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Daniel 07/03/2010 12:18:00 AM
It is disappointing that you would look down on a man for his defense of our 2nd Amendment. Do you make money for your journalism?
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Mark Fefer 11/25/2009 11:20:00 PM
Brenden, thank you for the correction.
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Brenden 11/25/2009 4:31:00 AM
"Today's prevailing Brady Law, requiring gun-buyer background checks and opposed by gun-rights activists, was signed in 2003 by President Clinton."
Nice fact-checking there.
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Marks2101 11/21/2009 3:00:00 AM
Don't you people have anything better to do than attack Alan Gottlieb?
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Doug 11/20/2009 8:50:00 AM
Alan Gottleib is to be commended for standing up for the rights of all Americans, even those who would foolishly restrict them.
The Second Amendment is for "The People" not the government.
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Glen 11/18/2009 8:22:00 AM
Yet another factual error in this article: the weapon carried outside President Obama's address to the VFW National Convention in Phoenix, AZ on August 17, 2009 was not an AK-47.
It was an AR-15, which is a completely legal, American-made semi-automatic civilian rifle.
This was yet another fact that the author of this article could have easily confirmed. Apparently it is the policy of Seattle Weekly to publish editorial opinion pieces consisting mostly of unsourced and unverified conspiracy theories under the guise of "news."
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Alan Gottlieb 11/17/2009 11:18:00 AM
You can see how the Second Amendment Foundation spends the money we raise by going to www.ChicagoGunCase.com and reading our legal brief that we filed today with the United States Supreme Court.
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TJP 11/17/2009 9:52:00 AM
"I wonder why the well regulated militia part is most always left out of the argument. Owning guns for this purpose is much different than say owning guns just because they make you feel safe or secure."
It's not. You are confusing the disarmers' caricature with us. That is why one must read the actual arguments put forth by liberty advocates and real Second Amendment scholars. (David E. Young, for example, of the latter type.)
A well-regulated militia means a well-trained militia; i.e. familiar with the use of their arms. Marksmen, if you prefer. The amendment then goes on to state that such a militia is *necessary* in order to maintain a free nation. A populace denied the use of arms will not have the opportunity to train with them and become proficient, therefore a prerequisite of freedom is that a broad swath of the population--*not* professional, government-paid soldiers--are familiar with weapons; ergo the people must necessarily possess them. The government, then, may not interfere with the people's pre-existing right to arms.
An armed populace is one that can defend itself from enemies without and within. To violate the natural right of defense is to put faith in an unproven hypothesis that removing a choice of weapons from the hands of everyone else will make a sociopath suddenly change his behavior. (Presumably he would be encouraged by a gun in his face and put off by bare fists.) Unfortunately, sociopaths who contemplate capital crimes have little regard for minor contraband violations, therefore "gun control" exists just to make hoplophobes feel safe or secure.
When you parrot the disarmers' militia argument, you are not revealing a conspiracy or dispensing wit; you are in fact pointing out that the law says every able citizen should be armed and trained in the art of battle so that our freedom will continue. Would you rather defend this part of the amendment, or the one that says a right to arms shall not be infringed? Frankly we're equally comfortable and hardly strained defending either of the arbitrarily divided halves of one of the shortest and most clearly written laws in the U.S. Constitution.
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Newr 11/17/2009 3:46:00 AM
I wonder why the well regulated milita part is most always left out of the argument. Owning guns for this purpose is much different than say owning guns just because they make you feel safe or secure.
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Mark Fefer 11/17/2009 1:52:00 AM
David, yes that is what the story said, based--erroneously--on a headline that had been placed on Gottlieb's alert by a Web site that Gottlieb did not control. I did not repeat the statement in my correction in order to avoid perpetuating it.
We apologize for this reporting error and will say so in our print edition this week.
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David Codrea 11/16/2009 10:28:00 PM
On the second page of your online story, you say:
"[This story has been changed since it was first posted. It originally gave an innacurate description of how Gottlieb "refers to" Lautenberg.]"
Wait a minute.
You people told the world:
"Gottlieb refers to the Jewish Lautenberg as a 'Zionist...gun hater.'"
That's not true.
Where is your complete and specific online retraction--along with your profound apology?
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TJP 11/16/2009 6:32:00 AM
Note that Gottlieb's felony conviction was for $17,000 in underpaid taxes. Tim Geithner dodged the feds for a lot more, but instead of jail time, he got a job handing out stacks of taxpayer cash. I guess whether or not one is a respectable public servant or an evil, Jew-hating felon depends on worship at the altar of the Church of the State.
