public Safety
Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Maplewood)
Legislator
Assemblywoman Annette Quijano (D-Elizabeth)
Mun. Prosecutor
Assemblyman Sean Connors (D-Jersey City)
Detective/Police Officer
Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Teaneck)
Consultant/Fmr Sheriff
Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle
(D-Englewood)
Funeral Director
Assemblyman John McKeon (D-Madison)
Attorney
Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman
(D-Trenton)
Legislator
Assemblyman Charles Mainor (D-Jersey City)
Detective/Police Officer

Summing this up, if you look at just who is proposing the gun control legislation, it is Democrats who tend to have worked their entire lives in the public sector and fed at the public trough. I shouldn’t find this surprising as the hallmark of all of this type of legislation is the constraint on liberties and the bureaucratic minutiae that their implementation will entail. Is not that the ethos of the modern public service to a tee?

UPDATE: I wrote this before listening to Michael Bane’s Down Range Radio podcast. The first segment of the podcast is instructive as to why you are seeing legislators from a public sector background pushing the gun control agenda so strongly. Those of us in the gun culture are a threat to them and their progressive agenda. It isn’t due to our guns but rather our attitudes towards hard work, self reliance, independence, and libertarianism. Hard working, self reliant, independent people are less dependent upon government largesse and less likely to buy into a common good as proclaimed by the progressive elites.

Michael mentions two articles that take this a bit further. First, there is an article in Human Events which talks about the gun culture versus the culture of dependency. The second is by Andrew Klavan writing about Christopher Dorner and the left’s use of violence. Both of these articles are relatively short and worth the time to read. The more we understand our enemies and their hate towards us, the better we can tailor our fight to preserve our rights.

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Reasonable Gun Control?

February 13, 2013 by 1 Comment

I think Chris Cox of the NRA-ILA hits the nail on the head in this short video. Administration documents show that an effective AWB would require mandatory gun buybacks while universal background checks would require gun registration to be effective. Thanks but no thanks!

After watching this video with Chris Cox and watching Jessie Duff on TV, I think the NRA should reconsider having Wayne LaPierre be the number one spokesman for the NRA. While Wayne has been in the fight for a long time, I think Chris and Jessie give a more up-to-date and appealing face to the gun rights battle.

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Question Of The Day

February 13, 2013 by

The editorial staff at Investors Business Daily have noticed the Department of Homeland Security’s exceedingly large ammunition purchases as well as their solicitation for 7,000 select-fire personal defense weapons. It prompts them to ask this question.

To what purpose is a civilian agency arming itself to the teeth at the
same time the administration has been making war on the Second Amendment
and pushing for stricter gun control measures such as universal
background checks, while others, such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo,
hint at outright confiscation?

 It is an interesting question and one that most in the mainstream media will continue to ignore.

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CCRKBA On State Of The Union Speech Guests

February 12, 2013 by

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms points out that visitor’s gallery will be packed tonight with gun control supporters thanks to the efforts of gun control backing Democrats. This correlates with a tweet this morning from North Carolinians Against Gun Violence congratulating one of their backers for being invited to the State of the Union speech.


OBAMA ‘PACKING HOUSE’ TO PUSH GUN BAN AGENDA, SAYS CCRKBA

BELLEVUE, WA – President Barack Obama and Democrat cronies are packing tonight’s State of the Union address in the House Chambers with crime victims in an attempt to push the administration’s gun ban agenda, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Press reports say Democrat House members have provided tickets to the annual event to victims of gun-related violent crime.

“President Obama has been claiming to want a balanced approach to solving the nation’s gun violence problem,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “If that was true, he would have invited people who have defended themselves with firearms to be in the audience tonight as well. Instead, anti-gun Democrats are packing the House.

“When the president uses words like ‘balance,’ ‘safety’ and ‘common sense’,” he continued, “it’s just a charade.”

Gottlieb said the sham is amplified by the results of a survey taken by Quinnipiac University which show that only 15 percent of Americans consider the nation’s gun policies to be a top priority. That survey polled 1,772 registered voters, according to Reuters, and has a margin of error of 2.3 percent.

The poll found that 53 percent of voters believe the economy is still in recession, and 35 percent say the economy is their top concern. Less than half (47 percent) of the respondents believe the president can handle the economy, while slightly more people trust Republicans to cut federal spending while only 39 percent believe Democrats can do it.

