With incoming mail donations of $150 and another $150 collected in person at this passed Thursday's www.brassroots.org meeting in Tucson, it looks like the "Shannon's Defense Fund" raffle is under way.

500 tickets. $5 each. We hope to raise a net amount of $2,000 to fund legal and political battles involving unarmed victim zones and related issues. The drawing is slated for Sunday, May 5th.

Please give generously to this effort. Shannon's rights and yours will be depending on this massing of funds.

Send checks to

Rick DeStephens
4326 W. Mariposa Grande
Glendale, Arizona 85310
[email protected]

Include your contact info including e-mail.

Top prize is $500 towards the wholesale firearm of your choice. It could be a cheapie, or a deposit on a really expensive one. Two Mossberg shotguns or one Glock 36. Whatever you and our FFL can figure out.

We have other prizes including a training course by http://www.f-r-i.com/ , a Sidearmor holster of your choice from www.sidearmor.com , and lastly, a couple of battle packs of .308 and .223.

Thank you for your support.

Rick

What's the story on Shannon?

Umm, not to offend anyone, but:  does anyone here know who Rick DeStephens is??

As far as I know, this is his fifth post, total, and three of the others were all in a single thread about this Shannon kid, here:
[url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=97958[/url]

So, one other post, total, in the last eight months (not sure where).  And he's already raising money??

Yep. The nerve of me.

Buy the raffle tickets or not. Help us in this fight or not.

You can do a search on google or yahoo to see who I am. For a title, I am VP of www.brassroots.org .

As for the story on Shannon, she is an employee of the Arizona Department of Revenue who from the age of 10 to about 17 was molested, and then raped by her then-felon father who would whisper in her ear while laying on top of her, "If you put me in jail, when I come out, I will come for you."

She testified against him and he has served 6 years of his eight year sentence. He has a string of clemency and parole hearings. At the very best, he gets out for good in 1.5 years (time off for good behavior). She wanted her knife, pepper spray and gun to protect herself. She wanted to be able to lock the gun in the security lockers as per ARS 13-3102. Her boss wouldn't let her. The entire executive branch is fighting against her, and now us.

I am surprised that a gunnie from Arizona would not be aware of this. Over the last six weeks we have been on KTAR, KFYI, KXAM, Ch 12, Ch 10, Capitol Times, www.guntalk.com , I've lost track.

If you would like, you can ask Shannon herself at [email protected] .

So, are you in or would you rather sit this one out?

Rick

When was this on the news?Not knocking you but I very seldom miss the morning news on Ch 10 and havent heard anything an about it.The only Shannons legal funding I remember was for the Shannons law on to prevent random gun fire.Dont mean to rain on your parade but anymore folks want money for nothing.

i don't hear the news each and every day, but this story is not as big as the drunk ass who fell off his boat and hasn't resurfaced yet.  (big in the sense of air time and to-do made about it.)

i remember hearing about shannon's story once.  damn shame.

however, RickD, even you should understand the healthy amount of skepticism.  you, an anonymous person, come to a gunboard and request money in your own name, all in the name of gun rights.

not saying that you are, but wouldn't a good conman use the same approach.

we're not evil.  just cautious.  okay.   a little paranoid.

Well, [i]that[/i] answers my question!  If you take offense at my having asked, seeing as how you're not known to me at all and have only posted one non-Shannon message to this site, you [i]must[/i] be legit!

You know, if I hadn't decided to go back and re-read your whole response carefully all the way through, I never would have noticed this.  The first two lines made me think "wow, he's not [i]just[/i] a con man, he's an arrogant prick as well."  You might try moving that line to the top of your reply so that those of us who are unfamiliar with local gun-rights activities in Glendale, AZ will have a clue about you.

You know, after thinking about it for a minute longer, though, I still have no way of knowing that there is a "Rick DeStephens" living at 4326 W. Mariposa Grande in Glendale.  The email address you gave in your post at the top of this thread doesn't match the one listed on "brassroots.org", you don't show the other one in your profile, and seven different people-search engines (Superpages.com plus the six linked off www.TheUltimates.com/white/ ) don't list any DeStephens at all in Arizona when I do a search.  Nor any "De Stephens".  And if I try just "Stephens" I bet I'll get too many to wade through.

And the two REVERSE searches on a phone number Google listed next to someone named Rick DeStephens (both linked off that TU page) said the number doesn't exist.  It was 623-582-XXXX (trimmed for your privacy), incidentally, if that's familiar to you.

And even if any of them did turn up someone with that name at that address, how do I know it's the same person as you??

What it comes down to is, you've just dropped in to say hi and ask for donations.  I don't doubt that Shannon exists, nor that she desperately wants her CCW rights to be respected, nor that someone named Rick DeStephens exists, nor that he does some work for gun rights in Arizona.  But I don't know if whoever created this thread is DeStephens, I don't know if the address is really a 7-11 or a Mailboxes Etc., and I haven't seen your board-ID around here before save for one post supporting Condoleeza Rice nine months ago.  Oh, and from what you write, it doesn't sound like a few hundred bucks are going to do any good anyway -- if you actually have to pay a lawyer, rather than relying on donated work from activists, $300 from raffle tickets will last from about one to three hours depending on how cheap the lawyer is.

