Virginia Shooting Sports Association

The Danville News is reporting today that RPV stands by their ads targeting Boucher and Perriello.

Garren Shipley, RPV director of communications, said in an e-mail statement that pro-gun Democrats like Perriello should have spoken out against Calderon’s speech. He said the ads would stay online until Perriello gives his opinion on Calderon’s call to ban sporting guns.

“I find it hard to believe Rep. Perriello is really arguing that since he wasn’t in the room at the time, he shouldn’t have to stand up for his constituents’ Second Amendment rights,” Shipley said. “It’s easy to be pro-gun when all you have to do is sign a letter. It’s another thing entirely to stand up for the Second Amendment when Speaker Pelosi hasn’t given you a permission slip to oppose her.”




If the point is to get Boucher and Perriello to state publicly that a) Calderon is wrong; and, b)their colleagues were wrong to applaud Calderon's comments, RPV is on a little stronger footing than saying the two Democrats are anti-gun when there is ample evidence to the contrary. The ad does not specifically say either were there, just calls for them to state their position.

I do however stand by my assertion that it is a little too cute by half. In the end, I'm not sure how this helps the GOP candidates running against the incumbents. What you succeed in doing is giving the incumbents an opportunity to further strengthen their pro-rights credentials.

We knew ads like this were coming. After anti-gun Democrats and Obama cabinet members Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano lept to their feet when Mexican President Felipe Calderon called for a renewal of the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban," it would only take the Republican campaign apparatus a matter of days to throw up ads targeting the Democrats that gave El Presidente Calderon a standing ovation. One would have hoped that they would do some research before running ads against members that have a pro-gun record. I guess in this case at least, that was to much to expect.

According to the L.A. Times' Top of the Ticket political blog, the Virginia GOP did exactly that - ran ads against two incumbents who, in the case of at least one - Boucher, has a totally spotless record on guns.

"Voters in the 5th and 9th Districts need to know if Democrat Reps. Rick Boucher and Tom Perriello were among the hundreds of Democrats who leaped to their feet to applaud gun control while a leader from a foreign nation scolded the American people for upholding the rights secured to us by our Constitution," said party Chairman Pat Mullins in announcing the new commercials. Sensing a blockbuster investigative opportunity, the Ticket did its due diligence and called both offices (as requested by the commercials and the party chair) to find out if they gave Calderon a standing O.

The suspense lasted for about 30 seconds. Nope.

Making it even less suspenseful and infinitely more boring, neither congressman were even there.

This just looks bad for an organization that until last November was struggling to look relevant. There have been internal power struggles that led to fundraising woes at RPV over the last few years as well as a long loosing streak in statewide elections dating back to 2001. This was supposed to change when Mr. Mullins became party chairman but it appears that someone decided to be too cute by half in this case.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for using the video of members of Congress that not only applauded, but went out of their way to jump up and down in enthusiastic adulation for a foreign leader that used an opportunity to speak before them to take us to task for not behaving the way the leader thinks we should. I just think you need to make sure the individual being targeted was actually in the room and in fact was one of the participants in the spectacle. All the state GOP has succeeded in doing is looking very bad and giving left wing bloggers a chance to rub it in their face.

The Mayor of Franklin, Virginia, James P. Councill, III, is a member of Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG). This comes as a great surprise to VSSA as Mayor Council's father, J. Paul Council, Jr., was a stalwart supporter of the right to keep and bear arms for many years as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. In addition, the City of Franklin is not your usual urban area, it is a very rural community and I would be willing to bet that many of its citizens own one or more firearms. It is possible that Mayor Councill may, like many former members of MAIG, has been duped into believing that MAIG is not an anti-gun group.

Gun owners in Franklin, Virginia, should immediately contact Mayor Councill and politely inform him that he is part of a group that wants to ban our right to keep and bear arms.

Some useful information to include in your communication is that Bloomberg created MAIG as a front group to lobby Congress to oppose important pro-gun reforms and support new federal gun control restrictions. Let Mayor Council know that some mayors have joined thinking Bloomberg was simply targeting those who acquire firearms illegally but that it is really part of Bloomberg's anti-gun crusade. Also tell Mayor Council that a number of mayors have already quit the anti-gun Bloomberg coalition once they learned the group's true motives and that he should be the next one to do so.

