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Thread: 2016 VCDL Lobby day review

  1. #1

    2016 VCDL Lobby day review

    Yesterday was the annual VCDL Lobby Day in Richmond, VA.
    This is the annual event on MLK day where VCDL members descend on the offices of Virginia delegates and senators (all commonwealth offices, not federal). We send teams of 10 or so into each delegate and senator's office to discuss with the rep (or often with the rep's legislative aide) what the upcoming bills are for the next session and what the VCDL's position is on them.

    Here's a shot of us waiting to get through the carry line. There are two entrances for this day: one for people not carrying (who go through the metal detectors) and another for those of us carrying. For some inexplicable reason the state police still wand everyone going through the carry line.



    The orange stickers say "GUNS SAVE LIVES" which is the motto of VCDL (this comes in later). Note how we're all dressed... it was 20 degrees yesterday and wasn't going to crack freezing all day.


    Full disclosure... these are my own pics from my phone and aren't going to be great. VCDL had photographers all over the place and will presumably be up on vcdl.org soon.

    From there our team of 10 went up to the fourth floor to start hitting offices. Our team drew a bunch of Republicans and none of them was hostile to the agenda. They all agreed to look over the VCDL's notes - in previous years it has been a front-and-back single sheet. This year it was a whole packet. There are lots of bad bills in this year in VA.

    However, there are some good bills - if you follow the previously mentioned PDF link you can see that the VERY FIRST ONE is a bill that will undo what Attorney General Mark Herring did recently, where he unilaterally decided to stop honoring CHP's from 25 states. Turns out... he actually has the authority to do this in Virginia. And you can see that VCDL has some delegates who are going to work pretty hard not only to undo the damage he did, but to make it impossible for another Atty Gen to do it in the future.

    Our team interactions were pretty boring, but stuff like this happens too.



    See the young-is looking guy with glasses and the blue tie? I didn't catch his name but he's been a democrat delegate for exactly one week. Every other person in this pic (aside from I think his aide to his right) is a VCDL member and the overwhelming majority of them are packing heat in this picture.
    Bear in mind this is by no means all of the VCDL members in the building. This is just two teams. There is the team who got this delegate assigned, and the team I was in, which stopped to listen to this guy getting schooled.

    And it was a schooling. VCDL members are always well informed, calm, and eloquent when we speak to the reps. I didn't hear the entire exchange but, even though this rep didn't change his mind from one conversation, he did get facts. He did admit that there were things in the exchange that he was just finding out about for the first time. So even with the antis, seeds get planted.

    However the pro-gun people, I believe, need 10-20 people showing up on their doorstep every year too. I don't want to make light of the fact that the team I was on didn't argue with any delegates. I think it's equally important to let the "pro-gun" delegates know that we're watching them and keeping track of what they're doing!

    It wasn't all strictly business... this guy was cool. If the stickers on his Rascal are to be believed, he's a Nam vet, who had the green air horn to let people know he was coming through.



    So it was nice to have a little levity. I didn't get their picture but there were a few bikers there too.


    So I saw the guy with the Rascal while we were waiting to talk to a real intellectual giant representing parts of Fairfax who goes by the name David W. Marsden. My work buddy whom I traveled with lives in Marsden's district and makes in a special point to talk to his rep every year.

    This guy is a real class act and a piece of work.

    We had heard he put a sign outside of his office. I was picturing a 8.5x11 piece of paper or something. This is what we found.



    My buddy was on the fence as to whether or not he was going to go have words with Marsden yesterday and immediately made a decision on seeing this. Getting a sign printed up isn't cheap and requires forethought and effort.

    Marsden is the Author of EIGHT of the bills that the VCDL strongly opposes... almost one-fifth of all the anti bills entered this year.

    I made sure to go talk to him too. If there's one thing I'll say about Marsden, it's that he's not a coward. He pulled in (literally, like shook your hand and then pulled you by it into his office) as many people as would fit into his office and then laid out his position. He did this at least twice (and I suspect, several times) in order to lay out his position. Here are some highlights of the conversation I was in.

    Marsden claimed that he understands that Virginians own guns and has no problem with law-abiding citizens owning guns. He claimed that it is not his aim to take guns away from anyone, and claimed to be a 2nd amendment supporter. He also expressed that he's aware that CHP holders are great and not a problem as far as gun crime goes.

    However, literally less than two minutes later, he outlined as part of his position the idea that CHP holders do not have proper training. That set the tone of the rest of the conversation: everyone in the room immediately came to the conclusion that he's either an imbecile or senile, or otherwise is severely unburdened by logic. It wasn't the only logic hole he dove head-first into, either, just the first.

    Well of course several people called him on it and asked how it was he could say we didn't have proper training if he had just praised us for not being a problem. He showed himself to be a master of deflection: his response was to point out (this is a fact) that there are avenues for getting a CHP in Virginia that don't require a shooting exercise (for instance, hunter safety counts).

