Anti-violence groups in the commonwealth, spurred on by a national organization started by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, have staked a claim for tens of millions of dollars in federal pandemic and economy-boosting money at the General Assembly’s disposal.

The fledgling Virginia Community Violence Coalition has made a smart, critical bid for $37 million of the $4.3 billion available from the American Rescue Plan.

Roger Chesley
July 21, 2021
Curbing killings also means changing culture
[$37 million of public money to infringe upon the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

The fact that the bad guys in New York City, the city with the toughest gun control laws in the nation, were still able to get guns and use them in this very shooting should make it clear as day that something just isn’t adding up.

The only narrative this story advances is that gun control is a complete and total failure.

Tom Knighton
July 20, 2021
NY Shooting Not An Example For Gun Control Advocates – Bearing Arms
[It doesn’t add up if you were under the impression the intent of gun control is to reduce crime. There are some people who actually believe this. But long time politicians know better and have different motives.

It’s about creating a safe work environment for themselves and comrades, the criminals. This is well-known. Read The Gulag Archipelago. The USSR regarded thieves as allies in the building of communism because they were the enemy of property owners.

Appearances are that similar motivation is at play in the U.S. It’s certain it is not about violent crime control. Just one question demonstrates this.—Joe]

President Joe Biden recently announced a plan to reduce gun violence and other crimes nationwide, but leaders in the Black community think it could do more harm than good.

Dana Whyte
June 29, 2021
NAACP concerned about Biden’s gun control plan
[Winning.—Joe]

This sounds like a blatant attempt to harass legitimate businesses. The Biden Administration is working overtime to make things difficult and inconvenient so that fewer people will want to engage in the business of manufacturing and selling firearms to law-abiding people.

Alan Rice
New Hampshire State Director for Gun Owners of America
Leak Shows ATF Preparing Operation Targeting Smith & Wesson and Others
[Via a tweet from John Richardson.

Their goal is more than “difficult and inconvenient”. The goal is elimination of the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms…one step at a time.

Rice, almost for certain, knows this but a snapshot of the evidence in the current news doesn’t reveal the entire picture. So he makes the more easily supported claim for the soundbite.—Joe]

We, as Americans, demand the right to live free from gun violence. Historic disinvestment in communities and unregulated access to guns equals more gun deaths. It’s really that simple.

Lauren Footman
Director of Outreach and Equity at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence,
Via email on July 6, 2021
[Apparently Footman is unaware of a well known truth:

Every complex problem has a solution which is simple, direct, plausible—and wrong.

Henry Louis Mencken
Modified from the original in his 1920 collection of essays called “Prejudices: Second Series”.

She is also flat out wrong about there being the possibility of a right “to live free of gun violence.”

It comes as no surprise to find an anti-gun advocate expressing ignorance and falsehoods. It’s part of their culture.

Respond and prepare appropriately.—Joe]