FYI (copy below):
http://www.liberty-belles.org/events/debate.htm

TKO-Liberty Belles Trounce “Million Moms”

by M. Hollenbeck

You would think that a forum being held at a college in Los
Angeles (arguably, but hardly so, Gun Control Capitol of the
West) with the topic “Gun Ownership vs. Gun Control – Which
Is Safer?” would present a safe haven for the emotional
rhetoric of gun-controllers like Charles Blek and
impressionable youngsters like Jennifer Mendoza.

However, when a debate is sponsored by a Libertarian group
such as Students For Individual Liberty, the emotionalism
that works so well with the gun-control True Believers and
collegiate skulls full of mush is just so much raw meat to
be tossed before hungry tigers.

L.A. Harbor College in Wilmington, California was the
setting for this debate this past Wednesday, and not a chair
was available. When there is the promise of podium-chewing
action between the biggest anti-gun female group in America
and an up-and-coming activist group that focuses on women’s
support of the Second Amendment, it’s not likely those on
the stage will outnumber their audience.

Taking the side of the Second Amendment were wife and mom
Anna Zetchus Raetz, spokeswoman for Liberty Belles, and
Randy Herrst of the Center For The Study Of Crime. Both
came armed with confidence, statistics, and knowledge of the
Constitution.

On the side of gun control were Charles Blek of the Orange
County Citizens For Prevention Of Gun Violence (and wife to
Million Mom March general Mary Leigh Blek) and Jennifer
Mendoza, an L.A. Harbor College student in favor of gun
control, armed only with emotion, sound bites, and in Miss
Mendoza’s case, unsourced statistics. Miss Mendoza is a
very sweet, pretty young lady, but she smiled nervously
throughout the proceedings and was unable to provide any
backing for her claims. Mr. Blek seemed very uncomfortable
with the notion that talk of his son’s tragic murder by
thugs with guns and a few well-placed statements on the
populace’s desire for more gun control laws and police
support for those laws were not going to be nearly enough to
make his case for “responsible gun control”.

Each of the speakers were permitted about ten minutes each
for opening statements. Mr. Blek was on deck first, talking
about his son’s murder and a new two-prong approach to
responsible gun ownership. The first prong: The acceptance
of California State Police Chiefs Association’s paper on gun
ownership as “our Bible”, and secondly, addressing gun
violence with a “public health approach”.

In addressing what he called the Five Most Common Stock
Answers he received from pro-Second Amendment dissenters,
his arguments against such answers were more personal
opinion than anything substantive. When told to “lock up
the criminals”, Mr. Blek argues that it’s an insult to him
to suggest he does not wish criminals to be locked up, and
argues the “disingenuousness” of NRA’s non-support of
California’s 10-20-Life bill as evidence, somehow, that the
NRA is the organization that does not wish criminals locked
up. When confronted with the argument, “It’s not the gun”,
Mr. Blek points out the dangers of “acting-out teenagers”
possibly using the gun without addressing how exactly an
“acting-out teenager” somehow makes an inanimate object like
a gun culpable for what that teenaged individual chooses to
do with it. His argument against those who hold to the
notion of the Second Amendment is basically that it all
depends on what the definition of “well-regulated” is. (I
doubt the Founding Fathers were frantically looking for a
loophole to include in the Bill of Rights to make it easier
for those like Mr. Blek to encourage the government to
create twenty-thousand or so laws to “regulate” gun
ownership as Mr. Blek sees fit, as much as it may surprise
him.) He sneers at the warnings of “slippery slope” as just
so much table-pounding, and the argument about “convenience”
he dismissed with: “May I suggest that’s all a matter of
context. The true inconvenience is having to bury your own
dead child.” (Perhaps Mr. Blek would like to discuss
“context” with fine ladies such as Mary Carpenter and Carma
Lewis, if he or his fellow organizations ever have the
nerve.)

<> Mr.
Charles Blek of “Million Mom March”.
<>
Anna Zetchus Raetz, Liberty Belles Spokeswoman.

Anna Zetchus Raetz was a most lively and invigorating
follow-up to Charles Blek, eschewing emotionalism and
“common sense gun control” arguments in favor of outright
common sense. ” Gun control, speaking of disingenuous,
seems like a really odd term to me, because a gun, if you
want to control it, it’s really not such a difficult thing
to do. If you put it into a drawer, it probably won’t
remove itself or go out on any mad rampages on its own. So
it does require an individual to come and then take that gun
and do something with it. So gun control ultimately is
people control, because we’re not talking about what we’re
going to do about an inanimate object.”

She spoke of the crucial and unique role of the Second
Amendment as a part of American culture. “All governments
inherently are going to be in some way evil, but the
governmentt that has been designed where it is to be
controlled by the people is an anomaly in the world. The
government that bases and predicates the rights for its
people from an ethereal, untouchable, unalienable,
uninfringeable source is very unique in international and
political history.” The first real enactment of gun
control came into our formed nation after the Civil War,
where many of those who were not comfortable with the
freeing of slaves hoped to restrict the Constitutional
rights of the new citizens – ergo, the establishment of gun
control in this country is racist in its conception.

Anna’s statements as to the empowerment of criminals via gun
control were most compelling. “A lot of people that are
against guns are people who wouldn’t trust themselves with
guns. I hear that from a lot of people….And of course I’m
not going to say to the person, ‘Well, because you can’t
control yourself, I don’t know if the person down the street
can control himself, so because you might not be able to
control yourself and the person down the street, I don’t
know if he can, I’m going to control both of you so that I
can be safe.’ But meanwhile, because I live in a
neighborhood where no-one can control themselves, [the
criminals are] going to take control, because we have now
offered it up to he who wants it the most – he who wants the
power the most, he who wants whatever it is. We have made
ourselves willing subjects…Nothing makes me more nervous
than a gun-free zone. Because if I know it’s a gun-free
zone, someone else knows it’s a gun-free zone. Now I know
*I’m* not going to do anything in a gun-free zone except
stay away from it, because I don’t want some lunatic coming
in knowing it’s a ‘Fire-Back-Free Zone’. It’s free of
anyone who’s going to stop he who is going to become the
most powerful person.”

She finished sharing two anecdotes with the audience – one
of an Israeli woman who drew a gun and shot dead a terrorist
wannabe in a supermarket, and a father who protected his son
from two armed robbers in his son’s place of employment.
“*That’s* gun control!” she quipped to the approving
audience.

<>
Anna Zetchus Raetz at podium. From left to right in rear:
Jennifer Mendoza, Randy Herrst, moderator, Charles Blek.

It was difficult to watch pro-gun control student Jennifer
Mendoza following Anna’s extemporaneous poise. Miss Mendoza
prepared for a week on her position, yet it all sounded
curiously like a Brady Campaign or
Million-Billion-Actually-It’s-A-Few-Ten-Thousand-Moms-And-Their-Henpecked-Partners
Student Study Guide Of Sound Bites. No sources were listed
for her statistics. No evidence suggested that those
solutions she proposed would ever work. I wondered if those
who indoctrinate on campuses for the anti-gun groups decided
to abandon mention of the Kellermann study whenever
possible, because this very nice young lady was left with
nothing but a rather practiced call for background checks,
age-limit raising, and gun education without suggesting how
this can be successfully implemented to reduce crime or
accidental shootings. The pro-gun control advocates must be
feeling very comfortable in their positions still think that
stuffing a young lady’s head with emotionalism and
non-substantiated rhetoric will hold up in a legitimate
debate. They should be ashamed of themselves.

The final speaker was Randy Herrst of the Center For The
Study Of Crime. Calm and matter-of-fact, he presented
statistics as well as personal experiences of defending
himself utilizing a firearm – without having to injure
anyone. “If Mr. Blek’s son had been somewhere where the
average citizen could defend themselves [as opposed to New
York, where Matthew Blek was murdered], their neighbors, or
someone on the street, there’d be a 75% that Mr. Blek’s son
would be alive today. If I were in the situation where
someone like Mr. Blek’s son was being assaulted, legal or
illegal, I could assure you that person would not be dead.”

<>
Randy Herrst, Center for the Study of Crime.

