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Focus on SCOTUS: Chicago ruling due, Kagan nomination will heat
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The proverbial clock is ticking down to the Supreme Court�s much-anticipated ruling in the Second Amendment Foundation�s lawsuit seeking to overturn Chicago�s handgun ban � McDonald v. City of Chicago � while attention is ramping up on the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to sit on the high court.
The smart money is riding on a Supreme Court slap-down of the handgun ban, and incorporation of the Second Amendment to the states through the 14th Amendment. Whether the court rules that the Second Amendment is incorporated under the privileges and immunities section or the due process clause remains to be seen. Either way, it will open the door to more legal challenges of state statutes and local ordinances all over the country. |
Obama cuts crime
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Call it the Obama effect. The murder rate dropped 7.4 percent nationwide last year, and the administration can enjoy some of the credit - but not for the reason you might think. Mr. Obama's election sparked a surge in gun sales, and, consequently, crime rates have plummeted.
In November 2008, a total of 450,000 more people purchased firearms than had bought them in November 2007. This is a more than 10-fold increase, compared with the change in sales from November 2007 over November 2006, which was only about 35,000. The average year-to-year increase in monthly sales in the past decade averaged just 21,000. |
CA: Preserve the Second Amendment
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Stop vilifying law-abiding gun owners, since we are the guarantors of everyone's freedoms. Our right to carry as stated in the Second Amendment is not subject to open carry or "interpretive" concealed carry restrictions by sheriffs, police chiefs or legislators fearful of their own shadows.
Those folks work in armed, protected, nearly fortified environments, we don't. They may even believe the dubious fiction that the police will protect us. Ever heard of innocent citizens being murdered? Your law-abiding armed neighbor can respond faster than any police unit not parked right down the block. |
TN: Gov. Candidates Sound Off On 2nd Amendment
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Since the Republicans majority took control of the state Legislature, there have been a variety of Second Amendment issues that have come up, including whether to allow guns in state and local parks and whether or not permit holder records should be closed.
It has been perhaps the most hot button issue for the past two years: whether to allow permit holders to carry their guns in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.
Bredesen vetoed the measure twice, but the Republican candidates vying to replace him wouldn't have followed suit.
"I believe the Tennessee General Assembly is responding both to the will of the people and the Constitution, so I would have signed the legislation," said Rep. Zach Wamp. |
Freedom Action Conference
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I don't usually promote specific events, but the Freedom Action Conference that will convene at Valley Forge, PA, August 12-14, at the Dolce Hotel, is one you should consider attending if, like Howard Beale in the movie Network, you're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.
It will feature three days of speakers who will train attendees and provide hands-on knowledge about how to end federal and UN attacks on individual freedoms, states rights, local loss of control, Second Amendment rights, and other issues that affect you and everyone else right where you live. |
The Principles of �98 or the Partisanship of �10?
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Nullification is the repudiation or ignoring of a federal law by a state government. It is also known as interposition. This deliberate failure to enforce federal statutes or judicial rulings within states is normally based on constitutional grounds.
In recent decades, the first organized effort to nullify federal laws came from the Left and the libertarian Right in the form of medical marijuana. What began in California, in 1996, as a challenge to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, has spread with more states attempting to legalize cannabis, for both medicinal and recreational use. We have also seen states� rights evoked to protect Second Amendment firearms freedom and to block the Real ID Act of 2005. |
CA: Ban on open carry passed in California Assembly
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Last week, the California State Assembly passed a bill to ban Open Carry, the practice of openly carrying handguns in public. The bill now heads to the State Senate. Should it become law, that practice would become a crime.
It's currently legal to openly carry a gun in public in California as long as it's not loaded. Some open carry practitioners will carry ammo in a separate pocket. |
Bilderberg Wants Americans Disarmed And Dependent On Government
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As part of Bilderberg�s agenda to �Europeanize� America and turn it into a ... welfare state wherein its citizens are completely dependent on the government, the elite are celebrating President Obama�s support for a UN small arms treaty, which many fear could be used to impinge on the right to keep and bear arms.
According to Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker, elitists were celebrating one of their scant victories at the annual meeting this year, namely the fact that President Obama has promised to support a United Nations small arms treaty that could represent an end run around the second amendment. |
SC: Indian-American Nikki Haley attacked with racial slur
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If elected, Haley would be only the second governor of Indian origin in the US after Louisiana's Bobby Jindal.
