List Member Feedback: I should have addressed this to you several days ago when the first article appeared relating to RuBee ID systems in SIG-Sauer pistols. Recognizing that such a practice (and revelation) would spell the death-knell for SIG in the consumer market, I directly contacted SIG and spoke with a Customer Service rep. While he isn't anyone I know personally, it was quite clear from his response that he was quite incensed. His statements were very clear. SIG had run an experimental batch (he said it was 5 pistols) as a "Proof of concept" run in testing to validate whether these ID systems could be introduced into government-contract pistols. He was equally emphatic in his personal statement that SIG is not, nor has ever implemented this system into any production firearms, and that he would never work for any company which did do this. I advised him to take this information to management so that they could post a definitive comment (I gave him the newspaper website). I haven't followed-up, since this appeared to be a no-brainer... (So there you have it, second-hand, from an unidentified customer-service representative. The response is certainly plausible but SIG wouldn't be the first gun company in the US to blow off the consumer market and rely on government contracts.) Another list member pointed out an oversight in one of my comments. I had noted that Cerberus Capital Management has purchased several firearm companies but, apparently, no ammunition companies. I was not thinking that, unlike Winchester, Remington firearms and ammunition are both made under the same corporate structure, a Cerberus holding. --- Oh, Those Vicious, Inanimate Guns!: Philadelphia Police officer John Pawlowski was not killed by Rasheed Scruggs - he was killed by the .357 pistol that Scruggs was using. Take away that gun and Scruggs is just another thug with his hands in his pockets. And good-looking family man John Pawlowski might be alive today... This is a news flash for that gun lobby: Back when they wrote the second amendment, Americans were still burning women as witches; guns do, indeed kill, just like that .357, and the main prey that is being hunted in Philadelphia right now are human beings, especially police officers... http://www.examiner.com/x-2301-Philadelphia-Public-Policy-Examiner~y2009m2d17-Lets-get-the-gun-lobby-furious --- Arkansas Paper Posts CCW List: The Arkansas Times blogger and uber leftist Max Brantly, gleefully put up a link to the excel file that holds every Arkansas Concealed Carry License holders name & address. The Times didn't even bother to scrub the address of the permit holders, have they ever heard of identity theft? And what about my privacy rights? As Arkansas Project Contributor and State Representative Dan Greenberg notes, "Max's glee in communicating public information wasn't in evidence a week or two ago, when my bill to make the criminal records of public officials available to the public came before the House Judiciary Committee. At that point, Max said that that bill "simply has an aura of meanness." (Of course, he's hardly the only person who didn't like the idea; the bill got voted down by the House Friday.)What drives Max's shifting moods on the freedom of public information? Is it just a matter of what he had for breakfast that day?" Not only is Max obviously biased in his intrepetation of freedom of public information he seems to have quite a distaste for the privacy rights of lawabiding gun owners. Maybe we should look at getting a bill through that keeps law abiding gun owners personal information private? ... http://www.arkansascca.org/blog/?content=detail&id=275 --- Meanwhile, In Florida...: 347,350 in 2005. 540,991 in 2009. 95,000 applications waiting to be processed. Four of every 100 adult Floridians now has a permit to carry a concealed gun, and 95,000 are awaiting action on their application for one. But while the number of concealed weapons permit holders has jumped 56 percent in four years, no one knows their names. In 2006, the Florida Legislature exempted the concealed weapons permit database from public view. Permit holders may like that no one knows they may be carrying a gun. What about the other 18 million Floridians? The right to carry a concealed weapon should not trample the right to know who has a permit to carry one. Those carrying guns might feel safer, but what about everyone else who cannot know if their neighbor or co-worker is carrying one? Lawmakers should remove the exemption from the public records law and make the names of permit holders' public again... http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article977863.ece http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/02/22/the-anti-privacy-press/ --- Minnesota Bill Would Ease Case Requirement: ...Dill is author of a bill that would allow people to transport uncased and unloaded rifles, shotguns and bows in their vehicles. The bill - which was approved last week by the House Game, Fish and Forestry Division Committee, chaired by Dill - was amended to require that the guns be unloaded. Another amendment clarifies that handguns still would have to be transported cased, unless the owner has a permit to carry a concealed handgun. Under current law, the only time rifles and shotguns can be transported uncased is in the closed trunk of a motor vehicle... http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/39871702.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUgOahccyiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU --- Oregon Campus-Carry Case Gains Momentum: Jeffrey Maxwell, a 30-year-old student at Western Oregon University who served in the Marines, always carries a loaded two-bullet derringer in his front pocket that's so small it looks like it could be his keys. He has a license to carry and conceal the gun, but he never takes it out or talks about it on campus because he doesn't want to scare anyone. It's only for protection, he says. State law allows him to carry his gun in most public places. But the university says he can't carry it on campus - license or no license. Maxwell's case might finally settle the long-standing conflict in court for all seven public universities in Oregon... http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/oregon_universities_gun_ban_fa.html --- Oops, Wrong Store: Minneapolis police say a store clerk thwarted a robbery by swinging hammers at the would-be thief, according to a report on KMSP-TV. Authorities don't recommend fighting back because they say innocent people could be hurt. But police Sgt. Jesse Garcia says some people are apparently tired of being crime victims. Police say a man entered Bryn Mawr Market about 8 p.m. Thursday wearing a ski mask. Garcia says the employee calmly asked him to remove the mask and the man said, "This is a robbery, don't you know that?" When the man grabbed the cash register, the clerk hit the man once with a hammer. Then the clerk threw the hammer at the man, pulled out a second one and chased the man away. The man dropped the cash register and fled on foot. The employee suffered a cut on his arm. (I have long advocated carrying more than one handgun. I'll have to think about a second hammer.) http://www.startribune.com/local/40026377.html?elr=KArks:DCiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUr --- Oops, Wrong Passenger: A 23-year-old visitor from the East Coast had just gotten money from an ATM when he told his friend on a cell phone that he had a bad feeling about two men approaching him at the Fruitvale BART Station in Oakland. His worst fears were realized when one suspect, Victor Veliz, 18, held a folding knife with a 5-inch blade to his neck and the other, Christopher Gonzalez, 18, threatened to shoot him Thursday night, authorities said. In a blind panic, he lashed out at his attackers, grabbing the knife from one of them and punching the other as his friend listened in horror on the phone. Without realizing it, authorities say, the man stabbed Gonzalez in the chest. Gonzalez stumbled to his family's home around the corner, collapsed into his father's arms and died. Veliz, who is affiliated with a gang, was arrested at Gonzalez's home after police allegedly found him with the East Coast visitor's cell phone. He will be charged with murder in the death of his accomplice, along with a robbery count, prosecutors said... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/21/BAI4161N0D.DTL --- Pakistan Arms Militias to Fight Terrorism: Authorities in a Pakistani border province plan to arm villagers with 30,000 rifles and set up an elite police unit to protect a region increasingly besieged by Taliban and al-Qaida militants, an official said Sunday. Stiffer action in the North West Frontier Province could help offset American concern that a peace deal being negotiated in the Swat Valley, a Taliban stronghold in the province, could create a haven for Islamist insurgents only 100 miles from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. Village militias backed by the United States have been credited with reducing violence in Iraq. The United States is paying for a similar initiative in Afghanistan... http://www.azstarnet.com/news/281317 --- Tangentially Related: If we had it to do all over again, would we appoint Supreme Court justices for life? Allow the chief justice to keep the job forever? Let the court have the final word on which cases it hears and those it declines? A group of prominent law professors and jurists thinks not, and the group says in a letter to congressional leaders that there is no reason Congress should consider the operation of the high court sacrosanct... For starters, the group proposes a form of term limits, moving justices to senior status after 18 years on the court. The proposal says that justices now linger so long that it diminishes the likelihood that the court's decisions "will reflect the moral and political values of the contemporary citizens they govern." ...It would set up a regular rotation on the court by providing for the nomination of a new justice by the president with each new two-year term of Congress. If that results in more than the current nine justices, only the nine most junior would hear cases... (Sounds like a "living Supreme Court" to match a "living Constitution.") http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/22/AR2009022201863.html?hpid=topnews ...In the first five weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has acted so rashly that at least 11 states have decided that his brand of "hope" equates to an intolerable expansion of the federal government's authority over the states. These states - Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas - have passed resolutions reminding Obama that the 10th Amendment protects the rights of the states, which are the rights of the people, by limiting the power of the federal government. These resolutions call on Obama to "cease and desist" from his reckless government expansion and also indicate that federal laws and regulations implemented in violation of the 10th Amendment can be nullified by the states... http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30807 --- From AzCDL: HB 2235 (http://www.azcdl.org/html/2009_bills.html#hb2235) is scheduled for a hearing in the House Natural Resources and Rural Affairs (NRRA) Committee on Monday, February 23, 2009. HB 2235 requires all appointments to the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to be an Arizona resident for at least ten years, and to be a continuously registered member of the same political party or an independent, and to hold a valid hunting or hunting/fishing license for at least five years. HB 2235 also requires all applications for appointments to the Commission to be public records. Please contact the members of the House NRRA committee and respectfully urge them to support HB 2335: http://tinyurl.com/bsrhx9 . Below are the email addresses of the committee members in both semi-colon and comma separation formats. Use the list that is compatible with your email software. Semi-colon format: bkonopnicki@azleg.gov; rjones@azleg.gov; cdeschene@azleg.gov; pfleming@azleg.gov; lpancrazi@azleg.gov; fpratt@azleg.gov; dstevens@azleg.gov; jpweiers@azleg.gov Comma format: bkonopnicki@azleg.gov, rjones@azleg.gov, cdeschene@azleg.gov, pfleming@azleg.gov, lpancrazi@azleg.gov, fpratt@azleg.gov, dstevens@azleg.gov, jpweiers@azleg.gov Also scheduled for a hearing this week is HB 2426 (http://www.azcdl.org/html/2009_bills.html#hb2426) which prohibits the state from creating "enhanced" driver licenses and/or identification licenses or implementing Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requirements (similar to REAL ID). HB 2426 is scheduled for a hearing in the House Government committee on Tuesday, February 24, 2009. Please contact members of the House Government committee and urge them to support HB 2426: http://tinyurl.com/dg3ggs . Below are the email addresses of the committee members in both semi-colon and comma separation formats. Use the list that is compatible with your email software. Semi-colon format: scrump@azleg.gov; smontenegro@azleg.gov; fantenori@azleg.gov; chcambell@azleg.gov; tchabin@azleg.gov; adriggs@azleg.gov; dgowan@azleg.gov; wnichols@azleg.gov; atovar@azleg.gov Comma format: scrump@azleg.gov, smontenegro@azleg.gov, fantenori@azleg.gov, chcambell@azleg.gov, tchabin@azleg.gov, adriggs@azleg.gov, dgowan@azleg.gov, wnichols@azleg.gov, atovar@azleg.gov 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 © 2009 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 .