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TOP STORY
Group’s ‘SWATting’ tactic puts legal gun owners, police in crosshairs
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) has again taken to social media to urge its paranoid stooges to call 911 if they see anyone openly or concealed carrying a firearm, setting the stage for unnecessary and potentially lethal confrontations between legal gun owners and nervous police.
CSGV is actively promoting “SWATting,” the act of tricking an emergency service into dispatching responders based on a false report. In a Sept. 2 screenshot of a CSGV Facebook post published by Amy Miller on legalinsurrection.com, the group urges readers to take action in this manner:
“If you see someone carrying a firearm in public — openly or concealed — and have ANY doubts about their intent, call 911 immediately and ask police to come to the scene.”
The problem is, open carry is legal and a common daily practice by millions of law-abiding and responsible gun owners. Open carry is only prohibited in five states — California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and South Carolina.
The Ohio-based Buckeye Firearms Association and Virginia-based Gun Owners of America were among the first groups to warn fellow gun owners of the CSGV’s ‘SWATting’ campaign, reported Perry Chiaramonte on FoxNews.com on Sept. 1.
“This practice is exactly what they (CSGV) are doing,” GOA spokesman Erich Pratt told Chiaramonte. “They are inciting their radical base to turn their own neighbors in. Anti-gun advocates are clearly frustrated. They want guns banned. But they have been thwarted in the past, so they are looking for alternative means.”
Pratt said people who call the police without legitimate reason should be charged. “They would likely be the ones arrested for filing a false report,” he told Chiaramonte. “And we are certainly hoping that would be the case.”
In a Sept. 2 blog on Bearingarms.com, Bob Owens recounts how the same group launched a similar campaign last September and October. “The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence may not be as well known as the Brady Coalition or any of Michael Bloomberg’s well-funded organizations, but they are far more bloodthirsty, with a long and well-documented history of incendiary rhetoric against their fellow citizens,” he writes.
Owens lists 61 groups that are part of the CSGV, urging readers to “feel free to contact and or all of these organizations and ask them why they are part of a group attempting to trigger violence between law-abiding citizens and law enforcement officers.”
In an Oct. 2 National Review article, Charles Cooke studied the comments on GSGV’s Facebook page, Twitter page and website and uncovered startling and scary threats by people who, apparently, aren’t just opposed to individual ownership of firearms, but violently hate those who own guns.
Cooke writes that while scrolling through their website commentary, “every 20 comments or so, one sees dangerously inflammatory rhetoric.”
Cooke cites these examples:
—“You see a GunFilth waving its penis substitute, exit, call police. Armed robbery in progress.” — Twitter user “Little Black Dog” on Sept. 13, 2014
—Reacting to a photograph of a man standing at a checkout with a handgun holstered upon his hip, a “mom-who-demands-action” Joyce Ward asks, “Why weren’t the police called immediately?” And “why,” Ward continues, “wasn’t he shot by the police for having a weapon?”
—Fellow poster Lisa McLogan Shaheen has a similar inquiry, wondering, “Why hasn’t someone called 911 so the cops can gun him down?”
—“Every time I see someone with a gun in a store I will call 911,” Jennifer Decker vows, “they’ll get tired of that right quick!!!”
—“Just call the police every time you see someone with one,” Ann Marie counsels, “the police will get sick of it eventually or have a run in with one of these clowns and then things will change.”
For more, go to:
Gun control groups accused of ‘swatting’ open-carry permit holders, putting lives at risk
Church-Sponsored Gun Control Group Puts the Lives Of Citizens At Risk
Are anti-gun groups encouraging “swatting” against open carriers?
SWATTING! One More Thing for Law-Abiding Gun Owners to Worry About…
A disturbing trend on the fringes of the gun-control movement
‘LIBERTARIAN GUN CONTROL’
Law professor’s website addresses suicide by gun without imperiling rights
A University of Alabama law professor has a launched a website — StopGunSuicide.com — that allows people to add their names to a national “do not sell” list if they voluntarily want to surrender their ability to purchase a firearm.
The idea is “elegantly simple,” writes Ian Ayres in a Sept. 1 article entitled ‘Libertarian Gun Control’ on Forbes.com, because it promotes “an idea that could save lives and enhance our Second Amendment rights.”
UA law professor Fredrick E. Vars writes on his StopGunSuicide.com website that a “Do Not Sell” registry is similar to state gambling self-exclusion registries that allow individuals to pre-commit not to gamble at casinos in the future. Problem gamblers who have moments of clarity have found it worthwhile to take action to prevent their future selves from acting badly, the website notes.
The website includes a petition asking Congress to incorporate the concept into the NCIS background check system.