She currently has the backing of political Republican heavy weights like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney.
A strong pro family, pro life, pro Second Amendment, pro development, conservative reformer...your next governor Nikki Haley," Palin said in her endorsement.
The Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms in the US. |
SC: Shots fired at Columbia nightclub
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Columbia police are searching for a man who fired several shots into the air about 2 a.m. Sunday at Club Dreams on Main Street.
A club bouncer returned fire in self defense. No one was injured, police reported.
The suspect fired the gun after an argument. He left with three to four other men in a tan Cadillac, the police department reported. |
IL: If the court kills the ban
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So the justices also may be willing to permit rules requiring handgun owners to undergo safety training, pass background checks, register their weapons and secure them from children. What the court probably won't tolerate is restrictions whose obvious purpose is to make it so hard for citizens to acquire guns legally that they give up.
We believe the high court should allow state and municipalities maximum discretion on firearms law. We strongly disagreed with the court's 2008 ruling.
But Chicago has a duty to respect the Constitution as it is interpreted by the Supreme Court, just as Chicago has the right and responsibility to protect its citizens against the abuse and misuse of guns. |
U.S. Needs to Stop Flow of Guns Into Mexico, Experts Say
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The United States must do more to stop the flow of assault weapons across the Mexican border, which has militarized the conflict occurring between the government of President Felipe Calderon and rival drug trafficking organizations, two border security experts argued today.
"Since the Calderon administration has taken office, you have around 20,000 homicides that have occurred, many of those from U.S. weapons," said Dr. David Shirk, Director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of California,San Diego, during a conference call on border security arranged by the Immigration Policy Center. |
Highest honor for park ranger
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The National Park Service lifted gun restrictions in parks in February. Has it changed your job and impacted visitors?
I guess the biggest thing I'm cautious of is to not violate a person's Second Amendment rights. It's legal for them to carry a gun. The adjustment for park rangers was that we used to react immediately. Now . . . you're just cautious. . . .
There are some people who used to say they would never hike in Glacier National Park, but now they do because they're packing. They were worried about bears before, but now they can carry guns. . . . I would say 90 percent of visitors don't carry guns into a park and I'd say about 10 percent do, and if they do, good for you. |
KS: Gun transport conviction appealed
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Roberts testified at his trial that he carried the loaded gun in a holster on his right hip for self-defense the evening of Jan. 2 as he and a friend entered the J.C. Penney store at West Ridge Mall, 1801 S.W. Wanamaker.
Roberts said he and his friend then entered the general mall area, where a security guard asked Roberts to take the gun to his vehicle and radioed a Topeka police officer who was working that evening with mall security.
That officer responded and was directed to the pickup truck where Roberts and his friend had gone in the mall parking lot.
Roberts said they sat in that truck and waited, adding that he left his gun in his holster instead of putting it in its case because he didn't want to "mess with" it when he knew an officer was coming. Police seized the gun. |
Second Amendment Supporters Say England Shooting Spree Offers Cautionary Tale
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American supporters of gun rights have been electrified by last week�s mass shooting in England and are seeing it as proof that restrictive gun laws, common in Europe, do more harm than good.
Representatives of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA)�an organization that fights to preserve Second Amendment rights�have said that gun prohibitionists often cite UK�s restrictive gun laws as a model. In fact, these laws were further tightened after the Dunblane, Scotland, massacre of 16 school children in 1996. |
MA: Gov.�s Gun Bill on Target
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The recent string of senseless gun killings of innocent children and young adults by gunfire is more than just a short-term spike. Anyone who questions the role of guns in homicides by strangers or undentified assailants (the type that tend to be committed by street criminals as opposed to those involving family members or acquaintances) needs only to glance at the recent trends distinguished by weapon category. As shown in the figure below, gun homicides by strangers or unidentified perpetrators have doubled statewide since 2000, while those carried out with all other weapons have hardly changed. |
Front Sight Targets the Stereotypes
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We are confronted everyday with stereotypes provided by the media of gun-users who are malicious. Redacted (2007), Rendition (2007), In the Valley of Elah (2007), and Avatar (2009), were all films that portrayed people who used guns, usually those in the military, as uncompassionate, angry, and violent. Oftentimes movie studios use an enlightened, dissenting liberal hero to be a contrast to a contrived military megalomaniac. These stereotypes permeate our culture, and pollute rational dialogue concerning the Second Amendment. The reality about the vast majority of people who use guns, however, is quite different. |
Scotus Roundup: Time Dwindling on Term; Hillary Case Thwarted
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Glimpses behind the curtain at the Supreme Court are extremely hard to come by. So we don�t really know why, despite their best efforts, the justices once again find themselves scrambling a bit at the end of the term. All we know is that the rest of the month figures to keep the justices and their clerks exceptionally busy. And for us in the media, the next three Mondays should be packed with news.
