My tin foil hat is too tight...regarding the 1989 Stockton, CA school yard shoot

[Tyler Durden]

The other night I was bouncing around the internet looking for a particular piece of video that I was going to post to another gun forum when I stumbled across this gunblog:

http://www.thegunzone.com/rkba/papabill.html

The gunblog is written by Dean Speir.  Maybe you know him?  Maybe he is a legit pro-gun author?  Or maybe he is a quack? 

I don't know.

But there was something in the blog post which caught my eye.

I am currently 44, so the 1988/89/90 timeframe especially when it comes to news events is kinda blurry.  I was in high school at the time, and too pre-occupied filling out Air Force Academy, West Point, and ROTC scholarship applications.  I do vaguely remember a school yard shooting in the 1980's, and that the shooter used an AK47.  Maybe I am just mis-remembering things, but I also thought that a McDonald's had been shot up too.

Reading that gunblog was a refresher since it filled in all the missing pieces.  It happened on January 17th, 1989 in Stockton, CA.  Patrick Edward Purdy was the shooter.  I think wikipedia probably goes on to paint him as a criminal druggie with mental issues, so he was most likely a felon in possession of a firearm.  He shot and killed 5 children and wounded 32 others before turning a Taurus PT92 on himself.

So this is the part in the gunblog which got my curiosity piqued:

....This terrible event, seized upon by national broadcast and print media, played right into a scenario envisioned by anti-gun wunderkind Josh Sugarmann and privately circulated in September 1988, so the antigunners were thoroughly prepared to launch a well-coordinated propaganda campaign designed to confuse the general population and to fractionalize the firearms community … the operative phrase being "assault rifle."...[/b]

Up until like 2 days ago, I had never even heard the name Josh Sugarmann, but it is a name all us pro-gun people should familiarize ourselves with.  He is the executive director of the Violence Policy Center, which is like a branch of the Brady Campaign.  Sugarmann has been an anti-gun strategist for quite a long time.  Also, according to the ATF's website, he is like the only FFL in Washington D.C. .

I put in bold the part I really wanted you all to pay attention to, and it is the main thing compelling me to try to contact the gunblog write Dean Speir.

So, just 4 months prior to the Stockton, CA school yard shooting, Sugarmann somehow communicates (verbal or print...a paper?) about a terrible gun tragedy to a bunch of media and anti-gun people and then goes on to describe the tactics that should be used to best hype up and propagandize the gun tragedy in order to push anti-gun sentiment.

I find that timing rather interesting.

I am also curious about just how specific or detailed this "communication" was.  Was it supposed to be just some generic tactics "template" that could be applied to any shooting tragedy?  Or was it more geared to school shootings?

Was it in paper form?

If so, how do us pro-gun people get a copy of it?

How did Dean Speir hear about it?

If I am not mistaken, the public's reaction to the Stockton shooting got then President George Herbert Walker Bush to sign an executive order banning the importation of certain guns.

I would also be curious as to what other papers fthe VPC have distributed to the media, and the timing of such distributions.

Oh, yeah, one other thing before I forget:  Josh Sugarmann is a long time native of Newtown, Connecticut.

Dayummnnnn...this tin foil hat is tight!

[alfsauve]

Well, yes, the anti-gunners are laying and waiting.  They've got the play sheets all ready for the next shooting.  Their mantra is never let a tragedy go to waste.

But, eh, I don't know if I'd go so far to say they got tired of waiting.  But, you know if you wish for something long and hard enough, you just might find someone willing to grant it for you.  So it could be more induced rather than overtly planned or plotted.


Along the line of conspiracy theories:  The number of Clinton associates who've met a, uh, should we say "timely" demise is rather high.  And if I was an email guru named, Bryan Pagliano, I'd be watching my back... front... sides...

[Tyler Durden]

What are the odds that  like the #1 anti-gun strategist's hometown is the scene of one of the worst, if not the worst, school shootings in US history?

[alfsauve]

Oh I agree Tyler.  Very suspicious.  Gibbs rule #39,  "There is no such thing as coincidence."

And Rule #40 applies to your post as well, "If it seems like someone is out to get you, they are."