D.C. United

Two events during the past month have demonstrated with striking clarity the viewpoint of D.C. residents regarding gun violence and firearm regulation.

The first was the "Second Amendment March," which took place at the Washington Monument on the National Mall on April 19. Organized by Skip Coryell, a gun enthusiast from Michigan, the mission of the rally was “to galvanize the courage and resolve of Americans; to petition our elected officials against establishing anti-gun legislation; and to remind America that the Second Amendment is necessary to maintain our right to self defense.”

Approximately 2,000 individuals from across the country listened to far-right-wing speakers like Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt tell them, "We're in a war. The other side knows they are at war, because they started it. They are coming for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They are coming for everything because they are a bunch of Socialists." For his part, Skip Coryell opined that his God-given rights were being infringed because he could not carry a fully automatic assault rifle on the National Mall.

Few—if any—residents of the District of the Columbia attended the rally.

Nearly three weeks later on May 5, D.C.’s elected officials, local victims of gun violence, voting rights organizations, and community groups stood together at a press conference to denounce legislation that would dramatically weaken the city’s gun laws. S. 3265/H.R. 5162, the “Second Amendment Enforcement Act,” was recently introduced in Congress by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Jon Tester (D-MT) and Representatives Travis Childers (D-MS) and Mark Souder (R-IN). Drafted by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the legislation would legalize assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines in the nation’s capital; repeal the District's licensing and registration system; allow some convicted substance abusers and violent misdemeanants to purchase and own firearms; roll back important regulations curbing illegal gun trafficking; and prevent the D.C. Council from enacting gun-related legislation in the future.

Speaking at the press conference at city hall were D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty; D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray; and Council Members Phil Mendelson, Michael Brown, David Catania, Marion Barry, Harry Thomas, Jr. and Muriel Bowser. Last month, the council unanimously approved a resolution that stated their opposition to “any [legislation] that would restrict the Council’s authority to legislate laws or regulations that restrict the private ownership or use of firearms or that would repeal major portions of the District’s firearms regulation law.” They were joined at the event by local and national organizations including Reaching Out to Others Together (ROOT), the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, DC for Democracy, DC Vote, Peaceoholics, Inner Thoughts and Safe in the Streetz.

The most powerful testimony, however, came from family members who lost loved ones
to gun violence in the District. This included Nardyne Jefferies, whose 16-year-old daughter Brishell Jones was killed in the March 30 mass shooting in Southeast Washington involving an AK-47; Brishell’s two grandmothers; and Norman Williams, who lost his son Jordan Howe in the March 30 shooting. Williams had a decidedly different take on assault rifles than Skip Coryell. “Those weapons belong in Afghanistan or something,” Williams said. “They don’t belong here.” Nardyne Jefferies agreed, noting the damage such a weapon had done to her daughter.

After the press conference, these gun violence survivors traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. In a statement this week, Del. Norton said, “I am grateful that the victims of last month's massacre are not standing alone, but have been joined by the voting rights coalition and organizations that have always stood up for our right to enact gun safety laws. Together we must expose Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate who profess to be for self-government, and then sponsor bills to take away the self-governing rights of the District of Columbia, even though the federal courts have now found the District's new gun laws to be constitutional."

Mayor Fenty agreed with these sentiments, saying, “Any introduction of a law which would introduce more guns into the streets of Washington, D.C. would be a law that would set us back from a public safety standpoint. Great to see the unity here today. Great to see everybody coming out saying, ‘Let’s have less guns. Let’s continue to reduce crime in Washington, D.C.’”

Kenny Barnes, the founder of ROOT who organized the press conference, was even more effusive. “Incredible, what took place today,” he said. “It was historic, and we’re all united to try to stop violence.”

Anarchy and Vigilantism

On May 31, Americans across the country were shocked to learn that Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider, had been shot and killed in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. Just three hours after the shooting, authorities apprehended a suspect—Scott P. Roeder of Merriam, Kansas—on Interstate 35.

Initial reporting on the case linked the murder to Roeder’s extensive history as a pro-life activist. One Kansas City pro-life protestor, Regina Dinwiddie, commented that Roeder, “believed in justifiable homicide. I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.” A September 3, 2007, post from a “Scott Roeder” on the website www.chargetiller.com reads as follows: “It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the ‘lawlessness’ which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp ‘Mengele’ of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgment upon our nation.”

Subsequent investigation, however, revealed that Roeder’s ties to right wing extremist groups were far more extensive. In the words of Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman, Roeder’s “extremism cross-pollinated between anti-government extremism and anti-abortion activism.”

In April 1996, Roeder was pulled over in Topeka, Kansas, for driving with a homemade license plate. Police found a military-style rifle, ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder, and two 9-volt batteries in his car. He was subsequently convicted on one count of criminal use of explosives and several driving-related misdemeanors, and ordered to stop associating with violent anti-government groups. The convictions were overturned on appeal a year later, however, after a court determined that the evidence was illegally gathered.

