The true power of grassroots activism

July 26, 12:50 PMMinneapolis Gun Rights ExaminerJohn Pierce

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In my last column, Brady Campaign joins the VPC in deception, I described how easily the VPC could have verified the details of their fatally flawed “study” and avoided the embarrassment of having their deception unveiled on the floor of the Senate by Senator Thune.

In that column, I was intentionally vague as to the chain of events that precipitated my visit to the Hennepin County courthouse in search of records to prove that Mr. Iheme was, in fact, NOT a permit holder. But a perceptive reader would have noticed that, as I described it, I seemed to know in advance that this was the case and was only seeking documentation to prove it. And that reader would have been correct.

I did not discuss those details in that article in order to not compromise sources that I did not yet have the right to talk about.

But now, with the permission of all involved, I can share with you the full details of how the Iheme deception was suspected, discovered, documented and shared with Senator Thune in time for him to use it on the floor of the Senate. I have since updated the original article with a summary version, but I think that there is a great story in the full version. Specifically, it is a great illustration of why I felt that returning to law school in mid-life was a valuable experience for a gun rights activist.

It all started when Dr. John Lott, author of one of the quintessential books for gun rights activists, More Guns, Less Crime, and no stranger himself to conducting and defending scholarly studies, recognized the significant flaws in the VPC report. In an effort that I hope we see summarized in a future article or book by Dr. Lott, he reached out to a trusted network of local activists across the country to try and put together an accurate and easily documented, nationwide picture of just how many of the cases of “permit holders” in the VPC “study” were, in fact, demonstrably false.

In Minnesota, he contacted Andrew Rothman, Executive Director of the Minnesota Association of Defensive Firearm Instructors (MADFI). Andrew contacted noted author and local activist Joel Rosenberg, and Joel was able to contact other local attorneys and activists in the long-established grassroots network, here.

Within hours of Dr. Lott’s initial contact, Minnesota gun rights attorney David Gross, former prosecutor and former NRA Board member, had reached out to Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek under the state’s Data Practices law, who confirmed that not only was Iheme not a permit holder, but that there was no record of an application for one, which there must be, under law, if he applied. At the same time, another local activist had contacted the attorney who prosecuted Mr. Iheme’s case, who confirmed that a permit check had been done with a negative result, and the issue had been documented in the public record in open court, as Minnesota law requires.

Joel had also contacted Hamline University School of Law Professor, and former NRA board member, Joseph Olson.  Minnesota residents will remember that it was Professor Olson, also founder, over 20 years ago, and President of Minnesota’s Gun Owner Civil Rights Alliance, along with David Gross, who architected the Minnesota carry law as a civil rights remedy, and carefully shepherded its passage (on a personal note, I should add that Professor Olson’s presence was a key factor in my decision to attend law school at Hamline).  Yes, these two had anticipated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Heller by two decades!

Once it was known that Iheme was not a permit holder, we just needed the paperwork. I got the opportunity to do the legwork, and I found what I had been told was almost certainly there, if the law had been followed: proof that the VPC had lied in characterizing Iheme as a carry permit holder, replacing an ambiguous reference to a “gun permit” (permit to purchase) in a news report with specifics (“carry” permit) which were not only contradicted by the public record, but also a common sense and reasoned reading of the news article, VPC’s claimed basis for its characterization of Iheme.

VPC and the Brady Campaign apparently think that “due diligence” and “reckless disregard for the truth” do not apply to them. There is simply no excuse for this; they didn’t want to know the answer, as it didn’t serve their purposes. So, they blithely made it up, and lied, when they could have, as easily and quickly as we did, determined the specific facts and resolved the ambiguity. I scanned the documents and sent them back to Andrew and, following the path laid out by Dr. Lott, Joel and Professor Olson, they made it to Senator Thune in time for him to use it to smack down the VPC report when it was brought up by Senator Menendez of New Jersey.

After Senator Thune called out the VPC on the floor of the Senate, I called Andrew. He was deservedly happy.

“We did that!” he said.

Yes we did, and I am proud to have been able to walk with the giants of Minnesota gun rights activism and play my small part.

The VPC doesn’t have that. The Brady Campaign doesn’t have that. The anti-gun movement as a whole doesn’t have that. They don’t want it, because documented accuracy, supporting reason and common sense in furtherance of individual constitutional liberties, is not what they are about. They are willing to lie in order to take your constitutional freedoms away.

That is the power of true grassroots activism in this United States of America: everyone comes together and does what they can for the cause. They show up and participate.