Pro-Gun Activists Make Heinous, Misognynistic Threats to Virginia Mom

Male pro-gun activists frequently target Americans who work in the field of gun violence prevention in an attempt to intimidate, harass, threaten, and generally deter them from working to strengthen our nation’s gun laws. And the “softer” the target, the better—because there is certainly nothing brave about abusing someone online behind the anonymity of a keyboard. Sadly, the brunt of these attacks has often fallen on women.

One such woman is Abby Spangler. Spangler—a mother of two young children who lives in Alexandra, Virginia—started the Protest Easy Guns movement following the horrific mass shooting at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. At that point, she realized she couldn’t remain silent anymore. "I'd been thinking, 'Is this what we've come to in America?'” she told the Washington Post. "But when Virginia Tech happened, I said, 'I've had enough.' Then when I found out the Virginia Tech shooter got his gun in a matter of minutes, I was outraged. I decided that someone had to speak out and say this is unacceptable. We're not just going to light candles to mourn the victims. We're going to protest for change."

And that is exactly what Spangler has done. In just a matter of four years, her protest movement has spread across the nation. To date, more than 110 “Lie-In” protests have been conducted in more than 30 states by Protest Easy Guns volunteers. These protests have called for common-sense gun laws to prevent individuals who are clearly violent and/or deranged from easily obtaining firearms.

The success of her movement has brought Spangler acclaim from Americans concerned about the 30,000+ gun deaths each year in the United States, and venom from gun rights activists. Recently, Abby shared with us the following communications she has received from gun rights activists online. They speak for themselves:













One thing is for sure. The gun-fetishizing cowards that typed these messages in their parents' basements don't know Abby Spangler very well. Her good work to prevent the loss of life to gun violence continues, and she now has hundreds (if not thousands) of gun violence survivors across this country standing behind her. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is proud to stand behind Abby as well. We always will stand behind her, and all other Americans working to prevent gun violence.

New Threat from Pro-Gun Activist: "There will be no acceptance of any arms control."

By now, America is becoming familiar with the "Insurrectionist Idea" that is the foundation of the modern gun rights movement. This radical idea holds that the Second Amendment provides individuals with the right to shoot and kill government officials when they determine our government has become "tyrannical."

Apparently, the boogeyman of a tyrannical U.S. government is not enough for gun rights activists, however, because their paranoid fears also extend to the United Nations. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has raised a significant amount of money in recent years by convincing gun rights activists that a draft U.N. treaty focused on the illegal international trade in small arms is somehow a secret plot to disarm American citizens.

The following comment was recently received by Million Mom March leader Joan Peterson on her blog "Common Gunsense" from a gun rights activist in Dodge City, Kansas. The blog focused on bizarre and offensive comments that NRA Board Member Ted Nugent made about the United Nations in a Washington Times editorial:

Setting aside Mr. Nugent's rather intemperate style of speaking (he's a rock star, after all) just what is incorrect about his statements?

That historically, governments are the greatest murderers of their own citizens is without dispute. Countless millions have been slaughtered by their own governments over the last century, and in nearly every case, the massacre was preceeded by one important fact: the intended victims were disarmed.

Should it ever arrive, this treaty should be, and will be, rejected by the Senate. Frankly it does little but enable some governments to wrap the veneer of respectablity around their attempts to disarm and, in some tragic cases, murder their own citizens. It has happened before, over and over again.

Have we learned nothing?

If nothing else, the experience of Europe's Jews should have taught us all: Never again.

Never.

Personally, I'd advise each and every American gun owner to take a paper bullseye of his choosing, place a nice tight group of bulletholes in it his or her favorite caliber, and send same (with a notation of the caliber and range) to the U.N., along with these words written on the bottom: A well regulated milita being necessary to the security of a free State, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

No threats. No rants. Just a simple statement of fact: we are armed, and we know how to use them. There will be no acceptance of any arms control, treaty or not. There will be no compromise on fundamental principles.

We will not disarm. Molon labe.

Not a threat, huh?

