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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Gun Control Proposals to be Released at UVA December 2nd

A group of leading gun ban advocates will convene at the University of Virginia on Monday, December 2nd, to propose "specific state-level policy recommendations" they say are designed to keep firearms out of the hands of those most likely to commit violence.

Among those slated to participate are Lt. Gov.-elect Ralph Northam, state Sen. Donald McEachin; Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence; and gun ban advocate and member of Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe's Transition Team, Lori Haas.

Given this line up, look for the usual proposals such as so-called "universial" background checks, bans on ammunition magazines that hold more than ten rounds, and so on and so on.

The event will be live streamed from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM. at http://new.livestream.com/UVABattenSchool/events/2565671.

Obenshain Asks for Recount in AG Race

This morning, State Senator Mark Obenshain requested a recount in the Attorney General's race. State Senator Mark Herring was certified the winner on Monday by a very slim 165 votes out of over 2 million cast. Of the 4 statewide races this century decided within a 300 vote margin, 3 have been overturned in a recount. The 0.007 percent margin in the current race is closer than any of those. Virginia may not know until close to Christmas who will be Virginia's next Attorney General.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Groupon Firearm Safety Course Discounts

It appears that Groupon has gotten back to regularly offering the various firearm safety course discounts that they were prior to the Newtown school shooting.  I've seen some of these sporadically over the last few months but this week, I've gotten emails about them for both the DC/Maryland area and in Richmond.

Another Voice and View on Virginia Tech Shooting

After the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, a survivor - Colin Goddard - and the mother of a survivor - Lori Haas - became very engaged in the gun ban movement.  Goddard went to work for the Brady Campaign and Haas is the Virginia Director of the Campaign to Stop Gun Violence.  Haas was recently appointed to Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe's transition team.

But not all of those affected by the Virginia Tech shooting turned to the gun ban movement to try and change things.  The December Issue of America's First Freedom (AFF) featured the story of Holly Adams, who lost her daughter that April 2007 day in Blacksburg, VA.  While Goddard and Haas have fought any attempts to allow students or staff with carry permits on college campuses, Adams' is a different  quest:
I ask a simple question: Would the other parents of victims be forever thankful if a professor or student was allowed to carry a firearm and could have stopped Seung-Hui Cho before their loved ones were injured or killed? I would be. I also suspect that the tragedy may not have occurred at all if Cho knew that either faculty members or students were permitted to carry their own weapons on campus.
While Colin Goddard and Lori Haas chose to make gun control their life's focus, Adams makes it clear they don't speak for her and offers an explanation for why that is the case:
Colin is a survivor. He doesn’t look at it from the point of view I do. He can travel the country and speak out on these issues. He’s not the parent of a child who died. So I have trouble with it, the ones who get together as Virginia Tech victims. There are two separate camps—the ones who stand in one corner, who lost our child and will never see them again; and there’s this other group who are celebrating their child made it through. If I were to go back and relive that day, I would give anything if that day, that morning, somebody in the classroom was armed and could have stood up and taken Cho out before he got 32 victims. I wish there had been a gun in the classroom.
And, she makes it clear that she has a cause of her own:
Affiliating myself with the NRA, doing some target shooting, answering the call if anybody wants to talk about why I believe what I do—why I don’t support tighter controls on guns, why I do support classroom concealed carry. From day to day, I’m open to answering the same kind of questions we just discussed. I’m not hiding from it, but I don’t pretend to represent a whole group of people. These are my views, and I’m not afraid to tell you.
If it weren't for the AFF article, you probably would not know there is someone associated with the Virginia Tech shooting that supports campus carry, because the mainstream media doesn't want to tell that story.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Bloomberg Compares his Work to Ban Guns to Fight to End Smoking

NRA President James Porter wrote in the Daily Caller:
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was once asked by NBC’s David Gregory how much he was willing to spend to spread his vision for gun control to every corner of the nation.

“I think I have an obligation as an American and as a citizen, as a human being, to help others. Smoking is gonna kill a billion people this century. I put $600 million of my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies … That’s one issue. Who knows with this?”
The gun ban crowd has tried to employ the strategy of the anti-smoking crowd for years.  They tried suing firearm manufacturers out of business until the passage of the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.  Some would like to make it socially unexceptable to be a gun owner, basically the way they did with smoking.

It's all in line with the so-called "public health approach" the gun ban lobby wants to take toward firearms, arguing that the costs associated with "dealing' with gun related crime outweighs the benefits of owning a firearms.

