Primer for Gun Control Groups in the US

Updated page here.

This is mostly for those who are new to the issue or who aren't quite as involved, similar to the 'Gun Blog Lexicon'.

When you hear about gun control in the US, often you'll hear polls cited that X% of the country wants this or that measure passed or opposes some new bill. You'll have dozens of gun control groups come out of the woodwork touting their 'Grassroots' and 'research' proving owning a gun is more dangerous than sticking your hand in a meat grinder but when it comes to elections, legislation and litigation over the last 15+ years, support for 'gun control' has been the exception and not the rule.

So where are all these people who support these controls when push comes to shove? Why aren't gun control measures easily passed and pro-gun legislators laughed off the floor?

Well, when it comes down to it, the majority of 'gun control' in the US boils down to a few actual groups, The Brady Campaign (BC), The Joyce Foundation & Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) along w/ their Astroturf/Sockpuppets and even then there's considerable crossover. One of the best places to see this has been the Georgia Packing site but it hasn't been updated in awhile and there have been some changes and it is currently being updated.

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence/Million Mom March (BC/MMM): Formerly known as Handgun Control Inc (HCI) this is pretty much the original 'Gun Control' group and the only one w/ any real 'grassroots'. They claim to have approx. 50K contributing members. The BC absorbed the MMM after they came under investigation for potential tax fraud. They are currently shedding major staff , have lost 90% of their membership according to their own numbers in the last 6 yrs and are having some serious financial issues.

Even w/ the 'Grassroots', they are not free of astroturfing efforts. For awhile, they were running multiple twitter feeds under different names. The book written by their legal director and soon to be acting president Dennis Henigan has a large portion of the positive reviews for it done by other professional gun control advocates w/o acknowledging their connections. Most of their "We Hate The NRA sites" that they've run in the past seem to be down.

(Un)Important/(Ir)relevant personalities:
Dennis "What 'People' Henigan: Legal Director/Acting President (as of 7/10/11)
Colin Goddard: VT survivor given staff position so they can exploit his tragedy.
Andrew Goddard: Colin's Father, head of Virginia branch MMM, Religious Bigot
Joan Peterson: BC Nat'l Board member, blogger, punching bag, also a board member of a Joyce Foundation SUPGV group.
Tom Vanden Berk: BC Nat'l Board member, Acting Ex Dir of Illinois Council against Handgun Violence.
Max Nacheman: State Coordinator(?) in coordination w/ MAIG.

Joyce Foundation: This is a huge, multi-million dollar 'charitable' organization that funds the majority of gun control activism in the US including organizations, websites and research. It's grant page is a literally a who's who list and most are interconnected in some way. President Obama was a board member from 1994-2002.

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence: Claims to be an umbrella group of 48 organizations but is really just another group of 4 or 5 people in a DC office. Receives a large portion of their money from the Joyce's. Current activity is primarily attempting to smear firearm advocates through the use of loaded terms like 'Traitor' and 'Insurrectionist'.

Besides money problems, they've also recently had their Twitter account suspended for a week for posting work/personal information of pro-gun advocates and were caught using a sock puppet by the name of GritsJr to support their articles.

(Un)Important/(Ir)relevant personalities:
Josh Horwitz: Executive Director.
Ladd Everitt: Comm. Dir. aka GritsJr.

International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP): Joyces provided money to hold a summit and generate a report (written by other Joyce advocates) calling for more firearm restrictions as well as general operations. Some staff in common.

Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV): Legal group used to push litigation and legislation. Sends lawyers to advise anti-gun groups and legislators and to support lawsuits in favor of 'gun control. Depending on year, most or much funding comes from Joyce. Claims 'over 700' professional members.

States United to Prevent Gun Violence(SUPGV): This is an umbrella Joyce group that covers most of the national organizations and websites that couldn't survive w/o outside funding as they have little to no actual 'grassroots' support and/or membership. They absorbed the Freedom States Alliance (FSA) due to lack of funds and many of the FSA websites (ex 50caliberterror) are now defunct. Some examples are:

'Citizens for a Safer Minnesota' aka Protect Minnesota. Same group. Different names and websites but same mailing address/E-mail. This is the group Joan Peterson is a board member of.
New England Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence: Runs the 'OhhShoot' blog w/o attributing it to themselves.
Ceasefire Oregon: Runs 'NewTrajectory' Blog. Originator of blog didn't even know his group was affiliated w/ Joyce Foundation or SUPGV.
Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence (ICHV): One of the better funded groups being in the Joyce's backyard. Still has recently reduced operations and staffing issues. Acting Ex Dir Tom Vanden Berk is also a Brady Campaign Board member.

