Prohibitionists Bemoan National-Park Carry: ...Now, state laws on gun possession and concealed carry are in force when you enter national parklands. For example, if you have a valid Texas Concealed Handgun License, or an out-of-state license recognized by Texas, you may carry your concealed handgun when visiting Big Bend National Park. As usual, anti-rights proponents bleated their gloom-and-doom prognostications... Helmke must be ignoring years of FBI crime data: Violent crime and murder rates are lower in right-to-carry states: Those with liberalized laws regarding law-abiding citizens' ability to carry concealed handguns in public. Worse for Brady, the Centers for Disease control reports that in Brady's favorite states, where concealed carry is banned or severely restricted, the average firearms homicide rate in 2006 (latest data available) was 24.6% higher than in right-to-carry states. Worst yet for Brady, eight years of FBI Supplemental Homicide Reports (2000-2007) show that the use of handguns to commit murder is lower in right-to-carry states than in right-restricted states, 47.9% to 52.8%, respectively. No matter the dataset, they all point to the same truth: concealed carry makes Americans safer... (Nemerov lives in Texas, where open carry is not yet legal but, in a state such as Arizona, open carry is also legal in national parks and, under Arizona law, requires no permit.) Seattle TV Station Misinforms: Whoever at KING 5 News in Seattle put together the accompanying video discussing the change in law that takes effect today in national parks is either: a) a bonehead, or b) deliberately trying to mislead the public regarding the effect of this new law. (Upon reflection, I HOPE it is the former). The video includes an opening shot of somebody loading an AR-15 rifle in a gravel pit (presumably from an earlier story KING did on the Sultan gravel pit closure) and firing a round. Note to KING: That is NOT what this new law allows, and you should know it. I was interviewed by KING's Roberta Romero Sunday, during which I'm pretty certain it was mentioned that this change does not allow target shooting or hunting in the parks. This simply allows park visitors to legally carry loaded firearms for personal protection. (I wrote about this here last week.) Veteran reporter Romero seemed to understand all of this quite well, so someone over at KING evidently decided the video needed to be jazzed up with the image of a semiautomatic rifle being discharged. That's a discredit to Romero, who has always seemed very competent and thorough, and very misleading to the public... http://www.examiner.com/x-4525-Seattle-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2010m2d22-KING-5-deception-Guns-in-national-parks-rule-change-does-NOT-include-target-shooting --- Another Look at Brady Grades: ...Right now, there is a post by a blogger named Don Surber circulating widely around the internet. Don has cleverly compared the homicide rates in some of the states getting low Brady scores with states getting high Brady scores. Consider the following comparison: Utah, the state with a zero rating, has only 1.5 homicides per 100,000 citizens. Less than half of those homicides are firearm related. California scores the highest according to the Brady report with a whopping 79. But they have 5.83 murders per 100,000, which is a rate nearly four times higher than Utah. Over 2/3 of the homicides in California are firearms related. I can just hear liberals saying "People in Utah don't need guns. There's hardly any murder in their state." Few probably make the connection between lawful gun ownership and low crime rates. Remember, these are the people who, in the 1990s, said that "despite the low crime rate, prison populations are higher than ever." Back then they just could not connect the dots and figure out that crime was down because the criminals were locked up. It all goes back to ideology. Liberals refuse to believe in deterrence theory because to do so admits to the fallen nature of man. To them, man is inherently good, not evil. Moreover, he is perfectible. The liberal is willing to die to preserve his vision of himself and others. And he wants you to die for his vision, too... http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeAdams/2010/02/23/ideology_to_die_for?page=full --- More on the DC-Carry Lawsuit: The Washington Post has an interesting profile of longtime libertarian activist and fighter for gun possession rights, Tom Palmer. Palmer was one of the original plaintiffs in the Heller case, which vindicated the Second Amendment by overturning D.C.'s ban on handgun ownership. (Palmer was booted from the case for technical standing reasons before it reached the Supreme Court.) Palmer is now one of the plaintiffs in a new legal challenge to still-existing D.C. laws that prohibit the public carrying ("bearing," as in "the right to keep and bear arms") of your gun in D.C... As Tim Lynch, who like Palmer works at the Cato Institute, explains, "Most