Conversation With Cam and Company on McAuliffe and Gun Control

NRANews.com's Cam Edwards asked VSSA's Legislative Director about gun control advocate Lori Haas being added to Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe's transition team.


Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Senator Creigh Deeds Seriously Injured, Son Dead

Via Richmond Times Dispatch: Deeds critically wounded; son dead from gunshot. Police are still trying to sort out events but Senator Deeds was stabbed and is in critical condition. When we have more details this post will be updated.

Update: Here and here.

Friday, November 15, 2013

Firearm Retailers Talk about Private Sales

WHAG TV in Hagerstown, MD, recently spoke with some Virginia firearm retailers about gun shows and private sales. Jimmy Johnson of Virginia Pistol (a VSSA advertiser) offered some good advice for private sellers who want to insure the firearm they are selling does not end up in the wrong hands:
"In the commonwealth of Virginia, it is legal to do private sales between individuals. What I'd recommend they do is if they don't want to take that person to a firearms dealer, is complete a bill of sale, and ask that individual purchasing the gun for a photo identification," said Johnson.
The full report is below.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

More People Voted for Pro-Gun Governor Candidates than Voted for Anti-gun McAuliffe

Bloomberg and gun control groups were crowing yesterday after NRA "F" rated candidate Terry McAuliffe narrowly defeated Ken Cuccinelli and claiming that shows Virginia voters rejected the NRA.


But as this blog noted yesterday, some Democrats think that Bloomberg's entrance into the race may have contributed to some of the tightening in the race in the last two weeks of the campaign.  But U.S. News notes Bloomberg may be taking too much credit::
But Virginia's race wasn't all about guns. While gun control advocates and gun rights groups spent a combined $4 million on the gubernatorial matchup, much of the money was spent just weeks before Election Day and at a time when McAuliffe already had a strong leg up in the polls. The NRA estimates it spent upwards of $1 million on the race. Candidates focused on the economy, health care and women's rights, instead. Conversations about gun control were few and far between and didn't surface until late into the race.
It should also be noted that of the 67 House GOP members who won on Tuesday, 65 were endorsed by the NRA, two in Northern Virginia that were targeted by Bloomberg.  So, that kind of blows up Bloomberg's narrative.  Finally, here is a fact that I have not heard from anyone in the media yet:  There were two candidates running for Governor who were strongly pro-gun.  One of those candidates - Ken Cuccinelli - was endorsed by the NRA, and one - Robert Sarvis - responded to a questionnaire from another Virginia gun rights group and responded in a way that would be considered "very pro-gun."  Those two candidates combined received a total of 51.77% of the vote. Terry McAuliffe received a total of 47.74% of the vote.

So, it appears that a majority of Virginia's voters voted for a candidate that supports our Second Amendment rights.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Election Post Mortem

In what turned out to be a much closer election at the top of the ticket than anyone expected, Terry McAuliffe ended up with a 2.46 1.94% margin of victory.  Clearly, McAuliffe's victory was won in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia, where he won by more votes (66,507) than the final margin of victory (54,823 54,704).  McAuliffe's and Bloomberg's strategy of running up a large margin in this region to make the rest of the state irrelevant worked.

In the other competitive race, State Senator Mark Obenshain, currently leads State Senator Mark Herring by .01.03% or 319 476 votes, according the the State Board of Elections web site.  There will likely be a recount and we could see the same drawn out process that we witnessed in 2005 when Bob McDonnell bested Creigh Deeds by a little over 300 votes.

Most pundits expected Obenshain to win unless Cuccinelli was blown out.  He ran a better campaign than Herring, running mostly positive television ads featuring his 20 something daughter to get out in front of the expected "War On Women" attack.  Herring was considered to have run an inept campaign by some observers.  Then, Mike Bloomberg came in and dropped $1 million in ads on Herring's behalf.  Those adds did not just focus on gun control but also on other social issues in an attempt to motivate voters who may not be motivated by gun control.

Did Bloomberg's ads make a difference?  Well, in the House races, it appears to have been a wash.  According to VPAP, Bloomberg's PAC invested in two House races, and split, winning in the 93rd District where he contributed to Monty Mason, the winner, but lost in the 87th District where he contributed to the opponent of Delegate David Ramadan.  Ramadan Won.  It had also been reported that Bloomberg contributed $100,000 to the race of Kathleen Murphy in the 34th District but VPAP does not show any donations either from his PAC or from Bloomberg directly.  Murphy lost.  Over all, the GOP won 67 of the 100 House races, a very hefty pro-rights majority to block any gun control McAuliffe may push. The Democrats picked up two seats currently held by the GOP, both in Northern Virginia.  The GOP picked up a seat currently held by a retiring Democrat.

