Dobbs blames immigration activists.

Police remind folks that the shot apparently “did not come close to” Dobbs wife, that it was hunting season at the time, and that they wouldn’t “classify it [the gunfire incident] as very unusual” since hunter complaints go up during that time of year.

We report, you decide.

First, Dobbs’ take via FOX News:

A gunshot was fired at the New Jersey home of CNN’s Lou Dobbs after a series of threatening phone calls earlier this month, the host told listeners on his nationally syndicated radio show.

Dobbs, a fervent proponent of U.S. border enforcement, told listeners of “The Lou Dobbs Show” on Monday that the incident is part of an ongoing assault against anyone who opposes amnesty or leniency toward illegal immigrants.

“They’ve created an atmosphere and they’ve been unrelenting in their propaganda,” Dobbs said in reference to pro-immigration groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the National Council of La Raza and America’s Voice. “Three weeks ago this morning, a shot was fired at my house where I live. My wife was standing out and that followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls.”….

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Now, the New Jersey State Police, via Huffington Post:

…Interviews with the New Jersey State Police yielded a rather different assessment of the events described by Dobbs. In a phone interview conducted yesterday, Sgt. Stephen Jones, a NJ State Police spokesperson, chuckled out loud after he heard about Dobbs’ account of the gunfire incident. Jones commented that he “wouldn’t classify it [the gunfire incident] as very unusual.” He also confirmed that there are hunters in the area, and stated that, “at this time of year hunter [shooting] complaints go up.”…

…Another New Jersey State Police spokesperson, Sgt. Julian Castellanos, noted that “it’s a wide open area and there are hunters in the area.” Castellanos explained that the bullet had hit the house in vicinity of the attic; it “hit the vinyl siding and fell to the ground” without penetrating the vinyl, he said.

While Lou Dobbs’ wife, Debi Lee Segura, was standing outside the house at the time of the gunfire, the bullet did not come close to her; it “struck at the apex of the house, near the roof,” and thus considerably higher than a standing person, Jones observed….

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By the way, The Dobbs family lives in New Jersey, a state with some of the strongest gun laws in America, with the nation’s sixth lowest gun death rate.

Across the border in Pennsylvania, the gun death rate is twice as high.

Gun enthusiasts often repeat this as the first rule of gun safety: Every gun is always loaded.

The second rule: Never point a firearm at something you are not prepared to destroy.

The third should be: Remember the law of unintended consequences, because the gun bought “for protection” is often the gun used against one’s self or family, instead.

The tragic story below, reported yesterday from Missouri, encapsulates the paradox of gun advocacy in America.

The gun lobby not only fought tooth and nail for Mr. Looney’s right to own a gun, they helped convince him that he needed one to protect his family — right up to the point he shot himself in the head with it.

From the St.  Louis Post Dispatch:

A man who wanted to teach his girlfriend how to safely handle firearms fatally shot himself during the lesson, police said.

Jefferson County authorities said that on Friday, James Looney, 40, of the 4300 block of Rock Valley Court, was demonstrating safety mechanisms on several guns by holding them to his head and asking his girlfriend, Kim Thompson, whether they would fire.

The last one did. Looney died Saturday at a hospital. Police believe alcohol was involved in the accident, said sheriff’s Lt. Dave Marshak.

Thompson said Monday that Looney wanted her to learn to use a gun because he recently had accepted a job as an over-the-road trucker that would keep him away from their home two to three nights a week. Thompson said Looney had agreed to raise her 2-week-old son, Cameron, as his own.

“He was just trying to protect us,” Thompson said.

Police said the couple had planned to visit a shooting range the next day.

Looney’s mother, Penny Looney of Hillsboro, said her son bought the gun that killed him just three hours before the accident….

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White House press secretary Robert Gibbs answered questions yesterday about people bringing loaded firearms to protest events attended by President Obama, and Gibbs apparently gave the green light to this crazy practice.

Gibbs said, “There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally. Those laws don’t change when the president comes to your state or locality.”

Hearing this from someone who speaks daily from the podium in the James S. Brady White House Briefing Room – named after a press secretary seriously injured in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan – is bizarre.

In any event, the President’s security isn’t decided by his press secretary. The President belongs to all Americans, and we all have a stake in protecting his safety by keeping loaded firearms (not carried by law enforcement) away from Presidential events.

As for the Secret Service, their response to gun carrying protesters yesterday was also strange: “We’re well aware of the subjects that are showing up at these events with firearms,” a spokesperson reportedly said. “We work closely with local law enforcement to make sure that their very strict laws on gun permits are administered.”

Strict gun laws in Arizona? This is the state where two men openly carried assault rifles at a Presidential event and didn’t get detained. It’s harder to get a job at a fast food restaurant than it is to get a gun in Arizona.

Gun permits? In most cases, people openly carrying firearms don’t need permits, meaning that open gun carriers have no requirement to have their criminal backgrounds checked before they carry and no requirement even to have weapons training.

The Secret Service spokesperson should have said, “We work closely with local law enforcement to make sure that a state’s weak gun laws don’t lead to shooting injuries or deaths at these protests.” That would have made some sense.

As for being “well aware” of gun carriers at these events, I sincerely hope that’s true. I hope the Secret Service knew exactly where the dozen or more armed people were in the crowd protesting President Obama’s Phoenix speech on Monday – including two men with military-style assault rifles.

As it happens, news reports reveal that law enforcement knew of at least one of the individuals with an AR-15 assault rifle, because his media handler notified the local police department in advance of the stunt they were going to pull.

But what about next time, when law enforcement is surprised by someone openly carrying an assault weapon near the President? Will the reaction be the same? We should all hope not.

Robert Gibbs’s cavalier response to protesters carrying guns to Presidential events was tone-deaf. This isn’t a political issue and it isn’t about the Second Amendment. It’s about open and honest debate, using common sense and protecting the President of United States.

People can shoot their mouths off all they want at these debates. We need to do all we can to make sure that’s where the shooting stops.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

Last year at this time, I said that America was turning a corner on the gun issue, and the watershed events of 2008 confirmed that prediction.

The past year brought fundamental change to the way we understand and talk about gun violence prevention.  The year also offered hope for the future, as the Brady Campaign endorsed – and our grassroots activists helped elect – Barack Obama as President of the United States, along with many other new officeholders who support taking steps to reduce gun violence.

Looking ahead to 2009, we are optimistic about making significant progress in our fight for common sense gun laws to help make our families and communities safer.

Reducing the toll of 100,000 Americans killed or wounded every year by gunfire – including 20,000 children and teens – is a concern of many of these new and returning officeholders. For the first time in decades, there is reason to hope that we can end the polarization in our politics that has kept us from enacting laws to reduce that terrible statistic, while also respecting Second Amendment rights as defined by the Supreme Court last summer.

President-elect Obama’s statements were consistent – to gun owners, gun violence victims, and to all Americans – that he would uphold the Second Amendment and support common sense gun control laws that help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.  We have no doubt that he will keep his promise.  As then-Senator Obama said while accepting the Democratic nomination for President in Denver:

The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

Looking back at 2008, the year began on a positive note on January 8 with President George W. Bush signing the first major new gun control law in a decade: the NICS Improvement Act. Passage of the Act was aided by the powerful testimony of families and survivors of the Virginia Tech massacre, as well as the persistent determination of members of Congress such as Representative Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Charles Schumer. This new law helps close a loophole in the Brady criminal background check system that allowed the Virginia Tech killer to buy the semi-automatic handguns he used in the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

While a few states have taken the lead to provide more records of prohibited purchasers to the Brady background check system since last January, too many states have not. Out of an estimated 2.6 million records of the dangerously mentally ill in this country, less than 20 percent have been provided to the Brady background check system so far. The 2009 legislative session offers states a new opportunity to do their part and make sure that dangerous people don’t pass a Brady background check because of incomplete information, as the Virginia Tech killer did.

Last year’s 110th session of Congress also bears some responsibility for this shortfall in records. Rather than appropriate funds for the NICS Improvement Act to help states forward more records of dangerous people to the system, Congress spent more time on second-guessing the gun ordinances of a local government instead. The Brady Campaign’s U.S. Senate allies, however, successfully blocked efforts by some members of Congress to act as a super-City Council for the people of the District of Columbia.

In the spring of 2008, the nation marked the one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. On April 16, the Brady Campaign joined surviving victims and families of those killed in that terrible shooting – as well as activists from ProtestEasyGuns.com (a grassroots anti-gun violence organization founded by Abigail Spangler) – to observe the day. Events were held in over 100 cities and towns across the country in public squares, college campuses and even in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on the evening of a debate between Senator Hillary Clinton and then-Senator Obama.