So, my suggestion to you is to find someone local to you who is known on this site to organize and collect donations.

Ah, so many excuses for not getting involved.

Very well, you can give me a call or drive up to my place, if you really want to get involved. I accept cash or check. If you are the type who doesn't get involved, no amount of coaxing from me will get you to change. Fortunately, many others of your net-mates are responding with the bucks that it takes to win this fight.

Or, you can just call Governor Jane Hull at 602-542-4331, or Elliot Hibbs at 602-542-1500, or Mark Killian at 602-542-3572. They need to know that folks don't like unarmed victim zones.

You may not like confrontational politics. If not, you can leave a message for them on voice mail after hours.

As for my being an arrogant prick, yes, I am. But that is usually what gun-grabbers call me. I learned to be that way. I know what it takes to get these bastards to respect our rights.

What has Brassroots done? Have you noticed that there are no longer any signs at Arizona rest stops that read, "Keep all weapons in your vehicle"? That was Brassroots and S.A.F.E. combine effort back in 1998. We staged a forty-man protest at the Sacaton rest stop and five TV cameras showed up. We then got three hours of time on Bob Mohan's show on KFYI. That resulted in Hull's, ADOT's and DPS's phones melting down for two weeks. The signs came down later that month.

Have you noticed how County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox hasn't had a gun buyback in three years? Brassroots again. The state firearms preemption law? Brassroots.

And when you go to the Maricopa Superior Court on Jefferson street they actually check your sidearm cheerfully (most days). That was Brassroots and S.A.F.E.

Mesa doesn't ban guns in parks. Brassroots and TUG.

And so on.

If you don't want send your money to me, send it to www.brassroots.org and ask for Shannon raffle tickets. If you have further excuses, I suggest you tell Shannon yourself. Tell her why you are unwilling to support her and the twenty other sexual assault victims who work in that building. And if you blame me to her, I suggest you duck.

Rick

I'll go one better.  www.votetimweaver.com

I am running for Mayor of Glendale. I am all over the Assault Web board and am pretty well known on FAL-Files.

Derek Huffman of AzExArms (who I think posts here) know me and has met Rick.  We've held raffles for several things, one of which was a "name your rifle raffle" last year.

www.azexarms.com

Or you can contact Gunplumber at [email protected]

He knows Rick and me.

I understand sketicism.  The reason you haven't heard about this on the news is that it's, well, a pro-gun attempt to win our rights back.

Gee, I wonder why the media isn't friggin' covering this.  They have been contact ad nauseum on this, but fail to show or show anything they tape.

Could it be because the state doesn't want to open this can of worms?

Doing a Google search on Rick DeStephens brings up a lot....a lot of very pro-gun stuff.  A simple phone call to Brassroots or Rick could have verified the whole thing.

So, now what?

TimW
Phoenix

Tim Weaver
Candidate for Mayor
Glendale, Arizona
March 12, 2002
www.votetimweaver.com

p.s.  Did post counts get reset or something? I know this is not my first post here...I don't post often at all, to be sure, but I know it ain't my first....

Actually Tim, it has been on the news quite a bit. The difference is that it has been spread out quite a bit. Instead of having numerous outlets carry the story over the span of three days, it has been covered piece-meal over the span of six weeks.

And they normally only cover it once and it is not repeated throughout the day.

First it was 620 KTAR on the Jim and Melissa Sharpe show at 6am (actually prime-time drive). Then it was on GunTalk. Then KTAR again. Then it was on Channel 12news which covered the protest.  Capitol Times was at the protest as well. We passed out 650 fliers at the CrossRoads of the West gunshow. Ch15 was there doing a fairly balanced story on why folks were gun owners post 9/11. I spoke with the reporter (Katie Raml) who seemed interested and then they dropped the ball (she says another reporter will be carrying it.) Becky Fenger of the EastValley Tribune did two column segments in early and late February. Then Alan Korwin www.gunlaws.com dealt with it for several minutes on the Barry Young show 550KFYI in late February. The Arizona Republic got interested and sent reporter Charles Kelly to do the story. He interviewed her and strongly suggested that she pose with her gun. She refused. She wanted to pose with a picture of her rapist-father. The story might be printed next week. FOXCh10 followed Shannon to the clemency hearing at Florence this passed Thursday. If they aired the story, I am unaware of it. FOXNews National has expressed interest in the story, but that could fall through as well. Alan Korwin then did another hour on the radio on 1310 KXAM. He mentioned that he submitted an article on the subject to the Washington Times. No news if it will be printed.

So, tickets anyone?

Rick
Or is he?

Paul308 ?