Guess Who's Coming To Town! (Updated)

The Tar Heel State will be "graced" tomorrow by a visit by Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. They are supposed to be somewhere in the Research Triangle - Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill - area but they seem to be very coy about just where. I guess they don't want what happened to them in North Dakota to happen to them here.

Grass Roots North Carolina would like to properly welcome them. They are offering a reward of a 100 rounds of either 5.56 or 7.62x39 ammo to the first person to locate them.

More from GRNC below:

Yet they hide their "Rights & Responsibilities" tour's July 7 Raleigh stop from gun owners they purport to represent!

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and astronaut husband Mark Kelly, who fancy themselves the next Sarah and Jim Brady, having been touring the country to push for what they claim are just "background checks." In truth, of course, the federal proposals they advocate would criminalize mundane behaviors such as gifting a gun to your mother and would further their hidden agenda to turn the computerized "National Instant Criminal Background Check System" (NICS) into a defacto gun registration system.

To divide and conquer gun owners, they claim to be shooters and have posed for photo ops of Giffords flinching off a few shots in Las Vegas and elsewhere. Gee, whiz, they say, they're just gun owners like the rest of us and, of course, we all support "background checks," right?

Gun control carpet-baggers in NC TOMORROW

Although their website lists Raleigh as a tour stop, it is the only stop for which the group refuses to provide a precise time and location, indicating they learned from our counter demonstration to greet "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" two weeks ago, in which GRNC's counter demonstrators outnumbered MAIG's participants.

Indeed, they are refusing to release the details to the public, leading one to ask: Why are they hiding from the gun owners they claim to represent? Last night, the Raleigh News & Observer said:
"Details have been withheld until Friday night, and even now the precise location has not been publicly disclosed. Reporters will be given information once they are confirmed.

"All that's known now is Giffords and Kelly will go shooting at a local sporting clay range in the morning, followed by a roundtable discussion with gun owners, and then a picnic with local members of their gun-control group, Americans for Responsible Solutions. The couple will meet with reporters after the roundtable."

'Where's Gabby?'

Since Rep. Giffords and her hubby say they want a "roundtable discussion with gun owners," GRNC would like to give it to them. So in a variation of that old child's game, "Where's Waldo?" GRNC now asks you to play "Where's Gabby?"

In fact, we will give 100 rds of free 5.56mm or 7.62x39mm ammo to the first person who identifies the Raleigh-area "sporting clay range" and time for Gabby and Mark's little get together. Please contact GRNC President Paul Valone immediately at: president@GRNC.org.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

Contact your club or range and ask if Gabby and spouse are scheduled to arrive. If so:

• Ask those in charge to rescind their invitation, but not too soon: It would be most effective if it occurred AFTER arrival of the media - that will surely have received invitations.
• Contact GRNC: Email GRNC President Paul Valone at President@GRNC.org with details.
• Prepare to counter-protest: Please RSVP to Sean@SeanSorrentino.com with your name, mobile phone number, and the number of people you can bring. The probable time is 11:00 AM. Once we obtain details, we will call you.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Contact GRNC President Paul Valone with Gifford's event information at: president@grnc.org.

UPDATE: It looks like the location has been confirmed.

Gabby Giffords Anti-Gun Roundtable

Gabby Giffords and husband plan anti-gun roundtable tomorrow morning at Pit Barbeque, 328 W Davie St, Raleigh, NC at 10 am...

GRNC has received word that Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly will be hosting an anti-gun roundtable tomorrow morning at Pit Barbeque in Raleigh. The event will take place some time around 11:00 am. We need as many pro-gun people as possible to begin showing up around 10:00 am. This will be an anti-freedom lovefest that the media will use to back their false claims that you want more gun control. It is up to you to stop this from happening. By your showing up and defending your viewpoint, you can steal their thunder and prevent their making a case for taking more of your rights.

BE THERE!

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

Be at:

Pit Barbeque, 328 W Davie St, Raleigh, NC at 10 am tomorrow, Sunday.

UPDATE II:  It appears that you had to be one of the "select" to have met with Giffords and Kelly. According to WRAL, they met with 14 selected individuals who were members of their new gun control organization.

After a trip to a shooting range, they met at The Pit restaurant in downtown Raleigh with 14 hand-picked members of the organization, all of whom are gun owners, to lobby for expanded background checks.

"Gabby and I are both gun owners. I've served in the military for 25 years," Kelly said. "We are strong supporters of the Second Amendment."

 It is hard for me to see just what they accomplished in their trip around the nation other than gathering a bit of media attention. IF they really wanted to draw major attention to themselves in North Carolina, Giffords and Kelly would have joined the disgruntled progressives in their so-called "Moral Mondays" outside the North Carolina General Assembly. Not that I'm trying to give them ideas but there is a major bill awaiting concurrence before the NC House that significantly advances gun rights.

The Raleigh News and Observer has more on the meeting.

Raleigh was the last stop on the couple’ seven-city Rights and Responsibilities tour. The ARS is hosting small roundtable discussions with gun owners, victims of violence and others. Giffords is expected to head to Asheville next for more rehabilitation therapy. She has aphasia as a result of her injuries and struggles to speak and walk.

“Hello, Raleigh. Stopping gun (violence) takes courage,” Giffords said, reading from a statement. "The courage to do what’s right. The courage of new ideas. I’ve seen great courage when my life was on the line. Now is the time to come together. Be responsible. Democrats, Republicans, everyone. We must never stop fighting. Fight, fight, fight people. Be courageous. The nation is counting on you. Thank you.”

Fourteen people were invited to be part of the roundtable discussion. About half said they were gun owners and 10 of the 14 knew someone who had been shot or killed by guns.

The best comments on the Giffords-Kelly visit comes from Sean Sorrention of An NC Gun Blog who was interviewed by the N&O reporter.

“(They’re) having a roundtable discussion with gun owners and somehow our invitation got lost in the mail,” said Sean Sorrentino, a representative for Grass Roots North Carolina.

Sorrentino said criminal-background checks violate citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

“It’s saying I have to prove my innocence before I can use my Second Amendment rights,” he said.

Now I'm going to say something that might be considered impolitic or not judicious but it has been at the back of my mind since Giffords has re-emerged in public. I don't mean to be insensitive or "a meany" though I will be accused of it by the gun prohibitionists. The mention of Giffords coming to Asheville for more rehab makes me wonder just how capable she is of coherent and rational thought. Every time she speaks in public it is from a simple, pre-written statement or with the words being put into her mouth by her husband Mark. She always seems to have some sort of a "handler" at her side. It is as if she is a puppet or wind-up doll being used to promote someone else's agenda which I find quite sad.

I don't know enough about traumatic brain injuries to know whether having a bullet travel through the left side of your brain is worse than the concussive force of an IED explosion. One would have to assume it is much worse. I feel for Ms. Giffords for what she has been through. She didn't ask for a madman who passed a NICS check to shoot her. That said, I have this nagging feeling that just won't go away that she is just not capable of having an opinion on gun control one way or another and that she is being used by her husband and others. I also wonder if she wrote or could she even compose the comments she read at the event today.

UPDATE III: Links to video reports on the event are below. I would note that both Sean Sorrentino and Bill Foster represented the position of gun owners quite well. Moreover, it is interesting that the media is invited to the event but not any of the rest of us.

WRAL Raleigh

WNCN NBC 17