As the site explains: “Currently, before you can buy a gun from a dealer, the dealer must check to see if your name is on a national list of people prohibited from buying a gun (for example, convicted felons). This process usually takes just minutes and in most states, if you pass, you can immediately walk out with a gun.
Vars wants to give citizens the option to add their names to this list: The voluntary and confidential sign-up process would include identity verification to avoid fraud and forgery. There would also be an option to change your mind and have your name removed from the list, with a one-week delay or after a judicial hearing for those who want greater protection.
The national “Do Not Call” registry has been “a huge expansion of liberty, enhancing our right to be left alone,” writes Ayres in his Forbes.com article. “It’s not surprising that the StopGunSuicide.com website has an image of Ulysses, with hands tied to the mast, resisting the temptation of the sirens.”
He continues: “The ‘Do not sell (me guns)’ idea is an analogous hands-tying commitment. About 20,000 people kill themselves with handguns every year. Some of these people might, during moments of clarity, opt out of the ability to buy guns. Here is every chance that Vars’s registry could save hundreds of lives each year — without causing a huge new bureaucracy, but merely by supplementing the national list that already exists.”
Ayres writes that the Bill of Rights is really a bill of options and options are more valuable when you can choose to exercise them, or not to. “The same goes with the Second Amendment. The right to bear arms must certainly embrace the option not to bear them,” he writes. “Vars’s proposal is one that every card-carrying libertarian should endorse. It’s the kind of voluntary gun control that even the NRA can support — especially as it comes with self-chosen methods for subsequently removing yourself from the list.”
For more, go to:
Petition: Do Not Sell registry
Mental Illness and the Second Amendment
Professor Vars: “Symptom-Based Gun Control”
Right to bear arms and mental illness
**STATE ROUNDUP
California lawmakers OK ‘Campus Gun Safety Bill’
**
The California State Assembly on Sept. 1 approved a bill that would prohibit concealed weapons carriers from bringing their firearm on campus without permission from campus authorities.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis), was approved in a 53-24 bipartisan vote, includes an exemption for retired law enforcement officers and reserve officers, who may carry a concealed firearm if authorized by their former agency. It also allows for police chiefs or school districts to adopt their own policies that may allow a concealed firearm on campus.
“Many would be surprised, as I was, to learn that California law currently allows concealed firearms on any campus, even on an elementary school campus,” Wolk told the Associated Press. “With today’s Assembly vote, we are close to sending the Governor a common sense bill that will close this loophole in our Gun Free Schools Act, helping our school officials control firearms on their campuses.”
“This bill puts control of firearms on campus grounds squarely where it belongs — with those public safety officials responsible for the safety of our students and staff on school or college campuses,” Assemblyman Bill Dodd (D-Napa) said.
For more, go to:
California State Assembly Approves Campus Gun Safety Bill on Bipartisan Vote
Shootings’ aftermath makes Virginia legislators defend support for gun rights
Tenn. Dems introduce bill to allow gun ban at sports, music venues
WMass lawmakers support replica gun identification bill
Dan Aykroyd: Mississippi Gun Violence Exceeds Most of the Entire Western World
Milwaukee Mayor & Police Chief Argue for Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Some Gun Crimes
Oregon gun law vote not valid recall issue, lawmaker says
Ohio Democrats spar over gun control
New Alabama gun laws in effect
New Texas law takes aim at erroneous gun-ban signs
INNOVATION
Colorado teenager creates firearm unlocked only by owner’s fingerprint
An 18-year-old technology prodigy from Colorado has designed a handgun that only works when unlocked by the fingerprint of the owner, and not for anyone else.
Kai Kloepfer, of Boulder, spent seven months and more than 1,500 hours to create a plastic model of his “smart gun,” according to an Aug. 29 article by Shelley Schlender for Voice of America News.
Kloepfer entered his fingerprint handgun in a local science fair and won and kept on winning contests, all the way to the 2013 INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair when, at the age of 16, he won the world’s top youth science competition.
In addition to the INTEL award’s monetary prize, Kloepfer received a $50,000 grant from the SmartTech Challenges Foundation to support what could be a breakthrough innovation in gun safety.
“My biometric technology can prevent tragedies. If I save one person’s life, I’ve accomplished my goal,” he told VOA News, noting his fingerprint technology does not prevent anyone from purchasing a firearm, nor does it alter the function of the weapon. “It just makes it safer,” he said.
Kloepfer, who will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the next step is to add the fingerprint lock technology to a real gun. He says he expects to see his “smart gun” for sale next to other firearms.
For more, go to:
Student Develops Gun Unlocked by Fingerprint
Smart Guns Save Lives. So Where Are They?
Has This 18-Year-Old Created The World’s Safest Gun?
Fingerprint Safety Invented By Teenager
Boulder teen wins $50,000 grant to build biometric gun safety sensor