Most 'Ceasefire' groups are also 'affiliates'.

Violence Policy Center: One of the more extreme groups out there. No membership. Funded now exclusively by Joyce Foundation. Less than half a dozen staff/interns in a DC office. Primary activity is attempting to demonize Concealed Carry by presenting anecdotes of illegal/criminal actions and creating contentious 'reports'. Famous for rebranding semi-auto firearms as 'Assault Weapons' and playing on that name confusion:

The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons�anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun�can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

Past attempts have been to ban all handguns and put bolt action rifles under the same category as machine guns by labeling them as 'Sniper Rifles'.

(Un)Important/(Ir)relevant personalities:
Josh Sugarmann: Head money leech
Tom Diaz: Talking head

Research/Media: Aside from organizations and websites, the Joyce Foundation also provides considerable amounts of funding to create 'scientific' articles pushing gun control. Schools that regularly/have receive(d) money are
Harvard School of Public Health
John-Hopkins/Bloomberg School of Public Health
American College of Preventive Medicine
UC Davis among others.

(Un)Important/(Ir)relevant personalities:
Philip J. Cook: Often works w/ Ludwig. Regular grant recipient in early 2000's.
David Hemenway: The most active regurgitator of anti-gun reports.
Jens Ludwig: Often works w/ Cook. Regular grant recipient in early 2000's.
Matthew Miller: Usually works w/ Hemenway.
Garen Wintemute: current focus is documenting activity at gun shows and deciding whether it's legal or not using personal opinion and conjecture.

They've also provided funding for loaded questions on the NORC GSS report and provided money to 'MediaMatters' and 'Center for Public Integrity' to promote gun control articles.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG): Group started by NY Mayor Bloomberg and former Chicago Mayor Daley. Currently consists of over 500 mayors nationwide. Most known for its support of 'stings' into other states to entrap gun shops and show dealers into questionable sales. Primary funding is from Bloomberg but also received funding from the Joyce Foundation under title "United Against Illegal Guns Support Fund".

Created the poll claiming the majority of NRA members support gun control using the censured polling group 'The Word Doctors" and was caught creating a sockpuppet group "Americans United for Safe Streets". Runs the site 'ClosetheLoophole' but acknowledges connection.

(Un)Important/(Ir)relevant personalities:
Max Nacheman: State Coordinator in coordination w/ Brady Campaign.

Others: Groups and individuals not affiliated w/ the above three are few and far between.

(although he has also taken Joyce money for some 'reports')

Heeding God's Call: A pet project of Bryan Miller, former ED of now defunct Ceasefire NJ. Attempts to attach religious terminology to gun control. Some attachment to Ceasefire PA which Miller is strongly associated w/ and a Joyce grant recipient.

International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA): Not a US group per se but numerous US groups are part of it. UN lobbying organization. Former director Rebecca Peters stated that US residents should only be allowed single shot rifles w/ a range of less than 100yds.

Protest Easy Guns (PEG): Primarily focuses on 'Lie-in's' and harassing gun shops and repeating tweets by other groups smearing firearm owners. Started by Abby Spangler.

Stop Handgun Violence: A near defunct group run by John Rosenthal. Only activity is maintaining a few anti-gun billboards primarily in Boston, MA.

Students For Gun Free Schools (SGFS): Focuses almost exclusively on opposing self-defense on campus.

I'll add more and update as I think of them and come across. If you have information, please email me or leave a comment w/ supporting evidence.

Police Retaliation/Intimidation

Did you hear about the lady who was arrested on her own property for filming a police stop?

Well during a public meeting to discuss police accountability and the incident, the local authorities came out to rigorously enforce parking laws, ticketing many attendees.

Such petty little jackboots there.

Those Racist Gun Laws

The head of the Chicago Police Dept. proclaims that Federal Gun Laws are designed so minorities will kill eachother.

It's funny in a sad way when someone that high up on the food chain's only recourse is to play the race card when the majority of anti-gun laws, both federal, state and local, were designed to keep 'undesirables' (whether African-American, Native-American, Irish, poor, etc) unarmed.

