Virginia gunshop to go ahead with free gun giveaway despite massacre
Richard Asshat Hill, manager of Bob Asshat Moates Sports Shop near Richmond, displays a pistol and tickets for the “Bloomberg Gun Giveaway” on Thursday, April 19.
You might think that in the wake of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, a gunshop in the same state would call off plans for a free gun giveaway scheduled for that week. You might think that, but you would be wrong. This, after all, is Virginia.
Despite yesterday’s tragic events at Virginia Tech, a clerk at Bob Moates said the draw would still go ahead. It will underline the unbending adherence of many Virginians to the right to bear arms – the state has been ranked as the second easiest in the country in which to buy guns – in the face of renewed calls for tighter gun control.
The gun giveaway was conceived as an in-your-face response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, who is suing the two Virginia gunshops for selling firearms illegally. Bloomberg’s complaint is that 90% of the weapons used to commit crimes in New York originate in Virginia and other states, where it’s easy as pie to get yourself a nice killing machine.
The winner of the drawing will receive a Para-Ordnance handgun worth about $900.
42 Responses to “Virginia gunshop to go ahead with free gun giveaway despite massacre”
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Infidel says:
Are you making this shit up?
April 17th, 2007 at 4:50 pm EST -
Violet says:
I wish.
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foilwoman says:
I think this is one of those “only in America” moments, added your rule regarding the IQ of NRA members and multiplied by the general ignorance and inability to detect tone or provide appropriate emotional and other reponses of many bubbas (yes, I know there are many fine Bubbas out there, but Richard Asshat Hill ain’t one of ‘em): the combination of the total ignorance, stupidity, tone-deafness and overall asshatery results in situations like this one. Un-freakingbelievable.
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Kaitlyn says:
That’s insane – it can’t be true, I hope somebody protests.
Somebody from VT who survived, someone who lost a kid or sibling or parent at VT – this is insane!
My dad’s a cop – you don’t touch dad’s gun.
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MyFave says:
My favorite bit about this is that all the trolls are using this as an excuse for why gun control could never work anyway. Sure, it’s easier to buy an unregistered Uzi than a bag of pot in VA, but VT was a gun-free campus (so unlike all those “bring as many guns as possible! you can’t have candles in your room, but you can have two glocks!” campuses), and since this guy brought a gun anyway, well it just goes to show that outlaws won’t follow the rules and it’s just pointless to even have them. Their logic is not like our Earth logic.
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manxome says:
Virginia is so full of morons. Morons with guns.
Longtime customer Scott Cashion, 31, of Chesterfield, said he has earned six or seven tickets — and may end up with more to get back at Bloomberg.
“I bought some kind of for spite,” he said while looking over a stack of ammunition.”
This law-abiding citizen (‘cuz they all are, of course, ’til they’re not, but shhhh those don’t count) is arming himself to the gills “for spite” to “get back at” someone who is, um, trying to keep gun sales lawful and I’m supposed to wave the flag or something? (Confederate, of course)
Wouldn’t a law abiding citizen want laws to be, um, abided by?
“The best way to get guns off the street and criminals off the street is to lock ‘em up,” [store manager] Hill said.
Um, how can you lock up a criminal who uses a gun before they commit a heinous crime with the gun? Oh, I know! You can not sell the gun to them them illegally, and there’d be a few less dead people, to boot!
But seriously, if you really wanna lock somone up before they commit a crime, I’d start with Scott Cashion.
I use ‘um’ a lot in the spring, when the flowers bloom, and the smell of cognitive dissonance in the air.
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Ann Bartow says:
In South Carolina children can legally own firearms other than handguns. And do.
FWIW, there is a state gun law database here: http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation/state/
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will says:
I am getting the impression that you are not going to take my class.
Come sit in for free. Wait, have you already done it?
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Mamacita says:
I want in! Let’s get a group together and start a “trend.” Maybe the “purse gun” will be Hollywood’s next big item?
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Steven says:
Well, maybe if some of the students and professors were armed this would not have been such a slaughter.
In previous incidents where students (off duty cops or civilians) were armed the psycho killer was stopped.
The school was already a “gun free zone” …. that didn’t work out so well now did it?
Give it some thought
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simply wondered says:
steven – hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please write more comedy for us; we need a laugh
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Steven says:
No problem simply,
But what is comical is that in a place with tigher gun control laws, especially a “gun free zone” what you end up with unarmed citizens who cannot defend themselves.
Can you logically argue that if some of the students had had weapons that they would not have / could not have defended themselves?
Washington DC has some of the tightest gun control laws in the U.S. and some of the highest crime rates (with use of a weapon) in the U.S.
Communities with gun laws that allow citizens to regularly carry CCW (Carry Concealed) have some of the LOWEST crime rates as related to guns.
Soooooo, tell me again how tighter gun control laws make people safer?
Also, people like Rosie O’Donnel live in GATED communities, with armed guards, and have armed body guards. But she’s against guns!? Only for you and me. Some for me, but not for thee seems to be her thinking.
Give it some thought.
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cicely says:
Communities with gun laws that allow citizens to regularly carry CCW (Carry Concealed) have some of the LOWEST crime rates as related to guns.
From what I understand, Steven, the fewer guns in a community the fewer shootings, funnily enough. There have been 25 school or campus shootings with multiple deaths in the U.S. since Columbine a mere eight years ago. (And the folks living in each place thought ‘it couldn’t happen here’.) The country that comes a distant second in this horror count in the same period is Germany – with 3. You can’t argue with facts like those.
In your scenario the first one (two, three?) victims still have to die before the hero whips out his or her piece and saves the day. (And unless everyone is actually ‘obliged’ to carry weapons, will he or she be in the right place at the right time anyway?) If you seriously think the solution to the huge death toll in the U.S. from guns is more guns, let me ask you this: Would you, in the future you envision, rather send your own children to school in the U.S., or in some other country with very strict gun controls and where school shootings are completely or even almost completely unheard of?
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Steven says:
April,
I appreciate your reasoned response. However your question to me is flawed. It is what is known as a “false dilemma”.
But, one point at a time:
Yes one or two people would die if “our hero” had a gun, and you are right, he or she may or may not be around.However, you miss the salient point: In the case where some students were armed maybe Mr. Cho would not have started shooting in the first place. I mean, he DID pick a place where law abiding citizens were not allowed to have guns to commit his rampage – did he not? Why not go out into the general public, or the state buildings, or a gov’t offce?
Because people there have guns April. He picked an area where he knew people were not armed and could not fight back – versus a place where people were possibly armed, or where he knew trained people WERE armed.
That’s the point, is it not?
Did you know that over 80% of gun use in the U.S. is by people who own the guns illegally. And of the 20% of gun use by legal owners only a small percentage is using the gun illegally in committing a crime. The exception was Mr. Cho.
But, if I understand you right, is that due to 2-3% of legal owners committing crimes, that law abiding people should be disarmed?! And do you think the legally owned guns who are misused would be turned in!?
No, only the law abiding would turn in the guns if the 2nd Amendment was repealed.
Also, of note, is that in Britain and Australia, where the citizenry has been disarmed – crime skyrocketed. Home invasions, car-jackings, murder all rose signifigantly because criminals knew that people were not armed.
I’m not sure you know this but some communities in the U.S. have a mandatory ownership rule. Yep, you have to own a gun to live htere. Guess what April, they have some of the lowest crime rates in the U.S.
I would send my kids, were I to have any, to a private school. In the U.S. Not to the P.C. indoctrination centers of learning we have now, where “self-esteem” is more important than non PC history, reading comprehension, and being able to learn how gov’t works is explained in a non-partisan way.
Also, since I have answered your question, and your salient points, would you mind addressing what I previously posted?
Good discussion. Let’s keep it going.
Steven
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Violet says:
Are you guys enjoying this twit? Because I’m not.
By the way, I’m going to start referring to all of you by the name of the month on your post date.
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Steven says:
Here is something written by a VT student. We might find it interesting:
Bradford B. Wiles
Wiles, of New Castle, is a graduate student at Virginia Tech.
On Aug. 21 at about 9:20 a.m., my graduate-level class was evacuated from the Squires Student Center. We were interrupted in class and not informed of anything other than the following words: “You need to get out of the building.”
Upon exiting the classroom, we were met at the doors leading outside by two armor-clad policemen with fully automatic weapons, plus their side arms. Once outside, there were several more officers with either fully automatic rifles and pump shotguns, and policemen running down the street, pistols drawn.
It was at this time that I realized that I had no viable means of protecting myself.
