Laws Restricting Guns Misfire: What do these statistics tell us? Restrictive and needless legislation does nothing to prevent violence. Erecting unnecessary roadblocks (i.e. gun control) to legal gun ownership only hurts, and at times dissuades, the law-abiding citizen. More importantly such laws do nothing to impede the criminal, because criminals do not adhere to the law. This is why lawmakers would better serve and protect those of us in Connecticut if they sought to address and remedy the destructive culture in our cities and elsewhere. Destroy this mindset as opposed to devising harmful legislation that does nothing to solve the true ills that plague certain communities, which are the real reasons why violence is occurring in the first place. http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-freshblack0720.artjul20,0,5491484.story --- Is Handgun Ownership A Privacy Right?: If the crux of privacy is the right of the individual to make important life decisions, then this reasoning must apply with equal force to self-defense. Self-defense is the ultimate 'life decision', concerning the most important among all inalienable rights, the right to self-defense. http://www.kxmc.com/News/Nation/145315.asp --- BATFE Targets Smuggling Into Mexico: ...The ATF is also slated to get manpower reinforcements later this year. Of 100 new hires, 30 will be sent to states on the southern border to work on gun-smuggling investigations - a move that will more than double the number of agents currently dedicated to such cases, say bureau officials...More Mexican nationals and known gang members from southern California are frequenting Arizona gun shows, officials report. At the shows, they especially seek out unlicensed merchants holding "private sales," because they know those sellers do not have to fill out ATF Form 4473, which provides trace data that US law requires licensed gun dealers to supply upon a gun sale. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0720/p01s05-usfp.html --- WWII Service Revolver Returned To Former President: Former President George H.W. Bush got his World War II service revolver back Wednesday, 60 years after giving it to a Navy lieutenant aboard the submarine that rescued him when his plane was shot down over the Pacific Ocean. Bush donated the revolver to the National Constitution Center the same day the son of late Lt. J.G. Albert Brostrom returned the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and its leather shoulder holster to him. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19873440/ --- Oops, Wrong Training Facility: It's a bad idea to burglarize a place marked "K-9 training facility." Police dog handlers arriving Wednesday at the abandoned nursing home where they hold training sessions discovered two men and a woman dismantling the building's copper pipes and wiring, Hall County Sheriff's Sgt. Kiley Sargent said... http://www.azstarnet.com/news/192728 --- Nevada CCW Laws Revised: Among the changes, limited reciprocity is now authorized, wheelgunners will no longer have to "qualify" with each revolver to be carried and newly issued non-resident permits will be good for five years, just like resident permits. http://www.leg.state.nv.us/74th/Bills/SB/SB237_EN.pdf --- NRA-ILA Alerts: Alerts for the various states are posted on the NRA-ILA website. http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/State/ --- From GOA: Even while we are busy defending our Second Amendment rights against efforts to enhance the Brady Law, there is a movement afoot to restrict our First Amendment rights as well... a movement that can make the defense of our liberties that much harder. You may have heard of this effort as the "Hush Rush" bill or, just simply, as the Fairness Doctrine. No matter how you look at it, however, there is nothing fair about it. http://www.gunowners.org/a072007.htm -- Stephen P. Wenger Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .