Josh Horwitz' Response to the President's Announcement

With the tearful parents of 7-year-old Sandy Hook victim Grace McDonnell looking on, President Obama announced a bold new plan to reform our gun laws at the White House today and urged Americans nationwide to call their Members of Congress to demand immediate action.

The President's bold and ambitious plan includes 23 different executive orders to reduce gun violence and major legislative proposals, including:

• A renewal of the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
  
• Universal background checks on all gun purchases.
  
• The elimination of restrictions on federally-funded research into gun violence.

You can read CSGV's official statement on the press conference here.

It was my distinct honor to attend this event. I have never heard our President sound more determined, more resolute. His message about our response to this tragedy was simple and clear: "This time must be different ... If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors, if hunters and sportsmen, if responsible gun owners, if Americans of every background stand up and say, 'Enough; we’ve suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this to continue'—then change will come. That’s what it’s going to take."

Ready to do your part? Call your Members of Congress today, and every day, through the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell them you demand immediate action on the President's proposals to end gun violence.

 

We've all waited for this moment, and now it has arrived. Don't hold back. Let's move forward, together, and make sure that days like December 14, 2012 are not part of America's future.

Sincerely, 

 

Josh Horwitz

Executive Director

The NRA Circus of Fear

via Josh Horwitz' blog on HuffPo 

And when it comes to perpetual crisis, "nobody does it better" than NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre. Today, my organization posted a brand-new video, "The NRA's Circus of Fear," which features multiple clips of LaPierre at his fearmongering best, including snippets from his (now infamous) CPAC speeches. "We have nothing to fear but the absence of fear," he announces to kick things off, and from there it's a bizarre collection of paranoia, conspiracy theories, and well, "S*** Wayne LaPierre Says."

 

Important Message from Josh Horwitz

Yesterday, I published a new blog at the Huffington Post that looks at a disturbing new trend in American politics: the fact that it is now easier to buy a gun in many states than it is to vote.

With legislatures across the country moving to implement "Voter ID" laws, Americans in more than 30 states now have to present some form of identification before voting. And yet, in virtually all those states, residents can buy firearms through private sales, where they are not required by law to show any ID or undergo a background check.

Meanwhile, emboldened by these developments, some pro-gun activists are beginning to "Open Carry" their guns to political gatherings once again. This includes a young man in Michigan who recently brought a loaded handgun into an elementary school to vote in the GOP presidential primary.

What type of message are these pro-gunners trying to send? What guidance does our Constitution provide on these important issues? And most importantly, what does it say about America " When Buying a Gun Becomes Easier Than Voting"?

Read my new blog to find out.

Josh Horwitz

Executive Director

Gun-Rights Movement Not Winning

via the CSGV

Something wonderful is happening down south.

Following the November 2010 elections, in which the Republican Party took control of state legislatures and governorships across the country, the National Rifle Association (NRA) was convinced it had an opportunity to enact the most extreme elements of its agenda. What better time to force colleges and universities to allow loaded guns on campus? The media agreed. After four years of failure following the Virginia Tech tragedy, this time it was a done deal, they said. The first two dominoes, we were told, would be Arizona and Texas.

They didn't reckon with the determined opposition of students, faculty and law enforcement in the two states, however, and the conventional wisdom has now gone out the window. A watered-down version of the Arizona guns on campus bill was recently vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer and a Texas Senator now finds himself lacking the votes to move the legislation forward in the Lone Star State.

What's your opinion? Is this the beginning of the end for the blustering, bullying gun-rights movement? We'll see.

Please leave a comment.

Josh Horwitz on the President's Speech

Deafening Silence

6 dead and 14 wounded in Tucson at the hands of a severely deranged substance abuser who legally purchased guns and high-capacity ammuniton magazines.

13 law enforcement officers shots since Thursday in what is being described as a "war on police."

And President Obama still hasn't found the courage to speak out for stronger gun laws.

In his State of the Union address last night, the president spoke for over an hour and yet couldn't find so much as one second to address the issue of easy access to guns in our society. Meanwhile, another 86 Americans will die from gun violence today, and tomorrow, and the next day...

