I wish Phillip Van Cleve of the VCDL ran the NRA.

As seen in my fellow lefty gun nut's blog:
http://progunprogressive.com/?p=519

Philip,

I tried earlier this afternoon to reach you to talk to you about tomorrow’s meeting of the Virginia Tech review panel. Several of the family members, who plan to attend the meeting, are aware of VCDL’s plans to attend the meeting carrying concealed weapons, and have contacted our office with their concerns.

Obviously, you have every legal right to attend, and to bring a concealed firearm, and we respect that right.

I would ask, though, that you consider the families of victims of a crime involving guns–a very recent crime–who will be present, and what effect your weapons might have on their still-ongoing recovery.

I understand that many of the family members will attend the early parts of the commission meeting, but will not be present during the public comment period that begins at 2:30, which would allow both the victims’ families and members of your group to be a part of the meeting, without significant overlap.

We want to be sure that all voices and opinions are heard as the discussion of this event continues. I believe that you can make your opinion heard, without causing additional pain to the family members of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. We hope you will carefully consider how best to do that.

Brian

In other words, "Please don't exersize your rights, because someone might be OFFENDED OH NO!"


I love how he responds, below:

Brian,

In reference to your request:

1. If our members leave their guns in their cars or if they are carrying concealed, how will anyone know the difference? By definition, they can’t of course. Thus, your request doesn’t make sense to me as a concealed handgun wouldn’t have an affect on anyone.

2. I have already asked our members to consider carrying concealed at this event, if they decide to carry at all. That’s all I can do. VCDL never encourages nor discourages carry by gun owners. I cannot
and would not dictate to any of them.

3. Your request is very insulting for many reasons. Perhaps some examples will clarify:

- Are you contacting the Asian communities and asking that no Asians, or anyone who appear to be of Asian heritage, attend the morning event out of sensitivity to the parents of the murdered VT students? I hope not, because this was the act of a lone madman, not anyone representing any of the Asian communities.

- The police were no where to be found while the murders were happening on two separate occasions and some feel the police bungled the handling of the tragedy. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that many of the families are angry about that. Are you going to tell the police they can’t attend out of sensitivity for the families? Of course not.

It is exactly the same situation for gun owners. VCDL and its members had nothing to do with that tragedy, and in fact we tried to empower adult students with permits to be able to protect themselves in case of just such an emergency. But your request sounds as though you are blaming an inanimate object, a firearm, and not the perpetrator. That is irrational. Are you asking gun owners to skulk in the shadows like they have something to be ashamed of or have done something wrong?

Regards,
Philip

I really despise the fact that we worry too much about offending people, and being offended.