A "Liberal" changes their mind

A liberal with a gun
by Sara Sedlacek · July 25, 2007

When I started here at the Index one of the first people to come in to talk to me (and openly make me aware of his agenda and his motivation for speaking with me) was a representative from the West Liberty Gun Club. He was a nice guy so I gave him his soapbox time. We had very differing opinions on gun control and a gun’s place in society, but he invited me to the gun club anyway.

Several weeks ago, I did a story on the West Liberty Gun Club. It was the second time I’d been out to the club. The first was for a competition and I was so confused I couldn’t write anything about it. We used that first visit as an educational experience, just to get familiar with the lingo and the people. My second visit to the gun club gave me an opportunity to do something I’d never done before and never in a million years thought I would want to do again: I shot a gun.

I’ve always thought guns were neat to look at. I always enjoyed going to the Rock Island Arsenal and seeing all the different kinds of guns, but I never wanted to shoot one. I shot BB guns as a kid but that was a long time ago and a BB gun is a heck of a lot different than a rifle.

So there I was, on that second visit, a cynical outsider with a cookie-cutter image of what “gun club people” were like. In my mind anyone who belonged to the gun club must be some kind of militant, gun-toting, camoflauge-wearing guy resembling the offspring of Ted Nugent and G.I. Joe. Not a single gun club member looked anything like G.I. Joe or Ted Nugent. In fact, most of the members I met on that second visit were children, and well-behaved children no less.

I was amazed at how seriously the kids took the competition. They were careful with and, most importantly, knowledgeable about their guns and shooting sports. They were also very calm and patient, not like any kids I’d ever seen.

It was also comforting for me to learn that most the people involved in the gun club are not hunters. Most of them are interested only in shooting sports. There were some hunters. All of them, however, had the same concerns I had about guns. They were worried about guns falling into the hands of the wrong people and people owning guns and not learning about how to care for them and use them properly. Though we had different ideas about how to solve these problems, the concern was shared.

After learning a little more myself, I was asked by members of the club if I’d like to try shooting a .22 rifle. I did and, as it turns out, I’m not a bad shot. Members of the club invited me to a ladies’ fun match, at which I placed fourth (out of only nine, two of which tied for second place. The third place winner was only 11-years old.) this past Sunday. As it turns out, shooting a gun accurately takes more concentration than I ever thought. Through this experience I’ve realized that guns are what you make of them. Guns are violent if you use them for violence. I found that it takes a certain amount of serenity and meditation to accurately fire a gun, two things I never thought could be associated with guns.

I walked into that gun club with the worst thoughts about the place and I walked out with a completely different opinion. It never hurts to try to learn a little more about the things you don’t like and the people you don’t agree with, you may find out you didn’t know enough about them to have an opinion in the first place.

Share/Save

Ebay becomes even more Anti-Gun

New Listing Restrictions on Gun Parts

Matt Halprin

Hello everyone…In mid-August, we will be updating our Firearms, Weapons and Knives Policy to place more restrictions around gun-related items. Once these changes take effect, we will prohibit listings of any firearm part that is required for the firing of a gun. This includes items like bullet tips, brass casings and shells, barrels, slides, cylinders, magazines, firing pins, trigger assemblies, etc. Please read the Firearms, Weapons and Knives Policy for more details on our current policy.

As you may know, eBay does not allow the listing of any items which are regulated by individual states or the federal government; however, there are still a large number of firearm-related parts that are legal and are widely available in retail stores. These items have also historically been allowed on eBay.

After learning that some items purchased on eBay may have been used in the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April 2007, we felt that revisiting our policies was not only necessary, but the right thing to do. After much consideration, the Trust & Safety policy team – along with our executive leaders at eBay Inc. – have made the decision to further restrict more of these items than federal and state regulations require.

This new update continues to encourage safety among our community members and brings our policies in the U.S. and Canada in closer alignment with our existing policies in other markets around the globe.

Sincerely,

Matt Halprin
Vice President, Trust & Safety

Share/Save

Dial 911 and Die!

Woman shot dead in middle of 911 call
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, July 29, 2007

BOYNTON BEACH — A woman was shot to death in front of her mother Saturday night, apparently while on the phone with 911 dispatchers.

Mittie Marie Allen, 49, was on the phone in the bedroom at her mother’s home on 11th Avenue, according to Boynton Beach police. Dispatchers said they heard a man in the background ask Allen whether she had called police at 6:46 p.m. The man, who police say was her boyfriend, Anthony H. Williams, then shot her at least once in the head.

Allen rolled forward, grabbing onto the shirt of her mother, Odessa Cox, pleading for help. Cox ran into the street, where a witness saw her and called 911 at 6:50 p.m. Six minutes later, the SWAT team arrived at the house.

SWAT members entered the house at 8 p.m., but Williams was not inside. Police believe the 52-year-old lives in West Palm Beach and were looking for him Saturday night.

Williams has been to prison five times since 1977, according to Department of Corrections records, for crimes including cocaine possession, robbery, aggravated battery and grand theft. He was released most recently in August 2005.

Police ask anyone who knows Williams or where he may be to call Boynton Beach police at 561 (742-6100) or Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-TIPS (8477).

Found at The War on Guns.

Share/Save

Yet another reason to carry a Gun!

(If someone or something did this to one of my children, it would be dead. Period. -Yuri)

DNA Taken from Pitbull that Raped 2-Year-Old

Lockport, NY — Police say DNA has been taken from the pitbull that attacked a toddler by allegedly sodomizing it last weekend. It was a disturbing and violent attack. The two year old child is in Women and Children’s Hospital. Neighbors heard a mother screaming that her child was being raped.

Lockport police say taking DNA from the dog is part of the investigation.

Lockport Police received a 911 call from a frantic City of Lockport mother last Sunday afternoon.

The mother told Lockport Police that she left her two year old unattended for a short time and after hearing the baby scream, she ran to see what was wrong.

When she got in the room, she told Lockport Police the dog, named “Bear” had sodomized the toddler. The mother screamed, scaring the dog out of the house, but the dog was still attached to the baby.

One neighbor told 2 On Your Side, she heard the mother screaming “the dog is raping my baby.” Neighbors ran to help, but only one man was able to get the dog and child apart.

Anastacio Castillo says “I tried to get the dog away from the baby, the dog was already inside the baby.” When the baby was finally free, he was visibly sick. Castillo says the boy was vomiting and bleeding.

The baby was rushed to Women and Children’s Hospital where the toddler underwent reconstructive surgery.

The dog is being held at the Niagara County SPCA for evalution. An animal behavior specialist is scheduled to evaluate the pitbull on Friday.

Since the attack, over 20 people have called the SPCA asking to adopt the pitbull. Hear those calls by clicking Video.

The Niagara County District Attorney’s office is assisting Lockport Police with the investigation.

Miranda Workman, behavior specialist at Purrfect Paws in Amherst says, “Most likely this is not a learned behavior. Dogs in tact, not spayed or neutered have a higher hormonal drive.”

She urges parents to never, ever leave their children alone with a dog.

PAST STORIES:

July 12, 2007: Pit Bull Rapes Two-Year-Old

FOLLOW UP:

July 23, 2007: Police Want Help With Pitbull Rape Investigation

Thanks to SondraK!

Share/Save

Gun Talk & Chat Today!

I’d like to invite everyone who reads this blog to join me for chat during Gun Talk every Sunday from 11AM - 2PM PST.

There’s a good bunch of folks that chat there during the show, so come on in!

-Yuri

Share/Save

This just in from Canada

End the blather

By MICHAEL COREN

Another murder in a Canadian black community, this time the victim being 11-years old. And it took only moments for white liberal politicians to blame law-abiding handgun owners and, yes, the United States of America.

Handguns have to be banned, they cried, and American gun laws are too soft. This has to be a first. Canadian leftists blaming a murder in Toronto on President George W. Bush. Orders of Canada and CBC T-shirts all round.

Such drivel does not, however, explain how Norway, with one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, manages to have one of the lowest crime rates.

Or how Israel, a society where guns are extraordinarily common, has so few criminal shootings.

Or how Britain with some of the most stringent gun control laws in the world has a violent crime rate that is virtually out of control.

