Gabby Giffords

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Messing With The Gun Prohibitionists

May 12, 2013 by 18 Comments

I like nothing better than to use the gun prohibitionist’s own resources to send a pro-gun message to Congress. The Giffords-Kelly organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, is now providing one such opportunity. They have a letter going out asking Congressmen to support the House version of Manchin-Toomey – HR 1565. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Peter King (Rino-NY) and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA).

The “suggested” letter from Americans for Responsible Solutions uses the subject line, “Please support King-Thompson (H.R. 1565) to reduce gun violence.” Their text is below:

As you know, over 90% of Americans support expanding background checks for gun purchases – Republicans and Democrats, gun owners and everyone else.

There’s a bill in the House of Representatives that I believe you should co-sponsor today. H.R. 1565, the Public Safety and Second Amendment Right Protection Act, is a bipartisan bill that would reduce gun violence and protect gun rights by expanding background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the dangerously mentally ill. The bill is IDENTICAL to the Manchin-Toomey bill in the Senate that enjoys overwhelming public support.

It already has over 150 co-sponsors, and I hope you’ll add your name to theirs today.

As a constituent of yours, I look forward to keeping track of your commitment to this issue.

Here is how I re-wrote their letter. I changed the subject line to read, “Please oppose King-Thompson (HR 1565).” Feel free to use it or make changes as you see fit.

As you know, the claim that over 90% of Americans support expanding background checks for gun purchases is a myth. This hasn’t stopped the gun prohibitionists from the White House on down from repeating it as if it were the Gospel truth.

Rep. Peter King and Rep. Mike Thompson have co-sponsored H.R. 1565, the Public Safety and Second Amendment Right Protection Act. The bill is IDENTICAL to the Manchin-Toomey bill in the Senate. Just like that bill, it would have done NOTHING to stop the recent mass murders in Newtown, CT and Aurora, CO. In both cases, the firearms were legally purchased with NICS background checks.

I am asking that you oppose HR 1565. It will do nothing to prevent gun-related crime yet would infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of all Americans. As Professor David Kopel has pointed out, the so-called “pro-gun” provisions of the bill are a bonanza of gun control.

As a constituent of yours, I look forward to keeping track of your commitment to this issue.

You can link to their tool here. You just need to put in your ZIP+4 and it will pull up your Congressman or woman.

Like I said, I love it when they make it easy for us to use their own resources to get out a pro-gun message. The Brady Campaign and MAIG have gotten smart about these things. Obviously, being newcomers, Americans for Responsible Solutions still has a bit to learn which is just fine by me. I think we need to take advantage of their naivete while we can.

UPDATE:  If you go to the link above, it will automatically load the anti-gun subject line and letter. Make sure you change it before sending or you could inadvertently suggest support for the bill. Thanks to Don in SC for this warning.

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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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Interesting Connections

January 17, 2013 by 2 Comments

Americans for Responsible Solutions is the new PAC formed by Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. It will seek to promote candidates that pursue “solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership.”

Their registration with the Federal Elections Commission has now been processed and is available on-line.  They list their official address as an office complex adjacent to Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC.

Their custodian of records is Vickie Winpisinger. Ms. Winpisinger serves or has served as treasurer for a number of other PACs and political campaigns with connections to Democrats. They include the House Majority Fund and Gabby PAC. She also was the campaign treasurer for Democrats including Nydia Velazquez, Eric Massa, Mike Ross, John Lewis, and Giffords. Winpisinger’s late father William was the long-time president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and big in left-wing circles.

The treasurer of the PAC is Texas personal injury lawyer J. Steven Mostyn. He is currently serving as the president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. According to the website Texas Trial Lawyer Watch, Mostyn gave over $10 million in campaign contributions in the 2010 election cycle plus another $400,000 to the Democratic Governors Association. There is even a website called The Truth About Steve Mostyn. According to the Dallas Morning News and Bloomberg, Mostyn has donated $1 million to Americans for Responsible Solutions.

According to a story in Time, Mostyn is good friends with Gifford’s husband Mark Kelly as well as Democratic consultant Paul Begalia.


Until then (Newtown), the couple had decided to avoid the activist path, treating the 2011 Phoenix shooting largely as a personal trauma that needed to be dealt with in private. “It’s not what we wanted to do,” he said. But now they went all-in, drawing up plans for two new organizations: a nonprofit to build grassroots support for changes to gun laws and a super PAC to run ads supporting members of Congress on the issue. Kelly decided to start working full time on the effort and began calling those he thought could help.

One of his first calls was to Steve Mostyn, a wealthy trial-lawyer friend from Houston who happens to be one of the biggest contributors to Democratic super PACs. Like Kelly and Giffords, Mostyn is a gun owner. He sleeps with a handgun by his bed, in a safe that opens by his fingerprint. He has a gun range on his West Texas ranch and invites friends out to shoot. But when Kelly called, Mostyn had just dropped off his 5-year-old daughter at school. “I told him it was time,” Mostyn says.

The subject of gun laws was on his mind even before Sandy Hook. A few months earlier, he bought a couple of pistols, both with high-capacity magazines, and 3,000 rounds of ammunition for his gun collection at a local gun store. “The kid who walks me out to the car says to me, ‘It looks like you are going to start a war,’” Mostyn says, noting his shock at how easy it was to stock up on enormous amounts of lethal firepower.

“I’m not anti-gun. I’m just not pro-dumbass,” he continues, citing the more than 30,000 Americans who die every year from guns, mostly from suicide. “We’ve got a gun problem. That’s what differentiates us from other cultures.” He told Kelly he would seed the new group, which they called Americans for Responsible Solutions, with $1 million and begin fundraising with a goal of more than $14 million to support members of Congress in the 2014 elections who cast tough gun votes. “If a representative wants to vote their conscience, we are not going to allow you to bully,” he said of the NRA. “We will counter.”

 $14 million to support representatives who “want to vote their conscience” sounds like an effort to buy votes for the gun prohibitionists.  Like I said when last week, we need to keep a close eye on this group just like we do on Bloomberg.