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Pro-Gun Women Allege Set-up by ‘John Walsh Show’

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200304\NAT20030430d.html

Pro-Gun Women Allege Set-up by ‘John Walsh Show’
By Jeff Johnson
CNSNews.com Congressional Bureau Chief
April 30, 2003

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) – Two women who are victims of prior criminal
assaults and a representative of a pro-gun women’s organization claim they
were set up by the John Walsh Show on Tuesday’s episode, which was
supposed
to focus on women arming themselves for self-defense but instead became a
debate on gun ownership. A representative of the program denied that
claim.

“I was told that it was not going to be a debate, that it was going to be
four women who owned guns, and I was told that one would be an
‘ex-gangbanger’ who doesn’t exactly agree with us, but she owns a gun,”
Maria Heil, national spokesperson for the Second Amendment Sisters told
CNSNews.com Tuesday after the show aired.

Heil said she was led to believe that the focus of the show would be on
“Women Who Own Guns” and their reasons for deciding to arm themselves. The
episode was instead entitled “Women and Guns: The Best Defense?” and
featured numerous anti-gun speakers who continuously interrupted and
berated
the three pro-gun guests.

The executive producer of Walsh’s show denied that her team does business
that way.

“The producer of that episode is a veteran producer and, I am quite
certain,
did not mislead any of the guests on our show,” Alexandra Jewett said.

“Every single person on the staff of the John Walsh Show is very aware and
very respectful of John’s reputation and his credibility,” she continued.
“It’s very important for somebody who does the work he does that his
credibility be at the top of our priorities, and it is.

“We would never do anything that would jeopardize his name,” Jewett added.

Pro-Gun Guests Not Told of ‘Million Mom March’ Representative

Heil appeared with two other pro-Second Amendment guests – identified on
the
show only as Tiffany, the victim of a violent assault by multiple
attackers,
and Lisa, who armed herself for protection from an allegedly abusive
ex-husband. The three women claim they did not know about Sylvia’s rabidly
anti-gun position or that there would be a surprise fifth guest in the
audience.

“I was not told that someone from the Million Mom March would be there,”
Heil explained. “They brought her in, literally, at the last minute, and I
didn’t know of her presence until we were in the hallway before the show
and
we were all being introduced to John Walsh.”

Jewett again denied that her staff uses such techniques to create
controversies on the show.

“We never bring a guest into New York without telling them exactly who’s
going to share the stage with them,” Jewett said. “We would not do that.
We
do not surprise people that way.”

Walsh’s executive producer initially indicated to CNSNews.com that one of
the anti-gun speakers, “Diane,” was merely a member of the audience who
happened to also work with the so-called “Million Mom March.”

“She was sitting in the audience. She wasn’t an invited guest. She wasn’t
there on ‘home base’ with an open mic[rophone] on,” Jewett explained.
“John
had to walk over to her to get a comment. She had an opinion. She was
entitled to give her opinion in the show.”

But two minutes into the broadcast, Diane was featured on camera, with her
name and the caption “Works with teens to educate them about gun violence”
displayed on the screen while she listened to Tiffany speak. Walsh later
acknowledged Diane’s affiliation with the “Million Mom March” verbally,
only
once.

Jewett did acknowledge that the anti-gun spokeswoman was placed in the
audience by the show’s staff.

“I think that was a last-minute booking because one of the women was
affiliated with the Sisters of the Second Amendment [sic], who go
head-to-head with Million Mom March all the time,” she admitted. “We have
done shows with Million Mom March, and if they want to come and sit in a
particular show, they’re welcome.”

Walsh Believes in Second Amendment, ‘If They Can…’

Walsh presented himself both at the beginning and end of the program as a
supporter of the Second Amendment.

“I believe that everybody has the right to own a gun,” Walsh said, but
then
added a number of caveats: “if they can pass the background check, if they
get the education and they’re responsible.”

Heil pointed out, however, that, throughout the program, Walsh repeated
false anti-gun statistics as if they were fact.

“Nine kids a day die in gun accidents in the home,” Walsh claimed.

“That is not right,” Heil told CNSNews.com. “Number one, it is not in the
home, and number two, they are not accidents.”

According to data in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, achieving the “nine
kids a day” number would require including “children” as old as 24 years
of
age, depending on the year chosen for analysis. More than 50 percent of
that
nine per day are young adults who successfully attempt suicide.

Of the remaining shooting victims 17 to 24 years of age, 70 percent were
actively involved in criminal activity at the time of their deaths. When
those groups are removed, deaths of children due to firearms accidents
drop
to their lowest rate in recorded history, lower than automobile accidents,
parental abuse and even bathtub drowning.