It’s too late to play silly games any more. If handguns are the cause of all this we have to ask why there are so few shootings in, for example, the Dutch, Ukrainian, Irish, Portuguese, Korean, Hindu or African communities. Why, in fact, there are so few shootings in any community outside of the West Indian and specifically Jamaican.

Oh Lord, the man must be mad. Silence him, stop him, call in a Human Rights Commission before it’s too late!

Yet there is nothing racist about seeking answers that might save the lives of young black men and much that is racist about refusing to ask basic questions for fear that politically correct credentials be damaged.

If our leaders were braver they might admit that matriarchy is a fundamental theme of Jamaican society and the levels of fatherless families in the country’s urban centres are staggering. This culture has been transferred to Canada. Just as it has to other Jamaican diaspora communities, which experience similar rates of violent crime.

It might be comforting to see every young single mom as a saint who works three jobs and is devoted to her children, but positive caricatures are just as unhelpful as are negative ones.

There are such mothers of course, but also young women who party late and work little. Who find themselves pregnant as teenagers and mothers of several children, perhaps from different fathers, by the time they are adults.

Such problems occur to various extents in all communities, but when the only male role model is the gangster on the street corner with the loud car, loud clothes and loud gun, the chances of leading a law-abiding life are minimal.

Made even harder by a dysfunctional obsession with disrespect.

A gesture or a harmless comment can indicate lack of respect and the need to shoot. Just last week in London, England, three young black men shot a doorman point blank in the face three times because he politely asked them not to smoke. Hard to believe that this was the result of oppression, racism and lack of government programs. Especially as the victim was himself black.

Poverty? Spare me. It is deeply insulting to assume that the poor are criminals.

Also ridiculous to assume that there is genuine, crippling poverty in a country with free education, health care and subsidized housing.

If we care we will halt the platitudes and try to help. No more patronizing blather, no more false scapegoats. If we care we will risk being called names. If we care.

Thanks to Irons in the Fire!

Share/Save

Gun Sales Rise After Cheshire Home Invasion

Security Company Says Phones Ringing Off Hook

NEWINGTON, Conn. — State gun sales have shot up in the days after the wife and two daughters of a prominent Connecticut physician were killed, according to a local gun shop owner.

Scott Hoffman runs Hoffman’s Gun Center on the Berlin Turnpike. In the past few days, following the triple homicide in Cheshire, Hoffman said that people have been rushing to his store to buy guns for themselves and their homes.

“They’re scared,” he said. “They’re scared for their own personal safety and their family’s safety, their children’s safety and they want a way to protect themselves.”

Hoffman said that the most popular weapon for both men and women looking to defend themselves is a defense-grade shotgun. Hoffman credited the gun’s popularity to the short waiting period — it can be obtained in two weeks as opposed to waiting 90 days for a pistol permit.

“We sell about 8,000 guns a year, and I’d say a majority of them are for self-defense,” he said.

Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Jessica Schneider reported that residents questioning their sense of safety following the home invasion have also been calling companies that install security systems.

Joe Mitchell of Associated Security Corp. said his company’s phones have been ringing off the hook.

“I had 15 phone calls on my phone by 9:30 in the morning,” he said.

He said that security systems aren’t meant to protect valuables anymore, that many people use them to protect their lives.

(Yet another reason I carry a gun. I’m not saying that they would have been able to save themselves, but the odds would have been more even. Follow the links at the bottom of the linked page to read more about this senseless tragedy. -Yuri)

Share/Save

Sticking it to the anti’s! :-)

A “BEST BUY” in Chicagoland

Where else can you turn this…

…into a bunch of pre-paid $100 MasterCards.

On Saturday, July 21, Chicago held its largest and most generous city-sanctioned gun buy of junk and orphaned firearms. The organizers paid $100 for each firearm, regardless of age, functionality or type. Turn in locations were situated at 23 churches throughout the city.

GUNS SAVE LIFE PARTICIPATED!

Guns Save Life participated in this worthy event, attracted by the offer of $100 pre-paid credit cards for any firearm!

Guns Save Life, also known as Champaign County Rifle Association, is a regional civil rights organization famous for its Burma-style highway signs along highways and interstates throughout Illinois and beyond.