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TJP 11/16/2009 6:18:00 AM
Brenda, the adults are discussing a matter here. Please go in the other room to play with your straw man.
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Brenda 11/16/2009 4:15:00 AM
These gun nuts are the biggest bores in the world. Their whole life is guns and the likelihood they will sooner or later kill someone, most likely an innocent. "I'm a real man because I got a gun," they say. Yet they appear to be the biggest cowards around - afraid to go into town without their sidearm. And you're hearing this, you ersatz macho guys, from an unarmed lady who can take care of herself!
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W W Woodward 11/16/2009 3:24:00 AM
For the record:
(1) The Constitution of the United States declares,"...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
(2) The period immediately following the word "infringed" cannot be debated.
(3) The right to keep and bear arms is an enumerated right.
(4) The un-enumerated right to not keep and bear arms should not be violated.
I know of no gun owner who would, or even wish to, attempt to force ownership of a firearm upon anyone who does not wish to own a firearm.
I for one would appreciate the same courtesy.
Stay out of my business. I promise to stay out of yours.
W W Woodward [W-III]
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Rob 11/15/2009 9:27:00 PM
Jeff, the Weekly would probably appreciate him making them wine. I suspect they're winos, tho not necessarily whiners.
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Jeff 11/15/2009 9:46:00 AM
I just sent Gottlieb's Second Amendment Foundation $1000 and I bet I'm not the only one to do it. The more ammo he has the more he can make the Weekly wine!
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SomeOfMyBestFriendsRRepublican 11/15/2009 7:36:00 AM
Hey Vienna,Virginia: You must not be used to articles that report facts. You want the Weekly to tell you what to think about this guy. It will not be spelled out for you. You'll have to decide for yourself. Give it a shot. (no pun intended)
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Richard Letaw 11/15/2009 1:48:00 AM
The Weekly's headline: "Alan Gottlieb�s challenge to a gun ban in the President�s adopted hometown has made it all the way to the Supreme Court, and fattened the ex-con�s wallet in the process." I'd truncate the headline but the gun banners think we gun nuts are as untruthful as they so I took the prudent course.
In the first paragraph of its story the Weekly characterizes Alan Gottlieb as being ". . .62, armed and affable. . . ." That's of more than passing interest.
You slime the man in the headline, probably more than is justified, because if he had been convicted of a felony sufficient to render him an "ex-con" Gottlieb would be taking a potentially life-changing risk by possessing a gun. He'd be very likely to looking out between the iron bars for an extended period.
How will you have it, Weekly? Would you like to offer us the straight truth about Gottlieb?
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eecummingsII 11/14/2009 10:54:00 PM
"impugn my character and reputation, and subject me to public scorn and ridicule..."
that's pretty funny, coming from someone with your track record - from the phony fear-mongering you use to put money in your own pocket, to the guy who said that one of Tom Wales' own followers murdered him, when the evidence pointed to a gun owner from your side of the fence.
you got to have character before it can be impugned.
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Alan Gottlieb 11/14/2009 3:12:00 AM
November 12, 2009
Mark D. Fefer, Editor in Chief
Nina Shapiro, Senior Editor
Rick Anderson, reporter
The Seattle Weekly
1008 Western Ave., Ste. 300
Seattle, WA 98104
Dear Mark, Nina and Rick:
While there are many inaccuracies and false impressions contained in
reporter Rick Anderson's Seattle Weekly cover story about me (Barack and
Load, Nov. 10), there is one that stands out, for which I must demand an
immediate correction.
Anderson writes that, "One of Gottlieb's recent targets is Sen. Frank
Lautenberg, D-N.J., who has proposed a ban on gun possession by anyone
on the FBI's terrorist watch list. (Gottlieb refers to the Jewish
Lautenberg as a "Zionist...gun hater.")"
In fact, I have never referred to anyone in my life, including Sen.
Lautenberg, as a "Zionist." Having been raised in a Jewish family, with
Jewish traditions and upbringing, I find the term "Zionist" to be
personally and professionally offensive. This term is used by many
people who are anti-Semitic, and in no way would I or any organization
with which I am involved ever consider using such a vile slur.
It appears Anderson did much of his sloppy research by merely cruising
the Internet, where he found - as I did after reading Anderson's article
- a website (www.rense.com) that reprinted a June 2009 e-mail alert from
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, signed by me
but with a headline labeling Sen. Lautenberg as a Zionist that was not
part of the original document.
Anderson should know that much of which is on the Internet is far from
accurate. His article is obviously designed to impugn my character and
reputation, and subject me to public scorn and ridicule, which amounts
to willful disregard for the truth.
A simple telephone call from Anderson or an editor at Seattle Weekly to
fact check this article would have quickly revealed this egregious
error. I would have been delighted to immediately provide an original
copy of the alert, which would have clearly shown that this disgusting
headline, which I am now discussing with my attorney, was not ours.
I demand an immediate retraction and correction, as well as an apology
to both myself and Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
Sincerely,
Alan M. Gottlieb
Chairman, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Founder, Second Amendment Foundation
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Alan Reston 11/13/2009 11:40:00 PM
I thought the historical aspects - his felony conviction which left him, uniquely, a gun advocate without a gun, who got it back using a now unuseable law - helped tell the story of Gottlieb. It's the irony - his run-in with the same federal court that he is now banking his biggest hopes on. Nicely done.
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doug 11/13/2009 10:42:00 PM
Gee, what a fair and unbiased piece of journalism on a very important subject. Fortunately, b/c the author only mentioned Mr. Gottlieb's 30 year old tax conviction 8 times in the article, I will now be less inclined to support the Second Amendment. Seriously, what does a 30 year old non-violent crime have to do with a constitutional issue? Nothing. Of course, Gottlieb is portrayed as a nut, while the pristine gun grabbing lobbyists are portrayed as reasonable, law-abiding people. This reporter and his editor should be fired for writing such a biased piece of trash. Gottlieb is trying to protect a constitutional right. Does your newspaper portray the ACLU this way? Or abortion rights activists this way? No. Why? B/c you are left-wing goofballs.
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Mike 11/13/2009 9:18:00 AM
�A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.�
This is everyone's constitutional right not just gun owners. What part of "This right shall not be infringed" do you not understand? Fear and ignorance will avail you nothing but your own downfall.
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Hal 11/13/2009 2:32:00 AM
I say more power to Gottlieb. Gun owners like him because, as this story shows, he sticks up for them. Yeah he's an aggressive salesman and he's made money from it, but it's for the cause, and it's effective: what matters is whether he gets the message across. He does here, and he will in the Supreme Court!
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Jarhead1982 11/12/2009 11:50:00 PM
Yeah Steve, another lame pathetic sexual innuendo from an anti gun type just shows how pathetic your position is if you cant even support your position of why with 300 million firearms so much crime exists.
Of course, you fail to accept the USDOJ Gnag activity report that shows up to 80% of violent crimes in the US are caused by gang activity and that over 60% of their activites are funded by the revenue from illicit drugs.
You fail to acknowledge the studies, Chicago police study most notably that 60-76% of all shooters and victims were both involved in criminal activity.
You fail to acknowledge that you people fail to enforce the laws greater than 1% of the time, especially gun control laws, yet you desire more laws (USDOJ Background Check & Firearm Transfer report 2008).
You fail to acknowledge that criminals by law, do not have to incriminate themselves and register weapons (Hayes vs. US Supreme Court).
You fail to acknowledge that gun control has never proven ANYTIME ANYWHERE to reduce violent crime.
You fail to acknowledge the incrmental infringement on the second amendment rights since the early 1900's. If so, then please list all the laws, registrations and bans associated with firearms ownership on one side, then do the same for your first amendment rights on the other and compare eh?
You fail to acknowledge that self defensive gun uses occur daily, and in higher numbers.
You fail to acknowledge how entitlement programs, broken family structure, lack of discipline and father figures in proper development of children and how they interact causes much of the violence.
You fail to aknowledge the role media has in desensitizing the public to violence, taboo subjects, hollywood, etc..
You fail to acknowledge the school systems liberalization and socialistic training of zero tolerance where the victims are shown that fighting back when attacked is morally wrong, when of course self defense is an inherent right.
You fail to acknowledge that an inanimate object has no verbal or mind control skills or abilities to influence an act taken by a criminal or wack job.
You fail to acknowledgew all the socio economic issues, and so many other variables that contribute to violence and all you want to focus on is the guns.
You are afraid of guns, hence the pathetic sexual innuendo, thereby revealing a significant gap in your childhood where your parents failed to teach you how to deal with your fears and insecurities of an inanimate object. Further evidenced in adult hood by your irrational comments and by association denial of the facts.
You fail at so much, yet you demand we compromise some more of our rights away, ROTFLMAO, who in the hell are you kidding besides yourself?
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Steve 11/12/2009 10:48:00 PM
Wonder why were crime rates are sso frigging high given the 300 million guns we have out there already.
