From CCRKBA: Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, newly-elected president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, will be using his new position to push an anti-gun agenda at a White House meeting planned later this summer, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms warned today. "Greg Nickels knows he will find a sympathetic ear in the Oval Office for his illegal gun control scheme," said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. "Like Barack Obama, Mayor Nickels is an opponent of legal concealed carry, and he desperately wants the authority to unilaterally ban the lawful carrying of firearms on public property, regardless of state law and the state and federal constitutional protections of the right to keep and bear arms. Nickels may be inspired by Obama's current ability to push a social agenda," he observed. "Both seem to believe they have some imperial mandate to shape the world by executive order with no legislative oversight or intervention. The United States is a Republic, not a socialist monarchy, and the City of Seattle is not Greg Nickels' personal fiefdom." ... http://www.ccrkba.org/pub/rkba/press-releases/nickels.to.obama.htm --- Beating the 90% Drum Again: Government efforts to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico have suffered in recent years from having no clear plan to combat gunrunners affiliated with drug cartels, investigators have concluded... Citing ATF data, the investigator Jess T. Ford says that over the past three years, more than 90 percent of the firearms traced after being seized in Mexico have come from the U.S. The figure is slightly less over a five-year period. "While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally trafficked into Mexico in a given year, over 20,000, or around 87 percent, of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced over the past 5 years originated in the United States," the GAO's Ford says in testimony prepared for a House subcommittee hearing on Thursday. The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress... [emphasis added] (Regardless of any chicanery by the Mexican government, Mexico does not submit firearms to the US for tracing when it is obvious that they did not originate in the US, such as military-grade AK-47's, the firearm most widely used by Mexican drug gangs.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/17/AR2009061703927.html?hpid=sec-nation ...Gun-rights groups have challenged assertions by both the Bush and Obama administrations that the U.S. is the source of the vast majority of the weapons fueling the drug-related violence in parts of Mexico. The dispute centers on incomplete data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which conducts electronic tracing of weapons based on information submitted by Mexican officials. The study acknowledges the data gap. In 2008, of the almost 30,000 weapons seized by Mexican law enforcement, only 7,200 were submitted to the bureau for tracing, the study said. The number of weapons submitted would be higher were it not for bureaucratic problems, U.S. and Mexican officials said, according to the study. Officials told investigators they expect to fix those problems to allow more complete data to be gathered... Despite the incomplete data, GAO investigators conclude that the U.S., and in particular the Southwest border states of Texas, California and Arizona, are the source of most weapons trafficked into Mexico... (Without anything resembling complete data, how can they reach such a conclusion?) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124528641705825899.html --- Disinformation about National-Park Carry?: ...I view the passage of HR 627, a credit card reform bill with the highly publicized national park gun amendment attached, as valuable testimony for my past claims that the war to preserve the sanctity of the Second Amendment has been won. Clearly, most politicians are so gunshy about any recordable vote casting them as anti-gun and lowering their NRA grade - and therefore making them vulnerable to defeat in the next election - they go to untold lengths to avoid it. Gun rights advocates must - and surely will - remain vigilant, but the victory in the Battle of the National Parks should give them confidence that hey have the political force with them... The Battle of the National Parks is over. When we visit a national park next year, I doubt we'll notice the difference, but back in the Halls of Congress and the White House, the people we've elected definitely already notice the difference. The resounding votes on this gun rights victory will affect the course of firearms legislation for many years to come. (One: We're still counting down to February 22, 2010. Two: Administration lawyers are still studying how much they can infringe the intent of the legislation by invoking the ongoing ban on firearms in "federal facilities," e.g., which structures in national parks can be posted "no firearms.") http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/masterblaster_bill_worth_it_after_all/11148/ --- The Beat Goes On: ...It's been almost a year now since the June 26, 2008 landmark ruling in which the Supreme Court overturned the strictest gun-control law in the country, a ban on handguns. And since then, Florida has been dealing with a rush of requests for concealed weapons permits. Back at the Shooting Sports Gun Range on Dale Mabry in Tampa, Range Officer Fritz Caspers has seen the number of people signing up for his concealed weapons class double. "Initially, gun sales and the people that are getting concealed weapons permit were high because they were concerned about a catastrophic event like a Katrina, because of the economy," Casper said. "So people were coming in and buying full arsenals all at once, who had never had a gun before, but wanted something to defend themselves with." Then, he says, November elections came and went. "Everyone's concerned their gun rights are going to be limited on a federal basis," Casper said... http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/hillsborough/concealed_weapons_permits_rise_061709 --- From SAF: Firearms regulations in Washington, D.C. are being amended today by emergency order in response to a federal lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation that challenged the arbitrary nature of previous regulations enforced in the District of Columbia. The District had adopted new handgun registration regulations following last year's landmark Second Amendment ruling that struck down the city's decades-old handgun ban as unconstitutional. Under the new regulations, which take effect immediately, the city essentially acknowledges the State of California's roster of approved handguns - upon which the District's own regulations were based - is inadequate. Citizens who had been previously denied an opportunity to register their handguns will be invited to re-apply under the new guidelines, which now include information from so-called "safe gun rosters" maintained