Fact Checking Tim Kaine on Project Exile

Fact-checking has become such a growth industry in the media that sometimes busy fact-checkers overlook the obvious, such as Tim Kaine's attempt to rewrite his history related to the successful crime fighting initiative known as Project Exile.  Project Exile massively cut the number of murders committed with a firearm in Richmond Virginia in the 90's.  Kaine however attributes the reduction to "community policing" during the Vice Presidential Debate at Longwood University.  VSSA Legislative Director David Adams spoke with NRANews host Cam Edwards to set the record straight.  Originally aired on NRANews on October 7, 2016.

Ultimate Training Munitions Available to the Public

Ultimate Training Munitions (UTM) was founded in 2000 with a mission to provide a safe training ammunition that would allow military, law enforcement and professional training organizations to ‘train as they fight’ in immersive and authentic training environments and disciplines.  Through a partnership with NRA, UTM is now offering "the safest and most accurate training ammunition on the market" as an alternative to traditional live-fire ammunition. This technology has previously been available only to Military and Law Enforcement trainers but now it is available to the general public.

This past weekend at the Bristol Motor Speedway, site the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race, NRANews host Cam Edwards had the opportunity to speak with Tony Lambraia of UTM. For attendees of the race, UTM converted firearms with training kits to shoot non-lethal munitions. People shot Glocks and AR-15 rifles with interactive targets in a safe and comfortable environment. UTM training has been adopted by NRA training programs as a safe and reliable alternative to live ammunition. Lambraia explained how it works.

U.S. News Op/Ed: McAuliffe Wrong on Voting Rights

Peter Roff, U.S. News, World Report contributing editor and longtime observer of the Washington scene has a great piece on the U.S. News and World Report web site that does a great job of explaining how Governor Terry McAuliffe over stepped his bounds when restoring the voting rights of over 200,000 felons who have completed their sentence and probation:

There's another piece to this, though, that makes a challenge almost irresistible. McAuliffe's executive order, as The Washington Post put it, "applies to all felons who have completed their sentences and been released from supervised probation or parole," including those convicted in another state, and "restores the right to serve on a jury, run for office and become a notary public." Here we have several bridges that are simply too far for the average man or woman to stomach.

Just as all criminals are not the same, neither are all crimes. Under McAuliffe's new regime, a person who commits murder during the commission of another crime, child molesters, serial rapists and repeat offenders will receive the same treatment as those convicted of so-called victimless crimes like prostitution, those who have been jailed as part of the misguided war on drugs and white-collar criminals who have run afoul of the federal or state regulations that have criminal penalties attached. They will all have certain rights restored automatically without as much as a waiting period. Most people would not, one suspects, find this either just or fair. Whether we are willing as a society to forgive every aspect of every crime once a sentence has been completed is a complex moral question, one that has as many aspects to it as the governor's conspicuous and explicit statement in his order noting the restoration of Second Amendment rights are not up for discussion.

That a person who used a gun in the commission of a crime and went to prison for it should not have his gun rights restored is a persuasive argument. It is equally persuasive, however, that a person convicted of felony murder or a child molester is not as welcome back into society as someone who did time on a minor drug possession charge. The actions that landed them in prison are not equal from either a moral or legal standpoint; the consequences should not be equal either. Not that it is likely to happen, but do we really want a convicted felon sitting in judgment of the actions of another as a member of a jury? Can we really presume objectivity and a lack of bias would exist?

These are questions those who wish to serve in office in Virginia should take to the voters. As much as Gov. McAuliffe would like to pretend this is about righting a race-based wrong, it is really about our concept of justice. Some people, once they have served their time, are entitled to the presumption that their rights, all their rights, as a citizen should be restored. Some people simply are not. Saying so doesn't make it so.

Roff appeared on NRANews.com Cam and Company to discuss the article further.  He says that it far exceeds McAuliffe’s authority. The governor submitted no enabling legislation, nor created a distinction between those convicted of violent or nonviolent crimes. Roff says that McAuliffe is likely vying for a position in a future Clinton administration.

Document Dump Shows Justice Department Tried to "Spin" Away Fast and Furious Scandal

Last week, the Obama administration released documents related to the  Fast and Furious scandal after the president’s executive privilege claim from 2012 was struck down in federal court. Details are beginning to emerge, notably that the Department of Justice was more concerned about how to cover up the scandal, even pointing to the fact the NRA had asked Congress to investigate gave DOJ an opening to say this was just a political witch hunt.

“Chutzpah,” wrote Ron Weich, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs. “The NRA’s now-public involvement in this may be useful in convincing reporters that this is part of the overall effort to discredit ATF.”

