GRPC 2016: Media Wants to Isolate Gun Owners; Elections Matter

By Dave Workman | Senior Editor

America’s mainstream press ignores surveys that show gun ownership is up and only pays attention to surveys that suggest it is declining because “they want to make gun owners feel isolated, that they are somehow different.”

So said veteran researcher John Lott, founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of several books including his recently-released The War on Guns. Lott was one of the highlight speakers during the 31st annual Gun Rights Policy Conference in Tampa. He was among more than 75 speakers to grace the stage during the two-day event that was big on politics and networking.

Lott’s afternoon presentation came after several panels had discussed such topics as federal and state legislative affairs, 3D printing, the Second Amendment doctrine, global gun control, legal action and the media.

According to Lott, the people most likely to benefit from gun ownership are the greatest victims of gun control policies. The reason is because gun control typically involves a price, and poor or low-income people cannot afford the expenses associated with gun ownership, especially in places like Washington, DC, or Chicago.

When Lott suggested that Colorado lawmakers exempt people below the poverty level from the costs of gun background checks to transfer firearms, all but two Democrats opposed the idea, he recalled. For example, he said that in the District of Columbia, where the 2008 Heller ruling nullified the handgun ban as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, regulations put in place over handgun ownership requirements ultimately make the cost to register a handgun in the District at more than $800.

He noted that the next president will select possibly two or more Supreme Court justices, and because of that, the future of the Second Amendment hangs in the balance.

According to Lott, another favorite thing among anti-gunners is the background check. After a series of public shootings, he said, President Barack Obama consistently advocated for background checks. However, Lott challenged the press to ask the president if he could name a single such mass shooting incident that would have been prevented, had a universal background check law been in place. Reporters haven’t asked, and even if they did, the president would be unable to name one, Lott asserted.

Ironically, on the eve of the conference, a gunman opened fire at a shopping mall in Washington State, killing five people. The suspect, a legal resident alien, used a .22-caliber semi-auto rifle, which he apparently stole from his step-father. There was no background check involved in that acquisition.

Gottlieb Opens with Facts

The conference opened with a presentation by Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA). He told the audience that Democrat Hillary Clinton wants to turn the Second Amendment into a regulated government privilege.

He noted crime data from the FBI that showed rifles of any kind are used in a fraction of homicides annually in the United States. Gottlieb also alluded to survey results from the National Association of Chiefs of Police that show nearly 88 percent of the respondents think that anyone who has a clean record should be able to buy a firearm for sport or self-defense, and 86.4 percent support national concealed carry recognition.

Gottlieb told the audience about the stark contrasts between the Democrat and Republican party platforms on gun control versus gun rights. He accused Democrats of giving mere “lip service’ to the Second Amendment, while Republicans went into great detail about the importance of gun rights.

He also noted that there are now more than 14.5 million Americans with concealed carry licenses and permits, and the number keeps going up.

Gottlieb’s presentation was literally straight out of TGM’s October issue. His bylined article was the lead story in that issue.

This year’s opening session was moderated by nationally-syndicated radio host Mark Walters. He noted to the audience of gun owners that “This is probably the safest hotel ballroom in America right now.”

Following Gottlieb’s remarks, Linda Walker, a member of the National Rifle Association’s Board of Directors discussed that organization’s endorsement of GOP nominee Donald Trump. Walker began her talk by explaining that she was not looking for a cause, but the cause of gun rights found her. She told the audience that the stakes in the November election “could not be higher.’

Reminding the crowd that Clinton has said the Supreme Court was wrong on the Second Amendment, and that the NRA is the enemy she is most proud of, Walker noted that she has two sons serving in the military and she does not want Clinton to become their commander-in-chief.

She said “all of us must do all we can to defeat her and elect Donald Trump.”

Walker also reminded people that the election is about more than just the White House. Warning that anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg has targeted several seats in the US Senate, she said a Democrat takeover of the upper house of Congress would put anti-gun Sen. Charles Schumer in charge as Senate majority leader.

Federal Affairs Briefing

Jeff Knox with the Firearms Coalition led the federal affairs panel briefing, telling the assembly that there is much work to do and that it is too easy to become negative. He cautioned against separating electoral politics from legislative policies, because at least part of the legislative agenda should be geared toward electoral politics.

He pointed to three pieces of legislation that he would like to see passed. One would remove suppressors from the 1934 Federal Firearms Act, and another would create national concealed carry reciprocity. He acknowledged that some people oppose national reciprocity.

A third piece of legislation would replace the words “sporting purposes” in the 1968 gun control act to “lawful purposes.”

He was followed by Larry Pratt, executive director emeritus of Gun Owners of America. Pratt told the crowd that one of the best things to do at the federal level is call out hypocrisy. He said Hillary Clinton should disarm her Secret Service detail before she argues that private citizens should be disarmed.

The issue of constitutional carry is getting more attention with about a dozen states now recognizing that one needn’t have a permit to carry. Pratt said people on military bases should be allowed to carry, and if not, the White House security detail should not be armed.

As for reciprocity, he said that if his Virginia driver’s license is recognized in Florida, so should his Virginia carry license.

Rounding out the panel, CCRKBA legislative director Joe Waldron estimated there are about 80 million gun owners in this country but only about 7 or 8 million belong to gun rights organizations.

“We are carrying the weight of nine people on our shoulders,” he said. “If every gun owner was at least a member (of some group) we could write our own ticket in Washington, DC.”

He urged people to use telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and letters to their legislators. Gun owners may not have a lot of money but they have a lot of votes collectively. Votes win elections.

He does a monthly column in Point Blank, a CCRKBA publication, which is called the “Citizen Action Project.” If people contact their legislators once each month, soon those lawmakers will know you by name.

“You are the gun lobby,” he said, “all of us. And it’s going to take all of us working together to prevail.”

State legislative briefing

The first of two state legislative affairs briefings came next, with New York attorney Paloma Capanna providing an overview of activities in the Empire State. Calling herself “an activist who happens to be an attorney,” she described how difficult that state’s gun laws have become.

She said the Second Amendment is a modern civil rights movement, and gun owners are up against people who push laws including a “Terrorist Registry.”

“That is the mess we are in and I would urge you to stand up and fight,” she said.

Craig DeLuz with the CalGuns Foundation said “common sense is not that common in California.” However, activists have brought together a coalition of gun owners with other groups to fight some of the more extreme gun control legislation in that state.

Among the measures pushed in California is a gun violence restraining order bill that would have been the first step toward building a “west coast wall” of gun control to include Oregon and Washington.

He asserted that anti-gunner Michael Bloomberg is investing lots of money in the effort, and he further said gun prohibitionists are going after the entire Bill of Rights.

“This is not a battle that is going to stop in California,” he insisted.

DeLuz warned the audience to use their rights or lose them, and to fight every effort to turn rights into privileges regulated by the government.

Dave Kopp, president of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, continued along the same lines, noting that anti-gunners are not going to stop in New York or California. He said Bloomberg is “pouring money” into several anti-gun campaigns.

“I can see it coming,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of great victories but we’ve got this wall of money coming at us.”

He urged activists to fight and warned, “don’t do what you can, do everything that you can.”

Next, Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) warned that “we have Bloomberg money pouring into Illinois” to influence the outcome of the November elections.

That said, he looked ahead to state legislative sessions in 2017, advising the crowd that “You have to work with your legislators.” He was among several speakers who offered tips on writing letters to state lawmakers, advising people to keep the letters short, and admonishing them not to make threats. He also encouraged people to join every gun rights organization they can, and to avoid fighting amongst one another.

“If you allow yourselves to be divided, you will be defeated,” he said.

Alexander Roubian, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, encouraged people to challenge hypocrisy at every opportunity. This stems from an incident in which he confronted Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman over her son’s criminal history during a community forum on “gun violence” this past June. He was ejected from that meeting.

“In New Jersey,” he said, “we have such stupid legislators that they actually propose and support and push laws that are already law.”

He reported that his organization won $100,000 from the state police in a lawsuit aimed at getting a copy of the state investigative manual. The result of this was that the group got the manual and now can hold the agency accountable when it violates its own rules.

He advocated confrontational, aggressive tactics.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, gun owners learned from Jim Wallace, executive director of that state’s Gun Owners Action League, that they are “civil rights lobbyists.” Saying he works “behind enemy lines,” Wallace recounted his visit to a college in the state during which he told students that he was there to discuss civil rights. When one student said he thought the program was about guns, Wallace told him to go to the administration and ask for his tuition back.

His strongest advise was to “change the narrative” and don’t accept questions as they are asked, especially by the media. He also suggested adding a little levity to the situation.

Wallace recalled what the state attorney general did back in July, essentially retroactively enforcing language in the state’s assault weapons ban statute. He said that government is not going to take peoples’ guns, but turn them into felons and thus disqualify them from owning firearms.

“They will find ways,” he warned.

Legislative overview

Splitting the Legislative Affairs briefings, Jake McGuigan senior director of state affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, provided an overview of state legislative activities. He said California is changing the demographics on the West Coast, while in Maryland, hard work in the Legislature resulted in the repeal of the ballistics imaging law.

He said anti-gunners have not gained ground at the federal level, so they have turned their attention to the states and even local governments. Much of this is happening because Bloomberg has been channeling his wealth into gun control efforts at the state level.

According to McGuigan, battles at the state level will continue, especially because of changing demographics, and because gun control lobbying groups “enjoy recycling failed ideas.”

He also warned the audience about the continued attacks by anti-hunters on the use of lead ammunition. Because of the lead problem, even outdoor ranges are under threat, and McGuigan emphasized the importance of not becoming divided over various gun issues.

Returning to state legislative reports, the next panel opened with a presentation by Sean Caranna with Florida Carry explaining how activists were able to block the appointment of an anti-gun legislator to a judge’s post.

“Legislators need to know that they will be held accountable for their actions,” he said.

It is important, he explained, to make sure that lawmakers are made as uncomfortable as possible so they know not to cross their constituents.

Next, Jerry Henry, executive director with Georgia Carry.org, said his group organized because Georgia needed a gun rights organization. Created in 2006, Georgia Carry reiterated advice from others that activists should never make threats when talking to lawmakers. Now, his group pushes legislation and education, and if that doesn’t work, they use litigation.

“You need to know your legislators, they need to recognize you when you’re walking down the street,” he said.

Make letters brief and to the point, he suggested, and stay in contact.

Genie Jennings, a “freelance” Maine gun activist and columnist for Women & Guns, discussed the victories in Maine, and this year’s challenging gun control initiative. However, this year Maine adopted legislation to protect gun ranges, and people who live in federally-financed public housing do not lose their Second Amendment rights.

The range protection legislation protects gun ranges from people who move into an area where a range exists, and then they complain about the noise.

The initiative is similar to one on the ballot in Nevada and that was passed in Washington two years ago. It requires so-called “universal background checks” on ever firearms transfer.

Judge Phil Journey, a former Kansas lawmaker and past president of the Kansas State Rifle Association, suggested that the key is to form coalitions with other organizations. He predicted that anti-gunners will try to undo campus carry legislation, so he also stressed the importance of standing together. He said it is up to all gun owners to make sure that gun organizations all stand together, and he stressed the importance of bringing in the next generation of shooters and activists.

“When we do get power,” he warned, “our biggest problem is we overreach.”

Hawaii State Sen. Sam Slom lives in such an anti-gun state that his main job is to beat back legislation pushed by the other side. He cautioned the crowd about “rack back” legislation that an arrest in any state for misdemeanors or felonies, regardless of conviction or acquittal, that goes on a new federal database. Hawaii is the first state to do that.

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, updated listeners about activities in the Old Dominion. The group came within one vote of passing concealed constitutional carry, and gun owners in Virginia have been able to stop universal background check legislation.

Van Cleave recently sued broadcast journalist Katie Couric over what Virginia activists say was deceptive editing of a documentary she did a few months ago.

He recounted how Virginia activists forced anti-gun Gov. Terry McAuliffe to back away from gun control decisions he made unilaterally, and without authority.

“The battle is on, and we’re fighting it,” he said.

3D Printing and Gun Control

Cody Wilson, president of Defense Distributed and co-developer of the 3D printed Liberator firearm, discussed how America has changed, asserting that the country has drifted closer to socialism.

He explained how the 3D printing project was launched, and why. The effort to create the means to make firearms components and share that information via the Internet created problems with the State Department. He is now engaged in a lawsuit against the State Department over sharing information about making firearms over the Internet.

Wilson has also gotten involved in a project called “Ghost Guns.” This is aimed at showing people how to create 80-percent lowers for modern sporting rifles that they can finish.

He explained how he has been penalized for his activities. He asserted that “our culture is being claimed by this government.” He asked for support and help and expressed worries about how the federal government is increasingly restricting gun rights.

Second Amendment Doctrine

Attorneys Joseph Greenlee and David Kopel offered insight into how the courts are dealing with the Second Amendment. The presentation covered the Heller ruling that defined the Second Amendment as protective of an individual right, and the McDonald ruling that incorporated the Second Amendment to the states.

“The Second Amendment protects arms that are in common use,” he said. “A ban on arms in common use cannot be justified based on the availability of alternative arms.”

That is, handguns cannot be banned simply because long guns are available, he explained. He also said self-defense is part of the Second Amendment.

Arms that are not in common use are not protected by the Second Amendment, while suggesting that the amendment applies only to arms available at the time it was written “borders on the frivolous.”

He also noted that the Second Amendment is not unlimited, so it can be subject to some regulation.

The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right and is not to be treated as a second-class right.
Following the Heller ruling, the lower courts were “flooded with hundreds of cases,” Greenlee said. As a result, the courts developed the “two-part test.” In the first step, the court determines whether the challenged law burdens the founding era’s scope of the right and if not, the analysis ends, but if so, the court moves on to step two, where it applies the appropriate level of scrutiny to see if the government can justify the law, he explained.

The burden of proof is on the government at both steps. Every federal court circuit except the First and Eighth has adopted the test.

Greenlee essentially provided a breakdown of how each court circuit looks at the Second Amendment and what is protected by it, including large capacity magazines. Bans have been upheld in some circuits.

Kopel, with the Independence Institute in Colorado, continued the discussion on case law. He talked at length about how Illinois was forced to adopt a carry permit statute by the US 7th Circuit Court. This was a case where the state’s outright prohibition was categorically unconstitutional.

The right to keep and bear arms extends outside the home, where it might also be necessary to defend ones’ self.

He then discussed other cases around the country, including one in the Fourth Circuit dealing with the right to bear arms outside the home. He said that court’s “willfully obtuse” reading of the Heller ruling suggested that the court didn’t like the Heller ruling at all.

The Fourth Circuit upheld a Maryland statute that requires a “good and substantial” reason to get a carry permit.

Kopel went through a number of cases in the various circuits that shows a division among the circuits on how the right to bear arms is interpreted.

Global gun control

The audience listened intently to a panel on global gun control, with Ted Bromund, senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, leading the discussion. He went through what amounts to an “alphabet soup” of programs and organizations involved in this controversy, and explained why this is a confusing topic.

Having written extensively on the subject, he noted that the Arms Trade Treaty is not a small arms treaty. It does not require individual firearms registration. It is fundamentally about transfers, and a danger of the treaty is that some proponents would like it to one day apply to transfers between individuals on the theory that the firearm might one day cross an international border.

He encouraged the audience to stay engaged, stay factual and remain attentive to what is going on with the treaty.

James Baranowski, manager of External/International Affairs for the NRA talked about the United Nations’ Programme of Action (POA). While there are a handful of gun rights groups involved in the process, there are more than a hundred anti-gun groups.

The original ultimate goal of the POA was to go after private firearms, he said, and now it provides an opportunity for anti-gunners around the world to continue meeting.

“They’re always chipping away and they’ll be around forever,” he cautioned.

He also advised the audience about the “new buzzwords” that are being used: “gender based violence.”

Rick Patterson, vice president of the Small Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) said one of his great disappointments is the international small arms control standards. SAAMI believes in fact-based standards.

But what came out of the process are 33 modules each covering some aspect of gun control. It spans 803 pages, written by gun control proponent groups. While SAAMI submitted an analysis of the modules and suggestions, there was no change to the original document.

He asserted there is a deliberate misrepresentation of standards that are going on. He accused participants of pushing their individual agendas in preference to making meaningful progress on establishing international standards. He called it a squandered opportunity.

Gen. Alan Youngman, executive director of the Defense Small Arms Advisory Committee, said there is a threat of international gun control. He is not worried about “black helicopter” threats, but he is concerned that the UN is working to change international norms and further isolate the US

Youngman urged the audience to stay informed and remain engaged with members of Congress and support the ones who are “fighting the fight.”

He said “the data is on our side.” He urged people to write letters and keep repeating the data to reporters and make sure that data is reported accurately

Firearms Freedom lawsuits

“Winning Firearms Freedom One Lawsuit at a Time” has been the battle cry of the Second Amendment Foundation for several years, and a panel of attorneys provided an update on where legal actions are in terms of protecting the right to keep and bear arms.

Noting that it is sad that firearms freedoms must be won via lawsuits, moderator Mark Walters introduced Paloma Capanna, an attorney for the Second Amendment Coalition in New York. She tipped the audience about an effort to disqualify people from firearms ownership by having them declared or investigated for being mentally incompetent.

The problem has to do with the filling out of medical forms and discrimination against people with some sort of mental illness.

She detailed how this process gets started and how a doctor can report someone who might one day commit a violent act, resulting in confiscation of all firearms and gun permits. It is apparently already happening in New York State and can spread to all 49 other states, she cautioned. She already has one case in progress over this.

Capanna was followed by attorney Eric Friday, an attorney for Florida Carry and the Second Amendment Foundation. He told the crowd that “all it takes is one arrest to ruin somebody’s life.”

Authorities can then use that as an excuse to deny a gun permit or carry license, or at least delay issuing it.

He warned that police officers do not even have to know the law when they enforce it, which is why Second Amendment activists must wage battles in the courts and the legislatures.

He asserted that many judges have decided that laws don’t mean what the legislatures meant them to mean, but only what the judge thinks the law means. Friday encouraged people to contact their lawmakers and stay in touch. That’s how this fight works.

California attorney Don Kilmer reported on failures and successes in the Golden State. One important case is known as Peruta, but after local sheriffs lost the case, the anti-gun state attorney reopened it.

“California is not an anti-gun state, but California’s legislature is an anti-gun legislature,” he said.

Dan Schmutter, an attorney representing the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs. He litigates in New Jersey and New York. His discussion was about defending ordinary citizens who are being arrested and charged for having ordinary pocket knives that might be opened by someone with one hand.The law has been challenged as being unconstitutionally vague under the 14th amendment.

The judge asked that such knives be brought to court for demonstrations of what the problem is. The judge manipulated a WWII gravity knife in open court to understand the difference between a true gravity knife and an ordinary folding knife.

He also reported on a challenge to a New Hampshire law regarding carry permits.

Wrapping up the program was Illinois attorney David Sigale. He led off with a discussion on resident alien licensing. He has waged cases against state laws that include a resident citizenship requirement to obtain a carry permit. He has won cases in several states.

He also discussed the non-resident permit situation in that state, which does not even allow residents of many states to apply for a permit. Illinois only deems Hawaii, West Virginia, New Mexico and South Carolina worthy. Residents of other states need not apply.

Sigale noted that sometimes government is stubborn to the point of costing taxpayers a lot of money with cases that are lost. In other jurisdictions, they have been able to resolve problems without a court proceeding.

He also has cases going in other states relating to foster parents having available firearms for self-defense purposes. In Oklahoma and Illinois, foster parent programs had been discriminating against armed citizens becoming foster parents.

Still, Illinois remains a trouble spot where authorities are stubbornly resisting legal carry reforms.