In response to an unprecedented expansion of federal power, citizens have held hundreds of "tea party" rallies around the country, and various states are considering "sovereignty resolutions" invoking the Constitution's Ninth and Tenth Amendments. For example, Michigan's proposal urges "the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States."
While well-intentioned, such symbolic resolutions are not likely to have the slightest impact on the federal courts, which long ago adopted a virtually unlimited construction of Congressional power. But state legislatures have a real power under the Constitution by which to resist the growth of federal power: They can petition Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.
Article V provides that, "on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states," Congress "shall call a convention for proposing amendments." Before becoming law, any amendments produced by such a convention would then need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
An amendments convention is feared because its scope cannot be limited in advance. The convention convened by Congress to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation produced instead the entirely different Constitution under which we now live. Yet it is precisely the fear of a runaway convention that states can exploit to bring Congress to heel.
Here's how: State legislatures can petition Congress for a convention to propose a specific amendment. Congress can then avert a convention by proposing this amendment to the states, before the number of petitions reaches two-thirds. It was the looming threat of state petitions calling for a convention to provide for the direct election of U.S. senators that induced a reluctant Congress to propose the 17th Amendment, which did just that.
What sort of language would restore a healthy balance between federal and state power while protecting the liberties of the people? ...
Across Illinois, people are sticking to their guns.
Firearm sales have surged in the state since President Obama was elected, mirroring a national trend fueled in part by concerns over the new administration's stance on gun control.
"It's like when your radiator blows or your pressure cooker boils, that's the kind of spike we're talking about," said Mark Diaz, manager of the Smoke 'N Gun shop in Waukegan. "The joke is that the president is the No. 1 salesman in the firearm industry."
Nearly 80 percent of active hunters and shooters believe firearm purchases would be "more difficult" with Obama and a Democratic Congress, according to a recent survey by Southwick Associates, a research firm that specializes in fishing and hunting statistics. ...
ALBANY, N.Y. -- "We're swamped all the time," said B & J Guns Sales Manager, Chris Powell. "These people are not just buying one gun, they're buying multiple guns and plenty of ammo."
The economy may be hurting many businesses across the state, but not gun shops. Sales of handguns and ammunition are way up, according to Powell.
"We're seeing quite a few new gun owners, especially new pistol owners, people that are just applying for their permit. A lot of them have to pick out a gun before they go through the application process," he said. ...
ELMIRA HEIGHTS-- Despite a struggling economy, retailers are having a hard time meeting demand for guns and ammo.
Gun sales are soaring in the Twin Tiers, and across the nation for fear the Obama administration will impose stricter gun control.
Retail managers say once it looked like Obama would be elected president, gun and ammunition sales sky rocketed- and they're having a hard time keeping up.
“The manufacturer has even told us, if you want a million dollar order, you may only get a couple hundred thousands of it,” said Tom Witzel, the store manager of Hesselson’s in Elmira Heights.
He says his shelves have never looked so empty, and hunters are stocking up on gear - in fear of strict limitations and high taxes. ...
DENVER - Ten years after the Columbine massacre, some states are losing their tolerance for the zero-tolerance policies that proliferated in the aftermath of the nation's deadliest high-school shooting.
A week before Colorado marked the 10th anniversary of the iconic tragedy Monday, the legislature sent to the governor a bill making an exception in the state's zero-tolerance policy on weapons in schools. And on the day after the anniversary, Texas lawmakers will take more steps toward loosening their state's rules.
Colorado state Sen. Kevin Lundberg said he proposed the legislation in his state after Marie Morrow was expelled for leaving three facsimile drill-team rifles in her car in the school parking lot. She missed six days of school before a school hearing officer allowed her to return, after the story made national headlines in The Washington Times and elsewhere.
The bill isn't exactly sweeping - it allows students to bring facsimile or prop rifles to school as long as they leave them in their cars - but it passed unanimously in both houses. Efforts to do more were met with "pushback," said Mr. Lundberg. ...
Georgia 68th District Rep. Timothy Bearden spoke to the area GeorgiaCarry.org group Saturday.
The group, which is head Tim Huett of Hinesville, had its monthly meeting at the Club house in Rye Patch.
“Most people in Georgia don’t realize it, but Georgians have some of the most restrictive laws in the nation on carrying firearms,” Bearden said. “States like Washington and even California, which are states that a lot of people feel are liberal states, aren’t as strict as we are here.”
According to the Villa Rica Republican, one of the problems that Georgia has, regarding the right to carry firearms is the vague interpretation of the Public Gathering Law.
“This law has no clear guidelines and as a result of this any time three or more people are gathered together they can be interpreted as a group, and the law could be enforced, where they can’t carry a gun,” Bearden said.
The lawmaker discussed Georgia House Bill 65, which, according to him, “puts everything on the table.”
“If this bill passes, we can get some clarification on carrying a firearm, and some of this loose interpretation can be stopped,” he said. ...
Madison gun owner Auric Gold said he often carries a handgun in a holster while walking in his east side neighborhood, a right that attorney general J.B. Van Hollen affirmed in a memorandum to prosecutors on Monday.
Van Hollen said it's legal to openly carry a gun on the street in Wisconsin and advised prosecutors that merely having a gun doesn't, by itself, warrant a disorderly conduct charge.
The advisory gives those who choose to carry guns in public more confidence in doing so but isn't likely to spark a rush to arms, said Gold, who works with OpenCarry.org, a gun rights advocacy group based in Virginia.
"Most of those inclined to do it already knew it was legal," said Gold, a 54-year-old photographer. "Those that choose to do so should be able to do so without interference."
