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Update From VCDL Meeting

Tomahawk

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News of this in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051701386.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
Van Cleave acted as master of ceremonies in front of tables displaying one of the two prize firearms: a .45-caliber Para Ordnance PX745E semiautomatic handgun. He also unveiled a cake with a picture of Bloomberg in the frosting, saying: "These are sick people!"

Van Cleave, saying his group includes many retired military personnel and law enforcement officers, said he was glad to be in their company. They hung signs calling for the mayor's prosecution for sending agents to stores posing as legitimate buyers.

"We're sending a message to New York, and this message is going to Mr. Bloomberg: If you think you have a problem, if you think Virginia's gun dealers are violating the law . . . come talk to the state police," Van Cleave said. "Guns in the hands of decent, law-abiding citizens is a good thing. In my opinion, you can't have too many kinds of those guns."

"Amen!" someone shouted.
Great seeing you guys there.

Hey, HankT, you should have heard what I told those reporters!:dude:
 

ParaWarthog

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Wow, according to the news video, they weren't giving away just ANY guns, they were giving away "high powered" guns!!!! Wow, I've never seen a high powered gun in person. The .45 I carry must be a low powered gun.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE VCDL AND ALL INVOLVED!!!! You guys in Va. are going a LONG way to help us all out!
 

Tomahawk

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BobCav wrote:
Here's a cell phone pic of the cake:

BloomieCake.jpg
Awesome. Here's to you, Mikie!
 

Hawkflyer

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Citizen wrote:
Hawkflyer wrote:
I spent an hour today talking to a group of coworkers about this event and explaining that VCDL and Open Carry org are not populated by the kinds of people they thought they are. What am I supposed to tell them tomorrow?
Tell them the truth.  VCDL has some earthy type folks, just like your employer does.  The right to self-defense and life is not predicated on being a member of the elite, pretty, intelligentsia, or psuedo-sophisticates.  Unless you work with some real idiots, I can't imagine you'll have all that much difficulty.  You're pretty persuasive on this forum.  You'll pull it off with ease.

Unless LEO229 is a co-worker.  Then I could see it being a little difficult. :)

You may have missed my point. My question was rhetorical as I already know what will happen tomorrow and how I will handle it. But my point was, after portraying THIS group of gun owners as law abiding reasonable people, and that they really should not expect this event to indicate anything else, this guy takes the opportunity on the world stage to do something that proves every part of that image as wrong.

You can call it elitist if you want. You can put any number of labels on those who may see this the way I do, or differently than you do. I don't now and will not ever own your labels. The fact is that even the village idiot would have known better then to do what this guy did, under those circumstances. I know people who have Tourette syndrome with better self control than that. Phil's reaction when this occurred kind of indicated he might agree that it was a rather inappropriate thing to do.

He portrayed us all in a bad light, at a time when we are starting to draw the attention of a lot of people who are in the fence on these issues. I actually told people to watch for this event in the news. He just pushed a lot of those people to the other side, I am sure he is a very nice guy, but like it or not he just spoke for all of us and he did a very poor job of it.

As for my coworkers, LEO229 would not only be very welcome, he would be considered very liberal.

I don't often say this, but the more I think of that image the more angry it makes me. So lets just agree that you think his actions were appropriate, I don't, and move on.

Regards
 

BobCav

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It was uncalled for and of course the press is eating it up:

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR2007051702568.html
"The first winner, Jay Minsky, responded with an obscene hand gesture when asked what message he hoped to send to Bloomberg."


From: http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20070518-120200-2653r.htm
"Fairfax resident Jay Pinsky, who was the first winner, made an obscene hand gesture when asked what message he wanted to send Mr. Bloomberg."
 

cato

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"The first winner, Jay Minsky, responded with an obscene hand gesture when asked what message he hoped to send to Bloomberg.

"If he doesn't like people in New York having guns, he should deal with New York," said Minsky, who grew up in Brooklyn. "Just keep out of Virginia."