He's going to be a real winner.

Paul Helmke Jumps Ship

His 'Five Year Contract' is up and he's bailing. Dennis "What 'People" Henigan will be the acting Pres. until they find some new sucker to take up thier dying cause.

The article brings the funny:

The Brady Campaign, in announcing Helmke's departure, noted many accomplishments of his tenure. Leaders of the board spoke highly of his leadership, saying he has made the organization's voice louder and its movement stronger.

What are these 'many accomplishments'? How is the movement 'stronger'? They haven't had a successful federal legislation in over a decade. Their own guy in the White House, the guy they claimes would roll over the NRA and get 'sensible, common-sense' gun bans passed instead has rolled over FOR the NRA the last few years, garnering an "F" from Paul. Two losses at the SCOTUS, on and on.

Bye Paul. It's been fun.

Music....Sweet Music

Only one more to go and then it's just down to improving the ones that are already on the books.

That sound you hear are Brady staffers working on their resumes. (Update: Well, what do you know? :) )

Welcome to the dustbin.

IL Gov. Quinn: Modern Day George Wallace

In the face of being the last state depriving citizens of self defense (unless you're a Chicago Alderman) Quinn digs in his heels and proclaims "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever"

The excuses are weak and pathetic, just like all the opponents of CCW:

“Our streets need to be safer, and a concealed carry law would put first responders and the public at risk by allowing more weapons – hidden weapons – in public places."...
“In fact, by the time they get the gun out, it may well be too late. And to the extent they get the gun out early, they may well be causing pain and harm and damage to a family member,” Currie said.

The same nonsense trotted out before each and every other state passed CCW. Now just add one more reason Illinois is a laughing stock.

Double Standards for Doctors

In Florida, Gun Ban advocates screech that the AAP isn't allowed to push a political agenda to ban guns under the guise of 'Health'.

In Arizona, Gun Ban advocates are screeching that those adjudicated as healthy by Doctors and the Courts are allowed to own firearms.

And they lie about it in the process:

CSGV

#Arizona responds to Tucson massacre by passing law to allow mentally ill to petition to buy guns again. #AZ #p2... http://fb.me/TjM5YNZQ

Double standards and dishonesty. Par for the course when trying to restrict civil rights.

And Then There Was One...

Now that the Wis. Assembly and Senate have overwhelmingly passed CCW (68-27 & 25-8), it's on to their Governor to sign it which he is expected to.

That leaves IL as the last state w/ absolutely no form of Carry whatsoever even if you include states like Maryland where only a few have it. All due to Chicago.

The so-called 'leadership' of state is an embarrassment.

SIH has more.

Let Them Eat Cake

Chicago Gun Registration compliance matches almost exactly to SES :
Poll at original article.

NY Times: Ignorant and Lying

The editorialists at the NYT puts out an editorial, unsurprisingly, calling for more restrictions on firearms and attacking Rep. Issa for not doing the same. Again they ignore 150 pages of testimony to focus on him keeping the hearings focused.

That's the ignorant part. The lying part? Again the usual:

Three out of five of those guns were battlefield weapons that were outlawed here until the assault weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004.

They were neither 'battlefield weapons' nor were they 'outlawed'. And the Times (should) know this. If they don't, they shouldn't be writing about it. If they do, they're lying.

The 'Logic' of Gun Control

Federal Agency (BATFE/DOJ) knowingly allows thousands of firearms to be smuggled into Mexico w/ no real plan to track them. Gun Ban groups' reaction?

ProtestEasyGuns Protest Easy Guns

This whole mess demonstrates how America's weak gun laws don't go far enough to stop traffickers and criminals....

How can you reason w/ a mentality like that? And this isn't just some off the wall individual, this is the voice of the organizations themselves.

@CSGV Attacks Veterans, Runs w/ Crazy

SIH posted this morning about our favorite Brady punching bag and Joyce puppet attacking a Marine Veteran for touting his service while running for Congress.

Well the fanatics at the Coalition to Stop Gun Ownership doesn't think much of our military veterans either:

CSGV CSGV

Man running for seat held by Gabby Giffords shown holding assault rifles in ads, brags of being "warrior." #p2... http://fb.me/13U1FBrMU

Is there anyone they DON'T have contempt for?