As you will hear in the video below, emails included in the document dump indicate high level officials discussed how to get out in front of the information so as to control the narrative.  Townhall Editor and Fox News Contributor Katie Pavlich, who has written extensively on the subject appeared on NRANews.com earlier this week to discuss the document dump.  She said DOJ spent more than 10 months denying any knowledge of the operation, but in fact were deciding how to cover it up. The multi-year delay has been effective in running out the clock on the Obama administration.

Originally aired on Cam & Co 04/19/16.

Katie Pavlich: Obama's Pardons Prove He Isn't Serious About Guns

Earlier this week, Townhall Editor and Fox News Contributor Katie Pavlich appeared on NRANews Cam and Company to discuss President Obama's commuting the sentences of 61 federal prisoners.  These prisoners were described as a non-violent, low-level drug offenders. Pavlich says however that a closer look reveals that 12 sentences included illegal use of a firearm during the commission of a drug trafficking crime, while others were charged with felony possession and use of a firearm. She said this proves that the president isn’t serious about his executive actions on gun control as a means of stopping violent crime. The below interview originally aired on Cam & Co on April 5, 2016.

Dave Kopel on the Future of the Second Amendment After Death of Scalia

Yesterday, Dave Kopel, Research Director of the Independence Institute, spoke with Cam Edwards of NRANews' Cam and Company and discussed the impact of the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court and our right to keep and bear arms.

Scalia wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller,  acknowledging the individual right to keep and bear arms. Besides the essential gun rights decision in Heller and McDonald, Kopel said that Scalia brought two important things to the law: originalism, the Constitution’s meaning at the time of its enactment, and textualism, looking at the words on the paper, not some other outside intent. Kopel told Cam that if President Obama or his successor are able to change the balance of the court, Heller is likely to be overturned or so diminished that it will only allow a handgun in the home.

As if the direction of the Supreme Court wasn't already going to be a focus of this year's election with so many justices in their upper 70's or older, Scalia's death makes it even more so.  National Review's Jim Geraghty shares some sobering numbers via this morning's Morning Jolt on the subject:

Strangely, the percentage of people who said they had “never heard of” Antonin Scalia increased from 29 percent in 2001 to 39 percent in 2005. Was that the Greatest Generation, who read newspapers, dying off and the Millennials, who never look up from their cell phones, entering the polling sample?

This is a free country, and you’re free to not care, and free to not pay any attention to, say, one-third and arguably our most powerful branch of government. I understand the sense that it would be a better world if we could spend more time thinking less about what government is doing about more pleasant things -- food, sports, movies, home furnishings, how awesome the finale of Gravity Falls was, etc.

But if you choose to pay no attention to these things, and refuse to read anything about them, watch anything about them, or learn anything about them . . . then I’d rather you left the voting to those of us who do care.

(This is also a key data point for those who think the next Supreme Court justice will be a pivotal issue in the 2016 elections. This matters to the bases of each party, but not the less-engaged, less-interested voters.)

It is our task over the next 8 months to make even the most apolitical gun owner understand what this election means to their right to buy and own firearms.

Why Congress Stopped Gun Control Activism at the CDC

The New York Times has an op/ed by an editor of Mother Jones that dispels the myth the San Bernardino shooting was the 355th mass shootings in 2015.  He is to be commended for setting the record straight on that point, considering he works for Mother Jones.  But then he ended the piece by repeating another myth lamenting that the media can't get good data because congress prevents research on the subject:

One thing we all need is better data. Since 1996, Congress and the gun lobby have prevented the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting comprehensive research into gun violence. In the wake of the latest horror, and the confusion that followed, will that finally change?

Thankfully, we had Dr. Timothy Wheeler address that topic in an op/ed in The Hill on Monday.  Dr. Wheeler, is the director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership and was one of three doctors who testified before the House Labor, Health, Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee in 1996. They detailed the misbehavior of the CDC. What congress actually did was put a stop to the CDC doing advocacy research:

Not surprisingly, the full committee report for the 1997 appropriations bill contained “a limitation to prohibit the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control from engaging in any activities to advocate or promote gun control.” Further, the committee warned CDC officials that it “does not believe that it is the role of the CDC to advocate or promote policies to advance gun control initiatives, or to discourage responsible private gun ownership.”

So contrary to Speier’s tale of great minds shackled and research suppressed, Congress in fact simply directed the CDC to stop promoting gun control.  To reasonable minds this is not at all controversial.  Congress should ignore the tricksters and continue holding the CDC to its mission of objective research, not pushing for gun control.

