My god do they ever quit ???????????????????

[larrymeyer]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lo...rural_Pa_.html


Chris Satullo: Controlling violence, not guns, is the word for rural Pa.
By Chris Satullo

Inquirer Columnist

It's not easy to get the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pass measures to deter gun violence. Urban lawmakers may introduce such bills to curry favor with folks back home, but they don't have a prayer of passing.
So maybe it's time for some real prayer.

That, at least, is the logic of Heeding God's Call: A Gathering for Peace, an interfaith dialogue that hopes to attract about 700 people from congregations around the state to Center City during King Day weekend. The effort will urge Pennsylvania gun shops to adopt the helpful code of conduct just endorsed by Wal-Mart, America's leading gun merchant.

Rallying churches in Philadelphia to oppose gun violence is one thing. Getting believers out in the pro-gun turf of Pennsylvania's "T," the swath between and above the Philly and Pittsburgh regions, to risk a fresh conversation is another, harder thing.

Bryan Miller has been trying to spread the word in places such as Lancaster and Berks Counties. Miller, head of Ceasefire New Jersey and former head of its Pennsylvania counterpart, sees promise that quiet talk with clergy may succeed where more common tactics of advocacy - marches, jawboning, speeches - have fallen short.

"Advocacy is like climbing a ladder," he likes to say. "If you try to skip a few rungs, you're likely to fall. The first rungs are grass-roots outreach and dialogue."

So Miller, a Haddonfield resident who doesn't drive, has been hitching rides with volunteers out to the T, to talk with clergy groups about guns and religion. The words "bitter" or "cling" never pass his lips.

Neither does the phrase "gun control."

"I tell them that all we're about is preventing gun violence," Miller, a former businessman with an undying love for the Baltimore Orioles and wavy, graying hair that he admits is "probably longer than it should be to do the work I do."

"I tell them we're not about hunting rifles. We're not about keeping law-abiding people from having handguns. We're about keeping handguns out of the hands of people whom we all agree should not have them. I tell them I'm driven to do what I do by my faith, my belief in God. And I tell them I'm very secure in my sense of where Jesus would be on this."

Then, Miller says, he tells them "my story."

His story goes back to Thanksgiving week 1994. Miller was getting ready to trek down to Maryland for a family reunion over turkey and stuffing when the phone rang: his sister Lisa, crying.

Their brother, Mike - the kid who had clung to his big brother's arm as they walked into new schools in new towns, the FBI agent who had survived a stint working gun cases in Washington's tough Anacostia section, who had a new, supposedly safe desk job - Special Agent Michael John Miller had been killed at that desk (along with another agent and a D.C. police officer), by a dumb psychopath wielding a MAC-10 machine pistol. The idiot had been looking to kill someone else but went in the wrong door.

By 1996, Bryan Miller had quit his business career and was leading the organization he would help rename Ceasefire New Jersey.

"People try to imbue me with some kind of nobility because my brother died," Miller says. "I'm not noble to be doing this. The noble people are those who work as hard as I do on this without having the reason that I do."

Taking a pragmatic, low-volume, but intensely dogged approach, Miller has had some successes in New Jersey, including a childproof gun law.

Pennsylvania was a harder lift. I've known Bryan a long time; to be candid, we're friends. As he struggled to gain traction in Harrisburg, I saw his moderate style take on a harder, frustrated edge.

"It's just a tough, tough state," he says. This new project, talking about Bible verses more than bullet calibers, seems to have energized him.

The Rev. James Todd, a United Methodist Church leader in Lancaster County, took part recently in a session with Miller, who's a Presbyterian. "Bryan was received by those around the table as being very authentic," Todd said. "We were impressed with his common-sense approach.

Still, Todd said, don't expect those pastors to crank up fiery sermons on gun violence any time soon: "That would be counterproductive at this point. Now's the time for dialogue and quiet advocacy."

The first rungs of Miller's ladder, in other words.

Or, to put it in a way a pastor might praise, it's time to plant a mustard seed.

[mikey]

Bryan Miller is a flaming pile of bodily waste, discharged through the anus.....better known as feces. I know because I just looked it up.

[Philbert]

"I tell them we're not about hunting rifles. We're not about keeping law-abiding people from having handguns."

So you opposed DC's ban on handguns?

[The_Game]

My god do they ever quit ???????????????????

Nope!

tencharacters

[fingers80002]

Maybe SFN should speak to those folks after he does!!!!!!!!!

She beat him down once, She can do it again!!!!!!!!!!!!

[GunLawyer001]

"I tell them we're not about hunting rifles. We're not about keeping law-abiding people from having handguns. We're about keeping handguns out of the hands of people whom we all agree should not have them. I tell them I'm driven to do what I do by my faith, my belief in God. And I tell them I'm very secure in my sense of where Jesus would be on this."

"Taking a pragmatic, low-volume, but intensely dogged approach, Miller has had some successes in New Jersey, including a childproof gun law."

In other words, he's about taking all non-childproof guns away from law-abiding people. And there aren't any childproof guns. So.....

[archangel689]

Many cannot understand because inverse logic is involved.

>> "I tell them that all we're about is preventing gun violence,"

Good, then push a bill that every house have a gun with some exceptions for felons. This solution involves inverted logic and a lot of folks fail to comprehend it, or refuse to comprehend it. People who think that a gun in every house would be bad, really havent taken the time to think about what the actual situation would be like. Even if a fellon was able to obtain a weapon to rob a bank, or what have you, every person there would be carrying!!! he wouldn't have a chance!


>> Special Agent Michael John Miller had been killed at that desk (along with another agent and a D.C. police officer), by a dumb psychopath wielding a MAC-10 machine pistol.

Was this Mac-10 a NFA registered weapon? Was this a legally obtained weapon? I doubt it.


I have personally shot this gun in .45acp full auto and it would not be my first choice of a weapon. I do like the gun however. You are more likely to blow the lightbulbs out of the ceiling then hit the target.

The only reason why it would be a choice is because an illegal conversion is fairly easy to perform.

It was a illegally purchased and converted Mac-10 which he would've been able
to get anyhow even if they were banned by another AWB.


blah blah blah

[jahwarrior72]

so now bryan miler is using the bible angle to spread the anti gun gospel? how incredibly predictable. when all else fails, call G*D down on your side.

miller isn't an asshole, or a shithead, or any other unimaginative euphemism i can think of. he's simply a fiend, of the worst sort: subverting religion, to fool the unaware. he's not an idiot; he's evil.

[GunLawyer001]

We need to remember that his brother was an armed agent sitting inside a police station, and 3 cops were killed by one crazy man.

So he says that we don't need to be armed because the police will protect us. They are "professionals" who are "highly trained" in the use of special police guns and special police tactics. Hell, his own brother couldn't protect himself at his own desk, how are we supposed to rely on the same "highly trained" people to be summoned, hop into their cars, find our address, and protect us from the same sort of immediate harm? For God's sake, attackers don't give us 10 minutes advance notice, so unless cops can automatically arrive within 2 seconds of an attack, I'll rely on defending myself.

This guy is a lying weasel, he proved that while arguing in that debate. How does God feel about people who practice deception to achieve their aims?

[stephpd]

We need to remember that his brother was an armed agent sitting inside a police station, and 3 cops were killed by one crazy man.

So he says that we don't need to be armed because the police will protect us. They are "professionals" who are "highly trained" in the use of special police guns and special police tactics. Hell, his own brother couldn't protect himself at his own desk, how are we supposed to rely on the same "highly trained" people to be summoned, hop into their cars, find our address, and protect us from the same sort of immediate harm? For God's sake, attackers don't give us 10 minutes advance notice, so unless cops can automatically arrive within 2 seconds of an attack, I'll rely on defending myself.

This guy is a lying weasel, he proved that while arguing in that debate. How does God feel about people who practice deception to achieve their aims?

That is what bothers me the most about this guy. Only the police can have guns. The rest of us can just go **** ourselves in his mind. It's not like all the laws in Maryland, where his brother was killed, helped protect the police in a cop shop. Or that all the gun laws have made Camden NJ (rated #1 on the most dangerous place to live) any safer. But not being happy with the laws and their inability to keep fully automatic weapons out of the hands of felons. He sets his sights on the heartland on PA.

When will he learn that it's not the guns but the criminals. If he would just propose stronger laws against three time losers from ever seeing the light of day he'd be doing the world a favor. As it stands he is the worst that the world has to offer.

Maybe we need to get Harrisburg to pass a law keeping scum like him from ever coming into the state. Make a special law that applies just for him.