gun control

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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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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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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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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

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I Find This Kinda Sad

February 12, 2013 by 1 Comment

Americans for Responsible Solutions has released their first ad in time for the State of the Union address tomorrow.

After watching it, I found it kind of sad and bordering on pathetic. I really have to question how much of what Gabby Giffords is saying comes from her own thoughts given her traumatic brain injury. That is, how much of this is Giffords as opposed to Mark Kelly putting the thoughts in her head and the words in her mouth.

We should remember that the young man that shot Rep. Giffords did pass a FBI-run NICS check before he bought his Glock. He may not have passed it if his aberrant behavior at the community college had been reported to authorities. Moreover, the Pima County Sheriffs Office was reportedly aware of the young man and his threats and did nothing. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, preferred to blame the Tea Party and “inflammatory rhetoric”.

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Who Cares About Jobs When Ideology Is At Stake

February 11, 2013 by 3 Comments

The gun prohibitionists in the Minnesota State House and Senate obviously don’t care about jobs if they are in the firearms industry. Otherwise, Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul) and her compatriots would never have introduced HF 241. This bill would make it a crime to “manufacture, import, transfer or possess an assault weapon” after its enactment.

The Freedom Group subsidiary DPMS/Panther Arms is located in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It employs 115 employees. In the video below, Adam Bullard, Product Manager for DPMS/Panther Arms testifies before the Minnesota House Public Safety and Policy Committee on HF 241.

The only exceptions the bill provides for the exemption of the manufacture of “assault weapons” for sale to the armed forces or to a Minnesota law enforcement agency. Notice that says nothing about exempting out of state sales and that includes out of state sales to even law enforcement agencies.

Just like Remington is being courted in New York, I’m sure that DPMS/Panther Arms management is hearing from industrial recruiters in other states.

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Huge Turnout Wednesday In Maryland For Gun Rights

February 8, 2013 by 3 Comments

When the Washington Post runs a story that says “Gun rights advocates marshaled one of the biggest crowds to descend on Annapolis for a bill hearing in years”, you know it was a big turnout. In other words, it was too big a crowd for even the anti-rights mainstream media to minimize.

While the question remains whether the Democrat-dominated legislature will listen to gun rights supporters or to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) who is trying to vie with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) of New York on gun control, the report from Maryland Shall Issue (see below) on the event gives some measure of hope on the issue.

Yesterday Maryland Shall Issue, in concert with the NRA, the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore, staged the largest “Gun Day” rally in the history of our state – official state estimates count 4,000 pro-rights supporters who converged at our statehouse for a morning rally and afternoon hearings in the Senate.

We literally shut the place down. Soon after the hearing, I got a call from the MD Capital Police. They told us the building was already at maximum capacity and that fire code meant no more entrants.

This was more than a rally. Our people all showed up to attend the hearing and to testify. Even after locking out our many members, there would be more than 1,000 people in line to testify. Just getting your name on the list of witnesses took six hours. Every person stood in line, eager to get their voices heard. Unfortunately, the chairman of the committee – Senator Brian Frosh – is a the largest Gun Control Advocate in the state. He decided to unilaterally cut off testimony after 4 hours from each side. Even when reduced, the Gun Controllers ran out witnesses. They had them on the list to testify, but after 5 PM many were no where to be found. They were mostly government employees – it looks like their interest in Gun Control ended when the paychecks ran out. The Chairman eventually reduced “testimony” to nothing more than your name and town. That’s it. That was was his idea of how to let people petition their government. Our side went until they literally told us to leave. The last name was spoken at almost 10 PM.

We had an effect. Publicly many admit that licensing is dead; that registration is about to fail; and privately there is talk that even the AWB is at risk. They are splitting the Governor’s bill into smaller bills, because as of today they big one would not pass either chamber.

We are not guaranteed a final win on everything. But this was supposed to be a cake walk for them, and the people of this state are going to make them work for it.

Maryland Shall Issue has been asked what we would compromise – whether we could “throw them a bone.” We told them that we would not compromise a single right. They told us that means we could lose. Our membership is united: we would rather have all of our rights stolen from us, than to willingly give up even one.

Everyone keep us in their prayers. We are holding our line in this fight. Pray we hold it until the end.

Perhaps this testimony from Maryland-based gun maker Beretta as reported by the Washington Post might have some influence as well.

Jeffrey Reh, general counsel for firearm manufacturer Beretta, which has a plant in Accokeek, warned lawmakers that O’Malley’s bill, which outlaws 45 types of weapons and their knockoffs, could have a severe impact on the company’s business. He also said that because gun manufacturers in Maryland are required to register as firearm dealers, it’s unclear whether the company would still be allowed to export guns for sale in other states.

“We’re confronted with a state government that wants to ban the products we make,” Reh said. “Not surprisingly, we are concerned.”