CRPA March-April

PROUD SUPPORTERS OF
MAR. // APRIL. 2016 • ISSUE 1022
LINE$8.95
CRPA FIRING
OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
CALIFORNIA RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION
VOTE
THE
STAKES
HIGH
STOP THE
ATTACKS ON
RKBA
NO GUN OWNER
VOTE
LEFT BEHIND
ELECT PRO
GUN OWNER
CANDIDATES
GUN OWNER PRIDE
ARE TOO
GET OTHERS
TO VOTE
BE PROUD OF YOUR CHOICE
GET FRIENDS INVOLVED
VOLUNTEER
MOBILIZE
SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE
PROTECT YOUR HERITAGE
IN WIN WIN
ARE YOU
SPREAD
JOIN CRPA
MAD
ENOUGH YET?
FULLY ENGAGE
DEFEAT
NEWSOM'S
NONSENSE
STAY INFORMED
GET OUT THE
GUN OWNER VOTE
SEIZE THE ELECTION
THE W O R D
BE AN I NTERNET
EVANGELIST
REJECT THE CAMPAIGN OF SHAME
5˚TO DOMINATION
CONTACT
POLITICIANS
PARTICIPATE
WINNING
SHARE OUR MESSAGE ON ALL SOCIAL MEDIA!

STORE
Solar Chargers
CRPA HAS A
VARIETY OF POPULAR
Hats,
Women’s Tees,
Jackets,
& more
GREAT NEW
MERCHANDISE
ADDED REGULARLY!
Tech kits
Every purchase is a direct donation
to CRPA for continued protection
of your RKBA!
Stainless Steel Bottle
Visit bit.ly/shopCRPA
2
MARCH / APRIL

CARPE ELECTION
HELP US BUILD CRPA’S CAMPAIGN MACHINE 2.0
This election cycle is unlike any
we have witnessed in many years.
Americans in general, and Californians
in particular, are in an epic struggle
to preserve our right to keep and bear
firearms for ourselves and future generations.
Long standing civil rights, freedoms,
and American values are under
siege from opportunistic power hungry
politicians with ulterior motives. All
of us have watched and listened while
candidates and media talking heads use
gun control rhetoric as a tool to demonize
those who choose to own a gun for
sport or to defend themselves or their
families and to advance a statist political
agenda. They distort the truth about
firearms owners and about the social
utility of firearms. And this all comes at
a threatening time when lone wolf guerilla
terrorists’ attacks make the ability
to protect ourselves and our families
more important than ever.
NO GUN VOTE LEFT BEHIND
To preserve our rights, the vote of
every gun owner is absolutely critical
to prevent more anti-gun politicians
from being elected and more gun bans
being passed in California. If all gun
owners voted, we could stop ill-conceived
laws before they can get off the
ground. Consider this: the statewide
voter turnout for the November, 2014
election in California was 42.2 percent.
Jerry Brown won the governor’s
office by 1,216,199 votes. And that was
an election with an unknown Republican
opponent who barely showed up.
If even half of the estimated 8-12 million
firearm owners in California registered
to vote and actually voted, gun
owners would gain a majority in the
state legislature and control many state
level offices.
So, did you vote in the last election?
Did all your friends? We cannot
leave any gun vote behind! If you are
not part of the solution, you are part of
the problem. If you don’t vote, shame
on you!
FIVE DEGREES TO
DOMINATION
Gun owners have only to get
through five degrees to dominate California
politics. If ten new voters register,
and they each get ten more, and
they each get ten more, after five cycles,
there would be 1 million new pro-gun
voters! Help CRPA make it happen!
The deadline to register to vote is October
24, 2016, but there is no reason to
wait. It only takes 5 minutes to register
and will make all the difference next
November!
CRPA has paper voter registration
forms available free of charge for you
to distribute. Contact us at contact@
crpa.org. CRPA will provide as many as
you want, as often as you want. Folks
can also register online right now!
http://registertovote.ca.gov/. Send that
link to your friends. Push it out with
your emails! All gun owners need to
reach out to register at least ten other
gun owners, and see that they actually
vote too!
Every range, instructor, and gun
retailer should have voter registration
forms available for customers. If your
local range or store doesn’t, give them
some. And ask them to put that website
address and a graphic on their website!
Folks can also elect to permanently vote
by mail so they don’t even have to drive
to the polling place. They just mail back
the official ballot that they get in the
mail. It will be sent to them well before
Election Day. All gun owners must
commit to register to vote and should
vote by mail so they don’t slip up and
miss going to the polls on election day.
BUILDING CRPA CAMPAIGN
MACHINE 2.0
Successful political campaigns
have changed. Technology is making
it much easier to communicate a specific
message to a specific voter. Social
media has made it easier to get a
message out. Data mining and list development
and cross referencing are replacing
old school paid media buys on TV
and radio.
To stay effective, CRPA is adopting
these new techniques to influence
elections. Help support CRPA’s effort
to rebuild the CRPA campaign machine
by donating, but just as important by
subscribing to CRPA’s alerts and by
sharing, forwarding, those messages to
ALL of your friends.
Seize the elections! #winning! All
hands on deck!
COMMITMENT TO THE
CAUSE, C.D. MICHEL,
CRPA PRESIDENT &
GENERAL COUNSEL
California Rifle & Pistol Association
March TFL
CRPA FIRING LINE 3

HOW MANY
GUN OWNERS
ARE THERE
IN CALIFORNIA
ANYWAY?
How many people own guns in
California? It’s a tough question to answer
with specificity because there are
still a lot of guns that are not registered,
and the registration information is not
publicly available.
But one study puts the number at
20.1% of all Californian’s. Of California’s
38.8 million people, that
would means just under 7.8 million
are gun owners.
See:http://injuryprevention.bmj.
com/content/early/2015/06/09/injuryprev-2015-041586.full.pdf?keytype=ref&ijkey=doj6vx0laFZMsQ2
Studies like these are all surveys, so
you could also use the national average
of 29.1%, which would put the numbers
of California gun owners at 11.2 million.
But people don’t always answer
the question of whether they own a gun
honestly. Many gun owners don’t like
telling unknown and potentially biased
surveyors what they have at home. This
means all the surveys probably underestimate
the number of gun owners.
What we do know is that last year
in California people bought 1.5 million
guns, and that sales number has been
breaking records for years. However,
that doesn’t capture the number of individual
gun owners. Many gun owners
buy more than one gun.
There is also an interesting survey
that shows how California has more
guns than any other state in the nation
(nearly 1 firearm per person), suggesting
that the number of guns in California
alone rivals the total number of guns
in China.
See: http://www.movoto.com/blog/
opinions/gun-ownership-map/
OUR BEST GUESS IS THAT
THERE ARE AROUND 7-12 MILLION
GUN OWNERS IN CALIFORNIA.
IF THEY ALL VOTED, GUN OWN-
ERS WOULD CONTROL CALIFOR-
NIA POLITICS!!!
Register now at registertovote.ca.gov
If you are already registered, tell a
friend! And above all, don’t waste your
#GUNVOTE!
FROM THE EDITOR:
Happy Spring CRPA Firing Line readers!
I hope those of you who attended our 141st
Annual Awards Banquet last month had as much
fun as we did! What a wonderful evening honoring
America’s Law Enforcement while celebrating Second
Amendments rights!
The theme behind this issue is civil rights
activism and we are very exciting to be launching our
“Get Out the Vote” campaign as we head into election season. We are really passionate
about getting people registered to vote and getting those that are already registered out
to the polls. I want to encourage each and every one of you to utilize your right to vote
to protect your right to bear arms. We are counting on CRPA members to ROCK THE
GUNVOTE! If you are as passionate as we are about civil rights activism, send an email
to contact@crpa.org and ask about how you can help get out the vote, too!
As always don’t forget to check out CRPA’s Master Calendar for upcoming shows,
matches, and events.
Thank you for your dedication and support!
-Holly Furman
Editor-in-Chief and Marketing
& Communications Specialist
Visit eddieeagle.nra.org for
cool videos and fun activities!
“Ineptocracy”
A system of government where
the least capable to lead are elected
by the least capable of producing,
and where the members of society
least likely to sustain themselves or
succeed, are rewarded with goods
and services paid for by the confiscated
wealth of a diminishing number
of producers.
4
MARCH / APRIL

CRPA’S
FIRING LINE
ISSN 0164-9388
California Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc.
271 E. Imperial Highway, Suite #620
Fullerton, CA 92835
(714) 992-2772
PRESIDENT
VICE PRESIDENT
TREASURER
C.D. Michel
Mike Barranco
Steven Dember
GENERAL COUNSEL
PROGRAMS DIRECTOR
OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
LAYOUT DESIGN
Michel & Associates, P.C.
Rick Travis
Tiffany Cheuvront
Holly Furman
Chipotle Publishing, LLC
www.CRPA.org
CRPA Firing Line is the official publication of the California Rifle & Pistol
Association, Inc. a nonprofit organization. CRPA is the official state affiliate
of the National Rifle Association of America and The Civilian Marksmanship
Program. CRPA works together with those entities to promote
the shooting sports and the right to choose to own a gun to defend yourself
and your family.
CRPA Firing Line is published bimonthly. Deadline for articles and advertisements
is the first of December, February, April, June, August, and
October. The Firing Line is sent to all dues paying members of the Association,
or may be purchased at the subscription rate of $27 per year
or $8.95 per copy. One additional copy (due to non-delivery members)
may be obtained upon written request, when accompanied with a first
class (two-ounce rate) postage pre-paid self-addressed envelope (#10
business size or larger).
ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS
Submitted articles and letters are encouraged and welcomed and
should be germane to topics of interest to the general readership of
this publication. All materials, including photographs, should be addressed
to CRPA - CRPA Firing Line and will not be returned. Format:
All submissions by computer (Word), typewriter, or email are acceptable.
Publication of all materials submitted is subject to the discretion and
editing of the Publications Committee. Submittals, when published in
“On Target,” will display only the initials and city of the writer and should
not exceed 300 words. All submitted articles, when published, will display
the author’s name and should not exceed 900 words. All opinions
expressed are those of the bylined authors and not necessarily those of
the publisher. Due to staff limitations, CRPA does not and cannot verify,
nor be responsible for the accuracy of the statements made in articles or
advertisements published.
REPRINTS
Permission to reprint hereby granted but only if credit is given to CRPA
Firing Line, California Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc., and by-lined
author, if any. Entire contents copyrighted, all rights reserved. Reprint
requests must be authorized by sending email to tfl@crpa.org or calling
(714) 992-2772.
DISCLAIMER
Caution: All technical data in this publication may reflect the limited experience
of individuals using specific tools, products, equipment and
components under specific conditions and circumstances not necessarily
herein reported, of which, the California Rifle & Pistol Association
has no control. The data has not been tested or verified by the CRPA.
The CRPA membership, its Board of Directors, Agents, Officers, and
Employees accept no responsibility for the results obtained by persons
using such data and disclaim all liability for any consequential injuries
or damages.
* * COPYRIGHT NOTICE * *
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work
in this publication is distributed under Fair Use without profit or payment
to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. http://
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
MAIL DELIVERY
If mail delivery problems occur, the intended recipient’s Post Office
should be appropriately notified and a Consumer Service Publication
Watch Postal Form (PS 3721) be initiated.
POSTMASTER
Send address changes to The Firing Line, c/o California Rifle & Pistol
Association, Inc., 271 E. Imperial Highway, Suite 620, Fullerton, CA
92835 or email us at tfl@crpa.org. Periodicals Postage Paid at original
entry Post Office at Fullerton, CA and additional entry post offices.
SUPREME
COURT
TO RULE
caglecartoons.com
courant.com/boblog
Reprinted with permission of The Hartford Courant.
I HAD TO JOIN
A MILITIA IN
ORDER TO
BUY A GUN!
c 3/19/08
ARTOD CUNT
CRPA FIRING LINE 5

REGISTER
TO
OTE
(OR YOU CAN’T
COMPLAIN)
www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration
Go to
www.smile.amazon.com
and choose
“CRPA Foundation”
and Amazon will contribute a
percentage of each purchase
you make!
CALIFORNIA
CONNECTIONS:
Get informed and involved in California!
Connect with, LIKE, SHARE, FOLLOW,
and help promote California’s
2ND AMENDMENT connections!
CHECK OUT
WWW.CRPA.ORG/
CALIFORNIACONNECTIONS
for the full list!
ENTER THE
CRPA MONTHLY
FREE GEAR CONTEST!
In the January/ February 2016 issue of CRPA’s Firing Line
magazine we had a giveaway and the lucky winner is...
S. STARBUCK
WHO ONE AN
ARMORY 1-GUN RACK
Submit your FREE ENTRY by emailing your name, phone number,
choice of gift, and CRPA member number to:
CONTEST@CRPA.ORG
The deadline for entry is April 1!
THE CHOICES FOR THIS ISSUE ARE
A SIGNED
COPY OF
WARRIOR
FOR
FREEDOM
BY MAJOR
EDWARD
PULIDO
EAGLE
INDUSTRIES
MOLLE
TRIPLE M4
MAGAZINE
POUCH
EMAIL US:
Want to be a CRPA Volunteer?
VOLUNTEER@CRPA.ORG
Have a general comment
or question?
CONTACT@CRPA.ORG
Interested in contributaing to
a future issue of the Firing Line?
TFL@CRPA.ORG
CRPA’s
Master Calendar
crpa.org/events
st
facebook.com/crpa.org
twitter.com/crpanews
instagram.com/crpaorg
bit.ly/CRPAvideos
The Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) is a 1. To instruct citizens of the United States in marksmanship;
national organization dedicated to training and educating
U. S. citizens in responsible uses of firearms and 2. To promote practice and safety in the use of firearms;
airguns through gun safety training, marksmanship
training and competitions. The CMP places its highest
priority on serving youth through gun
safety and marksmanship activities that
encourage personal growth and build life
3. To conduct competitions in the use of firearms
and to award trophies, prizes,
badges, and other insignia
to competitors.
skills. Links on this page will lead you
The law specifically states:
to more detailed information about the
In carrying out the Civilian
CMP and its programs.
Statutory mission. The federal law enacted
in 1996 (Title 36 U. S. Code, 40701-
40733) that created the Corporation for the
Promotion of Rifle Practice and Firearms Safety,
Inc. (CPRPFS, the formal legal name of the
CMP) mandates these key functions for the
Marksmanship Program, the corporation
shall give priority to
activities that benefit firearms
safety, training, and competition
for youth and that reach as many
youth participants as possible.
For more information visit thecmp.org
today!
corporation:
WWW.THECMP.ORG
6
MARCH / APRIL

IN THIS ISSUE
REGULAR COLUMNS
COURT REPORT
RKBA LITIGATION
BY: C.D. MICHEL
CAPITAL REPORT
YOUR CRPA IN ACTION
PROGRAMS REPOT
BY: RICK TRAVIS
RANGE REPORT
INTERNATIONAL HANDGUN METALLIC
SILHOUETTE ASSOCIATION
(IHMSA) 2015 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
BY: ROY SASAI
PLACES TO SHOOT
RANGES NEAR YOU
WOMEN SHOOTERS
WOMEN, GUNS & POLITICS
BY: SILVIO CALABI, STEVE HELSLEY
AND ROGER SANGER
NEW SHOOTERS
HOW TO GET YOUR LETTERS TO
THE EDITOR PUBLISHED
BY: STEVE OETZELL
LAB ACCIDENT:
HOW CONGRESS STOPPED THE CDC
GUN GRABERS & SAVED SCIENCE
BY: TIMOTHY WHEELER, MD
FEAR & LOADING
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT A FIREARM?
BY: CHARLES C. W. COOKE
8
10
18
20
24
25
26
27
32
READING WITH REDCORN
BY: GUY NIXON
34
APEX PREDATOR 39
HUNTING & CONSERVATION AFFAIRS
BY: RICK TRAVIS
FEATURED BUSINESS MEMBERS 48
DAMNED STATISTICS 50
NO MASS
BY: GUY SMITH
CALENDAR OF EVENTS 52
THE NEXT GENERATION
KID’S CLUB
54
22
CARPE ELECTION
HELP US BUILD CRPA
CAMPAIGN MACHINE 2.0
BY: C.D. MICHEL
PROTECTING THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND
BEAR ARMS: A BASIC CIVIL RIGHT
BY: ASSEMBLYWOMAN MARIE WALDRON
LIBERAL VOTERS DON’T NECESSARILY
DETERMINE CALIFORNIA
ELECTION RESULTS
A CALL FOR ACTION
BY: TIM MCMAHON
3
19
30
37
5 MINUTES TO FREEDOM!
BY: JON HAUPT
40
HOLY SOW AND WAVING WILLIE!
BY: ANDY SAXON, M.D.
43
MY FATHER AND THE
SECOND AMENDMENT
BY: WILLIAM L. ROBBINS
45
SPECIAL FEATURES
CRPA FIRING LINE 7

BY CRPA PRESIDENT &
GENERAL COUNSEL
C.D. MICHEL
COURT REPORT
While gun owners await a decision
from an 11-judge “en
banc” panel of the Ninth
Circuit in Peruta v. San Diego—the
challenge to the San Diego Sheriff’s
restrictive “good cause” requirement
for CCWs—a nearly identical case
is unfolding in the Washington, D.C.
That case, Grace v. District of Columbia,
challenges D.C.’s restrictive “good
reason” requirement which, like the law
in Peruta, effectively bans almost all
law-abiding citizens from carrying a
firearm for self-defense.
For decades, Washington D.C.
completely prohibited residents from
owning or possessing handguns at all.
But after the Supreme Court famously
struck down that ban in District of
Columbia v. Heller in 2008, D.C. responded
by enacting a whole new set
of restrictions, including a total ban on
carrying firearms for self-defense. This
led to another legal challenge, Palmer
v. District of Columbia. In 2014, the
federal district court declared D.C.’s
carry ban unconstitutional. Notably, the
Palmer ruling largely relied on an earlier
decision from a three-judge panel
of the Ninth Circuit in the Peruta case,
which held that restrictive “may issue”
policies that deny the right to carry a
firearm to average, law-abiding citizens
are unconstitutional.
Rather than appeal the Palmer decision,
D.C. decided to enacted its own restrictive
“may issue” licensing scheme,
much like San Diego’s, that requires
applicants to demonstrate a “good reason”
to obtain a carry permit. Of course,
D.C. doesn’t recognize the fundamental
right to bear arms for self-defense as a
“good enough” reason obtain a carry
permit—and D.C. retains discretion to
deny permits to virtually anyone. As
California gun owners know, in practice
this policy is no different than a complete
ban. Jurisdictions hostile to the
Second Amendment routinely use these
restrictive policies to deny carry permits
to nearly all law-abiding citizens.
Predictably, D.C.’s new CCW
scheme prompted even more litigation
and, in May 2015, the district court
issued a preliminary ruling prohibiting
D.C. from enforcing its restrictive
“good reason” policy. Unfortunately,
that case, Wrenn v. District of Columbia,
was litigated before a judge who
did not have the authority to hear the
case. This prompted the federal court of
appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse
the decision and reinstate D.C.’s restrictive
CCW policy.
As a result, with support from the
National Rifle Association, several D.C.
residents recently file filed a new complaint
challenging D.C.’s “good reason”
policy in Grace v. District of Columbia.
Grace is now in the early stages of litigation
and the plaintiffs recently filed a
request asking the court to prohibit D.C.
from enforcing its restrict CCW policy
while the case proceeds. A hearing was
conducted on that preliminary request
on February 2, 2016, and a decision
could come at any time. All the filings
in Grace v. District of Columbia can be
viewed here: www.michellawyers.com/
grace-v-district-of-columbia/.
QUICK HITS
Peruta v. County of San Diego –
Challenge to San Diego County’s restrictive
“good cause” CCW policy.
The case is still under submission to
an 11-judge en banc panel of the Ninth
Circuit, and a decision could come anytime.
http://michellawyers.com/guncasetracker/perutavsandiego/.
McKay v. Sheriff Hutchens – This
sister lawsuit to the Peruta case challenging
Orange County’s requirements
8
MARCH / APRIL

for obtaining a CCW remains stayed
pending the outcome of Peruta. http://
michellawyers.com/mckay-v-sheriff-hutchens/
Parker v. State of California –
This lawsuit successfully struck down
California’s “AB 962,” which would
have banned mail order ammunition
purchases and required registration
and thumb-printing for all in-store purchases.
Briefing before the California
Supreme Court is complete, and oral
arguments are expected to take place in
2016. http://michellawyers.com/guncasetracker/parkervcalifornia/
Bosenko v. Los Angeles -This state
court case challenges the city’s ban on
so-called “large-capacity” magazines
on grounds that state law preempts
the ordinance. The case is currently
proceeding in the trial court. http://
michellawyers.com/shasta-countysheriff-thomas-bosenko-et-al-vs-thecity-of-los-angeles-et-al/
Fyock v. Sunnyvale – Second
Amendment challenge to Sunnyvale’s
ban on the possession of so-called
“large-capacity” magazines. The case
is currently stayed pending resolution
of the Peruta and Bosenko cases. http://
michellawyers.com/fyock-v-sunnyvale/
Bauer v. Harris – This federal lawsuit
challenges the California DOJ’s
misuse of DROS fee revenues collected
from lawful firearm purchasers as violating
the Second Amendment. Oral
arguments before the Ninth Circuit are
expected to take place in in mid to late
2016. http://michellawyers.com/barrybauer-et-al-v-california-department-ofjustice-et-al/
Gentry v. Harris – This sister state
court case to the federal Bauer case
currently is currently being litigated in
the trial court, and the complaint was
recently amended to include additional
theories of improper taxation. http://michellawyers.com/gentry-v-harris/
SetterArms v. Daly City – This state
court case challenges the City’s improper
denial of plaintiff’s application for a
use permit to operate his firearms retail
and repair business. The case was filed
on January 15, 2016.
Belemjian v. Harris – This lawsuit
challenged four underground regulations
adopted by the California
Department of Justice to implement the
Firearm Safety Certificate Program. The
lawsuit prompted the DOJ to adopt formal
regulations, and a motion to recover
attorneys fees is currently pending.
http://michellawyers.com/kim-belemjian-et-al-v-kamala-harris-et-al/.
AMICUS MATTERS
CRPA’s attorneys regularly provide
consulting advice and prepare amicus
curiae or “friend of the court” briefs in
a number of other Second Amendment
cases. Here is a quick rundown of some
of the cases CRPA has recently supported
as an amicus.
Pena v. Lindley – This case seeks to
overturn California’s ban on common,
constitutionally protected handguns that
are not included on the DOJ’s “roster”
of handguns approved for sale in the
state. Oral arguments are expected to
take place in 2016. http://michellawyers.com/guncasetracker/penavcid/
Nesbitt v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineer
— This suit challenges a total
ban on the possession and carriage of
firearms on public and recreational
Army Corps’ lands. Oral arguments are
expected to take place in 2016. http://
michellawyers.com/morris-v-u-s-armycorps-of-engineers/.
Silvester v. Harris – This suit challenges
California’s 10-day waiting
period for persons who already own a
firearm. Oral arguments are scheduled
for February 9, 2016. http://michellawyers.com/silvester-v-harris/.
Written by long-time CRPA and
NRA attorney and life member
C.D. Michel, this book explains
the state and federal firearm
laws affecting firearm owners,
and particularly warns about
legal traps and troublesome
“gray areas.”
Available now at
bit.ly/shopCRPA
CRPA FIRING LINE 9

Capitol
California is in for a busy law-making
year in 2016! For gun owners, the stakes are
higher than usual with attacks on the legislation,
litigation, and political fronts. In Sacramento,
CRPA will continue to push to protect
and fight for your rights on these and many
more fronts. The following summary shows
the first look at bills that will be tracked this
year by CRPA. It is imperative that we, as
Second Amendment supporters, let our voices
be heard in Sacramento and at the polls.
In addition to tracking legislation and
alerting members for calls to action, CRPA
will also be running a “Get Out the Vote”
campaign to encourage registered voters to
take a stand and to urge those that have fallen
by the wayside to re-engage in the political
process. You will be hearing more about this
at gun shows, in member alerts, and in our
publications. This is an imperative step to preserving
our rights and showing Sacramento
that we stand united in upholding our Second
Amendment rights.
Remember, YOU are the California gun
lobby! Every time you send a donation or
take action to support or oppose a bill- it matters.
Thank you for all you do as members of
CRPA, we look forward to working together
this year.
Blue = Watch; Red = Oppose; Green = Support
OPPOSE AB 1695 CRIMINALIZE FALSE ‘FIREARM STOLEN’ REPORTS
AB 1695, as introduced, Bonta.
Firearms: notice to purchasers: false reports
of stolen firearms.
(1) Existing law requires each sheriff
or police chief executive to submit
descriptions of serialized property, or
nonserialized property that has been
uniquely inscribed, which has been reported
stolen, lost, or found directly into
the appropriate Department of Justice
automated property system for firearms,
stolen bicycles, stolen vehicles, or other
property. Existing law requires that
information about a firearm entered
into the automated system for firearms
remain in the system until the reported
firearm has been found. Existing law requires
the Department of Justice to implement
an electronic system to receive
comprehensive tracing information
from each local law enforcement agency
and to forward the information to the
National Tracing Center.
This bill would make it a misdemeanor
to report to a local law enforcement
agency that a firearm has been
lost or stolen, knowing that report to
be false. The bill would also make it a
misdemeanor for a person convicted of
violating this provision to own a firearm
within 10 years of the conviction. The
bill would define “firearm” for these
purposes to include the frame or receiver
of the weapon. By creating new crimes,
this bill would impose a state-mandated
local program.
(2) Existing law requires the Department
of Justice to develop a pamphlet
that summarizes California firearms
laws, and to offer copies of the pamphlet
to firearms dealers for sale to retail purchasers
or transferees of firearms.
This bill would require the Attorney
General to send a letter notice to each
individual who has applied to purchase
a firearm informing him or her of laws
relating to firearms, gun trafficking, and
safe storage, as provided.
10
MARCH / APRIL

Report
OPPOSE AB 1674 'GUN-A-MONTH' FOR LONG GUNS NEW
AB 1674, as introduced, Santiago.
Firearms: waiting period.
Existing law, subject to exceptions,
prohibits a person from making
more than one application to purchase
a handgun within any 30-day period.
Violation of that prohibition is a crime.
Existing law exempts from that prohibition
a firearms transaction where neither
of the parties is a firearms dealer
if the transaction is completed through
a dealer. Existing law prohibits a firearms
dealer from delivering a handgun
to a person whenever the dealer is notified
by the Department of Justice that
within the preceding 30-day period the
purchaser has made another application
to purchase a handgun that does not fall
within an exception to the 30-day prohibition.
A violation of that delivery prohibition
by the dealer is a crime.
This bill would make the 30-day
prohibition and the dealer delivery prohibition
described above applicable to
all types of firearms. The bill would delete
the private party transaction exemption
to the 30-day prohibition.
OPPOSE AB 1664 UNFINISHED FRAME OR RECEIVER AS FIREARM NEW
AB 1673, as introduced, Gipson.
Firearms: unfinished frame or receiver.
Existing law generally regulates the
transfer and possession of firearms. Existing
law defines the term “firearm” for
various regulatory purposes, including,
among others and subject to exceptions,
the requirement that firearms be transferred
by or through a licensed firearms
dealer, the requirement of a 10-day waiting
period prior to delivery of a firearm
by a dealer, the requirement that firearm
purchasers be subject to a background
check, and the prohibition on certain
classes of persons, such as felons, possessing
firearms. Existing law provides,
for some of these provisions, that a violation
of the provision is a crime.
This bill would expand the definition
of “firearm” for those purposes and
other purposes to include an unfinished
frame or receiver that can be readily
converted to the functional condition of
a finished frame or receiver.
OPPOSE AB 1673 ‘BULLET BUTTON’ BAN NEW
(1) Existing law generally prohibits
the possession or transfer of assault
weapons, except for the sale, purchase,
importation, or possession of assault
weapons by specified individuals, including
law enforcement officers. Under
existing law, “assault weapon” means,
among other things, a semiautomatic,
centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic pistol
that has the capacity to accept a detachable
magazine and has any one of
specified attributes, including, for rifles,
a thumbhole stock, and for pistols, a
second handgrip.
This bill would define “detachable
magazine” to mean an ammunition
feeding device that can be removed
readily from the firearm without disassembly
of the firearm action, including
an ammunition feeding device that can
be removed readily from the firearm
with the use of a tool.
(2) Existing law requires that any
person who, within this state, possesses
an assault weapon, except as otherwise
provided, be punished as a felony or
for a period not to exceed one year in a
county jail.
This bill would exempt from punishment
under that provision a person who
initially possessed an assault weapon
prior to January 1, 2017, and until July 1,
2018, if specified requirements are met.
(3) Existing law requires that, with
specified exceptions, any person who,
prior to January 1, 2001, lawfully possessed
an assault weapon prior to the
date it was defined as an assault weapon,
and which was not specified as an
assault weapon at the time of lawful
possession, register the firearm with the
Department of Justice. Existing law permits
the department to charge a fee for
registration of up to $20 per person but
not to exceed the actual processing costs
of the department.
This bill would require that any
person who, from January 1, 2001, to
December 31, 2016, inclusive, lawfully
possessed an assault weapon with an
ammunition feeding device that can be
removed readily from the firearm without
disassembly of the firearm action,
including a weapon with an ammunition
feeding device that can be removed
readily from the firearm with the use of
a tool, to register the firearm with the
department before July 1, 2018, but not
before the effective date of specified
regulations. The bill would permit the
department to charge a registration fee
not to exceed the reasonable processing
costs of the department. This bill would
also require registrations to be submitted
electronically via the Internet utilizing
a public-facing application made
available by the department. This bill
would require the registration to contain
specified information, including, but not
limited to, a description of the firearm
that identifies it uniquely and specified
information about the registrant.
CRPA FIRING LINE 11

Capital Report
OPPOSE AB 1663
Existing law regulates the sale, carrying,
and control of firearms, including
assault weapons, and requires assault
weapons to be registered with the Department
of Justice. Violation of these
provisions is a crime. Existing law defines
a semiautomatic, centerfire rifle that
has the capacity to accept a detachable
magazine and other specified features
and a semiautomatic weapon that has a
fixed magazine with a capacity to accept
10 or more rounds as an assault weapon.
This bill would, instead, classify a
semiautomatic centerfire rifle that does
not have a fixed magazine with the capacity
to accept no more than 10 rounds
as an assault weapon. The bill would require
a person who, between January 1,
2001, and December 31, 2016, inclusive,
lawfully possessed an assault weapon
that does not have a fixed magazine, including
those weapons with an ammunition
feeding device that can be removed
readily from the firearm with the use of
RECLASSIFY 'BULLET BUTTON' GUNS
AS 'ASSAULT WEAPONS' NEW
a tool, and who, on or after January 1,
2017, possesses that firearm, to register
the firearm by July 1, 2018.
AB 1664 is detrimental to the Golden
State’s law-abiding gun owners, which
number in the hundreds of thousands.
It would turn legally-owned semi-automatic
firearms into what California law
defines as an “assault weapon.” These
same firearms are used in hunting, competitive
shooting and for general legal
use throughout the United States.
SUPPORT AB 665
IMPROVING STATE PREEMPTION FOR HUNTING
AB 665, as amended, Frazier. Hunting
or fishing: local regulation.
(1) The California Constitution provides
for the delegation to the Fish and
Game Commission of powers relating
to the protection and propagation of
fish and game. Existing statutory law
delegates to the commission the power
to regulate the taking or possession
of birds, mammals, fish, amphibia, and
reptiles in accordance with prescribed
laws. Under existing law, a city or
county has no authority to regulate fish
and game except that a city or county
may adopt an ordinance that incidentally
affects fishing and hunting for the
protection of public health and safety.
This bill would provide that the
state fully occupies the field of the
taking and possession of fish and
game. The bill would provide that unless
otherwise authorized by the Fish
and Game Code, other state law, or
federal law, the commission and the
department are the only entities that
may adopt or promulgate regulations
regarding the taking or possession of
fish and game on any lands or waters
within the state.
This bill would require the commission
to consider specific factors
when adopting certain regulations re-
lating to the taking or possession of
fish, amphibians, and reptiles. The bill
would also require the commission
to consider public health and safety
when adopting these regulations.
(3) Existing law makes it unlawful
for a person to intentionally discharge
a firearm or release an arrow
or crossbow bolt over or across a public
road or other established way open
to the public in an unsafe and reckless
manner. Existing law makes a violation
of this provision a misdemeanor.
This bill would delete the “reckless”
element from that provision.
SUPPORT AB 1154 CCW PRIVACY
AB 1154, as amended, Gray. The California
Public Records Act: applications
for licenses and licenses to carry firearms.
Existing law, the California Public
Records Act, provides that public records
are open to inspection at all times
during the office hours of the state or local
agency that retains those records, and
every person has a right to inspect any
public record, except as provided. However,
existing law provides that nothing
in the act shall be construed to require
disclosure of information contained in
an application for a license to carry a
firearm that indicates when or where the
applicant is vulnerable to attack or that
concerns the applicant’s medical or psychological
history or that of members of
his or her family.
This bill would instead provide that
the California Public Records Act shall
not be construed to require the disclosure
of home address information, as
specified, and telephone numbers of applicants
that are set forth in applications
to carry firearms or of licensees that are
set forth in licenses to carry firearms, as
specified. This bill would also prohibit
this provision from being construed as
prohibiting the disclosure of public records
relating to the reason an application
for a license to carry a firearm was
granted or denied, as specified. Because
this bill would increase the duties of
county sheriffs and the chiefs or other
heads of police departments that issue
firearms license applications, this bill
would impose a state-mandated local
program.
12
MARCH / APRIL

Capital Report
SUPPORT AB 395 REPEAL LEAD AMMO BAN AB711
AB 395, as amended, Gallagher. Hunting: nonlead
ammunition.
Existing law requires the use of nonlead centerfire rifle
and pistol ammunition, as determined by the Fish and Game
Commission to be required when taking big game with a rifle
or pistol, and when taking coyote, within the California
Condor Range. Existing law further requires, as soon as
is practicable, but by no later than July 1, 2019, the use of
nonlead ammunition for the taking of all wildlife, including
game mammals, game birds, nongame birds, and nongame
mammals, with any firearm, and requires the commission to
promulgate regulations by July 1, 2015, that phase in the requirements
of these provisions.
This bill would exempt the northern and north central regions
from the requirement that nonlead ammunition be used
for the taking of all wildlife. The bill would also require, no
later than July 1, 2017, the Director of Fish and Wildlife to
make findings regarding the commercial availability of each
type of nonlead projectile and nonlead ammunition, as defined,
and to publish these findings on the commission’s Internet
Web site. The bill would require, if a type of nonlead
projectile or nonlead ammunition is not commercially available,
the commission to exempt those types of lead projectiles
and lead ammunition from those provisions and regulations
adopted by the commission requiring the use of nonlead projectiles
or nonlead ammunition for the taking of all wildlife.
SUPPORT AB 499
AB 499, as introduced, Cooley. Archery season: concealed
firearms.
Existing law establishes an archery season for the taking
of deer with bow and arrow. Existing law generally
prohibits a person taking or attempting to take deer during
that archery season from carrying, or having under his or
RECOGNIZE CCW PERMITS
FOR ARCHERY HUNTERS
her immediate control, a firearm of any kind, except for
an active or honorably retired peace officer, as specified.
This bill would authorize a person with a valid license to carry
a firearm capable of being concealed on the person, consistent
with the terms of that license, while engaged in the taking of deer
with bow and arrow.
CRPA FIRING LINE 13

Capital Report
OPPOSE SB 566 FSC EXEMPTIONS FOR VETERANS
SB 566, as amended, Bates. Firearms.
Existing law authorizes a certified handgun safety instructor
to charge a fee of $25 for the issuance of a handgun safety
certificate, $15 of which is paid to the Department of Justice
to cover the department’s costs in carrying out and enforcing
provisions of law relating to handgun safety certificates.
WATCH AB 443
FIREARMS FORFEITURES
FOR CONVICTIONS
AB 443, as amended, Alejo. Forfeiture.
Existing law subjects property acquired through or as
proceeds of criminal profiteering activity to forfeiture. Existing
law defines criminal profiteering activity as any specified
acts or threats made for financial gain or advantage. Existing
law requires a prosecuting agency to file a petition of forfeiture
in conjunction with the criminal proceeding for the
underlying offense.
This bill would allow the prosecuting agency to file a petition
of forfeiture prior to the commencement of the underlying
criminal proceeding if the value of the assets seized exceeds
$100,000, there is a substantial probability that the prosecuting
agency will file a criminal complaint. The bill would allow
a person claiming an interest in the property or proceeds to
move for return of the property. The bill would require the Attorney
General, on or before January 1, 2018, to report to the
Governor and specified committees on the use of these proceedings.
The bill would provide for the repeal of these changes on
January 1, 2019.
This bill would reduce the fee for a handgun safety certificate
to $15 for an honorably discharged member of the United
States Armed Forces, the National Guard, the Air National
Guard, or the active reserve components of the United States,
$10 of which is to be paid to the Department of Justice to cover
the above-described costs.
CCW HOLDERS WAITING
SUPPORT AB 462
PERIOD REDUCTION
AB 462, as amended, Grove. Firearms: waiting period.
Existing law generally regulates the sale and transfer of
firearms, including, among other requirements and subject to exceptions,
that the transfer of a firearm be conducted through a
firearms dealer. Existing law, subject to exceptions, imposes a 10-
day waiting period for delivery of a firearm, during which time a
background check is conducted.
This bill would provide that if the person is determined
by the department not to be prohibited from possessing,
receiving, owning, or purchasing a firearm, and
the person possesses a firearm as confirmed by the Automated
Firearms System (AFS), is authorized to carry a
concealed firearm, or possesses a valid Certificate of Eligibility
and a firearm as confirmed by the AFS, the department
shall immediately notify the dealer who shall immediately
release the firearm to the person and not wait the full
10 days to do so.
Leave your legacy
in the fight for your RKBA with a
charitable bequest
to the CRPA Foundation 501(c)(3)
Contact
CRPA
to learn
more!
• Take Advantage of Tax BENEFITS
• It costs you NOTHING today to make a bequest
• Your bequest can be changed down the road
• You can still benefit your heirs with specific gifts
• You can LEAVE A LEGACY through a bequest
14
To learn more about incorporating bequest giving into your estate plan please contact us at 714.992.2772. Or go online to
MARCH / APRIL
CRPA.GIFTLEGACY.COM

Capital Report
SUPORT AB 150
INCREASED PENALTIES
FOR FIREARMS THEFT
AB 150, as amended, Melendez. Theft: firearms.
(1) Existing law states that the theft of a firearm is grand
theft, punishable as a felony by imprisonment in the state prison
for 16 months, or 2 or 3 years. The Safe Neighborhoods
and Schools Act, enacted by Proposition 47, as approved by
the voters at the November 4, 2014, statewide general election,
notwithstanding these provisions, instead requires the
theft of property that does not exceed $950 to be considered
petty theft, and makes the crime punishable as a misdemeanor,
except in cases when the defendant has previously been convicted
of one or more specified serious or violent felonies or an
offense requiring registration as a sex offender.
This bill would make the theft of a firearm grand theft in all
cases, punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 16
months, or 2 or 3 years.
(2) Under existing law, every person who buys or receives
any property that has been stolen, knowing the property to
be stolen, is guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony, except that
if the value of the property does not exceed $950, Proposition
47 makes the offense punishable as a misdemeanor if the
defendant has not previously been convicted of one or more
specified serious or violent felonies or an offense requiring
registration as a sex offender.
This bill would make buying or receiving a stolen firearm a
misdemeanor or a felony.
(3) The California Constitution authorizes the Legislature
to amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that
becomes effective when approved by the electors.
This bill would provide that it would become effective only
upon approval of the voters, and would provide for the submission
of this measure to the voters for approval at the next
statewide general
INCREASED PENALTIES
SUPPORT SB 452
FOR FIREARMS THEFT
SB 452, as amended, Galgiani. Theft: firearms.
(1) Existing law, the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools
Act, enacted by Proposition 47, as approved by the voters at
the November 4, 2014, statewide general election, requires the
theft of property that does not exceed $950 to be considered
petty theft, and makes the crime punishable as a misdemeanor,
except in cases when the defendant has previously been convicted
of one or more specified serious or violent felonies or
an offense requiring registration as a sex offender.
This bill would make the theft of a firearm grand theft in
all cases, punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for
16 months, or 2 or 3 years.
This bill would provide that it would become effective
only upon approval of the voters, and would provide for the
submission of this measure to the voters for approval at the
next statewide general election.
SUPPORT SB 894
CRIMINALIZE FALSE
‘FIREARM STOLEN’
REPORTS
SB 894, as introduced, Jackson. Firearms: lost or stolen:
reports.
(1) Existing law requires each sheriff or police chief executive
to submit descriptions of serialized property, or nonserialized
property that has been uniquely inscribed, which has
been reported stolen, lost, or found directly into the appropriate
Department of Justice automated property system for
firearms, stolen bicycles, stolen vehicles, or other property.
Existing law requires that information about a firearm entered
into the automated system for firearms remain in the system
until the reported firearm has been found. Existing law requires
the Department of Justice to implement an electronic system
to receive comprehensive tracing information from each local
law enforcement agency and to forward the information to the
National Tracing Center.
This bill would require every person, with exceptions, to
report the theft or loss of a firearm he or she owns or possesses
to a local law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction in
which the theft or loss occurred within 5 days of the time he
or she knew or reasonably should have known that the firearm
had been stolen or lost, and requires every person who has
reported a firearm lost or stolen to notify the local law enforcement
agency within 48 hours if the firearm is subsequently
recovered. The bill would make a violation of these provisions
an infraction punishable by a fine not to exceed $100 for a
first offense, an infraction punishable by a fine not to exceed
$1,000 for a 2nd offense, and a misdemeanor, punishable by
imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding 6 months, or by a
fine not to exceed $1,000, or both that fine and imprisonment,
for a 3rd or subsequent offense. The bill would make it an infraction
for any person to make a report to a local law enforcement
agency that a firearm has been lost or stolen, knowing
the report to be false. The bill would not preclude or preempt
a local ordinance that imposes additional penalties or requirements
in regard to reporting the theft or loss of a firearm.
The bill would also require that persons licensed to sell
firearms post a warning within the licensed premises in block
letters stating the requirement that a lost or stolen firearm be
reported to a local law enforcement agency, as specified.
(2) Existing law prohibits a person from making an application
to purchase more than one handgun within any 30-day
period. Existing law makes an exception for the replacement
of a handgun when the person’s handgun was lost or stolen
and the person reported the firearm lost or stolen prior to the
completion of the application to purchase.
This bill would instead make the exception for the replacement
of a lost or stolen handgun applicable when the person
has reported the handgun lost or stolen pursuant to the provisions
of this bill.
CRPA FIRING LINE 15