Still pending: the Bilski opinion on the validity of business-method patents; the McDonald decision on the reach of the Second Amendment to the states; and one reexamining the constitutionality of the federal honest-services fraud statute. |
Five reasons that annexing Mexico would serve both countries
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As early as 1847, talk of annexing the entirety of the Mexican nation rang through Washington, D.C. But the "All Mexico" movement fizzled out quickly. Americans just weren't interested in Mexican affairs. Today, avoiding Mexico isn't possible; Mexico has come to us. And it carries heavy baggage.
...
Granting more freedoms to Mexican citizens. Second Amendment rights for the people of Mexico would mean more freedom and protection for its citizens. Mexico has struggled in developing a strong middle class against an oppressive succession of ruling elites, despite an intelligent and hard-working citizenry. |
WA: Seattle resident gets a Smith and Wesson after stun gun attacks.
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The 17-year-old girl, Georgetta Jones, was arrested Friday in the 13400 block of Greenwood Avenue North. She was charged Wednesday afternoon and will be arraigned on June 15.
Jones and the two other suspects are accused of being involved in five separate attacks on women. The robbers were apparently armed with a "stun gun," said Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department.
The robberies occurred as follows:
May 17 at 1:45 p.m. in the 4200 block of Phinney Avenue North
May 19 at 12:54 p.m. in the 9300 block of 22 Avenue Northwest
May 20 at 12:07 p.m. in the 700 block of North 102 Street
May 22 at 6:08 p.m. in the 11200 block of Lakeside Avenue Northeast
May 24 at 2:20 p.m. in the 400 block of Northeast 85th Street
Ed.: Have to watch the video for the gun, and the victim's new-found appreciation for the right to bear arms. |
4th Circuit Significantly Limits the Lautenberg Amendment
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Gun owners in West Virginia and many other states whose right to possess a firearm may have been denied because of a conviction for a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" may no longer be prohibited from possessing firearms based on a decision last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which covers West Virginia.
In the case of U.S. v. White (PDF), the 4th Circuit held that a conviction in Virginia for simple assault, without evidence in the record of conviction showing the use or attempted use of "physical force," did not constitute a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" for which federal law prohibits the possession of firearms. |
CA: Dad Accused of Using Stun Gun on Daughter's Friend Over Naked Photo
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An angry father is accused of using a stun gun on a 23 year old man who sent his 17 year old daughter an explicit cell phone picture.
William Atwood Sr., 45, was charged Wednesday with multiple felonies in connection with the case.
Authorities say Atwood lured Justin Moore to his home, ordered him to strip down to his boxer shorts, and tied him up and tased him with a stun gun before turning him over to a sheriff's deputy.
Moore told authorities he sent a photo of his genitals to several friends, including Atwood's daughter, as a joke.
Atwood apparently didn't think the joke was funny when his daughter told him about the picture in January.
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VA: Some fear voiding of Henrico man�s gun conviction could hamper abuse cases
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Authorities fear a recent appeals court ruling could cripple enforcement of a federal law barring persons convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing a firearm.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday tossed out a firearm conviction against William S. White, who was previously convicted in Henrico County of misdemeanor assault and battery in a domestic violence case.
The panel's ruling focused on the definition of "physical force." The judges held that in the federal firearm law, it means force capable of causing pain or injury, something not necessarily required for a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction under Virginia law. |
MI: Cops prowl Detroit for guns
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Detroit Officer Howard Sweeney III stood over the handcuffed man and scolded him.
�That�s what happens when you walk in the street,� Sweeney said almost apologetically. He and his partner, Lavar Green, had tackled the young man, who had decided to run when the officers pulled up alongside him and asked how he was doing.
It�s a scene that plays out nightly as Sweeney and other members of the Detroit Police Department�s Mobile Strike Force step up efforts to head off crime in the city�s hot spots. Their targets are simple: guns and drugs.
Ed.: Brought to you by the same folks that kill sleeping 7-year-old girls.
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