“Gun control? It’s the best thing you can do for crooks and
gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I’m a bad guy,
I’m always going to have a gun…Safety locks? You pull the
trigger with a lock on, and I’ll pull the trigger. We’ll
see who wins.”

The question and answer session following the presentation
became an empassioned and heated battleground for arguments
on both sides. Mr. Blek felt it necessary to take a
question from the audience directed to Miss Mendoza, who
gamely stated, when pressed, “Everything Mr. Blek just
stated would be my response.”

Anna answered a question from a “fence-sitter” in the
audience who expressed her appreciation of responsible gun
owners, but feared those who were not responsible: ” If I
already obey the law, what difference does it make if I
jump through more hoops to obey the law? We can either
maintain power with citizens, or we can give it up and let
the criminals take over, like what is happening in England.
We don’t have to go back in time. We don’t have to talk
about Hitler disarming Jews. We don’t have to talk about
any of that stuff. We can talk about today, right now,
because it’s the same thing. ‘Oh, we just want to get rid
of the handguns. Well, first we just want to register.
Well, now that just because we’ve registered, we can take
all your guns away.’ And that’s what we’ve done. And in
England, that’s what they’ve done. Now 1 out of every 4
people is a victim of violent crime. 1 out of every 4.
Twenty-six percent. And, oh, maybe they just beat you and
knock you over the head and steal your stuff. They’re still
in control. They are the ones in control. And the unarmed
bobbies are now a thing of the past. Now the police have to
arm themselves, and they have race riots in England. Why?
Because people can no longer protect themselves.”

Mr. Blek decided to throw aside statistics and take personal
issue with Mr. Herrst’s statements of Mr. Blek being a paid
spokesman: “I appreciate the fact that Randy thinks I’m
paid by the responsible gun folks, but I’m not. I’m here as
a volunteer. And I would like to be anywhere else but here.
About my son, Randy doesn’t have a single clue about the
circumstances surrounding his death. And yet every time we
end up being together somewhere, he feels compelled to talk
about it, and the example he gave tonight is blaming the
victim. We have a right to be where we are, we have a right
to be safe where we are, whether in Seattle instead of New
York he’d be safer…I’m sorry, Randy, that’s just plain
crap.”

To which Mr. Herrst responded: “I appreciate Mr. Blek’s
level of intellectual discourse here. I’m not being nasty
about it. I have heard the story of his son’s death many
times, so I am not totally ignorant of the circumstances.
It has been covered in various stories that he and his wife
have done, either as editorials or done interviews with
media. I can assure you I do know something about it. I
also assure you it would have been less likely to happen in
a place where people are allowed to carry guns. And I am
certain that if it had been happening while I was carrying a
gun, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Without taking anything away from Mr. Blek’s tragedy, he
seemed to react in a most unusual and unfeeling fashion when
countered by members of the audience – a lady who was unable
to prevent rape and attack upon her person because of
California’s waiting period, and a lady whose husband
defended himself five times with a firearm without ever
having to create a fatality statistic – who wished to share
their own stories.

To these stories, Mr. Blek remarked: “We have no quarrel
with personal anecdotes.”

To me, that was downright rudeness, considering the fact
that he expects everyone to give up their rights without
argument because of what happened to his son. What Mr. Blek
obviously did not wish for people to realize – and, I’m
certain, especially the young lady whom his side
indoctrinated so poorly – is that there are many, many more
people in this nation who have utilized their Second
Amendment rights to protect themselves, their families, and
their property to a much greater degree than it has caused
harm to unwitting innocents…and they have their own
personal testimonies to back them up.

Add to that Anna Raetz chatting up Jennifer Mendoza in her
usual friendly fashion and the MMM sign-up sheet of three
names for the anti-gun mailing list with two crossed off the
roll after the debate…I can well understand why Mr. Blek
“would like to be anywhere else but here.”

Folks who are not as easily malleable and putty-brained are
not to Mr. Blek’s taste, nor do they promise a mindless and
emotional mob-jority for the tired rhetoric and the
disreputed “statistics” he and his partners and minions have
employed for so many years.

May Mr. Blek always find this is so in a medium not
dominated and controlled by the lapdog media. Amen