PA Bill Number: HB335

Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.

Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...

Last Action: Removed from table

Last Action Date: May 1, 2024

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Does publicity for anti-gun documentary tell whole story? :: 09/30/2015

When yesterday’s Virginia Beach Beacon announced tomorrow’s free screening of a documentary film dedicated to the 32 Virginia Tech victims, there seemed to be only part of a story, a form of what many believe is a media bias against guns.

By coincidence, that alleged bias was discussed over the weekend at the 30th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC). Held in Phoenix with what may have been a record turnout, the conference was co-hosted by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

This bias is a problem perhaps best described by Breitbart’s AWR Hawkins, recipient of this year’s Journalist of the Year award from SAF. He accused the political left of using “partial truth and outright lies” to further the gun control agenda.

The Beacon story mentioned two women involved in the gun control movement, tomorrow’s event organizer Sibel Galindez and Jeanette Richardson, whose son “was gunned down in front of his home in Newport News 11 years ago by a stranger who had purchased a gun from someone for $200.” But that only tells part of the story.

Galindez, the story said, explained that her group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, “began because a mom was concerned about gun accessibility following the 2012 elementary school shooting in Newport, Conn.” That’s all; nothing about how killer Adam Lanza murdered his mother and only then took her legally-purchased firearms to Sandy Hook elementary to create carnage.

Richardson’s son, Patrick McKinley, according to the Aug. 20, 2013 issue of the Newport News Daily Press, was home from college for the holidays. He was shot fatally early on New Year’s Day 2004. But even that story didn’t tell all.

Examiner found the website for the Virginia Center for Public Safety, which had an Oct. 20, 2011 video of Richardson, now a gun control activist, and a story about her son called “A Portrait Unfinished.” In the third paragraph, the VACPS report notes that Patrick died “in what his mother related in a written piece as ‘…a chance encounter with a drunken, drugged-up but well-armed high school dropout. The handgun was stolen; supposedly from a Navy man who moved to Ohio. The gun was easily obtained by this unemployed 18 year-old for about $200. It came with the Hydro-shock (sic) bullets....’”

During his GRPC remarks, Hawkins noted that he is “sick of” the discussion about background checks. He noted that virtually all shooters in highly-publicized mass shootings passed background checks. Lanza might be the exception, but he stole guns from his mother, who had passed the checks in Connecticut to purchase her firearms.

As for the teen who shot McKinley, he apparently used a stolen gun he bought. No background check involved in that, and none ever would be.

On the same weekend GRPC panel as Hawkins was Mark Walters, host of the nationally-syndicated Armed American Radio on the Salem Broadcasting Network. Noting the importance of educating the public about firearms and the facts, he accused the mainstream media of being the “out-of-the-closet information wing” of the gun control movement. Walters received the CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Year Award on Saturday.

“The media is actively fighting every one of us in this room,” Walters told the GRPC audience. “Ignorance left unattended breeds stupidity and stupidity is a necessary ingredient of the progressive agenda.”

On the other hand, a third panelist, Kevin Michalowski, editor of Concealed Carry magazine, encouraged gun owners to be the best they can be. Reach out to the media, invite reporters to the range, and tell people about the good side to firearms ownership, including personal safety.

MEANWHILE, and possibly to the end Michalowski was talking about, a cleanup of two shooting sites along USFS Road 70 east of Enumclaw in northeast Pierce County is slated this Saturday, Oct. 3. It’s part of a USFS effort to keep the area clean and safe. Two sites will be targeted.

Volunteers will gather at 8:30 a.m. at the 7013 pit area near the junction of FSR 70 and FSR 7013. The second spot is another popular gravel pit located off FSR70 about two miles above the 7013 road, near the junction of FSR70 and its arterial, FSR72, according to the Forest Service.

Both of these areas have been the target of complaints by residents living on private land in the vicinity, due to allegedly careless shooting. The problem has been previously discussed in this column. Volunteers are being encouraged on two forums, WaGuns and Seattle Guns.

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