Some of our more talked about slogan sets include:

ROSES ARE RED
MY GUN IS BLUE
I SLEEP SAFE
HOW ABOUT YOU?

GUN CONTROL
IS RACE CONTROL
NOT CRIME CONTROL
AND ITS UNAMERICAN

DIALLED 9-1-1
AND I’M ON HOLD
SURE WISH I HAD
THAT GUN I SOLD

My story.

by John B.

I left Champaign-Urbana at 0530 with 27 guns in my trunk and one on my hip. Given that Chicago Police reportedly now receive one vacation day and a $300 bonus on their paychecks for each gun they confiscate, I was very cautious. Visions of a car accident and subsequent police contact and discovery of the guns in my trunk filled the back of my mind. It would surely earn me the label of “gun runner” and incarceration in the disease-ridden bowels of Chicago’s city jail.

I’m sure the eyeballs first officer to find said guns would be wide with glee:

“Hoo YAH! Cha-CHING, BABY! I just got a month and a half off and a free trip to Aruba!”

I had 23 guns to turn in and didn’t want to take them all in at once as I expected that would raise suspicions. So I decided to visit three or more turn-in locations to “spread” things out. You know, take five or so into each location until I ran out of guns or they ran out of credit cards.

I had a map with turn in locations listed and had planned to be there at 0800, so as not to get there after they ran out of cards (as almost happened to us in Joliet a few years ago when we got there at 0930 or so). I went to the best location proximate to I-90/94 and found myself in the heart of the bad-news ghetto in Chicago. Fortunately, the city’s thugs were sound asleep at this wee hour. I found the door locked at the church and nobody around. Called 311 and found that the event started at 1000.

I killed some time by reconnoitering the second location I planned to transact business with and found a drugstore for a restroom. Returned to location #1 and guardedly read a couple of chapters of “Godless” by Ann Coulter. Towards 1000, there were a lot of folks around looking like they were going to be turning stuff in, so I grabbed two bags (of five) out of the trunk and went to the door at 1000 sharp. Didn’t want them to run out while I’m standing there with a bunch of guns. Didn’t figure they’d take too kindly to me walkin’ out with a bunch of guns in Wal-mart bags (hey, I double bagged them!) if they didn’t have enough cards.

I stood in line there listening to a bunch of hopeless sheep bleat for half an hour. It repulsed me. “I’ve been blessed,” one man said. “When things happen around me, like shooting or people screaming, I don’t even look up.”

“I figure if something’s gonna happen to me, it’s gonna happen,” he concluded.

Won’t look up if he hears a woman screaming? How pathetic is that?

Now, Chicago officials would probably tell you this program is helping to get guns out of the hands of criminals in one way or another. Well, the average age of the folks waiting in line there was about 60 and I’m not sure anyone there didn’t have at least some gray hair. Heck, tne fella next to me was on oxygen and at least one lady had a cane. These were law-abiding folk. Typically, they were there with a gun that had been in the attic or closet for the last thirty or forty years. They were not criminals or dope slingers who would use a gun to victimize anyone.

Sure, a burglar might have stolen a gun they came across, but do we worry about our cars being stolen and used in crimes that result in good people getting hurt?

You think about those things when you’re standing in the middle of some lousy ghetto in Chicago, disarmed and standing on a sidewalk with two bags full of guns, waiting for them to get around to opening, late.

They finally opened at 1030. They let us in, two at a time. I was first with a real gun… or ten, in this case. Older, but very nice, cop played the gun expert, but it was clear he was no expert. I had to help him show clear on many of the guns as he was painfully slow in his inept effort at opening old wheelguns. After professing an ignorance about guns, I had to pretend to fumble around with the mechanisms. I threw in a few muzzle sweeps for good measure to make it look good. I did keep my finger off the trigger though.

He took all ten, including the starter pistol, as real guns. Yes, a cheap .22 blank pistol that might have been used at a high school track match long ago. Not my problem that he gave us $100 for that pistol. He was just glad and happy I could show him empty cylinders, as he was initially taking about two or more minutes per gun to check them (until I started fumbling and sweeping) and there were lots of folks waiting outside.

They gave me ten credit cards and thanked me profusely, falling all over themselves to tell me what a great thing I was doing and I reciprocated, encouraging them to do it again!. I stuffed the envelopes into my back pocket after folding them.

