Posts Tagged ‘Alan Gottlieb’
Russian Gun Rights Congress
Wednesday, November 6th, 2013The II Congress of the movement of The Right to Arms was held on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 2013. IAPCAR Directors Julianne Versnel and Alan Gottlieb attended and addressed the conference. Also in attendance was Gary Burris, President of U.S. IAPCAR affiliate group LSSA. Representatives of various regions of Russia, political parties, countries, associations, and public officials, met to discuss issues of international cooperation, the development of weapons of culture and improvement of state regulation in the field of weapons legislation.
Articles and pictures on the conference also available from the IAPCAR affiliate Right to Arms here and here.
Russian Gun Rights Congress
By Gary Burris, LSSA President
The Lone Star Shooting Association (LSSA) was invited to speak at the All-Russian Gun Rights Congress held in Moscow, Russia, on 31 October 2013. Chairman of that organization, Maria Butina, invited a number of the members of the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) to the meeting. Our good friends Alan Gottlieb and Julianne Versnel were there representing the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) as well as IAPCAR.
Maria asked me to address the Gun Rights Congress on a series of questions regarding American citizens’ gun rights.
Here in the USA we have to constantly be on guard to protect our gun rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment to our Constitution. In my opinion there are three main groups of people who are a threat to our human right of self-preservation and self-defense.
First there is the ignorant group. I believe this to be the largest group and perhaps the easiest to deal with. The people in this group are for the most part well intentioned. They are under the false assumption that if you had laws restricting the use of firearms by law-abiding citizens then violent crimes involving firearms will stop. Logic and statistics will go a long way in correcting this misconception, after all criminals do not obey laws by definition. So, part of the mission of LSSA is to inform the public and educate them in the use of firearms for recreational and self-defense purposes.
The second group is just plain stupid. I once had a boss who told me that you could fix ignorance with education but that you cannot fix stupid. This group is the most dangerous when it comes to attacking our human right to self-preservation. Typically members of this group are liberal politicians who feel the need to impose their will on the people. And of course they have a large following of stupid people. Even when the majority of citizens who elected them to office are in favor of gun rights, they (being elite and knowing what is best for the masses) will endeavor to remove the citizens’ rights and freedoms “for their own good.” The conclusion is that it is a waste of time to try to deal with this group.
The last group is apathetic. They seem to live in their own world and cannot be bothered with what they consider to be mundane issues that don’t involve them. Often they realize too late that they have lost a freedom by doing nothing. This group is recognizable by their absence from the voting booth. Members of this group are typically young and more concerned about their social media tweet or Facebook image than they are about their right to bear arms. The LSSA youth training program is trying to address this issue.
Now we come to the issues facing Russian citizens. Maria and her organization are doing a great job in their fight for gun rights. This is the current situation for gun owners in Russia:
- Citizens can own and carry pistols that shoot rubber bullets with up to 91 Joules of energy (non-lethal) but must have permission from the police to carry concealed.
- Citizens cannot own pistols or revolvers and keep them at home nor can they carry them if they shoot real bullets.
- Citizens can own and keep at home long guns for self-defense. This includes shotguns, rifles, teargas, non-lethal and air-soft.
- No specific caliber restrictions but magazine capacity is restricted to 10.
- A Russian citizen must own a smooth bore long gun for a minimum of 5 years without having any legal issues before he is able to purchase a rifled firearm.
The purchase of firearms by Russian civilians is regulated by a 1996 law “On Weapons.” This law is vague and gaps in the law are covered by orders of the Minister of Interior and government regulations. This creates a bureaucracy of red tape and forms the civilian must navigate in order to purchase a firearm.
Unlike here in the USA where the media is anti-gun for the most part, Russians are fortunate in that the media seems to be neutral on the issue of ownership of firearms by civilians. Russian media appears to be more representative of the citizens and are therefore eager to learn about the ownership and use of firearms.
It is illegal to advertize firearms in Russia so you will not find a sales brochure insert in your local paper nor will you see anything on TV related to the purchase of firearms. For this reason a large portion of the public is unaware of laws and their rights to own a firearm. And as usual if people are uninformed about their rights to self-defense they tend to oppose ownership of firearms.
So what is the path forward for Russian citizens and what can others do to help them in their quest for the freedom of self-defense? Obviously, Maria and her organization must continue with their efforts. Several powerful Russian politicians were in attendance at the Gun Rights Congress and support Maria’s work. This is a great step in the right direction because gun rights are clearly political issues around the world. Recognizing that self-preservation is a human right is the first step in securing the right of self-defense.
