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Bucks County Little Leaguers Caught In The Middle Of Gun Control Debate


By Paul Kurtz

MORRISVILLE, Pa. (CBS) - Some Little League baseball players in Bucks County are caught in the crosshairs of the gun control debate. Morrisville Little League officials are considering cancelling all games this Saturday.

Former Governor Ed Rendell will among the speakers at a rally calling for universal background checks for gun owners. At the same time, hundreds of gun owners will hoot and holler for their second amendment rights.

Dan O'Connell, President of Morrisville Little League, says it's too much drama for the little leaguers who just want to play ball, especially with some of the gun owners packing heat that day. He is dismayed that those groups will be disrupting the kids.

But Cathy Leary of the BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action contends there's room for everyone.

"Our members, we're expecting about 200, could be on three sides of that stage, in the front and both sides, and see our speakers, which would still leave room for the baseball players."

Reverend Robert Moore, executive director of the Coalition for Peace Action told Dom Giordano on Tuesday, "The problem is being generated by these counter protestors," Moore said. "It makes people – the 90% of us who want better gun safety laws — it gives us pause to go to these events where…people are openly carrying guns."

Leary's group never considered canceling.

"We always urge our supporters and members, as we always do, that you don't argue with anyone, you don't confront anyone, you don't answer back when they're screaming at you," she said. "I see the problem being the counter protesters. Because we have had peaceful rallies. So we will be at the stage in the park holding a peaceful rally."

Just how peaceful the rally is remains to be seen.

A group known as Concerned Gun Owners of Bucks County has released a statement calling on Leary's coalition to cancel their event. It also says that their rally "was specifically planned along the river and away from the ball fields to avoid disruption of the kids at the park playing baseball, which is as American as apple pie and firearms."

The statement goes on to say that it is their moral obligation to defend the constitution and liberty against treasonous attack.

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