Capital Report
OPPOSE SB 869 ‘HANDGUN IN PARKED CAR’ RESTRICTIONS
SB 869, as introduced, Hill. Firearms: securing handguns
in vehicles.
Existing law prohibits a person who is 18 years of age
or older, and who is the owner, lessee, renter, or other legal
occupant of a residence, who owns a firearm and who knows
or has reason to know that another person also residing there
is prohibited by state or federal law from possessing, receiving,
owning, or purchasing a firearm from keeping a firearm
in that residence, unless the firearm is secured, as specified.
A violation of this prohibition is a misdemeanor.
This bill would require a person, when leaving a handgun
in a vehicle, to secure the handgun by locking it in the trunk
of the vehicle or locking it in a locked container and placing
the container out of plain view. The bill would make a violation
of these requirements an infraction punishable by a fine
not exceeding $1,000.
OPPOSE SB 880 ‘BULLET BUTTON’ BAN
SB 880, as introduced, Hall. Firearms: assault weapons.
(1) Under existing law, “assault weapon” means, among
other things, a semiautomatic centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic
pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine
and has any one of specified attributes, including, for
rifles, a thumbhole stock, and for pistols, a second handgrip.
This bill would revise this definition of “assault weapon”
to mean a semiautomatic centerfire rifle, or a semiautomatic
pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of
those specified attributes. The bill would also define “fixed
magazine” to mean an ammunition feeding device contained
in, or permanently attached to, a firearm in such a manner
that the device cannot be removed without disassembly of
the firearm action.
(2) Existing law requires that any person who, within
this state, possesses an assault weapon, except as otherwise
provided, be punished as a felony or for a period not to exceed
one year in a county jail.
This bill would exempt from punishment under that provision
a person who possessed an assault weapon since prior to
January 1, 2017, if specified requirements are met.
(3) Existing law requires that, with specified exceptions,
any person who, prior to January 1, 2001, lawfully
possessed an assault weapon prior to the date it was defined
as an assault weapon, and which was not specified as an assault
weapon at the time of lawful possession, register the
firearm with the Department of Justice.
This bill would require that any person who, from January
1, 2001, to December 31, 2016, inclusive, lawfully possessed
an assault weapon that does not have a fixed magazine,
as defined, and including those weapons with an ammunition
feeding device that can be removed readily from the firearm
with the use of a tool, register the firearm with the Department
of Justice before July 1, 2017, but not before the effective
date of specified regulations. The bill would permit the department
to increase the $20 registration fee as long as it does
not exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department.
The bill would also require registrations to be submitted electronically
via the Internet utilizing a public-facing application
made available by the department. The bill would require
the registration to contain specified information, including,
but not limited to, a description of the firearm that identifies
it uniquely and specified information about the registrant.
The bill would permit the department to charge a fee of up
to $15 per person for registration through the Internet, not
to exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department
to be paid and deposited, as specified, for purposes of the
registration program.
SUPPORT AB 225 INCREASED PENALTIES FOR FALSE GUN RESTRAINING ORDERS
AB 225, as introduced, Melendez.
Gun violence restraining orders:
offenses.
Existing law makes it a misdemeanor
to file a petition for an ex parte
gun violence restraining order or a gun
violence restraining order issued after
notice and a hearing knowing the information
in the petition to be false or with
the intent to harass.
This bill would instead provide
that it is perjury, a felony punishable
by imprisonment in the county jail for
2, 3, or 4 years, to file a petition for
one of those gun violence restraining
orders knowing the information in the
petition to be false.
OPPOSE SJR 20 'GUN VIOLENCE' RESEARCH FUNDING
SJR 20, as introduced, Hall. Gun violence: research.
This measure would urge the Congress of the United
States to lift an existing prohibition against publicly funded
scientific research on the causes of gun violence and its effects
on public health, and to appropriate funds for the purpose of
conducting that research.
FOR BILL STATUS UPDATES VISIT CRPA.ORG/2016-BILL-STATUS-UPDATE
16
MARCH / APRIL

ELECTION GAMES
MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOR!
Every year CRPA has a coordinated effort with the NRA to
evaluate and rate those individuals who are in the electoral process
in California. 2016 will be an extremely interesting year as
gun-owners are expected to show up at the polls in record numbers
to combat the ever increasing pressure to whittle away at the Second
Amendment rights that we hold dear.
CRPA wanted to give our members a pre-view of the political
landscape in California by showcasing and saying “thank you” to
those elected officials who submitted an election questionnaire in the
last election cycle and who scored well in their views of protecting
the Second Amendment and Hunting in California. We also want to
alert our members to those elected officials that did not score well on
the election questionnaire—because we still have work to do!
Take this to heart and encourage others to register to vote this
election year. With around 10 million gun owners in California and
approximately 33 million firearms owned in the state, if everyone
went to the polls, it could change the political landscape as we know
it! Stay tuned for more candidate grades being released closer to the
elections this spring and thank you for your support!
THANK YOU
TO THE FOLLOWING INCUMBENTS THAT
SUPPORT THE SECOND AMENDMENT!
STATE SENATE
STATE ASSEMBLY
Percent Eligible Adults
100
80
60
40
20
0
Voter Registration Among
Eligble Adults 2000-2014
Registered Voters
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
Percent Eligible Adults
100
80
60
40
20
0
Voter Registration Among
Eligble Adults 2000-2014
General Election Turnout
Primary Election Turnout
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
REASONS WHY ELIGIBLE ADULTS
DO NOT REGISTER TO VOTE
Jim Nielsen (R-4)…A+ Brian Dahle (R-1)…A Jim Patterson (R-23)…A
Tom Barryhill (R-8)…A+ James Gallagher (R-3)…A Rudy Salas (D-32)…A
Anthony Cannella (R-12)…A Frank Bigalow (R-5)…A+ Jay Obernolte (R-33)…A
Andy Vidak (R-14)…A Beth Gaines (R-6)…A Shannon Grove(R-34)..A
Jean Fuller (R-16)…A+ Ken Cooley (D-8)…A Katcho Achadjian(R-35)..A
Patricia Bates (R-36)…A Jim Frazier (D-11)…A+ Tom Lackey (R-36)…A
Joel Anderson (R-38)…A Adam Gray (D-21)…A Scott Wilk (R-38)…A
Marc Steinorth (R-40)..A Chad Mayes (R-42)…A
Cheryl Brown (D-47)…B Ling-Ling Chang (R-55)..A
Eric Linder (R-60)…A Jose Medina (D-62)…B
Melissa Melendez (R-67)..A Donald Wagner (R-68)…A
Brian Jones (R-71)…A+ Travis Allen (R-72)…A
William Brough (R-73)…A Marie Waldron (R-75)…A
Rocky Chavez (R-76)…A Brian Maienschein (R-77)…B
!
WATCH OUT
FOR THESE NON-SUPPORTERS OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT!
3% Don’t Know
24% Other
2% Process-related
17% Time/Schedule Constraints
24% Lack of Interest
30% Confidence in Elections
REASONS WHY REGISTERED
VOTERS DO NOT ALWAYS VOTE
STATE SENATE
STATE ASSEMBLY
Richard Pan (D-6)…D Kevin McCarty (D-7)…F Nora Campos (D-27)…F
Bob Wieckowski (D-10)…F Marc Levine (D-10)…F Mark Stone (D-29)…F
Bob Hertzgerg (D-18)…F Susan Bonilla (D-14)…D Luis Alejo (D-30)…F
Ed Hernadez (D-22)…F Rob Bonta (D-18)…F Das Williams (D-37)…F
Kevin DeLeon (D-24)…F Philip Ting (D-19)…F Chris Holden (D-41)…D
Holly Mitchell (D-30)…F Bill Quirk (D-20)…F Mike Gatto (D-43)…F
Tony Mendoza (D-32)…F Kevin Mullin (D-22)…F Adrin Nazarian (D-46)…F
Ben Hueso (D-40)…F Richard Gordon (D-24)…F Roger Hernandez (D-48)…F
Ed Chau (D-49)…F Richard Bloom (D-50)…F
Jimmy Gomez (D-51)…F Freddie Rodriguez (D-52)…F
Ian Calderon (D-57)…F Cristina Garcia (D-58)…F
Anthony Rendon (D-63)..F Reggie Jones-Sawyer(D-59)..F
Tom Daly (D-69)…D Toni Atkins (D-78)…F
Shirley Weber (D-79)…D Lorena Gonzalez (D-80)…D
2% Don’t Know
10% Other
9% Process-related
32% Time/Schedule Constraints
36% Lack of Interest
10% Confidence in Elections
Some of the data in this article was compiled from www.ppic.org. CRPA thanks the Public Policy Institute of California for granting permission to borrow from their website.
CRPA FIRING LINE 17

CRPA
PROGRAMS
REPORT
by Rick Travis
CRPA Programs Director
Are You Doing for Preparedness?” was
the title of the July 6, 1916 edition of Leslie’s
Weekly. The cover art was the first time
“What
James Flagg’s “Uncle Sam” appeared nationwide. Since then
the iconic image has been utilized from World War I to this
present day to sound the alarm in times of national distress.
California is “Ground Zero” for the latest attempt to take
away our national freedoms. The leader of this attack is our
own Lt. Governor, Gavin Newsom.
Newsom believes that by disguising his ammunition
grabbing scheme as a simple measure to increase our safety,
he take away our rights in broad daylight. He is beyond arrogant
to believe that we will simply stay out of the fight. In
fact, he and the entire anti-gun movement believe they have
already won not just this battle, but the war itself.
There are three simple reasons why the anti-gun lobby
believes they have achieved victory: low voter turnout, voter
apathy and the perception that those of us in the pro-gun
movement are incapable of coming together to fight them
head on. They believe they control the media and the masses.
The California Rifle and Pistol Association has an answer and
a list of things you can do to FIGHT BACK!
It is true that California had one of the lowest turnouts to
vote in 2014. According to Political Data, Inc., about 46% of
the state’s citizens voted. This is important for you to understand.
Many people I talk to make the statement that their vote
doesn’t count…so why vote? My response is this:
1. Not voting is the same as casting a vote for the opposition.
Your vote at the very least knocks out one of
their votes.
2. If all of California’s 18 million plus gun owners voted,
we would have a supermajority. This means that if we
lose it’s because we didn’t come together and fight as
one block.
3. Research shows that if you vote there is an increased likelihood
that family and friends will vote as well.
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura stated, “Government
is at its worst when you have apathy from its citizens.”
This statement rings true for our community now more
than ever. Our government in Sacramento actually believes
that you and I will allow the latest assault on our rights to go
unanswered. They believe this because, although many talk
about the issues and complain about the issues, they do nothing
to fight the issues. It takes three things to fight this fight:
money, commitment to the cause and perseverance.
Gun owners have largely bought into the rhetoric of the anti-gun
movement. Anti-gunners preach their own message: a
supermajority in Sacramento, the majority of Californians on
their side and big money to back up their plan. The facts are
that in November 2014 they lost their supermajority and we
have an opportunity to deny them that power again. As I stated
earlier, if all Californian gun owners voted, we could easily
control the state’s legislature.
Money is a big issue in this war on our gun rights. The
time is NOW for each of us to put our money where our hearts
are. If we truly believe in Second Amendment rights, then we
all need to open our wallets and donate to this fight (Visit
www.stoptheammograb.com)! If every gun owner in California
gave a penny a day for one year we would have over 65.7
million dollars in the war chest and could beat back the anti-gun
movement.
The time has come to wake the sleeping dragon of the
gun lobby to show Sacramento that we are done with the annual
assaults on our community. This not a single year fight,
but a movement to not only save our current rights, but to
restore those rights lost in years past. It is time to put away
differences within our community and focus on fighting the
opposition, not each other. It is time for all of us to realize
what happens here in November will affect the rest of the nation
for generations to come. That effect is in our hands…let’s
make it a positive one!
CRPA needs you, your families, your clubs, your ranges,
your workplace and your community to reach out to us. We
can provide you with materials to help people get registered to
vote by mail or within their county. We will be at regional trade
shows, gun shows and stores to help sign people up to vote.
Uncle Sam is pointing the finger at all of us, just as he
did 100 years ago asking Americans what they were doing
to prepare for the war. It is our hope that each of you takes a
moment to consider what you’re doing to assist in the war on
our rights. Reach out and let us know what you’re doing and
how we can help you achieve more in this fight.
facebook.com/crpa.org instagram.com/crpaorg twitter.com/crpanews WWW.CRPA.ORG
18
MARCH / APRIL

Check out Assemblywoman Marie Waldron
in CRPA’s NorCal Pheasant Hunt
video on our website: crpa.org/videos
by Assemblywoman Marie Waldron, 75th District
As a wife and mother, I am a firm
believer in the basic human
right of self-defense. In Sacramento,
that can often be a minority
opinion, something I am doing my best
to change. Strangely enough, I believe
in my right to defend my family and no
amount of political sleight-of-hand or
gamesmanship will change that.
As most Firing Line readers know,
California’s Legislature has become
increasingly unfriendly to our Second
Amendment rights. Simply stated, we
need more defenders of the Second
Amendment in the California Legislature,
and aside from my attempts
to change the few minds that remain
open on this subject, I believe the only
way for that to happen is through the
election process.
Unfortunately many, perhaps most
voters largely ignore state races and
concentrate on the seemingly more
interesting congressional and presidential
contests. This is folly. While
most states are becoming increasingly
supportive of the Second Amendment,
California is moving rapidly in the
opposite direction.
Changing California’s course will
require the involvement of concerned
citizens. Get to know your Senators and
Assemblymembers, contact their offices
and talk to their staffs. If you happen
to live in a district with a pro-Second
Amendment representative, you are one
of the fortunate and comparatively few
in California. Continue to send faxes
and to write letters and emails; this will
provide your representatives with the
support they may need when debating
firearms-related bills in the Capitol.
Importantly, if you live in a district
represented by legislators who
are anti-Second Amendment, continue
to bombard them with faxes, emails,
phone calls and letters expressing your
support for your basic Constitutional
Right to Keep and Bear Arms. As
always, be respectful, but be forceful
and persistent.
The Second Amendment is not
only a basic inalienable right but it enjoys
strong majority support among
the people as well. Some of your representatives
need to be reminded of
these facts.
Lastly, become involved in the
political process at all levels. We have
national elections coming up, with a primary
in June and the General Election
in November. Yes, the presidency and
Congress are extremely important. But
the people we send to Sacramento are
likely to have a greater and more immediate
impact on our Second Amendment
rights than anything that happens at the
national level. I cannot stress the importance
of supporting with time and
money candidates throughout the state
who support the Second Amendment.
This election year we have several legislative
seats in jeopardy and others
that could be added to the pro second
amendment roll.
By becoming involved in the
electoral process, the triumph of good
can be assured and our rights can
be secured.
Assemblywoman Marie Waldron, R-Escondido,
represents the 75th Assembly
District in the California Legislature,
which includes the communities of
Bonsall, Escondido, Fallbrook, Hidden
Meadows, Rainbow, San Marcos, Temecula,
Valley Center, and Vista.
CRPA FIRING LINE 19

RANGE
REPORT
International Handgun
Metallic Silhouette
Association (IHMSA)
2015
Roy Sasai
California shooters
dominated at the
IHMSA 2015 World
Championships held at the
Angeles Shooting Range in
San Fernando, CA. On July
10-17 2015, over 60 competitors
from the US, Brazil,
Australia, Paraguay, and
Canada, came to compete in
the ideal Southern California
weather. There were a total
of 25 matches at the World
Championships each with
different pistols (air, .22 LR,
rifle cartridges, iron sights,
World
Championships
scoped), varying targets, distances,
and rules. California
shooters won over half of all
the championship matches
with only 3 shooters, Dennis
Edwards, Dan Bucks, and
Harry Sharp. Each match
was a test of nerves as each
of our champions had to
break ties to earn their titles.
Dan Bucks and Dennis
Edwards each earned their
championships in shoot offs.
Harry Sharp won 2 aggregate
titles and 10 championships
(4 of them in shoot offs).
IHMSA is an extreme
sport where handguns are
shot with targets at distances
of up to 500 meters (547
yards). The World Championships
matches were all
200 meter matches. The bullets
must maintain enough
terminal energy to knock
down heavy steel silhouettes
weighing up to 55 lbs. There
are no tables, chairs, sandbags,
or stands to steady the
gun on, just the shooter and
their pistol. This competition
exemplifies the pure hunting
aspect of the sport, tracking
an animal in the field with
minimal equipment.
The matches are shot either
in standing or freestyle
categories. In the freestyle
category, the most common
position used is called Creed-
facebook.com/crpa.org instagram.com/crpaorg twitter.com/crpanews
20
MARCH / APRIL

LEFT PAGE: Dan Bucks (spotter) and Harry Sharp in Creedmore position
TOP RIGHT: Harry Sharp receiving award
CRPA FIRING LINE 21

more, where you lie on your
back, using your non shooting
hand to hold the head up
off the ground to enable you
to see the target and align the
pistol sights. With both legs
bent, forming a tripod, the
pistol is held against the outer
lower leg for support.
The spotter is a critical
component in success of
the shooter because they relay
information back to the
shooter. Similar to sniper
teams, each shooter works
in conjunction with a spotter
who “glass“ the target. They
identify each hit location,
in the split second the bullet
mark appears, just as the
target is falling down. Only
the most skilled and experienced
spotters are able to
see the bullet in flight. This
skill is critical in identifying
shot position in the event of
a total miss into grass, which
does not give the spotter any
feedback. Dan Bucks who is
very accomplished, is among
the few who are able to spot
shots in this manner. Shot
placement is usually called
out verbally, but the team of
Dan Bucks and Harry Sharp
(as well as a few others) use
an innovative method to relay
data, utilizing a hand held
ABOVE: Dan Bucks receives award
22
MARCH / APRIL

laser onto a target diagram for precise
info. Rock steady hands are required as
the small diagram is 7 feet forward of
the spotter position, behind the shooter.
Spotters also identify and relay
wind changes occurring downrange.
Dan Bucks is recognized as one of the
world’s best spotters, assisting in Harry’s
success.
CONGRATULATIONS TO:
• Dan Bucks (Spotter Harry Sharp)
- Long Range Practical Hunter
Champion
• Dennis Edwards (Spotter Joanne
Jauregui ) - Practical Hunter .22 LR
Champion
• Harry Sharp (Spotter Dan Bucks) -
• Big Bore Production Champion
• Big Bore Revolver Champion
• Big Bore Unlimited Champion
• Small Bore Unlimited Any sight
Champion
• Small Bore Unlimited Champion
• Small Bore Production Champion
• Half Scale Unlimited Champion
• Half Scale Unlimited Any Sight
Champion
• Half Scale Aggregate Champion
• Fifth Scale Unlimited Any Sight
Champion
• Fifth Scale Unlimited Champion
• Fifth Scale Aggregate Champion
Harry and Joshua with .22 Thompson Contender
“You got to pay the dues if you want
to play the blues, you know it don’t come
easy” – Ringo Starr
Harry Sharp, NRA and CRPA life
member, has been on this journey for 17
years to achieve this level of success in
Silhouette. Years of practice, testing, and
expanding his knowledge of ballistics,
load development, reading the wind,
refining his shot process, and perfecting
his mental management culminated
at the championships. It has not been
easy, plagued with setbacks, losses, and
plateaus, his progress has been slow, yet
steady. In his pursuit of perfection, he
only shoots Silhouette. In preparation
for the World championships, he made
numerous trips to the match site from
northern California (over 6 hour drive)
just to obtain sight settings and become
acclimated to the range and its lighting
nuances. Dry firing for 2 hours each day
as the big match approached and practicing
each weekend, he truly has paid
his dues, and his achievement, titles and
awards did not come easy.
Today, on any given day, you will
still find him at the range, continuing his
practice on silhouette targets, honing his
skills to an ever sharper level, preparing
for the next upcoming match. He has
taken on an understudy, his grandson
Joshua, 11 years old, NRA life member,
teaching him safety, technique and most
importantly the mental discipline needed
to shoot well. Joshua has become quite
accomplished as well as he is a good listener,
analytical, and driven.
This sport is challenging, exciting,
and fun. It does not require a lot of specialized
equipment to get started. One
can use their “off the shelf” revolver
or semi-auto pistol in standing position
matches but it’s advised to have at least
an 8” barrel for the Creedmore position,
as the barrel rests on the lower leg.
Learn more about the matches near you
by searching on “IHMSA” for information
on how to get started, rules and upcoming
matches.
“You got to pay the dues
if you want to play the
blues, you know it don’t
come easy” - Ringo Starr
CRPA FIRING LINE 23

