DC Tries to Finesse Heller Ruling: Mayor Adrian Fenty and his feisty attorney general, Peter Nickles, stood on the steps of the Wilson Building this week ostensibly to announce how the District will comply with the Supreme Court's rejection of Washington's ban on handguns. But really, they were delivering very much the opposite message: With only the narrowest of exceptions, we're sticking with our gun ban. Don't like it? Sue us. "I am pretty confident that the people of the District of Columbia want us to err in the direction of trying to restrict guns," Fenty told me, smiling broadly at the suggestion that what he's really trying to do is make it as hard as possible for Washingtonians to keep a loaded gun at home... Fenty and the council put on a nice show of defiance, but in the end, Congress will demonstrate once again just how little say Washington residents have in their own governance. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/16/AR2008071602491.html From Canada Yet: We may be able to measure the life of the District of Columbia's newly proposed handgun law with a stopwatch. Unveiled today by Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council members, this measure is lawsuit bait that makes a mockery of the Supreme Court's landmark District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF file) on June 26 by imposing maximum inconvenience on law-abiding D.C. residents who want to own firearms... So what does the District do? It thumbs its nose at the high court and then brags about it to appease liberal pro-gun control voters. According to a statement provided by the mayor's office, "the handgun ban remains in effect, except for use in self-defense within the home." http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3980 --- Convicted Felon Tries Heller Defense: A Washington County man charged in federal court with being a felon in possession of a handgun has filed a motion asking that the charges be dismissed based on a recent Supreme Court decision. James F. Barton Jr. argues that the court's opinion lifting the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. - and the assertion that the possession of guns in the home is an individual right - must be applied to all people. Senior U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch has scheduled a July 31 hearing on the matter... http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08195/896468-58.stm --- John Lott on Guns and Suicide: ... Yes, suicides did indeed decline after the ban... If the gun ban caused the drop in suicides, why would the non-gun suicide rate fall at least as much as the gun suicide rate? A far more likely explanation is that something else was changing and causing people to not want to commit suicide, no matter what method they might consider... There are so many different ways for people to kill themselves: people can jump off buildings or crash their car into a telephone pole or head-on into another car. In a high suicide rate country such as Japan, many people jump in front of subway trains... http://www.lewrockwell.com/lott/lott65.html --- Gun Store Could Benefit from End to Chicago-area Bans: Gun store owner Don Mastrianni says getting rid of guns is not the answer to gun violence. "If there was some utopian way to get rid of every gun, there would still be a way for (gang members) to fight and kill," he said. But Mastrianni wasn't jumping for joy when the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.'s gun ban last month. "It's good for D.C., but I don't see it changing things here until it goes through the courts," Mastrianni said. If local gun bans in Chicago, Oak Park and other surrounding communities are overturned, Mastrianni said he thinks maybe his business will benefit... http://www.pioneerlocal.com/elmwoodpark/business/1056665,el-bizopen-071608-s1.article --- Bush Has No Comment on Atlanta Airport Dispute: It was just a couple weeks ago when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the nation's 2nd Amendment provides a right for individuals to have guns, but that appears not to have resolved a lot of weapons disputes. And today a spokeswoman for President Bush said he's not involved in those either. Responding to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said she hasn't discussed one of the most recent issues - that of weapons at the Atlanta, Ga., airport - with President Bush. "So I don't have anything for you on it," she said... (In all fairness, the Georgia and Florida disputes are not federal issues. At the state level, Bush did sign Texas's CCW law and at least one favorable reform of it.) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69838 --- Universal Studios Claims Exemption from Florida Law: First it was Disney. Now the controversy over the state law that allows people to bring guns to work is going Universal. Universal Studios says it too is exempt from the new gun law, signed into law July 1st... "Universal Orlando Resort has a public high school on property, and we are required to follow school district policies. The Orange County Public Schools system is exempt from this law - and we are operating under those guidelines." ("Running Around with Guns" might be a good them for a 5K fundraising event.) http://www.myfoxorlando.