Keep giving 'em hell, guys...
LINK
Denver Post Capitol Bureau
Monday, May 28, 2001 - The Anti-Defamation League has begun looking into the tactics of a gun-rights group that started in Colorado and has spread to 17 other states.
The ADL, which has exposed hate groups and militias throughout the United States, stopped short of placing the Tyranny Response Team in that category. But one ADL official said the civil-rights group is concerned about the kinds of people who may be drawn to the gun organization.
"That's what it's about: keeping an eye on these groups," said Bobbie Towbin, associate director of the ADL's Denver branch.
The Tyranny Response Team has used controversial tactics to disrupt gun-control marches, including the nationwide Million Mom March movement that presses for tougher gun laws.
Tyranny Response Team founder Bob Glass, who owns a Longmont gun shop, said he believes his organization is being targeted by the ADL because its officials simply don't agree with his views. Indeed, he's gotten into arguments with the Denver branch and has led a protest at the ADL's Denver headquarters.
"When their arguments are philosophically, historically and morally bankrupt, the only card they have to play is character assassination," Glass said.
An ADL researcher was in Denver last week compiling information about Glass' group.
She talked to some members of Denver's gun-control movement who believe that rogue members of the Tyranny Response Team may have been responsible for sending hate mail and death threats last year to Tom Mauser. Mauser, whose son was killed in the Columbine High School massacre, has advocated tighter gun laws. Glass has denied his group had anything to do with those letters.
Glass says he started the organization because the National Rifle Association wasn't doing enough to protect the rights of gun owners.
"We've started something huge here," Glass said. "We've been giving the Million Mom Marches, I like to call them the "Commie Mommies,' heartburn all over the country."
The group's protest tactics are a key reason why the ADL has become interested in the group.
Some examples:
At a Boulder City Council meeting last year in which council members were discussing strengthing gun laws, members of the Tyranny Response Team protested at City Hall wearing black shirts with yellow, six-pointed stars, similar to the kind Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany. They also distributed fliers containing photographs of Holocaust victims.
At Million Mom Marches across the United States held in May over the past two years, Tyranny Response Team members disrupted proceedings by outnumbering and outshouting the marching moms. At many of these marches, they shouted down speakers by yelling "Sieg Heil," while raising their arms in a Nazi salute. These tactics have been blamed for the drop in participation in the marches.
The group is able to muster hundreds to gather at protests on very short notice.
Glass defends those tactics, saying they are used as examples of what can happen when a society disarms itself.
Tyranny Response Team members use their controversial methods to "drive that point home, to show them how fascist their agenda is," Glass said. "The real danger people face is state-sponsored genocide, like Stalin, like Hitler, like Pol Pot."
The group has scheduled a July protest in New York to coincide with a United Nations meeting on gun laws.
"We're serious about preventing genocide," he said. About his critics: "They never expected we'd be so "in your face.'"
ADL officials say they will closely watch all of the Tyranny Response Team's activities.
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't think they are white supremacists or have an ideology that we'd be concerned about," Towbin said. "It's the type of people they may attract."
LINK
Denver Post Capitol Bureau
Monday, May 28, 2001 - The Anti-Defamation League has begun looking into the tactics of a gun-rights group that started in Colorado and has spread to 17 other states.
The ADL, which has exposed hate groups and militias throughout the United States, stopped short of placing the Tyranny Response Team in that category. But one ADL official said the civil-rights group is concerned about the kinds of people who may be drawn to the gun organization.
"That's what it's about: keeping an eye on these groups," said Bobbie Towbin, associate director of the ADL's Denver branch.
The Tyranny Response Team has used controversial tactics to disrupt gun-control marches, including the nationwide Million Mom March movement that presses for tougher gun laws.
Tyranny Response Team founder Bob Glass, who owns a Longmont gun shop, said he believes his organization is being targeted by the ADL because its officials simply don't agree with his views. Indeed, he's gotten into arguments with the Denver branch and has led a protest at the ADL's Denver headquarters.
"When their arguments are philosophically, historically and morally bankrupt, the only card they have to play is character assassination," Glass said.
An ADL researcher was in Denver last week compiling information about Glass' group.
She talked to some members of Denver's gun-control movement who believe that rogue members of the Tyranny Response Team may have been responsible for sending hate mail and death threats last year to Tom Mauser. Mauser, whose son was killed in the Columbine High School massacre, has advocated tighter gun laws. Glass has denied his group had anything to do with those letters.
Glass says he started the organization because the National Rifle Association wasn't doing enough to protect the rights of gun owners.
"We've started something huge here," Glass said. "We've been giving the Million Mom Marches, I like to call them the "Commie Mommies,' heartburn all over the country."
The group's protest tactics are a key reason why the ADL has become interested in the group.
Some examples:
At a Boulder City Council meeting last year in which council members were discussing strengthing gun laws, members of the Tyranny Response Team protested at City Hall wearing black shirts with yellow, six-pointed stars, similar to the kind Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany. They also distributed fliers containing photographs of Holocaust victims.
At Million Mom Marches across the United States held in May over the past two years, Tyranny Response Team members disrupted proceedings by outnumbering and outshouting the marching moms. At many of these marches, they shouted down speakers by yelling "Sieg Heil," while raising their arms in a Nazi salute. These tactics have been blamed for the drop in participation in the marches.
The group is able to muster hundreds to gather at protests on very short notice.
Glass defends those tactics, saying they are used as examples of what can happen when a society disarms itself.
Tyranny Response Team members use their controversial methods to "drive that point home, to show them how fascist their agenda is," Glass said. "The real danger people face is state-sponsored genocide, like Stalin, like Hitler, like Pol Pot."
The group has scheduled a July protest in New York to coincide with a United Nations meeting on gun laws.
"We're serious about preventing genocide," he said. About his critics: "They never expected we'd be so "in your face.'"
ADL officials say they will closely watch all of the Tyranny Response Team's activities.
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't think they are white supremacists or have an ideology that we'd be concerned about," Towbin said. "It's the type of people they may attract."