Wheeler appeared on NRANews earlier this week to discuss his article and provide the facts about what the CDC can and can't do with Congressional Appropriations.

Katie Pavlich: Obama, Not the NRA, Sells Guns to Terrorists

Washington is all a twitter about resurrecting a 10 year-old proposal by the gun ban lobby to prohibit people on the government's "terrorist watch list" from purchasing firearms.  The recent terror attack in Paris has stoked this renewed interest.  Never mind that it is already almost impossible for a resident of France to own firearms.  That did not seem to stop the terrorists from carrying out their attacks.  Nor did it stop a New York newspaper from claiming the NRA wants to arm terrorists because the organization opposes using a list of names, that no one can say how it is compiled and includes the names of people who are not actually terrorists, as a means of keeping people from exercising a constitutionally protected right.

On Monday, Townhall news editor Katie Pavlich wrote an OP/ED in The Hill that says it's not the NRA that arms terrorists, but it is the Obama administration that is selling guns to terrorists. She detailed how the administration allowed thousands of guns to walk across our southern border to the drug cartels in Mexico, resulting in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and hundreds of Mexican citizents.  She appeared on NRANews' Cam and Company on Tuesday to discuss the article in more detail.

The Terrorist Watch List - The Gun Ban Lobby's Latest Attack on Freedom

Last week's eBullet included an article by National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke that detailed why gun owners and the NRA are right to oppose taking away civil rights of those on the so-called Terrorist Watch List.  Cooke noted that it is not just the NRA that is concerned about this ever growing list compiled in secret by the U.S. Government, the American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concern as well.

Courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com

NRA Commentator Colion Noir adds another voice to those who believe Americans should not lose their rights simply because their names may be similar to a possible terrorist.  The late U. S. Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman John Lewis, ended up being stopped at airports because their names were similar to people who were actually being watched by the government.

A Knock on the Door From a Pro-gun Volunteer Could Make the Difference in the 10th District

NRA Board Members Tim Knight and Sean Maloney are traveling Virginia, talking one-on-one with voters about next week's elections and working to turn out the pro-rights vote in Virginia's 10th State Senate District. They stopped by the Farmville studio of NRANews and told Cam Edwards that many voters they speak with are aware of Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun spending in the state.  While not discounting the affect that such a large dump of money can have, they told Cam that  nothing replaces the personal engagement of knocking on doors.

If you live near the Richmond area, and can spare some time between now and November 3rd, please contact Tim Lagerman by email at Tim@nrailafrontlines.com or by phone at 570-898-3160.

Media Reports Only Part of New Gallup Poll on Gun Control

You probably read the report on a new Gallup Poll that showed a slight uptick in support for more gun control.  What you likely didn't hear was the rest of the story:

The latest increase, from the Gallup Crime poll conducted Oct. 7-11, came in the days after the most recent high-profile mass shooting, at a community college in Oregon. However, that event seems to have mainly affected Americans' views about laws on gun sales, but not other topics relating to guns.

Not long after the Gallup poll was released, other outlets released polls.  For instance, CNN released a poll that showed 52% of respondants oppose additional gun control.  NRANews host Cam Edwards spoke with Brietbart's AWR Hawkins about the polls various polls that came out this week.

The Growth of Suppressors, The Revolution in Guns

Frank Miniter writes on Forbes.com about suppressors being the quite revolution in guns, with 41 states allowing the use of this firearm accessory:

The ATF recently released data showing a huge rise in the number of silencers registered. The ATF’s data lumps silencers with registrations of “short-barreled shotguns,” “machine guns,” and other NFA-controlled items, but the vast majority of the items registered are silencers. According to the ATF, they processed 41,579 applications in 2005 and the number has gone dramatically up every year since. In 2013 they processed 163,691 applications and in 2014 the ATF processed a total of 236,290 applications.

As populations around shooting ranges grow, suppressors offer an answer to the rise in noise complaints that often come with the influx of new neighbors who should have known they were going to hear the sound of gun shots but nevertheless moved near a range anyway.  Manufacturers are noticing the upward trend and bringing new products to the market.

Add  Maxim 9 from SilencerCo, a 9mm pistol with a built-in suppressor as shown in Forbes article

SilencerCo’s most-talked-about innovation is its Maxim 9, an integrally suppressed 9mm pistol. Yes, the silencer is built in to, not screwed onto, a 9mm pistol. A prototype they’re exhibiting is built partially on a Smith & Wesson body, but the guns SilencerCo says it will have out in 2016 will be completely designed and manufactured by SilencerCo.