Heil believes Walsh is intentionally trying to mislead his audience to
believe that a large number of small children are accidentally shot to
death
in the U.S. each year.

“We have a violence problem in this society,” she charged. “John doesn’t
want to hear that it’s more complicated than just taking care of the
guns.”

Walsh also identified the United States as “the most violent nation in the
world,” a claim that is also inaccurate. According to a 2000 report by the
Dutch Ministry of Justice entitled Criminal Victimization in 17
Industrialized Countries, 12 of the 16 other countries have higher
per-capita violent crime rates than the United States.

The two countries with the strictest gun control laws – Australia and
England – have the highest per-capita violent crime occurrence of any of
the
countries on the list.

Ex-Gangbanger Contradicts Magazine Interview

Sylvia, who was identified as an ‘ex-gangbanger from Compton, Calif., who
now lives in Las Vegas,” was presented to the pro-gun guests as a gun
owner
who “doesn’t exactly agree with” them.

Heil asked Sylvia directly whether or not she owned or carried a gun for
personal protection.

“No, I don’t,” Sylvia responded. “I take a stun gun.”

But that statement directly contradicts claims Sylvia made in an interview
published in the May 2003 issue of Marie Claire magazine.

“When I go back to Compton, Calif., I stay strapped 24/7,” Sylvia told
writer Louise Jarvis – using “strapped,” the street slang for carrying a
concealed firearm – “because there might still be some people out there
who
remember me.”

Sylvia’s brother is in prison for murdering his wife, a crime Sylvia
blames
completely on the presence of a firearm.

“He’s doing like 26 to life,” she explained. “If we hadn’t been raised
with
guns, and we hadn’t ever been taught how to use guns, and we never had
access to guns…he wouldn’t have had the gun to go do it with.”

She rejects the suggestion that her brother actually committed the murder
or
that, if he did, the crime was the result of an evil intention in his
heart,
not the presence of a particular weapon.

‘Possibly a Picture of a Felony in Progress’

In the magazine interview, Sylvia admits that she has “done things with
guns
I regret.

“I spent three years in prison for attempted murder, you name it,” she
confessed.

Heil said that admission set off alarm bells when she saw the photograph
of
Sylvia that accompanied the interview.

“If her statement in the magazine is true, then – quite possibly – the
picture in the magazine is a picture of a felony in progress,” Heil
declared. “When you have a felony conviction, you have lost your right to
own a gun.

“Therefore, Sylvia, having done three years in prison,” Heil continued,
“she’s not supposed to even hold a gun.”

Stacy Morrison with Marie Claire told CNSNews.com that no one on her staff
made the connection between the gun possession and Sylvia’s claimed felony
conviction. All of the subjects of the article were asked to pose with a
firearm they owned, and all did so voluntarily.

Heil also noted that, in the photograph, Sylvia has the snub-nosed
revolver
pointed at her dog and has her finger on the trigger, both signs of what
Heil called “a very irresponsible gun owner.”

‘My First Reaction Is to Shoot You’

That alleged irresponsibility carried over into the exchanges between the
women on the Walsh program, according to Heil. At one point during the
interview, Sylvia tried to make the point that the mere presence of a gun
during an altercation would lead to violence.

“If I got a gun, and me and you get into it, and I got a gun, my first
reaction is to shoot you,” Sylvia said.

Heil, Tiffany and Lisa sat stunned at Sylvia’s assertion.

“What kind of a person is this, and who brought her up?” Heil asked. “Why
would a person’s first reaction when getting mad at someone be to shoot
them?

“That’s a foreign concept to me,” Heil continued. “It’s incredible.”

Sylvia also attacked the other guests’ motives for carrying a gun.

“If it takes a gun to make you feel like a woman, you ain’t got no
self-esteem,” Sylvia alleged.

“We were all just in shock,” Heil said. “A gun has nothing to do with how
you feel about your womanhood. It just blew me away that she would equate
the two.

“She said she was ‘secure enough in her womanhood to not carry a gun,’”
Heil
quoted. “I’m secure enough in my self-esteem that I know I cannot handle a
150-pound guy coming at me, but I can handle a firearm to keep that man
away
from me.”

Heil noted that guns are used for self-defense against criminals more than
2.5 million times per year, saving more than 400,000 lives, according to
researchers at Harvard University and the University of Florida. In nine
out
of 10 of those cases, the intended victim merely shows the gun to the
criminal, ending the assault with no one being harmed.

Maria Heil
National Spokesperson
Second Amendment Sisters
press toll-free 877-797-4857
legislative toll-free 877-798-2828
http://www.2asisters.org