Tag Archives: rifle

Sheriff Says Pipeline Employee Who Pointed Rifle at Protesters Was "Victim"

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Yesterday, the Morton County Sherriff’s Department released an employee of the Dakota Access Pipeline who was arrested last Thursday after entering the camp of activists protesting against the pipeline. Numerous witnesses recounted a car chase and tense standoff during which the man pointed an AR-15 rifle at protesters. “No charges will be filed against this man,” the sheriff’s department stated, “as he was using the weapon to protect himself.”

A statement from the Sheriff’s Department described the Dakota Access Pipeline employee as “the victim in the case.” It said that he was checking construction equipment near the site of protests and had “disguised himself so he would be able to gain access without being singled out as a construction worker.”

Last Friday, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier confirmed that the man had been armed but disputed the account of the protesters who had confronted him. Kirchmeier said the man “was more or less acting in self-defense.” No shots were fired during the standoff, Kirchmeier said, contradicting an earlier press release. This video of the incident shows the man pointing his rifle at protesters as they approach him.

A woman talks with the armed Dakota Access Pipeline employee who entered the anti-pipeline protesters’ camp near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation last week. Ryan Vizziones

Inside the man’s truck, protesters found three documents identifying him as a security worker for Dakota Access, LLC, the company that is constructing the pipeline. Afterward, a flare was shot into the man’s truck, setting it on fire.

Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Donnell Hushka confirmed the man’s identity. His name has been published elsewhere but we have redacted his name here because he has not been charged with a crime.

On Monday, the Dakota Access Pipeline employee posted an account of the incident on his Facebook page. He writes that he was disguised so he could investigate the vandalism of pipeline equipment. (Photos of the man show him wearing sunglasses and a red bandanna.) He recounts that he “drew out my rifle,” but only “after my vehicle was disabled and over 300 protesters were rapidly approaching my location, a few had knives and were dead set on using those knives.” He also claims that a protester fired a flare at him.

Facebook

“I was in a situation in which myself and others were faced with the difficult decision to take another’s life or not,” he writes. “A decision in which most people are never faced with and I hope never will, a decision in which changes a person’s outlook on life forever.”

See original:  

Sheriff Says Pipeline Employee Who Pointed Rifle at Protesters Was "Victim"

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sheriff Says Pipeline Employee Who Pointed Rifle at Protesters Was "Victim"

The Dallas Police Shooter Bought an AK-47 Via Facebook

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In 2014, Micah Johnson, who killed five police officers and injured seven in an ambush in Dallas last week, purchased an AK-47 rifle in a deal arranged through Facebook and finalized in a Target parking lot, according to the New York Daily News. In an interview with the Daily News, the seller, 26-year-old Colton Crews, said that Johnson “didn’t stand out as a nut job. He didn’t stand out as a crazy person at all.” In fact, because Johnson had been a US military service member, Crews said that “he was like your first pick when you’re selling a gun to somebody.”

The AK-47 was apparently not used in the Dallas attack. Citing an unnamed law enforcement official, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Johnson used an Izhmash-Saiga 5.45mm rifle, an AK-style variant, in the shooting. But news of the sale highlights just how easy it is to acquire a gun through Facebook. The social media giant has come under fire from activists who say the company isn’t doing enough to make sure the site isn’t used as an online weapons bazaar. In Texas, where Johnson purchased the AK-47 from Crews, background checks are not required in private sales, and Facebook pages dedicated to selling firearms are ubiquitous.

In the wake of the Orlando massacre last month, a disparate collection of individuals began taking to Facebook to report pages and individuals advertising gun sales in an attempt to get them kicked off the site for violating its user rules. In January, Facebook banned users from coordinating unregulated gun sales, but it has left the enforcement of the ban entirely to users who report violators.

In his interview with the Daily News, Crews said, “First off, it was my belief Johnson would have passed a background check. He didn’t seem weird in any way, just a normal guy.” At the Target parking lot where the deal was finalized, they made small talk. They checked out the AK-47, making sure it was in working condition, and Crews’ stepdad thanked Johnson for his service. Johson made a comment about how he missed the rifle’s firepower since returning home from Afghanistan. “He seems like he’s 100 percent on the up and up.”

This article is from:  

The Dallas Police Shooter Bought an AK-47 Via Facebook

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Dallas Police Shooter Bought an AK-47 Via Facebook

Hansel and Gretel Finally Get the Stopping Power They’ve Always Deserved

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It appears that Hansel and Gretel have been updated for the 21st century:

“Let’s go a little deeper into the forest,” Hansel said….Before long, they heard a rustling in the leaves, and slowly turned to see a magnificent 10-point buck drinking from a stream. Gretel readied her rifle and fired. Her training had paid off, for she was able to bring the buck down instantly with a single shot. She and Hansel quickly field-dressed the deer and packed up to head back home, hardly believing their luck.

Wait. Wasn’t there a witch and a boiling pot and a gingerbread cottage? No worries: that stuff is still there.

”Help us!” the whisper said, as Hansel and Gretel looked to see who it was. “We’re in the gingerbread cottage.”…“We’re going to get you out of here,” Hansel told the boy….The hinges gave a groan and the sound of the witch’s snoring stopped, the silence filling the room as they looked at each other in panic. Gretel got her rifle ready, but lowered it again when the snoring resumed.

….After reuniting the boys with their parents, it was time to take on the witch…and get some hunting done in the meantime. Villagers, prepared with rifles and pistols, headed into the forest, Hansel and Gretel leading the way. When they came upon the witch’s cottage, the sheriff locked her into the cage in which the boys had been locked just the night before, to be taken away so she could never harm another child.

That’s not much of a witch if all it takes is a few villagers with rifles to take her down. Still, at least everyone else lives happily ever after, thanks to our constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.

Continue reading here:  

Hansel and Gretel Finally Get the Stopping Power They’ve Always Deserved

Posted in alternative energy, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hansel and Gretel Finally Get the Stopping Power They’ve Always Deserved

The New York Daily News Just Doubled Down on Its Attack on the NRA

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Yesterday, the New York Daily News put up a controversial cover that I thought was pretty good. Today, they are out with another cover that, I’ve got to say, is a bit much for me. It calls the alleged perpetrator of Wednesday’s massacre, Syed Farook, a terrorist (accurate!) and Robert Dear, Dylan Roof, Adam Lanza, and James Holmes terrorists (also accurate depending on your specific definition!), but then in the right hand corner it labels Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, a terrorist.

Now, look, I’m not fan of the NRA, but they’re not a terrorist organization and I don’t think that term should be bandied about all willy-nilly. From 2001 to 2003, this shit happened all the time. Terrorists! Terrorists! Terrorist! Terrorists! It is not helpful. It stirs frenzy and panic in a population of people primed for frenzy and panic. We should use that term when it really makes sense, not just for political groups we disagree with.

But, on the other hand, just today Senate Republicans at the NRA’s behest voted to kill a law that would make it harder for terrorists, felons, and mentally ill people to buy guns. It’s also worth noting that most gun owners don’t even support the NRA’s radical agenda. So it’s not like I’m saying the NRA is a bunch of peachy keen cats deserving of sainthood or anything.

Relatedly, my colleague Julia Laurie spoke to a number of national news organizations about how and when they decide to call a “killer” a “terrorist.” Give it a read. Fascinating stuff.

Excerpt from – 

The New York Daily News Just Doubled Down on Its Attack on the NRA

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, Holmes, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The New York Daily News Just Doubled Down on Its Attack on the NRA

A Lot of People Are Telling Congress to Repeal Its Gag Order on Gun Violence Research

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Even before today’s tragic shooting in San Bernardino, pressure was building in Washington to overturn an NRA-backed amendment that has barred federal research on gun violence for nearly 20 years. More than 2,000 physicians, dozens of Democratic lawmakers, and even the author of the amendment have all called on Congress to once again allow gun violence to be investigated as a public health issue.

On Wednesday, nine medical associations publicly urged Congress to overturn the so-called Dickey Amendment, which in 1996 effectively halted research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) into the causes of gun violence.

“Gun violence is a public health problem that kills 90 Americans a day,” Dr. Alice Chen, the executive director of Doctors for America, said in a statement. “Physicians believe it’s time to lift this effective ban and fund the research needed to save lives.”

Tacked onto a 1996 appropriations bill, the Dickey Amendment was pushed through Congress by Republican legislators under substantial pressure from the National Rifle Association, as the amendment’s author, former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.), admitted in a 2012 op-ed in The Washington Post that he co-authored. Dickey wrote that the lack of research by the NIH and CDC had resulted in a troubling information gap: “US scientists cannot answer the most basic question: What works to prevent firearm injuries? We don’t know whether having more citizens carry guns would decrease or increase firearm deaths; or whether firearm registration and licensing would make inner-city residents safer or expose them to greater harm.”

The doctors are not alone in calling for the amendment to be overturned: late last month, dozens of House Democrats made a similar plea to renew federal research on gun violence. “We dedicate $240 million a year on traffic safety research, more than $233 million a year on food safety, and $331 million a year on the effects of tobacco, but almost nothing on firearms that kill 33,000 Americans annually,” they wrote in a letter to senior representatives in charge of appropriations. A few weeks before that, Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) submitted a bill called the Gun Violence Research Act with the express purpose of “helping identify and treat those prone to committing mass shootings.”

Dickey himself has repeatedly urged Congress to overturn the provision that bears his name. In a letter published Wednesday by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, Dickey wrote, “Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution.”

“I commend Jay Dickey for taking this stand,” Thompson wrote in response. “As gun owners, we want to protect the Second Amendment. But at the same time, we recognize the fact that we can safeguard those rights while also allowing our expert scientists to conduct research on how to best prevent gun violence.”

A Mother Jones investigation published this summer found that gun violence costs the US a staggering $229 billion every year.

Jump to original:  

A Lot of People Are Telling Congress to Repeal Its Gag Order on Gun Violence Research

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Safer, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Lot of People Are Telling Congress to Repeal Its Gag Order on Gun Violence Research

New York Daily News Compares the NRA to Jihadists

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In three words, the front page of Wednesday’s New York Daily News launched one of the boldest attacks on the National Rifle Association in recent memory.

The tabloid’s cover denounced “NRA’s Sick Jihad,” in characteristically huge typeface. The story inside accused the gun rights group of tacitly abetting the arming of terrorists by blocking a proposed bill that would make it more difficult for terror suspects to buy guns in the United States. The Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015, formally known as H.R. 1076, was introduced in February, and includes a ban on the “sale or distribution of firearms or explosives to any individual whom the Attorney General has determined to be engaged in terrorist activities.”

The earliest version of the legislation was originally introduced under President George W. Bush in 2007, but it has yet to be signed into law. According to the Daily News, more than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist have been able to purchase weapons in the United States in the last 11 years.

The story begins, “The NRA—and their gun-loving Republican cohorts—are refusing once more to stop terrorists intent on getting armed in the U.S.A.”

Original source – 

New York Daily News Compares the NRA to Jihadists

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, ProPublica, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New York Daily News Compares the NRA to Jihadists

The Guns the NRA Doesn’t Want Americans to Get

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

One success of gun-rights activists over the past decade has been their campaign to block the advent of smart guns, firearms that use biometric and other sensor technologies to prevent them from being fired by anyone other than their owners. Even though smart guns are widely available overseas, no American gun retailers sell them—in no small part due to threats and harassment aimed at any who have tried. But now, pending legislation could shake up that status quo.

The chill on smart guns in the United States is to some degree the unintended consequence of a 2002 New Jersey law that would phase out the sale of conventional guns in that state; the law requires New Jersey gun dealers to sell only smart guns once they become available in retail stores anywhere else in the country. The law was intended to spur the market for the technologically innovative weapons, whose backers believe they could enhance safety and help reduce certain types of gun violence, such as attacks with stolen firearms and the all too common accidental shootings deaths of children. But the law badly backfired by becoming fodder for gun-rights activists, who argued that smart guns are part of a government plot to track and ultimately ban all guns.

New Jersey legislators are now aiming to get, well, smarter about the issue. New Jersey state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, who authored the 2002 law, announced on Sunday that she wants to scrap it. A replacement bill that she plans to introduce on Thursday would instead require all of the state’s gun dealers to offer at least one model of smart gun for sale. Weinberg made the announcement Sunday night in a 60 Minutes story in which she accused the National Rifle Association of using the 2002 law as a tool to block smart guns nationwide.

“The whole problem with the mandate was that it forced buyers in New Jersey to buy a smart gun,” says Ralph Fascitelli, the president of Washington CeaseFire, a prominent Seattle group working to reduce gun violence. “This new law forces gun dealers to offer a smart gun, but still provides a choice for gun owners to buy whatever they want.” Fascitelli believes that within a decade smart guns could capture a third of the $3 billion US handgun market. A recent poll presented at a smart-gun conference in Seattle by the political consultancy Penn Schoen Berland found that 54 percent of gun owners under the age of 45 are willing to consider swapping out their conventional pistols for smart guns. And 83 percent of gun owners, it found, want gun dealers to be able to sell the weapons.

The palm-reading biometric gun that James Bond used in Skyfall represents the sexiest version, though the technology still is by no means bulletproof (think the iPhone 6’s glitchy fingerprint reader). A more reliable version of the weapons will work only if activated by a radio frequency emitted by a device—typically a bracelet, watch, or ring—worn by the authorized user.