Josh Waldron, SilencerCo’s CEO, told me, “To make room for the suppressor we had to reengineer everything. A lot of the internals of the pistol had to be moved back. It’s an innovative design. We are just working out the final details, which is why this won’t be available until 2016.”

When asked if it will be available for January’s Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show), Waldron said that’s their intention. He was careful about giving too many details, but did say, “We wanted to make holstering this pistol an option, so we spent a lot of engineering hours working to keep this pistol’s size similar to full-size pistols on the market. The Maxim 9 will be about 10 percent larger than a Glock 17.”

Miniter was on NRANews' Cam and Company this week to talk more about the article and the trend toward suppressors.

Nova Firearms Facing Protests Again

You may recall that northern Virginia based NOVA Firearms attempted to move from it's McLean, Virginia location to a larger location in the People's Republic of Arlington only to have the new landlord buckle under pressure from the gun ban crowd and at the last minute have the lease voided.  The owner of the store, J.B. Gates, has found a new location about three miles from the current location that will allow him to expand and include classroom space for training.  Unfortunately, residents in the area don't think he should move his store because the new location is near an elementary school.  From WUSA9.

Fortunately for Gates, this time it appears the new landlord is standing by him.

Gun Ban Politicians Look for Creative Ways to Pass Restrictions

Last week, it was reported that the city of Missoula, Montana was trying to pass an ordinance that would require so-called "universal" background checks within the city.  Bloomberg's faux news outlet, The Trace, had a story today about how the city council may have found a way around the state's preemption law:

“I would be surprised if it didn’t draw a challenge in the courts,” says Missoula City Council member Bryan Von Lossberg, who sponsored the background check ordinance along with Marilyn Marter and Emily Bentley. Nonetheless, he’s confident his universal background check proposal will stand a fighting chance against the almost-inevitable lawsuit. Specifically, he sees justification for the proposal in a close reading of some key language in the state preemption law.

The first sentence of the relevant section of State Code says cities may not “prohibit, register, tax, license, or regulate the purchase, sale or other transfer” of weapons — except as provided in subsection 2 of the code. That subsection carves out a few small exceptions: Cities can regulate shooting guns, and carrying at public assemblies and public properties. There’s also one more provision, and it’s the one that gives Von Lossberg and his colleagues hope their proposal could survive in court. The preemption law states that for public safety purposes, cities can prevent and suppress the possession of guns by felons, those adjudicated mentally unfit, undocumented immigrants, and minors — populations that background checks screen for.

Expanded background checks are the gun ban lobby's answer to most any high profile shooting, even if the shooter passed a background check to get the gun used in the crime.

The NRA-ILA legislative liaison Brian Judy told NRANews last week that Bloomberg is behind this move in Montana and that there were three lobbyists for Bloomberg in Helena during the legislative session this year.

With Virginia's governor being so open not only to passing restrictions on our rights, but believing that Constitutional concern's are just unimportant "small ball,"  one has to wonder how long before we start seeing serious attacks on our preemption statute.

As Crime Rises, Criminal With 55 Counts Gets Probation in Milwaulkee

In cities like Washington DC, Chicago, New York, and others, violent crime has been on the rise this summer.  Recently in Milwaukee, one criminal was sentenced to probation at the time he was charged with over 50 felonies.  While sentencing the man who had 55 counts of illegal gun purchase and sale charges, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Randa, said, “People kill people, guns don’t kill people.” The perp got one year of probation.  Most crime is committed by repeat offenders.  I wonder when this guy will become part of that statistic.

On Friday, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke shared his thoughts on the story with NRANews host Cam Edwards, saying that we don’t need more gun laws, we need to do a better job of enforcing the laws we have. 

Tom Gresham on the Gun Dealio App, and How Honest Gun Owners Get Snared by Gun Control

On Friday, Gun Talk Radio host Tom Gresham talked with NRANews' Cam Edwards about the new Gun Dealio App that allows gun owners and sportsmen to know what sales are going on in their area.  The app is available for both IOS and Android operating systems.  He also talked about new gun control laws passed by the Los Angeles City Council, and explains that the magazine ban and gun storage laws make it easier for law-abiding gun owners to run afoul of the law. It becomes more difficult and dangerous to be a gun owner, but causes no problems for criminals. Further, he responds to the Social Security gun grab, infringing the Second Amendment rights of more than 4 million benefit recipients.