Activists gathered in groups of about 32 people, wore maroon and orange ribbons (Virginia Tech’s colors) and rested on the ground in silent protest of the nation’s weak gun laws, calling on their elected officials to close the gun show loophole. It was an amazing outpouring of grassroots support for stronger, common sense gun laws.

Powerful as that occasion was, an even more significant event for gun violence prevention advocates came in June when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of District of Columbia v. Heller.  This landmark opinion fundamentally changed the way most people should now think and talk about the gun control issue – though not in the way many observers expected.  It must be said, however, that two weeks before the opinion was handed down, the Brady Campaign correctly predicted the outcome of the Heller decision and what that would mean, as events in the Autumn would soon confirm.

While we opposed the Court’s decision to overrule 70 years of precedent and over 200 years of Second Amendment history, gun violence prevention advocates praised Section III of Justice Antonin Scalia’s decision to find a wide variety of gun control regulations “presumptively lawful” under the Constitution. Such laws include restrictions against carrying concealed weapons, laws against gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws against taking guns into “sensitive places” such as schools and government buildings, and laws that restrict “dangerous and unusual” weapons. Indeed, Justice Scalia stated that his list of “presumptively lawful” regulations comprised only examples, and was “not exhaustive.”

The fundamental outcome of the Heller decision is that the Supreme Court made it clear that gun violence prevention efforts and the Second Amendment are compatible. The practical effect of this approach is that it takes the extremes of the gun debate off the table. On one hand, total gun bans aren’t even a theoretical option anymore – a result that doesn’t affect our work because the Brady Campaign doesn’t favor such a policy. On the other hand, the preference of some in the gun lobby for any gun, any place, at any time, with few or no restrictions, is also off the table – a result that ironically leaves the National Rifle Association’s leadership in a political box.

Why?  After Heller, there is clearly a right to own a gun for self-defense in the home, while guns may still be regulated by our elected officials in order to protect public safety.  Since the Supreme Court has affirmed the Constitutional right to own a gun while also affirming most restrictions on guns as “presumptively lawful,” the doomsday scenarios advanced by the gun lobby of a slippery-slope to total gun confiscation are totally make-believe.  The reality is that the Supreme Court’s middle ground position is exactly where the American people are, and it has helped push the gun debate away from squabbling about 200-year-old history into practical discussions about how to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people today.

For example, a June 2008 CNN poll found that while 67% of Americans believe the Second Amendment guarantees each person the right to own a gun, 79% of Americans favor requiring gun owners to register their guns with the local government.  That result tracks with polling of Election 2008 voters on behalf of the Brady Campaign by the Washington, DC public opinion firm Penn, Schoen & Berland.  Voters in November supported common sense gun laws across partisan and ideological lines, and in all regions of the country. 83% of voters supported criminal background checks for all gun sales; 68% favored both gun registration and licensing; 65% favored banning military-style assault weapons; and 65% of voters favored requiring a five-day waiting period before purchasing a firearm. As Penn, Schoen & Berland concluded, “…sensible gun legislation provides a unique opportunity for the [Obama] Administration to build a bridge to moderate voters in both parties.”

For these reasons, Election 2008 showed that winning the most significant Second Amendment case in American history actually makes it harder for the NRA bosses to terrify voters once again into believing that elected officials will somehow “take their guns away.”  Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox promised to spend $40 million in the election telling voters that Barack Obama was going to be “the most anti-gun President in American history” because he favored common sense gun policies. Most voters rejected the NRA’s campaign as ridiculous, however, and instead listened to their own common sense, voting their hopes instead of their fears.

The National Rifle Association leadership took crushing losses on Election Day as a result.  President-elect Obama defeated NRA-endorsed Senator John McCain in states from North Carolina to Nevada, New Hampshire to New Mexico, and dozens in between. President-elect Obama won 365 Electoral Votes, carrying my home state of Indiana – and even the NRA’s home state of Virginia – for the first time any Democrat for president carried either state since Lyndon Johnson.  NRA candidates lost not only the White House, but also eight competitive U.S. senate races – including New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon and very likely Minnesota – as well as over 20 competitive U.S. House races. No wonder the National Journal magazine rated the National Rifle Association among the “Bottom Five” least effective interest groups in the 2008 elections.