March/April 2016
PLACES TO SHOOT
La Puente Firing Range
16418 Valley Blvd, La Puente, CA 91744
(626) 330-8336
lpfr.com
Open to the public
Indoor
Rifle .22LR only, only Handgun caliber up to .44Magunum
Laguna Seca Rifle & Pistol Range
1025 Monterey-Salinas Highway 68,
Salinas, CA 93908
(831) 757-6317
Open to the public
Outdoor
Rifle, Pistol
LAX Firing Range
927 W Manchester Blvd,
Inglewood, CA 90301
(310) 568-1515
laxrange.com
Open to the public
Indoor
Shotgun, Rifle, Pistol
Lemon Grove Rod & Gun Club
16232 Sequan Truck Trail, Alpine, CA 91901
(619) 445-4039
lemongrovegunclub.com
Member based, please contact for
shoots open to the public
Rifle, Handgun, Shotgun
Lemoore Sportsman’s Club
23310 Elgin Avenue, Lemoore, CA 93245
(559) 924-7240
lemooresportsmansclub.com
Member based, nonmember passes
available on weekends
Rifle, Trap, Skeet, Archery
Jackson Arms Indoor
Shooting Range & Gun Shop
Kingsburg Gun Club
Laguna Seca Rifle & Pistol Range
Lemoore Sportsman’s Club
Kern County Gun Club
La Puente Firing Range
FOR A FULL LIST OF PLACES TO SHOOT
VISIT OUR WEBSITE
CRPA.ORG/PLACE-TO-SHOOT
Jackson Arms Indoor Shooting
Range & Gun Shop
152 Utah Avenue, South San Francisco, CA 94080
(650) 588-1845
jacksonarms.com
Open to the public
Indoor
Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun, Black Powder but
only M-F 11am-12pm
Kern County Gun Club
LAX Firing Range
12450 Shotgun Road, Bakersfield, CA 93390
(661) 765-5818
kerncountygunclub.com
Open to the public
Outdoor
Trap, Skeet, Shotgun no shot
larger than 7½ in size
Kingsburg Gun Club
2246 Gilbert Drive, Kingsburg, CA 93631
kingsburggunclub.org
Member based, Open to the public only
Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings
Outdoor
Shotgun, Trap
Lemon Grove Rod & Gun Club
facebook.com/crpa.org instagram.com/crpaorg twitter.com/crpanews crpa.org/events
24
MARCH / APRIL

WOMEN SHOOTERS
Now: Sandy Froman, a lawyer, was president of the
NRA in 2005 - 2007. She bought her first gun after
someone tried to break into her house one night.
WOMEN
GUNS
&
POLITICS
An excerpt from
“The Gun Book for Girls”
by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsley and Roger Sanger
Contributed by Steve Helsley, CRPA Life Member
The NRA (National Rifle Association),
founded in 1871, is the oldest
gun-owners’ group in America. For
most of its history the NRA was almost
exclusively male. Usually the president
was a former military officer such as
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who also became
President of the United States.
This too began to change in the 1970s
as women joined the NRA’s new political
division, the Institute for Legislative
Action. (The NRA had always
been involved in legislative lobbying,
but the issue of legal gun control really
started to heat up in the late 1960s.)
In 1994 a woman named Tanya
Metaksa was appointed NRA’s chief
lobbyist. (See “Careers.”) Metaksa
had gotten involved in gun-rights issues
in Connecticut in the late 1960s
and later became the chief legislative
aide for New York Senator Alphonse
D’Amato. The president of
the NRA then was also a woman,
Marion Hammer, and she teamed up
with Metaksa in the political arena.
Hammer had gained a lot of lobbying
experience in Florida. She was
a pioneer in child and family firearms
safety and was largely responsible for
the NRA’s Eddie Eagle Gunsafe Program
for kids.
It was also during the 1990s that
a woman emerged as a leader of the
gun-control movement: Sara Brady,
whose husband, Jim, had been seriously
injured in 1981 during an assassination
attempt on President Ronald
Reagan. The lobbying organization she
founded was called Handgun Control,
Inc. and later it was renamed the Brady
Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
At the NRA, as Marion Hammer was
completing her term as president, Sandy
Froman was elected one of the association’s
vice-presidents.
Froman, a Harvard-trained lawyer,
had never touched a gun until she was
32 years old. That was when, while
living alone in Los Angeles, she was
awakened one night by a racket at her
door. Someone was trying to break in.
She called the police. Then she called
her neighbors, turned on the lights and
her stereo, and began beating on her
side of the door to try to drive the intruder
away. It worked; the attacker slipped
away into the darkness before the
police arrived.
During those terrifying minutes,
Froman realized she had no real way to
protect herself. She decided never to be
defenseless again. She took a shooting
course, bought a handgun and started
practicing. Much to her surprise, she
loved shooting and turned into a good
shot. Through this new interest she met
a man named Bruce Nelson, a special
agent with the California Department
of Justice who also happened to be a
top competitive shooter and a founding
member of the International Practical
Shooting Confederation.
Nelson and Froman married and
moved to Arizona, where they both got
involved in the politics of gun ownership.
Like Lucy Chambliss almost 20
years earlier, Froman was elected to the
NRA board of directors. In 2005 she
became president of the association.
She is now a veteran shooting competitor,
a big-game hunter, a collector of
military arms and a top-flight legislative
advocate—all because of a thug
who tried to break into her house.
Then: After Ulysses S. Grant was the
18th President of the United States, he
became the 8th president of the National
Rifle Association, in 1883-84.
CRPA FIRING LINE 25

EW
How To Get Your
Letters To The
SHOOTERS
by Steve Oetzell
Editor PUBLISHED
One trait that is common
to all individuals,
yet defines our
unique nature, is our propensity
for opinion. for the
most part, we enjoy sharing
our opinions. and nothing is
more gratifying than sharing
them with a large audience.
promoting pro-gun beliefs,
in print and in cyberspace,
is essential to winning the
hearts and minds of those
who have not yet developed
opinions on guns or gun
control. if properly submitted
to the newspaper, your
pro-gun message will be
read by millions of people.
and, if properly written,
your pro-gun message could
influence thousands.
The simplest way to
voice your opinion in a
newspaper is to send a letter
to the editor. The opinion
page in every newspaper has
instructions regarding letter
submission. Follow these instructions
and honor the word
count limit. Cite the name,
the author, and the publication
date of the piece you
are commenting on. If you
disagree with what someone
has written, state your case
convincingly but avoid criticism.
If you make general
statements, back them up
with statistics, poll results
or studies. Include your
name, address, telephone
number and email addresses
so the editors can verify
you as a legitimate source
and contact you should they
decide to publish your letter.
A good letter follows
a format. Look at the published
letters in the opinion
section. Most letters will
follow a three paragraph
structure. The first paragraph
should cite the piece
that you are commenting
on and present your opinion.
The second paragraph
should state your case.
The third paragraph should
close the letter and contains,
what i call, the “zinger”.
The “zinger” is usually
the last sentence that may
take the form of a clever
observation, a sagely prediction,
a thought provoking
question or a relevant
“if-then” scenario.
Generally speaking,
your letter will stand a far
greater chance of being
published if you are representing
the views of an organization
or if your name is
followed by an official title.
When speaking on behalf
of an organization, be sure
that your letter is approved
by that organization prior to
submitting it to the newspaper.
Although having a little
“street cred” helps, many
newspapers will print the
opinions of all readers-no
matter how humble.
Don’t presume that the
newspaper will ignore your
letter because you oppose
their agenda. If a newspaper
promotes an anti-gun agenda
they will still print pro-gun
letters. The ratio, however,
of anti-gun letters to progun
letters will usually run
two-to-one.
Don’t get insulted if
the editor modifies your letter.
Remember that editing
is his/her job. More times
than not, your letter will read
and sound better after the
editor makes minor changes.
Editors are not trying to
change your message but,
rather, present your message
in the clearest form possible.
Lastly, if your letter is
rejected don’t be discouraged.
Be persistent and keep
writing letters. Sooner or
later your letter will be published.
Seeing your name
in print and knowing that
millions of people are reading
your words will be your
reward for not giving up.
Also, remember that your
words will not only be immortalized
on paper but in
cyberspace as well.
As pro-gun minded citizens
we have to be more
vocal about our opinions. We
must let the press know how
we feel about gun related issues.
More importantly, we
must persuade the undecided
to consider our opinions
instead of blindly listening
to the propaganda of the anti-gun
media.
26
MARCH / APRIL

DOCTORS
TIMOTHY WHEELER,
MD is director of Doctors
for Responsible Gun
Ownership, a project of
the Second Amendment
Foundation. He is also a
CRPA life member and
former member of the
CRPA Board of Directors.
Posted on February 2, 2016 by DRGO
for Responsible Gun Ownership
LAB ACCIDENT:
How Congress
Stopped
the CDC Gun Grabers
& Saved
Science
We can all feel it. With mass shootings
dominating the headlines, and especially
since the Sandy Hook school
mass shooting three years ago, the pressure to
blame gun owners is mounting. Everywhere we
look we see the familiar gun grabbers calling for
more background checks, a ban on modern sporting
rifles, and that old saw, restoring funding to
the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) for firearm research.
President Obama, gun prohibitionists in
Congress, and their many friends in major media
outlets have done a formidable job of spinning
the story of how the CDC lost its funding for gun
research. Their version is that, back in the 1990s
the CDC was producing valuable public health
research on “gun violence”, saving lives and preventing
injuries with their policy suggestions.
Then, because the “gun lobby” didn’t like the results
of their research, the National Rifle Association
opposed this great advance in public health
and, against the great tide of public opinion, persuaded
Congress to take away the CDC’s feder-
CRPA FIRING LINE 27

Lab Accident
al funding for all gun research. There
has been no gun research since then, so
we have no way to know how to stop
gun violence. That’s the bedtime story
told endlessly by the media for twenty
years now.
And it’s false. I know because I
was one of four medical doctors and a
distinguished constitutional scholar and
criminologist who told Congress the
truth about the CDC’s gun control politicking.
And we brought them proof.
Here’s the truth. The CDC funded research
on gun injuries and deaths done
by public health researchers—a group
then and now known for its strong bias
against gun ownership. The CDC gave
out grants totaling millions of dollars
to public health researchers. They used
the money to churn out articles supposedly
confirming how bad guns are and
why they should be severely limited to
American citizens, or even banned.
These articles appeared in prestigious
medical journals and provided
powerful ammunition for gun control
advocates. They had been losing in the
court of public opinion and in Congress,
but now had a new way to push their
gun-grabbing agenda. They disguised
their political goal of gun control in fancy
scientific language. And they hoped
no one would notice.
The first scholars to sound the
alarm that top management at the CDC
had turned rogue were Miguel Faria,
MD, Edgar Suter, MD, and Don Kates.
Dr. Faria, a neurosurgeon whose family
were refugees from Castro’s Cuba,
was then the editor of the Journal of the
Medical Association of Georgia. A pioneer
in getting the truth out about this
conspiracy in the medical world, Dr.
Faria published Dr. Suter’s devastating
March 1994 critique of the new anti-gun
junk science, “Guns in the Medical Literature—A
Failure of Peer Review”.
Suter meticulously pointed out that “errors
of fact, design, and interpretation
abound in the medical literature on guns
and violence.”
An even more comprehensive analysis
of this medical literature came a
year later with the landmark Tennessee
Law Review article by Don Kates and
three medical researchers, “Guns and
Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or
Pandemic of Propaganda?”. These authors
showed not only the deliberately
bad science, but also the medical establishment’s
mindless and astonishingly
hostile bias against gun owners.
The most prominent of the new
breed of white-coated gun control advocates
was Dr. Arthur Kellermann,
then with the School of Public Health at
Emory University. It was his 1993 article
“Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor
for Homicide in the Home” in the notoriously
anti-gun New England Journal
of Medicine that was the last straw for
American gun owners. Kates devoted a
whole section in the Tennessee Law Review
article to this blatantly anti-gun bit
of CDC-subsidized junk science, dissecting
its faulty experimental design,
sampling bias, and statistical analysis.
Kellermann and his coauthors studied
three crime-prone urban populations,
looking only at inner city residents who
had been murdered in their own homes.
Then they generalized from that population,
for whom criminal violence is a
way of life, to all American gun owners.
They concluded that having a gun
in your home makes you 2.7 times more
likely to be a homicide victim.
Major media outlets picked up the
story and conveniently rounded the “2.7
times” up to “3 times”, giving rise to the
notorious (and false) “three times fallacy”.
It has been repeated countless times
ever since and is still quoted today, despite
having been thoroughly debunked.
By then the medical and public
health establishment’s war on gun owners
had drawn the attention of critics in
the medical field, the National Rifle Association,
and members of Congress. The
media blitz of cover-ups and distortions
started then and continues to this day.
Media stories typically try to portray
the NRA as a villain, which somehow
miraculously overcame public opinion
to bully Congress into taking away the
CDC’s money for gun research. In fact,
the NRA simply did its job of representing
its millions of dues-paying members
as well as tens of millions more gun
owners in America. Powerful interests
at America’s elite universities and their
allies at the CDC waged a culture war
against America’s gun owners, and the
NRA responded with action to defend us.
Further, the NRA was not the only
voice in opposition to the academic and
CDC elites’ concerted effort to discredit
and disarm America’s 100 million gun
owners. That voice was raised by many,
including the 37 medical school professors,
practicing physicians, law professors
and epidemiologists who signed
the critical review “Violence in America:
Effective Solutions”, published by
Dr. Faria in the June 1995 edition of
the Journal of the Medical Association
of Georgia. The authors concluded that
scholarly proposal for real solutions
with a section titled “End the scapegoating
of guns and gun owners”. And
it culminated in five of us bringing our
case to the House Appropriations Committee’s
subcommittee that oversees
funding for the CDC.
On March 6, 1996 Dr. Miguel Faria,
Dr. Edgar Suter, Dr. William Waters,
Don Kates, and I testified in Washington,
DC as invited witnesses at a hearing
of the Subcommittee of the Committee
on Appropriations of the House of
Representatives for the Departments
of Labor, Health and Human Services,
Education, and Related Agencies. One
by one we gave our presentations.
First up was William Waters IV,
MD, an Atlanta physician affiliated with
Dr. Suter’s group, Doctors for Integrity
in Policy Research. Dr. Waters summarized
his written testimony already submitted
for the record. Among his points
was this revelation:
“NCIPC [National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, the CDC
division involved with gun research]
researchers and staff—including those
at the highest level—were faculty for
the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan
(HELP) conference in 1993 and again
in 1995. This was a firearms prohibition
28
MARCH / APRIL

In other words, an
incestuous relationship
existed among top CDC
officials and top figures
in the gun prohibition
movement at the time.
strategy conference, described by its
organizer as uniting “like-minded individuals
who represent organizations…
[who will assist in using] a public health
model to work toward changing society’s
attitude toward guns so that it becomes
socially unacceptable for private
citizens to have handguns.”
In other words, an incestuous relationship
existed among top CDC
officials and top figures in the gun prohibition
movement at the time. Together
they openly planned a public relations
war against gun owners.
The next witness was Miguel A.
Faria, MD, consultant neurosurgeon and
Adjunct Professor of Medical History at
Mercer University School of Medicine
in Macon, Georgia. Dr. Faria discussed
how the major and well-regarded research
findings of Professor Gary Kleck
had been systematically excluded from
the public health literature because of
Kleck’s findings that people often used
firearms successfully for self-defense.
The next witness, Don B. Kates, Jr.,
was an icon of the gun rights movement,
a civil rights attorney and criminologist
associated with the Pacific Research Institute
for Public Policy in San Francisco.
Kates demonstrated how the CDC
systematically ignored or suppressed
research showing any positive aspect of
gun ownership. Noting the remarkable
decline in fatal gun accidents even as
handgun ownership had increased enormously,
he told the congress members:
Though the NCIPC does purport to
study gun accidents, no NCIPC-connected
publication has mentioned the
phenomenal decline in accidental gun
deaths. More important, no research has
been directed at determining why fatal
accidents have declined so precipitately
and how best to capitalize on and extend
the decline. This lack of research is
irreconcilable with NCIPC’s charter to
reduce death. But it seems that NCIPC
is not interested in any mechanism for
reducing gun deaths which does not
involve decreasing gun ownership (emphasis
added).
Finally, Kates quoted from his Tennessee
Law Review article, summarizing:
Their publications are “so biased
and contain so many errors of fact, logic,
and procedure that we can not regard
them as having a legitimate claim to be
treated as contributions to a scholarly or
scientific literature.”
I concluded our panel of witnesses
with my testimony as Director of Doctors
for Responsible Gun Ownership
and a practicing surgeon.
I showed the committee a winter
1993 CDC publication, Public Health
Policy for Preventing Violence, coauthored
by Mark L. Rosenberg. Rosenberg
was later to become the director of
the NCIPC. The authors recommend
two strategies for preventing firearm
injuries: “Restrictive licensing (for example,
only police, military, guards, and
so on)” and “prohibit [gun] ownership”.
Yes, this federal agency was using our
tax dollars to advocate for revoking our
civil right to own firearms.
But the real bombshell was the Injury
Prevention Network Newsletter,
published by the San Francisco gun
prohibition group, the Trauma Foundation.
This newsletter exhorted readers
to “organize a picket at gun manufacturing
sites” and to “work for campaign
finance reform to weaken the gun lobby’s
political clout.” An editor’s note
explains: “This newsletter was supported
in part by Grant #R49/CCR903697-
06 from the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.” Under pressure the
CDC later requested a refund of the
grant money. But its sympathy with a
radical gun prohibition group had already
been put on record.
Few were surprised when the full
committee report for the 1997 appropriations
bill contained “a limitation to
prohibit the National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control at the Centers
for Disease Control from engaging in
any activities to advocate or promote
gun control.” Further, the committee
warned CDC officials that it “does not
believe that it is the role of the CDC to
advocate or promote policies to advance
gun control initiatives, or to discourage
responsible private gun ownership.”
One of the enduring gun-banner
myths helpfully perpetuated by the major
media is that Congress stopped all
gun research. In fact, as the Congressional
Record shows, Congress only
told the CDC to get out of the business
of politicking for gun control. Another
myth is that no gun research has
been done since the 1997 congressional
action. This is clearly false, since
criminology research has proceeded unabated,
with some of its greatest contributions
coming from John Lott. Lott’s
monumental 1998 book More Guns,
Less Crime is now in its third edition.
Of course, in the minds of the public
health anti-gun community, Lott’s
research doesn’t count because it finds
that gun ownership has benefits for
society—a truth that they have spent
their professional lives and our tax
money denying.
The ultimate test of science’s findings
is whether reality bears it out. In
the world of policy, the American people
will be the judge, based on their
collective wisdom. Since the beginning
of the public health war on gun owners,
the states have all adopted right to carry
laws. The Supreme Court has affirmed
the individual right to own firearms
for self-defense. The public has come
to know that they have a right to own
firearms. And now they know the truth
about how Congress stopped the CDC’s
activism against their precious right to
keep and bear arms.
The ultimate test of
science’s findings
is whether reality
bears it out.
[Editor’s note: a version of this article appeared in
America’s 1st Freedom.]
CRPA FIRING LINE 29

