White House Gun Summits

President Barack Obama's op-ed column in the March 13 Arizona Daily Star invited all sides of the gun-control debate to a series of meetings in Washington.

Two problems: The President invited the NRA to the summits -- which declined to attend -- but neglected to extend invitations to other influential Second Amendment advocacy groups, such as the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said it was odd that the CCRKBA, nor its sister organization, the SAF, were invited to the meetings -- especially since it was the SAF's Supreme Court challenged that resulted last summer's McDonald v. City of Chicago ruling that solidified the Second Amendment's protection of an individual civil right.

The NRA declined the invitation but responded to Obama's op-ed with an open letter on March 15 by Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and Executive Director of the NRA Institute for Legal Action Chris Cox. The letter said Obama says one thing (i.e. the Second Amendment guarantees a person to bear arms) and acts another way (i.e. setting in place regulations restricting gun rights), and ripped his administration for being "under a cloud for allegedly encouraging violations of federal law."

"We suggest that you bring an immediate stop to BATFE's 'Fast and Furious' operation, in which an unknown number of illegal firearm transactions were detected – and then encouraged to fruition by your BATFE, which allegedly decided to let thousands of firearms 'walk' across the border and into the hands of murderous drug cartels," the letter alleges. "One federal officer has recently been killed and no one can predict what mayhem will still ensue. Despite the protests of gun dealers who wished to terminate these transactions, your Administration reportedly encouraged violations of federal firearms laws…"

Gottlieb, on the other hand, said he would love to speak with Obama during the meetings, which began on March 15 at the White House and will continue through the end of the month. He “would be eager to talk with the White House, especially about the ‘Project Gunrunner’ and ‘Fast and Furious’ scandals, where federal agents helped facilitate gun sales to suspected gunrunners," he wrote in CCRKBA's response to the President's op-ed.

As Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea noted in his March 15 column on examiner.com, the ways the NRA, SAF, and CCRKBA -- and other Second Amendment advocacy groups -- reacted demonstrates "that the 'gun lobby' is not the monolith the media often portrays it to be."

But Blogosphere Buzz Examiner Bill Belew in his March 16 column asks if the NRA, SAF, and CCRKBA aren't going to the President's gun summits, what pro-Second Amendment groups are?

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SC: Retreating man fired in self-defense: "Former law enforcement officer Joel O’Quinn was cleared by a jury of all charges Friday in the Sept. 11, 2009, shootout with Rusty Spencer and his nephew Timothy Spencer outside a Point South restaurant. During the early morning confrontation, O’Quinn shot Rusty Spencer in the parking lot of the Country Kitchen and was shot four times by Timothy Spencer. Both men survived but only O’Quinn was charged after an investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. O’Quinn had testified that when Timothy Spencer unexpectedly showed up with his uncle after he challenged Rusty Spencer, he tried to end the altercation and fired a warning shot in the air before Timothy Spencer suddenly opened fire on him. O’Quinn was shot four times as he tried to retreat, he said. Bullet casings from O’Quinn’s .40 caliber Glock were found along the path he took as he ran for cover in nearby woods, his lawyer, Jared Newman told the jurors, proof that he was trying to get away. O’Quinn said he fired three “cover shots” while running but was not aiming at anyone."