I noticed that she was pulling the envelopes out of a box which contained an estimated 200 envelopes. ($100 x 200 = $20,000 x 23 locations = About a half-million in support of this program from someone. Looking back, it seems like a pretty fair estimate!) Separate box for the $10 cards for pellet guns and replicas. Similar number of envelopes there.

I left the building in condition orange, watching for any thugs waiting to ambush anyone coming out. The suspicious character watching me carefully with my two bags of guns wasn’t there any longer. Got into the car across the street and was giddy with excitement. I had just sold $10 worth of scrap plus maybe a $50 5-shot .22 “affordable” wheel gun for $1000! It seemed too good to be true!

On to location #2. I was a little worried, since I was a half-hour behind schedule, thanks to the late open at the first church. Still no thug-types on the sidewalks even though it was approaching 1100. I had reconnoitered the location #2 earlier, so it was effortless to find after a few minutes and a single turn. Found a parking spot fairly close to the door.

That was a good thing, because I had nine long guns in two bags, plus another small bag of handguns to go and I was still deep in the rough part of the nation’s murder capital (or close runner up). About forty awkward pounds of rusty (s)crap. I mulled over whether or not to split this into two take-ins (at location #2 and then #3), but decided that based upon my warm reception at location #1, I’d just take them all in.

Oops. One rusty revolver fell out of one of the bags on my way in and skittered across the sidewalk. Ah, crap. I picked it up and palmed it. Whew! Glad nobody saw that.

In I went, greeted warmly. “Whoa! I see you’ve got some guns!” says the lady at the door. She must have noticed the barrels sticking out of the plastic bag or maybe the rusty clunker in my palm. Clearly, she must have been a detective.

Waited in line, watching “the room”. Hot shot young guy was clearing the guns on the table by the door. Very “friendly”, but invasive at the same time. Classic “good cop”. I’m sure he’d be a good buddy – if you were a fellow cop.

Guns were getting really heavy. I put them down. Whew!

Finally, after the 70-year-old man ahead of me has a pump action bird gun and a single-shot break-open shottie checked, it’s my turn.

I hand the bag with the sawed-off rifle and a pistol or two in it to the hall monitor after asking her ever-so-sweetly if she could hand the bag to the “nice young man” otherwise identified as Hotshot while I dragged forty-plus awkward pounds towards the table. She did, handling it like it had fresh dog feces inside.

“Hey, howya doin’” he greets me. “All these unloaded?”

“I dunno. I think so. I’m not real big on guns.” My toes were crossed.

He has trouble getting the guns out of the duct-taped bag. I instinctively reached for my blade, which was not there because its four and a half-inch blade would have landed me in the slammer in disarmed-victim Chicago. Instead, I had my little Spyderco in my pocket (not clipped), but I wasn’t going to let them grab that as its blade was 2 1/2 inches long (also in violation of the 2” rule in Chicago).

“One of you guys got a knife to help him open this up?” I asked.

They all looked at one another like I just asked them for a gold brick or something. Not one of five cops had a blade. How sad.

Finally, some little old lady brings a pair of $1.00 scissors and Hotshot cuts the tape, with some difficulty.

He starts checking them, and notices the rust on his hands from a couple of really choice specimens. You could get tetanus from these if you had any open sores.

“Didja hit a bunch of pawn shops or something?” He asked. “Hey, Benny, come look at these.”

Benny comes over and starts sweating me. He’s playing “bad cop” in a restrained way. Same questions, only a lot more assertive. “Where’d you get all these? You buy them to bring here?”

They broke me in about as long as it takes in CSI or one of those other cheesy TV cop shows for David Caruso’s character to break down the bad guy’s will.

“Uh. No, they aren’t really mine. They belonged to my grandfather and his father. I sold the decent ones and had this stuff in the attic for a long time until I saw you guys were giving $100 cards for any old guns.”

Midway through his clearing of the guns, Hotshot motions for me to come closer while he was holding one of the guns.

“Hey, did you know this one was one of our sniper rifles from World War II?” he asked. “See this here,” he noted, pointing at the elevation mechanism for the broken rear sight, “this is the windage adjustment.”