There didn't appear to be a noticeable increase in publicly armed residents Tuesday, but that could change.
A group of Wisconsin gun advocates is planning a picnic in July with food, soft drinks and handguns, Gold said. Organizers are looking at locations in Burlington, he said, and a second picnic is being planned for the northern part of the state.
The events would give gun owners an opportunity to "enjoy each other's company and exercise the right to open carry in Wisconsin," Gold said.
Van Hollen's memorandum removes the fear of prosecution that kept some people from carrying firearms openly in Wisconsin, said John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, who expects "a flood" of people to begin doing so. ...
... Reacting Tuesday to questions about Van Hollen's memorandum, Doyle said local communities should be able to adopt their own ordinances relating to guns. He said he objected to a 1995 law that barred municipalities from enacting gun regulations that are more stringent than state regulations and wiped out about 35 local gun-control ordinances.
"To me it's a very different issue whether you're walking down Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee with a gun on your hip and . . . if you're carrying a hunting rifle through a town during hunting season," Doyle said..
There are constitutional considerations regarding such ordinances, and Doyle's position would require a change to state law. He stopped short of calling for that Tuesday, but others did not.
Rep. Leon Young (D-Milwaukee), a former Milwaukee police officer, was surprised by Van Hollen's memorandum and said he's drafting legislation to change or clarify state law to prevent people from openly carrying weapons.
"I'm just totally in opposition to putting more guns on the streets," Young said. "We have too many incidents in which people are being shot and killed in Milwaukee." [emphasis added]
Even if the Legislature repealed the statute that limits local gun regulations, ordinances against open carry would be challenged on constitutional grounds, said James Fendry, director of the Wisconsin Pro-Gun Movement. The constitution provides the right to bear arms, and if the state law prohibits concealed carry, open carry must be allowed to ensure people can exercise that right, Fendry said.
...
Meanwhile, some law enforcement officials are preparing to face more open-carry situations, and some are clear the memo won't change their approach.
Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn said he'll continue to tell officers they can't assume people are carrying guns legally in a city that has seen nearly 200 homicides in the past two years.
"My message to my troops is if you see anybody carrying a gun on the streets of Milwaukee, we'll put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it," Flynn said. "Maybe I'll end up with a protest of cowboys. In the meantime, I've got serious offenders with access to handguns. It's irresponsible to send a message to them that if they just carry it openly no one can bother them." [emphasis added]
In communities where shootings aren't as common, police say they'll at least be asking questions.
"We all anticipate in the metro area that some people who are very passionate about this topic may exercise this right, and there may be reason for us to stop and talk to them," said Wauwatosa Police Lt. Dominic Leone.
Cudahy Detective Dala Milosavljevic said Van Hollen's advisory creates a new atmosphere for police.
"It's going to be like the Wild West where they have the holster strapped down to their leg," he said.
But Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said Van Hollen's memorandum changes very little for prosecutors, and few citizens are likely to begin openly carrying firearms as a result.
In a practical sense, there are limited locations where it would be legal, given statutory prohibitions against carrying firearms in businesses with liquor licenses, in school zones or public buildings, he said.
"I do have faith that the vast majority of people are going to continue to use the same sound judgment and not openly display or carry firearms in a public setting," Chisholm said. [emphasis added]
LONDON - The piracy-plagued shipping industry is resisting calls to deploy armed guards on cargo ships, fearing it will not stop pirate attacks and could make shipping lanes off Somalia's coast even more dangerous.
Since the April 8 attack on the U.S.-flagged ship Maersk Alabama, Vice Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, and several private security specialists have suggested arming crews or hiring private security firms to bolster ship defenses.
With Somali pirates seemingly undeterred by the deaths or arrests of several of their members in recent days, some shipping companies "are definitely considering" putting armed guards aboard, said Andrew Linington, head of communications at the seafarers union Nautilus in London.
But Simon Bennett, secretary of the International Chamber of Shipping, told The Washington Times that the "clear consensus view within the shipping industry is that it is not appropriate for the seafarers to be armed, simply because we believe that this will escalate the situation. The only people that should be equipped with arms are the military professionals that are operating in the region." [emphasis added]
Even the professionals have been slow, in some cases, to take firm action against the pirates, whose attacks have continued unabated since U.S. Navy SEAL snipers killed three Somali pirates and freed Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips on April 12. The only surviving pirate from the incident was being flown to New York for a court appearance scheduled for Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
A seven-hour chase Sunday by a U.S. and Canadian warship helped thwart an attack on a Norwegian oil tanker, but the Canadians released the seven pirates they captured. [emphasis added]
"Canada's mandate is not to normally take detainees in this mission," Michael McWhinnie, a spokesman for the Canadian ship Winnipeg, told the AP. ...
Under Article I, § 25 of the Wisconsin Constitution, a person has the right to openly carry a firearm for any of the purposes enumerated in that Section, subject to reasonable regulation as discussed herein. The Wisconsin Department of Justice (the Department) believes that the mere open carrying of a firearm by a person, absent additional facts and circumstances, should not result in a disorderly conduct charge from a prosecutor. [emphasis added]
...
Applying these principles to open carry matters, we recognize that under certain circumstances, openly carrying a firearm may contribute to a disorderly conduct charge. But this determination must take into account the constitutional protection afforded by Article I, § 25 of the Wisconsin Constitution. The Department believes that mere open carry of a firearm, absent additional facts and circumstances, should not result in a disorderly conduct charge. For example, a hunter openly carrying a rifle or shotgun on his property during hunting season while quietly tracking game should not face a disorderly conduct charge. But if the same hunter carries the same rifle or shotgun through a crowded street while barking at a passerby, the conduct may lose its constitutional protection. See Werstein, 60 Wis. 2d at 672-73 (collecting cases illustrating disorderly conduct) (“In each of these cases, convictions for being ‘otherwise disorderly’ resulted from the inappropriateness of specific conduct because of the circumstances involved”) (emphasis added).