I noted that there have been some IPSC and IDPA matches in Russia. IPSC tends to be run and gun where IDPA is more practical. LSSA is a combination of the two with fewer rules, easier scoring system and a lot of fun. I would like to see shooting clubs in Russia start holding LSSA 3-gun matches. Take the example of Italy that held over 50 LSSA matches last year. Some were shotgun or rifle only and others were a combination of the two. In the coming year they will hold pistol only and a combination of all three types of guns in the same match. LSSA even has a set of rules for air-soft matches. Rules are very simple and membership is only 5 Euros per year. Additionally, LSSA was able to prevent the Italian bill 29/2012 from becoming law that would have restricted ownership of military look alike firearms, i.e. the AR-15. Because we used these firearms in shooting competitions we were able to show that they are used for sporting activities and should not therefore be restricted. The proposed law was withdrawn from consideration by the Italian authorities.
The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (http://iapcar.org/) is the only worldwide political action group focusing on the human right to keep and bear arms. Founded in 2010, IAPCAR has grown to 25 major gun-rights organizations and conducts operations designed to inform the public and promote the right of self-defense and gun-ownership.
Main Conference
Alan Gottlieb, SAF, CCRKBA, IAPCAR
Julianne Versnel, SAF, IAPCAR
Gary Burris, LSSA
Alexander Torshin, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council
U.N. global gun control effort begins anew
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013Via Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
New talks about an old subject – international gun control – begin today at the United Nations in New York, and sure to be involved at some point is the Bellevue-based International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), founded with the cornerstone involvement of gun rights advocates Alan Gottlieb and Julianne Versnel.
IAPCAR Executive Director Phil Watson keeps an office at Gottlieb’s Liberty Park complex. Attorney Mark Barnes is IAPCAR’s managing director with an office in Washington, D.C.
In addition, the National Rifle Association is keenly interested in these talks. Indeed, U.S. gun rights organizations have every reason for alarm, in the wake of a statement published Friday by the Washington Post from Amnesty International’s Michelle A. Ringuette.
“The NRA claim that there is such a thing as ‘civilian weapons’ and that these can and need to be treated differently from military weapons under the Arms Trade Treaty is — to put it politely — the gun lobby’s creativity on full display,” Ringuette insisted, according to the newspaper. “There is no such distinction. To try to create one would create a loophole that would render the treaty inoperative, as anyone could claim that he or she was in the business of trading ‘civilian weapons.’ ”
This suggests that global gun banners equate rifles and shotguns with tanks and surface-to-air missiles. For example, during last Thursday’s Senate Judiciary debate on her gun ban legislation, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) defended her efforts to ban “just a few guns” and leave others alone by arguing, “Is this not enough for the people of the United States? Do they need a bazooka?”
Raising further alarms is the fact that within hours of confirming his re-election in November. President Barack Obama had joined a handful of other nations to rekindle the U.N.’s long-running effort to adopt an international gun control treaty. Gottlieb, who heads the Second Amendment Foundation, raised alarms about this last Nov. 7.
Amnesty International is part of an international gun control group called IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms). That group also includes the Brady Campaign for the Prevention of Gun Violence, and the Law Center for Smart Gun Laws (LCSGL).
It could be that the deck has been carefully stacked by the U.N. According to Fox News, last week, IANSA co-hosted – with the UN – a “series of meetings” with representatives from 48 African nations to push global gun control. The session was held in Addis Ababa, Ethopia.
Gottlieb was in Europe recently attending a meeting of the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting, and he takes the threat of global gun control seriously. That the U.N. is hosting these talks on American soil, in a building that has a statute out front of a Colt Python with its barrel twisted into a knot is a not-so-subtle insult to the Second Amendment and American firearms owners.
Gun rights leaders are warning American gun owners that this is not the time to become complacent, or to be entirely focused on state-level gun control measures, or bills passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s effort to renew and make permanent a ban on so-called “assault rifles” and ammunition magazines.
That all of this is occurring at the same time – barely two months into Obama’s second term – does not seem coincidental to some activists, who are now saying “We warned you.”
26 NEW CO-SPONSORS TO 2A PROTECTION ACT IS ‘GOOD NEWS,’ SAYS CCRKBA
Thursday, July 19th, 2012Original Story Via: TheGunMag.com
Twenty-six more members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors to the Second Amendment Protection Act, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms announced today.
“This is good news,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “With a vote looming on the proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, this sends a clear message to the Obama administration that the president will face real trouble if he or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signs any document that threatens our constitutionally-protected individual right to keep and bear arms.”