One of the reasons we won and the NRA bosses lost was because they were stuck in the old politics of division, portraying the gun issue as a false choice between the U.S. Constitution and gun violence prevention.  Since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last June, however, it is clear that we can have both in this country.   So today, with less than two weeks before President-elect Obama is inaugurated as America’s 44th President, where does the gun violence prevention movement stand?

I believe our movement is in a stronger position to pass life-saving gun laws in 2009 and beyond, than at any time in decades.  With Vice President-elect Joe Biden, White House Chief of Staff-designate Rahm Emmanuel, Attorney General-designate Eric Holder, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security-designate Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Education-designate Arne Duncan, Secretary of Labor-designate Hilda Solis and other key Administration officials, gun violence prevention advocates are likely to have many friends in the Executive Branch of the Federal government for the first time in a long while.  What’s more, with over 10 new members of Congress endorsed by the Brady Campaign having just taken the oath of office, advocates can build on the successes of 2008 by working to create new problem-solving coalitions in 2009.

Make no mistake, however, there is much work to do.  There are only a handful of national gun control laws on the books today, and even those have loopholes. To help keep guns away from dangerous people:

• We need to require Brady criminal background checks for all gun sales in this country, including at gun shows.
• We need to restrict access to military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
• We need to limit bulk sales of handguns to cut illegal gun trafficking.
• We need to crack down on the 1.2% of corrupt gun dealers who account for almost 60% of crime guns in America.
• We need to give law enforcement agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) the funding and staff they need to disrupt the illegal gun trade.

It really is a new day for the gun violence prevention movement in America.  Yet if we are to build on the successes of 2008 and take advantage of the many new opportunities ahead in 2009, we will need your help.

Please consider joining us in our mission to reduce the tragic toll of the 100,000 gun deaths or injuries Americans suffer every year by helping pass common-sense gun laws that help keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.

Happy New Year to everyone.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

Look up “sacrosanct” in the Oxford English Dictionary and you will find:

Of persons and things, esp. obligations, laws, etc.: Secured by a religious sanction from violation, infringement, or encroachment; inviolable, sacred.

As many of us were enjoying our Sunday afternoon this past weekend – perhaps coming home from church, or grilling out in the back yard – we heard reports that a gunman opened fire at a children’s production of “Annie” inside a church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“Sacrosanct” doesn’t seem to mean what it used to. Many were saddened by the news, but few were surprised, because this is not a new event in America.

We’ve been here before.

In fact, CNN reported that this was the fourth shooting attack on a church in 15 months, the most recent being the Colorado church assault where a suicidal gunman was stopped by a former Minneapolis police officer who had been specifically tasked to be on the look-out for the shooter.

The accused gunman in Knoxville had a history of domestic violence and suicidal behavior, and had a protective order filed against him by his now ex-wife, back in March 2000.

One account reports that he once held a gun to his ex-wife’s head after “drinking heavily.” Apparently, he had also been charged with a DUI and refused to submit to a blood alcohol test.

If that isn’t enough, reports further say that he was motivated by a “hatred” of the “liberal movement” and targeted a church that to him symbolized advocacy of civil rights for African-Americans and gays.

When I say that we make it too easy for dangerous people to get guns in America, the accused Knoxville church shooter is exactly the kind of person I have in mind.

It seems this man couldn’t even get a job, yet he was able to walk out of an Anderson County, Tennessee pawnshop with the shotgun he would use a month later to kill two people, wound six others, and expect to be killed by police intervention.

On the other hand, it is important for us to take notice of the fact that the gunman could fire just three times because the shotgun he used was limited to three shells before he was forced to re-load.

Unarmed parishioners had the chance to tackle him while he paused. As bad as the Knoxville shooting was, it could have been much worse.

If we don’t have the laws to help keep firearms from a man like this, then clearly we are not doing enough in this country to keep dangerous weapons from dangerous people. Some say the answer is more private guns in church. But that simply accepts four church shootings in a year-and-a-half as “normal” in America.

We need to find ways to keep dangerous people from gaining easy access to firearms. There is much more we can do to protect our children and families and help prevent shootings that, if history is any guide, we can expect to happen again.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)