The same concepts should apply to handguns. The state constitutional right to bear arms extends to openly carrying a handgun for lawful purposes. As illustrated by a recent municipal court case in West Allis, a person openly carrying a holstered handgun on his own property while doing lawn work should not face a disorderly conduct charge. If, however, a person brandishes a handgun in public, the conduct may lose its constitutional protection. Again, “[i]t is the combination of conduct and circumstances that is crucial in applying the [disorderly conduct] statute to a particular situation.” Maker, 48 Wis. 2d at 616. [emphasis added]...
... Gun control has long been a cause important to numerous Jewish social action groups.
For example, the Anti-Defamation League last fall joined a coalition of religious and civil rights organizations in an effort to stop the Senate’s consideration of H.R. 6842, which would have removed Washington D.C.’s bans on semiautomatic weapons and handgun ammunition, repeal registration requirements, and remove criminal penalties for possession of unregistered firearms.
Hadassah, in 2000, reaffirmed its long-held written policy, urging federal and state legislatures to enact stronger gun control laws.
And the American Jewish Committee filed an amicus curiae brief last year in the landmark case of D.C. v. Heller, arguing that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to possess firearms for personal use, but rather “was designed to enhance state and local authority to protect life and liberty through the maintenance of militias composed of the local populace.”
“The American Jewish Committee has a strong and well-stated policy on gun control,” said Lisa Steindel, director of the Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee, which is associated with the AJC.
...
It’s hard to understand why we can’t re-enact that law,” said Weinstein. “At the end of the day, if we have laws that take military assault weapons off the street, that makes us all safer.”
But not all Jews subscribe to the anti-gun paradigm.
“Any Jewish group that claims that it is somehow in the Jewish tradition to restrict ownership of guns, misreads that tradition,” said Rabbi Danny Schiff, community scholar for the Agency for Jewish Learning.
“Israelis have a gun under every bed,” Schiff said. “They have this whole concept of the purity of arms. The question is never about the weapon per se, but how you regard the use of the weapon. If you need weapons to combat evil, then so be it. If the weapons are misused, it is an abomination.”
“You can not coherently make the argument that there’s a Jewish position that restricts the number of guns you can own,” Schiff said.
Aaron Zelman, founder and director of the 7000-member organization, Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, would agree.
...
One film produced by the JPFO, “Innocents Betrayed,” “clearly shows the connection between disarming people and governments murdering them,” Zelman said, adding that the results of gun control legislation led to the nine major genocides over the last 100 years, including Nazi Germany.
Jewish gun control advocates are ignoring the lessons of history, Zelman claimed. He said guns are necessary not only “to protect ourselves from bad guys, but to protect ourselves against governments that could become tyrannical.” ...
Of the many things that will be written about North Korea this week, the least likely of these is, “Now there’s the kind of diplomacy we need more of.” Consider just the events of the last few days: the missile test itself, which may have hit closer to home than originally thought; the failure of the United Nations to enforce two of its violated resolutions; the broader failure of deterrence and counter-proliferation; and North Korea’s final repudiation of a February 2007 agreement in which it had agreed to verifiably dismantle all of its nuclear programs. North Korea now says that it will restart an dilapidated old 5-megawatt reactor that it took limited steps toward disabling in 2008. It will also boycott six-party disarmament talks again — this time for good, it says.
By themselves, these declarations shouldn’t alter the views of any careful observer much. North Korea had been reneging on its February 2007 promises since February 2007; it’s still holding South Korean POW’s in violation of the armistice that ended the Korean War; and it has probably broken every other international agreement it has made ever since. Kim Jong Il was clearly looking for a convenient reason to press the “reset” button on the commitments he made to President Bush and move on to his new demands of a new president. Despite his complete failure to keep any of his past disarmament commitments, he’ll insist on keeping all of President Bush’s concessions (on the terror sponsors’ list, bilateral and multilateral sanctions, aid, and fuel oil that the Obama Administration has just asked Congress to fund). If any excuse is needed, a mealy-mouthed, non-binding non-resolution by that impotent oxymoron known as the United Nations will do.
How you see this news depends on your perspective: If you only care about the existence of negotiations, take this news calmly. In due course, North Korea will let itself be dragged back to a new set of talks to demand a new set of concessions. On the other hand, if you actually believed in the negotiated disarmament of North Korea, the time has come for you to declare intellectual bankruptcy and sell your unpublished manuscripts for pulp value. A second successive U.S. initiative to negotiate a comprehensive nuclear disarmament of North Korea has come to naught, along with years of painstaking diplomacy to put our talks with North Korea into a multilateral forum and secure North Korean promises — for whatever they’re worth — to disarm. Disbelieve Democrats who claim to have done better. The best they can say is that Bill Clinton’s Agreed Framework I was a partial and temporary success at containing the plutonium portion of North Korea’s nuclear program, even as North Korea cheated by pursuing a parallel, undeclared uranium enrichment program. Until very recently, some had still questioned North Korea’s guilt of this charge. The credibility of this argument took a steep drop in 2008, after North Korea handed over a set of aluminum samples and a batch of documents in an effort to prove its innocence of the uranium charge. Both tested positive for traces of highly enriched uranium. While questions remain about the scale of North Korea’s uranium program — questions that North Korea refuses to help us answer — its intent to cheat can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In any event, no agreement with North Korea endures longer than Kim Jong Il’s carefully calculated whims and our own willingness to tolerate his mendacity allow.