Please realize that I am licensed to carry a concealed handgun in the commonwealth of Virginia, and do so on a regular basis. However, because I am a Virginia Tech student, I am prohibited from carrying at school because of Virginia Tech’s student policy, which makes possession of a handgun an expellable offense, but not a prosecutable crime.
I had entrusted my safety, and the safety of others to the police. In light of this, there are a few things I wish to point out.
First, I never want to have my safety fully in the hands of anyone else, including the police.
Second, I considered bringing my gun with me to campus, but did not due to the obvious risk of losing my graduate career, which is ridiculous because had I been shot and killed, there would have been no graduate career for me anyway.
Third, and most important, I am trained and able to carry a concealed handgun almost anywhere in Virginia and other states that have reciprocity with Virginia, but cannot carry where I spend more time than anywhere else because, somehow, I become a threat to others when I cross from the town of Blacksburg onto Virginia Tech’s campus.
Of all of the emotions and thoughts that were running through my head that morning, the most overwhelming one was of helplessness.
That feeling of helplessness has been difficult to reconcile because I knew I would have been safer with a proper means to defend myself.I would also like to point out that when I mentioned to a professor that I would feel safer with my gun, this is what she said to me, “I would feel safer if you had your gun.”
The policy that forbids students who are legally licensed to carry in Virginia needs to be changed.
I am qualified and capable of carrying a concealed handgun and urge you to work with me to allow my most basic right of self-defense, and eliminate my entrusting my safety and the safety of my classmates to the government.
This incident makes it clear that it is time that Virginia Tech and the commonwealth of Virginia let me take responsibility for my safety.
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Now, it seems to me that students facing being shot, and professors in the same situation sure do wish they were armed so they could fight back.
Give it some thought.
Steven
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Steven says:
Violet,
I posted an articulate and on point response to a post and the responses.
You are surely not advocating shutting me down with ad hominems or because I have a different POV than you, are you?
In the free marketplace of ideas, the better ideas win, the people who attack the messenger but cannot refute the message are intellectually bankrupt.
Politely your,
Steven
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Violet says:
This is a private blog, one of millions on the intertubes. It is a forum for discourse among feminists and leftists.
It’s apparent that you think you’re offering us blindingly brilliant insights here and blessing us with mind-blowing information none of us have ever heard before, but you’re really, really not. Everything you’ve said, on this thread and others, is just tired old garbage. Your facts are wrong and your logic is faulty.
And there’s more to being polite than not swearing. You bumble in here and start moderating the discussion like you own the place, condescend to my readers, explain to women how pregnancy works, lecture me on subjects that I know far better than you, and on and on and on.
Go away.
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Steven says:
How is what I say “garbage”?
I did not condescend, I offered an alternate point of view. Do you only want those that agree with you to speak?
I did not act as though I own the place, I posted my veiews, which are different than yours. In what possible way did I even attempt to moderate?
Specifically, how were my facts or logic wrong?
I did not explain pregnancy to anyone, I pointed out that a fetus is an unborn child.
Some say that feminists do not allow dissenting opinions to even be spoken. That they often imply or state that it is aggressive, oppressive or offending by having a view contrary to their own.
Conservatives do not seem to do that – they will argue, but not try to silence – not on the blogs I attend anyways.
An echo chamber is not a discussion – it’s a many voiced soliloquy. If you want this blog “private” there are ways to make it so everyone has to have passwords to even view it, let alone post on it.
I will continute to be polite and answer on point, but I quite imagine your indignation if the voice of a liberal woman were to be silenced by a conservative man. Is that “different” only when it suits you?
Give it some thought
Steven
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Violet says:
I see. I’ve asked you to leave, and you’ve announced that you’re going to continue posting and if I don’t like it I’ll have to put my blog behind a password-protected wall? Considering that you seem to have found your way here from an extreme-hate site that talks about “death to feminists” and other things too vile to repeat, somehow I’m not surprised.
You’re banned.
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simply wondered says:
boo for bad violet the banner! well actually you’re right; i did find that whatever crap it was he posted (sorry couldn’t actually bear to waste enough of my life to read it, but hey i’m a busy guy – toenails to clean, fluff to pull from navel etc)got a bit less funny as he repeated it all. you know i don’t even care that his facts were shite and his logic flawed – it just sounded like complete bollocks and that was enough for me. hey ho! i pity the foo who tries to engage me in rational debate – more guns fewer shootings – whatever i am just going to make a silly sound and let these fuckjob shitforbrains wander off and eat some junk food. they’re worse than the bloody canadians!
vi; i thought you had one of those signs saying ‘you have to be this intelligent to post a comment here’ – doesn’t it work any more? -
Violet says:
boo for bad violet the banner!
He might not have gotten axed if it weren’t for the comments on the other threads about baybees and feminists and how the Duke woman needs to be punished. I like my blog to be a respite from the conservo-crap that floods the world, but most especially from the anti-feminist stuff.
vi; i thought you had one of those signs saying ‘you have to be this intelligent to post a comment here’ – doesn’t it work any more?
The problem seems to be that people who are dumber than the stick are too dumb to realize it.
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simply wondered says:
uh oh – the stick is powerless against the illiterate! you’d have thought a doctor like you would have worked that one out. and here’s you all ‘women are clever’ and other such arguments. guess that’s you told, vi. think i’m learning a bit of logic from steven.
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simply wondered says:
do you suppose they’ll give even someone like him a gun? that’s an argument in itself, really, isn’t it.
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Violet says:
See, if you’d been around earlier I wouldn’t have banned him. Leave it Richard to transform a sow’s ear into lemonade. You’d have to put up with him calling you “April” though.
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simply wondered says:
yeah – where the fuck did the april thing come from – a simple typo for cicely… if you’ve done loads of acid or you simply can’t read.
still; not everyone likes lemonade. -
Violet says:
Good lord, I’ve had to clean up more Steven poo he’s left all over the blog. He came back with the rhetoric ratcheted a bit higher and posted AGAIN to about half a dozen threads.
I deleted them all. I’ve tracked him down; he’s a serviceman in Nome Alaska who definitely came here via the hate site I mentioned earlier; he posts regularly to hate sites and apparently spends a good bit of his computer time finding places on the internet to rail against feminists.
By the way: did anybody else notice the implied threat in his tone the first time around when he kept saying “I’m being polite” and “I’m not engaging in any personal attacks?” The feeling I got was very much like from an abuser who says, “now, I’m not hitting you, I’m being calm…” The vibe was even stronger when he came back the second time; in all the posts (which I’ve deleted because they’re noxious and I’m not giving creeps a platform) he used my name over and over, So Violet you’re afraid of ideas right? and You know Violet I was very polite before and it sure is a shame Violet that we couldn’t work this out peacefully and on and on and on.
Creep.
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simply wondered says:
yes, yes, vi, but can we stick to the important stuff, please: did he say anything nice about me???
he doesn’t seem quite desperate enough for people to rail against to visit ‘a place for us’; unless he is cunningly posing as a viagra spamster. i am officially so boring that even someone in nome alska with a limited imagination can find enough things to do that mean they aren’t reduced to clicking my link! cool; are there prizes for being this tedious? -
B. Dagger Lee says:
Well, this is fucked up. I’ve always thought of April as kind of like Pam, or Tammy. It’s kind of a nightmare to be April 20, not to mention there are a lot of other April 20s.
April is the Pammiest month…
I’d always thought of myself as more like November or August. June is perfectly honorable, too. June is sexy, in fact. Henry and June. I always thought it should be June, and not Stella.
“June. Hey June!”
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Kaitlyn says:
Aw, he was such a polite asshole.
And I just wrote a response to his response to my response to him on the partial birth abortion ban post.
I didn’t use such a condescending tone, though, and yes, he was definitely condescending. “Oh, those feminists. If they disagree with me, and they will, it is not my faul for coming to an obviously feminist place and spouting anti-feminist rhetoric, it’s theirs.”
As for the little article he posted about the student who wished he had his gun? Hindsight’s 20/20. That person probably never really wanted to bring his gun on campus. If he did, he could have changed schools and gone to a more gun-friendlier one. If he really wanted too.
Plus, SWAT team shows up, who do they shoot? The person with the gun that’s not on the SWAT team!
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Kaitlyn says:
If he really wanted to.
That is stupid and offensive, I guess VT is the best school for him.
He know damn good and well that the school had a no-gun policy when he enrolled – trust me, they tell you what’s banned on the fucking tour.
If he wanted to be armed, he could have gone to a different school, sacrificing whatever VT offers him for the right to be armed at school.
And lord love a duck if his roommate knows about the gun and snaps one day.