Pro-Gunner Shares His Thoughts Via Voicemail

On August 7, 2011, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) received the following voicemail from a pro-gun activist. Listen to him lay his Southern Charm on extra-thick:

Threat of Arizona Pro-Gun Activist: "The dragon is too large to quell with the ballot."

For years, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) has closely monitored insurrectionist activity across the country, in part by publishing an "Insurrectionism Timeline" that logs threats and actual acts of violence against the U.S. government by gun rights activists who believe the Second Amendment gives them an individual right to respond to what they perceive as "tyranny" with force of arms.

Occasionally, we will receive correspondence from pro-gun extremists who make it clear—in no uncertain terms—that a war with our government is what they want. On July 11, 2011 we received exactly such an email from Steve Grant of the "Republic of Arizona." A Google search indicates that the group is incorporated in Benson, Arizona. On its homepage, the Republic of Arizona shares missives like "We stand with all Arizonians that oppose illegal aliens in this country" and "We will not serve with queers nor will we defend a nation that embraces this abomnation in the sight of both God and man."

The text of the email we received from Grant—which conveys a direct threat of violence against our government—is as follows:

Lets see if you can answer the following:

Do you believe that there is at least 30% of American gun owners that will take the same path as the Founding Fathers did to throw off tyranny?

Do you believe that this path will be an actual house to house blood fight?

If you answered no to either, you better guess again.

The British called it insurrection as well.

The very foundation, the thread of this nation was built on God, guns and blood to throw off tyranny.

You may not think that we live in a nation of growing government tyranny, but you are not the last word nor are you the majority.

The regime in power and the socialist sludge that supports it do not want guns outlawed to make it safe for citizens from gun crime, they want the guns to give the people that same power the people in Darfur and Syria have ..... none.

Go back to the two questions. Reread them ad get a clue.

May God steady our aim and deliver our enemies, both abroad and especially at home, into our hands.

To arms! ye soldiers, The trumpet call obey! Arise from dreary slumbers. To watch, and fight, and pray.

The dragon is too large to quell with the ballot.

We await the coming storm.

Steve Grant
Republic of Arizona

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

Gun owner till death do us part.

We support the Arizona Immigration Law

In nomine Dei et sanguinem belli

Pro-Gun Activists Fantasize About Brutally Killing Young Black Men

It’s no secret that pro-gun activists like to fantasize about using their guns to take down “bad guys.” As author and concealed handgun permit holder Dan Baum wrote in an August 2010 article for Harper’s magazine, “Anyone who tells you he has no fantasy life constructed around his gun either has been packing it for as long as he’s been watching television or is flat-out lying.” Speaking from experience, Baum says that firearm training classes in modern America are “less about self-defense than about recruiting us into a culture animated by fear of violent crime.”

For decades, the primary target of these fantasies has been young black men. Recall longtime NRA Board Member Jeff Cooper, who voiced the feelings of white gun-toting males throughout the pro-gun movement when he (in)famously wrote in 1991, "Our men in the Los Angeles area tell us that the radical rise in the murder rate in the L.A. basin should be viewed with due reference to the Good Riddance factor ... A certain amount of subjective guesswork is involved, of course, but the consensus is that no more than five to ten people in a hundred who die by gunfire in Los Angeles are any loss to society. These people fight small wars amongst themselves. It would seem a valid social service to keep them well-supplied with ammunition."

While the current-day crop of pro-gunners might not be as brash and candid as Cooper, the violence-fueled, racially-tinged day-dreaming remains the same. Consider the July 1, 2011 edition of the "VCDL Update," the e-newsletter of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a radical pro-gun group that seeks to eradicate all existing gun laws (including background checks on gun purchasers).

In the newsletter, VCDL President Philip Van Cleave points members to a June 26, 2011 article by Gabe Suarez, who fancies himself a "Professional Personal Combat Consultant" in "Arizona Territory." The article, entitled, "The Flash Mob Attack—How to Defend?” promotes a bizarre conspiracy theory about "flash mob events" in which hordes of "urban thugs" converge on innocent whites to beat and rob them while yelling things like "Kill Whitey!" Suarez describes four such "events," but fails to provide any links to the original source material to confirm that they actually happened.