The biometric handgun used by James Bond in Skyfall MGM

In the 1990s, Colt’s Manufacturing Co. built a prototype smart gun that could be fired only if the user wore a special ring. In 2000, rival Smith & Wesson promised to make all of its guns available with high-tech safety features. But both companies dropped the efforts after facing devastating boycotts led by gun-rights activists. Smith & Wesson was forced to lay off 15 percent of its staff. Ever since, the mainstream gun industry has steadfastly refused to pursue the technologies.

Smaller gun companies haven’t had any better luck. Last year, the German start-up Armatix attempted to crack the US market with its $1800 iP1 pistol, a smart gun that operates with a radio-frequency-emitting watch. Maryland gun store owner Andy Raymond initially jumped at the chance to offer the gun, but backed out after activists threatened to kill him and burn down his store. A similar harassment campaign targeted other interested arms dealers and Armatix’s US representative, Belinda Padilla. The company never found a single retail outlet willing to sell its gun.

But some now see a lucrative US market for smart guns. Armatix engineer Ernst Mauch recently quit the company and visited the United States to explore creating a new start-up to build a lower-cost version of the gun for Americans. As the lead engineer at the German gunmaker Heckler & Koch, Mauch designed some of the world’s most lethal weapons, including one that reportedly killed Osama bin Laden. “I still want people to understand that there is a huge potential for this technology,” he told the Washington Post. “The technology was never in question.”

In fact, some high profile Silicon Valley investors are betting that smart guns can disrupt the firearms industry. The billionaire angel investor Ron Conway formed the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation in 2013 to create “the Googles, the Facebooks, the Twitters of gun safety.” Conway recently announced plans to fund the development of a biometric gun lock; a version of the technology may eventually be integrated into a gun.

For now, though, gun dealers remain wary. Several in New Jersey contacted by Mother Jones declined to comment on the proposed law, but one was less than enthusiastic. “You can’t be required to carry anything in a store,” said the person who answered the phone at Lou’s Firearms in Raritan, NJ (he declined to give his name). “It’s just like telling every shoe store that they have to sell a Nike. I believe they should be available, but the market has to decide what they want to use.”

Link:

The Guns the NRA Doesn’t Want Americans to Get

Posted in Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Safer, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Guns the NRA Doesn’t Want Americans to Get

The Gun Lobby Blames the Charleston Mass Shooting on "Gun-Free Zones"

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In the aftermath of the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, gun rights activists and their allies in the conservative media are once again blaming “gun-free zones,” arguing that an armed citizen could have otherwise been at the church to stop the attack. As Mother Jones has previously reported, there has never been any evidence that mass shooters picked their targets based on gun regulations; to the contrary, data from scores of cases shows perpetrators had other specific motivations for where they attacked, including racial hatred, as is strongly suspected to be the case in Charleston. The idea that armed citizens stop crimes in the United States has also been wildly exaggerated by the gun lobby, as a new study reaffirms.

One of the gun lobby’s key talking points is that firearms are frequently used in self-defense—as often as 2.5 million times per year. The widely repeated claim has its origins in a 1993 telephone survey conducted by a pro-gun researcher, and while the numbers have since been walked back to some degree, the National Rifle Association asserts there are at least three-quarters of a million defensive gun uses per year. But a new report from the Violence Policy Center analyzing federal data shows that even this claim is way overstated. America’s legions of “good guys with guns,” in other words, are a myth (and not least when it comes to mass shootings).

Using FBI data, the study shows citizens are far more likely to use guns to commit violent crimes than to defend against them. The FBI’s 2012 “Supplementary Homicide Report” tallied 8,342 criminal gun homicides nationwide, while finding only 259 justifiable gun homicides from around the country, as identified in reports from state and local law enforcement agencies.

Moreover, 13 states reported no justifiable gun homicides at all in 2012, according to the report. That included states with large urban regions like New York and New Jersey, as well as rural states such as North Dakota and Wyoming. Notably, Wyoming, which has a small population, lax gun laws, and a high gun-ownership rate, also led the nation in 2012 for gun suicides and had the highest per capita costs from gun violence. (You can read more about that in Mother Jones’ groundbreaking investigation of the $229 billion annual cost of gun violence in America.)

In the five-year period between 2007 and 2011, there were a total of 29,618,300 violent crimes committed, according to the study. Among those, people used guns in self-defense 235,700 times.

Even with an additional 103,000 defensive gun uses related to property crimes over the same five-year period, the total still comes to fewer than 70,000 a year—less than 10 percent of the amount claimed by the NRA and other gun rights advocates.