According to the Secretary of
State, only 72.7% of California’s
24 million eligible voters
in 2015 registered to vote, a percentage
that hasn’t changed much since the
2012 presidential election (72.58%).
But since then, the number of both registered
democratic and republic voters
have slightly decreased, while the number
of independent voters has grown
significantly. The latest numbers show
that of California’s registered voters,
43.2% (7.6 million) identify as democratic,
and 28.0% (4.9 million) identify
as republican. Meanwhile, the percentage
of independent registered voters
has increased from 19.5% in 2008 to
23.6% in 2015.
The surging number of independents
are nearly equally split at 37%
democrats and 34% republicans.
Republicans are more cohesive as a voting
block than democrats. Democrats,
on the other hand, are more susceptible
to peeling off into issue specific voting
blocks. In fact, there is enough ideological
diversity within the complex personal
political mix in California that gun
rights issues do motivate certain segments
of pro-self-defense conservatism
in moderate voters, and can even motivate
some democratic voters to vote to
defend gun owner’s rights.
Although 43.2% of registered Cal-
ifornia voters generally vote democratic,
Californians (including democrats
and non-voters) nonetheless hold some
important core conservative beliefs that
dictate their voting decisions in most
parts of the state, even in parts of the
state where democrats hold a majority.
On an ideological scale ranging from
strong conservative to strong liberal,
public opinion data shows the average
Californian in the middle, and even
leaning slightly conservative. For example,
54% of California’s likely voters
would prefer paying down the states
debt, while only 42% would prefer to
restore funding to social services. And
both 49% of non-Hispanic white and
53% of African American voters are
more likely to say that immigrants are a
burden on the state rather than a benefit.
Getting this mix of voters to the polls
is possible. If gun owners were motivated
to engage in the process, it could
easily result in the defeat of anti-gun
political candidates and ill-conceived
gun control efforts like Newsom’s ballot
measure and other gun bans recently
introduced in Sacramento.
GEOGRAPHY IS MISLEADING
Growth in Democratic voter concentration
over time has not been uniform
across the state. Instead it has had
a strong geographic dimension. The
conventional historical wisdom was
that California had a north-south political
divide (with the north voting Democratic
and the south voting Republican).
That notion was replaced with the idea
of an east-west, or coastal-inland political
divide (with the coast voting Democratic
and inland voting Republican).
But even this newer east-west geographic
generality still tells only part of
the story.
Today, the real ideological divide
pits the urban population centers in Los
Angeles County and the Bay Area against
everywhere else in California. The majority
of Democrats are located along
coastal and urban centers while the Republican
concentration is focused with-
30
MARCH / APRIL

in the Central Valley and Inland Empire,
although there can be fluctuations with
emerging concentrations within each
county that conflict with the majority.
Truly loyal liberal areas are found
only in the Bay Area and north coast.
The other categories are dispersed
throughout the state, and each has at
least some coastal and some inland
presence. Notably, Los Angeles County
contains no loyal liberal areas, and only
one that is moderate liberal (coastal Los
Angeles). The south coast (western San
Bernardino/Riverside, and Orange and
San Diego Counties) is comparably
mixed and includes all categories except
loyal liberal.
THE SWING VOTE IS
CRITICAL
Among California’s likely Independent
voters, 37% lean Democratic,
compared to 34% who lean Republican,
with the remaining leaning toward
neither. In surveys over the past year,
independent likely voters were about
equally likely to lean Democratic (37%)
or Republican (34%), while 29% did
not lean toward either major party. This
marks a shift from 2011, when 35% did
not lean toward either party, while 36%
leaned toward the Democrats and 29%
leaned Republican.
LIKELY VOTERS ARE STILL
DISPROPORTIONATELY
WHITE
Whites make up 43% of California’s
adult population, but 60% of those
likely to actually get out and vote are
white. In contrast, Latinos are much less
likely to vote. They make up 34% of the
state’s adult population but only 18% of
likely voters. The shares of Asian (12%)
and black (6%) likely voters are roughly
proportionate to their shares of the
state’s adult population—15% Asian
and 6% black.
PARTY AFFILIATION
VARIES ACROSS
DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS
About half (48%) of Democratic
likely voters are white; 26% are Latino,
13% are Asian, and 10% are black. An
overwhelming majority (80%) of Republican
likely voters are white; relatively
few are Latino (8%), Asian (8%),
or black (1%). Among independents,
55% are white, 19% are Asian, 16%
are Latino, and 5% are black. Democratic
likely voters are more likely to be
women (57%) than men (43%), while
independents are more likely to be men
(56%) than women (44%). Republicans
are closely divided (50% men,
50% women). Half of independents
(50%) are college graduates, compared
to fewer Republicans (39%) and Democrats
(38%). About four in 10 Democrats
(39%) have household incomes
under $40,000, compared to three in
10 independents (29%) and two in 10
Republicans (22%). Independents are
more likely to be young adults (18 to
34, 24%) than are Democrats (17%) or
Republicans (11%), while Republicans
are more likely to be age 55 and older
(55%) than are Democrats (49%) or independents
(36%).
CARPE ELECTIONEM!
LEAVE NO GUN OWNER
VOTE BEHIND!
These statistics lead to the conclusion
that California voters have indeed
become more “democratic” in voter
registration tendencies, but a hard core
liberal reputation is deserved only in the
Bay Area. In the rest of the state, even
in Los Angeles County, California is
more conservative and less consistently
defined by geography than conventional
wisdom suggests.
In some legislative districts, the
margins of victory in recent elections
have been so small that even a slight
increase in voter turn-out by pro-gun
rights voters, of whichever party, could
easily sway the result of an election. In
many races, it doesn’t take much to put
a candidate in office who truly respects
the right to keep and bear arms.
Did you vote in the last election?
Are you registered for the next
one? Shame on you if you aren’t.
This article was compiled from the following
sources:
Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, David Kordus,
Lunna Lopes, Just the Facts: California’s Likely
Voters, Public Policy Institute of California (Aug.
2015)
Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, David Kordus,
Lunna Lopes, Just the Facts: California Voter and
Party Profiles, Public Policy Institute of California
(Aug. 2015)
Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, David Kordus,
Lunna Lopes, Californians & Their Government,
Public Policy Institute of California Statewide
Survey (Jan. 2016)
Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, David Kordus,
Lunna Lopes, Californians & Their Government,
Public Policy Institute of California Statewide
Survey (Dec. 2015)
Eric McGhee, Daniel Krimm, California’s Political
Geography, Public Policy Institute of California
(Feb. 2012)
CRPA thanks the Public Policy Institute of California
for granting permission to borrow from
these articles.
CRPA FIRING LINE 31

FEAR & LOADING
Why Firearm
?
© National Review.
Used with permission.
Charles C. W. Cooke is a staff
writer at National Review.
by Charles C. W. Cooke
Of all the ill-considered tropes that are
trotted out in anger during our ongoing
debate over gun control, perhaps
the most irritating is the claim that the
Constitution may indeed protect firearms,
but it says “nothing at all about bullets.”
On its face, this is flatly incorrect.
Quite deliberately, the Bill of Rights is
worded so as to shield categories and not
specifics, which is why th e First Amendment
protects the “press” and not “ink”;
why the Fourth covers “papers” and “effects”
instead of listing every item that
might be worn about one’s person; and why
the Fifth insists broadly that one may not
be deprived of “life, liberty, or property”
and leaves the language there. The “right
of the people” that is mentioned in the Second
Amendment is not “to keep and bear
guns” or “to keep and bear ammunition”
but “to keep and bear arms,” which, per
Black’s Law Dictionary, was understood in
the 18th century to include the “musket and
bayonet”; “sabre, holster pistols, and carbine”;
an array of “side arms”; and any accoutrements
necessary for their operation.
To propose that a government could restrict
access to ammunition without gutting the
Second Amendment is akin to proposing
that a government could ban churches
without hollowing out the First. If a free
people are to enjoy their liberties without
encumbrance, the prerequisite tools must
be let well alone.
Without doubt, the vast majority
of those who offer up the “But bullets!”
talking point are doing little more than
repeating memes that they have encountered.
Yet at the root of their provocation
is a serious misconception that needs to
be seriously reckoned with. In most of the
world’s countries, firearms are regulated in
much the same way as are, say, cars, radios,
and lawnmowers: as everyday tools whose
utility can be evaluated without prejudice.
In the United States, by contrast, the government’s
hands are tied tight. To those
who are unfamiliar with the contours of
Anglo-American history, this can be understandably
confusing. “Why,” we often hear
it asked, “Would the architects of the Constitution
put a public policy question into
the national charter? Do we really have to
stick with a regulatory scheme that originated
before the invention of the light bulb?”
The answer to this question is a simple
one: “Yes.” Why? Because, our contemporary
rhetorical habits notwithstanding, the
right to keep and bear arms is not so much
a right in and of itself as an auxiliary mechanism
that protects the real unalienable
right underneath: that of self-defense. By
placing a prohibition on strict gun control
into the Constitution, the Founders did not
accidentally insert a matter of quotidian
rulemaking into a statement of foundational
law; rather, they sought to secure a
fundamental liberty whose explicit recognition
was the price of the state’s construction.
To understand this, I’d venture, is to
understand immediately why the people
of these United States remain so doggedly
attached to their weapons. At bottom, the
salient question during any gun-control debate
is less “Do you think people should be
allowed to have rifles?” and more “Do you
think you should be permitted to take care
of your own security
A five-foot-tall, 110-pound woman
is in a certain sense “armed” if she has a
kitchen knife or a baseball bat at her disposal.
But if the six-foot-four, 250-pound
man who has broken into her apartment
has one, too, she is not likely to overwhelm
him. If that same woman has a nine-millimeter
Glock, however? Well, then there is a
good chance of her walking out unharmed.
From the perspective of our petite woman,
there is really no way for the state to endorse
her right to defend herself if it deprives
her of the tools she needs for the job.
In the sixth century, the Byzantine
emperor Justinian compiled the monumental
Digest of Roman Law, cataloguing the
laws that had developed over centuries of
Roman jurisprudence — among which was
this rule of thumb: “That which someone
does for the safety of his body, let it be regarded
as having been done legally.” When
it comes to the police and the armed forces,
this principle is widely acknowledged,
which is why most nations are happy to
let their cops walk around with semi-automatic
handguns and an array of advanced
tactical gear. Within the civilian context,
however, the same idea has become
strangely controversial. Think of how
often you hear Second Amendment advocates
being asked with irritation why they
“need” a particular firearm. Think, too, of
how infrequently gun controllers focus on
keeping weapons out of the hands of ne’erdo-wells
rather than on limiting the efficacy
of those available to the good guys. This
makes no sense whatsoever. If a 15-round
magazine and a one-shot-per-trigger-pull
sidearm are necessary to give a trained police
officer a fighting chance against a man
who wishes him harm, there is no good reason
that my sister shouldn’t have them, too.
As it happens, exactly this parity is
presumed by America’s founding documents.
The Declaration of Independence
establishes that all men are born in possession
of certain unchallengeable rights,
and that among them are “life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.” This phrase, as
with so many promulgated during the revolutionary
era, is lightly adapted from John
Locke, the English Enlightenment intellectual
on whose philosophical presumptions
the United States was in large part built.
Inter alia, Locke held that every individual
has a right to control and to defend his
body, and that any government that attempted
to deny that right was by necessity
unjust. “Self defense,” Locke wrote in his
Two Treatises of Government, “is a part
32
MARCH / APRIL

of the law of nature” and in consequence
cannot be “denied the community, even
against the king himself.” In Locke’s view,
this principle could be applied both on an
individual level — against, say, intruders
and other attackers — and on a collective
level, against governments that turn tyrannical.
Crucially, unlike Rousseau, Locke
and his ideological heirs did not consider
the establishment of the state to be a justification
for the restriction of this principle.
To peruse the explanatory strictures of
the Founders’ era is to discover just how
seriously the right to protect oneself was
taken in the early Anglo-American world.
Writing in his 1768 Commentaries on the
Laws of England, the great jurist William
Blackstone contended that “self-defence”
was “justly called the primary law of nature”
and confirmed the Lockean contention
that it could not be “taken away
by the law of society.” In most instances,
Blackstone observed, injuries inflicted by
one citizen on another could wait to be mediated
by the “future process of law.” But
if those “injuries [are] accompanied with
force . . . it is impossible to say, to what
wanton lengths of rapine or cruelty outrages
of this sort might be carried, unless it
were permitted a man immediately to oppose
one violence with another.”
These conceptions were carried over
wholesale into the American colonies and
cherished long after independence had
been won. In Federalist No. 28, Alexander
Hamilton affirmed the importance of
the “original right of self-defense which
is paramount to all positive forms of government”
and conceded that, in extreme
circumstances, it may even be asserted legitimately
“against the usurpations of the
national rulers.” This conceit was explicitly
established in New Hampshire’s constitution
of 1784, which, astonishingly enough,
included an enumerated right to revolution:
“The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary
power, and oppression,” its signatories
acknowledged, “is absurd, slavish, and
“ORIGINAL RIGHT OF
SELF-DEFENSE WHICH
IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL
POSITIVE FORMS OF
GOVERNMENT”
“SELF-DEFENCE” WAS “JUSTLY
CALLED THE PRIMARY LAW OF
NATURE” AND CONFIRMED THE
LOCKEAN CONTENTION THAT
IT COULD NOT BE “TAKEN AWAY
BY THE LAW OF SOCIETY.”
destructive of the good and happiness of
mankind.” Similar statements were subsequently
added to the charters of Kentucky,
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Texas, and
Tennessee. Despite progressivism’s endless
march, the spirit of John Locke is alive
and well.
For almost all of American history,
this idea remained uncontroversial. When,
in the early 19th century, certain large cities
took it upon themselves to establish police
forces, they presented their initiatives as
complementary to, not in lieu of, the status
quo. Likewise, when the architects of
Reconstruction wondered aloud how free
blacks would defend themselves against
the hostile white majority, their first instinct,
to paraphrase Yale law professor
Akhil Reed Amar, was to make minutemen
out of freedmen. Today, the Supreme Court
continues to affirm the right to defend oneself,
refusing to hand that task over exclusively
to the armed agents of the state, even
in the age of the standing army and militarized
police departments. Despite progressivism’s
endless march, the spirit of John
Locke is alive and well.
But not, alas, omnipresent. Unfortunately,
it has become commonplace over
the last few decades to hear opponents of
the right to keep and bear arms recite aggregate
statistics as their case against individual
liberties. A
particularly egregious
example of
this came with Colorado’s
post-Aurora
gun-control
debate, during
which a state legislator
named Evie
Hudak casually
informed a female
survivor of rape
that, mathematically
speaking, she was more likely to
hurt herself with her concealed firearm
than to forestall another attack. “Actually,
statistics are not on your side even if
you had a gun,” Hudak told the stunned
hearing. “Chances are that if you had
had a gun, then he would have been able
to get that from you and possibly use it
against you.”
This approach is entirely inconsistent
with America’s founding ideals. If it is the
case that free people have the right to defend
themselves regardless of whether they
are likely to prevail, then what their elected
representatives think of their endeavors
is irrelevant. To take any other approach
is to strip from mankind what the great
American jurist Henry St. George Tucker,
echoing Blackstone, termed the “first law
of nature,” and to do so in the name of unwarranted
superintendence.
That those who would engage in such
supervision do so with good intentions is
neither here nor there. When, in their infinite
wisdom, the legislators of New Jersey
passed the draconian permitting requirements
that have led to their constituents’
waiting months for the chance to buy a gun,
they presumably believed that they were
striking a strong blow for public safety.
In truth, however, they were overstepping
their legitimate bounds and condemning a
handful of American citizens to ignominious
death. One such citizen, a diminutive
woman named Carol Bowne, found this out
firsthand in June of this year, when, having
waited long beyond the statutory processing
window, she watched her stalker of an
ex-boyfriend come into her driveway with
a knife and stab her to death. “Who does
not see that self-defense is a duty superior
to every precept?” asked Montesquieu in
his magisterial Spirit of the Laws. Judging
by our present debate, the answer to this
question is “Too many.”
CRPA FIRING LINE 33

Reading with
REDCORN
BY GUY NIXON (REDCORN)
Well these have certainly
been some
interesting times
lately. I usually write about
hunting and guns that are
available for junior hunters
or guns that may have been
overlooked but might be better
suited to the hunting conditions
here in california. But
this time i thought i ought to
get a little more into the politics
of gun design and why
you must get involved and
use your vote wisely.
There is a great deal
being made politically that
“we” are in the way of commonsense
gun design and
technology. I know this is
being done purely for political
reasons – if the president
of the united states honestly
wanted to reduce gun violence
he would not have lectured
us and then cried after
insulting our intelligence.
The whole show was done
to get folks to donate to political
campaigns, not to actually
reduce gun violence,
which statically has been
coming down for decades,
not that the big four tv news
media channels would ever
point out.
To back this up let me
give you a little “argmentum
ad verecundiam” —appeal to
authority—my family comes
from a law and judicial background,
though a bit different
from most. I served as a
gunnersmate in the us navy
for three enlistments much
of which was doing drug interdiction
and security work.
Then i worked as a forest
protection officer for the usfs
for 16 years. On my father’s
side i have the experiences
and stories from wahshashowahtinega
bill nixon
hapashutsy who served in the
osage tribal police, then as a
judge on the osage supreme
court. So i come into this
discussion well versed, but
from a little different point
of view than most.
So let’s be honest, president
obama has been the best
gun salesman in history. Just
about every time the man
talks gun sales go up, and
while much of the economy
may be slowing, business for
ruger has increased drastically
since he came into office.
From what obama says it is
obvious to us “injuns” who
have developed an ear for
what the “great white fathers
in washington,” who speak
in double tongues, say versus
what they mean. To me it
seems that our current president
must believe that it is
in the interest of his political
party or his legacy to have
the “gun debate” up front.
In my analysis this is probably
because the economy
and foreign affairs are doing
so poorly. It is an issue that
is unrelated, or so he must
think. I would venture to say
that his policies on foreign
affairs do have an impact on
the issue of gun violence as
it relates to islamic terrorism,
but that is in my judgment,
not his.
Now let’s take the
“common sense” stuff apart.
First, you ought to be able
to see that the background
checks are already being
done (particularly here in
california) but that they obviously
didn’t stop the san
bernardino shooting. Nor
would any new rules or regulations
have stopped edward
archer, who recently converted
to islam and pledged
allegiance to isis, from taking
a stolen police handgun
to shoot philadelphia policeman
jesse hartnett who was
sitting in his police car on
january 8 of this year. To the
best of my knowledge, the
president has not mentioned
this “incident.”
Second, if the president
wanted to do these “common
sense” things he proposed
that didn’t relate to guns,
he would have signed the
mental health funding legislation
that was brought up
to him two days before his
speech that was to do that
exact thing. That speech
was to get folks upset so
they would donate money,
not to actually accomplish
anything constructive.
34
MARCH / APRIL

This photo is of Maria Tallchief a fellow Osage Indian the first American to become
Prima Ballerina of Europe ((the Federal Government with a “Common Sense Law”
forbid all American Indians from dancing)) That is the language the Federal Government
always uses when they are taking away your right to do something.
Third, his idea that we
are standing in the way of
“science and new gun technology.”
In this arena i do
have considerable experience
and can offer some insight.
One of the “new” technologies,
i.E. To have the
gun mark the casings (spent
shells) and to have ids on the
bullets themselves. This is
interesting but it has a few
problems, the biggest being
that any marker that leaves
an imprint on the casings
tends to wear out over time
and, if you use aluminum
casings, enameled steel casings,
as well as several different
alloys of brass, it may
not work at all.
To identify the bullet
itself sounds good, but this
would be limited to rather
low velocity handgun rounds
that do not distort very much
on impact. These markings
would have to be on the base
of the bullet and be put there
at the time of manufacture
and so only identify the box
of cartridges the round came
from (talk about maintaining
a huge pile of data). The
red tape for that alone would
be costly and nearly useless.
The round is marked to
some extent by the rifling as
it goes down the barrel but
this will change over time as
the barrel wears and in high
velocity rounds it is distorted
too much to use. This is all
a moot point when we talk
about using safety slugs, bullets
designed to break up in
a dry wall or plaster board
into small fragments that will
not break through and hurt
innocent bystanders on the
other side of the wall. How
about sabot bullets or shotgun
rounds? These are impossible
to id. Then i would
have to add that all this technology
would not have saved
a single life in any of the
mass shootings and for all
the additional cost incurred
may not have provided law
enforcement any additional
clues to help solve crimes.
The other “new” technology
for firearms is biometric
identification – a high
tech way of identifying the
hand on the gun’s grips as
the guns owner’s. This is
what president obama and
many others think will stop
gun violence. (Note: if, according
to president obama’s
speech, two-thirds of gun
deaths are suicides, this technology,
by definition, would
not stop even one of those
deaths.) This idea is great,
however, there is a major
problem with its application.
It’s one thing for this
technology to be used for
law enforcement firearms, it
would ensure that the firearm
could not be turned on
the officer, however, because
it is a new technology there
will be glitches, like any new
technology. What if the gun
malfunctions and does not
go off when the officer needs
it? Electronic gadgets do not
respond well to the recoil of
a gun, and batteries will go
dead, typically at the worst
time. Then the basics of guns
require them to be lubricated
and oil does not do well
with electronics. Similarly
water, sweat, condensation,
extreme cold, let alone extreme
heat. An officer in
minnesota may have a gun
in which a plastic or polymer
CRPA FIRING LINE 35

grip is too stiff to recognize the officer’s
hand, which could be in a glove, or the
battery may be a little low on amperage,
due to the cold temperatures. An officer
in arizona may have problems with a
gun that is drenched in sweat with gun
oil vapors and hotter than 120 degrees
(black metal in the summer sun). This
is inviting a plethora of technical problems.
Realize this will be under ideal
conditions as law enforcement officers
check their firearms on a regular basis
and have professionals to check and
test their firearms. Can you imagine the
problems that would arise for civilians?
I firmly believe this technology
ought to be available for those who want
it but i do not think it is a good idea for
the government to require law enforcement
agencies to have it, let alone force
all civilian-used firearms to have it.
Not only are there the potential problems
with the technology, but then there
is the cost. It would make the cost of a
firearm go far beyond what many law
abiding american citizens can afford.
There is a great argument to be
made for “simple is better,” not only
with firearms, but with most things.
The more complicated the machine, the
more problems there tend to be. The
more safeties the gun has, the more
confusing it can be when you actually
need to use it. I have a problem with
all these push button, tang and lever
safeties in that the more obtrusive or
numerous they are, the more people
tend to leave them off. If a child or
even an untrained adult were to pick it
up they have an increased chance of an
accidental discharge.
Yes, call me a member of the “stone
age,” but a firearm with an exposed
hammer is much easier to determine if
it is ready to shoot at any distance than
any of the push button safeties. How
about in the dark, when i had a mountain
lion in my barn pulling down a calf.
I did not want to have to look down at
my gun to see if the safety was on or
off, you have to admit the hammer can
be operated easily by braille and, no
matter how excited you are, it is simple
to operate. As i and probably many of
you have found, put a person in combat,
law enforcement or in front of a big
buck, they are likely to make all kinds
of mistakes. I have seen soldiers, sailors,
marines and sheriff’s deputies all
eject loaded magazines as well as any
number of “rookie mistakes” while under
pressure. My oldest son, bryan, and
i hiked in to help a friend pack out his
bear awhile back. The hunter thought he
had shot the bear some six times, however,
as we were skinning and quartering
the bear out, bryan found only two
empty cartridge cases but four loaded
ones. The man was so excited that he
had been cycling the rounds through his
gun but had fired only two of them. This
happens, its human nature. To add layers
and layers of complicated safeties
and technology on a gun will make it all
the more common.
I welcome new technology in any
field but i don’t believe that new federal
laws requiring it are good in any
product line. There is too much room
for kickbacks and squeezing out the little
operators who actually make great
equipment and have even better ideas.
I admit my frame of reference is a little
different from most of you. From my
osage and cherokee ancestors’ experience,
most new federal laws imposed
on us “injuns” were typically not intended
to benefit us, but usually to impede
us. Don’t think for a minute that
the feds will not get ridiculously petty
in their regulations, they can’t help it.
It is the basic nature of any bureaucrat
to eventually go into the realm of petty
regulations, it is in their blood. They are
the people who typically apply for those
jobs and sooner or later that is exactly
where they go.
As an example of just how invasive
the feds can be, look at the “socialist
paradises” the american indian reservations
have been. Even those “injuns”
who owned their own land, such as my
grandpa’s osage nation, were still under
such strict federal regulations that they
could not buy a car with their own money,
write a check from their own bank
accounts, or even operate their own
farms without a federal appointee there
telling them what they could and could
not do. They even had regulations that
outlawed any dancing, clear up into the
1940’s. Now we osage sort of made
that law look silly when maria tall chief
became the very first american to become
prima ballerina of europe (despite
the law). The fact that such an achievement
wasn’t made by some girl from
new york or boston, but an “injun” from
pawhuska, really irritated the fed’s. The
only reason they showed any restraint
in enforcing these petty regulations was
the fact that we had guns. Believe me,
they wanted to take those away from us
as well. If you have any illusions about
how wonderful government-run health
care and social service system would
be under socialism, we american indians
can provide you a long history of
failures and petty, invasive laws administered
by federal bureaucrats. Most
“injuns” weren’t allowed to even vote,
clear up into the 1950’s. We had plenty
of federal laws forced on us for all
kinds of petty regulations that some fed
thought would be good for us – you
know, “common sense laws.” They always
use that sort of language when
they are taking away your rights.
Your right to own a gun speak freely,
as well as any number of other rights,
are dependent on the u.S. Constitution
not being changed by future politicians.
The feds seem to have a knack for going
back on their words, treaties and agreements.
The same politician who says
they will never violate this law or that
they will never change their agreement
with you can be out there the very next
day doing the exact opposite. Believe
me when i say this is not new, there is a
long history of it.
With all of this going on the only
effective way to counter it is to use your
vote wisely, fight fire with fire! It is
the only efficient way to combat these
problems. The firearm manufacturers
already know the potential shortcomings,
as does the law enforcement community.
The only thing left that does not
seem to comprehend the realities are
some politicians. Your vote is the thing
that gets their attention, so i recommend
you use it and use it wisely. The
only way to “reign in” or keep a politician
from saying one thing this day
and doing the opposite on the next is
your vote.
36
MARCH / APRIL

A
Call for
ACTION
by Tim McMahon, CRPA Member & Volunteer Recruiter
The anti-gun zealots have declared
war on the Second Amendment
and they are attacking us from all
sides. Last October Gavin Newsom
announced a draconian anti-gun ballot
measure that would require registration
and background checks for ammo purchases
and confiscate standard capacity
magazines from gun owners.
The gun ban lobby is relentless.
Elements contained in Newsom’s ballot
measure have previously passed the
legislature and are on hold while they
are being litigated. And while in litigation
the legislature again passed virtually
the same measure only to have the
Governor veto the bill. Now Newsom is
attempting an end run around the legislature
seeking to take advantage of the
uniformed and low information voter.
He seeks to circumvent our Republican
form of government by fomenting the
public into voting based on passion rather
than reason. Something our Founding
Fathers sought to prevent in creating a
Republican form of government and in
which Madison and Hamilton warned
against in the Federalist Papers.
If this weren’t enough, just 10 days
into the 2016 California legislative session
Assembly Members Chiu, Levine,
and Ting and Senators Hall and Glazer
introduced even more draconian legislation
that would ban all semiautomatic
rifles that have detachable magazines
including rifles with bullet buttons. This
is the same legislation that the legislature
passed in 2013 but was vetoed by
Governor Brown.
As you can see, the anti-gun zealots
are relentless. If they fail they come
right back and attempt to pass the same
legislation. We are early in the legislative
season and they will undoubtedly
launch more attacks before February
19, which is the last day that bills can be
introduced in the legislature.
There are already between 800 and
900 gun laws on the books that together
comprise 100 pages of the Penal Code.
These gun laws constrain our gun rights
so severely that in California there is
very little that most law abiding citizens
who don’t possess a CCW can legally
do with a firearm. Basically they can go
from home to the gun range or hunting
field and back. Moreover, they must
comply with harsh restrictions while
transporting a firearm between these locations
and they should not even think
about stopping anywhere in between.
Criminals on the other hand, already
violate numerous gun laws and other
criminal statutes when using a firearm
in the commission of a crime. So can
anyone really believe that just one more
gun law will somehow make a difference
and cause criminals to stop doing
what they do? Logically, one must conclude
no. Logically, one must conclude
that these continued attacks on our gun
rights have nothing to do with reducing
crime or increasing safety.
Then why do the anti-gun zealots
continue to attack us? Because their
goal is to ban all firearms and eliminate
the Second Amendment. They know
they can’t do this in one fell swoop
because if they did we would all be up
in arms (figuratively speaking please)
protesting on the steps of the capitol
in Sacramento.
Instead, they seek to advance their
tyrannical agenda incrementally, one
anti-gun bill at time. Hoping we won’t
notice the gradual elimination of our
Second Amendment rights until it is
too late. It is the real life manifestation
of the proverbial cooking the frog
in the pot.
They coin meaningless terms like
“Assault Weapon” to demonize firearms
in the minds of the uninformed public
CRPA FIRING LINE 37

A Call for Action
and they use euphemisms such as “gun
safety” and “common sense”—fill in the
blank, to mask their true intent. Don’t
allow them to control the narrative by
perpetuating these distorted terms.
If you have any doubt about the
goals of the anti-gun zealots read David
Frankel’s essay Coming To Terms—A
Mass Shooting Survivor’s Story available
on CRPA’s website. An original
member of the Legal Community
Against Violence, David describes the
tactics and strategies the group uses
to “dramatically limit or eliminate
gun ownership.”
So what can we do to stop this relentless
assault on our gun rights?
First, we must fight back with the same
tenacity and relentlessness as our attackers.
It is no longer sufficient to let
CRPA and NRA fight the fight for us.
We must all personally get involved.
This has to be a grass roots movement
from the ground up. I estimate that there
are at least 13 million gun owners in
California. We must get these people
in the fight. If we get even a fraction
of these gun owners involved we could
stop these draconian attacks and start
advancing pro-gun legislation.
Second, we must pick up our
phones and pens and start calling and
writing our legislators and letting them
know that we oppose these anti-gun
bills. Legislators listen to the numbers.
Your phone calls and letters make a difference.
Just think of what an impact we
would make if we got just 10 percent of
the 13 million gun owners (1.3 million
people) to bombard these legislator’s
phones and emails. They would be singing
a different tune in no time.
Third, join me in pledging to recruit at
least one new member to CRPA each
year. If we do this, we will double our
membership each year and we will easily
hit the multi-million membership
mark in a short time.
Fourth, we have to get involved in
the political process. I’ve walked precincts
in Nevada in the 2012 elections
and in Andy Vidak’s campaign and
what I learned in those elections is that
“DRAMATICALLY
LIMIT OR ELIMINATE
GUN OWNERSHIP.”
it is all about getting out the vote. Not
all eligible voters vote so the side that
wins the election is the side that is able
to get more of their members to vote.
This is a critical election year both nationally
and in California and we must
get everyone on our side registered to
vote and out to vote during the primary
and on election day in November.
Fifth, volunteer with CRPA.
CRPA needs help staffing tables at
gun shows, trade shows, and vendor
events. These are fun events where you
get to meet a lot of interesting people
who are passionate about our Second
Amendment rights.
Sixth, volunteer with CRPA. Did
I say that already? CRPA needs help
recruiting gun stores and gun ranges
to distribute CRPA membership brochures.
Adopt the gun stores and gun
ranges in your area and keep them supplied
with brochures and get them to
help CRPA recruit new members. We
need every gun store and gun range in
California joining the fight and recruiting
for CRPA.
Seventh, we must all stand together.
The anti-gun zealots seek to divide
us, then they attack the isolated group
and after that they attack the next group.
For example, you might say you are not
a hunter so you don’t care about the
lead ban. But make no mistake, once
they ban lead for hunting their next goal
will be to ban lead for all shooting. Or,
you might say I don’t shoot a certain
type of firearm so I don’t care if they
ban that type. But make no mistake,
once they ban that type of firearm they
will go after the next type. They will
never stop until they’ve achieved their
final objective of eliminating all of our
Second Amendment rights. We must
stand together and defeat all attacks
on our rights.
Moreover, we must travel to other
districts and locations and support
our friends who are under attack. The
Chabot Gun Club comes to mind as a
good example. We need to support
this range even if we don’t shoot there
because if the anti-gun zealots are successful
in shutting down this range, it
will only embolden them to move on to
the next range.
I think most freedom loving supporters
of the Second Amendment
would prefer to live and let live and not
have to fight and get involved in the political
process. Unfortunately, we have
no choice. If we don’t fight back we
will lose our gun rights. Fortunately, we
have the numbers to win. Thirteen million
gun owners is a formidable number.
Let’s get them to join the fight and join
CRPA. And let us endeavor to stand together
and win this fight.
Tim serves as a volunteer recruiter
for CRPA. He started three years ago
after responding to a CRPA request
for volunteers and learning the ropes
under the tutelage of CRPA member
and volunteer recruiter Kathy Graham.
He is passionate about the Second
Amendment and volunteering for
CRPA has given him an opportunity
to play a more active role in defending
the Second Amendment. He has
been a CRPA member for ~25 years
and an NRA member for ~38 years.
38
MARCH / APRIL

APEX PREDATOR
HUNTING & CONSERVATION
REPORT
BY RICK TRAVIS, CRPA PROGRAMS DIRECTOR
As the hunting season draws to
a close for most of us (notable
exception, the Spring turkey
hunts), the time to prepare for the next
season is upon us. Normally, I would
focus on how to hone ones skillsets in
the wild, or maybe how to train up your
new pup, or a discussion on educating
new and existing hunters. This year our
focus needs to be on joining together as
one voice.
Hunters by their very nature tend
to join small groups (often referred to
as cliques) as they have for millennia.
That tendency has served all of us well
in the past as it kept the secret and often
sacred hunting grounds to be just that…
secret and sacred. The small group
model of hunters also provided a sense
of family that could choose when and
how it wished to connect to the greater
hunting community.
Looking at the average hunter they
belong to a group of friends usually in
a specific locale. That group belongs
to a general hunting club or a specific
hunting type of club such as Waterfowl
(Ducks Unlimited, California Waterfowl
Association), Upland Game (National
Wild Turkey Federation, Pheasants
Forever, Quail Unlimited, Quail and
Upland Game Association), Big Game
(California Deer Association, Mendocino
County Blacktail Association, Mule
Deer Foundation, Safari Club International)
and local predator groups (Orange
County Predator Callers).
Collectively we are all hunters. The
issue is that we are so segregated and
stuck in our ways we have become an
easy target for the anti-hunting community.
Many of my fellow hunters lament
that our days are numbered. The truth
is that as we continue to act the way we
have in the past…our days are numbered.
The message of this article is
that the time to act is now, before it’s
too late.
Today we are confronted with the
following facts:
1. The California Game Commission
is, at the time of this writing, in
serious jeopardy of retaining any
equity for the hunting community.
We have lost support in the form of
Commissioner Kellogg and former
Executive Director Sonke Mastrup.
2. Wide swaths of land are being set
aside for non-hunting purposes.
3. Hunters are being marginalized
with negative rhetoric.
4. Several plans to limit or ban ammunition
for hunting are being pushed
through the political system.
5. Hunters as a whole have failed to
unite under a single banner, whereas
the anti-hunting community has
done just that.
Taking a hard look at the facts presented
above is enough to make most hunters I
meet say something like, ‘Well it’s time
to leave California, I have had enough
of this &*^%!” That is the very attitude
the anti-hunting community wants you
to adopt.
The anti-hunting community in
this state is no larger than the hunting
community. The anti-hunting community
knows that by and large the general
public (majority of Californians)
support the idea of you harvesting your
own food from nature. The only way
to win their objective is to get us to retreat
from the cause. I, for one, refuse
to retreat and give up my hunting heritage
or that of my children and future
grandchildren.
Hunters must come to realize that
we are a powerful voice in this state
and we need to come together as one.
This movement has to be focused at the
grassroots level by first getting people
to the polls to vote this year. All of us
need to commit to this first point. You
can email the California Rifle and Pistol
Association at contact@crpa.org or call
800.305.2772 to get voting materials
sent to you directly, FOR FREE.
Hunters need to contact us so we
can make presentations to your groups
to show them how we can win this
battle. Complaining within your small
group does nothing for the cause, coming
together as a massive group allows
us to move our position forward!
This spring and summer CRPA will
be throughout the state working with
hunters like you to bring us together
as one organized body as we head to
the polls in November. Our goal is not
short-term in the 2016 Election, but
long-term to ensure the future of hunting
in California and across America.
Hunters need to remember that
hunting is not only a passion, it’s a
national security issue. Hunters as a
collective force in this country and
outnumber every standing army in the
world according to Fox Nation and
Ammoland.com. American hunters, at
12.7 million, outnumber China’s 2.3
million soldiers. Preserving our way
of life is important for our future, our
families, our community, our state and
our country!
Rick serves as the Programs Director of
the California Rifle & Pistol Association.
He brings 30 years of public service to his
position of working with organizations,
businesses, government and most importantly
our membership. Rick is a CRPA Life
Member, NRA Benefactor Member and
Scoutmaster.
CRPA FIRING LINE 39

y Jon Haupt
Copyright © 2000 by JASPAR@
aol.com. All rights reserved. Reproduction
or distribution is permitted
with this copyright notice attached.
5
Minutes to
FREEDOM!
A FIVE-MINUTE HANDBOOK
FOR GUN-RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
I’ve been a gun-rights activist for
nearly 10 years. I wasted a lot of time
for the first five years because no one
gave me the rule book you are now
reading. Maybe that’s because no one
had written it. This is the stuff I wish
I had known starting on day one. If
you’ve just arrived at this party, the
next five minutes you spend reading
this might save you five years of otherwise
wasted time and energy. If you’ve
been in the gun-rights game for a while,
this handbook will be the fastest refresher
course you’ve ever taken. This
past year I’ve received a lot of mail
from jittery gun owners who are finally
waking up to what’s happening to our
Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA).
This handbook is mostly for them.
If the rules I list below scare off a
few folks, so be it. I want to tell it like
it really is—to give a quick snapshot of
the tips, tricks and tactics that actually
work in RKBA activism. The bad news
is that this is not a complete list of the
rules. The good news is that there will
never be a complete list of rules. The
rules listed below are based on my own
experience from working thousands of
hours with down and dirty RKBA activist
pros. I am deeply grateful to all of
them. They know who they are. Some
of these rules have been followed for so
long by old-time activists that they have
forgotten what the original rules were.
It’s time to list them again. And sneak in
a couple of new ones. So read them and
weep, or read them and rejoice.
NO ONE IS AS INTERESTED
AS YOU ARE.
Nowadays everyone’s attention
span and time are limited. Be grateful
if you get anyone’s attention on our
issue, even for a few seconds. Some
wannabe activists come in like a lion,
then disappear faster than sh*t through
a short dog. Take whatever you get from
any volunteer. Praise and thank them.
Don’t be disappointed when they drift
away. They will. But some come back.
Keep the light on for them. THE NRA
STINKS. So does GOA, SAF, JPFO,
and any or all of the rest of the gunrights
groups. At the same time, all of
these organizations are the best thing
since sliced bread. We won’t keep our
rights without them. It’s normal to love
them and hate them at the same time.
Be sure your complaints about them
go to the person who can do something
about your problem. Never give up
your membership—it’s much easier to
fix things from the inside. Avoid griping
in public—our opponents love it when
we do. Always handle our dirty laundry
behind closed doors. Always.
THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET.
There is no single answer, rule, or
solution. Never has been, and never
will be. None of us will write the single
brilliant letter to the editor or internet
message that will miraculously turn
everything around. Keep steadily busy.
Do as much as you can, whenever you
can. Anything you do counts, but some
things count more than others. Find out
what counts. Then do it.
THERE IS NO FINAL VICTORY.
Preserving RKBA is an ongoing
PROCESS. We are winning and losing
battles during this process, but the war
will never be over. Becoming active to
40
MARCH / APRIL