That doesn't stop him, however, from telling readers—in graphically violent terms—how to kill black teenagers. "If you cannot avoid," he instructs, "attack...brutally and viciously." And there's more:

Stab the first man deep and hard in his face and move to the next guy and repeat the exercise. Do the same to anyone within reach. When their buddies reel back, screaming in horror and pain, holding their bloodied faces with eyeballs hanging out, it will create hesitation. Use that time to disengage. If you have a pistol, please make sure it is a modern high capacity weapon with a couple of spare magazines in your belt. The Suarez International company gun, a Glock 17 with three magazines, yields a sum total of 52 rounds. Figure three rounds per man, and you can reduce an angry mob of panga swinging killers into a fleeing group of bloodied bad guys. Draw it and yell, "Get The F*** Back!" If they do, run away. If they do not, shoot the first man in the face. The rest will take care of itself.

A panga, for those who are not familiar, is an African weapon similar to a machete.

During the same week that Van Cleave and the VCDL were sharing this reading material with their friends, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence received the following short email from pro-gun activist "John Jackson":

I want guns in all houses because you wacko people don't want to have the death penalty and you let all these thugs run loose. So if another drug dealer gang Banger gets killed its less money from our taxes."

Jeff Cooper, who passed away in 2006, would have been proud...

Latest Violent Threat from a Pro-Gun Activist

The latest violent threat received by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) from a pro-gun activist:



All the predictable/standard elements are here: profanity; paranoid fears about mass gun confiscation (driven by NRA fundraising material); poor grammar/spelling errors; and a warped sense of ownership of the Constitution, despite the fact that that document was drafted and ratified by Federalists. See "Setting the Record Straight: The Tea Party and the Constitutional Powers of the Federal Government" and and "The Truth About 'Second Amendment Remedies': How to Counter Insurrectionist Arguments."

It's hard to tell which incident of homicide this individual is referring to, but it could be a case in which a 20-year-old man was shot, killed and dragged into the woods.

Such threats from thugs, criminals, and insurrectionists smack of desperation and they will not stop the work of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. We are committed to building a more peaceful, nonviolent society.

Man Who Lost Son to Gun Violence Responds to Cruelty with Grace and Dignity

Recently, The Bay Citizen featured a wonderful article about gun violence survivor Griffin Dix. Tragically, Griffin lost his 15-year-old son Kenzo to gun violence in 1994 when his 14-year-old friend accidentally shot him. The boy invited Kenzo over to his house and was trying to show off his father's Beretta 92 Compact L handgun. He had removed the ammunition magazine, but wasn't aware a round was still in the chamber of the handgun. When he pulled the trigger a round fired and penetrated Kenzo's heart, killing him.

The article was upbeat, noting that, "Griffin has helped transform the dialogue about guns in California from being centered on Second Amendment rights, as it was 20 years ago, to one focused on personal tragedies and consequences."

Sadly, however, pro-gun activists have used the Comments area on the web version of the article to post unbelievably crude personal attacks against Griffin.

A pro-gun activist using the screen name "Tom P" initiated the attacks, telling Griffin:

I know it is not desirable in our society to attack victims, but I see so many things wrong with this situation that I have to do just that. As a parent, you have a responsibility to teach your children how to deal with dangerous situations, all of them. I'm guessing you're probably not a gun owner and never have been. Because your child was not around firearms in your household, you probably felt it was not neccessary to teach your son what to do should he ever encounter a firearm. That is pure and simple stupidity on your part ... It's your kind of simple minded thinking that causes these tragedies to occur. You cannot go through life ignoring facts just because you don't agree with them ... It saddens me to know that someone with your lack of depth of thought has been responsible for educating our young people. I'm thinking it's more likely than not that you're just another one of the thousands of 'educators' who pursued that career for the long vacations, decent pay and guaranteed pensions.

Tom P wasn't done though. He added, in a superfluous comment seemed designed to purely injure, this thought: "I see no sign that you take any responsibility for preparing your son for the dangers of this world. You need to get past your grief, own up to your own responsibility of not teaching your son and move on."

Next up was a pro-gun activist going by the screen name "W W." About Griffin, he commented, "He needs psychiatric help..He has become hoplophobic and concentric ... So Griffin Dix you failed as a father seek help and get over your grief...I feel for you...SEEK HELP."

Griffin's response to this, however, is what stands out the most. In the face of these vile attacks on himself and his son, he was both gracious and dignified, writing:

Thanks for the comments. In answer to a few who assumed that my son was playing with a gun, he was not. The friend he was visiting—without telling my son—went and got the gun which his father kept loaded and unlocked next to his bed for "protection." The boy thought he had unloaded the gun when he took out the loaded magazine. Then he walked back upstairs to the room where my son was, walked in and, as a childish joke, pulled the trigger. My son’s friend made a bad mistake; kids sometimes do that. They shouldn’t; but they do. If the gun had a prominent chamber-loaded indicator, the boy, when he had shot this gun with his father at the shooting range, would have seen the indicator pop up red right in front of his face whenever a bullet was put into the chamber and disappear when the round was fired. The boy would have been able to tell easily when a bullet still remained in the chamber. It is up to parents and the entire community of adults to see to it that the foreseeable mistakes of a kid do not result in a death. I am interested in preventing this kind of thing from happening ... The father of my son’s friend believed he had to store the gun loaded and unlocked because there was no other way to have the gun instantly available for use. But guns could be designed so that they can be stored safely and be available very quickly. However the gun industry resists these designs and keeps trying to put all of the blame on the gun owner (their customer) over and over and over every time. Of course the gun owner is at fault. But under the product liability laws of most states if there is foreseeable misuse of a product, the product must be designed to minimize the harm. Firearms sold to consumers could be more safely designed and still be available. This is not a "battle against guns" so much as a battle for better guns—more safely designed guns.

There's not a day that goes by that we at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) fail to be inspired by the courage and decency of gun violence survivors.

Griffin Dix is certainly one of them.

Meet a Pro-Gun Activist: Kurt Hofmann

Kurt Hofmann is a pro-gun activist who loves to keep in touch with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV). A former paratrooper, Hofmann became active in the gun rights movement after being paralyzed in a car accident in 2002. He is the author of the blog "Armed and Safe" and also the "St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner" with Examiner.com.

Few Americans are as passionate about "Second Amendment remedies" as Hoffman. He is the quintessential spokesman for the National Rifle Association's radical view that the amendment guarantees individuals the right to shoot and kill government officials when they deem our government has become "tyrannical." This "insurrectionist idea" has become the foundation of the modern pro-gun movement.

Hofmann does not beat around the bush, getting to the point immediately in his Twitter header:



The quote from libertarian author Claire Wolfe that Hofmann is referring to is: "America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

Recently, Hofmann has been agitated and fearful of 2010 data from the General Social Survey that shows that gun ownership in the United States is continuing to decline. In 1977, 54% of American households had a gun. Last year, that number was down to 32%. In a blog on April 29, 2011, Hofmann told our elected officials what would happen if they tried to enact new gun violence prevention laws:

If gun owners are indeed a minority in the U.S., so what? Does being in the minority make one's rights less worthy of defending? ... Promoting the notion that we live in a society where the majority rules, meaning that 51% can legitimately vote away the fundamental human rights of the other 49%, fits right into CSGV's agenda... Here's a hint, though: there are still enough of us to defend our rights, and forgetting that would be bad news for everyone involved--but worse news for those who forget than for those who are forced to remind them.

In the last line above, Hofmann links to a blog authored by Mike Vanderboegh, the former Alabama militia leader who famously ordered his readers to "Break their windows. Break them NOW" in response to health care reform legislation in March 2010:

Sadly, many responded to this call for vandalism and violence, and offices of Democratic Members of Congress across the country were attacked. One of those offices was that of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), presaging a greater act of violence to come in Tucson.