Barack Obama campaigned on promises to reign in the scourge of gun violence in our country and he's done absolutely nothing to fulfill them. Now it's our time to hold him to his word.

I agree. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Bullet Casings at the DC Sniper Shootings

I became quite concerned the other day when I wrote this post about Josh Horwitz' ideas on microstamping.  Our frequent commenters kaveman and Fat White Man both accused Josh of lying about the bullet casings at the scenes of the DC sniper shootings.

"Each of the DC shootings was a single shot fired by Malvo from INSIDE the trunk of a car. They had cut a hole in the trunk just large enough to poke the barrel out and get a sight picture.

It is highly unlikely any shell casings were recovered by police through this tiny hole." said kaveman.

First of all, Kaveman is quite correct. The reports at the time said that no shell casings were found at the scene of the crimes. said Fat White Man.

So concerned was I, thinking that it makes sense what they said about the shootings and that would mean that maybe Josh Horwitz is like they say too.  So I wrote to his organization.

On my gun control blog I'm daily bombarded with the vicious and usually badly-formed attacks of the pro-gun crowd. But in this case I'm a bit at a loss. How do you respond to them when they say Josh was lying when he said there were shell casings left at the scene of the DC sniper shootings?

I received a very quick answer frim Ladd Everitt, Director of Communications, CSGV.

Thanks for the email, Mike.

A great source of the extensive ballistic evidence recovered during these shootings is Charles Moose's book, "Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper":

http://books.google.com/books?id=vHc3lICVE4AC&pg=PT113&lpg=PT113&dq=three+months+in+october:+the+manhunt+for+the+serial+sniper&source=bl&ots=-y7XiZ6FAt&sig=VY1-bfI9w2azWd727KnCKxJ3T3Q&hl=en&ei=WqMcTa37I4S8lQe6mJHcCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

You can search the terms bullet, casing, shell in there, etc., etc.

Ladd Everitt, Director of Communications

Well, you know me. Those instructions to search for key words looked a little complicated for me so I did what I should have done in the first place. I went to Wikipedia. In less than a minute I found this about the first shooting.

At this crime scene the authorities discovered a shell casing as well as a Tarot card (the Death card) inscribed with the phrase, "Call me God"

Well, I haven't looked any further. I figurd that answered my questions adequately about whether I should believe what biased, close-minded gun-rights folks say. I apologize to you Mr. Horwitz, and the staff at CSGV, for having entertained even for a moment what these guys say about you. It won't happen again, I promise.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

The Insurrectionist Idea

We may have discussed this before, but I liked it so much, here goes. On The Huffington Post a couple weeks ago Josh Horwitz wrote a wonderful article.

Two summers ago, I blogged with great concern about a statement made by Justice Scalia in the Supreme Court's landmark Second Amendment opinion, District of Columbia v. Heller. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Scalia found an individual right to keep and bear arms and opined that, "If...the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia ... If, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment's guarantee -- it does not assure the existence of a 'citizens' militia' as a safeguard against tyranny."

Regrettably, since the Heller decision, many gun rights commentators have used Scalia's construct to link the need for unfettered access to firearms with a right to engage in political violence against an administration that has been described as "a secular socialist machine [that] represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did." The past two years have seen several disturbing acts of politically-motivated violence and a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the president and Members of Congress. Equally troubling, gun rights activists have begun to openly carry firearms to political events and presidential speeches in a threatening manner.

I've read so much exaggerated nuttiness on the pro-gun blogs that I question whether it can all be traced back to what Scalia said. Nevertheless, it is nuttiness. On my own blog, we've had tedious arguments in which the gun lovers would insist they'd shoot it out rather than let their guns be taken away. The only problem is usually those remarks came in the middle of other discussions which had nothing to do with gun confiscation. Like adolescent school boys, they love to do this macho posturing.

In fact, resisting a perceived tyrant in the form of the Democratically elected government of the United States of America in the 21st century, that is in today's society, is not only unrealistic and impossible but actually contrary to what the proper relationship between the governed and the government should be. Please spare us the usual examples of the Redcoats and the Colonists and all the rest.