criminal attacks occur outside the home (around 87%) and the criminals are armed and always have the advantage of choosing when they'll strike - and that's usually when there are no cops around." Thus, if the right to defend yourself against assault should be honored by the U.S. government, there is little reasonable justification for restricting that right to only the home. And there is no civilized right more basic than self-defense; indeed, to make such defense more efficient and wide-ranging is one of the only legitimate reasons for government at all, thus making localities' attempts to bar its citizens from practicing the right effectively particularly pernicious... (Heller was originally known as Parker. Of the original plaintiffs, Heller was the only one granted standing because he was the only one who actually had a handgun to register with DC Metro PD, in order to take it home lawfully. He had intentionally taken a job as a special police officer, the DC term for an armed security officer, in order to legally possess that gun while working in DC.) http://reason.com/blog/2010/02/22/guns-not-just-for-the-home-any --- Wyoming House Passes Unlicensed-CCW Bill: The Wyoming House of Representatives on Monday passed legislation under which a permit would no longer be required to carry a concealed weapon in Wyoming. If passed, Wyoming would become the third state, after Alaska and Vermont, to allow conceal-carry without a permit. The bill, House Bill 113, passed 42-15. It now advances to the Senate, where it will be taken up as soon as the end of the week. But although the bill has Senate sponsors, Senate Majority Leader Jim Anderson, R-Glenrock, said the proposal will "probably be received with more scrutiny on the Senate side" than in the House. Under the bill, anyone who meets the current requirements to obtain a concealed-weapons permit from the state would be allowed to carry a concealed weapon - except that proof of firearms training would no longer be required. If the legislation passes, Wyoming would still issue concealed-weapons permits to residents, as such permits are needed for Wyoming residents to carry a concealed weapon in several other states... Anderson said following concerns expressed by law enforcement officials and others, there will likely be attempts in the Senate to restore some firearms training requirements and lengthen the six-month residency requirement in the bill. Senators will also likely try to merge HB113 with a second concealed-weapons bill in the Senate that attempts to clarify Wyoming law dealing with reciprocity with other states, he said. If those issues are addressed, and the two bills are merged, "we'll come forth with something that will be acceptable," Anderson said. http://www.trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/article_00ea5d76-819c-5a50-a6dc-fed5a5c9fa35.html --- The Sky Will Fall in Virginia!: Virginia lawmakers are expected to pass a bill that would allow anyone with a concealed-carry permit to bring their guns to restaurants that serve alcohol. Restaurant patrons may soon be allowed to bring concealed weapons along when they go out to eat. Restaurant managers do not like it because they don't expect most customers to embrace the idea of bullets and booze. But the combination is exactly what will be allowed in Virginia if Senate Bill 334 passes. "I just don't think there's any reason for it to tell you the truth," said Manny Caralivanos, Kelly's Tavern. "I think it could drop business down considerably because families won't want to come out if they think there are people running around with a gun on them." Virginia law already allows for that - but guns have to be openly carried. Senate Bill 334 would overturn a ban on concealed carry enacted 15 years ago... Virginia is one of only nine states that does not allow concealed-carry at restaurants serving alcohol... And there could be other issues for restaurants because the bill allows only people who are not drinking to carry their concealed weapons... The bill has passed twice before, but was vetoed by former Governor Kaine. Governor McDonnell is expected to sign off on the bill this time around. (As I understand current law, Virginians who carry openly are not prohibited from consuming alcohol while doing so. The new law will allow them to cover the gun in exchange for a promise not to consume alcohol in a restaurant or bar after having done so. If a permittee breaks that promise, it's his violation, not the establishment's.) http://www.wtkr.com/news/wtkr-senate-bill-guns-bars,0,1085466.story --- Wisconsin May Relax Restrictions on Hunters: Gun laws seem to be a hot topic right now across Wisconsin. Over the weekend, gun proponents held a demonstration in Sussex, alleging police harassed someone openly carrying a gun inside a restaurant that doesn't prohibit firearms. Also, the state Senate Tuesday will take up a bill that would allow hunters to carry uncased guns that are not loaded, in their