Even the partisan debate about North Korea has missed the point, as presidents of both parties have failed in very similar ways. Much of our public debate about North Korea has been consumed by shape-of-the-table arguments about the relative merits of bilateral and multilateral talks with psychopaths. Beneath this surface fog, both parties have regressed to a rigidly consistent mean when in power: tough talk that amounts to nothing in practice, lilliputian bondage by an unimaginative and gullible State Department, and the temptation to overlook North Korean cheating to bring the headlines about North Korea — as opposed to the underlying problem — back under control. Judging by the latest comments of President Obama’s Special Envoy to North Korea, this administration will take even less time to regress to the same mean. We will have more talks in some other form resulting in the exchange of irreversible U.S. concessions for North Korean promises that become due, if ever, at some endlessly vanishing horizon.
This is not just another setback. It is the manifest failure of the our foreign policy establishment’s failure to understand the character of the regime we are dealing with. It is the manifest error of that establishment’s shared faith that, with the right words and incentives, North Korea can be “managed.” That faith has proven so persistent in the face of North Korean cheating and belligerence that I’ve caught myself embracing Kim Jong Il’s provocations for the clarity I always hope they’ll eventually bring. These events shouldn’t just cause us to rethink the failure of twenty years of American diplomacy to contain the proliferation threat Kim Jong Il poses; they should also cause us to ask why we’re about to send America’s most conspicuously failed diplomat to handle what may be its most consequential diplomatic assignment.
As Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Christopher Hill became the eager architect and executor of President Bush’s North Korea policy for most of Bush’s second term. What I refer to as Agreed Framework II, signed in early 2007, was the cornerstone of that policy and Hill’s all-consuming focus. Hill is only the latest American diplomat to believe he could disarm Kim Jong Il, but Hill believed it in the way that John Hinckley believed he could win Jodie Foster’s love. In the process, Hill distinguished himself for his determined blindness to history and the pursuit of his own place in it with an unrestrained glibness that often crossed the line to dishonesty. ...
The Obama administration won’t challenge a court ruling that prohibits visitors at some national parks to carry loaded concealed firearms, satisfying gun control groups.
The Interior Department said in a court filing yesterday that it will uphold a U.S. District Judge’s decision to reinstate 26-year-old restrictions on loaded guns in national parks and will conduct a full environmental review of a Bush administration regulation allowing the weapons.
“We are pleased that loaded, concealed guns will continue to be prohibited in our national parks,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a statement yesterday. “Semiautomatic weapons have no place in the valleys of Yellowstone, on the cliffs of Yosemite, or under the torch of the Statue of Liberty.” ...
... In the liberal circles of the mainstream media and the current administration, not to be redundant, the example du jour was in the Post's coverage Thursday of President Obama's visit to Mexico.
Post reporter Spencer Hsu told us that Mexico "has seized more than 35,000 firearms since December 2006, and both governments say 90% of the weapons originated in the U.S."
The only truth here is that both governments have repeated this falsehood as truth. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell that "most of the weapons, almost 16,000, are assault weapons and 90% of those were sold in the United States."
...
Do the math and you find that only 17% of the guns confiscated were actually traced to the U.S. So why are so few guns sent here for tracing? Because, as Matt Allen, a special agent with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, points out, weapons known not to be of American origin are not sent to the U.S. for tracing. Duh.
Allen said that "not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market."
Many weapons have been legitimately shipped to Mexico from the U.S. as part of our effort to assist the Mexican military and police in the drug war. About 150,000 Mexican soldiers have deserted in the past six years, taking their weapons with them. ...
... In a speech in Mexico last week, President Obama -- who on the campaign trail called for the ban, which expired in 2004, to be reinstated -- said the prohibition made sense but the country should focus on enforcing existing laws for now.
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said the administration will "monitor" the issue, which is complicated by opposition from dozens of moderate Democrats.
"If there's a consensus, we'll move on it," Mr. Axelrod said on the program. "We're faced with an enormous array of challenges, and we need to make some choices as to which to pursue first."
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, called on Congress to reinstate the prohibition after three Pittsburgh policemen recently were killed by a man with an AK-47. He said he understands Mr. Obama's decision not to raise the matter now, with other major issues such as the economy and health care on the table.
"But I think it has to be brought up in the near future, because every police organization in this country supports -- virtually everyone supports banning assault weapons," he said, appearling alongside Mr. LaPierre. [emphasis added] ...
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on Sunday that a new ban on assault-style weapons is not “dead,” but now is not the time to push it in Congress. [emphasis added]
“The question is is there the consensus and the ability, given the rules of Congress and the realities of Congress, to move that in the midst of everything else that we have to do. Is that something that you want to embark on now?” he said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Asked bluntly by host Harry Smith whether the White House was afraid of the National Rifle Association, Axelrod responded, “Not at all.” ...
The "liar, liar pants on fire" argument usually isn't the most effective. But when it comes to guns, President Obama is lying through his teeth.
On Thursday, while on a visit to Mexico, the president continued his Blame America First tour. "This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States," he said, referring to the drug wars that are tearing apart our neighbor to the south. "More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border."
It is completely untrue that 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexico are from America. The Mexican government separates guns it confiscates that were made in the United States and sends them here to be traced. U.S. weapons are easy to identify because of clear markings. ...
An escalating arms race among Mexico's drug cartels casts doubt on whether Mexico or the U.S. can stop the flow of weaponry, despite renewed vows last week from presidents of both countries.
Stockpiles captured by Mexican soldiers show that warring traffickers are now obtaining military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets. [emphasis added]
Some drug gangs have even sought explosive material that some experts worry could be used in car bombs and improvised explosive devices of the kind used in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers found 14 sticks of TNT among an arsenal of hundreds of rifles and grenades seized in November from a house in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. ...
Last Monday, the morning after "60 Minutes" ran a feature on the nationwide trend that shows a dramatic increase in the sales of guns and ammunition, a young man walked into the Trading Post in Quechee.
"He was the first customer I had," said Wayne Barrows, the owner of the sporting goods shop. "He buys $1,100 worth of guns - a rifle, a shotgun and a handgun - because '60 Minutes' ... made him afraid. He watched that show."
The next day, a customer stopped by at the New England Outdoorsman in Rutland, looking to purchase some ammunition from Mike Pratico, the owner of the shop.
"He told me he has 17,000 rounds of 7.62 ammo and he wanted more," Pratico said. "He said he was afraid that it would become so expensive he wouldn't be able to buy it in the future."
Pratico couldn't help the man.
"I said I didn't have any. I was out," Pratico said. ...
... Tim McCarthy was with his son last weekend at Bass Pro Shops in the Fingerlakes Mall near Auburn when he saw it firsthand at the store's gun counter.
"We were trying to buy reloading equipment (for bullets)," he said. "The powder and other gun supplies were practically sold out. We spoke to a salesman and he said it's been happening for months since Obama's administration (came in)."
The salesman told McCarthy and his son that there are rumors about sweeping gun-control legislation going before Congress. He said people are worried and flocking to their local stores and buying handguns and long guns and all the ammunition that goes with them.
The story is the same at Gander Mountain, Dick's Sporting Goods, Ra-Lin, Tim's Guns and Shooting Supplies in Camillus -- anywhere guns and ammunition are sold in Central New York. ...
There's been a record-breaking run on concealed weapons permits in the state in what gun store owners and activists say is fueled by political and economic uncertainty.
Utah issued 15,389 concealed weapons permits in the first three months of the year, shattering the previous record of 11,996, which was set in the second quarter of 2008.
Traditionally, slightly more permits have gone out of state than to Utah residents. But in the most recent quarter, permits going to Utahns edged out those going to non-residents, said Lt. Doug Anderson, Bureau of Criminal Identification manager.
...
Gun dealers are scrambling to keep up with purchases.
"Supply is not necessarily meeting demand right now," said Oly Mann, general manager of Fuzzy Bunny Movie Guns. "There's still a big surge. Supply is down and it's getting worse."
Demand for all types of guns has increased, he said, and the concealed carry classes the store offers are consistently full. He says many people buying firearms are first-time gun owners.
"The general public is more concerned about safety issues nowadays," he said. "I even know people that swore up and down they would never buy or own one, and now they're buying guns." ...
New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are calling for the repeal of federal policy requiring records of gun background checks be destroyed after 24 hours.
The Democratic lawmakers say the Tiahrt Amendment restricts police from using gun trace information.
They say such information is crucial to cracking down on illegal gun trafficking and reducing gun violence. ...
... I long ago discovered that when you read one person's accusations against another, you often learn far more about the accuser than the accused.
That is precisely the case with the April 7 Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment -- sent to local police agencies around the country -- warning of the danger posed by so-called paranoid right-wing extremists who might be capable of launching violent attacks against the federal government. The report offers little, if any, insight into the minds of right-wingers, but speaks volumes about the mind-set and current capabilities of our domestic "intelligence" resources.
The nine-page document is a pastiche of presumptions, speculations, arbitrary conclusions, discriminations and gross stereotyping of all those xenophobic rubes out there in flyover country, clinging desperately to their Bibles and their guns.
The report opens with the outright admission that the agency "has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence." That would be a pretty good stopping point for an honest assessment.
But no.
Without so much as a shred of evidence or a single example supporting its phenomenal mind-reading capabilities, the writers tell us right-wing extremists "may be" recruiting new adherents by "playing on their fears."
"The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment," local law enforcement agencies are solemnly warned. The document uses some form of the word radical more than a dozen times and four times diagnoses right-wingers as paranoid.
At this point it might be helpful to know just who are these radical right-wing extremist paranoids that police are supposed to be on the alert for.
The report provides a helpful footnote: There are the "hate-oriented" right-wing extremists who dislike various religious and ethnic groups. Then there are the single-issue right-wing extremists who aren't too fond of abortion or immigration (makes no distinction between legal or illegal). And then there are the anti-government right-wing extremists who irrationally reject "federal authority in favor of state and local authority" -- in other words, Republicans.
This would no doubt include the founder of the party, Thomas Jefferson, whose notorious hate speech included the claim that people have the right and duty to overthrow their legitimate government, even at the point of a gun. He and his fellow conspirators were also a bit paranoid about the possibility of being hanged as traitors. ...
Author Charl Van Wyk, who shot back at terrorists attacking a church meeting, will be touring the U.S. with tales of his African ministry, including his first-hand experience with Christian churches that aren't prepared to defend themselves.
Van Wyk's story of shooting back on July 25, 1993, when terrorists attacked and killed 11 people and injured another five dozen at a South African church, has been chronicled in "Shooting Back: The Right and Duty of Self-Defense."
But police later told him the terrorists confessed their plan was to kill everyone in the church, possibly 1,000 people or more, and his armed response is credited with saving many lives that day. ...
Philip Axelrod and Sara Adler say they don't want to be defenseless targets.