keep your gun rights is a lot like cleaning
your house: it’s thankless and boring
work, but necessary. Like dirt, the
anti-gun crowd will just keep coming
back. Forever. Your activism will keep
us winning more than losing. Our opponents
count on wearing us down.
They love it when one of us (not you, of
course) gets discouraged and drops out.
When you fully understand and accept
the reality that RKBA is a never-ending
struggle, you’re automatically in the
top five percent of all RKBA defenders.
Congratulations.
RKBA ACTIVISM IS BORING.
It’s especially boring when you are
doing things that really make a difference.
Most of us want drama. We want
to be entertained. Phone-bank calling,
precinct walking, going to RKBA
grassroots seminars— suddenly, even a
trip to the dentist for a root canal will
start to look better. Sorry, but there is no
workaround on this aspect. Freedom is
not free. It’s a pain in the ass. Get used
to it, get over it, and get to work.
USE THE POWER OF FEAR
AND GUILT.
Gun owners are susceptible to
these emotions. Awaken sleeping
RKBA activists by tapping these powerful
emotions. Fear and guilt will
move mountains— and fill the collection
plate, and recruit new members.
If gun owners won’t become active for
themselves, ask them to do it for their
families. For their children. For their
country. And—this tactic works!—ask
them to do it for you.
WATCH OUT FOR MISDIRECT-
ED, TIMEWASTING EFFORTS.
Single emails to elected people is
pretty much worthless—unless the official
already personally knows you.
Internet polls are useless. Online polls
make some folks think they are actually
doing something. They are not. It’s a
false sense of accomplishment. It’s like
bringing a doctor to a dead man. Focus
on the stuff that works. If you’re going
to hunt ducks, go where the ducks are.
Coordinated one-issue emails and calls
by the hundreds, politicians’ staffs do
notice that.
POLITICIANS ONLY CARE
ABOUT VOTES AND MONEY.
In-person visits, phone calls, and
snailmailed, handwritten or hand-typed
letters to elected folks help—because
politicians know that if you take this
much trouble, you and your family and
friends will also vote. Courtesy works
too. HOT TIP: Make yourself known
to politicians for issues other than gun
rights. Don’t present yourself as a single-issue
person. Praise and help politicians
on their pet projects. Then, when
a new gun-control law comes up, your
opinion will seem especially credible.
Otherwise, you will soon be stereotyped
and discounted as a single issue voter.
ANOTHER HOT TIP:
Politicians have to explain why
they vote Yes or No on proposed laws.
Sometimes they really need your help
in composing explanations to their constituents.
If you want your elected official
to vote No on a seemingly popular
new gun-control law, she might be more
willing if you give her a “back door”—a
good, common-sense explanation that
she can give to all of her constituents.
GET THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN
OFFICE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
If we have the right people in power,
antigun laws will not be passed.
Period. The laws are what matter. This
concept is so simple many folks can’t
see it, just like they can’t “see” the air
they breathe. The anti-rights crowd can
hold all the gun-control seminars and
news conferences they want, but nothing
will happen unless they can pass
more laws. This fact tells you about
the how, what, where, when, why, and
with whom you should be spending
your time, energy, and money. Politicians
pass laws. Therefore, you must
get involved in politics to protect your
gun rights. There is just no way to get
around this. Sorry. I don’t like politics
either. Bummer!
STOP THE SABER
RATTLING NOW!
Avoid those shrill folks who sound
threatening or talk about doomsday. It’s
a waste of your time. These noisy folks
remind me of a couple in a failing marriage
who only talk about a getting a divorce
instead of talking about their real
problems. If they don’t solve their problems,
separation or divorce becomes the
inevitable outcome. Some people get
pumped up on silly fantasy scenarios.
I do not.
ARM YOURSELF WITH
ACCURATE INFORMATION.
Paradoxically, bad information or
disinformation is a plague in the socalled
Information Age. When you write
or talk about firearms issues, use only
the facts, the truth, and the provable.
Verify any quotes that you use. Back up
your generalizations with powerful and
specific examples. Get on the Internet,
and get your likeminded friends online.
Join several of the hundreds of net communities
that will keep you informed instantly
and completely about our special
issues. Information is power!
IGNORE MEDIA SPIN AND
THE NEWS WAVES.
It’s far too easy to go bonkers reacting
to the latest media-driven crisis.
Don’t let the media push your buttons.
The RKBA grassroots pros I know do
not overreact to crises. In fact, most of
the ultra-pros that I know do not react at
all to media hysteria. Bashing the media
about their bias is not productive. Some
gun owners use media bias as an excuse
to do nothing—because the situation
seems so overwhelming and hopeless.
Truth is, if you are a busy activist—already
steadily doing stuff that matters—
you will find the media reacting to you.
Be friendly and polite with them—not
hostile. Become a reliable source of information
for them. And just keep on
being active.
JUST SHOW UP.
It’s been said that 80 percent of
success is showing up. Being there.
Showing up to vote. Showing up at
an RKBA seminar. At your assemblyman’s
office. At a city-council meeting.
My father’s favorite motto: “Your
actions speak so loud that I can’t hear
a word you’re saying.” Your “silent”
activism can be a model for others.
What will your three hunting buddies
think when they find out you spent
CRPA FIRING LINE 41

5 Minutes to freedom
an afternoon handing out brochures
door-to-door for a pro-gun politician?
DON’T MESS WITH TRUE
BELIEVERS.
In the time you spend trying to
convert one hard-core antigun person
to our side, you could have gone out
and motivated and organized 20 people
who already think like you do. Go
with the flow. It’s easier on your nerves,
and much more effective. Personally, I
have converted several anti-rights true
believers, but never again! Lots of NRA
members are not registered voters. A lot
of gun owners aren’t NRA members.
Even more folks have no idea of their
elected officials’ positions on gun issues.
Where is your time most effectively
spent? Think about this before spending
an hour writing a clever response to a
silly message you found on the Internet.
SIMPLICITY STILL MATTERS.
The old rule, Keep It Super Simple
(KISS), is as important as it ever was.
It applies to web postings, planning,
speeches— everything. And keep it
short. And keep it sweet: don’t ever ridicule
or insult anyone. Did you notice that
I did not say, “Keep It Simple, Stupid?”
YOU ARE ALL ALONE.
Well, not quite alone. You do have
some help. The NRA has a staff of several
hundred. There is no way humanly
possible that “the NRA” can put out all
the brush fires started by the anti-rights
crowd. Pro-gun national groups give
direction and information—but they
cannot save your rights. Only you can
save your rights. You are 100 percent
responsible. When you fully accept this
reality, you are automatically in the top
one percent of all RKBA activists.
THE HIDDEN BONUS OF GUN
RIGHTS ACTIVISM.
The more involved you get with
firearms freedom, the more you will
realize that your single issue actually
complements and protects other human-rights
issues. Personally, I am
deeply offended by many aspects of
today’s culture. When I focus my activism
on RKBA, I can often sense I am
making a measurable difference. All
rights—like all humans—are connected.
WHEN IN DOUBT, JUST DO
SOMETHING.
Sometimes we don’t know what
will work. Sometimes the rule is that
there are no rules. I once wrote an essay
I thought was mediocre at best. Five
years later, I’m still receiving mail about
it. Don’t hesitate to try something new
and innovative—get it out on the table!
Often your finest essay or brilliant letter
will not be acknowledged, or you will
just get a form letter response. But that
letter to the editor that you dashed off
in a few minutes appears in tomorrow’s
newspaper! Go figure. Better yet, try
not to figure. Trust yourself, trust your
instincts—and just do something. I’ll
see you in the trenches.
For more of this kind of thinking you can
reach BLOOMFIELD PRESS at 1-800-
707-4020 or on GunLaws.com. Call,
click or write for their free full-color
catalog. On our site, try their FAQ,
NewStuff and PositionPapers buttons!
Bequests make a connection between
your love of shooting and their future.
Leave your legacy.
42
MARCH / APRIL
CRPA.giftlegacy.com

Holy Sow and
Waving Willie!
by: Andy Saxon, M.D
A
The Admiral has been after me to head up to Central CA
to chase some wild hogs as we’d been out of pork for many
months. However, I have strict standing orders; sows only.
The Admiral can smell the difference between boar and sow
cooking with even the “mildest” boar. I tested her once by
slipping in some boar meat as sow but just as she started to
cook it, she immediately sang out; “this smells like boar.” No
boars allowed. I got ahold my friend and guide, Tom Willoughby
and he tells me to be there on an afternoon as the
hogs are pretty much in brush in the mornings while more
likely out feeding in the evenings. So I scoot over the Grapevine
with snow on it and meet up with his son Blake (it’s a
Sunday so he is off ranch work) in the little town of Bradley.
We head across the Salinas River and up Indian Valley Road
and meet up with Tom.
Tom stationed himself on one hilltop while Blake and I
set up look out on a much higher one. We glassed and glassed
and glassed. Nada, nothing, zip. Finally, Tom spots a good
size hog about ½ mile south of us walking on a low ridge.
Blake and I set up a stalk, first moving down downwind and
then coming up the ridge in the brush from the west. We come
out of the cover and sure enough standing no more than 75
yards right above us, a veritable chip shot, is a nice hog. It
was looking right at us and low and behold, it’s a boar and
he is clearly waving his willie at us! I swear somehow this
boar knew the Admiral had given orders: “sows only”. So he
just stood there waving his pecker –that’s what it looked like
to me and I’m sticking to my story. We named him “Waving
Willie.” Never seen or heard of that behavior before in a wild
hog – probably would have been booked for “indecent exposure”
even in West Hollywood but it did save his life… He
needs to get a raincoat.
It’s now toward dusk and we figure to try another area
so we go back, get the truck and drive North. A mile or so
later, as I’m looking at some elk high on a ridge, Tom spots
a group of hogs in a field. They “make” us and head off into
the brush. We go up the road ½ mile further and turn off at
an abandoned ranch house where Blake and I plan to stalk
back down toward where those hogs were headed. However,
we don’t get 200 yards when we see a 5 or 6 different hogs
spread all over a planted field right in front of us. We crept up
behind some abandoned vehicles to get closer. Five yards in
front of us is a serious square wire six foot high fence and just
beyond are some small hogs while the larger ones are much
further away. We couldn’t risk getting closer as the smaller
ones would spook and then they’d all be off. The biggest sow
we could see was facing straight at us and naturally she is the
furthest away at about 200 yards. I put the crosshairs on the
sow and looked down my barrel to be sure I wasn’t going to
hit the damn fence. She finally turns to a quartering angle.
BAMM, a 168 gr. all copper Vortex from my 30-06 Brown-
B
C
A: Holy Sow
B: Elk on ridgeline far away
C: Hog country but no sows home
CRPA FIRING LINE 43

Holy Sow and Waving Willie!
A
B
C
ing A-Bolt II goes downrange and she
drops like a stone. Immediately we see
about 10 hogs go running away.
Then all of a sudden, Tom zooms
up and shouts, GET IN! We pile into the
truck and he heads off road. We go flying
up the rise behind the field with Tom
saying: “them hogs will cross into
the next ravine and up the steep hill
beyond.” Tom soon runs out of places to
drive so Blake and I pile out and sprint
(as best I can) to top of the rise and sure
enough, running into the ravine below
us are the hogs. As I get set to shoot,
Blake is trying to sort out which is a
shootable sow. He says’ “shoot the last
one”. I look and reply; “No way, too big,
got to be a boar”. He looks again and
says “sow” so I put the scope on her,
wait a moment until it has to slow down
to head up the steep hill and BAMM.
The hog hunches up, hit but too far back
to drop her. I’d rushed and didn’t lead
enough. She stops, and then starts walking
very slowly up the hill only to stop
about 75 yards uphill hidden in some
trees while the others quickly disappear
over the hilltop. We than carefully stalk
down into the ravine, look up and sure
enough, there’s the hog. This time I put
the cross hairs right behind the ear and
pull the trigger. The hog keels over and
proceeds to roll all the way down the
hill to just about where we are standing.
Sweet! Only when we got a close look
at her did we realize how freakin’ big
this sow was. Holy Sow! Tom who
has killed more hogs than Jimmy Dean,
even said it is a big sow. He figured it
is well over 200 lbs. Fortunately, Tom
found a way to get the pickup to where
D
we were so we just had to lift her into
the truck bed without hurting ourselves.
Back at the field, we had to drag out
the first sow as we couldn’t drive on the
planted field. She was a nice big 160+
lb. sow, too heavy to carry far, but she
looked small next to Holy Sow. From
the moment I shot the first sow until
the second one was down couldn’t have
been more the three or four minutes.
Wow. What a rush.
I was originally planning to butcher
the animals the next day but after getting
home and looking at the vast amount of
hog and my grinder, sanity prevailed. I
took the carcasses to the butcher – the
Admiral told me she knew that was the
right decision all along; she was just
waiting for me to come to my senses. I
did take off a hindquarter for friends
who came over for pheasant stew dinner.
Sweet. One of them processed the
ham for roasts etc. Now that is a pretty
apprentice butcher.
The Admiral and I are all set for
lots of pork over the coming year and
I’m particularly looking forward to Cajon
and Italian sausages for which we
will thank the Holy Sow and her sister.
No animals were harmed unnecessarily
in the telling of this tale
but the truth took a beating….
A: Snow on Grapevine
B: Drag mark for sow #1
C: Lot of sausage hanging
D: Apprentice Butcher
44
MARCH / APRIL

Father and
the Second
AMENDMENT
William L. Robbins was
born and raised as a typical
suburban New York kid during
the 1960s. Bill learned to shoot
a .22 rifle and earned his first
NRA Junior Marksman patch as
an eight-year-old boy at sleep-away
camp in the woods of Maine. Bill has
lived in California since 1995, where, in
addition to starting and running businesses,
he enjoys reading, writing, cycling, and
shooting sports.
by William L. Robbins, CRPA and NRA Member
My first memory of firearms is a fond one, involving
my late father, Stanton I. Robbins. Thanks in part to
this memory, dating back some 50 years, and, more
recently, to the times I spent at the shooting range with my
dad during his retirement in San Diego, I became a firearms
enthusiast, a CRPA and NRA member, and an active supporter
of the Second Amendment.
My story begins in October, 1967. I was six years old, and
had accompanied my father, then, age 36, to a police supply
store in some gritty neighborhood in the Bronx, NY, where
he would complete the purchase of a revolver for duty carry.
Born in July, 1930, my father had grown up in the Bronx
during the Great Depression and WWII. In 1948, he set out
for college in the mid-west, sight unseen, to Indiana University.
The IU campus in Bloomington was a long way from
the Bronx, where my dad, as a three-sewer-stickball-playing
kid, acquired his street smarts, his hilariously uncouth sense
of humor, and his proudly un-refined New York accent.
Dad was a Korean War veteran. He served with honor
and earned a lifetime of lighthearted ribbing from those who
knew him well, as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army
Quartermaster Corps, in the bustling port city of Pusan (renamed
Busan in 2000), South Korea, where he managed the
largest liquor warehouse in the theater of operations. His immediate
family members and long-time friends always found
it amusing that, in a hot war against communism, my dad was
in charge of the U.S. Army’s vital supply of booze. Ironically,
or, perhaps, as a result of his unusual Army service, my dad
was never much of a drinker.
The men of my father’s generation were a patriotic sort,
in a humble, quiet way. They sought public service without
fanfare, and supported their communities with pride. Employed
full-time in the textile industry in New York’s famous
Garment District, my father was also an auxiliary policeman
in my suburban NY hometown (officially, a village). Eventually,
he became captain of the local auxiliary force. Our town
had its own police department and, in those days, when violent
crime was something that seemed only to happen in the
city, and “homeland security” meant leaving the front-porch
light on after dark, auxiliary policemen were allowed to carry
pistols. When on duty, my father wore a full uniform, complete
with all the time-honored law enforcement accoutrements,
including the patrolman’s hat, badge, duty belt, and
wooden “billy club,” or night stick, which, to this day, hangs
by its original leather lanyard from a hook on the coat rack
by the front door of my home in Los Angeles. As veterans of
WWII or the Korean War, my father and his fellow auxiliary
policemen—an unassuming group of weekend and night-time
CRPA FIRING LINE 45

volunteers who got on the train every weekday morning and
commuted to respectable jobs in Manhattan—all had at least
basic military training in firearms, plus time on the police
range, which was located in the basement of our town’s police
headquarters. I still remember joining my father for one of his
practice sessions. I was a little kid, down at the police range
with my dad and some of his fellow officers. How Norman
Rockwell was that?
Back we go to the police store in the Bronx, where I rode
shotgun as my dad completed his purchase of a pistol. My
father carried with him to the store his State of New York,
County of Westchester, License to Carry a Pistol #32190,
dated April 26, 1967, and signed, by hand, in blue ink, by a
county judge. The license bore my father’s glossy, black &
white photograph, with his flat-top haircut, thick black eyeglasses,
and his earnest smile. My dad was just the kind of
guy who you would have trusted to carry a gun. Besides, his
carry license was restricted, as typed-in on the back, “to target
shooting, hunting, and as an Auxiliary Policeman.”
My father’s carry license, dated April 26, 1967
From my childhood, I recall how my dad would dutifully
strap-on his Colt .38 (holstered on his belt, not concealed)
every time he went on duty, which usually consisted of minding
the crosswalk at Sunday morning church services, or patrolling
the tree-lined streets of our town on Halloween eve,
also known as “Mischief Night,” when youthful troublemakers
from the “bad” side of a town that had no bad side would
throw eggs at parked cars and tip-over memorial stones at the
cemetery. Thankfully, my dad never had reason to draw his
weapon in the line of duty. Mostly, my dad’s pistol sat in a
grey-painted metal lock-box, buried in the back of his bedroom
closet. My dad never spoke much to me or anyone else
about his gun, the only firearm he owned when I was growing
up. Of course, I knew about it. After all, I had accompanied
him on the day he purchased his revolver, and always knew
where he kept it. The thing is, I never sought to pull-out the
lock-box in my father’s closet that contained his gun, and besides,
I did not know where he kept the keys.
In 1995, married for two years, my wife and I moved from
the east coast to Los Angeles. Two years later, after his retirement
from a grinding career in the Garment District, (in 1972,
my dad’s father, my grandfather, was stabbed to death by a
knife-wielding mugger in the elevator of the building on 7th
Avenue where my grandfather, my father, and my uncle had
worked together for years), my dad and my mother followed
me and my wife to California, settling in San Diego. It was
there that my father and I started going to the local shooting
range, to spend some quality time together and to give his old
Colt .38 a workout. My dad had large hands with big, clumsy
fingers. When he held his diminutive Detective Special, it
disappeared into his clenched fist. He would hold the gun the
old-fashioned way, with his right hand extended toward the
target, and his left hand on his hip. By the early 2000s, with
Colt .38 Short Barrel Detective Special (“Snubby”)
Dad was a modest, responsible man, without pretension
or the slightest need to show off. Looking back, I smile at his
choice of weapon that day; not a classic patrolman’s revolver,
but, instead, a carbon-steel-framed, blued, short-barreled
Colt .38 Detective Special, serial number D2443. The Colt .38
Detective Special, also known as a “snubby,” was intended
for concealed carry, or as a back-up gun. Yes, that was my
dad, the three-sewer-stickball-playing kid from the Bronx, all
grown up, apparently harboring the secret persona of a New
York plain-clothed detective.
46
MARCH / APRIL

My Father and the Second Amendment
his advancing age, my dad’s aim had become a bit wobbly,
but, he was still a pretty good shot. Today, I still have the
sturdy, thick-gauged metal lock-box in which my dad stored
his gun, along with an original, darkly tarnished key to the
lock. Unfortunately, I do not have my dad’s Colt .38. He sold
it to a licensed dealer at the range in San Diego around 2005.
After selling his Colt .38, my dad made another uncharacteristically
colorful statement in firearms fashion when he
purchased a big, shiny steel Smith & Wesson Model 686P,
6-round .357 Magnum, with a 4” barrel and a Hogue grip. That
S&W .357 Magnum did not disappear in my father’s fist. Instead,
it stuck out with authority and spewed flames whenever
he fired-off a round. Effective? Yes. Practical? Not so much.
To my senses, that gun was more hand-canon than pistol.
Smith & Wesson 686P, 6-round .357 Magnum with 4” Barrel
Enjoying my time at the range with my father, I eventually purchased
my first firearm, a Beretta 92FS. As with my father’s
purchase of his Colt .38 and his S&W .357 Magnum, my purchase
of a Beretta 92FS was driven, in large measure, by my
expectation of what the ideal handgun should look like, and
how I saw myself using it. To me, the Beretta 92FS exemplified
the serious, semi-auto pistol. As with an Italian sports car,
the Beretta has its idiosyncrasies, but in its many variants, the
Beretta has served its role as a U.S. military, border patrol and
law enforcement side arm for many years with distinction. As
with many firsts, my Beretta will always hold a special place
in my heart. Even so, as I became more experienced with
handguns, I was drawn to the intuitive simplicity of design
and reliability of operation that defines Glock pistols. Eventually,
I added a G19 and a G26 to my collection. Next came an
out-of-state concealed carry permit (thank you, State of Utah).
For more than ten years after my father retired and moved
to California with my mother, he and I enjoyed an occasional
weekend hour or two at the range, as well as the mock-ceremonial,
post-range cleaning of our “shootin’ irons,” always on
my mother’s kitchen table, with disassembled handgun parts
spread around and the scent of gun powder residue, Hoppe’s
No. 9 Solvent, and Mill Run Brite-Bore Gun Grease creating
a nostalgically familiar, historically authentic, father-and-son
tableau, fit for the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.
The 1960s Mill Run Brite-Bore Pistol Cleaning Kit, used by the author’s
father for more than 40 years, and still owned by the author.
My father passed away in 2011, a few months shy of his
81st birthday, succumbing in hospice to malignant metastatic
melanoma. His S&W .357 Magnum passed legally to me
after I completed and submitted the requisite State of California
paperwork. Having no practical use for a hand-canon, I
eventually sold it. I cherish the memory, more than the thing
itself. I am thankful for the time spent together with my father
down at the range, and around my mom’s kitchen table, as
we shared the kind of uniquely American experience that the
Second Amendment still enables us to enjoy.