vehicles. WUWM's LaToya Dennis has more. Under current Wisconsin law, guns have to be unloaded and in a case before legally being transported in a vehicle. But, if Democratic Senator Russ Decker has anything to do with it, that law will soon change. Decker introduced the bill that members of the Senate are taking up. "What Senate Bill 222 does is, it allows guns to be uncased that are unloaded, during the times that you have a valid hunting license. It could be a half hour before the season starts, or a half hour after the season," Decker says. Decker says the reason for the proposed change is pretty straightforward. "Many times a hunter will get out to his friends' vehicle and the doors will be locked or his case will be in a different vehicle, so then they're in a quandary, what they're gonna do," Decker says... "It's really important to understand that this bill doesn't change a single thing about who can and can't get a firearm. It doesn't change concealed carry, outside of the hunting area. You still can't carry a gun into a school, into a grocery store. You still can't go into a hospital or anything like that. Bill 222 does not apply to handguns. It specifically must be 26 inches in length," Hopper says. But some open carry advocates would like to see handguns included in this legislation. Nik Clark is President of Wisconsin Carry Incorporated. "I open carry every where I go that it's legal to do so. So when I go to the grocery store, when I go to the doctor's office, when I go to the hardware store I always carry. Every time I get to a parking lot, I have to stop pull the gun case out of the car, take the gun out, load the gun while I'm standing in the parking lot and then put it in my holster. So that's a lot of extra handling of the gun," Clark says... http://www.wuwm.com/programs/news/view_news.php?articleid=5782 --- More Tennesseans Go Armed: Tennesseans are packing heat in higher numbers these days. The number of people in Tennessee with permits to carry handguns increased by 23 percent from January of 2009 to January of this year. In the Tennessee counties of the Tri-Cities region, the average increase of permit holders in the past year was 24 percent, according to the Tennessee Department of Safety. Ken Potter attributes this increase to multiple shooting events in the news. He teaches hand gun carry permit classes in both Carter and Unicoi Counties, and says those stories always elicit the same response, a desire for self-defense. "Generally we notice that after some atrocious or horrific crime has been committed a mass shooting or something of that nature than we notice a lot of people come to school to get the gun permit," said Potter. (Video provides more details.) http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/tennesseans_packing_heat_in_higher_numbers_these_days/41936/ --- What a Difference a Sheriff Can Make: Across the U.S., most public universities ban students and faculty from carrying concealed handguns on campus. Colorado State University has, up until now, been one of the few exceptions to this rule. But now, campus leadership wants to change the policy, and that's not sitting well with students and local gun rights advocates. The university's board of directors voted to pass a ban on carrying concealed weapons last year. At a news conference on the Fort Collins campus earlier this month, Terry Tyan, of the advocacy group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, says the ban - which has yet to be finalized - would violate Colorado's concealed-carry law. She says that if the university continues to try to ban firearms, the school would be answered with a lawsuit. The region's county sheriff, Jim Alderden, says if the CSU policy is put into place, he will not jail anyone found guilty of violating it. "What CSU is trying to pass is a policy," Alderden says. "And their position is that the university policy trumps state law and the U.S. Constitution." Alderden says school policy should not trump state law. But under Colorado law, campuses do have the authority to implement weapons control policies. And the university's spokesman, Brad Bohlander, says that most other campuses in the state already have these policies... (This is the sort of adherence to the oath of office that is being pushed by former Graham County [AZ] sheriff Richard Mack - http://www.usa1911.com/scm/index.) http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123858348 What seemed like common sense to some is nothing less than an assault on the US Constitution to others, which is why a governors meeting at Colorado State University today to approve a ban on students bearing concealed weapons on its main campus in Fort Collins is likely to be rowdy. Preventing bloodshed is the first thing on the board's mind. It is three years since the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech that took the lives of 32 students and staff and just under two weeks since Amy Bishop, a professor at the University of Alabama, allegedly shot six of her colleagues, killing three of them. Yet there has been such a push-back against the plan that the board may defer a decision today to await further public comment. The proposed change in the rules has reignited emotions about the place of guns in American culture. It is a debate that gets snarled in the conflicting logic of gun ownership rights and the simple notion that bullets and blackboards don't mix... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colorado-students-fight-for-gun-rights-1907393.html --- Oops, Wrong House: A 33-year-old female intruder was shot in the chest this weekend and jailed when she broke a house window and stuck her head through the hole after the resident had warned that he had a gun, San Bernardino County [CA] sheriff's officials say. The gunfire erupted Saturday along the 10300 block of Maple Lane. The resident had phoned deputies, saying someone was trying to break into his home, investigators said in a written statement. "The victim yelled at the suspect and advised he had a gun," according to the statement. "The suspect broke the front window ... then stuck her head through the broken window. Fearing for his safety and the safety of his family, the victim fired." Deputies found Jennifer London suffering from a bullet wound in her chest. "The suspect was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center where it was determined the bullet went through her chest and out the side without striking any ... vital organs," investigators wrote. "London was released to the ... deputies." ... (Note that a shot to the chest is not necessarily immediately incapacitatingnor fatal.) http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_W_webshot.24ac5dd.html http://www.examiner.com/x-18149-SelfDefense-Examiner~y2010m2d22-Armed-homeowner-stops-violent-home-invader --- Eight Years Later...: Former NBA star Jayson Williams faces sentencing Tuesday for a shooting that happened eight years ago in New Jersey. Williams is scheduled to appear in court in Somerville. He's expected to get 18 months in prison after pleading guilty last month to aggravated assault in the February 2002 death of hired driver Costas Christofi. Williams was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter in 2004 but convicted on four counts of covering up the shooting. His sentence for those convictions will run concurrent to the assault sentence. When he pleaded guilty, Williams had faced a retrial on a reckless manslaughter count. Witnesses testified Williams snapped a shotgun shut in the bedroom of his New Jersey mansion after a night of drinking. The gun went off, hitting Christofi in the chest. (From a 2004 report on the trial: "We went back and forth over that for over a day,'' Mr. Clark said of the debate about recklessness versus negligence. In the end, eight jurors decided the shooting was either negligent, or accidental because the gun malfunctioned. Four jurors determined it was reckless, Mr. Clark said. He said he was among the four who voted for conviction.) http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/ex-nba-star-jayson-williams-faces-sentencing-for-fatal-shooting-of-hired-driver-in-2002-85040477.html --- Rule One, Two, Three Reminder: Last night NewsChannel 5 told you about what appeared to be an accidental shooting east of Great Falls [MT]. Today, with a victim remaining in critical condition, we are reminded of the importance of firearm safety. Initial reports came in just before 6:30 last night that a female accidentally shot her husband while handing him a gun. The victim was transported to Benefis Hospital by Mercy Flight and as of this morning, he remains in critical condition. Accidents like these are tragic but can be prevented by following some simple safety guidelines... (The Rules - http://www.spw-duf.info/safety.html.) http://www.kfbb.com/news/local/85000852.html --- Unintended Consequences?: An internal police report warned of potential "public safety" dangers stemming from its Bushmaster rifle - a month after innocent teenager Halatau Naitoko was accidentally shot dead on an Auckland motorway... Problems first emerged in 2006 after a study of 18 rifles, according to an email from the New Zealand Police National Armoury to police headquarters in Wellington. The email, written by a firearms expert, speculated that rifle barrels were being damaged because of sound suppressors that had been fitted to reduce noise, allowing police to comply with health and safety laws. Without the suppressors, the noise of the rifles was excessive - but the sound-dampening attachment also forced material back into the barrel of the rifle when a bullet was fired. Further studies in April 2007 found the rifle barrels were also suffering from the type of ammunition used in training, and a lack of cleaning. Yet police documents show no action was taken until February 2009, when a new report asked for $130,000 to buy new rifle barrels and other equipment to fix the problem. The