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VA-ALERT: VCDL mini-alert 7/3/08‏

T Dubya

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Feb 11, 2008
Messages
914
Location
Richmond, Va, ,
imported post

VCDL mini-alert 7/3/08

Happy Fourth of July from VCDL!

1. City of Roanoke cannot ban guns at Fourth of July Festival,
contrary to flyer
2. Wear your VCDL shirts on the 4th to celebrate your freedoms!
3. "Protest Easy Guns" article in Washington Post

*******************************************************
1. City of Roanoke cannot ban guns at Fourth of July Festival,
contrary to flyer
*******************************************************

There is a 4th of July festival at River's Edge Sports Complex in
Roanoke tomorrow. It is cosponsored by the anti-gun Roanoke Times.

The flyer says that "all firearms are strictly prohibited."

Sounds like the Roanoke Times is smoking some kind of weed again.

The City CANNOT ban guns in a public park.

If have talked to the Roanoke Commonwealth Attorney's office and also
Sgt. Smith with Roanoke PD to make sure we are one the same page.

The event will have off-duty Roanoke officers providing security.

If you are prevented from bringing a legally carried gun into the
event by any of the officers, comply with their unlawful orders, but
first get their names and badge numbers and give that information to
me so that this can be settled later.

You might ask the officers to contact Sgt. Smith or the Commonwealth
Attorney's office to confirm that the officers cannot legally enforce
a gun ban on public property.

The code section that prohibits the City from banning guns in pubic
parks and buildings is 15.2-915.

Those carrying concealed shouldn't have any problems as the officer's
won't know you're carrying, of course.

*******************************************************
2. Wear your VCDL shirts on the 4th to celebrate your freedoms!
*******************************************************

Jim Kiser sent me an email suggesting that VCDL members wear a VCDL
hat or t-shirt on the 4th to celebrate their freedoms. Sounds like a
great idea!

*******************************************************
3. "Protest Easy Guns" article in Washington Post
*******************************************************

I was interviewed by the Washington Post about an article that they
were doing on Abby Spangler, who started the anti-gun "Protest Easy
Guns."

I was asked if Ms. Spangler and her organization have been effective
and I gave an honest answer.

http://tinyurl.com/6e3qsl

The Mom Behind a Movement
Old Town Woman Leads Gun Control Effort

By Brigid Schulte
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 3, 2008; VA01

Old Town Alexandria's Abby Spangler didn't set out to start a national
movement for tighter gun controls.

But she took note when two students shot their classmates at Columbine
High School in Colorado. She watched moms keep their kids inside when
the D.C. snipers terrorized the Washington region. Then five Amish
girls were shot in their Pennsylvania schoolhouse. Finally, on the
morning of April 16, 2007, when Seung Hui Cho opened fire at Virginia
Tech, killing 32 students and teachers before killing himself,
Spangler decided she couldn't stand back anymore.

"I'd been thinking, 'Is this what we've come to in America?' " she
said. "But when Virginia Tech happened, I said, 'I've had enough.'
Then when I found out the Virginia Tech shooter got his gun in a
matter of minutes, I was outraged. I decided that someone had to speak
out and say this is unacceptable. We're not just going to light
candles to mourn the victims. We're going to protest for change."

Within a week, Spangler, 43, had been transformed from a stay-at-home
mother of two, ages 4 and 7, and part-time cellist to the leader of a
movement, Protest Easy Guns. It has a Web site and YouTube postings.
Followers have organized "lie-ins" across the country, including 70 on
April 16, the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting.

Spangler has testified in Richmond, calling for background checks on
all gun sales at gun shows. (The proposal died, despite backing by
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.) She is lobbying members of Congress on the
issue. She has been joined at her lie-ins by the Rev. Jesse Jackson,
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, police officers, Vietnam War
veterans, college students, teenagers, grandmothers, Virginia Tech
survivors, victims' family members and Americans of all political
persuasions.

At a lie-in -- which she first called a "die-in" -- 32 protesters
dressed from head to toe in black, representing Cho's victims, lie on
the ground in silence for three minutes, the amount of time it took
Cho to kill most of them.

"I knew nothing about gun laws and gun control before this happened.
Zero," she said. Now, she is a fountain of statistics, data and
arguments and counter-arguments on all facets of gun control. Now, she
says things such as, "There is a continuing calamity of Titanic
proportions, and we Americans need to right the ship" and "What's the
point of us teaching our little Johnnies and Janes to be good people
and allow them to walk in the streets with criminals who have easy
access to guns? We might as well be throwing them into a tank of
sharks."

Spangler lives in Old Town in a brick house built in 1840. In a corner
of her living room sits a music stand with Bach's Six Suites and her
cello.

"We played Mahler and Puccini last night," she said of a performance
with the Washington Philharmonic Orchestra. Brightly colored pool toys
are scattered around the patio, and children's toys, games, puzzles,
firetrucks, scooters, fish tanks and books dot the kitchen and family
room.

But it is the green room with the crystal chandelier that once served
as the dining room that has become the nerve center of her efforts.

