Gun Rights News Roundup

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

[Colorado] Demand for guns up:

GREELEY - Signs that segments of the nation’s economy struggling are nearly endless, but the sales of guns is not one of them.

Sales of handguns, rifles and shotguns remain high, area dealers say, and the surge in sales following the results of the November election continue.

Zeke Garretson, owner of Garretson’s Sports Center, 3817 10th St., in Greeley, said sales of guns, particularly handguns, has been steady since late last year. The current buying frenzy, he said, started the day after Barack Obama was elected president. He said he has heard customer after customer explain they are buying weapons ‘‘while they still can’’ or something to that effect. ...

[Florida] Gun lobby fires back at CCW permit funds raid:

TALLAHASSEE -- Despite a huge backlog for gun permits, Florida legislators have signed off on taking $6 million out of a trust fund dedicated to helping process concealed weapon permits.

Gun rights advocates, however, are firing back, calling on Gov. Charlie Crist to veto the move.

Florida’s gun lobby said between the backlog and applications up 60 percent, the timing could not be worse. ...

[Massachusetts] Op-ed: More infringements on the way:

Gov. Deval L. Patrick's recently filed gun control legislation ought to leave most lawful gun owners in Massachusetts' feeling like Al Pacino in The Godfather, Part III: "Just when we thought we were out, they pull us back in."

State officials readily admit that Massachusetts already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. Now, they have returned to file the "Act to Reduce Firearm Violence," a series of measures that take a scatter-shot approach to reducing gun violence in the state.

We think the act puts too much of a burden on sportsmen and recreational shooters.

A key provision of the bill would limit licensed gun owners from buying more than one gun a month. ...

Anti-gun liberals: Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest:

The positions of most urban liberals on firearms are dumb, dumber and dumbest.

It is dumb to suppose that the way to decrease crime is to make sure all potential victims of violent crime are disarmed. It is dumber yet to believe that a criminal will obey a gun-control law. No bank robber or rapist has ever set out and then stopped and said, "Gosh, I don't have a permit for this weapon, so I guess I'd better not rob that bank or rape that girl." No serial killer has ever said: "Gosh, I can't kill this person with an unregistered weapon. That would be against the law."

The dumbest idea is to suppose that an inanimate object can turn a noncriminal into a criminal. To believe that guns cause crime is as stupid as believing that hammers and saws cause houses. It is the grossest kind of mindless superstition to suppose that some magical qualities of an inanimate object can overpower the human will.

A gun is neither a romantic nor a sinister object. It is just a plain tool, like a hammer, a saw or a router. It can be used for recreation, and it can be used for self-defense. Like a chain saw, it can hurt its owner if the owner is careless or stupid. But the modern firearm is inherently safe. The gun cannot load itself or fire itself. Properly stored and used, it is safer than a stepladder or a swimming pool or an automobile. It is even safer than eating.

Here are the statistics from the National Safety Council: In the year 2000, firearms killed 600 Americans accidentally. That's 600 out of nearly 280 million. Here are the other numbers of accidental fatalities for that year: autos, 43,000; falls, 16,200; poisons, 11,700; drowning, 3,900; ingestion of food or other object, 3,400. The only number of fatalities lower than accidental firearms deaths is that from poison gases – 400. ...