Making movies is expensive business, but documentary movies can have a real impact. Two years ago, Kris Koenig turned to Kickstarter to produce a documentary about gun rights in the United States called “Assaulted” that raised over $71,000 to make the film a reality. He later returned for a second round of funding — another $77,000 — to finish it off. The end result was a brilliantly composed documentary. Recently a filmmaker with an anti-gun history named Skye Fitzgerald tried to do the same thing, but failed with only $2,700 pledged in 30 days. A pro-gun journalist sat down with that filmmaker, who was still trying to raise funds, to discuss the project. That discussion ended with Skye Fitzgerald stealing two video cameras, assaulting the journalist, and trying to make it seem that he had been attacked by an evil gun owner . . .
For the story, we turn to The Common Truth:
William Saunderson, famous for his “Laughing At Liberals” videos on YouTube was brutally attacked and seriously injured during a meeting with the attacker, Skye Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, also a videographer, is known for making various video documentaries. He was supposedly working on a “neutral” documentary about the ongoing gun debate and had called on several pro-gun activists including Saunderson to provide input for his latest film.
The two were meeting at a local Gresham restaurant to discuss a preview of the film being pitched by Fitzgerald and seen by Saunderson. Saunderson was upset that the film which had been touted for his input as neutral, was in fact, anti-gun biased.
The film trailer and appeal for funding was placed on Indiegogo but has since been removed. The film content however is accurately described in the link here – OREGON DIVIDE
Details of the entire meeting and attack are included below by the eyewitness, Chris Cochran so we will not repeat them here. We will comment however; this brutal attack is just a sample of what we in the pro-gun movement has said all along. Gun owners seem to show more responsibility and restraint, while the anti-gun movement has repeatedly shown a violent streak.
The victim of this latest attack, Mr. Saunderson, is currently undergoing surgery on his left arm which was seriously (and potentially permanently) injured. His upper arm is broken in 3 places with the ball broken completely off and shoulder dislocated. The doctor says he will be lucky if he recovers 80% use.
It’s well established that those associated in the civilian disarmament movement hate free and open discussion, and that includes releasing video that hasn’t been carefully edited to gloss over their baser predilections. Like when Michael Bloomberg said that black people can’t be trusted to own guns, and then tried to have the video pulled from every outlet he could. In this case, it’s possible that Skye Fitzgerald let his bias show through and then wanted to cover up any evidence preserve the pretense of objectivity. But the way in which he did it was, in a word, extreme.
The response from Skye Fitzgerald is even more bizarre.
While still on the run from the police after the assault and robbery Fitzgerald tweeted the following to three known anti-gun activists:
@repblumenauer @BurdickGinny @jakeweigler Here is beginning of fallout after defending myself when a CHL holder reaches for weapon
— Skye Fitzgerald (@Spin_Film) March 11, 2015
Reports from an eyewitness state that the claim that someone pulled their gun and caused the fracas is a complete fabrication. The local police department states that there was no evidence of any firearms at the scene whatsoever. It looks like Skye is attempting to garner support for himself and his shiny new multiple felony charges by attempting to spin the situation into one of self defense against a crazy concealed carry guy. That may play for the emotion-driven gun control crowd, but isn’t much of a defense in the face of overwhelming factual evidence.
I think I see a trend here. Gun owners and gun rights folks tend to be calm, cool, and collected. They might appear threatening, what with open carrying scary-looking guns, but actual cases of gun rights folks hurting even a fly are rarer than a lightly used airworthy SR-71 for sale. As for gun control activists, what you see is what you get.