From I see gunowners must be a very impotent bunch that feels powerless and threatened all of the time. If not, why would they send a scum bag like this money?
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Gil Costello 11/12/2009 8:46:00 PM
In Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange, there is a scene where a left wing liberal who abhors violence, and would certainly want to outlaw gun-ownership, has his home broken into and he is severely beaten by thugs and forced to watch them rape his wife. In the end he becomes psychopathically violent in his bitterness and resentment.
The 20th century proved one thing incontrovertibly: even with all the knowledge and technology we possessed to end all the "causes" of violence, violence reigned more than any other time in history. And there�s much more on the horizon. What most people are learning is that they will have to learn to defend themselves against marauders of every type.
Most Leftist elites like President Obama will feel secure in the mansions and/or neighborhoods they reside in, and therefore feel comfortable in outlawing gun possession, while the ever-escalating division between the protected upper-class and the ever-widening unprotected lower-class continues with no end in sight.
The Left has become accomplished at instituting their agendas through the courts, having learned from the master, Bill Clinton, looking down on us "lowly" ones as bigoted, fearful religious types, when in fact we are the realists, and it is the elites of the Left who live in a realm of denial, covering up the real world with their highly abstract reasoning that never touches down in the real world.
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John Caile 11/12/2009 4:05:00 PM
As a trainer in firearm self-defense for nearly 40 years, I have worked closely with law enforcement, and not only do real street cops (not politically motivated chiefs) overwhelmingly (more than 90%)support gun ownership in general, and "concealed carry" laws in particular. Of course they do - unlike "Sean" they understand that the thugs and killers they deal with every day will never be prevented from getting - and using - firearms.
Sean's mistake is actually quite simple, in that he fell for the statistical sleight-of-hand that the anti-gun zealots have always used: counting as "self defense" only those cases where shots were actually fired. But in fact, 98% of self defense gun uses do NOT involve a single shot being fired - thus they only count as "self-defense" the 2% of cases where shots were actually fired.
But all of that is beside the point - just like the right to vote, the right of self-defense exists independent of whether we choose to exercise it or not. And besides, we all know that NO number of successful defensive gun uses will be sufficient to persuade the terminally gun-phobic to suddenly see the light.
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Jarhead1982 11/12/2009 10:01:00 AM
Few self defensive gun uses lol, go to http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf which is the �Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms�
by Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig from 1997.
This is a study that creates some problems for the gun banners in that it doesn�t debunk the standard of Professor Kleck & Gertz�s 1995 study identifying 2.5 million DGU�s annually, but still admits on page 10:
The only question is whether that fraction is 1 in 1,800 (as one would conclude from the NCVS) = 165,000 dgu�s (adjusted for 2008 population) or 1 in 100 (as indicated by the NSPOF estimate based on Kleck and Gertz's criteria) = 3 million dgu�s per year.
Ludwig & Cook have also created a failure in their logic in:
The key explanation for the difference between the 108,000 NCVS estimate for the annual number of DGUs and the several million from the surveys discussed earlier is that NCVS avoids the false-positive problem by limiting DGU questions to persons who first reported that they were crime victims. Most NCVS respondents never have a chance to answer the DGU question, falsely or otherwise.
Of course a respondent who replied they were not a victim because they had defended themselves by showing their weapon, thereby preventing the physical attack from occurring, that data was not considered by Ludwig & Cook., hence their survey value for dgu�s was affected and made artificially low.
Now the problems you have Sean is that:
1) 165,000 is not insignificant and is agreed upon by your anti gun professors of whom have been contracted to perform multiple studies for the anti gun organizations.
How is this a problem Sean, well in 2008, there were 381,000 violent crimes reported which involved a firearm (FBI UCR data). There were 9,484 murders by firearms (FBI UCR) and over 70,000 woundings as per hospital databases. Being that suicides by firearm are only 90% fatal, that means 1,688 of those injuries were suicides, so drop those from the count leaving 68,322 woundings add 9,484 murders by firearms for a total 77,706 firearms injuries. Must take out justifiable homicides which equal right at 600 both police and civilian so 77,106 is the total we will use.
77,106 firearms injures divide by 381,000 gives us a percentage of 20.23% of people injured during the reported violent crimes.
Now we go back to a USDOJ (another government agency) Victimization report 2007 where they show 5.2 million unreported violent crimes.
That being said, one can easily assume that if none of dgu�s occurred (which the antis agreed 165,000 occur each year at minimum), if these people were banned from having a firearm, that the same percentages of injuries and fatalities would occur within the additional incidents.
