Voters in the 12th Senate District have received a dishonest campaign mailer from the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) that can only be described as trash. The mailer claims that VSSA and NRA Endorsed candidate Bill Janis refuses to oppose several gun control measures.
That second gun ban proposal that Janis supposedly won't oppose is particularly laughable because Bill Janis voted for Virginia's full pre-emption law when it passed in the General Assembly in 2004 which makes such schemes in Virginia a non-starter.
When you click on the graphic of the mailer you will note that the three proposals Janis supposedly refuses to oppose are questions that were on a questionnaire the NAGR claims to have sent to Janis and that they claim he failed to answer. In reality, a quick phone conversation with Janis revealed that he did not even receive the NAGR questionnaire until Tuesday, May 26 by certified mail. The hit piece landed in mail boxes about the same time meaning NAGR never planned to wait for a response before dropping this trash in voters mail boxes.
This is not the first time that this so-called gun rights organizations has been dishonest with gun owners and voters. In 2013, after the media decided not to show up at a press event where the group was rolling out attack ads against then House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, they staged a photo for use in an email that made it look like the media showed up and asked questions.
The group has also been dishonest in other areas. Last month, the leader of NAGR used his Colorado organization to attack pro-gun researcher Dave Kopel.
And those are just two instances where the group has attacked friends of gun owners. Sebastian over at Shall Not Be Questioned has written about the group's amateur activity. At the end of that post, Sebastian summed it up pretty well:
I continue to encourage gun owners to not have anything to do with Dudley Brown or NAGR. Don't give them money and don't give them support.
My sentiments exactly.
Update: Here is a photo of the envelop in which the questionnaire arrived.
And here is a photo of the letter clearing stating the that it was due on May 1 - 19 days before it was mailed.
There is an individual who runs two groups, one state and one national, who fashions himself as the true champion of our rights. In reality, he is a huckster who has never done anything constructive for the movement legislatively or electorally but takes self-promotion to new heights all in the name of raising money. The individual's name is Dudley Brown and his groups are the Colorado group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and the national group is National Association for Gun Rights. You probably have seen his emails or fundraising efforts disguised as gun giveaways.
To show you just how dishonest this individual is, in 2013, at the height of the battle to defeat President Obama's gun control proposals, Brown came into Virginia attacking NRA "A" rated U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Brown sent our an email announcing a press conference to roll out a television ad against Cantor that claimed he was supporting Obama's gun control. The email also invited pro-gun supporters to the event. Unfortunately for Brown, no press showed up although a handful of gun rights supporters did attend. Brown spoke briefly, showed the attack ad, introduced his staff (which out numbered those in attendance) and ended the event. That afternoon, he sent a follow-up email complete with a photo that made it appear media representatives were asking questions. In reality it was a staged photo using the staff that was taken after the event had ended and everyone else left. Brown later claimed credit for the defeat of Cantor in the 2014 primary, though his little seen ad played absolutely no role in the race.
Now, Brown has turned his attention on someone who has impeccable pro-rights credentials, Dave Kopel. Earlier this month, the Colorado legislature was trying to repeal the 15 round limit on ammunition magazines that was passed in 2013. Last week, the battle came to a head. This from the Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board:
Many leading Democrats, since passing the laws, have conceded they went too far.
"A lot of people, if they'd known how much commotion was going to come out of the high-capacity magazines would've, probably would've looked for something different, looked for a different approach," Hickenlooper told Colorado sheriffs in 2014.
More recently, Rep. Joe Salazar extended an olive branch to Second Amendment defenders. The most controversial of the gun laws forbids magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. As vice chairman of the powerful House Veterans and Military Affairs Committee — where the majority party typically kills minority bills — Salazar has committed to supporting a bill that would increase the limit to 30 rounds. It signifies a potential big victory for Republicans and gun rights in a House controlled by Democrats. It represents the kind of bipartisanship Colorado has seldom witnessed in the past decade.
The compromise would resolve 99 percent of concerns about the magazine ban.
Salazar's cooperative attitude has received applause from Colorado's most tireless and successful Second Amendment defenders. Among them is attorney David Kopel, who helped win D.C. v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago in the U.S. Supreme Court — the most important gun-rights victories of the 21st century. Kopel represented Colorado sheriffs in a lawsuit that challenged Colorado's new gun laws. But in the view of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, Kopel is a problem. The group is distributing an ad that features Kopel's photo and the words: "Oppose the Kopel Kompromise."
Moving the limit from 15 to 30 rounds would be considered a victory by most people as many rifle models come standard with magazines over 15 but less than or equal to 30. But not Brown. With people like him, it's all or nothing because that's how he can continue to raise money.
The Independence Institute, with which Kopel is affiliated, fired back.
In Virginia, we would not have passed the repeal of the restaurant ban if we had not compromised. In the early days of the repeal effort, there were groups that wanted a straight repeal with no prohibition on consuming alcohol. Those bills went nowhere. They finally understood the only way to get the repeal was to include a prohibition on consuming alcohol. The repeal finally passed, and was vetoed by Tim Kaine, but was finally signed by Bob McDonnell a couple years later.
People like Brown do more harm than they do good for our cause. Thankfully, he has no influence in Virginia.
Earlier today, a group billing itself as a "National" gun rights organization put out an email that said they were "exposing" Eric Cantor working with Representative Carolyn McCarthy to criminalize private sales and "strip law-abiding people of the their gun rights FOR LIFE." The email also mentioned Rep. Scott Rigell. While it is true that Rigell has co-sponsored legislation with Carolyn McCarthy, Cantor has not.
"I think that we can take a lot of lessons from what Virginia did and put it in place at the federal level, because there are a lot of states that aren't doing what Virginia is doing to try and beef up the database for the background checks to make sure that we actually can do something that does have a chance at reducing the likelihood and hopefully eliminating it from happening again," Cantor said.
Cantor was talking about improving the mental health information that is reported into the NICS, information that Virginia currently leads the nation in reporting.
No where has Cantor said that he supports criminalizing private sales by supporting so-called "universal" background checks.
This is just one more in a long line of misstatements by this group to draw attention to itself. Cantor is solid on this issue. VSSA's sources on The Hill tell us that Cantor and Representative Bob Goodlatte, who today said he does not support "universal" background checks, are on the same page.
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