The German political economist [Max Weber] proffered in the early 20th century that a political entity is not a state unless it possesses a monopoly of force (i.e., the power to enforce the law). The concept of a monopoly of force is anathema to those who embrace the insurrectionist idea because it forecloses the use of political violence; which rhetorically -- and in some cases in action -- seems to be all the rage on the political right. Nonetheless, Roberts was correct. America's Founding Fathers recognized that a State does not -- and cannot -- exist unless it upholds its claim to the monopoly on force. As the author of the Second Amendment, James Madison, put it at the Virginia Ratifying Convention: "There never was a government without force. What is the meaning of government? An institution to make people do their duty. A government leaving it to a man to do his duty, or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of government, or rather no government at all."

What's your opinion? Maybe there's something to quoting the founders after all. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Sebastian on Josh Horwitz

Sebastian posted a criticism of Josh Horwitz' recent remarks.

Josh Horwitz:

While America began as a revolution against the king of England, revolution turned out to be a terrible form of governing, Horwitz says. “There was no ability to tax, so (Gen.) Washington’s army starved. State legislatures had an immense amount of power. There were mobbings in every city with no central authority to put any (revolt) down. Militias formed and closed down the courts.”

So the founders crafted a new document to replace perpetual revolution with a constitutional government, Horwitz explains. None of the framers of the Constitution “believed there was an individual right to insurrection. The Second Amendment was about who got control of the militia. The states did not want the federal government to draft their militias into federal service.”

America, he adds, was founded on “one person, one vote. Not one gun, one vote … Just because you have a gun does not give you a bigger say in government. That violates some of our most fundamental principals.”

Sebastian:

What I can’t figure out is whether Horwitz is legitimately goofy about believing that folks who would suggest the Declaration of Independence is a blueprint for just revolution are just as radical and extreme as, say, a Timothy McVeigh, or whether he’s trying to chain the real extremists to those who are not in hopes that it pulls the whole issue under the water. If it’s the latter, he might want to rethink much of his rhetoric.

Me:

What I’m disappointed about in Horwitz’ talk is his referring to the Revolutionary War period at all. I’d rather he leave that to you pro-gun guys because using “the founders,” who were slave-owners who denied women basic human rights, as the source justification for anything just doesn’t make much sense to me.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Josh Horwitz on the Resistance Efforts

The Huffington Post published a wonderful article by Josh Horwitz, Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

On Monday, it was national news when a man (identified only as "Chris") appeared at a health care rally in Phoenix, Arizona, openly and legally carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a semiautomatic handgun. He was not alone. While President Obama addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) convention directly across the street, Phoenix police and Secret Service agents actively monitored "Chris" and twelve others who openly carried handguns (it is unknown how many of the protesters were carrying concealed handguns, which is also legal in Arizona with a permit).

Mr. Horwitz links to the same video we looked at yesterday in which, when asked about the AR-15, "Chris" states that "it aids me in my resistance efforts."

He goes on to say:

If the burden of all this thievery gets too thick and you can't make it anymore, if that's what's necessary, that's what's necessary. What do you think we did in the revolution, in the American Revolution? The British weren't stealing money from us for health care. They weren't taxing us the way they are now back then. And what did we do? We forcefully kicked them out of our country, and we will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote. Just because you sick a government on people doesn't make it morally OK to steal money from them. Taxation is theft--all taxation, all taxation.

It was revealed later that the appearance of the black man they called "Chris" and his interviewer was a put-up job for a local conservative talk radio station. This explains one question I had, which was the words themselves seem much stronger than his tone of voice and delivery of them. He seemed oddly calm to me on the video, even while saying very strong things.

Now that we know it was contrived, why do you think they used a black guy? I'm sure there are several good theories about that.

Josh Horwitz sums it up pretty well.

Today's self-styled "patriots" are eager to recall 1776, but fail to understand the tempering influences of the Constitution. Armed health care protestors have made it clear that individual safety is not their primary concern--instead their show of force at these events is a reminder to elected officials that, in their view, armed citizens have the final say. This elevation of "individual sovereignty" over the Constitutionally-mandated democratic process is the antithesis of what our Founders fought for.

Do you agree with Horwitz when he says, "Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states that one of the purposes of the Militia is to "suppress Insurrections," not to foment them."

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.