So approximately 20.23% of 165,000 = 33,392 additional firearms injuries of which 11.5% (8,848 murders/ total injuries 77,106) = 3,847 more deaths and 29,454 more injuries.
Please using your logic of inflicting our rights upon you, explain then Sean how an additional 33,392 more firearms injuries isn�t a cost the antis would then have to be held accountable for?
Of course we have never seen the Chicago police data survey that 60-76% of all shooters and victims were both engaged in criminal activity at the time of the shooting, or the USDOJ Gang Activity report 2008 where up to 80% of all violent crime in the US is attributed to gang activities? Both trends are repeated through many smaller studies if you cared to look Sean!
2) The only logical failure they can point to that any academic can agree on is the small sample size Kleck & Gertz used in their study.
3) That whenever two opposing sides have such a difference in numbers, that reality rests somewhere in the middle, oh right around the 1.5 million DGU�s that if you actually review both studies, you will find the antis cant discredit that 1.5 million dgu�s per year.
All this using the antis report and government data kinda blows your position out of the water Sean, better luck next time!
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JOHN CAILE 11/12/2009 9:04:00 AM
..and you call this one of your "top stories"? You could at least have placed it under the "editorial" heading - that would have been a tick more honest.
As someone who grew up in Chicago, the home of some of the most ridiculous (and ineffective) gun control laws in the nation, I could easily use your "article" as a demonstration of the incredible devolution of the American press into little more than a Left-Wing propaganda machine.
You pepper this piece with every slanted and negative stereotype - of guns, gun owners, and gun laws - that one could possibly imagine.
But the reality is this - Mayor Richard M. Daley presides over a city with what are arguablly the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation (including a complete ban on handguns since the early 1980s), yet Chicago continues to be one of the most violent cities in America - under 600 murders is considered a good year!
Chicago's gangs are so numerous and so violent (and well-armed) that they have been subjects of the History Channel series "Gangland." Seems they never got the "no-guns" memo from the Mayor.
Statements like those of Mayor Daley, when added to the equally inane utterances of the likes of Illinois Senator Richard Durban, give a picture of a Democratic Party that is so far out of touch with normal Americans as to be almost laughable - if their policies weren't killing people. But gun control does kill. But not the thugs and the gang-bangers - they kill each other. Gun control only kills the innocent, as it did in the Ft. Hood massacre, by forcing the law-abiding to become helpless victims.
Because whether it is a single mother walking home from the bus stop in Chicago, unable to protect herself thanks to Mayor Daley's hatred of guns, or the soldiers at Ft. Hood, forced to conform to an idiotic "no-guns" policy, the end result is always the same: the innocents pay with their lives.
And those, like your staff, who seem afflicted with a phobia about guns (never the gunmen) only make matters worse.
Journalism is dead.
John Caile
Eden Prairie, MN
www.havegunwillvote.com
612-240-6080
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Serge 11/12/2009 7:03:00 AM
Strange comment from Michael. In the story it says Gottlieb pled guilty to a federal charge of failing to pay a tax debt, and that he got his gun back because he wasn't a violent felon. Michael appears to be defending him by saying he did something worse - tax fraud. Maybe Michael's a gun hater in disguise?
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Michael Z. Williamson 11/12/2009 4:39:00 AM
So how about telling the truth? Gottlieb's crime was "tax fraud" which was paid for on "Work release." Hardly something violent or scary. In fact, it appears to be a lesser crime than most of 0bama's appointees have committed. I assume, of course, you're as critical of them?
Now, the Constitution and SCOTUS say I have a right to keep and bear arms. I'm sorry my freedom is such a problem for you, but you'll have to take your rant off in the corner with the Klan and Fred Phelps and the rest of the hate groups.
And before you dial up the whining, I'm an immigrant from the UK, an Army and AF veteran, an OIF veteran, a staunch supporter of gays, evolution and free speech, and I never listen to talk radio.
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Sean 11/12/2009 1:42:00 AM
Gottlieb, like Tim Eyman, is laughing all the way to the bank as he trades in the paranoia of the less than one third of Americans who are gun owners. I guess if you push enough buttons long enough you end up with a cash machine. This group and this man will not discuss (or will dismiss as conspiracy) the costs of those who insist in inflicting their "gun rights' on the rest of us. The domestic violence killings, the gun accidents in the home involving children, the burglaries that funnel guns to the street, the extremely small number of "self defense" shootings ruled justifiable compared to the number that aren't. Their Kool Aid drinking is costing us dearly.