I think I was able to keep a straight face, but it was really hard.

“Wow. If I’d have known that, I mighta kept that one,” I replied. It was a broken down, 60s-era, hardware-store, tubular-fed .22 long rifle pump gun with the tube hanging out of the receiver. I later told this to the guy who donated this gun to the club, and he laughed. “It must have been a one-of-a-kind custom gun!” he said with a hearty laugh.

After showing clear on all thirteen, Benny showed me to the “money table.” Similar number of envelopes, only the box was only 2/3 full here. Another woman was busy making notes for each of 13 envelopes and putting labels on the guns. I sashayed over to the other end of the table and had a peek at the “pistol” box. Total junk. Pot metal wheel guns. Maybe a couple of S&Ws, but more likely, just patent-infringement guns from no-name makers. No modern semi-autos.

“Hey you, get over here.” Oops, they caught me eyeballing their treasure.

I sheepishly returned.

They gave me the envelopes and watched suspiciously as I verified the count. Gave them a big thumbs up and a smile and turned to leave. It was like they had formed a reception line behind me. Four or five of the women wanted to shake my hand and thank me profusely. Even took my photo with a big shot there. I remembered to stick my middle finger out a lot further than the rest of my fingers while trying to hold a fanned out stack of envelopes for the photo.

Ugh! Got out of there and I ran out of hand sanitizer and baby wipes in the car wiping the funk off my hands.

PLEASE NOTE: Everyone, including the CPD officers were very polite and kind (well, with the exception of ‘Benny’ who was trying to grind me at a “no questions asked” event, but he was still an okay guy). They all meant well, even if they weren’t nearly as proficient in handling firearms as they thought they were.

In my opinion, they should secure some of those “safe zone” pads or maybe old body armor as a safe backstop when handling these very old and possibly malfunction-prone guns (because of rusted firing pins or other issues). They might also do well to ask for firearms aficionados to help to volunteer to show these guns clear, because clearly (pun intended), the folks I witnessed fooling around with these guns were about in over their heads. Of course, it will be a cold day in hell before any of the “noble” class as for help from the peasants in Chicago.

We would like to thank the City of Chicago and George Soros, or whoever underwrote this program for their generosity. We think it will result in a safer society, just not exactly in the way Mayor Daley would have you believe.

EPILOGUE

So, Guns Save Life ended up netting $1700 worth of MasterCards from the event after those who split their donations with the club were “paid” in cards. The club has sold a dozen of its own cards to members for cash.

The last five of the cards are going to be spent at Darrell’s Custom Guns in Cayuga, IN for two CZ bolt-action .22s to be given away to two lucky kids participating in the NRA Youth Shooting Camp coming up over the first weekend in August.

All of the money (and then some) will be spent purchasing ammo for the kids to use during the camp or the rifles. The camp, located in Bloomington at Darnall’s, is the longest running NRA Youth Shooting Camp in the nation.

NRA Youth Shooting Camps teach young people gun safety and safe and responsible firearm use. Kids get a chance to shoot shotguns, rifles, handguns, black powder guns, archery and so much more as instructed by State and/or NRA Certified Instructors (like me) and/or Olympic-level shooting coaches.

I’m proud to say that Guns Save Life is a major supporter of Darnall’s NRA Youth Shooting Camp, donating thousands of dollars in ammunition to shoot, firearms as prizes for the kids, and dozens of volunteers including numerous instructors and staff. I’m quite proud to say that I’m vice-president of the organization and couldn’t be prouder at what we’ve accomplished this last two weeks. We rounded up these guns on short notice, executed our plan to sell them to Chicago and converted the gun sale money into education for young people about the safe and responsible use of firearms.

It’s sweet poetic justice here for Mayor Daley’s CPD Gun Buy.

You accounting wizards have probably figured out that I didn’t turn in the personal defense pieces that I keep in my trunk, especially when going to dangerous places like Cook County. No, I love my Garand. There are many like it, but this one is mine. As is my Beretta.

And they sure weren’t getting the pistol in my fanny pack!

John

Share/Save

A glimpse inside the mind of the enemy.