by Maryland and Massachusetts... (The California roster system requires manufacturers to pay to retest annually each and every model to be sold in that state. Thus, if a manufacturer does not pay to have a specific color variant tested, it cannot be sold in California and could not be registered in DC.) http://www.saf.org/viewpr-new.asp?id=298 --- Georgia Republicans Support RKBA: Glynn County Republicans will have a chance to shoot handguns, fire an Uzi, a Thompson submachine gun and other weapons at an event being held to support Second Amendment rights. The GOP gathering will start Tuesday afternoon at Shooters of America firing range in the coastal county. The local GOP chairman, Ed Gough, said in an e-mail that people will be able to shoot handguns for $20, and for an extra fee can fire the other weapons. Gough says, "What better way to celebrate a constitutional right than exercise it?" Ed Tompkins, who owns Shooters of America, said gun ownership is part of the checks and balances in American government, and acts as a protection against tyranny. http://www.wsav.com/sav/news/local/article/fundraising_and_firepower_in_brunswick/17128/ --- Tennessee Senate Balks at CCW Confidentiality: The bill to close public access to records identifying Tennessee's 220,000-plus handgun-carry permit holders fell three votes short of winning approval in the state Senate on Wednesday night. It was a reversal for the gun lobby, which has been successful this year in winning approval of several bills to expand the places where permit holders are legally allowed to carry their sidearms, including parks and places where alcohol is served. The bill had passed the House 83-12 in May. Although the bill is technically not dead, the legislature is struggling to adjourn its 2009 session today and Minority Leader Jim Kyle, D-Memphis, said it will take a two-thirds vote of the 33-member Senate to resurrect it. Although it received a favorable 14-13 vote, it takes 17 votes, a majority, to pass legislation... http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/jun/17/tennessee-senate-fails-approve-bill-close-handgun-/ --- Memphis Merchants Block RKBA: When Performa Entertainment Real Estate and the Beale Street Merchants Association failed to convince state lawmakers Beale Street should be exempt as a historical district, they came up with another plan in order to keep guns far away from its restaurants and bars... Now weapons are banned on Beale starting the first weekend after a new state law allowing guns in bars takes effect... Beginning July 17th visitors to Beale Street can expect to be screened with metal detector wands at all entry points. Those enforcing the new ban liken it to the kind of security you experience at the airport... http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/tennessee/061709_Banning_Handguns_on_Beale --- He Said, She Said: With her pacemaker and frail body, few would describe Christa Taft-Mueller as an intimidating woman. But the 69-year-old widow is no pushover when she's packing her pink-handled Walther P22 semi-automatic handgun. Just ask a local handyman. On Monday afternoon, Taft-Mueller pulled the gun on a handyman who was supposed to be repairing the pocket door leading to her bedroom, but who she says she found arched over her jewelry box... The handyman, whose name is not being released by the Collier County Sheriff's Office, said he was only looking for an outlet to plug in a tool. He was not charged with a crime because the Sheriff's Office said nothing was missing from Taft-Mueller's jewelry box... If that was the case, Taft-Mueller questioned why he didn't use the outlet on the side wall next to the night stand, or one of the three outlets within a few feet of the door he was repairing... http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/jun/16/widow-pulls-pink-pistol-handyman-she-believes-was-/ --- Oops, Wrong House: A man with a concealed weapons permit stopped two would-be Midvale robbers from making off with his friend's stuff. Police say the men were coming home from an errand around 7 a.m. Wednesday morning when they spotted the suspects with their things. The suspects took off on foot. One of the men being robbed grabbed a gun from his truck and started running after them. Midvale police Detective Sgt. John Salazar said, "Grabs a loaded .40-caliber handgun and chases with the gun, shooting rounds either into the air or into the ground as they were chasing." The gunfire stopped the suspects dead in their tracks. The men held the robbers at gunpoint until police arrived and arrested them. No one was hurt. (All's well that ends well and no mention is made of possible charges for negligent discharge of a firearm but, in many jurisdictions, firing "warning shots," absent the justification to shoot the person being "warned," could be treated that way, particularly if the shots are fired into the air.) http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=6851011 --- Oops, Wrong Store: A Georgia liquor store clerk credits his police officer son with giving him two life-saving gifts - a cell phone and a gun. Joseph Wescott says the phone he slipped into his shirt pocket stopped a knife to his chest when a robbery suspect attacked him at the store in a northern Atlanta suburb. He then reached under the counter for the .40-caliber handgun and shot the man. "The knife that he had looked like it was about 10-foot long," the 67-year-old Wescott exclaimed. When the suspect lunged at Wescott, he fell back and the knife struck the battery area of the phone, the clerk said. He then fired one shot at the man Monday night. "That was the first time I had ever fired that gun," he said. Police said Carlos JeanPeirre, 34, is recovering from non-life threatening wounds and faces multiple charges including aggravated assault and attempted robbery. Wescott's son, Jason, said he gave both gifts to his father to keep him safe... (All's well that ends well but you'd think that the son would have at least taken the father to the range for a familiarization session with the gun.) http://www.newsmax.com/us/us_knife_attack_cell_phone/2009/06/17/226400.html --- DC Bill Would Place Cameras on Cops' Guns: A D.C. Council member has reintroduced legislation to equip guns used by the District's police forces with cameras after a man was fatally shot by police in Northeast. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. on Tuesday introduced a bill requiring Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to come up with a "plan for the installation of video and audio recording devices on service firearms of all police and special police officers." Similar legislation died in the council's public safety committee last year after opposition from police, who say the cameras are bulky and fail to capture crucial evidence because they only begin recording once the officer draws the weapon... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/18/bill-eyes-cameras-on-cops-guns/ -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .