Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-— On January 1, 2023, F. Paul Valone, President of Grass Roots North Carolina (GRNC) sent duplicate open letters to the North Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger and Tim Moore, Speaker of the House. The letters are formal open letters, also sent to the GRNC mailing list. This correspondent is on the list and received both letters.
Fair disclosure: I know F. Paul Valone and have corresponded with him. We have met at national Gun Rights Policy Conferences. I wrote a review of Rules for Anti-Radicals, published on AmmoLand News.
AmmoLand News contributor Paul Valone is a serious thinker about politics, political organizations, political tactics, and political power. The letters reflect this long-term thinking and decades of practical experience.
They are things of beauty. Nicolo Machiavelli would be pleased.
The letters, with studied politeness, respect for forms, and subtlety, remind the North Carolina legislature of the political power and reputation of GRNC. AmmoLand readers deserve to see how a master at using a political activist group to achieve political ends communicates to the political leadership and everyone else.
January 1, 2023
The Honorable Tim Moore, Speaker
West Jones Street, Room 2304
Raleigh, NC 27601
Dear Speaker Moore:
I hope you have been well. On this first day of a New Year so bright with potential, please accept my congratulations on achieving a near-supermajority in the North Carolina House.
Realizing the competing interests you face, when the 2023-2024 session of the NC General Assembly convenes, I strongly urge you to consider the interests of
Second Amendment volunteers and voters who worked tirelessly to create a Republican majority capable of over-riding Governor Roy Cooper’s many gun-related vetoes.Even beyond GRNC’s “Remember in November” voter education project which, in the 2022 elections, distributed 150,000 voter guides, including 120,000 mailed directly to gun-owning voters, the GRNC Political Victory Fund (GRNC-PVF) and our independent expenditure PAC, the Judicial Fairness Project (JFP), were highly active. As you probably know, with rare exceptions GRNC-PVF works to elect pro-gun candidates through a highly refined system of independent expenditures like those described below.
GRNC-PVF independent expenditures in General Assembly and Congressional races:
- 792,535 GRNC Political Victory Fund email recommendations sent
- 42,831 GRNC-PVF postcard election alerts mailed19,765 GRNC-PVF automated telephone alerts delivered
- 67,161 Peer-to-Peer (P2P) text messages sent
Geofencing accomplishments:
This year, GRNC instituted new, cutting-edge methods to reach voters. In addition to P2P texting described above, GRNC used cutting-edge “geofencing” technology to deliver:
- 1,717,501 display impressions to mobile devices of gun-owning “drop-off” voters
- Achieving a unique reach of 29,477
- Producing 7,854 display clicks
- Resulting in 33,432 follow-up text messages
Overall, of 34 races targeted by the GRNC-PVF and JFP, we won an outstanding 27, yielding a win rate of nearly 80%. GRNC-PVF and JFP were also highly active in judicial elections, first by including judicial recommendations in all election alerts and second, by showcasing NC Supreme Court and Court of Appeals candidates at events such as our “Ring Steel for Freedom” event headlined by Senator-elect Ted Budd.
I have no doubt that other conservative interests will vie for precious legislative resources, but I am certain none conducted express advocacy campaigns featuring the breadth, sophistication, and effectiveness with which we supported Second Amendment candidates in the 2022 elections.
Accordingly, GRNC’s Legislative Action Team will be highly active in the upcoming session – a session in which our agenda will include (but not necessarily be limited to)
- Permitless or “constitutional” carry of concealed firearms
- Repealing our archaic, Jim Crow-era pistol purchase permit law
- Protecting religious institutions by eliminating the “church carry loophole”
- Protecting North Carolina’s long tradition of shooting on personal property
Obviously, GRNC will also continue to vociferously oppose gun control measures such as deceptive and unconstitutional “red flag” gun confiscation – a priority I’m certain you share.
Other dubious entities might claim to speak for North Carolina gun owners, but among state-level organizations, only Grass Roots North Carolina truly represents the interest of our state’s Second Amendment advocates.
Given new GOP power plus the role of gun voters in creating it, I have every confidence Republican leadership will end our frustrating seven-year stalemate and advance the rights of Second Amendment supporters who look forward to reaping the rewards they worked so hard to achieve.
Armatissimi e liberissimi, *
President, Grass Roots North Carolina
Executive Director, Rights Watch International
Radio host, Guns, Politics, and Freedom* First spoken by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern power politics, with reference to the universally armed and therefore unconquerable Swiss, Armatissimi e liberissimi means “most armed, most free.” As an expression of the importance of the right to arms to freedom, it is GRNC’s credo.
There is nothing in the letters about crude threats such as “nice little legislature you got there.” There is nothing that is obviously threatening. But, if you are in a position of power in the legislature, you know the tough reputation Grass Roots North Carolina has gained over the years. The facts stated in the letter show GRNC has raw political power at its disposal. Those facts speak volumes of the danger of opposing GRNC and the advantages to be gained by supporting GRNC initiatives.
Once, when in an official capacity as a scientist working for the military bureaucracy, this correspondent had to write a letter to another bureaucracy. It had to be approved by my Boss’s boss. He circulated the letter around the bureaucracy, with the exhortation – this is how you write a letter.
The Grass Roots North Carolina letter signed by F. Paul Valone far exceeds my former efforts.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30-year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.