by Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Arizona gunowners may be looking at what could be a battle royal over gun rights in the Grand Canyon State, and for Dave Kopp, president of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), the forecast seems to have Michael Bloomberg written all over it.
Dave Kopp, president of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, speaking at GRPC in Phoenix.
Kopp, a transplant and computer programmer who told TGM that he is now “basically a lobbyist” for the activist gun rights organization, knows that his fellow Arizona gunowners face a formidable fight if anti-gunners push for a so-called “universal background check” ballot initiative.
As recent history has demonstrated in Washington, Oregon, Nevada and elsewhere, Bloomberg-backed lobbying organizations—Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America – make it appear that gun control has grassroots support.
“We’re the guys with the grassroots support,” he said during a telephone conversation. “We have the public’s ear, but he’s got the money.”
He acknowledged that “people have a hard time conceptualizing” the billions of dollars Bloomberg has, so he tries to translate it into terms average citizens can understand.
“He can afford to buy a million really nice cars,” Kopp observed.
Kopp learned to shoot as a youth from his grandfather, a reserve sheriff’s deputy at the time. When he moved out to Arizona, he recalled getting into politics and joining a group called Brassroots. However, that organization “fell apart” in his words, and he, along with Fred Dahnke, who was recently honored by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms at the September Gun Rights Policy Conference, and other Arizona activists created the AzCDL.
AzCDL’s Fred Dahnke is honored by CCRKBA’s Alan Gottlieb as the Grass Roots Activist of the Year at the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Phoenix.
On board were John Wentling, now the group’s vice president, plus Charles Heller, host of Liberty Watch Radio in Tucson, along with Tom Woodrow and Drake Mitchell.
The organization is patterned after the Virginia Citizens Defense League, and it is activist in every sense. From a small beginning, AzCDL now has almost 13,000 members, Kopp said, and it is registered as a 501(c)(4).
That’s not bad for an organization that does not have an official office.
Over the past few years, he observed, Arizona gunowners have done rather well. The state has Constitutional carry – no license or permit required for open or concealed carry – which was no small accomplishment.
But with a potential confrontation over a well-financed gun control effort that CCRKBA’s Alan Gottlieb was warning about months ago coming possibly in 2016, those gunowners will not be able to rest on their laurels.
