FoxNews.com highlights BFA article on gun ban extremists "swatting" gun owners

On Monday, August 31, my article entitled "Anti-Gun Group Wants Gun Owners Killed?" was published at BuckeyeFirearms.org. The article documents a recent case of the rabidly anti-self-defense Coalition to Stop Gun Violence becoming the latest gun control extremist group to advocate calling police any time they see a gun owner in public.

I correctly identified the practice for what it is: "SWATting," and I also noted that this is not the first time a gun ban group has employed this potentially deadly tactic.

The article has gained widespread attention, both via our Facebook page, and now via FoxNews.com and WND.com.

From the Fox News article, entitled "Gun control groups accused of ‘swatting’ open-carry permit holders, putting lives at risk":

Second Amendment groups are accusing the gun control lobby of putting law-abiding owners of firearms in danger by urging people to call the police on anyone carrying a gun in public.

As more states relax rules about open-carrying of guns, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has taken to social media to urge the public to assume gun-toters are trouble, and to call the cops on anyone they feel may be a threat.

“If you see someone carrying a firearm in public—openly or concealed—and have ANY doubts about their intent, call 911 immediately and ask police to come to the scene,” the group wrote on its widely followed Facebook page. “Never put your safety, or the safety of your loved ones, at the mercy of weak gun laws that arm individuals in public with little or no criminal and/or mental health screening.”

That approach, according to a blog post by Ohio-based Buckeye Firearms Association, could give rise to needless, tense confrontations between police and gun owners. The association and other similar groups liken the tactic to “swatting,” or the act of tricking an emergency service into dispatching responders based on a false report. Many online harassment campaigns have been known to participate in the practice.

The Fox News article also documents other times when gun control extremists were encouraged to call the police and intentionally exaggerate what they see in the hopes of getting cops to stop those open-carrying guns.

Fox News reports that the main issue that my article raises with the Coalition’s tactics is the potential of putting law-abiding citizens in real danger - something a spokesperson for the anti-gun rights group, of course, denied in a statement provided to Fox News:

“In an era in which individuals are being allowed to carry loaded guns on our streets with no permit, background check or required training, it is common sense for concerned citizens to call 911 when they see an armed individual whose intentions are unclear,” Ladd Everitt, director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “These [open carry] laws guarantee that we—and law enforcement—will have no idea about the criminal and/or mental health background of these individuals until they actually commit a crime; and by then it could be far too late. We have full confidence in our men and women in blue to assess these situations.

While we aren't surprised that they would refuse to take their focus off of law-abiding citizens, their expression of "full confidence in our men and women in blue" is interesting, given that they jumped on the anti-law enforcement bandwagon, issuing a race-baiting press release during the media-inspired uproar over the shooting of Michael Brown, a shoplifter who attacked a responding Ferguson, MO police officer.

For their part, CAGV responded to our shedding the light on their "SWATting" tactics by doubling down. In a post on the group's Facebook page linking to the Fox News article, they wrote "Keep calling 911, folks, ANYTIME you see an armed individual in public and have doubts about their intentions."

From Wikipedia.com:

Swatting is the act of tricking an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into dispatching an emergency response based on the false report of an ongoing critical incident. The term derives from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), a highly militarized type of police unit in the United States carrying equipment such as door breaching equipment and powerful firearms.

Swatting has been associated with online harassment campaigns...

The Fox article concludes by noting that Buckeye Firearms Association believes the effort amounts to "conspiring to obstruct legal justice.” Indeed we do, and people who call the police without legitimate reason should be charged.

While we are thankful that open carry is legal in Ohio and want it to remain so, this tactic by gun ban extremists provides yet another argument in favor of concealed carry. The crazies can't call police about a gun they don't know you're carrying.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Secretary, BFA PAC Vice Chairman, and an NRA-certified firearms instructor. He is the editor of BuckeyeFirearms.org, which received the Outdoor Writers of Ohio 2013 Supporting Member Award for Best Website.