state-level gun rights organizations Archives -

WV Citizens Defense League Joins The Firearms Policy Coalition

The Firearm Policy Coalition added another state to their organization – West Virginia. They will be joined by organizations from California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida, Hawaii, and Texas.

BELLEVUE, WA (January 31, 2013) – While the U.S. Senate held hearings on new federal gun control proposals, another prominent Second Amendment rights group joined the fast-growing Firearms Policy Coalition, noted managing director Brandon Combs. In addition to the existing Coalition representation in Washington, D.C., California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Texas, West Virginians now have the backing of FPC’s innovative and dynamic cross-state gun rights advocacy platform.

“The West Virginia Citizens Defense League is pleased to partner with the Firearms Policy Coalition in the defense of our rights,” commented WVCDL president Keith Morgan. “We recognize and support the need for nationwide cooperation in this critical fight.”
Morgan’s televised interview on The State Journal’s “Decision Makers” program in mid-January became an internet sensation among gun rights activists and gun owners across the nation, receiving nearly 200,000 views since being uploaded on January 13.

“One thing is clear, and that’s gun owners are taking a stand against gun bans no matter where they might reside,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of FPC’s national group Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. “People see through the outright lies of the gun-grabbers and know that the only real option is to fight back through real cooperation and hard work. No question about it, there’s strength in numbers.”

“It’s exciting to see our Second Amendment advocate friends in West Virginia combining forces with those in other states, like Illinois and New Jersey, through the power of FPC’s technology,” explained Combs. “Hopefully other gun rights groups, especially those in key states like New York, Connecticut, and Colorado, take notice and realize that they don’t have to go it alone any more. We’re here for them.”

“The Coalition is very much looking forward to working with Keith and the WVCDL membership to secure a strong right to keep and bear arms throughout the U.S.”

Update On HB 489 – The Effort To Negate The Bateman Win

Grass Roots North Carolina sent out an update yesterday evening on HB 489. This was the attempt to re-write North Carolina’s state of emergency gun ban that would have negated the win in Bateman v. Perdue. It now appears that all efforts to re-write the gun ban have failed and that the NC General Assembly will just vote to repeal the offending law.

From GRNC:

Congratulate yourselves on applying pressure that has resulted in another GRNC win added to a growing trend of recent pro-freedom victories. As you recall, in the case Bateman v. Perdue, GRNC and SAF won the lawsuit over North Carolina’s ban on transporting firearms outside the home during declared states of emergency, resulting in the law being declared unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. Because the state chose not to appeal, the decision stands and our unconstitutional law had to be repealed.

Rather than simply repealing the ban, however, NC Senate staffers apparently ran amok and drafted replacement language which was worse than the original law. But after GRNC issued alerts to tens of thousands of gun owners, your input shut down the committee and forced them to reconsider.

Suffice to say you made quite an impression. Instead replacing an unconstitutional gun ban with yet another unconstitutional gun ban, and even including language to “authorize” your right to bear arms in your home during emergencies, as did HB 489, the SOE gun ban is headed for repeal pending an almost certain floor vote in the Senate and House concurrence. This is what should have happened from the very beginning, and serves as a reminder that we need to remain ever vigilant against anti-gun legislation.

This is good news. More importantly, it emphasizes the need to keep an eye on the state legislature to nip these bills in the bud. Without an organized and aggressive state level organization this might have gone through. If you don’t belong to a state level gun rights organization like GRNC, CalGuns, or whatever your state has to offer, you should strongly consider it. The NRA-ILA can only do so much and state-level organizations fill in the gap. Or in the case of organizations like GRNC and CalGuns, lead the way.

WizardPC at Guns, Car, & Tech is assembling a list of these organizations. Check there to find your state’s organization if you don’t know it already.

UPDATE: Two North Carolina gun bloggers, Knitebane and Mark of a Free Man, have been doing some detective work into just who rewrote HB 489 in an effort to negate the Bateman win. No state senator is taking credit for the substitute language and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary I committee won’t identify the author. The person that they come up with makes sense to me. Go here to read the full story. It makes for some interesting reading.