report stated that the problem posed "a risk to public and police safety". Police bosses were told that risks also included an inability to carry out proper firearms training for frontline staff and recruits... (I'm not sure what the most prevalent fish is in New Zealand but this doesn't smell right. On the one hand we have what appear to have been inappropriate suppressors installed due to politically correct health-and-safety laws, Then we have lack of cleaning. Somewhere in between we have a lack of training, which would appear to have been the most likely cause for shooting the wrong person.) http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10627500 --- Barrett Receives NRA Award: Ronnie Barrett, founder and CEO of Barrett®, a company world-known for providing high-end firearms, optics, ammunition and training, will be awarded the 2010 Golden Bullseye Pioneer Award from NRA Publications. The Golden Bullseye Pioneer Award, first presented in 2007, spotlights exemplary achievement by individuals who were responsible for the development, introduction, and promotion of equipment that has made a profound and enduring impact on the way Americans shoot and hunt. Executive Director of NRA Publications, Joe H. Graham, wrote that Ronnie Barrett was "the unanimous choice of a seven-member selection committee acting on behalf of the NRA members nationwide whose experiences at the range and in the field have been enriched by Barrett Firearms' products and services and...commitment to innovation, quality, value and customer service." ... (While Barrett deserves recognition for popularizing the use of the .50 BMG cartridge, I would really like to see him receive an award for telling the State of California that he will no longer sell his rifles to any public agency in that state, so long as the state maintains its ban on their sale to private citizens. If more firearm and ammunition manufacturers would follow suit, California's legislators might have to reconsider some of the infringements they continually impose on the RKBA.) http://www.ammoland.com/2010/02/22/ronnie-barrett-winner-of-2010-golden-bullseye-pioneer-award/ --- From AzCDL: By now many of you have begun receiving responses from Senators Pierce and Tibshraeny about their votes to support the Cheuvront amendment, making it a class 4 felony to not check citizenship during a private firearm sale. First we want to compliment the Senators for taking the time to respond to the over 500 emails they received over the weekend. However, we will continue to oppose the Cheuvront floor amendment to SB 1102. Think about this for a minute. For years there has been a constant drumbeat, mainly from Democrat legislators, to oppose all attempts to allow state and local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws, and civilian border watchers are demonized for reporting illegal border crossings. Now those same legislators, who want to hamstring local law enforcement, are eager to transform everyday citizens into de facto immigration agents when they privately sell a firearm. Does that make sense to you? Could there be another motive, like ending the private sales of firearms? Regulation of gun shows has been a Brady Center priority for years. Ultimately, what the Brady Bunch wants is the total elimination of gun shows, but requiring any regulation of private sales is an acceptable first step: http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/bcam/stategunlaws/scorecard/2010releases/AZ.pdf. The text of the Cheuvront amendment creates a new "misconduct involving weapons" violation for "selling or transferring a firearm at a firearm show without requiring the purchaser or transferee to provide proof of citizenship" and defines both "firearm show" and "proof of citizenship". A violation of this paperwork error would be a Class 4 felony crime, just like child abusers, drug dealers, kidnappers and arsonists. Note that we aren't just talking about purchases here. A "transfer" is just letting another person take possession of a firearm. Is that foreign looking guy about to pick up a gun on your table to look over? Handing your pistol to your buddy at the show so he can check it out? Better check for ID first, or you're a felon. "Firearm show" is defined as "an event that is sponsored, whether for profit or not, by an individual, national, state or local organization, association or other entity devoted to the collection, competitive use, sporting use or any other legal use of firearms and either of the following applies: (a) ten or more firearm exhibitors are participating. (b) a total of twenty-five or more pistols or revolvers are offered for sale or transfer." "Proof of citizenship means any of the following: (a) an Arizona driver license or nonoperating identification license issued after October 1, 1996. (b) a legible photocopy of a birth certificate that verifies citizenship and supporting legal documentation, including a marriage certificate, if the name on the birth certificate