Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

[D.C.] The tyranny continues. City tells woman her gun is the "wrong color":

A D.C. woman claims she was banned from registering her .45-caliber handgun in the District because the weapon was “the wrong color.”

Tracey Ambeau Hanson was one of three city residents who filed a lawsuit against the District on Monday that challenges a city handgun regulation prohibiting handguns not on a list of handguns approved by the state of California.

The trio is being represented by Alan Gura, the Alexandria attorney who successfully argued the U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned the District’s 32-year ban on handguns.

According to Gura, the District bases its list of approved handguns on the California Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale. Hanson’s Springfield XD-45 was on the government’s approved roster of guns, but hers was black and silver, the attorney said.

The law only permits that Springfield model if it’s one of the approved colors: black, green or brown, Gura said. "[H]er bitone version is supposedly 'unsafe.’ ” ...

[D.C.] US News op-ed says D.C. gun issue "isn't about constitutional rights":

Every time I hear that gun issues have ground the D.C. voting rights bill to a halt in the House of Representatives, I wonder to myself: Didn't the U.S. Supreme Court already strike down D.C.'s ban on handguns as unconstitutional?

The answer of course is "yes." So why is it still an issue? Well because, despite what some advocates would have you believe, the gun issue isn't about constitutional rights.
...
Thanks to the Supreme Court, D.C. citizens can keep and bear arms. They simply have to register them, and cannot have any of the semi-automatic variety. Only radical gun rights advocate suggest these are unconstitutional limitations—and if they are unconstitutional, then under-armed D.C. citizens can gain redress through the courts.

What they can't do is try to gain redress through Congress, where the 600,000 D.C. residents lack a real voice. Which wouldn't stop Congress from dictating what kind of gun laws D.C.'s 600,000 residents should have. ... [emphasis added]

Comment: Got that? According to the op-ed writer, gun owners can't "try to gain redress through Congress", only in the courts. Oh, and all you semi-auto pistol owners are "radical" gun owners. So I guess that makes police officers who carry semi-autos "radical" police officers?


[Tennessee] Op-ed by a new concealed carry supporter:

... But the most unbelievable part of the whole scenario is best reflected in the census of those who are getting licensed. People who you would have never dreamed would be carrying a weapon are now seeking such a permit – not out of fear, not at all, but to assure their safety.

Doctors and lawyers and housewives and other law-abiding citizens are learning that the two biggest reasons for firearms accidents are ignorance and carelessness. They are also learning to never put your finger on the trigger unless you are ready to shoot and how to tell a police officer, if approached, “Officer, I am carrying a firearm.”

Since I wrote several weeks ago that I am now among those who have decided to carry a weapon, I have been amazed at the number of people I know who tell me they have done the same thing. I am convinced the majority of these people would never use a weapon unless there was a genuine threat of bodily harm.

But the better revelation came Sunday when Mark Haskins, a veteran of the Chattanooga Police Department who is also a member of its SWAT team, taught a safety class at Carl Poston’s Sportmans store on Hixson Pike that I wish every anti-gun activist could attend. If that sounds strange go back to my line about “ignorance and carelessness” because many of the anti-gun crowd suffer horribly from the same afflictions. ...

[Pennsylvania] Gun control debate heats up in the Keystone State:

... Last month, state Rep. Angel Cruz of Philadelphia introduced House Bill 375, which would require Pennsylvania gun owners to register every gun they own, every year at a cost of $10 per gun.

Gun owners would have to be fingerprinted and photographed and that information would be held by the Pennsylvania State Police.

The bill would make it a crime not to report to state police the theft or loss of any gun within 48 hours. ...

[Florida] Gun, ammo sales continue to be brisk, with shortages mounting:

... Even before U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's comments that President Barack Obama's administration would like to reinstitute the federal Assault Weapons Ban, local gun stores were experiencing a surge of demand for both firearms and ammunition. But after Holder's Feb. 26 comment, demand surged.

"We'll sell as many guns in a day now as we used to in a month, and supplies have dried up," said Jay Woodbury, owner of Jay's Guns & Accessories in Panama City. "You cannot get what you need, like ammunition. We're out of ammunition in several calibers. [emphasis added]

"Guns that normally I could just pick up the phone and order, now they're telling me six months to a year, if we ever get them. I'm 600 guns per store below what I'd normally stock and probably a million rounds of ammunition below what I'd normally stock." ...