"There are people out there who are off-balance and who shoot up schools," Axelrod, 20, said. "I don't want to be caught up in a situation where I have to lay down and die."
Axelrod, a University of Connecticut student, and Adler, who attends Central Connecticut State University, are leading "empty holster" protests next week at both schools to lobby for the right to carry concealed handguns on campus. Although state law permits eligible people 21 and older to carry handguns, student conduct codes at both universities prohibit possession of firearms on campus.
The weeklong protest — which launches Monday, the 10th anniversary of the mass killings at Columbine High School in Colorado — is being held to raise awareness about a national organization, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus [ www.concealedcampus.org]. The group advocates self-defense and seeks to form a front line against another slaughter like the one at Virginia Tech in 2007. ...
Hard money enthusiasts have long watched for signs that China is switching its foreign reserves from US Treasury bonds into gold bullion. They may have been eyeing the wrong metal.
China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons.
Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can.
"China has woken up. The West is a black hole with all this money being printed. The Chinese are buying raw materials because it is a much better way to use their $1.9 trillion of reserves. They get ten times the impact, and can cover their infrastructure for 50 years."
...
One thing is clear: Beijing suspects that the US Federal Reserve is engineering a covert default on America's debt by printing money. Premier Wen Jiabao issued a blunt warning last month that China was tiring of US bonds. "We have lent a huge amount of money to the US, so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets," he said. [emphasis added]
This is slightly disingenuous. China has the world's largest reserves - $1.95 trillion, mostly in dollars - because it has been holding down the yuan to boost exports. This mercantilist strategy has reached its limits.
The beauty of recycling China's surplus into metals instead of US bonds is that it kills so many birds with one stone: it stops the yuan rising, without provoking complaints of currency manipulation by Washington; metals are easily stored in warehouses, unlike oil; the holdings are likely to rise in value over time since the earth's crust is gradually depleting its accessible ores. Above all, such a policy safeguards China's industrial revolution, while the West may one day face a supply crisis. ...
We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments. [Slip op. at 29, footnotes omitted and emphasis added]
I concur in Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion but write to elaborate my view of the policies underlying the selective incorporation decision. First, as Judge O’Scannlain has aptly explained, the rights secured by the Second Amendment are “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and “necessary to the Anglo-American regime of ordered liberty.”
The salient policies underlying the protection of the right to bear arms are of inestimable importance. The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion. We should not be overconfident that oceans on our east and west coasts alone can preserve security. We recently saw in the case of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that terrorists may enter a country covertly by ocean routes, landing in small craft and then assembling to wreak havoc. That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived. [emphasis added]
Second, the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence. [emphasis added]
Third, while the Second Amendment thus stands as a protection against both external threat and internal tyranny, the recognition of the individual’s right in the Second Amendment, and its incorporation by the Due Process Clause against the states, is not inconsistent with the reasonable regulation of weaponry. All weapons are not "arms" within the meaning of the Second Amendment, so, for example, no individual could sensibly argue that the Second Amendment gives them a right to have nuclear weapons or chemical weapons in their home for self-defense.
Also, important governmental interests will justify reasonable regulation of rifles and handguns, and the problem for our courts will be to define, in the context of particular regulation by the states and municipalities, what is reasonable and permissible and what is unreasonable and offensive to the Second Amendment. [Gould, J., concurring, slip op. at 41-43, footnotes omitted and paragraphs breaks added for readability]
JUNEAU, Alaska — On the same day they rejected an attorney general designee who is a board member of the National Rifle Association, members of the state House on Thursday approved a bill exempting guns and ammunition manufactured and kept within Alaska from federal firearms regulation.
House members voted to reject Gov. Sarah Palin's nominee to head the Department of Law, Wayne Anthony Ross, but voted 32-7 in favor of the Alaska Firearms Freedom Act, which would apply to firearms built, sold and kept in Alaska.
Critics denounced the bill as unconstitutional. They say it's a threat to Alaskans who act on the measure and face federal prosecution.
Prime sponsor Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks, attracted 10 co-sponsors and said the bill is both a measure to allow manufacture of guns and a statement that Alaska intends to reclaim some of its rights. Alaska has seen rights eroded in the oversight of navigable waters, fish and game, and access to natural resources, Kelly said, but can reclaim rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
"We will handle the regulation of it," he said.
Kelly said the federal government has regulated firearms in part though the oversight of interstate commerce. The bill addresses that by exempting firearms, ammunition and firearm accessories that are manufactured and retained in the state. Guns and ammo that fit that criteria should be exempt from federal regulation, including registration, he said. ...
Today civil rights attorney John Monroe filed a federal lawsuit against West Milwaukee and it's police force for gross abuses of power against a man solely because the man was legally carrying a holstered gun. A copy of the lawsuit can be found here.
The complaint alleges that police illegally detained, harassed, and arrested Jesus Gonzales without cause in violation of the federal constitution. Further, the complaint alleges that police unlawfully demanded Gonzales' social security number in violation of Section 7 of the Federal Privacy Act, arguably a felony under the Social Security Act at 42 USC 408.
Mr. Gonzales was never actually tried in court, but the complaint alleges that the police have refused to return the property confiscated from Mr. Gonzales. OpenCarry.org's co-founder John Pierce, a law student at nearby Hamline University in Minneapolis, MN where open carry is also legal, says that "the police have no more power to confiscate openly carried handguns that they do to confiscate openly carried cell phones."
In Wisconsin, like most states, citizens can openly carry handguns in public without any permit. Recently a Wisconsin judge ruled that mere open carry of holstered handguns is not "disorderly conduct" in Wisconsin. ...