is not the same as the person's legal name. (c) a legible photocopy of pertinent pages of a United States passport identifying the person. (d) United States naturalization documents. (e) the person's Bureau of Indian Affairs card number or tribal treaty card number. (f) a legible photocopy of a driver license or nonoperating identification license from another state within the United States if the license indicates that the person has provided satisfactory proof of citizenship. (g) a legible photocopy of a tribal certificate of Indian blood or tribal or Bureau of Indian Affairs affidavit of birth." Let's think about a few of these details for a moment. We are not only talking about the traditional "gun show," where we take the family to the fairgrounds and look at the wares on display from the vendors, where most are licensed dealers required by federal law to perform background checks. No, if an "individual" decides to sell "twenty-five or more pistols" that her late husband collected over the course of a lifetime, she'd better be ready to check the citizenship status of everyone who comes looking to buy one, or it's off to jail she goes, along with the drug dealers and child beaters. How about that proof of citizenship? Arizona issues driver licenses to legal resident aliens. So how does it qualify as proof of citizenship? How are you to know the difference? Isn't profiling a bad thing? Then why are these legislators encouraging it? How about those other proofs? I don't know about you, but I don't have the foggiest clue what most of those documents actually look like. Someone could print one up in his basement that morning, and I would be none the wiser. Is the same government that would make me a felon for not checking for these documents going to bear some responsibility for educating me as to what I'm supposed to be checking for? While the Senators are correct in stating that Arizona businesses must check the citizenship status of all employees, there are a few details they neglect to mention. One is that employers have access to a federal database to do such checks. Another is that is if businesses are discovered to have hired an illegal alien, they are subject to the loss of their business license. There are no criminal penalties involved. They certainly aren't risking seven years in prison and a felony record. Despite all the folderol about stopping the flow of guns across the border, the reality is that making felons out of people who are conducting a perfectly legitimate activity (i.e. the private sale of firearms), one that has taken place in this country for hundreds of years without any of this nonsense surrounding it, will do absolutely nothing to solve the crime problem, either in Mexico or in Arizona. It sure does go a long way towards killing a good bill (SB 1102) that would restore the right of the people of Arizona to keep and bear arms any way they choose, just as the Founders intended. Almost makes you wonder if that was the plan all along, doesn't it? That's why this is very much a rights issue, not an immigration issue. If it was an immigration issue, there are plenty of immigration bills out there that they can attach this nightmare to. Now, for some good news! SB 1153, the knife preemption bill, passed in the Senate Third Read today (February 22, 2010) by a vote of 20-9 with one member not voting. It has been transmitted to the House. SB 1168, the firearms preemption bill, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee today by a vote of 4-3 with a recommendation for passage by the full Senate. In related news, SB 2543, the House version of the firearms preemption bill, passed out of the House Military Affairs and Public Safety (MAPS) Committee on February 17, 2010, by a vote of 7-1 with a recommendation for passage by the full House. Both firearms preemption bills will be reviewed in their respective Rules Committees before proceeding to Committee of the Whole (COW) debates. Stay tuned! When critical legislation moves, we will notify you via these Alerts. If you want to get legislative news as it happens, follow AzCDL on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AzCDL_Alerts . AzCDL "tweets" from the Capitol with committee votes and breaking news as it happens. You can also follow AzCDL on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/FacebookAzCDL . AzCDL's Political Action Committee (PAC) is also on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/FacebookAzCDLPAC . These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization. Renew your membership today! http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html . AzCDL - Protecting Your Freedom http://www.azcdl.org/html/accomplishments.html . Copyright © 2010 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved. -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. The tactics and skills to use a firearm in self-defense don't come naturally with the right to keep and bear arms. http://www.spw-duf.info .