Limelight: Washington Ceasefire
Re-calibrating gun control
By Daniel Levisohn
(Commentary by Yuri)

(Something tells me these people need to talk to the JPFO, or possibly a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, it might change their attitude a little bit. You’d also think they would learn a thing or two from Jewish history on the need to keep and bear arms. Instead, they stick they’re heads in the sand and hope that everything turns out alright. -Yuri)

This upcoming weekend, employees of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle will quietly commemorate the one-year anniversary of the shooting at its downtown office building.

For Seattle’s Jewish community, July 28, 2006 was a traumatizing introduction to gun violence, both in the scale of the attack and in the alleged shooter’s anti-Semitic motivations. But, even as the shooting was premeditated with the goal of killing Jews, looking back it is also clear the event created waves outside of the Jewish community. For starters, several of the women shot that day were not Jewish, but had intertwined their lives with Jewish causes. Many non-Jewish organizations also came to the Federation’s aid. In a year scarred again and again by the indiscriminate murder of innocent people at the hands of men with guns, the shooting linked Seattle’s Jews to other victimized communities. From the Capitol Hill Massacre to the murder of young Amish schoolchildren to the rampage at Virginia Tech, America’s senseless tolerance of guns was on full display. Taken together, the bloodbaths should have provided a timeline of evidence that our nation’s gun laws need to change — fast.

(I agree. All gun laws are unconstitutional and need to be repealed immediately! -Yuri)

Sadly, transforming the United States of American is a process that is often frustratingly slow. In Washington State, a hope emerged that an overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature might actually make guns more difficult for dangerous people to acquire by passing a plug to the gun-show loophole — a hope driven by so much common sense, it is almost comical that such a law was not passed and remains a political dream.

(This just goes to show that even though the Democrats may be in charge, common sense will still prevail. -Yuri)

Washington Ceasefire is the organization that should be leading the effort to tighten Washington’s gun laws, but in the last few years its own leadership says it has “struggled in the wilderness.” But at a fundraiser on Tuesday, July 17 at the Big Picture, they made a show of beginning to change that. They’ve brought in a new board and a new executive director, Kristen Comer, a young lawyer originally from Spokane who has worked on the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. They’ve also taken the first steps to revamp their strategy. Comer said that within five years we will see a reduction in the number of firearm deaths in Washington.

(The only way I see this happening is if more people start CCW’ing and/or the state makes it easier to carry concealed. Criminals love unarmed victims. -Yuri)

Jew-ish spoke with Comer a few days before the fundraiser.

Jew-ish: A lot of people thought that in 2007 the legislature might actually get something done about gun violence. Can you talk a bit about what happened?

K.C.: I think last year it was traditionally the things that make it difficult. A lot of the time there is not enough political will. The people in the legislature are concerned their constituencies will be upset with them if they enact certain types of gun-control measures, and oftentimes on the other side of the issue their voices are much louder than those who are on our side of the issue.

But I think the tide is changing specifically after the shooting at Virginia Tech. People are realizing there are many loopholes in our laws right now and there are many ways to prevent senseless acts of violence.

(First of all Kristen, my rights are not a loophole, and secondly, you know as well as anyone that if Cho’s victims had been legally allowed to CCW on campus, that day at VT didn’t have to end the way it did. -Yuri)

Jew-ish: How active was Jewish community on this issue?

K.C.: We certainly worked quite a bit with the Seattle chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. When we had our committee hearing for the gun-show loophole legislation, I know there were many members of the Jewish community who came to Olympia and showed their support for the legislation. I know it’s also still on the radar screen of the Jewish community as an issue that is important and as an issue to address.

(I was there at that hearing and Pro rights supporters outnumbered those who would take our freedoms away 3:1. It was actually quite heartening. -Yuri)

Jew-ish: Is Washington Ceasefire changing its plans for this upcoming year?

K.C.: We are trying to recalibrate the organization right now because we are in the middle of a change. Our organization going forward is going to have a foundation based upon three different organizational categories: One is a legal component. That will include any sort of legal research to better define what sort of legislation would pass muster and be least likely to be challenged constitutionally in Washington State. We are doing our homework on that front. We are also doing legal research into policy areas we think might be successful that we haven’t considered before. For example, we are looking at how we might influence policy not only at the state level but on a local level as well. In Seattle or Spokane or wherever it might be.

