A trusted Pa. gun-control ally ... and NRA spy?

[AllentownJake]

Source: Philadelphia Inquier

Mary McFate was the kind of volunteer the gun-control movement in Pennsylvania prized. By all accounts, she was dedicated and diligent, humble enough to stuff envelopes yet bold enough to lobby U.S. senators.
Now it seems that the CeaseFire PA board member may have been more versatile than anyone could have imagined. According to Mother Jones magazine, she was a spy for the National Rifle Association.

Mother Jones reported that McFate was in fact Mary Lou Sapone, who made headlines in the 1990 when it was revealed that she had been hired by a surgical-equipment company to infiltrate the animal-rights movement.

As McFate, the magazine reported, Sapone covertly infiltrated gun-control groups for more than a decade and received payment from private security firms and the NRA.



Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20080801_A_trusted_Pa__gun-control_ally_____and_NRA_spy_.html

[1620rock]

1. Animal rights groups too?? Worthless prick.

[Tempest]

2. The Fresno, CA police did the same thing to the Peace Fresno group

Peace Fresno found out the guy was a cop when he was killed and his picture was in the newspaper.

[yellerpup]

3. Pathetic and starved for attention.

I heard about this gal night before last on Olbermann. Let's see, she's an unremarkable, ugly, duplicitous ninny with all the wrong ideas. She'd fit right in with
the McLame campaign. Isn't she best friends with Linda Tripp? Merely a speedbump in history.

[maddezmom]

4. kick

[sabra]

5. NRA Sends Spy Into Anti-Gun Groups

Source: ABC News

NRA Infiltration of Gun-Control Group Sheds Light on Activist Espionage


The recent allegation that the NRA hired a spy to infiltrate several anti-gun advocacy groups in an effort to learn their secrets and strategies opens a rare window into clandestine efforts by corporations and other organizations to target the activists that oppose them.

For more than a decade, Mary McFate worked for gun-control groups, volunteering her time to organize protests, develop policy, lobby politicians and serve on their executive boards.

McFate was, according to Angus McQuilken, a board member at the anti-gun group Freedom States Alliance on which she also served, "a model of passionate advocacy for our cause."

But according to a report in Mother Jones magazine, McFate was really Mary Lou Sapone, a "research consultant" hired by the National Rifle Association to spy on the very groups who believed she was there to help.

...

The magazine closely connects her to the now-defunct private security firm Beckett Brown International, which earned a reputation for hiring former U.S. intelligence agents and which has been linked to several cases of spying on activist groups, including Greenpeace.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5499976&page=1

[virginia mountainman]

6. Hell Yea!!

Good way to keep an eye on those "anti-civil" rights crusaders.

[villager]

17. Figures you'd be all in favor of spying on citizen groups by industry lobbyists...

n/t

[Festivito]

7. Might explain why we have to have a gun dungeon.

Some are just arguing in order to argue in support of positions no one checks, just assume the person is passionate. The number of posts, and not the content of posts, is all that is seen by a group of gun-control leaders who are also too busy to read everything.

And when we point out that some gun-control is what the other side wants as well, they just dismiss me as one person and say, but see what that group is saying. And, that is really just a paid operative who is now in for dime, in for a dollar, and at some point too ashamed to admit a huge mistake in their life. Let alone to drop the paychecks in order to then take up a new career while ever older.

[gratuitous]

8. Seems like Ms. McFate's employers are rather frightened

I wonder why? They have all those guns.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Ah-yup. nt

[davepc]

10. How many threads we need on this... lol

[defendandprotect]

11. Because peace groups and anti-gun groups are so dangerous to us all --- !!!

[Q3JR4]

12. This makes a lot of sense...

Send your agents to spy on activists who want nothing more than fewer guns on the street....

Rather than on have them spy on gun activists, some of whom deserve it...






Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the government has more to fear from people WITH guns than those without...

Q3JR4.

[krispos42]

13. Okay, you're corrected

Trying to reduce "guns on the streets", which is one of those vague terms that might mean a) disarming criminals, b) outlawing or severely restricting licensed concealed-carry, or c) disarming everybody, doesn't seem to have any affect on crime. The assumption that less guns equals less crime is unproven and probably bullshit.

There are two reasons for this that I can think of: 1) Gun-control laws disarm the law-abiding first and worst and the law-breaking last and least, and 2) the crime problem is largely social and economic, thus trying to remove the hardware is an idea destined to fail. It makes a great sound bite, though, doesn't it? Transferring the blame from insane free-market/globalization policies to those evil, evil, gun-pushers and gun nuts, right???



Incidently and as an aside, how exactly are people suppose to react when a group decides that they want to make a right as difficult as possible to exercise simply because they think you exercising that right somehow threatens society?