MEET OUR FEATURED
BUSINESS MEMBERS
RHR & ASSOCIATES
RHR & Associates, Inc. is a
multi-disciplined private investigation
firm dedicated to offering high-quality,
focused and cost-effective investigation
and consulting solutions. With an
extensive private sector background
in Criminal, Workplace, Insurance,
Civil and Domestic related investigations,
RHR & Associates, Inc. offers
focused strengths across a broad range
of core practice areas. They specialize
in obtaining sensitive information and
finding difficult to locate individuals
through our expert interview skills
and years of surveillance experience,
as well as our proprietary access to
the most comprehensive information
sources available.
Visit them at www.rhrandassociates.
net or at 914 Adams Avenue, Suite
189, in Huntington Beach or contact
them by phone at (714) 965-8970.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
SCIENTIFIC
Southern California Scientific is
a professional, full service, instrument
maintenance and repair organization
which is committed to excellence and
dedicated to customer satisfaction.
They have been in business since 1995
serving the southern California laboratory
community for over 18 years.
With over 68 years of experience by
qualified service engineers. They are
experts in the fields of Centrifugation,
Liquid Scintillation Counters, Incubators,
Shakers, Spectrophotometers,
Gamma Counters, Small Laboratory
Equipment, Freezers, Refrigeration
and other Laboratory needs.
Visit them at www.southerncaliforniascientific.com
or at 634 North Poplar
Street, Suite K, in Orange or contact
them by phone at (714) 939-1168.
SMOKIN’ BARREL FIREARMS
SAN JOAQUIN DELTA
QUAIL & UPLAND WILD-
LIFE FEDERATION FC 17
The San Joaquin Delta Quail
& Upland Wildlife Federation FC
17 founding chapter is dedicated to
preserving the hunting & outdoor
heritage by supporting youth activities
such as the Quail Upland Covey
Camps, hunter education, youth hunts
& conservation activities. In addition
to our own youngsters, we are
planning partnerships with 4H, Boy
Scouts & other youth groups. We
do this as part of our general conservation
education program. Over
1,000 youngsters have attended the
California QUWF Covey camps.
Visit them at www.sjdquwf.org or
at 3156 West Swain Road in Stockton.
Come in and take a look at their inventory of handguns, rifles, and shotguns
whether for personal protection, hunting, or the pure enjoyment of target shooting.
They also have ammunition and many different accessories for you to choose from.
If they do not have what you are looking for, they will do their best to get it for you.
The goal in opening Smokin’ Barrel Firearms is to provide quality guns and ammo
with great customer service to the citizens of Visalia and surrounding areas.
Visit them at www.smokinbarrelvisalia.com or at 3222 North Demaree Street,
Suite D, in Visalia or contact them by phone at (559) 625-5855.
48
MARCH / APRIL

PAWNMART JEWELRY &
LOAN
Marty Goldsmith started
Pawnmart Jewelry & Loan in 1978.
His goal was simple. He wanted to
create the type of Pawn Show where
his customers were appreciated, and
treated with respect, while at the same
time, creating a family-friendly environment
where his customers would
call Pawnmart “THEIR” Pawn shop.
Visit them at www.pawnmartinc.
com or at 12101 East Firestone Blvd
in Norwalk or contact them by phone
at (562) 929-2377.
TITAN SECURITY
PRODUCTS
At Titan Security Products, they
strive to provide a level of innovation
and design not seen in competing gun
safety businesses. As a small family
owned and operated company, they
value the importance of unique and
quality design in their products, which
is what has led their 2014 Titan Pistol
Vault to be considered the fastest
deploying gun safe in the world. On
top of firearm safes, they also offer
additional safety accessories including
a cable lock, ammo box and tactical
flashlights with a built-in stun gun.
Visit them at www.titangunsafe.
com or at 4263 Oceanside Blvd, Unit
106, in Oceanside or contact them by
phone at (800) 930-6430.
THORDSEN CUSTOMS
Thordsen Customs started in 2008
as a DBA of Computer Aided Models
Inc. and was incorporated as Thordsen
Customs LLC in 2010. Computer Aided
Models Inc. was founded in 2000
by Alan Thordsen, a 25+ year veteran
of the model making industry. Its mission
is to provide contract prototyping
and short run production services for
the medical, consumer product development,
and firearms industries. In
2008 the decision was made to design,
patent, and market, our own products.
Since Computer Aided Models Inc.
(or CAM Inc.) is not a very sexy name
for consumer focused enterprise, The
name Thordsen Customs was taken
out of mothballs from the pre 2008
economic crash days when Alan built
custom motorcycles. Thordsen Customs
LLC has successfully produced
and marketed several innovative products,
first for the California Bullet Button
restricted market and then for the
broader national market.
Visit them at www.thordsencustoms.com
or at 214 Ryan Way in
South San Francisco or contact them
by phone at (650) 588-3700.
ROCKING 40 ENTERPRISES
Rocking 40 Enterprises is located in
the county of Mendocino. They provide
FFL transfer services, Handgun
Safety Certificate testing and card
issuance. They stock new rifles, and
handguns, as well as a limited quantity
of used firearms. They have firearm
accessories on site and can order any
California legal gun for you and have it
there in a few days. They strive to keep
their prices below the competition.
Visit them at www.rocking40firearms.com
or at 23150 Eastside Road
in Willits or contact them by phone at
(707) 548-4328.
STRATEGIC PROTECTION
SPECIALISTS, INC. (SPS)
Strategic Protection Specialists is run
by current and prior Law Enforcement,
Military and Security professionals
with over twenty years experience.
They understand the criminal mind
and how best to prevent your business
from becoming a victim.
Visit them at www.sps-protect.
com or at 8440 Brentwood Blvd, Suite
F, in Brentwood or contact them by
phone at (800) 894-9110.
THE OUTDOORSMAN
At The Outdoorsman you can
buy, sell and trade. Rifles, shotguns,
handguns, ammo, reloading supplies,
gunsmith services, consignment sales,
blackpowder supplies. They are located
in downtown in the heart of Grover
Beach. Feel free to stop by and
browse through their inventory.
Visit them at www.leesoutdoorsman.com
or at 1618 West Grand Avenue
in Grover Beach or contact them
by phone (805) 473-2484.
CRPA FIRING LINE 49

DAMNED STATISTICS
No Mass
DEFINE
DEFILE
BY GUY SMITH, HEAD OF THE GUN FACTS PROJECT
There is a classic tale about Amtrak. They had a lousy
on-time record. After months of investigation and
planning, they implemented changes and quickly
began boasting that their on-time record was fantastic.
What they changed was the definition of “on-time” from
plus or minus five minutes to 30 minutes.
When empirical evidence does not support gun control,
members of the gun control industry change definitions.
It is a classic propaganda technique and one that
has found new life in this election cycle.
The news item which brought this to mind was
when several reporters blindly echoed claims that mass
public shootings were sharply on the rise. A quick dig
into the data these reporters failed to vet showed that the
definition of “mass public shooting” was itself inaccurate.
The enduring and traditional definition of a mass
shooting is one where the murderer kills at least four
people, not including himself, in a single episode and
location. It also excludes homicides tied to a crime in
commission. A mass public shooting would be the same
but in an area open to the public. 1
The report some journalists aped included
any instance of two or more people died, regardless
of location, regardless of circumstance,
and included the gunman committing suicide.
I wish I could say that this form of propaganda
was rare, but it seems to be the very skeleton of the
gun control industry. Whenever a suspicious sound bite
erupts from Michael Bloomberg’s alleged mind, it is
far too often based on an irrational reordering of concepts.
Here are some of the most commonly recurring
definitions that the gun control industry and politicians
have corrupted:
Guy Smith has been referred to as a libertarian with a foreign policy.
With an education in quantitative management, and as a working
market researcher, Guy started noticing that members of the gun
control industry were less than factual and often outright dishonest.
He decided to take on the cause of debunking gun control misinformation.
Guy is a regular speaker on television, radio, and at meetings
of civil liberty groups, including being an invited speaker at
the Gun Rights Policy Conference. For more information and other
articles, visit GunFacts.info
MASS PUBLIC SHOOTING:
As described above, mass (4+ victims) people are murdered
in a public location. One source for continued confusion
are web sites like the Gun Violence Archive, which does
not take great care in isolating data to conform to definitions
established in criminology.
CHILDREN:
In the last election year when gun control was a hot topic
(the year 2000), gun control industry groups like the long defunct
Million Mom March egregiously altered the definition
of “child”. A child is a human who has not yet reach puberty.
Yet some gun control groups, seeing that a very tiny number
of actual children die from guns, included people up to age 24
in their statistics. When cornered, they changed their claim to
be “children and young people” but by that time their con was
uncovered (for the whole story on that, see Chapter 3: The
Children Who Never Were in Shooting The Bull).
GUN DEATHS:
About 2/3rds of the people who catch bullets as their last
act shoot themselves. The gun control industry routinely includes
such suicides in their “gun deaths” statistics. This leads
to scary sound bites like “33,000 people died from gun violence
last year.” This sound bite is then followed by stories
of just homicides. Combined, the goal is to fool voters into
believing that over thirty thousand people were gunned down
in the streets when in fact 22,000 died by their own hand.
ASSAULT WEAPONS:
Way back in 2004, a gun control industry group admitted
that there was no definition of the phrase “assault weapon”. San
Francisco’s own Legal Community Against Violence (which
has morphed into the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence)
noted that eight different jurisdictions banned anywhere from
19 to 75 firearms, using six differing generic classification
schemes and several legal systems. In short, “assault weapons”
are whatever the gun control industry wanted to include on ev-
50
MARCH / APRIL

er-expanding lists (for the whole story on that, see Chapter
1: The Guns That Never Were in Shooting The Bull).
UNLICENED DEALERS:
The dictionary – a very inconvenient book for propagandists
– defines a dealer as “trader or merchant, especially
a wholesaler”. In other words, someone in the
business of selling a product. When the gun control industry
wanted to demonize the 5,000 annual gun shows
in America, they devised the term “unlicensed dealer” to
denote anyone who sold a gun and did not have a Federal
Firearms License (a ticket specifically for people who
make a living selling guns). If you ran across your Uncle
Jim at a gun show and sold him your spare hunting rifle,
then the gun control industry claimed you were an “unlicensed
dealer”.
HOW TO SPOT IT:
One good rule of thumb if that is a claim doesn’t
match your personal observations, it might be bogus.
When you heard that 33,000 people die from gun violence
each year, you likely said “Nah. Can’t be.” When they
said 13 children die every day from guns, odds are you
thought “That’s a lot. Doesn’t match what I’m reading in
the paper.” Rational disbelief is the first step.
The next part is where the work begins (and what
we do daily at the Gun Facts Project). Read the entire story.
Odds are you will find no attribution to a reliable source. The
story might refer to claims made by a group within the gun
control industry (ignorable). It might even point to one of
the bought-and-paid-for schools that create horrifically bad
research (like the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health). Or it could be a politician who on any given day
could not distinguish their arse from their elbow.
If a credible source is cited, then you have to dig (or pass
the baton to the Gun Facts Project). A good deal of credible
sounding yet utterly worthless research needs to be picked
apart, to identify bad methodology, suspect data sources, or
irrational conclusions.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
The main thing is to keep talking to your neighbors,
keep posting on Facebook, keep taking the basic talking
points of the gun control industry and inserting empirical
data into uncomfortable places. Equally as important as all
of these is to VOTE! Use your right to vote to keep inane and
ineffective laws off the books. Voting not only builds barriers
to bad legislation, but sends clear messages to politicians
that they better get their facts straight first.
Facts are the long game, but over the last 15 years that
the Gun Facts Project has been around, it has worked to shift
public opinion and corral politicians.
Notes:
1. Serial Murder, FBI, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime
Hunter’s Code of
Ethics:
The scientifically well-established “North American
model” (NAM) of wildlife conservation has been used to
manage and maintain population levels of game and predator
species for centuries. Consistent with that traditional preservation
approach, the vast majority of hunters obey hunting
regulations and adhere to the hunters’ code of ethics which
prohibits waste of game and unsporting hunting methods. The
truth is that licensing fees paid by hunters provide the vast
majority of the funding for natural resource conservation efforts
in California and that hunting, trapping, and strategic
depredation efforts are critical components contributing to
the historical success of NAM. CRPA opposes the ongoing
duplicitous efforts by animal rights extremist groups (see humanewatch.org,
huntfortruth.org) to abandon NAM l in favor
of an unbalanced and unscientific approach to species management
that would ban hunting and encourage unchecked
populations of predator species to continue to explode, decimate
game herds, and terrorize suburban neighborhoods.
These are the core principles of NAM:
• In the Public Trust – Wildlife belongs to the people
and managed in trust for the people by government agencies.
• Prohibition on Commerce of Dead Wildlife – It
will be illegal to sell the meat of any wild animal in North
America.
• Allocation of Wildlife is by Law – Laws developed
by the people and enforced by government agencies will
regulate the proper use of wildlife resources.
• Opportunity for All – Every citizen has the freedom
to hunt and fish.
• Non-frivolous Use – In North America we can legally
kill certain wildlife for legitimate purposes under
strict guidelines for food and fur, in self-defense, or property
protection. Laws are in place to restrict casual killing,
killing for commercial purposes, wasting of game,
and mistreating wildlife.
• International Resources – Because wildlife and
fish freely migrate across boundaries between states,
provinces, and countries they are considered an international
resource.
• Managed by Science – The best science available
will be used as a base for informed decision making in
wildlife management.
CRPA FIRING LINE 51

CALENDAR OF
EVENTS
To check out CRPA’s Master
Calendar visit:
www.crpa.org/events
2-6
MARCH
CRPA 2016 Palma Rifle
State Championships
Coalinga Rifle Club
Derrick Blvd. ¾ mile North of Jayne Ave.
Coalinga, CA 93210
Fred Hall Long Beach
Long Beach Convention
& Entertainment Center
Wednesday 1:00PM-9:00PM
Thursday 1:00PM-9:00PM
Friday 1:00PM-9:00PM
Saturday 10:00AM-8:30PM
Sunday 10:00AM-7:00PM
12-13
Vallejo Gun Show
Solano County Fairgrounds
900 Fairgrounds Drive
Vallejo, CA 94589
Ukiah Gun Show
Ukiah Fairgrounds
1055 N State St
Ukiah, CA 95482
Saturday 9:00AM-5:00PM
Sunday 9:00AM-3:00PM
Del Mar Gun Show
Del Mar Fairgrounds
2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd
Del Mar, CA 92014
facebook.com/crpa.org instagram.com/crpaorg twitter.com/crpanews
52
MARCH / APRIL

17-20
Fred Hall San Diego
Del Mar Fairgrounds
Thursday 12:00PM-8:00PM
Friday 12:00PM-8:00PM
Saturday 10:00AM-8:00PM
Sunday 10:00AM-6:00PM
19-20
31-2
APRIL
Costa Mesa Gun Show
OC Fairgrounds
88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, CA
Saturday 9AM-5PM
Sunday 9AM-4PM
CRPA 2016 Service Rifle
State Championships
Coalinga Rifle Club
Derrick Blvd. ¾ mile
North of Jayne Ave.
Coalinga, CA 93210
3
CRPA 2016 Service Rifle
National Match Coalinga
Rifle Club
Daly City Gun Show
9-10
The Cow Palace
2600 Geneva Ave
Daly City, CA 94014
Saturday 9:00AM-5:00PM
Sunday 9:00AM-4:00PM
23-24
CRPA 2016 4-Position
Smallbore Rifle State
Championships
Knight’s Landing Sportsmen’s Club
9270 Railroad Street
Knights Landing, CA 95645
CRPA 2016
International
Air Pistol State
Championships
Palo Alto Rod & Gun Club
831 Hurlingame
Redwood City, CA 94063
Derrick Blvd. ¾ mile North of Jayne Ave.
Coalinga, CA 93210
Sheriff’s Association
Conference
Hilton Orange County/ Costa Mesa
3050 Bristol Street
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Cal Expo
REGISTER
TO
OTE
(OR YOU CAN’T
COMPLAIN)
www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration
Sacramento Fairgrounds
1600 Exposition Blvd
Sacramento, CA 95815
Saturday 9:00AM-5:00PM
Sunday 9:00AM-4:00PM
List your event
on CRPA’s
Master Calendar!
FOR FREE!
Send an email to
CONTACT@CRPA.ORG
with your event’s
NAME, DATE, TIME, LOCATION,
& ANY OTHER FUN DETAILS!
IT’S
FREE!
CRPA FIRING LINE 53

THE NEXT
GENERATION
54
MARCH / APRIL

REGISTER
TO
OTE
(OR YOU CAN’T
COMPLAIN)
www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration
Beat the dues INCREASE! Membership prices go UP APRIL 30! Join or renew NOW!
CRPA FIRING LINE 55

Paid for by the California Rifle &
Pistol Association Firearms Freedom
Committee - ID# 1382067
SUPPORT
DEAR SECOND AMENDMENT
SUPPORTER,
The gun-grabbers are on the move
again in California. Not only is the legislature
proposing more draconian gun
bans, we now face an additional threat
from the new inappropriately named
“Safety For All” ballot initiative being
pushed by Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom.
We need your help to stop Newsom’s
nonsense.
The recent terrorist-inspired attack
in San Bernardino was a sad and
terrible day for all Americans. The lessons
to be learned by law enforcement
agencies and the public about how best
to respond to this growing threat from
lone-wolf terrorist sleeper cells hiding
in plain site are still being discussed.
How we should respond to these threats,
both as a society and as individuals, and
how best to limit our vulnerability to
guerilla terrorist threats that we all face
from the ISIS inspired jihad against
Americans is one of the top issues being
debated by our political leaders, as well
as by every individual looking for ways
to truly keep their family safe.
Like other statist politicians, former
San Francisco Mayor and gubernatorial
candidate Gavin Newsom thinks he
can exploit the San Bernardino terrorist
attacks, falsely promise safety through
more ill-conceived and counterproductive
gun laws, and ride the public’s
sense of vulnerability into the governor’s
office. To do this, Newsom is
pushing a frightening and self-aggrandizing
ballot initiative that bypasses the
legislature and that would, if passed by
voters, limit your ability to choose how
best to defend yourself.
Front line law enforcement experts
know best how to combat terrorism
and violence. They respect
the valuable role that individual gun
owners play in that effort. Rather than
listen to them, Newsom and his opportunistic
political advisors have
chosen to launch an aggressive attack
on law abiding citizens who choose
to own a gun to defend their families.
If it is passed by California voters,
among other things Newsom’s
initiative would:
• Limit your ability to protecting
your family or participate in the
shooting sports by requiring a background
check just to buy ammo,
drastically reducing the availability
of ammunition and causing the
price of ammunition to skyrocket.
• Call for the confiscation of legally-purchased
magazines, even if
merely possessed in your home.
By banning and confiscating many
types of magazines and simultaneously
making ammunition difficult and very
expensive to buy, Newsom’s politicized
proposal would effectively render millions
of your legally-purchased firearms
practically useless, and would dramat-
ically infringe on the rights of law
abiding citizens to choose how best to
protect themselves.
Violent criminals and terrorists
who don’t obey the law and so have
easy access to any gun they want love
Newsom’s proposal. As terrorists have
themselves recently publicly admitted,
they deliberately choose “gun free
zones” and jurisdictions with laws that
limit your ability to defend yourself to
launch their attacks. That’s how they exploit
our government imposed vulnerability
and spread the fear they thrive on.
The collation that supports the
Firearms Freedom Committee is standing
to fight against this ill-conceived
initiative. We are mobilizing against
Gavin’s effort to take away our rights
and freedoms. But to succeed, we need
your help. We need your vocal support.
We need every gun owner to register
and vote. We need you to talk to your
friends and neighbors. We need you to
share your concerns and information we
provide across Facebook, Twitter and
all social media. We need you to engage
every gun owner you know now, before
it is too late.
Please visit our website at www.
stoptheammograb.com and our Facebook
page (CRPA Firearms Freedom
Committee) and Twitter page (@
CRPAFFC) for more information, to
volunteer, and to donate today!