|
Gun Rights Defender of the Month 1999
January Richard E. GardinerThe designated recipient of the CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Month Award for January is gun rights attorney Richard E. Gardiner of Fairfax, Virginia. In nominating Gardiner for the Award, John Michael Snyder, CCRKBA Public Affairs Director, said that "during this period in our struggle to maintain the traditional, Second Amendment individual civil right of law-abiding American citizens to keep and bear arms, the gun grabbers more and more are attempting to use the legal and judicial systems in our country to undermine and eliminate that right. Hence, it is extremely important that there be a number of dedicated and competent attorneys ready, willing and able to rise in the courts to defend our rights. "One of these defenders is Richard Gardiner, a gentleman of the law whom I myself have known personally now for a good number of years. For some time he has specialized in firearms rights cases and has a full plate of work these days. Committed to the defense of the right to keep and bear arms, he certainly is most deserving of this Award." In recent months, Attorney Gardiner has argued in court that Alexandria, Virginia City Manager Vola Lawson overstepped her authority when she banned licensed firearms on city property. "She doesn’t have the authority to make law," said Gardiner on November 28, 1998, before Alexandria Circuit Court Judge Alfred Swersky. Gardiner represents four plaintiffs who are members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. In 1997, Gardiner also represented a group of Fairfax County, Virginia residents who successfully challenged a county order banning firearms on county property. In the Alexandria case, Gardiner argues that Lawson is "an employee of the City Council" and that her order "goes beyond her authority and creates a prohibition that doesn’t exist in the law." In the Commonwealth of Virginia, people may carry legally handguns if they have a valid concealed handgun permit. The state law establishing such licenses stipulates that property owners may ban concealed handguns from their property, but it does not indicate specifically that cities or counties may ban them, said Gardiner. Judge Swersky said he would rule later in the case. Richard was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on September 16, 1951. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Union College in Schenectady, New York in 1973, served in the United States Navy, and then earned a Juris Doctorate from the George Mason School of Law in Fairfax, Virginia in 1978. He and his wife, the former Maagosia Jozwik, were married on October 1, 1986 and now are the parents of two children, Thomas, 9, and Joanna, 7. From 1994 until the present, Richard has been a sole practitioner specializing in administrative, criminal and general litigation in federal and state courts, with a focus on firearms matters. He’s been co-counsel in challenges to the Brady Act, counsel for Penn Arms/Intratec in its challenge to the federal so-called "assault weapon" ban, counsel for plaintiff in a challenge to the Virginia ban on the Striker 12, counsel for plaintiff in a challenge to the designation of the Striker 12 as a "destructive device," counsel for defendants on various concealed weapon charges, counsel for the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, counsel for a federally licensed importer regarding the seizure of firearms and the denial of an import permit, and counsel for various federally licensed dealers in criminal prosecutions and license revocation proceedings. From 1979 to 1994, in fact, Gardiner worked for the National Rifle Association, serving as Legislative Counsel (1991-1994), Director of State and Local Affairs (1989-1991), and Assistant General Counsel (1979-1989). Richard is the author of "To Preserve Liberty – A Look at the Right
to Keep and Bear Arms," Northern Kentucky Law Review, Vol. 10, 1, 1982; co-author of "NRA and Criminal
Justice Policy: The Effectiveness of the NRA as a Public Interest Group," delivered at the annual meeting
of the American Society of Criminology, 1986; co-author of "NRA and Law Enforcement Opposition to the Brady
Act: from Congress to the District Courts," St. John’s Journal of Legal Commentary, Vol. 10, Issue 1, Fall
1994; and co-author of "The Sullivan Principles: Protecting the Second Amendment from Civil Abuse," 19
Seton Hall Legislative Journal 737 (No. 3, 1995).
March Glen OteroGlen Otero of San Diego, California is the designated recipient of the CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Month Award for March. In nominating the Californian for the Award, John Michael Snyder, CCRKBA Public Affairs Director, said "during this critical time in the ongoing struggle to maintain the individual Second Amendment civil right of law-abiding American citizens to keep and bear arms, when anti-gun pseudo-intellectuals are advancing many bogus arguments to buttress their deep-seated gun grabbing obsessions, it is essential that genuine intellectuals of various disciplines stand up and come forward with the truth to counter the propaganda of the emotionally-challenged elitists. "Such an individual is Glen Otero, the author of a briefing on TEN MYTHS ABOUT GUN CONTROL, published early this year by The Claremont Institute Golden State Center for Policy Studies. "He certainly is most deserving of this Award." Born July 27, 1966 in Chicago, Illinois, Glen received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana in 1988, and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of California (UCLA) in Los Angeles in 1995. Dr. Otero is a Research Associate in the Infectious Disease Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California. His research involves studying the expression of viral and cellular ribo nucleic acid (RNA). One of the "myths" Otero cites in the Claremont Institute briefing paper is the gun grabber claim that "you, and your family and friends, are 43 times more likely to be shot by a gun kept in the home than is a criminal intruder." Taking direct aim at this propagandistic claim, Glen writes "the infamous study that yielded this illogical statistic is just one of many that litter the public health and medical literature. Serious shortcomings in rationale and methodology plague the study. Nevertheless, the 43:1 ratio is arguably the gun control advocate’s most cited statistic. "The study’s authors start from the presumption that the effectiveness of gun ownership for self-defense can only be ascertained by contrasting dead intruders with dead innocents. Nothing could be further from the truth. Similar to police forces and other household security measures, the real benefits of gun ownership, demonstrated in the National Self-Defense Survey (conducted by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz in 1993), are to be counted not in corpses but in lives saved and crimes deterred. In no way do the authors address this. In fact, the study only counted homes in which a homicide or suicide took place, ignoring gun-containing households that may have successfully defended themselves from criminal victimization with a firearm or had no incidents at all. "In an attempt to conjure up a risk factor due to having a gun in the home, the authors tallied the gun related deaths in the homes studied. In doing so, the authors included suicides. Of the 43 gun related deaths included in the study, 37 were suicides. The inclusion of suicides as gun related deaths would be reasonable if gun availability affected suicide rates. "But, as explained in disputing Myth #3, gun availability does not influence suicide rates. The suicides would almost certainly have occurred by some other means in the absence of a gun. Additionally, the authors excluded many cases of lawful self-defense homicide. So, in deriving their risk factor of gun related deaths vs. self-defense homicides, the authors used an inflated numerator and an under-representative denominator. "Moreover, the Seattle-based homes investigated were not the average American households. The study was teeming with high-risk households that contained a disproportionate number of people with histories of arrests, drug abuse and domestic violence. By studying these high-risk homes, one cannot make sweeping generalizations regarding the rest of this country."
|