“The president’s policies are clearly in trouble,” Gottlieb said, “and he’s using tonight’s State of the Union address to grandstand for gun control while it is clear to a majority of Americans that the stagnating economy is far more important.

“Banning guns is a priority for the president but not the people,” he concluded.

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Jobs And Ideology, Part 2

February 12, 2013 by 2 Comments

You can add certain legislators in the state of Colorado who care more about their gun prohibitionist ideology than they do about jobs for state residents. As the press release from Magpul makes clear, if Colorado HB 1224 passes, Magpul will have to cease operations in that state effective July 1st. This would eliminate 200 direct jobs and up to another 700 jobs at subcontractors and suppliers.

Factories and machinery can be relocated to other states much more readily nowadays. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development in South Dakota which is a mere one state away has a special program to attract companies in the firearms and shooting industry. Likewise, Texas which is also just one state away from Colorado has a strong business climate and a very pro-Second Amendment state government. I’m sure adjoining states like Kansas and especially Wyoming are already preparing packets to send to Magpul if any of these bills pass.

Too bad some legislators care more about their misguided ideologies than they do about good paying jobs.


In addition to the national battle to protect our firearms rights, many states are currently engaged in their own fights. Here in CO, a state with a strong heritage of firearm and other personal freedoms, we are facing some extreme challenges to firearms rights. We have been engaged in dialogue with legislators here presenting our arguments to stop legislation from even being introduced, but our efforts did not deter those of extreme views.

After the NRAs visit last week, several anti-freedom bills were introduced by CO legislators, and a very aggressive timeline has been set forth in moving these bills forward.

The bills include:
HB 1229, Background checks for Gun Transfers–a measure to prohibit private sales between CO residents, and instead require a full FFL transfer, including a 4473.

HB 1228, Payment for Background Checks for Gun Transfers– a measure that would require CO residents to pay for the back logged state-run CBI system (currently taking 3 times the federally mandated wait time for checks to occur) instead of using the free federal NICS checks.

And finally, HB 1224, Prohibiting Large Capacity Ammunition Magazines–a measure that bans the possession, sale, or transfer of magazines over 10 round capacity. The measures and stipulations in this bill would deprive CO residents of the value of their private property by prohibiting the sale or transfer of all magazines over 10 rounds. This bill would also prohibit manufacture of magazines greater than 10 rounds for commercial sale out of the state, and place restrictions on the manufacture of military and law enforcement magazines that would cripple production.

We’d like to ask all CO residents to please contact your state legislators and the members of the Judiciary Committee and urge them to kill these measures in committee, and to vote NO if they reach the floor.

We also ask you to show your support for the 2nd Amendment at the Capitol on Tuesday, Feb 12, for the magazine ban committee hearing and Wednesday,
Feb 13, for the hearing on the other measures.

Due to the highly restrictive language in HB 1224, if passed, and we remained here, this measure would require us to cease PMAG production on July 1, 2013.

In short, Magpul would be unable to remain in business as a CO company, and the over 200 jobs for direct employees and nearly 700 jobs at our subcontractors and suppliers would pick up and leave CO. Due to the structure of our operations, this would be entirely possible, hopefully without significant disruption to production.

The legislators drafting these measures do so in spite of the fact that nothing they are proposing will do anything to even marginally improve public safety in CO, and in fact, will leave law-abiding CO residents less able to defend themselves, strip away rights and property from residents who have done nothing wrong, and send nearly 1000 jobs and millions in tax revenue out of the state.

We like CO, we want to continue to operate in CO, but most of all, we want CO to remain FREE.

Please help us in this fight, and let your voices be heard!

We have included the contact information for the House Judiciary committee for your convenience:

House Judiciary Committee
Rep. Daniel Kagan, Chair: 303-866-2921, repkagan@gmail.com
Rep. Pete Lee, Vice Chair: 303-866-2932, pete.lee.house@state.co.us
Rep. John Buckner: 303-866-2944, john.buckner.house@state.co.us
Rep. Lois Court: 303-866-2967, lois.court.house@state.co.us
Rep. Bob Gardner, 303-866-2191, bob.gardner.house@state.co.us
Rep. Polly Lawrence, 303-866-2935, polly.lawrence.house@state.co.us