Please call, e-mail, and write, Mayor Council today and ask him to support law-abiding gun owners by publicly disassociating with Michael Bloomberg and "Mayors Against Illegal Guns." Help Mayor Council make the right choice between protecting your Second Amendment rights or continuing to be associated with those who actively oppose and undermine your firearms freedom.

The NSSF Bullet Points reported on Monday:

Since the surge in firearms purchases began in October 2008, if one believes the oft-repeated mantra that "most crime guns are rapidly diverted from retailers to the street via straw purchasers," then there should have been a surge in homicides and other violent crime. There was not. In fact, preliminary figures released by the FBI today show that all forms of violent crime were down in 2009 from 2008, with homicides showing the greatest percentage decline (7.2 percent). These declines in crime came during a year when firearm sales were at historic
highs.Add to this what NRA Board Member Todd Rathner reported in his T. Jeffrey Safari Co. email today:

The NRA Convention in Charlotte NC was excellent. Attendance was over 72,000 a new record for the NRA and a record for the city of Charlotte. With over 72,000 people descending on the city (many of whom had guns) remarkably there was a DECREASE in crime during the time we were there. Hmm I wonder if that was just a coincidence? I doubt it since the same thing happened in Phoenix last year. The phoenix police said the NRA was the most polite, incident free crowd they had ever experienced. All those people and all those guns and not one single bad incident. Anybody surprised?Finally, in 2nd Amendment friendly Virginia, the violent crime rate dropped according to a Virginia State Police report on 2009 Crime in Virginia. The Washington Post Crime Scene Blog posted, by way of an Associated Press report:

...violent crimes fell by 9.7 percent (in 2009) compared to 2008. Motor vehicle and other property thefts and drug offenses also decreased, the report said. Juvenile arrests also declined but adult arrests increased, according to the report. Juvenile arrests for violent crimes and other serious offenses fell by 4.1 percent, according to the report, while arrests for trespassing, bad checks and other lesser offenses dropped by 13.9 percent.

The report did note that adult arrests for serious offenses increased by 3.9 percent, and arrests for less serious offenses rose by 5 percent, while total arrests increased by 2.9 percent, from 339,189 in 2008 to 345,884 in 2009. The bottom line is though that in a state that has very few restrictions on firearms, the violent crime rate dropped at the same time the number of firearms in the Commonwealth increased as well as the number of citizens requesting concealed handgun permits. Good news for Virginians, both those that do and don't own or carry firearms.

The Gander Mountain in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is offering VSSA members special discounts on certain firearms as part of their Gun Show event that is taking place now through Fathers' Day. The Fredericksburg Gander Mountain has several featured firearms at wholesale pricing and below. During this Gun Show event the Fredericksburg store is offering VSSA members additional savings on top of the discounts on firearms that are part of this Gun Show event.

VSSA members will be able to see total savings of up to 15% off the original price on Gun Show firearms only. Firearms that are marked at 10%, VSSA members can take an additional 5% off that price. The savings are only for the firearms in stock and that are advertised for the Gun Show Event.

To take advantage of this special, VSSA members must present their VSSA Membership Card and speak with Eric Patterson, Firearms/Archery/Hunting Department Manager. Some firearms are excluded so please be sure to see Mr. Patterson to be sure the firearm you are interested in is part of the sales event.

For directions to the store, click here.

Not a VSSA member? Join today and you can take advantage of this great sale. You can join online and your membership card will be in the mail in a few days - plenty of time to take advantage of this great special.

On Saturday, House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith won the GOP nod to face NRA endorsed and "A+" rated Representative Rick Boucher. Griffith won the Republican nomination at a Saturday convention where he prevailed on the first ballot over five lesser-known challengers. According to CQ Politics:

Republican officials expect that Griffith will give Boucher one of his closest races in a career in which the Congressman has usually won by overwhelming margins. The National Republican Congressional Committee has included Griffith in the top echelon of its "Young Guns" candidate recruitment program.
Unlike Boucher's previous opponents, Griffith has a voting record, including a great voting record on Second Amendment related issues where he earned an "A+" NRA rating in his 2009 reelection campaign for the House of Delegates.