It appears he was just communicating with Bloomberg intheir natural home town language.



 

beradcee

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My first meeting. I was there in the blue Dickies shirt.Thought it was great. I hope to be attending more in the future. Got to meet Unrequited. Hope to meet more of you.
 

SicSemperTyrannis

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I wish the winner hadn't given the finger, but since he grew up in Brooklyn, and since every news article I've read mentions that he grew up in Brooklyn, it somehow seems less offensive ... I know that isn't especially rational, but I just love that he is a transplant to Virginia from NY, and was quoted in every article mentioning he is from Brooklyn and asking Bloomberg to stay away!

By the way, the Bloomberg Gun Giveaway II is the LEAD story on Netscape this morning!

AWESOME JOB! I will be curious to see how many new members come from this... hopefully, a few hundred!
 

possumboy

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SicSemperTyrannis wrote:
By the way, the Bloomberg Gun Giveaway II is the LEAD story on Netscape this morning!
You got the link to this? I cannot find it. Maybe that I'm just looking in the wrong place also.
 

CaptainCharles

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On Fox news' website:



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273217,00.html



One of the few to mention that the guns were not immediatly delivered to the winners, and to specify that they had to go through the normal back ground checks....bravo....



Unfortunatly, Mr. Minsky's gesture also was mentioned....disappointing to say the least. Especially in light of advanced notice of the anti's and national media attention....
 

darrel_h

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I was at the meeting last night, which was the first one for me, great turnout. I would like to thank everyone who supported the event, whether you could make it or not, especially Phil, Mike, the other VCDL EM's (and members of course), Mr. Moates, the GMU SCC students, the list goes on and on.

I was actually kind of surprised at the amount of news turnout. But I have to ask a question, is it starting to piss :banghead:anyone else off that every single article out there, and there's a lot of them from the past week or two, always mention the "suspected illegal sales of firearms" by the gun shops but never once do they mention the fact that the sting operations are in fact themselves suspected of beingillegal? I mean, isn't this one of the primary reasons for all of this? They're getting the point across that we obviously don't want New York coming into our state and running their stings, but they're not conveying the reasons why at all which, if you ask me, is probably giving the impression to the people that don't really know the whole story, that VCDL and everyone else is trying to cover for these shops (which WE all know is not true).

I don't know. I've just been reading article after articlefor the last week and I guess it just kind of got to me now. Sorry for the rant folks, had to get it off my chest. I'm sure there's a couple of you out there that feel the same way.

Anyways, thanks again everyone, I think all in all it wasa great event. Double R, it was nice meeting you. Thanks for the company. Take care all.



Darrel
 

SicSemperTyrannis

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Darrel_h: I agree... oddly enough, the coverage in NY was more balanced than the coverage in todays Richmond Times-Dispatch. If you go to google news, and enter Bloomberg Gun Giveaway or VCDL, and read the articles from NY papers, you'll see what I mean....
 

HankT

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cato wrote:
"The first winner, Jay Minsky, responded with an obscene hand gesture when asked what message he hoped to send to Bloomberg.

"If he doesn't like people in New York having guns, he should deal with New York," said Minsky, who grew up in Brooklyn. "Just keep out of Virginia."
You can take the kid out of Brooklyn...


We better hope those two pass the NICS.
 

darrel_h

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SicSemperTyrannis wrote:
Darrel_h: I agree... oddly enough, the coverage in NY was more balanced than the coverage in todays Richmond Times-Dispatch. If you go to google news, and enter Bloomberg Gun Giveaway or VCDL, and read the articles from NY papers, you'll see what I mean....
I just went through and read a couple articles from up there and yeah, you're right, they do seem to be a little more centered, but they still don't go into the why's. I'm thinking the only reason they're not going into detail about the legality of the stings is because no actual charges have been brought on them whereas the gun shops have. Just a guess. And out of curiousity, does anyone know where the BATFE stands on their investigation?
 
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