    Things devolved into various people trying to make rebuttals at that point - the next lucid point was made by a black-bearded tall fellow whom I wish I'd met better. His question was this: Marsden had stated earlier in the conversation that legislation is an act of compromise. So the black-beard asked, if we were to compromise there, what's in it for us? Marsden's response was more deflection, covering for the likelihood that the answer was simply nothing. He did bring up a point that if people were to serve in a protective capacity similar to what police do (GAG) then they need training to do it.

    So I jumped in there and asked Marsden, look, everyone in this room knows that if we ever have to use a gun defensively, we're looking at draining our life's savings on legal fees trying to stay out of prison. If we go through all your theoretical required training at the expense of thousands of dollars, would you be open to legal protections for people who have to use their firearm defensively? Yes, he said, he'd be open to that.

    Me: OK FOLLOW UP QUESTION FOR YOU SENATOR... would you offer similar protections to what police enjoy?
    Marsden: ABSOLUTELY NOT.

    We left at that point.


    Anyway, we went and got a snack at that point and waited for the rally to begin in the park in front of the representative's offices. This gives a better idea of the numbers we had there, though there was a group photo taken that may end up on the VCDL site.



    Now, for reference, I've seen other special interest groups in the representative's offices before and the big ones might number into the 40s.

    The taller head up front in the orange watch cap is Philip Van Cleave, the head of VCDL. He talked through a bullhorn to begin with while they got the equipment running.

    I don't recall all the speakers up front, but here are some highlights:

    -Corey Stewart, the Prince William County board chair and the chair of the Donald Trump campaign in Virginia, claimed that Trump was the first presidential candidate to call for national concealed carry. He also says that he has started a process in Prince William to do away with Concealed Handgun Permits.
    He further stated that Trump plans to do away with concealed carry nationally.
    I looked around at others and asked some people if that came out the way it was intended, and I think being at the back might have meant others didn't hear it properly... I guess? Because Stewart didn't clarify, or say what this was being done for - just "we're trying to do away with concealed carry permits", full stop.

    -Bill Stanley, the majority whip of the VA senate, who is the chair of the Cruz campaign in Virginia, also spoke. He stated that Cruz recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is a natural right which comes from nature and nature's God. He also stated that Cruz has actually read the constitution and had it memorized (which may be a large mental feat for Cruz, I don't know).

    -You all get one guess as to which presidential campaign did not have a speaker on the VCDL stage.

    -Shaneen Allen got up and spoke. This is the woman who is from Philadelphia who got pulled over in New Germany with a pistol and spent 45 days in jail after volunteering info about her carrying to the cop.
    Her story got fleshed out a bit for us. She had apparently been robbed twice in Philly prior to getting her permit. She also was not a gun person (she seems to be one now, at least marginally) and did it out of a recognition that nobody was going to help her.
    She made the point that none of her training to get a PA CHP went over the fact that New Jersey doesn't care about what Pennsylvania does. So part of her mission now is to bring awareness to this. (We can work with her, I guess, to get her to the point of recognizing it's better not to have to bother.)
    She plugged her website and stated that she's doing what she can to bring awareness to the concealed carry issue, and has basically turned into an activist now.
    http://www.shaneenallen.org/

    -Delegate Rob Bell spoke to the group about how he is running for Attorney General of Virginia. No other Republican is running, and Bell assured us he is a strong gun supporter. His entire purpose in speaking to VCDL was to let us know that he would undo what Herring has done with CHP reciprocity. He actually had the entire group yell "NO MORE YEARS" at Herring's window.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.



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  3. #2
    We left after that, got some lunch, and no gun activism would be complete without a trip to the range. Here I am shooting magnums out of my 681 - my work buddy brought his 44 magnum and had me put six of something downrange that makes handwriting difficult today.

    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  4. #3
    Here's the VCDL photo album:
    http://vcdl.org/Photo-Albums

    I think I should give a shout-out to Senator Amanda Chase. She apparently had a sign, too - and actually had someone with some graphic design skills work on hers!



    The VCDL site says we had 1200 people show up this year.
    There are no crimes against people.
    There are only crimes against the state.
    And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

  5. #4
    I was not able to make this. I would like to next year.

    I did read that the overwhelming coverage was of the anti-gun narrative where the Governor and his cronies attended.
    The wisdom of Swordy:

    On bringing the troops home
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    They are coming home, all the naysayers said they would never leave Syria and then they said they were going to stay in Iraq forever.

    It won't take very long to get them home but it won't be overnight either but Iraq says they can't stay and they are coming home just like Trump said.

    On fighting corruption:
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Trump had to donate the "right way" and hang out with the "right people" in order to do business in NYC and Hollyweird and in order to investigate and expose them.
    Fascism Defined



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