Originally posted here: 

The Gun Lobby Blames the Charleston Mass Shooting on "Gun-Free Zones"

Posted in alo, Anchor, ATTRA, Citizen, FF, GE, Holmes, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Gun Lobby Blames the Charleston Mass Shooting on "Gun-Free Zones"

NRA Holds Annual Convention in a State Where Guns Now Kill More Than Cars Do

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Guns kill more people than cars do in a growing number of states, according to a new analysis of national mortality data from the Violence Policy Center. The report finds that in 2013, firearm-related deaths exceeded those caused by motor vehicles in 17 states and the District of Columbia. This means that four more states have crossed this threshold since 2012, including Louisiana, Missouri, Virginia, and Tennessee. In Nashville this Friday, the National Rifle Association opens the doors to its 144th annual convention.

The Violence Policy Center’s report is the latest among several studies indicating that guns are soon likely to surpass cars as America’s “top killing machine.” While traffic safety regulations have helped reduce the number of motor-vehicle-related deaths over the years, the report notes that the number of deaths caused by firearms has been creeping up, as the chart below shows. That’s noteworthy in part because about 90 percent of American households own a car, but less than a third of American households own guns.

Visit site:

NRA Holds Annual Convention in a State Where Guns Now Kill More Than Cars Do

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on NRA Holds Annual Convention in a State Where Guns Now Kill More Than Cars Do

Washington Voters Just Passed the Gun Law Congress Couldn’t

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Most post-election coverage has focused on how Republicans drubbed Democrats in the battle for Congress, but there was another resounding victory on Tuesday worth noting, and it wasn’t a partisan one. Universal background checks for gun buyers became law in Washington state, the first such measure to be passed by popular vote in any state in recent memory.

And popular it was, supported by 60 percent of voters. They agreed that buying weapons at gun shows or on the Internet should no longer be possible without basic regulations. “Our goal has never been about finding a single solution that will end gun violence once and for all,” said Seattle Mayor Ed Murray after Initiative 594 passed. “Instead, our goal has been to enact a sound system of commonsense rules that can, by working in concert, make an enormous difference.” Murray noted that states with expanded background checksnow 18 of them, plus Washington DC—have fewer women killed in domestic violence situations, fewer law enforcement officers shot, and fewer suicides with firearms. The editors of the Seattle Times said the wide margin of victory showed that “voters feel the grim, relentless toll of gun violence.”

It was fresh on their minds. Public gun rampages—which tend to draw outsized media attention—have been on the rise the last several years, with the latest taking place at a Seattle-area high school on October 24. Three victims died, two others were gravely injured, and the perpetrator shot himself to death, as so many of them do. Local polling right at that time appeared to show an increase in support (which had already been strong) for I-594. The last time a similar measure was passed by popular vote was in Colorado in 2000, in the wake of the Columbine massacre. (It’s worth noting that the hardcore gun lobby’s opposition in Colorado back then included the same strain of Nazi rhetoric that was trotted out in Washington state this time.)

Washington state’s vote was the clearest electoral test yet beyond Congress for the gun-reform movement that rose out of the devastation at Sandy Hook Elementary School two years ago. Everytown for Gun Safety, backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, and Americans for Responsible Solutions, founded by former congresswoman and mass shooting survivor Gabrielle Giffords, both devoted major funds and other strategic assets to the fight. The primary stated goal of these groups is to function as a formidable counterweight to the National Rifle Association and its political influence; if the passage of I-594 (as well as the defeat of a counter initiative) is any indication, they’ve gained some serious momentum in their less than 24 months of existence. Everytown now has 2.5 million supporters, according to the organization’s former executive director Mark Glaze. “The movement now has plenty of money and plenty of talent, and that’s a big difference from just a few years ago,” Glaze told me on Wednesday. “As the NRA will tell you, intensity trumps money much of the time. In this case they lost on both counts.”

The NRA and its allies also spent millions on the fight—and feared the outcome they now face. “We are very concerned that Bloomberg’s group will replicate this and we will have ballot initiatives like this one across the country,” a NRA spokesperson told The Olympian just prior to the vote.

The gun lobby has long tapped allies in statehouses to block firearms regulations, but the Washington experience may have just revealed a potent threat to that modus operandi. Next up? Glaze says Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, and Maine are strong prospects. Ballot initiatives tend to be expensive (and aren’t allowed in all states), but expanded background checks look to be a solid bet, consistently drawing overwhelming support in national polls. Circumventing state legislators may not be the easiest route, notes Glaze, “but when a majority of people want something badly enough, they can still get it.”

For more of Mother Jones’ reporting on guns in America, see all of our latest coverage here, and our award-winning special reports.

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/10/25/3388327_dueling-gun-initiatives-pit-two.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

Originally posted here: 

Washington Voters Just Passed the Gun Law Congress Couldn’t

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Washington Voters Just Passed the Gun Law Congress Couldn’t