If you live anywhere near Tucson Arizona, you have an opportunity on Saturday to participate in the “national conversation on gun control”, or at least support the only pro-rights person member on the panel. Widely praised Second Amendment scholar, author and attorneyDavid T. Hardy will be the only pro-gun/pro-rights member of the panel. Mr. Hardy will represent your rights, and be the only voice of reason, in the discussion about “common sense gun control ideas.”
From Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik:
Beginning at 2pm at St. Marks Church (3809 E. Third Street – a block west of Alvernon) I’ll be participating in a forum with several other people to discuss the issue of common sense gun control ideas. Also on the panel will be Pam Simon (January 8th survivor and member of Demand A Plan,) State Representatives Bruce Wheeler and Victoria Steele, State Senator David Bradley, and Tucson Attorney and gun rights advocate David Hardy. Possible attendees will also be Representatives Grijalva and Barber – depending on schedules and what’s going on out in D.C.
The forum is scheduled to last until 4pm.
There will be opening remarks by the panel members, and then questions from the audience. I know each of the people ho are on the panel and it is my expectation that this will be an opportunity to listen to varying viewpoints on this volatile topic in a way that is non-confrontational and respectful. With this topic, that’s not always the case.
If you live near the Tucson area and value your right to bear arms, your attendance is critical to demonstrate to the Tucson City Council that they can’t justify trampling your freedoms using sham “forums” like this one.
A 2nd Amendment rally was held in Phoenix, Arizona today, the ‘Day of Resistance’ rally, put on by the Phoenix TEA Party. This rally was well attended, with a crowd of 1,500 according to event organizers. Compare that figure to the showing at Congressman Matt Salmon’s office during the Obama For America/Organizing For Action’s National Day of Action in support of gun control. Coincidentally, Congressman Matt Salmon was a featured speaker at today’s pro-gun rally.
Phoenix ‘Day of Resistance’ rally at the Arizona capitol. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu speaking (visible on the right).
Much of the crowd was armed with revolvers, semi-auto handguns, AR-15s, and/or various other rifles. Despite the large number of armed individuals present, only two law enforcement officers were spotted at the rally. One Arizona Department of Public Safety officer who used his car to enforce closing the street in front of the capitol, providing safe passage for all of the pedestrian traffic. The other law enforcement officer was Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, another featured speaker at the rally. As commenter Zermoid noted over at Shall Not Be Questioned, “The fact they felt they needed more cops for an anti rights rally than for a pro gun rally (where alot of the people were probably packing) says ALOT!”
Three local news stations were there to cover today’s event too. I haven’t watched any of the coverage of today’s event, but I have no reason to believe it will be any different than the coverage of last weekend’s pro-rights rally.
President Obama’s OFA campaign machine, recently renamed Organizing For Action, called for a National Day of Action in support of laws that would limit your right to self-defense, ban guns and magazines, and devote your tax dollars to the creation of anti-gun propaganda. I was curious what an anti-gun rally looked like, so I headed over to a planned location today for a better look.
From the Arizonan’s For Gun Safety mailer:
a number of rallies at local Congressional offices to promote the President’s Plan to Reduce Gun Violence, including Universal Background Checks, a Ban on Assault Weapons and High Capacity Ammunition Magazines, a National Gun Trafficking Law, and Research on Gun Violence by the Centers for Disease Control.
Here’s a photo outside of Congressman Matt Salmon’s Gilbert, AZ office, 15 minutes into the big protest.
I kept looking around for this protest, because surely it would be a large gathering, based on the amount of time the media provides to anti-rights groups and their anti-gun agenda. Surely, the balance in viewpoints the media claims to strive for would indicate that this should be a big rally, dwarfing the turnout for the pro-Second Amendment rally held at the state capitol last weekend.
I counted six police officers outside watching the building, which is five more than I saw at last weekend’s pro-gun rally, so I had to be at the right place. The officers were keeping a close eye on me, probably because of my snazzy GUTNTAG seasonings T-shirt. As I was leaving, I finally spotted a group of people gathered on a balcony at the same building where Congressman Salmon’s Arizona office is located. I can’t be certain these six to ten people were protesters, or just office workers outside on a smoke break, as they didn’t have any signs. If they were exercising their right to petition an elected official, I wasn’t about to interfere with their rights.
So there you have it, that’s what an anti-rights/anti-gun rally looks like in Arizona. Keep this in mind when the news media gives equal, or greater, amounts of airtime to anti-gun groups in the name of “balance”.
A truly grassroots 2nd Amendment Rally was held at the Arizona Capitol last Saturday. Turnout estimates for “High Noon at the Capitol” have ranged from a crowd of 400 people at any given time, to more than 1,500 total based on the number of hand outs distributed.
A producer must have decided the story needed to be more dramatic and scary, did some editing, then ran the story again. The edits turned it into a “Gun Rights/Anti-Obama Rally” about “a small army, armed with hundreds of assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns took to the front lawn at the capitol today”.
ABC15 Reporter, Steve Kuzj, was a good guy and ran a fair story. Please send him a thank you note if you get a chance. Trusting in Mr. Kuzj’s good nature, Jacqueline elected to discuss gun rights, the Sandy Hook shootings, and what should be done to reduce violent murder. The reporter was initially confused about the rally, since he had an announcement that claimed it was supposed to be an Anti-Amnesty rally. He also noted that he would need an opposing view for “balance” in the story, but that there were no anti-rights people counter protesting. Unfortunately, the two or three anti-gun/anti-rights activists in Arizona were busy, so he had to use Facebook comments for balance. It must have been challenging to find a few anti-gun quotes that didn’t include personal attacks, profanity, or delusional thinking.
KPHO CBS-5 did a drive-by hit-piece about an “Impeach Obama Rally”. When contacted by rally attendees about the deceptive story, KPHO adamantly argued that their story was correct. Eventually, they provided a link to an ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC) Facebook event page as the source for their story. Unfortunately, nobody actually organized their national event and only 350 people even “Liked” the event page. Even worse for KPHO, it appears the Washington based ALIPAC planned their event for 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM EST (9:00 to 11:00 Arizona time), while the 2nd Amendment Rally was from noon until 2:00 Arizona time. Yes, a local news station “covered” the story of armed people at the capitol by looking at the wrong event page on Facebook and “constructing” the rest of the story. On the KPHO Facebook page, they blamed the gun-rights rally organizers for the story.
it was presented to us as a rally to “Impeach Obama”. The initial information we received said nothing about gun rights. We expected a few dozen people and weren’t even sure we were going to cover it. It was a surprise to see all those people there and the biggest issue was the 2nd amendment. We would not have even known about the event except for 2 viewers who sent us the first info with links to an Impeach Obama Facebook page. No one involved in the gun rights issue bothered to tell us about the rally. Next time perhaps they will.
I guess KPHO doesn’t believe it is their job to publish accurate stories.
The 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by Senator Dianne Feinstein:
A well regulated Militiacollective, being necessary to the security of a free StateAristocracy, the right of the people to keep and bearregistered Arms, shall not be infringedonly be tolerated if approved for peasant possession under 18 U.S.C. § 922, section…until we dry up the supply of these weapons over time.