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Violet says:
Okay, B. Dagger Lee, from now on you’re June. Cicely is stuck with April. Richard, I’m going to call you April too just to keep things confusing. Kaitlyn can be Ernest.
Until next month, when I’ll start calling you all May.
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simply wondered says:
does this mean we have to take our tops off and wear an inane smile? or is it not that kind of site?
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cicely says:
Also, of note, is that in Britain and Australia, where the citizenry has been disarmed – crime skyrocketed. Home invasions, car-jackings, murder all rose signifigantly because criminals knew that people were not armed.
Just in case anybody actually fell for this – I can’t speak authoritatively about Britain, but this is nonsense in relation to Australia. The citizenry was not majorly armed in the first place but the government sponsored gun buyback when most guns were declared illegal 11 years ago after the worst single massacre anywhere in the world ( A mentally ill man – Arthur Bryant – killed 35 people at a tourist spot in Tasmania) has been shown to have had virtually no impact on crime statistics here. What has also been shown is that, taking into account a percentage margin of error, somewhere between 120 and 240 self-shooting suicides per year may have been prevented. I can personally relate to that statistic as during a long period of clinical depression earlier in my life, I used to try and think of ways to get hold of a gun as that was the only method of suiciding I could seriously see myself having the courage for. (Too quick to be painful.) I’m not saying those elaborate thoughts weren’t actually just a mental/emotional escape valve from the psychic (?) pain – and I might not even have done it had I found a gun – but I can’t say either way for sure. As I say – it’s quick.
Cicely is stuck with April.
I hope we’ll get along! (Is that confusing enough?)
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Ann Bartow says:
Anyone else see this story:
http://www.thestate.com/371/story/42276.htmlRamey shot the tires off a car of a guy who may have simply been lost, and she is some kind of folk hero?
Another account I read says the three “uncharged” people mentioned were sitting in the car when she started shooting at it. The car was parked on a public road. If one of those folks had had a gun, and had fired it back at Ramey, who was after all shooting at them, them what? Sheesh. -
simply wondered says:
yes cic… err april (with whom i am happy to be stuck) – i didn’t bother to mention it but the entire statement is just hopeless bollocks (surprise surprise) vis a vis the UK; to speak about the citizenry being disarmed is just weird for a start – does that mean the end of the civil war or something? and FWIW the police in the UK have long resisted the wholesale carrying of firearms for a number of reasons, including the wish not to escalate gun crime. it’s also good news if you happen to be a foreign electrician innocently wanting to use london underground.
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Violet says:
I remember seeing a murder mystery from the BBC — set in contemporary England, not a period piece – in which the murder was committed with a gun. Shockers! A gun! What was he doing with a gun?
It was, to an American, bizarre.
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simply wondered says:
blimey – did this gun have bullets as well? that can get dangerous.
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Violet says:
Ann, I read that article. The lady sounds trigger happy to me. Is there any evidence whatsoever that they guy was a potential thief, aside from the fact that the old lady believes that anyone who steps foot on her farm is looking to steal her tractor? The guy could have just been lost and wanted to ask directions, as you said.
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will says:
V, you are aiding the terrorist.
This is how it works. The nice lady shot at the guy. Therefore, he must be a bad guy. Otherwise, she wouldnt have shot at him.
When you question whether she should have shot at him, you are aiding the bad guys. Shame on you.
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cicely says:
the police in the UK have long resisted the wholesale carrying of firearms for a number of reasons, including the wish not to escalate gun crime.
Uniformed police in Australia actually do wear visible holstered guns on their waist-belts – which was a shock to me when I first came here from New Zealand. Over there, during the anti-apartheid demonstrations against the South African Rugby tour, there had been wide public discomfort and debate about the police being issued with long *batons* ( as opposed to short ones) to be attached to their belts. And it has to be said that here in Oz there have been a number of cases of police shooting and killing – not just wounding – mentally ill people behaving erratically – people who have not always been armed with anything. One of these cases occurred in the wide open space of an unpopulated beach, where a guy with a knife was surrounded by about half a dozen armed police. He was shot multiple times and died at the scene.
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simply wondered says:
yeah, we tend to shot the mentally ill here too – wielding table legs etc or occasionally just walking around looking funny. you could say it is at least an honest representation of how we treat people with mental illness, instead of pretending society gives a toss.