Since November, more than seven million people applied for criminal background checks in order to buy guns, according to the FBI. That figure excludes anyone buying a weapon at the thousands of gun shows in states such as Virginia, without facing any checks.
The sudden run on weapons has also stripped gun shops in some parts of the country almost bare and led to a national ammunition shortage, the Guardian reports.
Gun-shop owners and the National Rifle Association claim the surge is driven by concerns that Mr Obama is planning to ban many types of firearms and that the deepening economic crisis will fuel a crime wave. ...
Gun control was among the chief topics to emerge from President Obama's meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
Obama said the talks were "productive and wide ranging" and Calderon characterized them as an "open, frank discussion."
Obama said while he still supports an assault weapons ban, the lapsed law isn't likely to be renewed anytime soon.
"None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy, so what we focused on was enforcing our existing laws," Obama said.
"I have not backed off at all," he said, from his position during the campaign. [emphasis added] ...
... On his first presidential visit to Mexico, Obama praised Calderón for taking on the drug cartels, whose potent arsenals and economic power are threatening the integrity of the Mexican state. Obama announced that he will push the U.S. Senate to ratify an inter-American arms-trafficking treaty.
But Obama indicated that while he favors reinstating the U.S. ban on assault weapons, which Congress allowed to expire five years ago, the move would face too much political opposition to happen soon. He said better enforcing existing laws to prevent arms smuggling would have a more immediate effect on keeping U.S. weapons from Mexican cartels.
"I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence," he said in a news conference with Calderón at Los Pinos, the presidential compound. "Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy." ...
A retired Navy captain who now serves as an analyst says arming the civilians who run freight ships through the waters offshore from Somalia would allow them to defend themselves and fix much of the pirate problem.
Crew members from the recently attacked Maersk Alabama returned today to the United States and told reporters, "All we had was knives. They had AK-47s."
But retired U.S. Navy Capt. Chuck Nash, who also has served as an analyst for Fox News, said the right of the crew members to defend themselves – even with force – needs to be established firmly.
...
Nash suggested the shipping companies need to "get out from under the nebulous conditions that exist today, where they are afraid from a legal perspective to arm their crews."
"It comes down to the inherent right to self-defense," he said. "We have to arm these merchant marines."
He explained the U.S. Navy, and ships from other nations, simply cannot patrol the millions of square miles in the ocean.
He said a second significant move would be to "start imposing limitations on where these pirates operate."
The pirates initially worked within a few miles of the coast because they were in open-hulled fishing boats. Then they moved into large trawlers, he said, and that greatly expanded their coverage.
"Therefore what we need to do is roll up that process, starting with getting the rules of engagement for our Navy to take out those mother ships, squeeze them back up against the coastline, which automatically makes the job of the military easier," he said. ...
WASHINGTON -- According to the U.S. government, I am an extremist. I am a Christian and meet regularly with other Christians to study God's word. My faith convinces me the prophecies in the Holy Bible are true. I believe in the sanctity of human life, oppose abortion, and want to preserve marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I am a veteran with skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. I own several firearms, and I frequently shoot them, buy ammunition, and consider efforts to infringe on my Second Amendment rights to be wrong and unconstitutional. I fervently support the sovereignty of the United States, and I am deeply concerned about our economy, increasingly higher taxes, illegal immigration, soaring unemployment, and actions by our government that will bury my children beneath a mountain of debt.
Apparently, all this makes me a "rightwing extremist." At least, that's what it says in the April 7 "Assessment" issued by the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. The nine-page report, titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," is full of warnings about American citizens who share any part of my background or subscribe to the beliefs above. It is one of the most alarming documents produced by our government that I ever have read. ...
A Senate committee narrowly approved a bill that would encourage companies to adopt policies that let workers keep guns in their cars.
The Senate State Affairs Committee voted 4-3 on April 16 to pass a measure that would provide legal protections to companies that “allow or (do) not prohibit” employees to store firearms in their vehicles. Those businesses could not face civil damages for such policies.
Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Idaho Falls, said prohibitions on guns in employee vehicles infringe on the rights of hunters and people who carry guns for self-defense. But he said businesses that have such policies wouldn’t have to change their procedures because of the bill.
“We’re just trying to encourage employers to help employees practice their Second Amendment rights,” Thompson said.
Julie Pipal, a lobbyist for the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce, also spoke in support of the bill. She said chamber members support any measure that provides protections for “those things beyond an employer’s control.” ...
Legislation allowing concealed handguns on state campuses has incited passionate debate at UT. This battle has been ongoing since the founding fathers guaranteed “the right to bear arms” in the Bill of Rights.
In protest of a new bill, UT students and faculty, will walk out of classes today at 11:30 a.m. and march to the steps of the Texas Capitol against guns on college campuses.
Today marks the second anniversary of the shooting at Virginia Tech.
Several constitutional law professors across the country, however, are debating this issue in light of the rights listed in the U.S. Constitution. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in the militia, but the question remains whether or not this right applies to the states.
...
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the Texas Constitution gives power to lawmakers to prevent crime but that the question remains whether the Legislature should restrict carrying guns in certain places and certain ways.
“The constitutional matter is not imperative, but at the same time it’s a matter of good policy,” Volokh said. “Protecting the right to self-defense is an important moral right. My sense is that allowing concealed carry is, generally speaking, a good idea.” ...
VICTORVILLE - Assemblyman Steve Knight spent Thursday afternoon visiting local gun shops to promote his proposed legislation to streamline the concealed weapons permitting process.