The table is stacked with newspaper clippings, studies on gun
violence, position papers, bags of orange and maroon ribbons, and red
Protest Easy Guns posters. Triangular mailing boxes are stacked in a
corner. They are the key to the movement's easy spread across the
country, she said. Each is a Protest in a Box. Spangler fills each one
with everything a local lie-in leader needs to stage a protest. When
it is over, Spangler asks only that the box be passed to someone else.

"I wanted it to be easy," she said. "I wanted to show that if even a
diaper-changing mom like myself could lead one, anyone could. We all
have busy lives. It's hard to get involved, because we don't know if
it will make a difference. So a Protest in a Box, with a step-by-step
guide and copies of the original letter to send to friends, makes it
easy."

Spangler said she is sometimes startled by how much her life has
changed in a year.

It all started from raw passion, she said. "The Virginia Tech massacre
was on Monday. I was just doing the normal preschool mom thing --
going to the sandlot, pushing the kids on the swings. But I couldn't
stop thinking how tragic it was," she said. Every time she looked at
her two children and put herself in the place of a parent whose child
had died that day, she couldn't bear it, she said. "On Tuesday night,
I just remember bursting out in tears."

She had been watching a movie -- she can't remember which, but the
message was about fighting back. She decided she would do something
but had no idea what. On Wednesday, taking a walk along the Potomac
River, the idea of a lie-in came to her. "It was instinctive, just
BANG, I'm going to get 32 friends to lie down with me," she said. "As
a mother, I was outraged for my fellow Virginians."

She said she had no idea how to stage a protest, so she just started
e-mailing friends, neighbors and other moms. Within six days of the
shooting, she had organized her first lie-in in front of City Hall in
Alexandria. She and her friends were draped in maroon and orange
ribbons, Virginia Tech's colors.

After that, people asked her what came next. "I said I didn't know. I
was exhausted," she said. "But then I thought I could try to make this
into something. What was the worst thing that could happen? It
wouldn't take off? That I'd embarrass myself? I'd found out that 80
percent of people in most polls want to have tighter gun laws -- we
just had to find a way to mobilize them."

Spangler found a host of volunteers willing to create and run the Web
site and print the posters. And, as the president of the family-run
C.D. Spangler Foundation, a philanthropic group that reported about
$447 million in assets in 2006, Spangler has the ability to bankroll
the movement. She won't ever raise money for it, she said. The
movement is all about the people's will.

And if anyone would know how to tap into the grass roots, it's
Spangler. She spent years studying social movements for her political
science doctorate at Columbia University. Her dissertation, "The
Politics of Disease: Social Movement Responses to AIDS, Breast Cancer
and Prostate Cancer in the United States," is a look at three
movements that successfully changed policies, boosted funding and
research and saved lives. The key to each was that they were led by
the people, she said. They were fueled by outrage and passion at the
grass-roots level. They used creativity and repeated their messages
until things changed.

"The message from these social movements is this: People rising up
together to have their collective voice heard can make change," she
said.

Critics in the gun rights community beg to differ.

"I'm familiar with her lie-ins. I don't see the purpose of it," said
Philip Van Cleave, who heads the Virginia Citizens Defense League. "It
doesn't seem to be effective in changing anything, as far as I can
tell."

"When you consider that we had just had the Virginia Tech massacre
just that prior year, the fact that the gun show law didn't change
basically shows that the right to keep and bear arms is strong in
Virginia. Because even with all the lie-ins and the emotions involved
and groups like Abby Spangler's efforts to make hay out of it, the
Virginia Assembly looked at it and decided there is no loophole. And
nothing changed."

In fact, Van Cleave said, for the first time, both the House and
Senate passed legislation this year that would have allowed those with
concealed weapons permits to carry loaded guns into restaurants that
serve alcohol. (Current law allows people to openly carry a loaded gun
into such places, but not concealed.) Both houses also passed
legislation that would have permitted someone to transport a loaded
gun in a locked container without a permit. Kaine vetoed both bills.

Lawmakers did tighten up the mental health provisions in the law,
which Cho had slipped through. But Van Cleave said his group
successfully lobbied to make it easier for gun rights to be restored
after a person's mental health crisis has passed.

But Spangler said she is not giving up. She has just signed a lease
for office space because the movement has outgrown her dining room and
her ability to lead it for the three afternoons a week that she has a
babysitter.

"It is a complete and utter outrage," she said, that Virginia
lawmakers will continue to allow private sales at gun shows with no
background checks. After Columbine, she said, the Colorado legislature
resisted calls to close the gun show loophole. When lawmakers refused
to act, voters pushed for a public referendum and overwhelmingly voted
to close it. "Guess who doesn't have public referendums?" she said.
"Virginia."