Also, shouldn't the government be a little bit afraid of the people? Look at what our current, fearless government is doing and how it's behaving!

[DBoon]

14. If NRA members have the guns

then why are they so afraid of groups without any guns.

I mean, if you have firearms, you have more power, right?

[xchrom]

15. now there is a comment i would love to recommend,

[Paladin]

18. Keep In Mind That Gun Activists Are Never, Ever Satisfied

They trumpet the fact that the gun control movement is in pretty anemic shape now, and they're smugly ecstatic over Fat Tony Scalia's delivery of a 2nd Amendment decision that fulfills their wildest dreams---but all that is not going to correct the decades of anger and paranoia they've come to enjoy so much. As long as there's a single person opposing their viewpoints, they'll be in attack mode.....

[wvbygod]

19. Why are anti-gun groups afraid of honest people defending themselves?

Maybe you approve of intelligent, sane and honest people being prevented from
defending themselves with a weapon but most law abiding Americans do not approve.

These anti constitutional gun grabbing groups need infiltrated.

[xchrom]

16. recommend

[DavidMS]

20. This is nothing new...

Same sort of thing was done by Pinkerton agents in the 1920s. If you are involved in an activist group, its probably a good idea to at least make a cursory background investigation into whoever you are working with and trusting with secret deliberations. Also, get people like that to sign confidentially agreements, issue them organization owned laptops and make sure that its set up with a functioning TPM module and remote administration properly configured. Its sensitive information and many progressive organizations look at the cost of doing it right and then say its too expensive, and don't ask whats the cost of being rooted / compromised.

As for the NRA, I have never liked them even though I am relatively pro-gun. Too anarchistic for my tastes.

[onehandle]

21. The NRA is nothing but Gun Company shills.

Fuck them and their supporters.

[pipoman]

22. Since the NRA is a 501(c)(3)

I am sure you can provide some evidence of your claim? I didn't think so. Why? Because you are wrong and just spewing more nonsense from the brady bunch and their ilk. Fuck those who claim to be champions of civil rights while seeking to destroy those they personally fear.

[onehandle]

23. NRA = Payola Machine

Richard Feldman is a rarity -- a former gun lobbyist who is publicly taking a shot at the National Rifle Association.

In his new book, "Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist," Feldman accuses the powerful NRA of being in business primarily to raise money for itself and its executives, and of using self-defeating scare tactics to keep its coffers full.

The NRA's "financial blood-sucking" and "deceitful appeals" for cash, he writes, have sustained the organization financially but have undermined its ability to work with natural allies such as law enforcement officials and moderate Republicans and Democrats.

Feldman came to this conclusion by watching from the inside. He worked for several years as a state-level lobbyist for the NRA and then, in the 1990s, went on to represent the firearms industry as executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council.

Along the way he was transformed from a young man eager to help the cause to a disheartened, embittered veteran. "Ricochet" is Feldman's memoir of his career and his vehicle for charging the NRA with becoming a bomb-throwing, self-serving impediment to what he considers the legitimate right of gun ownership.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/29/AR2007102902121_pf.html


Powerful lobby

The gun-control lobby is using the blacklist as the basis for its own website, inviting members of the public to join the stars.

They claim that their website has attracted 50,000 signatures in the first two weeks of operation.

The NRA is one of the most formidable and successful lobby groups in America.

It claims to have four million members and has repeatedly prevented tighter gun control legislation from being enacted in America.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3238513.stm


But Wednesday was not the first time lawmakers killed an NRA-backed bill in the aftermath of a tragedy involving guns. Days after the Columbine high school shootings in 1999, former House Speaker John Thrasher retreated from pushing a bill that would have banned counties and cities from suing gun manufacturers.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/state/content/state/epaper/2007/04/19/m1a_XGR_GUNS_0419.html

[pipoman]

24. And I see absolutely nothing in these links

which supports your claim, "The NRA is nothing but Gun Company shills.". They are in fact supported primarily by donations of individuals. The first link does name the firearms industry's lobbying group, American Shooting Sports Council.

So again I ask if you have anything to support your claim?

[onehandle]

25. Oh, I'm sure the individual chapters around the country are about something else.

But the shiny building along the beltway in DC is about nothing but helping out the gun industry.

And those individual chapter's dues go to line the pockets of those lobbyists that the building contains.

The individual chapters should rise up like men and divorce themselves from the gun industry shills.

[pipoman]

26. I don't know why it is so hard for so many

to believe that the members of those local chapters agree with the positions on the 2nd Amendment espoused, fought for, and lobbied for by the NRA, and are willing, in fact eager, to donate their money to the one organization which relentlessly defends their interests.

And then there are those who faced with the truth continues to express the lies spoon fed them by the brady types.