The NRA's Dirty Tricks
When the National Rifle Association asks its members for their next contribution, they might want to disclose how much of that money will be spent to spy on gun violence victims and their families.
Mother Jones Magazine today reported that someone the gun violence prevention movement believed was a committed gun control activist was, in fact, a gun lobby spy.
Mother Jones focused on the activity of Mary McFate, also known as Mary Lou Sapone, a woman who has apparently led a double life for over twenty years, performing industrial espionage services for a variety of anti-environmental and gun lobby organizations -- including the National Rifle Association.
A bizarre development to be sure, yet today's report speaks for itself:
... During Sapone's ascent through the ranks of the gun control movement, she worked for the NRA, according to a business associate. In a 2003 deposition, Tim Ward, who had been president of the Maryland-based security firm Beckett Brown International, said that the NRA had been "a client" of Sapone's. (As a subcontractor for BBI, Sapone had planted an operative within an environmental group in Lake Charles, Louisiana.) According to Ward, at his request Sapone had introduced BBI to the NRA in early 1999. And that introduction quickly paid off. Billing records obtained by Mother Jones indicate that between May 1999 and April 2000, the NRA paid BBI nearly $80,000 for various services....
The article goes on to mention that Sapone was still working for an NRA lobbyist in 2007 and 2008. (Follow developments on Huffington Post here.)
Reading the story, one imagines a group of executives over at NRA headquarters huddled around a copy of The Art of War with a flashlight in a dark basement office, hatching a new cloak-and-dagger plot.
Whatever the case, it's clear that some over there have too much money and no moral compass.
It is one thing to recognize, as CNN found last month, that 86% of the American people favor a waiting period before buying a gun, while 79% favor the registration of guns with the local government. That's reason enough for the NRA to feel defensive.
It is another thing entirely to pay a woman to trade on the grief of gun violence victims and their families -- to pay someone to pretend to be their friend and confidant -- when in reality she was spying on their efforts to strengthen this country's tragically weak gun laws.
Does this behavior reflect the NRA's membership? I don't think so. I think this represents the bunker paranoia of leaders who will resort to any means -- by hook or by crook -- to get any information they can get about the gun violence prevention movement, and that contradicts every statement they make about being a "civil rights" organization.
I don't know what the NRA may have learned from Ms. Sapone/McFate's spying.
Hopefully they were reminded that 32 people are murdered every day in America by gunfire. Another 52 survive a gunshot injury. Every day, 8 children and teens shot and killed, while another 48 survive their wounds.
Every year, 100,000 people are killed or wounded in the United States from gunfire.
But they didn't need a spy to figure that out.
(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)
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I have a little "Shiny-Object-Syndrome", and wanted to toss this up for everyone's perusal:
"Daley hints he may drop fight to keep handgun ban"
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1087669,CST-NWS-guns02.article
Sneaky:
So your link will work (the commas tend to mess things up) next time try http://tinyurl.com
Michael
Remember folks. Kelli feels that only LEO should have access to weapons because they are professionals.
"A Lima, Ohio jury has acquitted police officer Joseph Chavalia of involuntary manslaughter in the death of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson. Chavalia shot and killed Wilson and wounded her infant son during a drug raid last January. Wilson was unarmed.
During the raid, one of Chavalia's fellow officers shot and killed the two dogs owned by Wilson's boyfriend and the target of the raid, Anthony Terry. Chavalia testified that he mistook his fellow officer's shots at the dogs for hostile gunfire coming from the bedroom where Wilson was standing with her child. Chavalia then fired blindly into the bedroom."
http://reason.com/blog/show/127920.html
Small Correction molonlabe. She also believes that celebrities should have access to weapons.
Oh yeah, you're right. How else would Rosie O'Donnell's kids get to school?
My bad.
Yes. I recall something about "public figures" being more entitled than the rest of us.
My question to her would be 'who do you think is attacked more often; John Q. Public, or public figures'?
I would love to see the jig Kelli dances when CCWs become as common in Chicago as they are in Florida or Texas.
I must be an illogical Republican--but the only excuse for Komissar Feinstein and Rosie O to have access to firearms is because the average Jane and Joe have access to firearms.
To Republicans like Paul Helmke and Democrats such as Rahm Emanuel, Sen. Feinstein, and Sen. Schumer:
How come it's ok to send Americans to die in the wars of other nations and but not ok for them to own a gun for their own protection and enjoyment?
"All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him."
Sun-Tzu
2A Resolution on the move in Lake County, IL. Committee meeting on the 5th and it's going to the full board on the 12th.
One more nail in the coffin for the BC/MMM
http://www.pro2aresolution.com/
How can anyone take the BC seriously when this is still on their site?
"D. Henigan, "Exploding the NRA's Constitutional Myth," Legal Times, Vol. XIII, No. 47 (April 29, 1991).
This article highlights the way in which the Brady Law debates focused around the myth that the Second Amendment guarantees a broad, personal right to bear arms. The author discusses case law to dispel this widely accepted myth and to argue for honest debate on gun control laws."
A yes, Dennis "I forgot about the people" Henigan.
They did try to scrub that from their site.
Don't forget Doug "We're not a gun ban organization, we just support DC's gun ban" Pennington.
I hear all BC employees get free Dramamine to combat all that spinning.
Or Paul's own posts after the Supreme court decided to take the Heller case is more proof that they haven't changed their mind over at the BC
Stepping up police presence in high crime areas has a positive effect on crime reduction. What a novel idea. Notice not one mention of any icky guns being the problem, or more need for gun control.
"Law enforcement officials say the changes began in the mid-1990s when Lowell moved from the traditional way of fighting crime -- going from call to call -- to community policing, which has more officers walking beats, allowing them to interact with the people they protect and spot crime patterns before they become more serious.
Within two years of starting the program, violent crime dropped by about 33 percent and hasn't risen since, according to the state's uniform crime report."
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5community.6529146aug04,0,739380.story
I wonder why Paul Helmke and the BC never offer these types of remedies to combat crime? If they're really "serious" about reducing violent crime, why not advocate programs which have already shown to work? Unlike gun control which has, uh, never worked.
Another ban bits the dust?
keli, what do you think about this development?
Daley hints he may drop fight to keep handgun ban
Mayor Daley on Friday cracked the door open to abandoning the costly fight to uphold Chicago's 1982 handgun freeze -- if he can fashion a replacement ordinance that protects the safety of first-responders.
Until now, Daley had promised to defend Chicago's ordinance all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, despite what he called the dangerous precedent set by the court...
http://tinyurl.com/6gscsw
Michael
I wonder what Kelli thinks of Lake County having the Pro-2A Resolution up before a committee tomorrow.
http://tinyurl.com/68aqhn
So are you claiming she was breaking any laws in trying to get the dirt on how you people were trying to violate our civil rights?
So are you claiming that gun control advocates do not do the same thing?
Seems pretty far fetched to me.
I don't know. Is it a 'dirty trick' for Mayor Fenty, of Wash. DC, to ignore the Supreme Court, forcing Dick Heller to sue them again, 'cause that's what's happenning?
http://tinyurl.com/64lypy
Hey BC! How about some support for the law of the land? Oh that's right. You have nothing against illegal activity, as long as it supports your gun-banning agenda.
I forgot.
Wilson--of course you know the only laws the Brady Campaign will lift a finger to support are those that actively advance their gun control/ban agenda.
I'm comfortable with the FBI planting informants into shady organizations in order to keep them in check.
Why should I feel any different about the NRA doing the same (if what is alleged is true)?
There is such a thing as ethical covert intelligence gathering, you know.
Why shouldn't the NRA be spying on the Brady Campaign? Espionage is an accepted practice in government. Good espionage programs can prevent wars.
The whole rationale of spying is, "Know thy enemy."
Well apparently their "ethical boundaries" are OK w/ entrapment, misleading statements, and flat out lying. But god forbid you send in a mole. That's just crossing the line.
You wonder if they could keep a straight face if they rehearsed their diatribes in front of a mirror.
"God forbid you send in a mole" http://tinyurl.com/6z7m29 Nasty little critters!
Third--I do find it interesting that Paul is so upset about Mary Sapone/McFail after all the Brady misrepresentations about their support for gun bans, disarming law abiding citizens, and their blatant abuse of the Virginia Tech and NIU shootings by using them as fund raising tools.
I wonder what the Brady campaign thinks about the ethics of Mayor Bloomber sending "investigators"out of state to break the law by making straw purchases?
Edutilos said:
"Perhaps you should better prepare for the argument you wish to make. I do not own a 9mm anything. Although if it will help your semi-delusional fantasy of "every American armed to the teeth", maybe I oughta pick up a .50 cal...just in case, right?...Riiiight..."
Then perhaps you could explain this earlier post of yours, from this very thread.
"edutilos See Profile I'm a Fan of edutilos
Apparently, the River Styx has frozen over! The day has come that I actually agree with a comment from muffinman. Quite simply, as stated above, police can only be so many places at once, and until one can unequivocally assure me that I can carry on my daily life with 0% chance of being a victim, I intend to keep my firearm at the ready. (This is not to be misconstrued as "any gun, any person, any time" ((tm), NRA)
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 04:03 AM on 07/31/2008"
I thought the pistol he posted the picture of was a .45, which he then sold in favor of a 9mm. This was purchased from his cousin IIRC, which avoided the Brady Background check. Or did he buy the .45 from his cousin? I forget.
He claims to have "gotten rid" of the shotgun. I wonder if the details of that transaction are as interesting as those of the pistols.
Aww shucks. I'm flattered you guys. That muffin, zen and vespasian are so smitten with me they have reduced their "gun debate" into what firearms solitude might or might not own says a lot more about their weak debating skills and lack of intellectual honesty than their investigatory techniques. I'll clear it up for you lot so you can actually attempt productivity with the rest of your day, versus rooting through old posts for hours on end. It's simple, USP .45->USP .40->Sig 9mm->S&W .40. See. Done. And yes, I still have a shotgun bedside. All you had to do was ask.
Here's something to think about.
Using an alleged spy in an organization to obtain inside information about that organization is a form of deception.
What makes something "news worthy" (worth sensationalizing) is its rarity. Something seen as frequent and common just doesn't draw the same media appeal as something seen as rare and uncommon.
The very fact Paul and the BC are sensationalizing the NRA's appearance to have used deception to forward its agenda shows that this is not a behavior that the NRA is normally thought to engage in.
This is a fundamental difference between the anti-gun side and the pro-gun side. Anti-gunners see the idea of a pro-gun use of deception to forward its agenda as surprising and "news worthy." However, anti-gunners using deception to forward their agenda is nothing new and/or surprising to us.
Whether it's the BC handing out "shoot first/kill thy neighbor" fliers to mischaracterize "stand your ground" laws, the BC attorney conveniently deleting the word "the people" from his quoting of the 2nd Amendment, the BC misleading the public about the actual functional capability of firearms they want to ban, Josh Sugarman publicly saying the anti-gun side needs to mischaracterize "assault weapons" as machine guns to get public support behind them, etc., we simply see this is how anti-gunners normally operate. When we present such accounts, we do so within logical arguments over the gun issue and without media sensationalism.
(4th posting attempt)
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