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Guns, ammo, booze, and your rights

Alcohol and ammunition – the two will be mixing very soon and it’s an issue that has some people fired up. Last week Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen vetoed a bill allowing guns in establishments that serve alcohol, but today the state senate fired back.

Bullets mixing with booze – we didn’t have to go far to find strong opinions on both sides of this issue.

Today Tennessee’s Senate shot down the Governor’s veto of a bill allowing handguns in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

“Most of the states this bill has been in, georgia is an example where this past, crime went down dramatically,” Representative Curry Todd says.

“I just think it’s a bad mix some people say it’s worked other places but I just think it’s potentially dangerous,” Representative Mike Turner says.

The Bill has conditions including the person has to have a handgun carry permit and the person cannot consume alcohol.

“If we take a drink we loose the gun, we lose the permit, we lose the right to ever carry a permit – that’s how serious this is,” Hal Shaw says.

Shaw owns the Ammo Dump. He is a certified firearms instructor and believes this bill will make Tennessee safer.

“There’s not been a shootout in Tennessee since we got handgun permits,” Shaw says.

But others believe if you’re around guns and beer you could end up taking shots.

“When you have alcohol and you have guys around here that are a little aggressive and if they have a gun on their hip things can get out of hand,” Price Baker says.

“I suppose if they want to test this out they should start serving alcohol at firing ranges and see how that works out before they start letting the general population start drinking and bringing guns into bars,” Dean Frost says.

But Shaw says he stresses gun safety in every eight hour carrying class he teaches. He believes state legislators pulled the trigger on this bill at just the right time.

“People that get the handgun permits is not the people you got to worry about, the people you’ve got to worry about is all the other people,” Shaw says.

Property owners do have rights here – they can prohibit people bringing their guns into their establishments if they want to.

We’ve found out that thirty seven states, including Georgia, have similar legislation.

Even though the override passed, you can’t actually take a gun into a bar until 40 days from now, on July 14.

It was one week ago that Governor Bredesen vetoed this bill and this is the first time one of his vetoes has been overridden by the Legislature.

Bredesen’s Press Secretary issued this statement in response — saying quote… “Governor Bredesen is disappointed with this action — but that doesn’t change his belief that we can exercise our second amendment rights and common sense at the same time.”

The media has reaffirmed what we said in our article Hunter’s are conservationist also

You can find the article at Hunter’s are conservationist also
Now to the proof:

Gun sales have surged in the past six months. Some attribute the increase to worries Barack Obama will push through tougher gun laws. Others say it’s merely one part of a broader trend toward survivalist tendencies and that has arisen with the souring of the economy.

Regardless, for those worried about the run on guns, there’s another side: It turns out the increased production of guns and ammunition is sending more money into state wildlife lands.

Makers of firearms and ammunition pay a federal excise tax that amounts to 11 percent tax on long guns and 10 percent on handguns. (The tax is also paid on optical gear such as gun scopes, and even camouflage clothing.)

According to a federal report, in the last three months of 2008, the amount of money paid into the fund spiked 31 percent, as compared to the year before. Nearly all of the increase was due to increased handgun production. State and federal background checks—required to purchase firearms—have seen similar increases and gun manufacturers have posted record sales.

It’s not just manufacturers seeing the increases. A representative of Central Coast Gun Shows, which puts on shows from Fresno to Paso Robles, said interest in the shows is higher than anything in the past 23 years. She said attendance at a recent show in Paso Robles was double past figures.

The excise tax money gets collected by the federal government and then distributed to state fish and wildlife departments.

Blaine Nickens, staff services manager in the grants management branch for the California Department of Fish and Game, said excise tax meant about $8.1 million in federal dollars last year. The bulk of the money gets spent on the maintenance and development of the state’s wildlife areas.

Locally, the nearest beneficiaries of the fund are in the San Joaquin Valley. The Mendota and Los Banos Wildlife Areas have received money. Those areas are hunting areas, but are also widely used by non-hunters.

Portions of the money also get spent on hunter education efforts and wildlife studies and inventories—the sort of studies that help the department decide game limits.

“It goes toward helping unit biologists and statewide planners determine the health and status of game populations,” Nickens said. “That also provides information to the commission as to setting seasons and bag limits for these different game animals.”

California, however, doesn’t get as large a share of the gun money as other states. States must provide a 25 percent match for the money and Nickens said the state could take in more federal money if it offered more of a match. Also, the allocations are based on a calculation using the amount of land available in a state and hunting license sales. License sales in California have been declining in recent years.

The gun sales have risen in the wake of National Rifle Association ads warning that Obama may seek significant tax increases on ammunition. A press release sent by National Shooting Sports Foundation places the cause squarely on Obama’s election.

It may take a while for the state to see a benefit from the surge.
The most recent allocation comes from the federal fiscal year, which ended in September. It still shows a 9 percent increase from the previous year, but doesn’t represent the more recent increases.

NRA Appeals Seventh Circuit Ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court

Fairfax, Va. – Today, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday’s decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments.

“The Seventh Circuit got it wrong. As the Supreme Court said in last year’s landmark Heller decision, the Second Amendment is an individual right that ‘belongs to all Americans’. Therefore, we are taking our case to the highest court in the land,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “The Seventh Circuit claimed it was bound by precedent from previous decisions. However, it should have followed the lead of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Nordyke v. Alameda County, which found that those cases don’t prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

This Seventh Circuit opinion upholds current bans on the possession of handguns in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois.

“It is wrong that the residents of Chicago and Oak Park continue to have their Second Amendment rights denied,” Cox concluded. “It’s time for the fundamental right of self-defense to be respected by every jurisdiction throughout our country.”

Treaties to rule our firearm rights, not the second amendment?

Well, it looks like President obama plans to make good on some of his campaign threats – such as gun control. It would seem our esteemed leader *please note the sarcasm in my tone* would like to participate in CIFTA.

What is CIFTA you ask?

CIFTA is a treaty that has been signed by 33 countries in our hemisphere. (to use a momily – if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do it just to belong?) The United States is one of four nations that have yet to ratify the convention, although Obama administration officials say the U.S. government has sought to abide by its spirit for years. The treaty was sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1998, but no action has been taken since then. The treaty requires countries to take steps to reduce the illegal manufacture and trade in guns, ammunition and explosives. It also calls for countries to adopt strict licensing requirements, mark firearms when they are made and imported to make them easier to trace, and establish a process for sharing information between national law enforcement agencies investigating smuggling.

On the surface, you’re thinking, ok, what’s the big deal? Well, let me just outline a few things for you. And, let me clarify things by saying I am not a bigtime gun person. I hated guns for years and thought James Brady was right about everything. Then, Uzz and I were threatened by his criminally insane former brother-in-law. The psycho threatened to kill our entire family at Pickle’s baptism. Uzz – probably for the first time – borrowed a gun from a friend. Self-defense made sense to us.

A few years later after my divorce, I met Army of Dad. Through him, I have learned many reasons why guns aren’t the evil devices I always thought they were. I felt they were dangerous and I believed the whole guns kill people mantra. Now, I know the truth. People kill people. There are many reasons to have weapons: self-defense, sport and as family heirlooms. Even children can be taught the safe handling of firearms.

I was surfing around to favorite blogs after not doing that for a while and Army Wife Toddler Mom had a CNN news clip about CIFTA that almost knocked me off of my seat.

Good old Barry wants to get all of us law-abiding citizens to register our firearms AND then he wants to share our names with the world. Oh good. So my husband with the Concealed Handgun License will now have a price on his head by whomever the Mexican government decides to sell our list to. If you trust ANY government that much, then I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you. Even if you don’t like guns, you have to admit the idea of telling our foreign neighbors our business is insane.

Seriously, the idea of me registering my private self-defense weapon is offensive as it is. But, the concept of sharing that information with foreign countries is downright stupid. Mr. XYZ Country – here is a list of American potential freedom fighters should your country decide to bomb the hell out of us and then invade. You’ll know who to knock off first. Geebus H. Christmas. What the hell is he thinking?

Please contact your U.S. representative and senators and tell them that CIFTA cannot be enacted in the USA. I have already contacted my elected officials.

According to Casey Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune Guns don’t shoot people

The other side of the issue, As always your comments are very welcome!

I’ve lived in West Virginia, home of the Hatfields and McCoys, where gunliness is next to godliness.

And I’ve lived in South Carolina, the Itchy-Trigger-Finger State, which fired the first shots in the War of Northern Aggression.

And I grew up in the part of Pennsylvania where gun racks are standard equipment in F-150s, where deer are what’s for dinner, and where anything less than a head shot is considered a miss.

But if you love firearms, you gotta love Utahns, you weapon-worshiping, pistol-packing son-of-a-guns. I’ve never seen the like. There are so many firearms outlets in Utah that all of the good names are gone, hence, Fuzzy Bunny Movie Guns in Draper.

Utahns take gun rights, and ownership, seriously. Afraid that the obama administration would restrict their right to purchase firearms, they launched a frontal assault on the gun shops, purchasing 20,908 weapons last November alone, nearly twice as many as in November 2007.

Some shops sold out of assault rifles. Ammo was in short supply. And there wasn’t a “Beware of Owner” sign left to be had.

But even here, there are people who believe there should be limits on our constitutional right to be a one-man army; who deny the simple fact that if you ban public ownership of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, only the bad guys will have rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

For the love of Charlton Heston, what is wrong with these people? And what will they do the day state Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, the founder of the pro-gun Patrick Henry Caucus, mounts his steed and rides through the valley crying “The Koreans are coming. The Koreans are coming”?

The true gun nuts are the ones who refuse to recognize the important role that guns play in society — primarily deterrence, but if that fails, second-strike capability.

Guns are part of our history, and our heritage. We Americans have been shooting ourselves and others for more than 200 years. It’s our God-given and constitutionally driven right to go around locked and loaded, or even half-cocked.

But many among us are unclear about the right to bear arms. Some think it entitles them to wear sleeveless shirts. Others think it limits ownership to guns sufficient for shooting “bars” — not the watering holes the state Legislature loathes; rather, the kind Davey Crockett kilt when he was only 3. But gun-rights advocates know what the founders had in mind.

The Second Amendment entitles you to own weapons of all shapes and sizes, from pistols, shotguns, carbines and assault rifles to M1A2 tanks and F-16 Falcons.

And I’ve exercised that right. I’ve got a shotgun and a rifle, which I take for the occasional walk in the woods.

But unlike my grandfather, who hunted the gophers that raided his garden with a heart-felt hatred, I have never fired a gun in anger, or, as he would have described it, in self-defense. And I never will.

I’m not at all interested in having a gun pried from my cold, dead fingers after finishing second in a shootout. In my opinion, the best way to protect yourself from harm is to hand over your wallet and run like hell, or hide under the covers and let the burglars take what they want.

But I do want to keep my hunting rifle. That’s why I always tell the liberals: “Remember, guns don’t shoot people. Dick Cheney does.”

Unfortunately Gov. Bredesen vetoes guns in restaurants bill in Tennessee

Gov. Phil Bredesen has used his veto against HB962, which would allow handgun carry permit holders to carry their weapons into restaurants that serve alcohol.

In front of a backdrop of law enforcement officials from across the state, including Metro Police Chief Ronal Serpas, Bredesen spoke of a firearms safety class he took in high school.
“I remember from the course there was one thing that teacher drove into us day in and day out … that message was guns and alcohol do not mix,” Bredesen said. “That was a common sense proposition back then, and it is every bit as true today.”

The bill would allow handgun carry permit holders to take their weapons into any restaurant that serves alcohol, unless the restaurant owner posted a sign banning the weapons from his or her business. Supporters have said the bill protects Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights; opponents have said having guns in areas with alcohol could be unsafe.

“We cannot support legislation that openly allows consumption of alcohol where guns are present,” Serpas said. “Weapons in a bar fight are never a good thing.”

The veto can be overturned by the legislature with a simple majority vote, something Bredesen acknowledged could very well happen.
“I certainly understand there’s a great potential, probably the likelihood of an override for this,” Bredesen said.