This should be a very interesting race to watch. With the issue of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms being a draw between the two candidates, look for both to appeal to voters on other issues important in this south west Virginia district.

Virginia 3rd Congressional District Representative Bobby Scott has pledged to the Brady Campaign that he will hold a hearing on legislation to close the so-called gun shop loophole. Scott, who chairs the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Judiciary Committee, pledged to hold the hearing at a recent meeting with Lori Haas, whose daughter, Emily Haas, survived the April 2007 Virginia Tech shootings.

Scott is no friend to gun owners. Holding a hearing on the bill may simply be his way of responding to the emotional plea of those family members who have turned to the anti-rights movement to find closure. , But Scott can count, and he has to know the bill has a snowball's chance of making it out of the House of Representatives. It is even more doubtful that Speaker Pelosi wants a high profile hearing on a gun issue before the election.

I don't for a minute pretend to know what these families are going through but the Brady people are using their grief to advance an agenda. Gun shows played no role in the Virginia Tech shooting. If you have a congressman on the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee of House Judiciary, it would not hurt to give them a call and let them know you oppose attacking gun shows.

Representatives Randy Forbes (VA-4) and Bob Goodlatte (VA-6) , both strong supporters of the Second Amendment, are on the subcommittee in addition to Scott.

The #NRA Freedom Event at the #AnnualMeetings is in full swing and wow what a crowd. It is pretty clear why they decided to d0 away with the annual banquet. This type of venue offers an opportunity for many more people to attend. Tonights keynote speech will be given by talk show host Glenn Beck. I am sure he will have the crowd on their feet. Wayne LaPierre is kicking things off now.

As part of the #AnnualMeetings, bloggers and "new media" writers are sitting down right now with Darren LaSorte, #NRA ILA Manager of Hunting Policy. We are discussing the effect of the growing wolf population in the Rockies and how it is impacting elk and moose populations. We also discussed the bear population in New Jersey. It is vitally important to wildlife that management policies be based on science and not emotion.

Darren also discussed the current movement to pass Right to Hunt amendments in various states. Virginia was one of the first to pass such an amendment in 2000. NRA has been working to pass amendments based on "model" language.

That is the theme of Wayne LaPierre's speech. Part of that sickness is Washington's political class failing to enforce current laws or secure our border. A film clip from the NRANEWS staff detailed how the ranchers on the border are protecting their homes and families because the federal government won't.

Wayne talked about the huge number of illegals crossing the border have a criminal record. He then detailed how Arizona passed their own version of federal law to combat the drug cartel kidnappers and killers that are crossing the border. And the Washington political elites are now attacking Arizona for doing what the elites refuse to do.

Wayne talked about rancher Robert Krentz that was killed on his ranch. He was an NRA member as are members of his family. Wayne introduced them to the crowd.

While immigration is not our issue, LaPierre tied it all together by day selective enforcement of immigration laws is tied by selective enforcement of other criminal laws.

After talking about how selective enforcement of the law has made Albany, NY and California less safe.

The sickness he alluded to in the beginning is how not enforcing the law makes us less safe and less secure.

It's Friday morning at the #NRAAM and the schedule is packed with things to do. Walking to the #NRA HQ Hotel there were a steady stream of NRA members and vendors heading to the convention center to get an early start on registration or to shop at the NRA Store. The NRA-ILA Grassroots Workshop is slowing filling as people mill around the lobby area where the breakfast is set up.

NRA 1st Vice President David Keene addresses the Grassroots Workshop.

Last night's informal gathering with Second Amendment scholar Dave Kopel was great. And it was great to hear that he checks the VSSA blog from time to time to find out what is going on in the Old Dominion. State associations that have not started a blog are missing a great opportunity to communicate their message.

Thanks to Dave Kopel for spending time with the bloggers last night and to Christie C. for setting it up.