“It’s an equality issue...” said Knight, R-Palmdale. “If you go through the process fully and you complete your firearm training class, complete the paperwork, pay the fees and pass your background checks, you should be allowed to carry a (concealed carry weapon) — clean and simple.”
Currently, law enforcement agencies “may issue” concealed weapons permits at their discretion.
But Knight’s proposal, Assembly Bill 357, changes the law to state that law enforcement agencies “shall issue” concealed weapons permits to residents who meet certain criteria. ...
A bill to limit public release of information about concealed handgun permit holders is headed for a vote in the Oregon House.
The measure endorsed Wednesday by a House committee was sought by Oregon sheriffs who want to prevent newspapers and others from getting lists of people with concealed handgun permits.
The sheriffs and gun rights groups say that releasing the information would jeopardize permit holders' personal security. ...
Having backed off--for now--from the politically difficult push for a ban of so-called "assault weapons," President Obama hopes to assuage Mexican President Felipe Calderón's disappointment with a promise to push the Senate to ratify the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and other Related Materials, a treaty signed in 1997, but never ratified in the U.S.President Obama announced in a visit here today that he will push the U.S. Senate to ratify an inter-American arms trafficking treaty designed to curb the flow of guns and ammunition to drug cartels and other armed groups in the hemisphere.
Obama no doubt believes that ratification of this treaty is much more feasible than passage of a renewed AWB, and in that assessment he is almost certainly correct. There is, for example, no indication to this point of any organized resistance to ratification of the treaty. Although the NRA contests the Washington Post article's contention that it participated in the meeting at which the treaty was drafted, the NRA has not made clear that it has determined the treaty to be a threat to gun rights in the U.S., and thus something to be forcefully opposed.
Even a cursory glance at the text should convince any gun rights advocacy group (or individual) that this agreement is indeed dangerous to the rights of American gun owners. This section stands out (emphasis added): ...
The Obama administration says it will not appeal a federal court ruling that prohibits carrying loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.
Instead, the Interior Department says it will conduct a full environmental review of an earlier policy that allowed concealed, loaded guns in parks and refuges. ...
SEATTLE—More people have bought concealed pistol permits, guns and ammunition in the Seattle area since November, apparently because of fear that the Obama administration could impose new restrictions on gun ownership.
The state Department of Licensing has handled more than 27,000 concealed pistol permits so far in 2009, about 2,000 more than the first four months of last year and 3,700 more than the same period in 2007. ...
... Pierre Lemieux is an economist whose most recent book, Comprendre l’économie, just won the prestigious Prix Turgot in Paris. When it comes to guns, he’s a hobbyist, not a lobbyist, but in his spare time he has been trying to make the authorities comprehend something about the relationship between public safety and his love life. Not because he thinks there’s a nexus, but because the government does.
Before renewing his gun permit in 2007, the authorities decided to inquire into Lemieux’s bedroom history. Did he divorce anyone in the last two years? Did he break up with a girlfriend? If yes, use a separate sheet to explain.
Pardon me? Explain?
Well, it was nothing personal. Apparently, Canada’s government feels it ought to know the romantic status of all firearm owners. Hmm. Didn’t someone say the state had no business in the nation’s bedrooms? Who would say something so fuddy-duddy? Oh, the same fellow who actually said fuddy-duddy: Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Well, that was before the Flood.
It could be worse, I suppose. Canada’s gun clerks could ask applicants if they suffer from erectile dysfunction. Perhaps clerks don’t ask because they worry about a human rights tribunal finding the question discriminatory. Or maybe they haven’t thought of it yet. ...
The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air. [emphasis added]
John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.
"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."
Holdren outlined several "tipping points" involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of "really intolerable consequences," he said. ...
But Holdren noted that shooting particles into the air — making an artificial volcano as one Nobel laureate has suggested — could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions. So such actions could not be taken lightly, he said. [emphasis added]
Artificial clouds to reflect away sunlight, creating colossal blooms of oceanic algae and the global use of synthetic carbon-neutral transport fuels are just three of the climate transforming technologies in need of urgent investigation, according to leading scientists. The eminent group argue that, with governments failing to grasp the urgent need for measures to combat dangerous climate change, radical – and possibly dangerous – solutions must now be seriously considered. [emphasis added]
The idea of engineering on a planetary scale in a bid to control climate has been around for more than 50 years but, to date, has remained on the fringes. The potential for dramatic and beneficial change has hitherto been outweighed by the risk of unexpected side-effects in the complex climate system, with global consequences. Now, in a special edition of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, climate scientists and engineers have brought together the latest research and issued a call for a far-reaching assessment of a raft of geo-engineering techniques.
"We are now, or soon will be, confronting issues of whether, when and how to engineer a climate that is more to our liking," argues Ken Caldeira, a leading climate scientist based at the Carnegie Institution in Stanford, California. If a decision is made to move ahead with climate engineering, he says, then it will be essential to understand the point at which the risks and costs of geo-engineering outweigh the impacts of global warming. [emphasis added]
Not everyone is so unequivocally positive, however, including Stephen Schneider of Stanford University. In an overall assessment of the geo-engineering challenge, he notes that critics ask whether it is socially feasible to expect the many centuries of international political stability and co-operation that would be needed to operate global scale schemes. He adds that the potential also exists for conflicts between nations if geo-engineering projects go wrong. ...
One approach is to insert "scatterers" into the stratosphere. Caldeira cites an idea to deploy jumbo jets into the upper atmosphere and deposit clouds of tiny particles there, such as sulphur dioxide. Dispersing around 1m tonnes of sulphur dioxide per year across 10m square kilometres of the atmosphere would be enough to reflect away sufficient amounts of sunlight.
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