guncontrol bak

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">main blank 2/18</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">some new here, see GUN CONTROL 2 818</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">spurred by BS conspr theories on crisis actors, 2nd shooter at miami etc etc</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">520</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/court-filings-show-the-nra-is-in-shambles-and-wayne-lapierre-hopes-his-lawyer-can-keep-him-out-of-jail/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/court-filings-show-the-nra-is-in-shambles-and-wayne-lapierre-hopes-his-lawyer-can-keep-him-out-of-jail/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">igor d</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a year after being&nbsp;re-elected as the executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre has seen his group go from an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/10/10/waterloo-for-the-nra-its-donations-to-gop-candidates-plunge-90-percent/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">electoral kingmaker</a>&nbsp;to the edge of financial ruin. He and other NRA executives have urged laid-off employees to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/26/leaked-memo-nra-tells-employees-to-seek-government-aid-as-coronavirus-forces-cuts-layoffs/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">seek public assistance benefits</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The nation’s most prominent pro-gun lobby&nbsp;has&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/04/22/wayne-lapierre-reveals-that-nra-cut-budget-to-survive-after-losing-100-million-leaked-audio/" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">lost tens of millions of dollars</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;amid numerous legal woes and&nbsp;investigations that have exposed its questionable financial dealings. Now, the longtime&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">NRA leader hopes his lawyers can “keep him out of jail,” according to previously unreported allegations in court documents in the group’s legal battle against its longtime public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The documents, which were published in full on&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">NRA Watch</a>, a new database launched by the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, allege that LaPierre has grown “preoccupied with going to jail.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” Ackerman’s&nbsp;allegations paint a&nbsp;picture of an executive who “didn’t trust his own accounting department” and instructed associates not to disclose important information to the group’s auditors.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents also include allegations about the NRA’s search for a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/08/17/document-shows-nra-money-helped-its-chief-search-for-a-personal-mansion_partner/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">personal mansion</a>&nbsp;for LaPierre, whose alleged obsession with “purchasing a lavish home for himself” led Ackerman to pull out of the deal. They also allege that LaPierre may have violated his own group’s bylaws by improperly using Ackerman&nbsp;to pay off the group’s former president, Lt. Col. Oliver North, who left the organization after what it described as a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/nra-marches-ex-leader-to-court-on-failed-coup/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“failed coup attempt.”</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, the grassroots arm of Everytown for Gun Safety</b>, told Salon that NRA Watch aimed to show that LaPierre “used member dues for what looks like personal reasons” while “only 10% of NRA funds in 2018 were even spent on gun safety.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“NRA is losing at the ballot box, in courts, on the balance sheet,” Watts said. “We always talk about shining a light under the refrigerators and forcing the cockroaches to run out, and that’s really what this website does.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s&nbsp;important to point out why the NRA is underwater reputationally and financially,” Watts continued.&nbsp;The NRA’s policy priorities are killing us, so stopping the NRA is our top priority. But when it comes to legal issues, the secret to our success is that we let the NRA beat itself.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The NRA worked with Ackerman McQueen, creators of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/10/29/gun-lobby-tells-judge-its-own-nratv-channel-was-distasteful-and-racist/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">now-defunct online video channel NRATV</a>, since the 1980s, paying them as much as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nra-files-suit-against-ad-agency-in-rift-with-key-partner-11555320601" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$42 million</a>&nbsp;a year.</b>&nbsp;But the NRA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/business/nra-nratv-lawsuit.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sued the firm</a>&nbsp;in Virginia in 2019, accusing Ackerman of overbilling for its services. More recently, the NRA&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/case/nra-v-ackerman-texas/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">filed a lawsuit in Texas</a>&nbsp;alleging that Ackerman continues to improperly use the NRA’s brand and properties. The NRA later filed an&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/nras-answer-to-ackermans-counterclaims/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">amended complaint</a>&nbsp;in October alleging that Ackerman had breached its fiduciary duties, engaged in fraudulent billing&nbsp;and failed to maintain adequate records. The NRA has also accused Ackerman&nbsp;of a pattern of corruption, including its “failed” NRATV venture, for the purpose of collecting millions in fees.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some of the new allegations&nbsp;were made in Ackerman’s bid to have the law firm of Bill Brewer, a longtime friend of LaPierre, disqualified as the NRA’s legal team.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brewer’s&nbsp;firm responded to Salon’s questions with a statement from Linda S. Eads, professor emerita at the Southern Methodist University&nbsp;Dedman School of Law.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“After my review, it is my initial opinion that this request for disqualification provides no legal basis for the relief sought,” Eads said. “Factually, it appears to be supported only by assumptions and innuendo. Also, it is based on allegations that have not been factually established. It is too early in the litigation process to use such unsupported claims as a basis for disqualification, which is one of the most serious actions a court can take against a litigation party —&nbsp;to cause the party to lose its lawyer.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Brewer’s firm is expected to issue a formal response to the new allegations next week. The response comes after Ackerman successfully asked the court in Virginia to stay the litigation pending a resolution of the Texas case, against the objections of the NRA, according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/court-order-granting-stay-in-proceedings/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported court order</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">LaPierre was elected to a second term as the NRA’s CEO at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/29/politics/nra-wayne-lapierre-oliver-north-carolyn-meadows/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">group’s annual convention in 2019</a>, one year ago this week. It was not the party that the longtime gun activist had expected. What was supposed to be a coronation quickly devolved into a civil war that has since led to the ouster of multiple top NRA officials.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Before that meeting, North — then the NRA president —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-hard-charging-lawyer-helped-fuel-a-civil-war-inside-the-nra/2019/09/18/9ae0a01e-a986-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">began to raise concerns</a>&nbsp;about the large legal fees the NRA was paying to Brewer.</b>&nbsp;By the first day of the meeting, LaPierre&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/LaPierreletter042519.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote a letter</a>&nbsp;to the NRA board claiming that North had attempted to force him to resign&nbsp;by threatening that Ackerman would release a “devastating account” of the NRA’s financial dealings.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hours after LaPierre, North&nbsp;and President Trump appeared on stage together at the meeting, news of North’s attempted coup had leaked. On the third day of the meeting, North&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/d5d90ab1596f478c8f20d4dbe3f73979" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">issued a statement</a>&nbsp;announcing that he would not seek another term. The statement was read by another board member as LaPierre, who had reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-hard-charging-lawyer-helped-fuel-a-civil-war-inside-the-nra/2019/09/18/9ae0a01e-a986-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">orchestrated North’s&nbsp;ouster</a>, looked on next to an empty chair reserved for the group’s president.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Though LaPierre was successful in beating back the alleged coup attempt, the NRA’s legal entanglements in the year since have laid bare its&nbsp;devolving financial situation and threatened its tax-exempt status.</b>&nbsp;Along with multiple lawsuits involving Ackerman, the attorneys general in New York state and Washington, D.C., have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/dc-attorney-general-issues-subpoenas-to-nra-its-charitable-foundation/2019/07/12/835bb30e-a4bb-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">launched investigations</a>&nbsp;questioning the group’s tax status. New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating whether the group violated the state’s charities law, which some legal experts and NRA insiders believe could result in a criminal referral related to LaPierre’s “use of nonprofit funds for personal expenses,” according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/magazine/wayne-lapierre-nra-guns.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the New York Times</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/ackermans-amended-answer-counterclaims/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported court filing</a>&nbsp;by Ackerman alleged that “[s]ometime in early 2018, LaPierre became preoccupied with going to jail.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LaPierre later allegedly told Angus McQueen, Ackerman’s longtime chief executive, that he believed “Brewer was going to keep him out of jail,” according to another&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/declaration-of-revan-mcqueen-appendix-to-ackerman-brief-to-disqualify-nra-attorney-bill-brewer-from-the-case/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported court filing in March</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA roundly rejected Ackerman’s claims.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is the same stale, desperate and contrived narrative Ackerman has been peddling for a year,” Andrew Arulanandam, managing director of public affairs at the NRA, told Salon. “In any event, it does nothing to diminish the confidence the NRA has in Bill or his law firm —&nbsp;or our commitment to hold this former vendor accountable.”​</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The simple truth is, Ackerman is desperate to distract from the agency’s woes and alleged improper actions,” Arulanandam added. “It seems the agency has resorted to unhinged rants, based on non-existent communications and allegations from terminated employees.”​</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group’s finances have taken a huge hit as a result of its legal woes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to a secret recording obtained by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/21/839999178/secret-recording-reveals-nras-legal-troubles-have-cost-the-organization-100-mill" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">NPR</a>, LaPierre recently told members that the NRA took a “$100 million hit” over the past two years and had to cut “about $80 million” from the budget and “took it down to the studs.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he warned in the recording. “We still gotta wrestle with this financial situation.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Internal documents obtained by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thetrace.org/features/nra-financial-misconduct-ackerman-mcqueen/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Trace</a>&nbsp;show that the group’s finances soured as it spent millions in member donations on salaries for executives, legal bills&nbsp;and lavish travel, while spending less than 10% of its funds on its supposed core mission: gun safety, education&nbsp;and training.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA’s members have begun to&nbsp;raise&nbsp;questions about the group’s spending after it was reported that LaPierre spent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nra-chief-wayne-lapierre-questioned-on-travel-expenses-11556834268" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">hundreds of thousands</a>&nbsp;on Italian suits and luxury vacations. Brewer&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/nra-chief-wayne-lapierre-questioned-on-travel-expenses" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">has argued</a>&nbsp;that the “vast majority of travel involved donor outreach, fundraising and stakeholder engagement.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NRA board member Allen West, a former Republican congressman from Florida, slammed LaPierre after NRA officials defended their CO. West argued the defense was filled with&nbsp;<a href="https://theoldschoolpatriot.com/statement-regarding-nra/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“outright lies”</a>&nbsp;and said he was removed from key committees for daring to “challenge the cabal of cronyism.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dan-boren-national-rifle-association-1469333" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">10% of the organization’s board</a>&nbsp;has&nbsp;resigned in the past year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you’re surprised by this you don’t know Wayne LaPierre,” Watts said, “because he has a long history of overseeing sweetheart deals&nbsp;and self-dealing to himself,&nbsp;friends and family and others.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the more lurid allegations of impropriety came from Ackerman in response to the NRA’s lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed weeks ahead of the 2019 annual meeting, in what appeared to be an attempt to get ahead of the allegations raised by North.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">North&nbsp;<a href="https://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Oliver-North-and-Richard-Childress-Memo-on-Brewer-Attorney-Fees.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">warned officials</a>&nbsp;that the legal fees paid to Brewer were “draining NRA cash at mind-boggling speed” and “pose[d] an existential threat to the financial stability of the NRA.” North claimed that LaPierre had rejected multiple attempts to request a full audit of the legal fees.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After North’s ouster, several NRA members spoke out against LaPierre and NRA leaders and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2019/05/was-the-nras-reelection-of-wayne-lapierre-really-unanimous/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">initiated motions for a no-confidence vote</a>&nbsp;in LaPierre, though that effort was defeated.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Since then, mounting allegations of wrongdoing have consumed the group. But executive compensation has continued to rise</b>. In 2018, LaPierre’s salary increased by 57% to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/26/leaked-memo-nra-tells-employees-to-seek-government-aid-as-coronavirus-forces-cuts-layoffs/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$2.15 million per year</a>. Other “senior staff cashed in, too,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/magazine/wayne-lapierre-nra-guns.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the New York Times</a>&nbsp;reported,” while oversight “has been complicated by paydays to the 76-member board.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Court&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/nra-promised-6-5-million-to-buy-mansion-for-ceo-wayne-lapierre-document-shows-11565714149" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">filings suggest</a>&nbsp;that shortly after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the NRA considered buying LaPierre and his wife a $6.5 million mansion through Ackerman. The NRA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/check-for-dallas-mansion-raises-new-questions-about-nra-plans-11565626607?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sent a $70,000 check</a>&nbsp;to a newly formed LLC to facilitate the transaction.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/declaration-of-william-winkler-dj-investments/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported declaration</a>, Ackerman’s chief financial officer, William Winkler, said that he refused to move ahead with the acquisition when&nbsp;“it became apparent … that Mr. LaPierre was more interested in purchasing a lavish home for himself” than in addressing&nbsp;“alleged safety concerns.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA has dismissed the allegations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The agency introduced Mr. LaPierre to its preferred local real estate agent, directed a tour of multiple homes, and established a company to manage the investment,”&nbsp;Arulanandam said in a statement to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/documents-show-nra-discussions-to-purchase-luxury-mansion-for-use-of-its-chief-executive/2019/08/06/eb8b0490-b7ce-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Washington Post</a>&nbsp;last year. “No matter, Mr. LaPierre ultimately rejected the opportunity and not one dime of the NRA’s money was spent on this venture.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a separate transaction that even the NRA’s own accountants described as “vague and deceptive,” the NRA paid $1.8 million to rent a house in Southern California from a production company that&nbsp;worked on a show featuring LaPierre, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-internal-memo-raises-new-questions-about-self-dealing-at-the-nra" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New Yorker</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA also “used unorthodox means to arrange [LaPierre’s] travel, including his use of private jets for almost every trip,” according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/05/01/exclusive-nra-chief-wayne-lapierres-no-good-very-bad-year-according-to-new-court-filings/%5C" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Wall Street Journal</a>. The group’s accountants were “instructed to pay” for certain trips “without the usual detailed supporting documentation, which was held in a private file in the NRA treasurer’s office,” including private flights that “totaled about $2 million in one recent year.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The big spending extended to other officials as well. A&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/ackermans-response-to-the-nras-motion-to-compel/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported February court filing</a>&nbsp;by Ackerman alleged that LaPierre convinced North to “leave his paid position at Fox and become the next President and an employee of [Ackerman] by hosting a television show on NRATV.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The NRA agreed to compensate [Ackerman] for Col. North reimbursing [Ackerman] for his work,” the filing claimed.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The contract may have violated the group’s bylaws, Everytown for Gun Safety said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The pass-through nature of the contract raises serious questions about whether the NRA was attempting to conceal its payments to its board president, especially since the NRA’s organizational bylaws do not provide for compensation of the board president,”&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/report/nra-in-crisis-2020/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">according to a report from NRA Watch</a>. “One concerned NRA employee wrote a memo shortly afterward, warning that ‘using a vendor to provide compensation to’ North ‘does not work to hide disclosure of the compensation.’ Months later, the NRA audit committee retroactively approved North’s contract.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The NRA’s relationship with vendors like Ackerman sparked concern within the group’s audit committee, which held an emergency meeting in 2018 to discuss the spending.</b>&nbsp;Documents obtained by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The New Yorker</a>&nbsp;show that the group’s accountants were concerned that the “NRA pays overbilled, deceptive, vague invoices to ‘preferred’ vendors and contractors” and “decisions are made in the best interests of vendors,” not the organization.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/ackermans-amended-answer-counterclaims/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported filing</a>&nbsp;by Ackerman alleged that “[t]hroughout his tenure with the NRA, LaPierre has routinely used third-party vendors like [Ackerman] to conceal his penchant for personal spending, seemingly with the NRA’s blessing.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The filing goes on to allege that LaPierre “on many occasions, told [Ackerman] that he didn’t trust his own accounting department within the NRA” and that “on several occasions, LaPierre would specifically instruct [Ackerman] not to disclose certain information to certain auditors” in the NRA’s accounting department.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The relationship with Brewer also drew scrutiny after the NRA paid the firm more than $24 million in legal fees, according to North. Ackerman has&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/ackermans-response-to-the-nras-motion-to-compel/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">alleged that Brewer’s firm</a>&nbsp;is a “PR firm masquerading as a law firm to try cases in the ‘court of public opinion,’ not the courtroom.” The filings also raise questions about the firm’s methods. Revan McQueen, the son of former Ackerman CEO&nbsp;Angus McQueen (who died in July of 2019), alleged in a&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/declaration-of-revan-mcqueen-appendix-to-ackerman-brief-to-disqualify-nra-attorney-bill-brewer-from-the-case/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">previously unreported declaration</a>&nbsp;that attorney Bill Brewer “had detailed knowledge about Angus’s cancer treatment and used that information to time his litigation and media attacks.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another&nbsp;<a href="https://nrawatch.org/filing/ackermans-motion-to-compel-documents-and-motion-for-sanctions/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">filing by Ackerman</a>&nbsp;alleged that Brewer “engaged in deeply personal and calculated attacks on the McQueen family … at times strategically coordinated with Angus [McQueen’s] medical treatment, his final family events, his declining health, and ultimately the period of grief following his death.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The past year has also seen several congressional investigations aimed at the NRA. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., called for the IRS to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/national-rifle-association-congress-report-1486056" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">investigate the organization’s nonprofit status</a>&nbsp;after a yearlong probe into allegations of self-dealing and corruption. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., separately&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/16/nra-criminal-investigation-sought-house-democrats/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">urged the IRS to investigate</a>&nbsp;financial fraud by the NRA. Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., Dwight Evans, D-Pa., and Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., followed with their&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/nra-nonprofit-status-irs-investigation-house-ways-means-democrats-1422752" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">own call for an IRS probe</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the Senate, Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/8109bcc1e3fd47979d21ecc82c861c0a" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">led an investigation</a>&nbsp;that found that “NRA leaders may have violated tax laws that prohibit use of organization resources for personal benefit.” Wyden and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/02/irs-audit-nra-tax-exemption-019896" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">called on the IRS</a>&nbsp;to investigate the group’s tax-exempt status.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Raskin and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., have&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/429003-dems-probing-whether-nra-made-illegal-contributions-to-trump" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">separately called for an investigation</a>&nbsp;into whether the NRA violated campaign finance laws</b>&nbsp;by coordinating communications with the Trump campaign and other Republicans.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the investigations mounted, LaPierre&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/1ed1a970f1c946f19665602b66b5bb1b" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">issued statements</a>&nbsp;warning gun owners that their rights were under attack by lawmakers who want to make “Americans less safe and less able to defend themselves.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The NRA is mired in crisis and they’re strapped for cash and their leaders keep going back to the old playbook to bail them out: fear-mongering about the collapse of society to raise money [and] to sell guns,” Watts told Salon. “And it’s so dangerous right now given that there are increased risks of domestic violence, unintentional gun violence&nbsp;[and] gun suicides because of the coronavirus crisis.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The past year also saw NRATV shutter after three years after the NRA spent upwards of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/28/20936511/nra-nratv-ackerman-mcqueen-lawsuit-complaint" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$20 million annually</a>&nbsp;to sustain the network. The NRA later said in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/nra-officials-found-nratv-messaging-to-be-distasteful-and-racist-lawsuit?source=twitter&via=desktop" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">court filings</a>&nbsp;that some NRA leaders found the network’s content to be “distasteful and racist” and described the overall effort as an “abject failure.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The past year has also seen a purge of NRA board members who had&nbsp;spoken out about the alleged financial misconduct.</b>&nbsp;Eight of the group’s board members have resigned and multiple high-ranking officials have left the group, including former top lobbyist Chris Cox, who was executive director of the NRA Institute of Legislative Action.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/nra-lawsuit-wayne-lapierre-chris-cox.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">suspended Cox</a>&nbsp;in June of 2019 after accusing him of participating in North’s attempted coup. Cox, once considered the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2019/06/nra-chris-cox-ackerman-mcqueen-nra-tv-newest-casualties-of-turmoil/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">“heir apparent”</a>&nbsp;to LaPierre, resigned days later as NRA-ILA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker insisted that “any notion that Chris participated in a coup is absurd.” Baker was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/wayne-lapierre-nra-purge-861509/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">subsequently fired</a>&nbsp;as well.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the purge has not stopped the leaks about questionable spending at the group. Internal documents obtained by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/nra-2018-annual-financial-report/05b36d8c-cd64-4011-a685-e0a26eba9be6/?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_14" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Washington Post</a>&nbsp;show that the organization spent $9.3 million on office supplies in 2018, roughly&nbsp;<a href="https://ag.ehawaii.gov/charity/attachments/irs/530116130/2018/0/T/530116130.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$12,000</a>&nbsp;per employee. To make up for the big spending, the NRA&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-nras-finances-deepening-debt-increased-spending-on-legal-fees--and-cuts-to-gun-training/2019/06/14/ac9dc488-8e30-11e9-b08e-cfd89bd36d4e_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">cut funding</a>&nbsp;for gun training, a key component of its purported core mission.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the NRA’s financial report, the group ended 2018 with a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-nras-finances-deepening-debt-increased-spending-on-legal-fees--and-cuts-to-gun-training/2019/06/14/ac9dc488-8e30-11e9-b08e-cfd89bd36d4e_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">$10.8 million deficit</a>, marking the third straight year it spent more than it brought in, even as it&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/nra-boosted-executive-pay-while-cutting-funding-for-key-programs-filing-shows/2019/11/26/da4f3f60-0c61-11ea-a49f-9066f51640f6_story.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">continued to increase executive pay</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year, the NRA announced across-the-board 20% pay cuts and layoffs, urging affected employees in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/03/26/leaked-memo-nra-tells-employees-to-seek-government-aid-as-coronavirus-forces-cuts-layoffs/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">leaked memo</a>&nbsp;to “contact any germane state or federal agency to determine eligibility for any additional aid.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LaPierre in the memo blamed “extraordinary challenges resulting from COVID-19” for the cuts despite years of deficits and increased legal spending.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the revelations in the court documents and news reports make it clear, Watts said,&nbsp;“that the pandemic is not what’s bankrupting the NRA. “That’s its own corrupt leadership. It’s really showing that even though Wayne LaPierre is scapegoating, he and the rest of the NRA leaders have used the organization as their&nbsp;personal piggybank for years.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The NRA has also seen its political influence wane as its election spending has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/nra-gun-control-fund-raising.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">dropped precipitously</a>.</b>&nbsp;In the group’s home state of Virginia, voters elected a Democratic legislative majority in 2019 that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/10/politics/ralph-northam-signs-gun-bills/index.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">quickly passed a package</a>&nbsp;opposed by the NRA that implemented expanded background checks, a “red flag” law&nbsp;and other gun-control measures. The&nbsp;previous Republican majority had refused to take up the issue even after the mass shooting that killed 12 people at a municipal building in Virginia Beach.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We outspent the NRA eight-to-one in Virginia, we outworked them on the ground, making hundreds of thousands of calls and knocking on tens of thousands of doors,” Watts told Salon. “And as a result we flipped both chambers” of the state legislature.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watts said the Virginia elections were only one example of the NRA’s waning influence:&nbsp;“The NRA is weaker than it’s ever been and we are stronger than we’ve ever been. We outspent and outworked them in 2018. We were able to flip the U.S. House of Representatives and change the makeup of seven state legislatures and elect over 1,000 ‘gun sense’ candidates across the country.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Going into the 2020 elections, Watts said, her group has “already committed to spending $60 million, which is twice what the NRA spent in 2016. And the NRA is so deep underwater that even the president they worked so hard to elect no longer wants to work with them.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Trump received more than $30 million in backing from the NRA during his 2016 run, but has recently complained to aides that the group is “going bankrupt,” according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/politics/trump-gun-control.html" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the New York Times</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1122837541084958725" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a>&nbsp;that the NRA “must get its act together quickly, stop the internal fighting, & get back to GREATNESS – FAST!”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Donald Trump talks about the Second Amendment, but he doesn’t so much talk about the NRA anymore,” Watts said. “Some of the NRA’s own board members have distanced themselves from the NRA and&nbsp;major donors have begun to distance themselves from the NRA, so it’s really not surprising that Donald Trump would as well if he sees them as possibly an albatross around his neck.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“If you look at the way this country has been going since the 2016 election, background checks continue to pass, red-flag laws, laws that disarm domestic abusers. We have a 90% track record in the last five years of stopping the NRA’s agenda in state houses. So politically, they have not been as successful.”</b></font></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><a href=" http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-barton-the-second-amendment-protects-your-right-to-own-a-tank David Barton: The Second Amendment Protects Your Right to Own a Tank Kyle MantylaBy Kyle Mantyla | July 3, 2019 2:07 pm Right-wing “comedian” Steven Crowder interviewed Religious Right pseudo-historian David Barton for a “masterclass” on the meaning of the Second Amendment, during which Barton insisted that the Second Amendment grants average citizens the right to own tanks or any other weapon of war. Barton has repeatedly insisted that the Founding Fathers intended for there to be no limits whatsoever on the Second Amendment and that citizens are therefore entitled to own any weapon they might need to fight off a foreign invasion or even their own government, including fighter jets, and he repeated this claim to Crowder. “The deal was you have a right to defend yourself,” Barton said. “So, the biggest weapon in that day would have been a cannon—hand’s down, a cannon. You’re allowed, as a citizen, to own cannons.” “Whatever the government had, you could have,” he added, “because we might have to take on the government some day. We hope that never happens, but in case it does, we defend ourselves from anything that comes after us; whether it’s from foreign or domestic, whether it’s a gang, whether it’s a government, whether it’s a crazy uncle, we don’t care. So, for them, there was no limitation on what you could use or how you could defend yourself.” “They were OK with cannons and that would be our equivalent of high-capacity magazines or machine guns,” Barton insisted, “or it could be equivalent to a tank.” ">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-barton-the-second-amendment-protects-your-right-to-own-a-tank</a></div><div>