Congressional Research Service Report on Mass Shootings

We have all seen news reports in the last year or so that claim mass shootings are on the rise.  But a new Congressional Research Service Report notes that is not really the case.  If you are like me, your eyes go crossed when it comes time to look at statistical data.  Never fear, Jesse Walker at Reason.com has a great article that explains the data so the average person can understand.  Then, he talked in more detail about the article and the numbers during an appearance on NRANews.com earlier this week.  It's great stuff and worth the time to listen.

Big City Chiefs Push More Gun Control As Solution to Rising Crime

A couple days ago D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier hosted fellow chiefs from Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore and other cities to discuss their rising violent crime.  The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) convened the meeting after a survey of its members showed police in many cities are seeing more crimes committed with firearms and more killings.  According to the Washington Post, which ran a story on the meeting, four of the nation’s largest cities — New York, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia — recorded a rise in homicides by mid-July compared with the same period in 2014.  That same Post report noted, unsurprisingly, that those in attendance want to push for more gun control to respond to the problem:

Among the recommendations that came out of the summit, the chiefs called for more stringent gun laws, including harsher penalties for gun crimes and the use of high-capacity magazines.

“We’re going to shooting scenes now where you’ve got more and more victims being shot, you’ve got more spent rounds being collected as evidence and we’re finding more and more high-capacity magazines involved in these shootings,” Manger said.

Yesterday, the Atlanta Chief of Police George Turner spoke to NPR, and he pointed to the real problem - a small number of repeat offenders. This at a time when President Obama and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, among others, want to roll back many tough on crime measures that were put in place in the 90s.

Chief Turner hit the nail on the head when he talked about repeat offenders - people that should be in prison but aren't. On Monday, Cherylyn Harley LeBon, contributing fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, discussed the increase in violent crime in Baltimore and other U.S. cities with NRANews' Cam Edwards.  The city of Baltimore has seen a record number of homicides this year, 189 by the end of July. July 2015 was the single deadliest month in 43 years.

The solution is not more gun control, it is more criminal control.

Everytown Making Things Up on Background Checks

Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety has gone on the attack against Cabela's, the retailer where the racist murderer who shot nine people in a Charleston Church last month bought his gun.  Last Friday, the FBI admitted it was it's error that allowed the sale to be completed.  So, you might ask, why is Everytown going after Cabela's.  Because of what they are now calling and "NRA backed loophole in the law" that allows someone to take possession of their firearm is the retailer has not received a NICS rejection of the transaction within three days.   This from Guns.com:

This has former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety and the affiliated Moms Demand Action pushing a large national firearms retailer to close what they are calling, “The Charleston Loophole.”

Both groups are mounting a social media campaign asking the Nebraska-based Cabela’s to halt allowing guns to transfer with a delay status unresolved after the three day period. With some 60 stores and a large direct marketing arm, Cabela’s had more than $3 billion in revenue in 2014.

“Retailers have the right — and responsibility — to delay a gun sale until a background check is completed,” reads a post from Everytown. “But Cabela’s, one of the largest gun retailers in the country, will sell to anyone after three business days, even without a completed background check.”

Here are the facts about background checks:

When a delay response is received, this indicates that information supplied on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Form 4473 has been matched with information contained in the National Crime Information Center, the Interstate Identification Index, and/or the NICS Index. Complete information is not always available and a further review of these records is necessary. The NICS exhausts all efforts to retrieve current record information by contacting law enforcement agencies, i.e., local, state, federal, courts, etc. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 allows three business days to obtain this information prior to the transfer of the firearm. The Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) is not prohibited from transferring the firearm after three business days have passed; however, the FFL is not required to transfer the firearm.

But facts never get in the way of Bloomberg's minions when it comes to exploiting a tragedy.  Katie Pavlich wrote about this at Townhall.com and spoke about the article and Everytown's false claims on NRANews.com.

Dave Kopel on Doctors and Your Gun Rights

In the new America's First Freedom, Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel writes about the growing practice of physicians asking their patients about gun ownership and gun storage practices. In the article, Kopel shares the stories of patients who have answered these questions and then been subjected to visits from Child Protective Services.

In San Francisco, a man honestly answered his doctor’s questions about whether there were guns in the home. A short time later, Child Protective Services arrived at the residence, and demanded to be let inside so that they could inspect whether the guns were locked up.

There are also instances when patients refused to answer, and had their doctors end their doctor-patient relationship.

In Ocala, Fla., Amber Ullman took her 4-month-old baby to a pediatrician for shots and a checkup. When she refused to answer the gun question, the doctor terminated the relationship and the mother was given 30 days to find a new pediatrician.

Earlier this week, Kopel appeared on Sportsman Channel's NRANews Cam and Company to discuss the article.