(It’s like the old saw about How to Boil a Frog. If you toss him into hot water he’ll jump out, but if you bring the heat up gradually you’ll have boiled frog for dinner. This just goes to show why even the smallest anti-gun law can be allowed to pass. As time goes on, more and more small laws add up to be one big law and we’ll have lost our rights forever. -Yuri)

Jew-ish: Is there more leeway to work locally?

K.C.: That’s part of what we are looking at right now. We have created a legal committee that is staffed with several talented attorneys and we have them doing research right now to figure out what our best alternatives will be.

One of the other prongs is the legislative portion. That is really undefined right now. I think we will probably try to close the gun-show loophole again. (I’ll see you in Olympia if you try this again Kristen! -Yuri) But our legislative agenda isn’t set yet for next year. We are going to be meeting with some of our allies in the legislator over the next couple of months to better define what our goals will be is ’08 and ’09 after the elections have occurred.

The third part is our learnedness component, and that’s just getting back to the facts. We know the facts are in our favor. We know that in the United Sates we have the weakest gun laws and the highest rates of gun ownership, and we also have the highest rate of gun violence of any industrialized nation. And we know we can change that. We are going to look at the facts, and try to take the issue into a more credible arena: this is what we know, and this is why gun violence is important to you as an individual person.

(Care to back up these assertions with facts Kristen? No? I didn’t think so, because you have none! -Yuri)

Jew-ish: Has Washington Ceasefire focused on the gun-show loophole because the organization feels it is politically achievable or because it thinks it would have a big impact?

K.C.: I was not here when the organization set that as its primary legislative ambition. So I can’t speak as to why that specific policy choice was chosen over many others. But what I do know is that on the face of it seems like a very sensible regulation. If you are purchasing a firearm from a licensed dealer and you have to undergo a background check, the same should be true when you are purchasing firearms at a gun show. There are many loopholes. It is just one in the many loopholes we have when enforcing the laws.

(Ignoring the fact that less than 1% of crime guns come from gun shows, she still lies. It doesn’t matter whether you buy retail or at a gun show, if you buy from an FFL you still have to pass a background check. The only exception to this is private sales, and gun shows are not the only place that private sales are allowed. Many guns are sold at garage sales or through classified ad’s. After she closes the “Gun Show Loophole” is she going to close the “Newspaper Loophole” too? -Yuri)

Jew-ish: Is there evidence that a significant portion of firearm violence comes through the gun-show loophole?

K.C.: The facts are very, very mixed and that is part of what we are pushing for this learnedness component of our new mission going forward. I know the ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] put out a study a few years ago that showed that a significant portion of gun purchases at gun shows turn up later in crimes. It’s an easy way for people who can’t buy guns to show up and buy guns without a check.

(Again she lies. Show me the study Kristen. -Yuri)

Jew-ish: Is there anything else you want to tell our readers?

K.C.: We feel there is a lot of really good momentum going in our direction and we think in the next couple of years this issue is going to change. We think that Virginia Tech was shocking to people and rightfully so. And [the House of Representatives] just passed its first major peace of what people are calling gun-control legislation last month. It was the first bill they passed in probably 10 years, since the assault weapons ban, so actually 13 years. So that’s very encouraging. We feel that that sort of momentum will trickle down to the state and local level. And we have a strong mayor and police chief who really believe in our cause, too.

(Notice the repeated dancing in the blood of the VT victims for her own political gain. She also neglects to admit that the “Assault Weapons Ban” only banned certain cosmetic features and the same guns continued to be sold with some minor changes. She further neglects to admit that very few if any crimes were actually committed with these so called “Assault Weapons”. I’m surprised she doesn’t come out and try to label them “Fully Automatic Machine Guns” like her pal Josh Sugarman.

Folks, we cannot for one second stop in our struggle to keep our rights from going the way of the DoDo. The anti-rights crowd will never stop, and neither should we.

Hmmm… I wonder if the Police Chief ever found his gun?

-Yuri)

Share/Save

What am I?

My Conservative Identity:

You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Take the quiz at www.FightLiberals.com

Color me surprised…

Thanks Tamara!

Share/Save