</div><div><b>David Barton: The Second Amendment Protects Your Right to Own a Tank</b></div><div>
</div><div>Kyle MantylaBy Kyle Mantyla | July 3, 2019 2:07 pm</div><div>Right-wing “comedian” Steven Crowder interviewed Religious Right pseudo-historian David Barton for a “masterclass” on the meaning of the Second Amendment, during which Barton insisted that the Second Amendment grants average citizens the right to own tanks or any other weapon of war.</div><div>
</div><div>Barton has repeatedly insisted that the Founding Fathers intended for there to be no limits whatsoever on the Second Amendment and that citizens are therefore entitled to own any weapon they might need to fight off a foreign invasion or even their own government, including fighter jets, and he repeated this claim to Crowder.</div><div>
</div><div>“The deal was you have a right to defend yourself,” Barton said. “So, the biggest weapon in that day would have been a cannon—hand’s down, a cannon. You’re allowed, as a citizen, to own cannons.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Whatever the government had, you could have,” he added, “because we might have to take on the government some day. We hope that never happens, but in case it does, we defend ourselves from anything that comes after us; whether it’s from foreign or domestic, whether it’s a gang, whether it’s a government, whether it’s a crazy uncle, we don’t care. So, for them, there was no limitation on what you could use or how you could defend yourself.”</div><div>
</div><div>“They were OK with cannons and that would be our equivalent of high-capacity magazines or machine guns,” Barton insisted, “or it could be equivalent to a tank.”</div><div>
</div><div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 519</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March For Our Lives, the gun violence prevention movement, called for an end to #GenerationLockdown following the latest school shooting.</font></p><div class="p1_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two suspects opened fire at the Denver-area STEM School Highlands Ranch Tuesday.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/next-thing-i-know-he-pulling-gun-colorado-student-school-n1003226" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Kendrick Castillo</a>, 18, died. He was just days away from graduation. Eight others were injured.</font></p><div class="p2_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="alt_ad_block story-page-in-content-graph-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was the fourth school shooting in Colorado since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, the&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Denver Post</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/07/colorado-school-shootings-columbine/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a>.</font></p><div class="p3_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://marchforourlives.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">March For Our Lives</a>, which was formed in the wake of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting last year, demanded an end to such violent acts. The group said people must not to “grow numb” to the tragedies and urged political leadership tackle the gun violence epidemic.</font></p><div class="p4_19" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The group made the calls in a Twitter thread that included&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/RussellHaythorn/status/1125889708435763200" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 191, 165); transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">video</a>&nbsp;from local&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Denver7 News</em>&nbsp;of young STEM students boarding a bus outside the school....</font></p></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/how-to-understand-gun-owners/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/02/how-to-understand-gun-owners/</a></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style=""><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/08/24/Fox---Friends-hosts-a-QAnon-conspiracy-theorist-who-has-claimed-the-Parkland-mass-shooting/221102</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no linx vid</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>fox & Friends hosts a QAnon conspiracy theorist who has claimed the Parkland mass shooting was fake</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Blog ››› August 24, 2018 4:50 PM EDT ››› ALEX KAPLAN</div><div>
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</div><div>Fox & Friends provided a platform to a man who has repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, including sharing a post that claimed the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, was “fake” and that student survivors of the shooting are “actors.”</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the August 24 edition of Fox & Friends, the show hosted Jason Fyk, who was identified as an entrepreneur, along with Fyk’s attorney to discuss Fyk’s lawsuit against Facebook for “unlawfully silencing people … for its own financial gain.”</span>&nbsp;During the interview, co-host Steve Doocy praised Fyk for using Facebook to build a business and pursuing “the American dream,” while<b>&nbsp;Fyk compared himself to YouTube personalities Diamond and Silk,</b>&nbsp;citing the duo’s false Facebook censorship claims.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The show -- which President Donald Trump consistently watches -- did not disclose that Fyk has appeared multiple times on Infowars, the far-right conspiracy theory outlet that has been banned from multiple tech platforms for violating their hate speech and harassment policies.</b>&nbsp;On his own Facebook profile, Fyk has also repeatedly promoted posts from “Q,” the supposed figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory who claims that Trump has a master plan to dismantle child trafficking rings supposedly linked to powerful politicians and celebrities and defeat his perceived enemies and the “deep state.” (Three conspiracy theorists reportedly spread the conspiracy theory for financial gain.) In March, Fyk posted an image of a <b>“Q” post calling the Parkland mass shooting “FAKE” and a “distraction” that was “organized & designed to DISTRACT” and that it featured “ACTORS [who] are ACTING.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>Fyk also discussed QAnon in January while appearing on Infowars (which fully embraced the conspiracy theory early on), with an Infowars host saying to Fyk, “What do you think of these latest QAnon posts hot off the press? ‘Chuck Schumer will live in fear from today forward.’ This is turning out to be a really good day.” Fyk responded that it was “definitely a win for the right.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Trump himself may have also tweeted in response to Fyk's appearance when he claimed social media platforms were "silencing millions of people."</b></div><div>
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</div><div>Matthew Gertz</div><div>?</div><div>@MattGertz</div><div>&nbsp;· Aug 24, 2018</div><div>Replying to @MattGertz</div><div>President watches television, complains that Reality Winner is going to jail but Hillary Clinton isn't.&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Left, Fox & Friends, 6:12 am</div><div>Right, Trump, 7:10 am pic.twitter.com/44XxktlGid</div><div>
</div><div>View image on TwitterView image on Twitter</div><div>
</div><div>Matthew Gertz</div><div>?</div><div>@MattGertz</div><div>Fox caption: "Are social media giants silencing people?"</div><div>
</div><div>Trump: "Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people."</div><div>
</div><div>Left, Fox & Friends, 6:27 am</div><div>Right, Trump, 7:34 am pic.twitter.com/W7Y56Ma6kZ</div><div>
</div><div>5:06 AM - Aug 24, 2018</div><div>
</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Short Link</div><div>
</div><div>http://mm4a.org/4Zg</div><div>copy link</div><div>Network/Outlet</div><div>Fox News Channel, Infowars</div><div>Show/Publication</div><div>FOX & Friends</div><div>Stories/Interests</div><div>Alt-right and pro-Trump trolls</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/betsy-devos-planning-allow-schools-use-federal-funds-buy-guns</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>B<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Betsy+DeVos" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">etsy DeVos</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;is working on a plan that would, for the first time in history, allow schools to use federal funds to buy guns,</b>&nbsp;according to a report in&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/us/politics/betsy-devos-guns.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The New York Times</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;late Wednesday. The Education Secretary was tasked by the President with putting together a commission to protect schools from gun violence after the massacre at Florida's Parkland High School.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeVos is examining an Obama-era program of grants that is designed to "provide all students with access to a well-rounded education," "improve school conditions for student learning," and "improve the use of technology in order to improve the academic achievement and digital literacy for all students," according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www2.ed.gov/programs/ssae/index.html" rel="noopener" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the Dept. of Education's website</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But because Congress did not specifically block&nbsp;the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants from being used to purchase firearms, DeVos believes she can use her discretion to order those funds be allowed to be used to buy guns, and to fund firearms training.</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 20px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In essence, DeVos would be using federal funds to subsidize firearms manufacturers and the gun lobby.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeVos' school safety task force has produced no tangible results. The Education Secretary revealed months after forming her commission that it&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2018/06/watch-betsy-devos-admits-her-commission-on-gun-violence-in-schools-will-not-study-role-of-guns/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">would not be examining the role of guns</a>&nbsp;in school gun violence.</font></p><div style=""><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rider on old bill keeps CDC from research, fixed in 3/18 omnibus? post parkland fla</font></div><div style=""><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1st good act?!</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;American Medical Association has voted to take on two major public health issues: gun violence</b> and climate change. During its annual meeting in Chicago this week, the&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AMA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;voted to support nearly a dozen gun control measures, including a ban on the sale and ownership of assault-style weapons. Former&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AMA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;President Dr. David O. Barbe said in a statement, “In emergency rooms across the country, the carnage of gun violence has become a too routine experience. … It doesn’t have to be this way, and we urge lawmakers to act.” The&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AMA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;also voted this week to divest from companies that get the majority of their income from fossil fuels. Climate activist Bill McKibben celebrated the news, tweeting, “The&nbsp;</span><span class="caps" style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: top; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AMA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;is saying to the dirty fuels industry what it said to tobacco a generation ago: You are killing our patients and we will not allow it anymore.”</span></font></p><p><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/15/headlines/american_medical_association_demands_gun_control_divests_from_fossil_fuels"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/6/15/headlines/american_medical_association_demands_gun_control_divests_from_fossil_fuels</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; =</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">santa fe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;already trying to discredit shooting survivors</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 1em;">Santa Fe shooting survivors spoke to the media. They&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=http%3A%2F%2Fabc13.com%2Fsanta-fe-shooting-survivors-call-for-tougher-gun-laws-%2F3521167%2F&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=527weekly&n=30&v=1391" style="">held</a>&nbsp;a press conference. Cable news simply did not care. 10 people were killed in a mass shooting in a school, and cable news&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F05%2F25%2F10-people-were-killed-santa-fe-shooting-cable-news-moved-almost-immediately%2F220309&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=527weekly&n=31&v=1391" style="">moved on</a>&nbsp;for the most part after a day. It's not a question of not having the time, either. Cable news had&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F05%2F22%2Fcable-news-busy-speculating-about-trump-while-santa-fe-shooting-fades-out-news%2F220285&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=527weekly&n=32&v=1391" style="">plenty of time</a>&nbsp;for wild speculation about Trump.</p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-bottom: 1em;"><em>Also</em>: From Ritalin to video games, doors to trench coats, unhealthy diets to "politically correct culture," conservative media&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://mediamatters.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediamatters.org%2Fblog%2F2018%2F05%2F23%2Fwake-mass-shootings-schools-conservatives-blame-everything-guns%2F220291&e=2fd18ded548fce9ef66e074aaf01da3d5df1923b&utm_source=mediamatters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=527weekly&n=33&v=1391" style="">have blamed</a>&nbsp;everything except for guns for schools shootings.</p></span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hugh-hewitt-seriously-proposes-trench-coat-ban-stop-gun-violence-after-texas">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hugh-hewitt-seriously-proposes-trench-coat-ban-stop-gun-violence-after-texas</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/how-nra-sabotaged-background-checks-system-and-3-fresh-ideas-actually-could-reduce-gun-violence">https://www.alternet.org/how-nra-sabotaged-background-checks-system-and-3-fresh-ideas-actually-could-reduce-gun-violence</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">history on nra 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Members of Congress felt intense pressure to respond to the Columbine shooting and&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-guns-mass-shootings_us_5850547be4b04c8e2bb258a3&source=gmail&ust=1526771334565000&usg=AFQjCNFnrKjE4RPmr6hCG5K-jDM9EV3Ecg" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-guns-mass-shootings_us_5850547be4b04c8e2bb258a3" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">nearly moved</a>&nbsp;legislation to regulate private sales at gun shows to President Clinton’s desk for his signature. In August 1999, however, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch was able to kill the legislation in conference committee at the last minute to the delight of NRA lobbyist James Baker, who remarked “nothing is better than anything.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Columbine, there have been other examples of high-profile shooters who obtained their firearms through private sales, but they are few and far between. This is because many individuals with a history of violence are able to pass instant checks and legally purchase firearms. They don’t need to exploit the private sales loophole.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz is just one recent example. The roll call of killers who have defeated the instant check system is&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map/&source=gmail&ust=1526771334565000&usg=AFQjCNGTFs2vBFqrn9t9yRhKB7koUsz-wQ" href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">almost without end</a>: James Holmes, Jared Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho, Omar Mateen, Aaron Alexis, Elliot Rodger, Wade Michael Page, Ian Stawicki, Steven Kazmierczak. All of them were approved by NICS despite displaying multiple red flags for unstable, violent behavior that were picked up by family, friends, classmates, law enforcement or the military. There should be ample doubt about the viability of instant screening.
Advocacy for expanded or universal background checks is not without merit, however. Our instant check system might be premised on completing sales as quickly as possible, but there’s no denying it has saved many lives. To date, NICS has stopped&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/federal_denials.pdf/view&source=gmail&ust=1526771334565000&usg=AFQjCNG2s_Fzij5U2bh99IgtUlgDNVX_Tw" href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/federal_denials.pdf/view" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">more than</a>&nbsp;1.5 million prohibited purchasers from buying guns through federally licensed dealers. This figure does not include denials by more than a dozen “point of contact” states that process their own background checks (and typically search additional state criminal databases). The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says the total number of denied, prohibited purchasers&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=//www.bradycampaign.org/press-room/brady-campaign-reports-3-million-gun-sales-blocked-by-background-checks-on-23rd&source=gmail&ust=1526771334565000&usg=AFQjCNGNOwSEK0txh1dO38kISfM7zO9jNA" href="https://www.bradycampaign.org/press-room/brady-campaign-reports-3-million-gun-sales-blocked-by-background-checks-on-23rd" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">exceeds</a>&nbsp;3 million. Some level of screening on a gun sale is obviously better than no screening at all. But why is the gun control movement so adamant on keeping an instant check system designed by the NRA in perpetuity when safer alternatives are available?
And why do we seem wed to prohibited categories for gun buyers that were drawn up a half-century ago, when the United States government described mentally ill Americans as “mental defectives”?
*&nbsp; *&nbsp; *
Breaking our obsession with NICS and stopping&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;violent individuals from buying guns requires fresh ideas. Here are three:</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1)&nbsp;<strong>Institute a national licensing and registration system.&nbsp;</strong>President Johnson wasn’t tilting at windmills in 1968. Virtually&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=//www.gunpolicy.org/&source=gmail&ust=1526771334565000&usg=AFQjCNFAtbI4-pCoA5MLenoqh2qkWM5UtQ" href="https://www.gunpolicy.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">every other democracy</a>&nbsp;has a longstanding, national licensing process for gun owners and a registration requirement for their firearms. These systems are the primary reason why other democracies have dramatically lower rates of gun death (and overall homicide) than the United States.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The licensing process involves a waiting period and a background investigation by law enforcement, which is not limited to computer database queries (e.g., interviews with friends/family/co-workers, requests for letters from physicians, safety training requirements, etc). The registration process means gun owners are 100 percent responsible for their weapons. They have to report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement promptly and are unable to sell or transfer a registered firearm to another party without verifying the buyer’s background and changing “title” (registration) on the weapon.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;Printz v. United States&nbsp;ruling wouldn’t be an impediment to such a system because it would be run by the federal government rather than state and local officials (although licensing/registration would certainly benefit from cooperation between the three parties).</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2)&nbsp;<strong>Redraw the prohibited categories for gun buyers.&nbsp;</strong>Although New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg was able to enact an amendment into law in 1996 that added individuals under active restraining orders and those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence to the list of prohibited purchasers in the Gun Control Act, there are still many categories of people at high risk for violent behavior who can legally buy guns today. This includes violent misdemeanor offenders, abusive dating partners, stalkers, and domestic abusers under temporary restraining orders. Redrawing the prohibited categories for gun buyers would allow us to use the best research available&nbsp;<em>today</em>&nbsp;to determine who is more likely to be violent in the future.
This wouldn’t necessarily mean just adding new categories to the prohibited list. It could also involve allowing some people who are currently prohibited because of disability to buy and own firearms again. For example, an individual who was involuntarily committed years ago, but who has improved with regular treatment and is now mentally healthy.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The process of redefining prohibited purchasers is already underway in piecemeal form. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and other members of Congress have&nbsp;<a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://everytownresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Boyfriend-Loophole-11.7.17.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1526771334565000&usg=AFQjCNE7UH-KC9v-m3UzTawcbONhJfvBdg" href="https://everytownresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Boyfriend-Loophole-11.7.17.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">introduced</a>&nbsp;legislation that would prohibit the following parties from buying/owning firearms: those under temporary restraining orders, individuals convicted of hate crimes, non-married<em>&nbsp;</em>partners under restraining orders and stalkers with misdemeanor convictions.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3)&nbsp;<strong>Reinstate a federal waiting period for gun sales</strong>. This could be a waiting period of seven days, like the original Brady Law, or some other duration. Because a federal mandate would be blocked by the&nbsp;Prinz v. United States&nbsp;ruling, local and state law enforcement officials would be incentivized to conduct background investigations on gun buyers (for the first time since 1994-1998) via a carrot-and-stick approach using federal grants. Gun dealers would be required to get a yes-or-no answer from state and local law enforcement before selling a firearm.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is nothing inevitable about either the instant check system or our outdated, prohibited categories for gun buyers. If we want to have a system that consistently stops individuals with a history of violence from legally buying guns in the United States of America, we can — like every other free societ</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>JUL 10, 2012 @ 12:45 PM 156,094 The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty: Are Our 2nd Amendment Rights Part Of The Deal?</b></div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div>
</div><div>Larry Bell , CONTRIBUTOR</div><div>I write about aerospace, environment, energy,&nbsp;<b>Second Amendment policy&nbsp;&nbsp;</b></div><div>Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.</div><div>
</div><div>US President Barack Obama addresses the United Nations General Assembly. "As a former lecturer in constitutional law, wouldn’t President Obama realize that the U.N.’s gun- grab agenda violates our sovereign rights? Perhaps the answer to that question warrants some serious reflection. " (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)</div><div>
</div><div>One year ago I wrote an article titled “U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms” which has recently gained a great deal of renewed public interest. This update reviews some more recent developments, offering additional perspective about an immediate matter which should be of great concern to all who value rights guaranteed by our Second Amendment.</div><div>
</div><div>The Obama administration is actively engaged in negotiations to finalize details for a new global agreement premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates”. As U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon describes its purpose, “Our goal is clear: a robust and legally binding Arms Trade Treaty that will have a real impact on the lives of those millions of people suffering from consequences of armed conflict, repression and armed violence…It is ambitious, but it is achievable.”</div><div>
</div><div>Under the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. originally voted against a resolution that began the process in 2006. However, the current administration reversed that policy, and strongly supports its enactment. In January 2010, U.S. representatives joined with those of 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Treaty Resolution to draft a blueprint for enactment in 2012. This activity is planned to be completed by July 27, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push hard for Senate ratification. Previously led by the United Kingdom, there can be no doubt that the U.N.’s 193-member General Assembly will approve it.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Foreign ministers of the U.K., France, Germany and Sweden want the treaty to cover all types of conventional weapons, notably including small arms and light weapons, all types of munitions, and related technologies. They also advocate that it include strong provisions governing human rights, international humanitarian law and sustainable development. (More about sustainable development later.)</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Internal Security and Nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, has stated that the Obama administration does not support regulation of ammunition, but only wants to make it more difficult to “conduct illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms”</span>. In addition, a press release issued by the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs says that “The outcome will not seek to prohibit citizens of any country from possessing firearms or to interfere with the legal trade in small arms and light weapons.”</div><div>
</div><div>Such statements have many very strong skeptics, both inside and outside Congress. One reason, among many, is that Iran, a country that is one of the world’s worst human rights violators, yet often chaired the U.N. Human Rights Council…yes Iran, arms supplier to many of America’s most determined adversaries… was selected for a top Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) planning conference position. The members, apparently including U.S. representatives, authorized this selection shortly after the same U.N. found the very same&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Iran guilty of transferring guns and bombs to the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad who is presently slaughtering thousands of its own citizens.</span>Meanwhile, the U.N., America included, purporting to be distraught about illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms, watches in the wings as these tragedies unfold. Of course, they’re very busy. Those arms control planning conferences require a lot of attention.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On June 29, 130 Republican House members sent a letter to President Obama and Secretary Clinton arguing that the proposed treaty infringes on the “fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms”</b>. The letter charges that “…the U.N.’s actions to date indicate that the ATT is likely to pose significant threats to our national security, foreign policy, and economic interests as well as our constitutional rights.” The lawmakers adamantly insist that the U.S. Government has no right to support a treaty that violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.</div><div>
</div><div>Democrats have accused Republicans of making this a political issue, maintaining that the treaty poses no Second Amendment threat.<b>&nbsp;Others, such as former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, caution gun owners to take this initiative seriously. He believes that the U.N. “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there is no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”</b></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/racist-origin-second-amendment-and-rise-black-gun-ownership">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/racist-origin-second-amendment-and-rise-black-gun-ownership</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Total gun deaths in the United States average around 37,000 a year, she writes, “with two-thirds of those deaths being suicide, leaving 12,000 homicides, a thousand of those at the hands of police.” Mass shootings, although horrible enough, account for only 2 percent of gun killings annually.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview, <b>Dunbar-Ortiz</b> explained that the right to have a gun comes from the Bill of Rights. “And the Bill of Rights is about individual rights,” which at the time it was written meant the rights of White men who needed guns to dominate slaves and Native Americans.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s a misconception that the Second Amendment is about state’s rights and arming a military. It’s not, she says. The establishment of a standing army is in the Constitution. The establishment of formal militias, which became the modern-day National Guard, is in the body of the Constitution—it’s constitutional law, she adds. Collective rights are already in the Constitution.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So the Bill of Rights is the right for each individual to practice whatever religion they want, freedom of speech, and so forth. And to arm themselves.” There was a period in time, she said, when it was against the law for the new settlers not to carry a weapon.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“But it doesn’t work for freedom movements,” said Dunbar-Ortiz. “It was created for domination of people of color—for slave patrols, and militias to kill Indians. So, it still has that element”: Now it is used to criminalize people of color, she said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Throughout history, gun control laws have been used against people of color as a tool to invite brutal state responses. Consider the Black Panthers who armed themselves, the Native Americans who fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee, Black Lives Matter protesters, the Standing Rock uprising.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We’ve witnessed it more recently for individuals like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/white-people-the-philando-castile-acquittal-should-make-you-mad-as-hell-20170619" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Philando Castile</a>, who was killed by a fearful police officer in 2016 for legally having a firearm during a traffic stop.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2012, a Black Florida woman,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/woman-who-lost-stand-your-ground-case-wants-law-strengthened-n737191" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Marissa Alexander</a>, was sentenced to 20 years for firing a gun at her estranged husband who she said was attacking her. She had a permit for the gun. Since her release last year after serving five years, she has sided with Florida Republicans and become an advocate for gun ownership and stand-your-ground defenses.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, many Black people are against tighter gun laws because those laws, even more so than drug laws, continue to be used disproportionately to put them into the criminal system.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the 2009 report&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nccdglobal.org/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/created-equal.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the US Criminal Justice System</a>, Black people are arrested for weapons crimes at a rate 4.4 times higher than White people.&nbsp;<a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21" style="text-decoration-line: none;">FBI data for 2016</a>&nbsp;shows weapons violations at the city, state, and federal level were used to arrest Black people 42 percent of the time, and White people 56 percent. Black people make up&nbsp;<a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045216" style="text-decoration-line: none;">13 percent of the population</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Chanel Tillman of the Black Gun Owners Association in Jacksonville, Florida, said she could only imagine the horrors for people of color if gun laws were reformed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If they can remove firearms like that from the masses, that basically…takes them away from us,” Tillman said. “And honestly, I think that’s the biggest part of it [for us]. You can guarantee that there will be some kind of loophole that will affect Black and Brown people more than anybody else.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our motto is “Stay armed. Live free.” If you take our guns from us, she said, we are no longer free. “Then they are free to do whatever they want to us, and we have no way to protect ourselves.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tillman co-founded the Jacksonville chapter last September, and it now has 32 members.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She said she’s aware the origin of the Second Amendment was to arm White people against people of color and also understands Dunbar-Ortiz’s position that we’re not really “free” if we have to carry guns to protect us.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But, she said, “why worry, if you know you have the ability to protect yourself? You don’t have to worry about it. You just have to be proactive and ready when the time comes.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And this is the message the national Black Gun Owners Association shares with its membership of 10,000 legal gun owners. Its one-year anniversary is in April.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Safety and protection of family, that’s the biggest thing. And making sure we’re aware of our rights.” Firearm safety and tactical training are part of what members receive, too, she said, and someone to look out for them.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The association is not a political organization, she said, but exists for their community "to get an understanding of firearm safety and obtain proper training with people who look like them and share the same concerns as them for our people.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gun ownership among Black people is about the same things as for White people, she says. “Protection of self, family and property. Gun ownership has always been taught as a pseudoscience for Blacks because of slavery and Jim Crow. We aren't here to hurt anyone, but protecting our own will come first.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We just want people like us to know there are gun advocate groups that are here for them,” she said.&nbsp;“The NRA comes out when things happen to White people, but when things happen to Black people you don’t hear from the NRA,” she said. “So, we’re hoping to bridge that gap. Somebody to stand for us when there’s a gun crime against one of us.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, Detroit attorney Desiree Ferguson, who is advising on the appeal for Siwatu-Salama Ra’s Second Amendment defense, expects an uphill battle.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Appeals take a long time, and there’s a good probability that Ra could have served the two years by the time there’s a resolution. The hope, Ferguson said, lies with the governor’s office and a possible pardon or commutation. She is also hoping to get Ra released on bond pending the appeal “so that she can be with her family when she gives birth. And not have to be immediately severed from her newborn baby.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is certain is that gun control and Second Amendment debates do not clearly line up as left-right issues, and many people of color are faced with uneasy support for a civil right that began as a way to oppress them.&nbsp;

Author Dunbar-Ortiz says, if more people on the left understood the history of the Second Amendment and how it’s been used against people of color, she doubts they would support it.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They don’t need the Second Amendment to justify self-defense. That’s an international human right. That’s a basic human right.”</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">goa claims anti ca law 1975</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/us/politics/gun-owners-of-america-a-lobbying-group-grows-in-influence.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/us/politics/gun-owners-of-america-a-lobbying-group-grows-in-influence.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">POLITICS</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>Upstart Group Pushes Harder Than the N.R.A.</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>By JENNIFER STEINHAUER APRIL 3, 2013</div><div>
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</div><div>Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, which opposes expanded background checks on gun buyers and restrictions on gun purchases. Credit Christopher Gregory/The New York Times</div><div>
</div><div>SPRINGFIELD, Va. — When word surfaced in February that Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, was plotting with Democrats on a bill to expand background checks for gun buyers, Larry Pratt got really mad. Then, Mr. Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, got busy, mounting a lobbying blitz that helps explain why a bipartisan Senate deal on background checks remains elusive.</div><div>
</div><div>Within days, his staff, working from a nondescript space in a squat office building off the Beltway here — there isn’t even a nameplate on the door — was on the phone with supporters of his organization in Oklahoma. The group’s members were encouraged to inundate Mr. Coburn with e-mails and calls and to otherwise make it exceedingly clear to the senator that an enhanced background check law would not be tolerated.</div><div>
</div><div>It wasn’t long until Mr. Coburn, a gun rights advocate, had backed away from negotiations with Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, securing at least a temporary victory for gun rights activists and frustrating advocates of new gun safety laws.</div><div>
</div><div>Once largely unknown, Gun Owners of America, with its war chest, membership and lobbying strength dwarfed by the National Rifle Association, is emerging as an influential force as a series of gun control measures heads to the Senate floor.</div><div>
</div><div>The group has already been successful in both freezing senators, particularly Republicans, who have appeared to be on the fence about supporting bills to expand background checks and increase penalties for illegal gun purchases, and empowering those who have a strong gun rights background.</div><div>
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</div><div>“They are strong defenders of the Second Amendment,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who received donations from the group during his primary campaign and is its key ally in the Senate.</div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Coburn attributed his retreat, which deeply damaged the prospects of the bill, to a plan that would have required private gun sellers to keep records. But the gun group believes its campaign contributed to his decision.</div><div>
</div><div>“His staff admitted that it kind of irritated the senator,” Mr. Pratt said. “We were told, ‘He’s getting tired of this.’ But when we hear complaints like that, we know we are close to success. We are happy he changed his mind.”</div><div>
</div><div>While it might be increasingly potent, the group is not rich.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gun Owners of America’s total revenue in 2011 was less than $2 million, compared with the N.R.A.’s nearly $220 million. The group spent $1.3 million last year to lobby Congress, while the N.R.A. spent nearly $3 million. Its campaign contributions last year were $119,850, placing it at 2,669 on a list of 20,968 lobbying groups ranked by the Center for Responsive Politics. The N.R.A. spent $1.5 million, putting it at 230th. Gun Owners of America has 300,000 dues-paying members; the N.R.A. has five million.</span></div><div>
</div><div>But, like many grass-roots groups, it is loud. Its members pepper Republican lawmakers with calls. In Republican primaries, the group supports candidates that hew to its message, and it rates floor votes with criteria far tougher than the N.R.A.’s. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, one of the few Democrats to earn an A from the N.R.A., has a D-minus from the group. This is in part because it draws from a far broader range of past votes, like President Obama’s health care legislation, to judge lawmakers.</div><div>
</div><div>John Hart, a spokesman for Mr. Coburn, declined to respond to questions about the group’s role in the senator’s decision to pull away from negotiations over a background check bill. “No one in the Senate has a stronger record of not only defending but expanding Second Amendment rights,” Mr. Hart said, adding that “Dr. Coburn is still hopeful he can reach an agreement with Senator Schumer.”</div><div>
</div><div>Photo</div><div>
</div><div>Larry Pratt Credit Christopher Gregory/The New York Times</div><div>Mr. Schumer said he hoped for the same. “In the area of guns there’s always political pressure,” he said. “But I know Tom Coburn well. He’s a very principled guy.”</div><div>
</div><div>Many lawmakers and gun safety advocates believe Gun Owners of America’s rising profile and heavy membership drive has led the N.R.A. to take a more aggressive stance against measures it once supported, like an expansion of background checks to include private gun sales. (In 1999, Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive of the N.R.A., said there should be “no loopholes anywhere, for anyone” on gun sale background checks.)</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Part of the group’s mission, Mr. Pratt said, is to stay on top of the N.R.A. “when we don’t think they’ve gone far enough.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The N.R.A. is essentially a political party,” said Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “The big majority is centrist, and the base is ideological. And they’re pulled to the right in a competition for the base with Larry Pratt, and that’s marginalizing them.”</span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Gun Owners of America’s central mission now is to prevent the passage of several bills about to hit the Senate floor. It is also lobbying for a House bill that would eliminate gun-free school zones.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Democratic aides said that Republicans approached to co-sponsor a background check bill cited Mr. Pratt’s group as their biggest impediment, fearing retribution. Senator Dean Heller of Nevada worried about the group, aides say; Mr. Pratt said his group was concerned about Mr. Heller. “He’s been kind of wandering around,” Mr. Pratt said.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Heller said that the group “is a group that I respect,” adding that he believed Congress “should expand background checks,” but had declined to support a bill with Mr. Schumer. His spokesman did not respond to more requests about Mr. Heller’s relationship with the group.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Gun Owners of America was formed in 1975 partly in response to the 1968 gun control act — “to oppose the government,” Mr. Pratt said.</b> The N.R.A., he said, was founded to work with the government on issues like marksmanship. (The N.R.A. declined to comment.)</div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Pratt cited the groups’ positions on a 2007 bill that limited gun access to members of the military with post-traumatic stress disorder, which his group opposed and the N.R.A. did not.</div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Pratt, 70, has long been active in Republican politics. He served in the Virginia legislature in the 1980s, and he worked briefly for Patrick J. Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign.</div><div>
</div><div>His group’s positions tend to veer farther right than those of the N.R.A. Instead of expanding background checks, he would like to unravel the existing ones on gun purchases, fearing they will lead to a national gun registry. “We have opposed them from the beginning,” he said, “because there will be mission creep.”</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Pratt’s group also opposes penalties for so-called straw purchases, or sales made to people who intend to sell or give the weapon to a person who cannot pass a background check. “There would not be straw purchasing if there were no limits on who can carry a gun,” he said.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Kitty Bennett contributed research.</div><div>
</div><div>A version of this article appears in print on April 4, 2013, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Upstart Group Pushes Harder Than the N.R.A.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The&nbsp;<b>Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975</b>&nbsp;was passed by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia" class="mw-redirect" title="District of Columbia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">District of Columbia</a>&nbsp;city&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_District_of_Columbia" title="Council of the District of Columbia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">council</a>&nbsp;on September 24, 1976.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;The law banned residents from owning&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handgun" title="Handgun" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">handguns</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_firearm" title="Automatic firearm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">automatic firearms</a>, or high-capacity&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-automatic_firearm" title="Semi-automatic firearm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">semi-automatic firearms</a>, as well as prohibited possession of unregistered&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm" title="Firearm" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">firearms</a>. Exceptions to the ban were allowed for&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_officer" title="Police officer" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">police officers</a>&nbsp;and guns registered before 1976. The law also required firearms kept in the home to be "unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_lock" class="mw-redirect" title="Trigger lock" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">trigger lock</a>&nbsp;or similar device";<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup>&nbsp;this was deemed to be a prohibition on the use of firearms for self-defense in the home.<sup id="cite_ref-dc-circuit-opinion_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-dc-circuit-opinion-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;On June 26, 2008, in the historic case of&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v.Heller" title="District of Columbia v. Heller" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">District of Columbia v. Heller</a></i>, the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States" title="Supreme Court of the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Supreme Court of the United States</a>&nbsp;determined that the ban and trigger lock provisions violate the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" title="Second Amendment to the United States Constitution" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Second Amendment</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;" xmlns:xml="xml"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><h2 style="background: none; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; 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cursor: pointer;">hide</a>]&nbsp;</span></div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#Constitutionality" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Constitutionality</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">See also</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">External links</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li></ul></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Constitutionality">Constitutionality</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Constitutionality" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,D.C." title="Washington, D.C." style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Washington, D.C.</a>'s gun laws are considered by many to be the strictest in the United States, and have been challenged as infringing on&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutionality" title="Constitutionality" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">constitutional</a>&nbsp;rights protected by the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution" title="United States Constitution" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Constitution</a>'s&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" title="Second Amendment to the United States Constitution" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Second Amendment</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup>&nbsp;On March 9, 2007, portions of the law were declared unconstitutional by a three-judge panel of the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals" class="mw-redirect" title="United States Court of Appeals" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Court of Appeals</a>, in a 2-1 ruling in the case&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v.Heller" title="District of Columbia v. Heller" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">District of Columbia v. Heller</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup>&nbsp;After the District's application for a rehearing&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_banc" title="En banc" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">en banc</a>&nbsp;was denied, it appealed the decision to the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States" title="Supreme Court of the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Supreme Court of the United States</a>. On June 26, 2008, the Court determined that the ban and trigger lock provision violate the Second Amendment.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup>&nbsp;However, the ruling does not prohibit all forms of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics" class="mw-redirect" title="Gun politics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">gun control</a>; laws requiring firearm registration remain in place as does the city's&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_weapon" title="Assault weapon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">assault weapon</a>&nbsp;ban.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="See_also">See also</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: See also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Washington,D.C." title="Crime in Washington, D.C." style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Crime in Washington, D.C.</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_home_rule" title="District of Columbia home rule" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">District of Columbia home rule</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v.Heller" title="District of Columbia v. Heller" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">District of Columbia v. Heller</font></a></i></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_the_United_States" title="Gun politics in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Gun politics in the United States</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v.District_of_Columbia" title="Warren v. District of Columbia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Warren v. District of Columbia</font></a></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="External_links">External links</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Firearms_Control_Regulations_Act_of_1975&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: External links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" color="color" rgb="rgb" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/stream/firearmscontrol00colugoog/firearmscontrol00colugoog_djvu.txt" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Text of the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975</font></a></li></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The&nbsp;<b>Mulford Act</b>&nbsp;was a 1967&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Legislature" title="California State Legislature" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California</a>&nbsp;bill that repealed a law allowing&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_carry_in_the_United_States" title="Open carry in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">public carrying</a>&nbsp;of loaded firearms. Named after&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Republican_Party" title="California Republican Party" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Republican</a>&nbsp;assemblyman&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Mulford" title="Don Mulford" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Don Mulford</a>, the bill was crafted in response to members of the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party" title="Black Panther Party" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Black Panther Party</a>&nbsp;who were conducting armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods while they were conducting what would later be termed&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copwatching" class="mw-redirect" title="Copwatching" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">copwatching</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;They garnered national attention after the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panthers" class="mw-redirect" title="Black Panthers" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Black Panthers</a>&nbsp;marched bearing arms upon the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Capitol" title="California State Capitol" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California State Capitol</a>&nbsp;to protest the bill.<sup id="cite_ref-huey_newton_2-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-huey_newton-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-black_panthers_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-black_panthers-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">AB-1591 was authored by&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Mulford" title="Don Mulford" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Don Mulford</a>&nbsp;(R) from Oakland,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T.Knox" title="John T. Knox" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">John T. Knox</a>&nbsp;(D) from Richmond,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J.Karabian" title="Walter J. Karabian" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Walter J. Karabian</a>&nbsp;(D) from Monterey Park,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sieroty" title="Alan Sieroty" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Alan Sieroty</a>&nbsp;(D) from Los Angeles, and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M.Ketchum" title="William M. Ketchum" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">William M. Ketchum</a>&nbsp;(R) from Bakersfield,<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup>&nbsp;it passed both Assembly (controlled by Democrats 42:38) and Senate (split 20:20) and was signed by Governor&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan" title="Ronald Reagan" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ronald Reagan</a>&nbsp;on July 28. The law banned the carrying of loaded weapons in public.&nbsp;<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Both Republicans and Democrats in California supported increased gun control. Governor Ronald Reagan, who was coincidentally present on the capitol lawn when the protesters arrived, later commented that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons" and that guns were a "ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will." In a later press conference, Reagan added that the Mulford Act "would work no hardship on the honest citizen."<sup id="cite_ref-Adam_Winkler_7-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_note-Adam_Winkler-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bill was signed by Reagan and became&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Penal_Code" title="California Penal Code" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California penal code</a>&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=25001-26000&file=25850" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">25850</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=142-181" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">171c</a>.</font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="See_also">See also</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mulford_Act&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: See also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><div role="navigation" aria-label="Portals" class="noprint portal plainlist tright" style="clear: right; float: right; margin: 0.5em 0px 0.5em 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);"><ul style="list-style: none none; margin: 0px; padding: 0.1em; line-height: 13.09px; display: table; box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 175px; background: rgb(249, 249, 249); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0px; display: table-row;"><span style="display: table-cell; padding: 0.2em; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="flag" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Flag_of_California.svg/32px-Flag_of_California.svg.png" width="32" height="21" class="noviewer thumbborder" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Flag_of_California.svg/48px-Flag_of_California.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Flag_of_California.svg/64px-Flag_of_California.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="600" style="border: 1px solid rgb(234, 236, 240); vertical-align: middle;" /></font></span><span style="display: table-cell; padding: 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; vertical-align: middle;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:California" title="Portal:California" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">California portal</font></a></span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0px; display: table-row;"><span style="display: table-cell; padding: 0.2em; vertical-align: middle; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Johnny-automatic-scales-of-justice.svg/32px-Johnny-automatic-scales-of-justice.svg.png" width="32" height="28" class="noviewer" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Johnny-automatic-scales-of-justice.svg/48px-Johnny-automatic-scales-of-justice.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Johnny-automatic-scales-of-justice.svg/64px-Johnny-automatic-scales-of-justice.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="512" data-file-height="442" style="border: 0px; 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background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">War on drugs</font></a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986" title="Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986</font></a></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="References">References</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mulford_Act&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><div class="reflist" style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); list-style-type: decimal;"><div class="mw-references-wrap"><ol class="references" style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 3.2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: inherit;"><li id="cite_note-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation journal" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Simonson, Jocelyn.&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4318&context=californialawreview" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Copwatching"</a>.&nbsp;<i>California Law Review</i>.&nbsp;<b>104</b>&nbsp;(2): 408.&nbsp;<q style="quotes: " apos="apos">Organized copwatching groups emerged as early as the 1960s in urban areas in the United States when the Black Panthers famously patrolled city streets with firearms and cameras, and other civil rights organizations conducted unarmed patrols in groups.</q></cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=California+Law+Review&rft.atitle=Copwatching&rft.volume=104&rft.issue=2&rft.pages=408&rft.aulast=Simonson&rft.aufirst=Jocelyn&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.berkeley.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D4318%26context%3Dcalifornialawreview&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-huey_newton-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-huey_newton_2-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_capitolmarch.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"From "A Huey P. Newton Story<span style="padding-right: 0.2em;">"</span>"</a><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">2010-07-07</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=From+%22A+Huey+P.+Newton+Story%22&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fhueypnewton%2Factions%2Factions_capitolmarch.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-black_panthers-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-black_panthers_3-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/_{UG01/barillari/pantherintro.html}" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"How to Stage a Revolution Introduction"</a><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">2010-07-07</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=How+to+Stage+a+Revolution+Introduction&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fxroads.virginia.edu%2F_{UG01%2Fbarillari%2Fpantherintro.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act}" class="Z3988"><sup class="noprint Inline-Template" style="line-height: 1; white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources" title="Wikipedia:Verifiability" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span title="The material near this tag may rely on a self-published source. (February 2016)">self-published source?</span></a></i>]</sup></span></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation book" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Seale, Bobby.&nbsp;<i>Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton</i>&nbsp;(1991 ed.). Black Classic Press. pp.&nbsp;153–166.&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0933121300" title="Special:BookSources/978-0933121300" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-0933121300</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Seize+the+Time%3A+The+Story+of+the+Black+Panther+Party+and+Huey+P.+Newton&rft.pages=153-166&rft.edition=1991&rft.pub=Black+Classic+Press&rft.isbn=978-0933121300&rft.aulast=Seale&rft.aufirst=Bobby&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/clerk.assembly.ca.gov/files/archive/FinalHistory/1967/Volumes/67ahr.PDF" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: url(" upload.wikimedia.org="upload.wikimedia.org" wikipedia="wikipedia" commons="commons" icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif="Icons-mini-file_acrobat.gif" right="right" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" word-wrap="word-wrap" break-word="break-word">http://clerk.assembly.ca.gov/sites/clerk.assembly.ca.gov/files/archive/FinalHistory/1967/Volumes/67ahr.PDF</a></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Arica L. Coleman (July 31, 2016).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://time.com/4431356/nra-gun-control-history" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"When the NRA Supported Gun Control"</a>.&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIME.com" class="mw-redirect" title="TIME.com" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">TIME.com</a></i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved&nbsp;<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">12 October</span>&nbsp;2017</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=TIME.com&rft.atitle=When+the+NRA+Supported+Gun+Control&rft.date=2016-07-31&rft.au=Arica+L.+Coleman&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F4431356%2Fnra-gun-control-history&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li><li id="cite_note-Adam_Winkler-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-cite-backlink" style="user-select: none;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act#cite_ref-Adam_Winkler_7-0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><span class="cite-accessibility-label" style="user-select: none; top: -99999px; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); overflow: hidden; position: absolute !important; padding: 0px !important; border: 0px !important; height: 1px !important; width: 1px !important;">Jump up</span>^{</a></b></span>&nbsp;}<span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Winkler, Adam (September 2011).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"The Secret History of Guns"</a>.&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic" title="The Atlantic" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Atlantic</a></i>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=unknown&rft.jtitle=The+Atlantic&rft.atitle=The+Secret+History+of+Guns&rft.date=2011-09&rft.aulast=Winkler&rft.aufirst=Adam&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fmagazine%2Farchive%2F2011%2F09%2Fthe-secret-history-of-guns%2F308608%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></span></font></li></ol></div></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Further_reading">Further reading</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mulford_Act&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Further reading" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%225%22" height="%2213%22%3E" ccircle="Ccircle" cx="%222.5%22" cy="%229.5%22" r="%222.5%22" fill="%22%2300528c%22/%3E" c="C" e="E" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="citation journal" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Leonardatos, Cynthia Deitle (1999). "California's Attempts to Disarm the Black Panthers".&nbsp;<i>San Diego Law Review</i>.&nbsp;<b>36</b>&nbsp;(4): 947.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=San+Diego+Law+Review&rft.atitle=California%27s+Attempts+to+Disarm+the+Black+Panthers&rft.volume=36&rft.issue=4&rft.pages=947&rft.date=1999&rft.aulast=Leonardatos&rft.aufirst=Cynthia+Deitle&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="citation journal" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Hemmens, Craig (July 2000).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/bjcl/vol2/iss1/2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Resisting Unlawful Arrest in Mississippi: Resisting the Modern Trend"</a>.&nbsp;<i>California Criminal Law Review</i>.&nbsp;<b>2</b>&nbsp;(1).&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier" title="Digital object identifier" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">doi</a>:<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://doi.org/10.2139%2Fssrn.235760" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">10.2139/ssrn.235760</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=California+Criminal+Law+Review&rft.atitle=Resisting+Unlawful+Arrest+in+Mississippi%3A+Resisting+the+Modern+Trend&rft.volume=2&rft.issue=1&rft.date=2000-07&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.2139%2Fssrn.235760&rft.aulast=Hemmens&rft.aufirst=Craig&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fscholarship.law.berkeley.edu%2Fbjcl%2Fvol2%2Fiss1%2F2&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><cite class="citation book" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">Hampton, Henry; Fayer, Steve (2011).&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pgGDZ62WrNgC&pg=PA349" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent) right center no-repeat, url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" csvg="Csvg" width="%2212%22" height="%2212%22%3E" cpath="Cpath" fill="%22%23fff%22" stroke="%22%2336c%22" d="%22M9.995" h5.982v10.5h1.5z="h5.982V10.5H1.5z" e="E" h11v5.39l9.427="H11v5.39L9.427" l-1.31-1.31l5.393="l-1.31-1.31L5.393" l-2.69-2.688="l-2.69-2.688" l4.2="L4.2" z="z" l.022="l.022" l8.2="L8.2" l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z="l2.882-2.88-1.85-1.852z" c="C" padding-right="padding-right" px="px" xmlns="%22http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%22" xmlns:data="data">"Birth of the Black Panthers, 1966–1967"</a>.&nbsp;<i>Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s</i>. Random House. pp.&nbsp;349–72.&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ISBN</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-307-57418-3" title="Special:BookSources/978-0-307-57418-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">978-0-307-57418-3</a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Birth+of+the+Black+Panthers%2C+1966%E2%80%931967&rft.btitle=Voices+of+Freedom%3A+An+Oral+History+of+the+Civil+Rights+Movement+from+the+1950s+Through+the+1980s&rft.pages=349-72&rft.pub=Random+House&rft.date=2011&rft.isbn=978-0-307-57418-3&rft.aulast=Hampton&rft.aufirst=Henry&rft.au=Fayer%2C+Steve&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DpgGDZ62WrNgC%26pg%3DPA349&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AMulford+Act" class="Z3988" /></font></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><cite class="citation journal" style="font-style: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sanders, Kindaka (2015). "A Reason to Resist: The Use of Deadly Force in Aiding Victims of Unlawful Police Aggression".&nbsp;<i>San Diego Law Review</i>.&nbsp;<b>52</b>&nbsp;(3): 695–750.</font></cite></li></ul></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox & Friends hosted John Velleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), to argue in favor of concealed weapons laws by dubiously claiming that "crime goes down" when "a state tries to relax concealed carry laws." But according to PolitiFact, crime data shows no "straight-line correlation between states with 'right to carry' laws and crime rates"; moreover, GOA's executive director has been tied to militia groups, white supremacists, and has a history of extremist rhetoric.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Velleco Claims "Crime Goes Down" When "A State Tries To Relax Concealed Carry Laws"</div><div>Velleco: Concealed Weapon Carry Laws Makes "Crime [Go] Down." On the June 20 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Velleco claimed: "Every time a state tries to relax concealed carry laws, we hear the Chicken Littles of the world saying that blood is going to flow in the streets, and it just doesn't happen. In fact, crime doesn't go up, crime goes down, because criminals don't know who is carrying a firearm to defend themselves." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/20/11]</div><div>
</div><div>In Fact, Experts Argue There Is No Link Between Right-To-Carry Laws And Decrease In Crime</div><div>PolitiFact Called Claim That Right-To-Carry Laws Reduce Violent Crime "False." In a February 16 post, PolitiFact evaluated the claim that "violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in areas that prevent it." PolitiFact determined that the claim was "false." From PolitiFact:</div><div>
</div><div>We found the the [sic] states without "right to carry" were spread out across the list, not bunched together at the top. The District of Columbia, which has strict gun control laws, ranked highest for violent crime. The other states ranked as follows: Delaware, No. 5; Maryland, No. 10; Illinois, No. 13; California, No. 17; Massachusetts, No. 18; New York, No. 24; New Jersey, No. 30; Hawaii, No. 36; Wisconsin, No. 39, and Rhode Island, No. 42.</div><div>
</div><div>We also couldn't help noticing that some states with laws that favor gun ownership placed at different points along the list. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence rates state gun laws, so we looked at the 14 states that had the weakest gun laws. Here, we also saw a wide variation in where the states ranked in terms of violent crime: Alaska, No. 6; Louisiana, No. 7; New Mexico, No. 8; Arkansas, No. 11; Oklahoma, No. 12; Missouri, No. 15; Arizona, No. 21; West Virginia, No. 32; Kentucky, No. 38; Montana, No. 41; Idaho, No. 44; Utah, No. 47; North Dakota, No. 48, and South Dakota, No. 49.</div><div>
</div><div>So using the 2009 data, we don't see any evidence that state gun laws correlate with violent crime rates one way or the other, at least not "across the board" as LaPierre suggested in his speech.</div><div>
</div><div>[...]</div><div>
</div><div>We do not find that current crime statistics support this point. Some academics have said trends over time show that "right to carry" laws lower crime rates, but that argument is contested. There's certainly not straight-line correlation between states with "right to carry" laws and crime rates. LaPierre made it sound like the data clearly supported his view. They don't. We rate his statement False. [PolitiFact, 2/16/11]</div><div>
</div><div>John Donohue: Empirical Evidence Refutes Claim That Right-To-Carry Laws Would Reduce Crime. In a New York Times post, Stanford Law professor John Donohue wrote: "[W]hile some early studies by John Lott and others suggested that state policies providing greater freedom to carry guns would reduce crime, empirical evidence refutes this view. Wise gun policy and individual consumer choice to carry weapons involves weighing competing probabilities." [New York Times, 1/11/11]</div><div>
</div><div>Donohue's 2002 Study Concludes: "No Longer Can Any Plausible Case Be Made On Statistical Grounds That Shall-Issue Laws Are Likely To Reduce Crime For All Or Even Most States." In a 2002 study titled, "Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis," Donohue and Yale Law professor Ian Ayres concluded, "No longer can any plausible case be made on statistical grounds that shall-issue laws are likely to reduce crime for all or even most states." Further, Donohue and Ayres stated:</div><div>
</div><div>While we do not want to overstate the strength of the conclusions that can be drawn from the extremely variable results emerging from the statistical analysis, if anything, there is stronger evidence for the conclusion that these laws increase crime than there is for the conclusion that they decrease it. [Donohue and Ayres, "Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis," 10/02]</div><div>
</div><div>NRC Committee: "Not Possible To Determine ... Causal Link Between The Passage Of Right-To-Carry Laws And Crime Rates." In 2004, a National Research Council (NRC) committee released a report on right-to-carry laws and their effects on crime. The committee concluded that "it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates." From the committee's conclusion:</div><div>
</div><div>The literature on right-to-carry laws summarized in this chapter has obtained conflicting estimates of their effects on crime. Estimation results have proven to be very sensitive to the precise specification used and time period examined. The initial model specification, when extended to new data, does not show evidence that passage of right-to-carry laws reduces crime. The estimated effects are highly sensitive to seemingly minor changes in the model specification and control variables. No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates. [Firearms and Violence, Committee on Law and Justice, National Research Council, 2004]</div><div>
</div><div>2010 Study Concurs With NRC Committee's Conclusion But Added That Panel Data Suggests "RTC Laws Likely Increase The Rate Of Aggravated Assault." In a June 2010 study re-examining the NRC committee's analysis on the effects that right-to-carry laws on crime rates, Donohue and professors Abhay Aneja and Alex Zhang stated that "we agree with the [NRC] committee's cautious final judgment on the effects of RTC laws," but that "[i]f one had to make judgments based on panel data models of the type used in the NRC report, one would have to conclude that RTC laws likely increase the rate of aggravated assault." From the conclusion:</div><div>
</div><div>Finally, despite our belief that the NRC's analysis was imperfect in certain ways, we agree with the committee's cautious final judgment on the effects of RTC laws: "with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates. Our results here further underscore the sensitivity of guns-crime estimates to modeling decisions.If one had to make judgments based on panel data models of the type used in the NRC report, one would have to conclude that RTC laws likely increase the rate of aggravated assault. Further research will be needed to see if this conclusion survives as more data and better methodologies are employed to estimate the impact of RTC laws on crime. ["The Impact of Right-to-Carry Laws and the NRC Report: Lessons for the Empirical Evaluation of Law and Policy," 6/29/10]</div><div>
</div><div>Study Finds "Weak Evidence That RTC Laws Increase Or Decrease The Number Of Public Mass Shootings." A November 2002 study by criminologists Grant Duwe, Tomislav Kovandzic, and Carlisle Moody analyzing 25 right-to-carry laws found "virtually no suport for the hypothesis that the laws increase or reduce the number of mass public shootings." ["The Impact of Right-To-Carry Concealed Firearm Laws on Mass Public Shootings," 11/02]</div><div>
</div><div>Criminologist Citing 2002 Study: "[T]he Effects Of RTC Laws Are Negligible, Neither Encouraging Nor Discouraging Mass Murder." In a January 12 post on The Boston Globe's Crime & Punishment blog, James Alan Fox, professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern University, cited the 2002 study by Duwe, Kovandzic, and Moody and wrote:</div><div>
</div><div>[T]he effectiveness of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass murder is an empirical question, one that has been examined thoroughly by criminologists Grant Duwe, Tomislav Kovandzic, and Carlisle Moody. Using fairly sophisticated analytic techniques, they assessed the extent to which enactment of various RTC laws in 25 states across the country were associated with any change in the incidence of public mass shootings in the years from 1977 through 1999. Based on their estimates, the effects of RTC laws are negligible, neither encouraging nor discouraging mass murder. [Boston Globe's Crime & Punishment blog, 1/12/11]</div><div>
</div><div>Daniel Webster: "Permissive Right-To-Carry Laws Could Make It Harder For Police ... To Deter Gun Violence." In a New York Times post, Daniel Webster, co-director at the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote:</div><div>
</div><div>[L]aws prohibiting gun-carrying are an important tool for police to use to suppress the practice in so-called hot spots for shootings. Police units focused on deterring illegal gun-carrying have been the most consistently effective approach to reducing gun violence. Permissive right-to-carry laws could make it harder for police to use this law to deter gun violence. [The New York Times, 1/11/11]</div><div>
</div><div>Webster: "Permissive Right-To-Carry Laws" May Actually Increase Crime. In his New York Times post, Webster also wrote:</div><div>
</div><div>When mass shootings occur, many think that, if only one of the citizens at the site had access to a firearm, they could have taken the gunman out and saved lives. That's an odd argument to make in a state where probably more people carry guns than in any other state.</div><div>
</div><div>While you can find an example to prove this point, it begs the question of whether it's sound public policy to allow anyone who is not prohibited by our weak gun laws to carry firearms anywhere they choose. It is not clear that permissive right-to-carry laws haven't increased violence. There have been numerous studies of these laws, many of which have substantial flaws. The best study was done by Ian Ayres and John Donohue, law professors at Yale and Stanford, respectively, and disaggregates the effects for each state and type of crime.</div><div>
</div><div>The estimates from their best models show right-to-carry laws associated with increases in 7 of 9 crimes studied, with the largest effect (+9 percent) being the crime many researchers would have hypothesized would increase -- aggravated assaults. [The New York Times, 1/11/11]</div><div>
</div><div>GOA's Executive Director Was Allegedly Tied To "Professional Racists," Militias</div><div>GOA's Executive Director Was Reportedly Fired From Buchanan's '96 Campaign For Ties To "Professional Racists." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), GOA's executive director, Larry Pratt, "hit the headlines in a big way when his associations with [white supremacist minister Pete] Peters and other professional racists were revealed, convincing arch-conservative Pat Buchanan to eject him as a national co-chair of Buchanan's 1996 presidential campaign." [SPLC, Summer 2001]</div><div>
</div><div>Pratt Was A Contributing Editor To Anti-Semitic Group's Periodical. The SPLC further reported that "[t]he same year, it emerged that Pratt was a contributing editor to a periodical of the anti-Semitic United Sovereigns of America, and that his GOA had donated money to a white supremacist attorney's group." [SPLC, Summer 2001]</div><div>
</div><div>Pratt Reportedly "Advocated" For "Militias In The United States." From the SPLC:</div><div>
</div><div>In 1990, Pratt wrote a book, Armed People Victorious, based on his study of "citizen defense patrols" used in Guatemala and the Philippines against Communist rebels -- patrols that came to be known as death squads for their murderous brutality.</div><div>
</div><div>Picturing these groups in rosy terms, Pratt advocated similar militias in the United States -- an idea that finally caught on when he was invited for a meeting of 160 extremists, including many famous white supremacists, in 1992.</div><div>
</div><div>It was at that meeting, hosted in Colorado by white supremacist minister Pete Peters, that the contours of the militia movement were laid out. [SPLC, Summer 2001]</div><div>
</div><div>GOA's Pratt: "All The Gun Laws That Are On The Books Are Bad Laws "</div><div>Pratt: "All The Gun Laws That Are On The Books Are Bad Laws." From an interview with John Birch Society president John McManus:</div><div>
</div><div>McMANUS: Are there any bad laws currently on the books that you're worrying about?</div><div>
</div><div>PRATT: Well, all the gun laws that are on the books are bad laws. [The John Birch Society, Self Defense with GOA Larry Pratt, uploaded 5/7/08]</div><div>
</div><div>Pratt: Laws Prohibiting Gun Ownership By The Dangerously Mentally Ill Are "Dictatorial," Like "Nazi Germany." On the September 24, 2009, edition of MSNBC's The Ed Show, Pratt told host Ed Schultz that legislation denying firearms to the dangerously mentally ill was "a dictatorial power" which "they use[d] ... in Nazi Germany." From MSNBC's The Ed Show:</div><div>
</div><div>SCHULTZ: I do believe psychiatrists and psychologists should have the power to deny -- you know, you shouldn't own a firearm. I mean, I do believe that.</div><div>
</div><div>PRATT: You know, that's a dictatorial power --</div><div>
</div><div>SCHULTZ: No, it's not.</div><div>
</div><div>PRATT: They used that in Nazi Germany. They used that in [the] Soviet Union. They use it in Cuba. That doesn't have any place in America. [MSNBC, The Ed Show, 9/24/09 via Political Correction]</div><div>
</div><div>Velleco Suggested That Gun Owners Should Be Able To Carry Guns At Presidential Events. From the August 19, 2009, edition of MSNBC's Hardball:</div><div>
</div><div>CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): Suppose the president has a town hall meeting with 10,000 people at some high school gym or college field house. Should everybody in the place be allowed to have a gun? Everybody in the place that the president's speaking.</div><div>
</div><div>VELLECO: If it's legal to carry guns in that location, absolutely.</div><div>
</div><div>MATTHEWS: So, it's fine with you?</div><div>
</div><div>VELLECO: Fine with -- yeah. [MSNBC's Hardball, 8/19/09 via Crooks and Liars]</div><div>
</div><div>GOA Has Opposed Background Checks And Even The Act Of Showing Identification. At the April 19, 2010, Open Carry March, Pratt told the audience that people "<b>[s]houldn't have to have any ID to buy a gun anywhere.</b> That's something we're going to be taking care of." [Open Carry March, 4/19/10 via Political Correction]</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/nra-national-spokeswoman-dana-loesch-lied-right-parkland-victims-face">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/nra-national-spokeswoman-dana-loesch-lied-right-parkland-victims-face</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gonzalez, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had a simple question for National Rifle Association (NRA) national spokesperson Dana Loesch during CNN’s gun violence town hall: “Do you believe that it should be harder to obtain the semi-automatic ... weapons and the modifications for these weapons to make them fully automatic, like bump stocks?”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Instead of providing the NRA’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/06/nra-breaks-silence-enlisting-fox-news-its-attempt-deceive-america/218154" style="text-decoration-line: none;">well established</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/21/trump-pushes-for-tighter-gun-rules-backed-by-nra-after-florida-shooting.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">positions</a>&nbsp;on these questions, Loesch gave a series of dishonest explanations that sought to hide the NRA’s fringe absolutism against gun regulation.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After some niceties, Loesch purported to answer Gonzalez's question by saying, “I don't believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm, ever. I do not think that he should have gotten his hands on any kind of weapon. That's number one.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Loesch, “This individual was nuts and I, nor the millions of people that I represent as a part of this organization, that I'm here speaking for, none of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who are a danger to others, getting their hands on a firearm.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loesch was lying.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA opposes adding prohibiting categories to the gun background check system that could have included the Stoneman Douglas gunman. As the NRA’s website&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nraila.org/get-the-facts/background-checks-nics/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">states</a>, “NRA opposes expanding firearm background check systems, because background checks don’t stop criminals from getting firearms.” It also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/02/16/586615981/gun-violence-protective-orders-see-renewed-interest-after-florida-shooting" style="text-decoration-line: none;">opposes</a>&nbsp;a policy called a “<a href="https://www.courts.ca.gov/33961.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Gun Violence Restraining Order</a>” or a “<a href="https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/02/red-flag-laws-draw-more-bipartisan-support-after-parkland.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Red Flag</a>” law that has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-law-analysis/gun-restraining-order-might-have-thwarted-florida-shooting-experts-idUSKCN1FZ30X" style="text-decoration-line: none;">widely cited as a policy&nbsp;</a>that could have stopped the gunman from having access to firearms. These laws allow family members and law enforcement to petition courts to temporarily remove people’s access to firearms who are a danger to themselves or others.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loesch’s dishonesty didn’t stop with that claim. Moments later, while talking about the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), Loesch said, “It is not federal law for states to report convictions to the NICS system. It's not federally mandated.” Loesch also argued that the states can convict a person, they "can adjudicate the mentally unfit," but "if a state does not report it to the National Crime Information Center, when you run that form, this individual -- this madman passed a background check." (NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre also used&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/vvw3pHiWUfQ?t=19m55s" style="text-decoration-line: none;">this talking point</a>&nbsp;in his February 22 speech at CPAC.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What Loesch failed to mention is that states can’t be required to report disqualifying records because of the outcome of a 1997&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/01/08/new-nra-lie-we-were-responsible-for-creating-th/207861" style="text-decoration-line: none;">NRA-backed</a>&nbsp;lawsuit&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1996/95-1478" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><em>Printz v. United States</em></a><em>.</em></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawsuit was the NRA’s attempt to invalidate&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oq39ykAGVYQC&pg=PT77&lpg=PT77&dq=nra+the+whole+statute+must+be+voided&source=bl&ots=469buxBPBb&sig=2jEf1_7_KHB4LNTe-cBGl-sRL7Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ7rLUu5rKAhVGVT4KHSIGAU4Q6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=nra%20the%20whole%20statute%20must%20be%20voided&f=false" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the entire</a>&nbsp;national background check system in court before it could be implemented. While the system eventually went into effect, the outcome of&nbsp;<em>Printz</em>&nbsp;damaged its effectiveness, as the Supreme Court&nbsp;ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of the NRA’s argument that requiring states to perform background checks for a federal system violated the 10th Amendment.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ruling also had implications on whether states can be required to submit disqualifying records into the background check system. As the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence&nbsp;<a href="https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/nics-reporting-procedures/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">explains</a>, “Federal law cannot require states to make information identifying people ineligible to possess firearms available to the federal or state agencies that perform background checks” because “case law suggests that a federal statute requiring states to disclose records to the FBI would violate the Tenth Amendment” due to the&nbsp;<em>Printz</em>&nbsp;ruling.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So far, none of Loesch’s answers were actually about semi-automatic weapons or bump stocks. Gonzalez then interceded to say, “I think I'm gonna interrupt you real quick and remind you that the question is actually, do you believe it should be harder to obtain these semi-automatic weapons and modifications to make them fully automatic, such as bump stocks?”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loesch didn’t mention semi-automatic weapons, but offered some muddled comments about bump stocks and said, “So, that answers your question.” (The organization has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/06/nra-breaks-silence-enlisting-fox-news-its-attempt-deceive-america/218154" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a deceitful position</a>&nbsp;on the issue that decreases the chances they will be eventually banned.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA had a responsibility to offer straightforward, honest statements about gun policy at CNN’s gun violence town hall, but instead what Loesch offered were lies and sp</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">---</font></p></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>