Sponsored by Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, H.R. 3594 was written with help from CCRKBA staff, Gottlieb noted. It now has 60 co-sponsors, and has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. CCRKBA has been urging members and supporters to contact Congress and demand action on this bill.
“The U.N. is scheduled to vote on the proposed treaty next week,” Gottlieb said. “Right now they are pushing to include small arms and ammunition, and because the Devil is always in the details, when they finally hammer out a document that the Obama administration has already indicated it will sign, this could be extremely bad for American gun owners.
“Fortunately, Congressman Walsh had the foresight to understand this,” he continued, “so he introduced this legislation to protect Second Amendment sovereignty. We want the United Nations gun grabbers, and the Obama administration to understand that they are treading in perilous waters if they adopt a treaty that even remotely threatens the firearms freedoms of our citizens.
“We are coming down to the wire on this treaty,” Gottlieb stated. “Our constitutional rights far outweigh the administration’s desire to push its ‘citizen-of-the-world’ philosophy down the throats of American gun owners. We want to see action on the Second Amendment Protection Act, and with 26 new co-sponsors, we are one step closer to achieving that goal.”
With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org
Palestinian status snit delays UN ATT talks
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012Original Story Via Dave Workman, Gun Rights Examiner
American gun rights advocates might thank the Palestinians and their supporters for delaying, until Tuesday afternoon, anyway, the start of the long-awaited Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) negotiations at the United Nations, although it leaves two key players from Washington State in a bit of a lurch.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and his wife, Julianne, have been key players in organizing the opposition to the ATT. Both are planning to be at the U.N. sometime during the negotiation process. It is widely known that CCRKBA staff had a role in crafting legislation sponsored by Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) that would protect the Second Amendment from any such international treaty.
The session is now scheduled to begin at noon Pacific Time. It is not clear when representatives from Non-Government Organizations (NGO) will get to speak. Not only will the Gottliebs be attending at some point, so also is Wayne LaPierre from the National Rifle Association.
What has become clear lately is that despite the eagerness of many U.N. members to adopt some sort of treaty, there is opposition from powerful corners, including China and Russia.
The United States under Barack Obama reversed position a couple of years ago, and now officially supports a treaty, but that does not mean the document has a chance of getting through the Senate ratification process. If there is any question about Unites States constitutional sovereignty, the ATT is probably a non-starter.
Alan Gottlieb has been working to counter international gun control efforts for several years. He was a key player in the formation of IAPCAR, the International Association for Protection of Civilian Arms Rights. Both Gottliebs have been back and forth to Europe several times, participating in the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities.
The irony about Obama’s support for the treaty should not be lost on gun owners following the Fast and Furious debacle. While the current administration wants to clamp down on global gun trafficking, it continues withholding documents key to the investigation of that scandal by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
While President Obama will apparently sign the treaty – which proponents want to be legally binding – his own attorney general stands in contempt of Congress.
Wednesday is Independence Day, but there could be fireworks of the political variety starting Tuesday afternoon, and continuing through the month.
IAPCAR Featured in July Gun Trade World
Thursday, June 14th, 2012Click here to view article: IAPCAR GunTradeWorld Article
IAPCAR Says “G’day, Mate” to Australian Gun Rights Group
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012Original Story VIA: Guns.com
The Firearm Owners Association of Australia (FOAA) has joined up with the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR).
The more the merrier!
When talking guns rights, the thing that we Americans tend to discuss the most is the Second Amendment, and since the US Constitution really only applies to the US (of course) it’s not always clear how other countries handle gun rights. Well, all over the world people want to carry guns to protect their families against threats. Even if the flag they wave looks different, that basic desire will always be present.
The international force for gun rights has just gotten a little bit beefier now that our Aussie buddies have teamed up with IAPCAR. This new addition officially means that IAPCAR has representation from every single continent.
Philip Watson, the Executive Director of IAPCAR, was thrilled about the news, “IAPCAR’s steady growth over the past two years has been gratifying.” Chairman Alan Gottleib of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, which has been a central organization in IAPCAR, welcomed “our colleagues from Down Under.”
These increased numbers may give IAPCAR the added influence it needs to oppose the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty coming up this July.
With IAPCAR’s membership now encompassing 21 affiliated groups spread across 12 different nations, it’s only a mere 6.6 billion members away from being able to secure universal gun rights.