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=6990443&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1 --- Georgia Man Shoots Probably Rabid Fox: Phillip Bowers said he believes a fox that lunged at him this morning outside his Marietta home was rabid, though he says he managed to shoot the fox in midair just before it reached him...The fox emerged from underneath the porch and appeared to be "staggering" and his eyes were "blurry," Bowers said. "He was just skin and bones," he said, "and he had sores all over him." Bowers said the fox growled at him and jumped toward him. Bowers, who had grabbed his 40-gauge shotgun when he heard the noise, said he shot the fox in midair about six feet from him... (That 40-gauge shotgun must be quite a collector's item.) http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080715/NEWS01/307150011/1013/NEWS05 --- Oops, Wrong Porch: A Bainbridge man refused to be robbed when he was accosted around 5 a.m. Saturday morning. The complainant, a resident of Spruce Street, told BPS that he was sitting on his front porch smoking a cigar and drinking a cup of coffee. According to the resident, a man wearing a mask and carrying a large knife approached and demanded that he hand over his wallet. The citizen said he told the masked robber that he had to go inside the house to get the wallet. The homeowner returned, not with his wallet in hand, but instead wielding a pistol, which sent the robber off running... http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19853055&BRD=2068&PAG=461&dept_id=387468&rfi=6 --- Oops, Wrong House: The city state's attorney's office is investigating the circumstances in which a west Baltimore man claims he shot and killed an intruder. According to police, a burglar broke into a home occupied by an 82-year-old woman and her nephew on the 3800 block of Hayward Street at about 1 a.m. Wednesday. Police said the nephew heard noises and shot the intruder, who died from a gunshot wound to the back. Police said they questioned and released the nephew and have forwarded facts surrounding the intruder's death to the city state's attorney's office, who will determine if the shooter was defending his home while retreating out of fear for his life... (Note the contrast with Georgia law.) http://www.wbaltv.com/news/16902245/detail.html --- Oops, Wrong Store: Police say a Memphis store clerk shot a 17 year-old boy during a robbery. According investigators, it happened around 8:50 p.m., Monday, July 14, 2008, at the Margarita Market in the 6000 block of Knight Arnold Road. Police say the teen and three other men were shoplifting at the store when the clerk confronted them. The four suspects, ages 17, 19, 20, and 28, attacked the clerk during the confrontation, according to investigators. Police say that is when the clerk shot the 17 year-old in the leg... http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=f787c182-9990-4bc8-a116-25b61291d571 --- Breath Test Sullies Off-Duty Shooting: About 2 a.m. on Sunday, an off-duty detective who had been out with his buddies saw a group beating a man outside a Queens nightclub. Armed with a 9-millimeter pistol, he intervened. One of the men at the corner of Farmers and Linden Boulevards in St. Albans fired at the 15-year veteran, the police said, and the detective shot back, firing four rounds from the pistol he is authorized to carry while off duty...The detective, 44, whom the Police Department declined to identify by name, was given a breath test for alcohol shortly after the shooting. The test showed that he had been drinking, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.09 percent, a fraction over the 0.08 legal limit for driving, police officials said on Tuesday. He has been removed from enforcement duties... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/nyregion/16officer.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin Detective Restored to Full Duty: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/nyregion/17detective.html?ref=nyregion --- NRA-ILA's Obama Fact Sheet: The presidential primary season is finally over, and it is now time for gun owners to take a careful look at just where apparent nominee Barack Obama stands on issues related to the Second Amendment. During the primaries, Obama tried to hide behind vague statements of support for "sportsmen" or unfounded claims of general support for the right to keep and bear arms. But his real record, based on votes taken, political associations, and long standing positions, shows that Barack Obama is a serious threat to Second Amendment liberties. Don't listen to his campaign rhetoric! Look instead to what he has said and done during his entire political career... http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=3991 --- Toronto Looks at Chicago's Gun Ban: ..."The regular citizen in Chicago cannot go anywhere and buy firearms," says Williams, eyebrows raised. "And yet, in one year, in the 1990s, we had more than 19,000 weapons recovered. In one year. We've been averaging 10,000 weapons recovered every year for the last 10 or 12 or 14 years. And that's with a ban." Toronto Mayor David Miller - who is aggressively pushing the federal government to institute a broad-ranging national handgun ban as gun violence in the city spikes upwards - please take note: The city of Chicago has a broad-ranging firearms ban in place. It has for a long time. It started with handguns in 1981, and then assault weapons in 1992. (It's worth noting that, as Williams explained the litany of recent weapons offences in his jurisdiction, one of them involved three officers being fired on by an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle.) http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/418838 --- From AzCDL: We had a glitch with our online server and temporarily vanished from the Internet for a few days, but AzCDL's website is now back online. Information on pro-rights legislation in Arizona can be found at the AzCDL website: http://www.azcdl.org/html/legislation.html These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization. Join today! AzCDL - Protecting Your Freedom http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html Copyright © 2008 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved. -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .