Earlier this week, Stephen Gutowski was on CNN's The Lead to talk about the Louisville bank shooting where he discussed if a so-called "Red Flag" law would have prevented this crime.. Hat's off to CNN for having someone on who actually knows something about firearms to talk about this incident.
NBC News reported yesterday that the President is expected to make a decision this week on what gun control measures he will support.
"So we're looking at background checks and we are looking at putting everything together in a unified way so that we can have something that’s meaningful at the same time," the president said."So we're looking at background checks and we are looking at putting everything together in a unified way so that we can have something that’s meaningful at the same time," the president said.
Following a 40-minute call with Trump and his staff Wednesday, Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., said they were told to expect something from the White House on Thursday, though the president had not specifically signaled what bills he was likely to support.
"It was a very engaging conversation for quite a period of time and everybody was able to have their back-and-forths on this and the president is still very encouraging," Manchin said. "I believe he sincerely wants to move forward and do something. We're going to know, hopefully by tomorrow, if there's something that we can all agree on, and once we agree on something we're going to hold to it and fight for it, so we'll see what happens."
Then this morning the New York Times reported that 145 CEOs sent a letter to the Senate urging it to "pass stronger gun control laws."
The letter signers on Thursday include the leaders of Airbnb, the Gap, Pinterest, Lyft, the Brookfield Property Group and Royal Caribbean.
Missing from the list, however, are some of America’s biggest financial and technology companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, some of which debated internally whether to sign the letter.
Two companies that signed may raise eyebrows in Washington: Thrive Capital, whose founder, Joshua Kushner, is the brother of Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, and Bain Capital, the private equity firm co-founded by Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah.
The Times article mentioned Walmart's decision a week ago that it would stop selling handgun ammunition and "short barrel rifle" ammunition. Tom Gresham revealed on his radio program last Sunday that Bloomberg's Every Town for Gun Safety was behind that move. Walmart is a Charter Member of Bloomberg's "Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership." It is possible that this letter is a similar effort by Bloomberg's group.
This is all hands on deck time. We need our voices to be louder than the gun ban crowd's voices. Tell every gun owner you know to contact their congressman and senators, even if they know the legislator is anti-gun because then need to know their constituents don't support their position on the issue, and tell them you don't support criminalizing private sales and that you oppose stripping away our due process rights on unsubstantiated claims that can be made by an angry neighbor, ex-spouse or significant other.
If you weren't already convinced that gun owners are in the fight of our lives, this New York Times article should convince you.
The Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, the political arm of Mr. Bloomberg’s gun control organization, said this week that it would invest at least $2.5 million in Virginia before Election Day — more than it spent in either of the last two legislative elections there. The group polled 14 legislative districts this week to determine how it will allocate its funds.
“Virginia is a bellwether state and we are going to be there,” said John Feinblatt, Everytown’s president. “There is no doubt this is a test. This is the next theater for what’s going to happen everywhere in 2020.”
That isn't the worst of it though. The story starts off by talking about a Democrat candidate, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan running against pro-gun GOP Delegate Tim Hugo. He told the Times that what he hears from people as he goes door to door is they want somebody to "do something" about the mass shootings. The propensity for people to want "something done" no matter whether it would have prevented the killings, says a lot about our society today. And it is this type of action that is being pushed by the media and the gun ban lobby. It has gotten so bad that the up to now stalwart Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested yesterday that the Senate could look at a so-called "assault weapons" ban, background checks, and a red flag law. As Gun Talk Radio host Tom Gresham said in a Twitter post, that would turn the Senate and the White House over to the gun ban lobby as gun owners turn their backs on Republicans and President Trump.
This would be suicide for the Republican party. Trump would lose. Dems would gain control of both houses. Gun owners would turn their backs on those who voted for a ban on the most popular rifles in America. If this included confiscation, there would be widespread noncompliance https://t.co/gqFIGGBmtf
There is not a single one of the gun ban lobby's agenda that would have stopped last weekend's shootings. Rifles of all kinds make up a very small percentage (less than 3%) of firearm related deaths. So-called assault weapons make up even less. More people are stabbed to death every year than are murdered with rifles.
We are in a real fight this year. We need to get active in House and Senate General Assembly campaigns now.
Yesterday, in his remarks on the two shootings that took place in less than 24 hours on Saturday, President Trump again came out in support of so-called "Red Flag" laws. South Carolina U.S. Senator, Lindsey Graham later announced that he had "bi-partisan" agreement on legislation that would create a federal program to assist states in crafting such laws. But as former NRATV host and now Bearingarms.com editor Cam Edwards noted, the red flag laws we have seen so far are just a way to take guns without due process:
The red flag laws we’ve seen introduced around the country don’t respect due process and do nothing to ensure any sort of mental health treatment for the person deemed to be a danger. It’s a gun control solution to a mental health issue. https://t.co/Q9s1Z3KNrA
Cam delved into this on his new BearingArms.com Cam and Co. program:
No one wants an individual who is in crisis to have access to a firearm but laws that do not respect due process are riddled with opportunities for abuse. According to Independence Institute Director of Research Dave Kopel, Vermont's law is a good model if we are going to have a law that protects public safety while respecting constitutional rights.
The gun ban lobby is already giddy that there is a "window for bipartisan action" on this piece of the gun ban agenda. You can expect Virginia Democrats in the General Assembly to be pushing this even harder in their campaigns this fall and using President Trump's support to challenge pro-rights candidates who want constitutional protections in any such laws. Be armed with the facts about these laws. A good primer is Kopel's video above. More in-depth information can be found here.
Earlier this year, Independence Institute Director of Research Dave Kopel appeared at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Red Flag laws. In that testimony, Kopel laid out what should be included in such laws to protect the due process rights of the individual subject to a so-called "Gun Violence Protection Order". He also took questions from the panel. The total video is about 26 minutes long but it is a valuable use of time if you want to be able to explain why such laws pushed by the gun ban lobby are unconstitutional and what would need to be included to make them constitutional.
On Friday, Delegate Michael Webert appeared on NRATV's Cam and Company to talk about the slew of gun control proposals Governor Ralph Northam introduced in Richmond this year. During the interview, they talked about Governor Northam's inventive take on so-called "assault weapons" and how it would have affected millions of guns already owned by Virginia gun owners. They also talked about the so-called "red flag" law proposals. Delegate Webert talked about his biggest concern is we are talking about rights and that you cannot take a right away without due process. He said he heard from Commonwealth Attorneys that you should be convicted or adjudicated of something before you lose your rights.
Yesterday's Senate Courts of Justice Committee meeting was long and VSSA was posting live results on Twitter. For the most part the meeting had good news for Virginia gun owners, but also provided a glimpse of what will happen if we lose the pro-rights majority in this year's election. Right now, the committee is made of of 15 members - 9 Republicans and 6 Democrats. One of those six Democrats, State Senator Creigh Deeds, votes with gun owners sometimes but most times not. State Senator John Edwards also used to be a reliable pro-rights vote but he has almost completely abandoned law abiding gun owners. Most of yesterday's votes were along party lines, including SB1162, Senator Saslaw's bill that would have gradually raised the age to purchase a long gun from 18-21. It is possible that Deeds voted for the bill because it also included a so-called "universal background check", which he has supported since 2007. Senator Saslaw noted in presenting his bill that he was also the one that put in the bill in the 80s that raised the drinking age 18-21 which drew some laughter. Senator Obenshain responded that bill was likely as unpopular.
What really caused this observer concern was how some Republicans did everything they could to try to "fix" SB1458, the "Red Flag" bill. A lot of time was taken to amend the bill and in the end, it died on a tie vote. Senator Glen Sturtevant (R), who likely would not have been elected without a large turnout of gun owners in his district, joined the six Democrats in voting to report the bill. Senator Norment (R) did not vote. The bill is not completely dead because the gun ban lobby could try and get one of the no votes to reconsider their vote, bring it up again when Senator Norment is there, and try to get a different result. VSSA will continue to watch this bill until crossover when it will be completely dead for the session. One bad bill did report from the committee - SB1163 which bans any accessory that could make a firearm fire faster including common trigger modifications used by competitive shooters. Republicans Senators Norment, Stanley, and Sturtevant, joined all of the Democrats to advance the bill. Another thing that caused concern was the number of gun ban supporters that were in the audience. Besides the usual suspects like Andrew Goddard and Lori Haas, who have been staples at Senate Courts since the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Gabby Giffords gun ban organization also had a lobbyist. Bloomberg's "Moms Demand Action" had several local volunteers wearing t-shirts in the audience who also got up and spoke in favor of bills. The counsel for the City of Richmond Police was at the meeting supporting a number of the gun control bills, including SB1162 as did the Charlottesville Chief of Police and the Henrico County Clerk of Circuit Court.
Below are the bills that were reported and the bills defeated yesterday.
Reported
SB 1012 Firefighters and emergency medical services providers; carrying a concealed weapon.
SB 1048 Auxiliary law-enforcement officers; purchase of service handguns or other weapons.
SB 1158 Carrying a concealed handgun; permit not required.(Reported and rereferred to finance - this bill died in Finance last year)
SB 1163 Firearms; trigger activators designed to increase the rate of fire, prohibition, penalty.(Reported and rerefered to Finance - this bill can still be defeated before it would reach full Senate)
Defeated
SB 1034 Handguns; limitation on purchases, penalty.
SB 1084 Firearms; use in commission of crime, civil liability for negligent gun storage.
SB 1162 Firearm transfers; criminal history record information checks, age requirement, penalty.
SB 1303 Firearms; chambers of local governing bodies.
SB 1324 Firearms; reporting when lost or stolen, civil penalty.
SB 1446 Handguns; limitation on purchases, penalty.
SB 1454 Firearm transfers; criminal history record information checks, penalty.
SB 1458 Firearms; removal from persons posing substantial risk, penalties.
SB 1473 Firearms, etc.; permitted events.
SB 1482 Firearms, certain; prohibition on carrying in public places.
House Militia, Police, and Public Safety Subcommittee #1 meets this afternoon at 4:00. VSSA's legislative team will be there.
Del. Chris Hurst, D-Blacksburg, held a town-hall style discussion Wednesday on VMI’s post in Lexington. Police chiefs, sheriffs, commonwealth’s attorneys, legal experts and other Democratic lawmakers spoke.
Hurst hopes to present a bill in the Virginia Legislature in the 2019 session that gives police more power to take action in emergency situations.
The proposal is called an Extreme Risk Protection Order. It lets officers take someone’s guns for a two-week period if they get a warrant. These are cases where someone is a serious, imminent threat to themselves or others.
It could come into play if someone’s drunk and threatening someone, if someone posts on social media threatening to shoot someone or if there’s reason to believe someone might hurt themselves.
The so-called "Red Flag" legislation is what the gun ban lobby believes is the most doable, having already passed in other pro-rights states like Florida. Of course the devil is in the details and previously there has been a concern over due-process rights before someone loses their Second Amendment Rights.
Posts