IAPCAR WELCOMES COSTA RICAN GUN RIGHTS GROUP
Tuesday, May 15th, 2012Original Story VIA: TheGunMag.com
BELLEVUE, WA – Pro Defensa of Costa Rica is the latest organization to join forces with the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), which now boasts 22 affiliated groups in 14 different nations around the globe.
With member groups on every continent, IAPCAR executive director Philip Watson has been elated with the positive response the group has received.
“IAPCAR’s steady growth has been a welcome sign among those that love freedom,” Watson noted, “it proves that people in every corner of the world believe in the right to keep and bear arms. Personal security and the defense of one’s home and family are values shared across international borders, regardless of nationality or ethnic origin.”
“We are very excited to be the newest and proudest member of IAPCAR,” said Pro Defensa’s Miguel Cifuentes.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was instrumental in creating IAPCAR, Gottlieb was pleased to have Pro Defensa as IAPCAR’s newest affiliate.
“We are excited to welcome our friends from Costa Rica,” he observed. “Gun owners in Costa Rica are currently facing some tough regulatory actions on gun registration and severe penalties for improper registration, we can learn a great deal from each other in our effort to protect firearms rights around the world.”
The United Nations prepares to consider an Arms Trade Treaty this July, placing many arms rights groups at odds with global gun control advocates. “IAPCAR will strongly oppose any UN treaty infringing on national sovereignty or individual gun rights,” noted Julianne Versnel, director of operations at the Second Amendment Foundation, the second influential gun rights group instrumental in forming IAPCAR.
IAPCAR Welomes Australian Gun Rights Organization
Thursday, May 10th, 2012Story Via: TheGunMag.com
BELLEVUE, WA – The Firearms Owners Association of Australia (FOAA) has become the latest organization to join forces with the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), which now boasts 21 affiliated groups in 12 different nations around the globe.
According to IAPCAR Executive Director Philip Watson, the affiliation of one of Australia’s premier firearm owners’ groups with IAPCAR means there is now representation from every continent.
“IAPCAR’s steady growth over the past two years has been gratifying,” Watson noted, “because it proves that firearms owners from every corner of the world believe in their right to keep and bear arms. Personal security and the defense of one’s home and family are values shared across international borders, regardless of an individual’s background or nationality.”
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was instrumental in creating IAPCAR, and he was delighted that FOAA is now affiliated.
“We welcome our colleagues from Down Under,” he observed. “Australian gun owners have had unique experiences over the years with firearms regulations and gun prohibitionists, and we can learn a great deal from each other in our effort to protect firearms rights around the world.”
Timing of the announcement is important, because this boosts the influence of the international gun rights movement as the United Nations prepares to consider an Arms Trade Treaty in July. IAPCAR strongly opposes such a treaty if it infringes on national sovereignty or individual rights, noted Julianne Versnel, director of operations at the Second Amendment Foundation, which was also instrumental in launching IAPCAR.
The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (www.iapcar.org) is the only worldwide political action group focusing on the human right to keep and bear arms. Founded in 2010, IAPCAR has grown to more than 20 major gun-rights organizations and conducts campaigns designed to inform the public and promote the right of self-defense and gun-ownership.
Russian Gun Rights Group Joins IAPCAR
Friday, May 4th, 2012Original Story VIA: TheGunMag.com
BELLEVUE, WA – The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) added Russia’s The Right to Arms as its newest member working to protect and expand the right to keep and bear arms around the globe. Right to Arms joins a coalition of 20 other groups from 11 countries on five different continents that represent millions of firearm owners and citizens concerned about civilian arms rights.
“IAPCAR is quickly expanding as the premier international arms rights organization with groups like Right to Arms as new allies in securing the human right to keep and bear arms,” said IAPCAR executive director, Philip Watson.
“The push for civilian arms rights continues to grow at a fast pace as this week we’ve added ANARMA of Spain and now Right to Arms of Russia as new members.” Watson observed.
“It is a great honor for our group to join IAPCAR,” said Right to Arms chairman Maria Butina. As Russia’s highest profile gun rights advocacy organization, Right to Arms also runs the popular website (http://vooruzhen.ru/).
Julianne Versnel, director of operations for the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Alan Gottlieb, Chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) established IAPCAR to serve as a vehicle to unify arms rights groups against international threats to the human right of self-defense and the legitimate use of guns.
“IAPCAR strongly opposes any U.N. Arms Trade Treaty that infringes on national sovereignty and civilian arms rights for self-defense,” said SAF’s Versnel.
CCRKBA’s Gottlieb added, “The growth of this international movement to protect the individual right to keep and bear arms is an unprecedented advancement for freedom.”