Gunowners' Rally in Jefferson City by Brad Alpert Our Second Amendment Rally at the state capitol in Jefferson City is history now. One thousand (by my count) gunners - all attired in the garb of commerce and workaday America - made the trek to the Rotunda and demanded recognition of the right to keep and bear arms which is the due of every American citizen. The event was a "working rally", one designed to get a mass of concerned citizens together in one place and aim them at their legislators, who were in session that day. Following brief remarks by a few selected speakers, the attendees grabbed legislative directories provided by the Missouri Legislative Issues Council and proceeded to seek out their elected officials and explain to them why it is important for them give full support for the right-to-carry legislation which is being sheparded through the General Assembly by Senator Harold Caskey and others. This legislation has an excellent prospect of passage through both chambers this year (thanks in very large measure to the heavy gunowner turnout on November 8th) and will, in all likelihood, land on Governor Mel Carnahan's desk in the near future. Although Carnahan may defy the popular will, clearly expressed, and veto the measure, he will do so at considerable political risk - as the electorate, according to poll data, strongly supports the right of the common citizen to discretely carry the most effective means of defense against criminal attack. The speakers included John Ross, WMSA's own Kevin Jamison, Senator Danny Staples, Greg Jeffery of SAC/MO, lobbyist and MoLIC heavyweight Steve Coleman, a policeman from Springfield whose name I didn't catch, Neal Knox (needing no introduction among *THIS* readership!), our new ILA State & Local Liaison John Hosford, and my very good friend Leroy Pyle, who had arrived in KC for a short visit two days before. Some of you may know Leroy as the police officer in San Jose, CA who suffered under the regime of gungrabber police chief and HCI Board Member Joseph McNamara. Leroy braved demotions, censure, crummy assignments, and attempts at termination all aimed at silencing his outspoken support of our RKBA without flinching, going on to win election to the NRA Board of Directors and to co-found "Law Enforcement for the Preservation of the Second Amendment" (LEPSA), and then to be appointed as first Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America. More recently, in 1992 he founded the Paul Revere Network, a national, network of volunteer Second Amendment activists who have linked their computer systems together in an attempt to share grassroots strategy and develop net-wide action plans. In his impromptu remarks (impromptu because he didn't know he was going to speak until Neal spotted him and drafted him into service), Leroy made some telling points from a perspective of 27-years in active law enforcement. He pointed out that all current gun control efforts were being carried on the backs of police officers, who were supposedly "outgunned" by "drug-crazed killers with their semiautomatic assault weapons which were designed only for killing people". He asked whether anybody had stopped to wonder about the fact that those very same guns are carried by police officers every day and they aren't used by these officers to kill people, rather, they were used to protect people. In other words, what kind of human being would even want to use something that was "only good for killing people", and moveover, isn't it a direct slap in every honest cop's face to suggest that a basic tool of his trade is so designed? Leroy brought out the fact that the media consistently claims that police officials uniformly oppose reform of concealed carry and other pro-gun legislation, as though these people somehow represent the line cops out on the street - which is as ridiculous as saying that Lee Iacocca represents the specific interests of Chrysler assembly-line workers when he speaks on behalf of advancing Chrysler's agenda. Finally, in a jibe that I think applied perfectly to KCMO Police Chief Stephen Bishop, he said "What would people have thought of Elliott Ness if, instead of getting out and confronting the Mafia, he'd holed up in his office and sniveled about Al Capone's machine guns?" So Leroy, thanks for the new perspective on where real cops stand on gun rights. I guess this means you've forgiven us for sending "Banana Joe" McNamara to San Jose? In making the rounds to lobby my own elected things, it occurred to me that both of them (Harold Caskey and Vicki Hartzler) were rated either A or A+ rated by NRA. And so, after brief visits to their offices, I branched out and attempted to visit the offices of every other known staunch progunner of whom I was aware in order to drop off thank-you notes. I dropped in on the offices of Don Lograsso, Luann Ridgeway, David Klarich, and several other gunrights superstars serving in the General Assembly. Rewarding our friends is as important as punishing our enemies. There was absolutely no coverage of this event in the KC media market. None! The Associated Press broadcast it on the newswire and some central Missouri media organs carried the AP version which reported "scores" of participants. Given that there was easily an attendance of one thousand people, this reportage must surely qualify the Jefferson City office of the Associated Press for the "Pravda Award for Objective News Reporting". Last year, at least, the Kansas City Star gave token coverage to the rally, even crediting "several hundred" attendees (there were 600 of us and there would have been far more if the winter's worst blizzard hadn't disrupted many peoples' travel plans). It is my opinion that the news blackout is indicative of a perception of our growing strength and political viability, and so, it may be that, to an extent, "no news is good news!". --- WM v3.01/92-0211 * Origin: PRN/CENTRAL (176:200/0.0) 0SEEN-BY: 100/50 800 200/0 1 3 6 7 8 10 16 19 20 26 30 31 36 37 39 48 100 280/70 0SEEN-BY: 300/0 400/0 2 4 6 8 9 13 15 16 17 19 22 24 28 29 32 34 35 100 500/0 0SEEN-BY: 600/0 700/0 0PATH: 200/0 100/50 400/0