Children Of Shooting Instructor Write Letter To 9 Year Old Who Accidentally Killed Him

In the aftermath of their father’s tragic death, the children of shooting instructor Charlie Vacca have written a letter of forgiveness to the nine-year-old girl who accidentally shot him with an Uzi.

Vacca, a former Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, was standing next to the girl at the Last Stop shooting range in White Hills, Arizona when the strength of the recoil yanked the Uzi upward. He was shot once in the head, and died at a local hospital several hours later. The girl and her family have not been named publically.

Although many have criticized the girl’s parents and the shooting range for letting a nine year old handle an automatic weapon, the four children — Christopher, Tylor, Elizabeth and Ashley, ages 11 through 19 — did not want the media discourse to “overshadow the impact this tragedy has had on everyone involved,” the family’s lawyer said.

In the letter released by their family attorney James Goodnow, Vacca’s children wrote: “You’re only 9 years old. We think about you. We are worried about you. We pray for you. And we wish you peace. Our dad would want the same thing. […] Our dad would want you to know that you should move forward with your life. You should not let this define you.”

Goodnow confirmed that it was the children’s idea to write the letter. “It’s rare to see something so human in a legal situation like this,” he added.

The maturity of the four Vacca children should be an example for all of the pundits who want to turn a clearly heartbreaking event into another news clip or sound bite.

For New Jersey County Prosecutor, A Woman Owning A Gun Is A Worse Crime Than Domestic Abuse

The New Jersey County Prosecutor who let NFL wife beater Ray Rice off the hook is doing everything within his power to send a young mother to prison for accidentally bringing a legally purchased firearm into the state.

Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain, who is being criticized for taking too lenient an approach with Rice, has come down hard on Shaneen Allen, the Philadelphia mom who mistakenly brought a handgun into New Jersey from Pennsylvania earlier this year.

Allen was pulled over for a routine traffic stop a few months after she had purchased a gun to protect herself. Not realizing that her Pennsylvania handgun permit did not apply in New Jersey, she informed the officer that a gun was packed away in the trunk. She was arrested and charged with a felony.

As first time offenders, both Rice and Allen are eligible a diversionary program that would allow them to avoid prison time. While Rice was allowed to take advantage of the program and stay out of jail, McClain has prohibited Allen from doing so.

Now Allen is facing a mandatory three-year prison term while Rice walks away scot-free. At a hearing last month, Allen wiped away tears after a judge denied her motion to dismiss the charges.

Women like Shaneen Allen should have the right to protect themselves. If Rice’s wife Janay had been carrying a weapon, maybe it would have deterred her husband from his vicious attack.

Instead, the New Jersey government believes that a woman owning a gun is a worse crime than domestic abuse.

Rural Sheriffs Standing Up To Gun Control

An increasing number of rural law enforcement officers are refusing to enforce state and federal gun control laws that they believe violate the Second Amendment, according to News 21.

This trend is especially pronounced in states that have very strict gun laws, such as New York and Maryland.

Sheriff Tony Desmond of Scoharie County, New York, has publicly announced that he will not enforce the SAFE Act, the state’s hard line gun control law that passed in 2013.

“If you have an (assault) weapon, which under the SAFE Act is considered illegal, I don’t look at it as being illegal just because someone said it was,” he said.

Other New York Sheriffs, while stopping short of refusing to enforce the SAFE Act outright, are instructing their officers to use personal discretion in punishing violators.

“I feel as an elected official and a chief law enforcement officer of the county it would be irresponsible for me to say, ‘I’m not going to enforce a law I personally disagree with,’” said Sheriff Richard Devlin of Otsego County. “[But] I won’t do anything as far as confiscating weapons. We’re not checking out registrations. People that are lawfully using a firearm for target shooting, we’re not bothering those people.”

According to the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), there are at least 484 sheriffs around the nation who oppose federal gun control in one form or another.  In Colorado, 55 of the state’s 62 sheriffs banded together to sue the state government to overturn the strict gun laws that passed the state legislature in 2013. (The case was dismissed).

The founder of the CSPOA, a former Sheriff from Arizona, says that sheriffs are upholding their duties by opposing gun control.

“I studied what the Founding Fathers meant about the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, and the conclusion is inescapable,” said Richard Mack, the founder of CSPOA. “There’s no way around it. Gun control in America is against the law.”

Crime Plummets In Chicago As Concealed Carry Permits Rise

The crime rate in Chicago, one of the most dangerous cities in the United States, has plummeted since the state of Illinois began granting concealed carry permits last year.

Robberies, burglaries and car thefts have each dropped by more than twenty percent this year. Homicides have also decreased. In the first quarter of 2014, the city’s homicide rate hit a fifty-six year low.

These trends directly contradict the predictions of Chicago’s anti-gun Police superintendent Gerry McCarthy, who said that concealed carry would make the city more dangerous.

“When people say concealed carry, I say Trayvon Martin,” McCarthy told Chicago’s WVON-AM radio in 2013. “The answer to guns is not more guns, and just simply putting guns in people’s hands is going to lead to more tragedy.”

Now that the statistics have proven him wrong, McCarthy is trying to take credit by saying that the dropping crime rate is due to “intelligent policing strategies.”

Richard Pearson, the executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, says that McCarthy is simply trying to cover for his wrongheaded predictions.

“Police haven’t changed one tactic,” he told The Washington Times.  “It isn’t any coincidence crime rates started to go down when concealed carry was permitted. Just the idea that the criminals don’t know who’s armed and who isn’t has a deterrence effect.”

Pearson expects that more than 100,000 Illinois residents will have permits by the end of the year. Cook County, which includes Chicago, currently has the largest number of concealed carry applications in the state.

For The Media, Not All Murders Are Created Equal

Every day, children around the country are murdered for no reason — caught in the crossfire during drive by shootings, killed by abusive parents, murdered in cold blood over silly juvenile disputes. Yet it seems like the only time that anyone pays attention is when the police are the ones that pull the trigger. 

That is why it is so hard to take it seriously when the media goes into a feeding frenzy over something like the events in Ferguson, MO.  Michael Brown didn’t deserve to die, but neither have the dozens of children, many of them who are younger than Brown, who have been killed in the two weeks since Brown’s death.

Here are just a few of the killings that have taken place over the past few days:

• In Georgia, a boy was shot to death just hours after celebrating his 13th birthday.  A 17 year old has been arrested and charged with the crime, which police believe may be a case of mistaken identity. 

• In Chicago, a three year old is in critical condition after accidentally being shot in the head. His father fled the seen and is being sought for questioning. 

• In Pennsylvania, an eighteen year old was shot and killed by a fifteen year old while sitting in a parked car. 

Where were the TV cameras? Where are the protests? Where is Attorney General Eric Holder? 

If politicians and the media devoted half the attention to everyday murders as they do to “police violence”, maybe some of these children would still be alive today. 

NRA’s Nugent Has To Go

Last week, a pro-gun newspaper columnist in South Dakota attacked rocker Ted Nugent for his history of racist remarks, calling on the NRA to cut off its relationship with him. It is a huge relief to finally see a fellow conservative with the guts to call out Nugent. He is nothing more than a racist bigot who gives gun owners a bad name.

Nugent has been saying inflammatory and racist things for decades, using the n-word in interviews and defending South African apartheid. Most recently, he called the president a “subhuman mongrel” and a “chimpanzee” and referred to tribal officials in Idaho as “unclean vermin.”

Of course, Nugent is entitled to his views and free to share them with anyone who will listen. But this doesn’t mean that the NRA should continue to employ him as one of its best-known spokesmen.  

The NRA is a major pillar of the conservative community and it has a responsibility to protect the image of its members and of gun owners as a whole. What kind of message is it sending to voters by employing a spokesman who believes that Africans are a “different breed”?

Maybe the NRA enjoys the attention Nugent generates. Maybe it is afraid of sparking a backlash on the fringe. Maybe it simply doesn’t want to hand a victory to the gun grabbers on the left.

None of these are sufficient reasons to continue supporting Nugent. As a proud gun owner and conservative, I am sick of being associated with him.

Prosecution Of Shaneen Allen Takes Another Step Forward

Shaneen Allen, the single mother who was unfairly charged with a felony for unknowingly violating New Jersey’s gun control laws, took another step toward prison last week when a judge denied her motion to dismiss the charges. Allen will now go to a jury trial. If convicted, she will face a mandatory minimum of three years in prison.

Allen is a Philadelphia resident who was driving through New Jersey when she was pulled over for a routine traffic violation. Having recently completed a firearms training course, she followed correct procedure and informed the officer that she had a handgun stored in the trunk of her car. Because Allen’s gun permit was from Pennsylvania and not from New Jersey, she was arrested and charged with felony gun possession.

It is true that Allen broke the law by having an out-of-state gun in the trunk of her car. Yet she did so unknowingly and she told the police voluntarily. She has no prior criminal record and she poses zero threat to society. If there ever were a case for leniency, this is it.

Yet instead of being reasonable, the Judge and District Attorney are doing everything they can to ruin Allen’s life. In addition to refusing to dismiss her case, the judge last week upheld a decision by the District Attorney to exclude Allen from a diversionary program for first time offenders that would keep her out of prison. They have not provided an explanation as to why she is being excluded from the program.

Why would you go above and beyond to take an innocent woman away from her family? What does it accomplish?

Shaneen Allen’s case is what happens when the tyranny and bureaucracy of gun control are allowed to go unchecked.