Spangler is no stranger to controversy. She grew up in Charlotte. Her
parents were active in desegregation efforts -- her father pushed for
it as head of the State Board of Education in North Carolina -- and
she was bused across town to what had been an all-black public school.
"That transformed my life and the way I look at people," she said.
"One of my first memories is running to answer the phone and someone
saying, 'I'm going to kill your father.' "

So she is not surprised when she gets e-mails such as one she clicked
on in her kitchen: "Be careful what you believe. It may cost you your
life." She shrugged it off. "From an early age, I learned the
importance of standing up for what you believe," she said.

She also grew up learning how to shoot rifles and shotguns at camp.
Her group is not opposed to that. Nor to hunting. Nor to lawful gun
ownership, she said. What it wants, she said, is background checks for
all gun sales and a ban on assault weapons.

What keeps her going, she said, are the Virginia Tech survivors and
victims' families. Joe Samaha, who lost his daughter Reema in the
shooting, praised Spangler for her "perseverance, tenacity and
courage" as he recently presented her with the Brady Campaign's
Advocate Award. "All of our angels thank you," he told her.

Spangler is working with Reema's brother Omar to push back against
another growing movement -- students in favor of concealed weapons on
campuses.

She touched a silver disk she wears on a chain around her neck. In the
center is the number 32. "They are my bosses," she said, the victims
of gun violence across the country and "the 32 Virginia Tech victims.
That's who I work for, to prevent that from happening again in our
country."
 

T Dubya

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Feb 11, 2008
Messages
914
Location
Richmond, Va, ,
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When I heard about protest Nazis and Abby Spangler staging their shenanigans on MLK Day at the State Capital I became an activist that very day.

This was before I knew anything about OCDO or VCDL.

When I saw how nasty and deceitful those anti's were I drove to Northern Va. ( a region that I swore I would never go again) that week to join the VCDL.

Phillip, if you read this thread, know this. They are the reason I joined and became aware of the VCDL!Up until that point I was just an NRA member with the mindset that I was doing my part. Since then I have written many LTE's with 3 published 2 pertaining to our 2nd amendment rights, participated in many polls, became informed, and have had a few meetings and meals with like- minded patriots.
 

ZBBMcFate

Regular Member
Joined
May 15, 2008
Messages
39
Location
Ruther Glen, Virginia, USA
imported post

T Dubya wrote:
When I heard about protest Nazis and Abby Spangler staging their shenanigans on MLK Day at the State Capital I became an activist that very day.

This was before I knew anything about OCDO or VCDL.

When I saw how nasty and deceitful those anti's were I drove to Northern Va. ( a region that I swore I would never go again) that week to join the VCDL.

Phillip, if you read this thread, know this. They are the reason I joined and became aware of the VCDL!Up until that point I was just an NRA member with the mindset that I was doing my part. Since then I have written many LTE's with 3 published 2 pertaining to our 2nd amendment rights, participated in many polls, became informed, and have had a few meetings and meals with like- minded patriots.
+1
 

nova

Regular Member
Joined
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Messages
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Location
US
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Protest Easy Guns has changed their reasoning behind their "three minutes" so many times I can't even remember them anymore. It started out that "three minutes" was the time it took to buy a gun in VA, now it's the time Cho took to kill 32 people. :?
 

deepdiver

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
5,820
Location
Southeast, Missouri, USA
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Spangler found a host of volunteers willing to create and run the Web site and print the posters. And, as the president of the family-run C.D. Spangler Foundation, a philanthropic group that reported about $447 million in assets in 2006, Spangler has the ability to bankroll the movement.
Yep, just your average American cello playing mother of pre-school kids. My mother was always bankrolling stuff like this with her family's $400,000,000+ foundation while I was growing up just like all the other mothers in my neighborhood. :quirky
 

Grapeshot

Legendary Warrior
Joined
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Messages
35,317
Location
Valhalla
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Sea_Chicken wrote:
Those 32 victims are rolling over in their graves right now.
No one will ever stop evil by eliminating the tools of self-defense!

Evil and those that practice ithave existed throughout the history of mankind and will continue to do so. The only way to offer a measure of protectionfor youself and your loved ones is to accept and practice personal responsibility. IMHOmuch of the responsibility for the Viginia Tech tragedy lies directly at the feet of the administration of that university and our state government.

Yat hey
 

VCDL President

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Joined
Jun 22, 2006
Messages
600
Location
Midlothian, Virginia, USA
imported post

T Dubya wrote:
When I heard about protest Nazis and Abby Spangler staging their shenanigans on MLK Day at the State Capital I became an activist that very day.

This was before I knew anything about OCDO or VCDL.

When I saw how nasty and deceitful those anti's were I drove to Northern Va. ( a region that I swore I would never go again) that week to join the VCDL.

Phillip, if you read this thread, know this. They are the reason I joined and became aware of the VCDL!Up until that point I was just an NRA member with the mindset that I was doing my part. Since then I have written many LTE's with 3 published 2 pertaining to our 2nd amendment rights, participated in many polls, became informed, and have had a few meetings and meals with like- minded patriots.
Being lied to by the media, government, and schools about the 2A is what got me active in gun rights, too. The anti-gunners made a lifelong enemy out of me with all their BS.

And they've done it with you, too. Glad to have you onboard!
 
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