At the time, the FBI listed Roeder as a member of the Montana Freemen, a radical anti-government group. From March-June 1996, the group engaged in an armed standoff with FBI agents who were attempting to serve warrants at their compound. Federal prosecutors had alleged that Freemen members wrote worthless checks and money orders to pay taxes and to defraud banks and credit card companies. Though no shots were fired, the heavily-armed Freemen remained in their Jordan, Montana, compound for 81 days before allowing the FBI to enter. Several of the group’s members were subsequently convicted on a range of charges.

This information suggests that Roeder’s killing of Dr. Tiller could be the latest manifestation of the Department of Homeland Security’s warning that, “the combination of environmental factors that echo the 1990s, including heightened interest in legislation for tighter firearms restrictions and returning military veterans, as well as several new trends, including an uncertain economy and a perceived rising influence of other countries, may be invigorating rightwing extremist activity, specifically the white supremacist and militia movements.” One cannot ignore the parallels between Roeder and right-wing extremists like Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski, who killed three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in April; Joshua Cartwright, who killed two police officers in the Florida panhandle in April; and Jim Adkisson, who killed two parishioners at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in July 2008.

It is unclear at this point what type of gun Roeder used in the shooting or how he acquired it. Because Roeder’s felony conviction for criminal use of explosives was thrown out in the late 1990s, that would not have stopped him from passing a criminal background check. During a custody battle over a girl Roeder claimed was his daughter, a 2005 court ruling noted that Roeder had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and did not take medication, "which may pose a clear and present danger to the minor child." Had Roeder been adjudicated “mentally defective” or involuntarily committed to a mental institution, he would have been prohibited under federal law from purchasing or owning firearms.

Though the shooting of Dr. Tiller has obvious religious overtones due to Roeder’s pro-life activism, it is also clear that Roeder felt that violence was an appropriate way to oppose what he viewed as an illegitimate government that refused to ban abortion. Such insurrectionist beliefs pose a direct threat to any constitutional democracy, a fact recently noted by conservative FOX commentator Bill O’Reilly, who said, “Anarchy and vigilantism will assure the collapse of any society. Once the rule of law breaks down, a country is finished. Thus, clear-thinking Americans should condemn the murder of late-term abortionist Tiller. Even though the man terminated thousands of pregnancies, what he did is within Kansas law.”

Zero Tolerance

While the Second Amendment has traditionally been a sacred cow for pro-gun activists, it would appear that the First Amendment isn’t accorded the same degree of respect in their ranks, as evidenced by the unfortunate case of Dan Cooper.

On October 28, USA Today published an interview with Cooper, the president and founder of Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc., in which he admitted—to the horror of pro-gun extremists across America—his support for Democratic presidential candidate (and now president-elect) Barack Obama. Almost immediately, thousands of angry comments flooded the internet, including missives such as “This guy needs to be crushed as an example to others” and “Cooper Arms is unrepentant, arrogant, and needs to be bitch slapped HARD!” Simultaneously, pro-gun activists obtained Cooper Firearms’ dealer list and posted it online, urging gun buyers to contact these retailers and threaten a boycott if they didn’t stop selling the company’s rifles.

The outrage that Dan Cooper’s endorsement sparked in right wing circles had its genesis in the National Rifle Association’s $15 million political campaign to portray Senator Obama as someone who would ban all firearms and go down as “the most anti-gun president in American history.” Never mind that FactCheck.org and Newsweek, among others, thoroughly debunked these claims. Never mind that Dan Cooper spoke to Senator Obama personally and concluded that “he is a staunch supporter of the right to hunt and the right to bear arms.” His punishment for breaking with gun lobby orthodoxy—for having his own political views—was swift and brutal.

Just two days after the USA Today interview appeared, the Board of Directors at Cooper Firearms asked Dan Cooper to resign. Dan agreed to do so, stating, “There is nothing on this earth I will not do for my employees … we have fought through 20 years of building what I believe to be the finest rifles built in America … When the internet anger turned on these innocent people, I felt it was important to distance myself from the company so as not to cause any further harm.”

This is not the first time that pro-gun activists have attacked one of their own. Last year, Jim Zumbo, staff writer for Outdoor Life magazine and the host of a television show on the Outdoor Channel, saw his career destroyed when he wrote about assault rifles: “Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I’ll go so far as to call them ‘terrorist’ rifles.”

It is notable that none of Dan Cooper’s critics have questioned his management of his business, or the quality of the long guns that Cooper Firearms manufactures. Cooper’s only “sin” was to embrace Senator Obama’s vision regarding “the retooling of America, which involves the building of middle-class jobs and helping American small business be competitive with those overseas”…an important issue for Americans across the country who handed the Democrat a landslide victory in the presidential election on November 4.

By forcing a man into resigning from a company that he himself created, the National Rifle Association and its supporters on the far right have provided America with a stark reminder of the lengths they will go to in order to silence debate within the gun industry. Bob Ricker, executive director of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), has said that the campaign against Dan Cooper is “really McCarthyism at its worst.” AHSA president Ray Schoenke has called on “rank and file gun owners who have no political ax to grind…to stand up, reject such underhanded tactics and have their voices heard.”

We hope they will heed this call—and maybe save a good man’s career before it is too late.