The blog that Hofmann linked to was an essay by Vanderboegh entitled, "What is a Three Percenter?" It reads as follows:

During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King's tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists ... The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any further circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders' Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic ... We will not disarm. You cannot convince us. You cannot intimidate us. You can try to kill us, if you think you can. But remember, we'll shoot back. And we are not going away. Your move.

One would think that Hofmann and Vanderboegh would appreciate the fact that our system of government allows them to threaten elected officials repeatedly with relative impunity (right up until that critical threshold of calling for specific acts of violence against individuals). But then again, what Hofmann and Vanderboegh are doing has absolutely nothing to do with freedom or patriotism. By institutionalizing treason and making it a point of pride, the pro-gun movement has demonstrated how completely out of touch it is with both our Founders and modern-day America.

"The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government .. Your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and...the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other."

- George Washington, from his Farewell Address

Pro-Gunners Fantasize About Rape of Wisconsin Woman and Daughter

Today, we share a disturbing story about two Wisconsin pro-gun activists: Sean Hobena, who goes by the sophomoric alias "Harrold Nutczak," and Madison dentist Jay Brendemuehl. Hobena is the owner/chef of The Rib Guy in Minocqua, Wisconsin.

Posting on a Facebook page entitled "Wisconsin Anti Violence Effort LIES," Hobena shared an article about a serial rapist in Milwaukee and then speculated with Brendemuehl about the potential rape of WAVE Executive Director Jeri Bonavia and her college-age daughter. The Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) "is Wisconsin's only statewide grassroots organization solely dedicated to reducing gun violence, injuries and deaths."



First, Brendemuehl commented about the story regarding the serial rapist by writing, "Jeri might change her mind [about advocating for tougher gun laws] if she were to get victimized..."

Hobena then responded, "Even though I hate to hear of anyone being a victim of violent crime, as much as I despise Jeri, I still would not wish that upon her or her daughter. Maybe a close-call will open their eyes to reality without either of them getting injured?"

Why pro-gun activists would possibly think it appropriate to make such comments about a mother and her daughter is beyond imagination.

Pro-Gun Activist to Woman who Lost Sister to Homicide:"Go ring your little bell you stupid ignorant c***."

Not long ago, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) posted a blog detailing personal attacks made on Joan Peterson, a gun violence survivor from Minnesota and the author of the blog Common Gunsense. In 1992, Joan’s sister, Barbara, was shot and killed by her husband three years into divorce proceedings. He took his own life not long thereafter in a psychiatric ward.

Joan recently shared three comments left by a pro-gun activist on her (moderated) blog. "japete" is the screen name that Joan uses to respond to comments on her blog.

"Go ring your little bell you stupid ignorant cunt. We'll be busy advancing in individual states. Deep down, you see what's happening and clutch your rancid crotch stink hole in despair, huh?"



"Hey japete, why don't you clean out your disease-ridden cunt-hole? Does making everyone you walk past sick with fishy shit smell a turn-on for you? I'll bet your sister's dead crotch smells better than yours. Your husband certainly thinks so."



"Hey japete, does your dead sister like hot cock up her ass? Oh wait, I guess it doesn't matter. Perhaps I would insult you if you had the decency to publish my comments, you stupid ignorant cunt. But it is your blog. You don't publish my comments because my logic destroys your world. I guess we'll just have to continue spanking your shit covered cheeks in Congress. Fuck you and your stupid little bell."



The commenter is referring to a bell that hangs in a Memorial Garden in Lake Place Park in Duluth, Minnesota. Periodically, Joan gathers with members of Protect Minnesota (which formed when the Million Mom March Chapters of Minnesota merged with Citizens for a Safer Minnesota) and other organizations at this spot to remember victims of gun violence. Attendees are invited to ring the Memorial Bell for each loved one they have lost to gun violence.

Joan rings the bell each time for Barbara, faithfully.