And, some Dems apparently think Bloomberg contributed to the closeness of the race.

Something else, the CNN Exit Poll asked those interviewed if there were any gun owners in the home and 47% responded yes. This indicates to me that a high number of gun owners voted yesterday. What should concern us however is that of those interviewed who indicated there was a gun owner in the home, 33% voted for Terry McAuliffe. We don't know if the person interviewed was the gun owner or the spouse/significant other of the gun owner.

So, what impact will yesterday's results have on the rights of gun owners in Virginia for the next four years?  Clearly, getting pro-rights legislation signed into law is going to be more difficult.  Getting it out of the Senate will depend on what happens with the special election to fill Northam's seat.  Should Obenshain end-up being declared the winner in the AG's race, there will also be a special election to fill that vacancy.  If the Democrats end up with the majority in the Senate, we may have to dedicate a significant amount of resources to defeat bad legislation in that house of the legislature.  We do still have a firewall with the House of Delegates but we don't want to see bad bills passed in the Senate.

This is not completely over yet, but we do have a sense of what we are facing in the next couple of years, and it's not going to be fun.

Hat tip to Sebastian for the Chuck Todd comment.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Barbara Comstock Likely Winner

Ben Tribbett just told NBC12 that he feels comfortable predicting Delegate Barbara Comstock will be re-elected.  Mike Bloomberg dropped $100,000 into this race late to help Comstock's opponent.  Looks like he did not get his money's worth.

Obenshain Currently Outperforming Cuccinelli

Currently, the bottom of the ticket for both parties is outperforming the top with State Senator Mark Obenshain currently leading the AG race with a total of 705,702 and State Senator Mark Herring 639,282.  In the Governor's race Cuccinelli has 649,934 and McAuliffe has 618,513.

NBC12 Reports Lt. Gov Race Called for Democrat

State Senator Ralph Northam has been called the winner in the Lt. Governor's race.  This sets up a special election to replace Northam which will determine control of the State Senate.

Looking at Turnout for Hints of Results

The Washington Post reports that "early turnout is strong" without giving and indication of what "strong" means. No where does it say if strong means similar to last year's massive turn out, or if strong means higher than in 2009.

But in Brian Schoeneman, a member of the Fairfax County Election Board is posting his visits around the county on Twitter and is reporting at least one precinct has seen only about a 20% turn out so far.

If turn out across Northern Virginia remains this low, T-Mac may have something to be worried about.

Hat tip to Bearing Drift.

It's Election Day in Virginia

Polls have been open since 6:00 AM and will remain open until 7:00 PM. If you value your liberty, please vote, and vote for VSSA endorsed candidates Ken Cuccinelli for Governor, E.W. Jackson for Lt. Governor, and Mark Obenshain for Attorney General.

Don't worry about polls showing McAuliffe winning. Today is the only poll that counts. But for those who do watch polls, I offer this piece from Shaun Kenney at Bearing Drift that should give you a ray of hope in the midst of polls showing McAuliffe with an average of a 6 point lead. We can make a difference, if we vote.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Gun Control Becomes Key Issue Late in Governor's Race

The Washington Post had this article over the weekend on how gun control surfaced as a key issue in the final weeks of the Virginia Governor's race:
For once, a Democrat is talking tough about gun control, as if daring the National Rifle Association to take him on. And gun-rights advocates are all too happy to take him up on the challenge.
The article's author, Freddie Kunkle spoke with folks on both side of the issue and not surprising, the gun ban lobby said the NRA doesn't have the power that they want people to think they have.  But if that was the case, why did it take until polls started showing McAuliffe with as much as a double-digit lead before he forcefully starting pitching gun control?
Differences over gun control between Cuccinelli, the state’s attorney general, and McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, were not a secret before that debate. But Democrats rarely brag about their support for gun-control measures in statewide elections in pro-gun Virginia. McAuliffe’s change in strategy suggested a play for his liberal base — but also hinted that he felt comfortable changing the playbook in the still-evolving swing state of Virginia.
Polls has shown some tightening in the race since McAuliffe's change in strategy.  Going from avoiding talk of anything other than background checks to supporting Colorado style gun control. my have backfired or it is possibly that a combination of energizing Second Amendment activists and the disastrous roll out of Obamacare has caused what was already soft support to go even softer.  In the end, turn out is going to be the deciding factor and if those who were not really enthusiastic about McAuliffe in the first place decide they can't stand the thought of having him for Governor after all, could make tomorrow a very tight race.