Articles published in July, 2009

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

Think about all these
‘Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.’

~ Thomas Jefferson

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.

3. Colt: The original point and click interface.

4. Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.

5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?

6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.

8. If you don’t know your rights, you don’t have any.

9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.

11. What part of ’shall not be infringed’ do you not understand?

12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.

13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.

14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.

15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.

16. You don’t shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.

17. 911: Government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.

18. Assault is a behavior, not a device..

19. Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.

20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.

21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.

22. You have only the rights you are willing to fight for.

23. Enforce the gun control laws we ALREADY have; don’t make more.

24. When you remove the people’s right to bear arms, you create slaves.

25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.

Looks like Florida is attempting to join the states telling the feds to shove their illegal gun laws where the sun doesn’t shine.

Below is the report. We will inform you of any news on this issue.
Florida’s states’ rights advocates have opened a new front in their effort to roll back Washington’s influence and control.

State Rep. Marlene O’Toole has introduced a bill that would preclude the federal government from regulating guns, ammunition and related accessories that are manufactured and kept in Florida.

The bill is modeled on legislation that Montana and Tennessee adopted this year. With the bill’s introduction, Florida has become one of a handful of states considering such a measure, according to O’Toole’s staff.

More are expected to follow.

The bill, its proponents claim, is not necessarily about guns. Moreover, it does not amend or hinder any regulations for firearms subject to interstate-commerce laws.

Rather, they say, it is about the right of Floridians under the Ninth and 10th amendments to the U.S. Constitution to be free of Washington’s control on a matter that should matter only to state residents.

To be free of federal oversight, according to the bill, a firearm would have to be for personal use, manufactured commercially or privately within the state and without “significant parts” that are imported from another state, have “Made in Florida” stamped on a central metallic part and remain within state lines.

“We see more federal intervention every day. If we can reduce that, we think it’s good for the people of Florida,” said O’Toole, R-Lady Lake, who represents a portion of southern Marion County near The Villages.

O’Toole said she proposed her bill, the Florida Firearms Freedom Act (HB 21), after reading about the Montana and Tennessee versions. She filed it July 6 and six House members, all Republicans, have signed on as co-sponsors.

Donny Barber, executive director of the Sovereignty Action Committee, an Ocala-based group supporting the expansion of Florida’s home-rule powers vis-a-vis the federal government, said O’Toole’s proposal could help bring jobs to the state and the area.

The Obama administration is trending toward greater regulation of ammunition rather than weapons, Barber said.

HB 21, if adopted, would make Florida a haven for ammunition and firearms manufacturers seeking to escape that oversight for its customers here.

“Furthermore,” he added, “all this regulation is flat-out unconstitutional.”

Despite the passage of similar laws elsewhere, the federal government has already signaled that they could be moot.

On July 16, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives published an open letter to all holders of federal firearms licenses in Montana and Tennessee telling them that Washington still calls the shots for gun dealers.

“Federal law supercedes” the Montana and Tennessee statutes, and thus “all provisions of the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act, and their corresponding regulations, continue to apply,” wrote Carson Carroll, the bureau’s assistant director of enforcement programs and services.

Carroll outlined requirements of other federal gun regulations, then in closing noted, “These, as well as other Federal requirements and prohibitions, apply whether or not the firearms or ammunition have crossed state lines.”

O’Toole, who is a co-sponsor of a separate special resolution that asserts Florida’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to reject federal encroachment, relies on a different standard.

The proposed measure says freeing intrastate commerce from Washington’s oversight was a constitutional guarantee under the Bill of Rights and a “matter of contract” that was “agreed upon” when Florida became a state in 1845.

Since that time, in accordance with the Constitution, Congress has not “expressly preempted” regulation of gun or ammunition makers by state officials within their own borders, the bill says.

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Florida had 10 licensed pistol makers and 25 makers of rifles and shotguns in 2007, the most recent year for which federal data was available.

A handful of those manufacturers produced both pistols and rifles.

The list included individuals who made as few as one firearm that year as well as major companies, such as Kel-Tec CNC Industries in Cocoa, which in 2007 produced almost 104,000 semi-automatic pistols and is the fourth-leading pistol maker in the country.

A spokesman for Kel-Tec declined to comment on O’Toole’s bill, saying he was unfamiliar with its provisions.

Wouldn’t it be nice if America was one giant gun show?

Wouldn’t it be nice if America was one giant gun show?
If America was one giant gun show we all would be safer. Gun violence and gun crime would drop to next to zero here in America. Let me explain why this would be a fact. Up front warning, I will be using strict logic here. So if you don’t use logic when you think, leave this site now!
OK with that said. Here comes the logic. How many gun shows get robbed by armed robbers? Answer is none, it does not happen. Why is that? If you have been able to read to this point, it means you use logic and I’m sure you know the answer. Just in case some of you get by. Virtually everyone at a gun show, both patron’s and venders are armed. Anyone trying to use a firarm for illegal means would be shot full of so many holes they would be able to use the body as a pencil. Think about it. An armed society is a polite society not the other way. If you take guns from a law abiding public the only one’s with then will be the criminals.
P.S. this is something all of those so called gun right’s groups like the NRA, GOAA, and the rest would never ever push for.

Some of the top Republican’s are dissatisfied with sotomayor’s Answers concerning the Second Amendment

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) stated that he is not satisfied with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s answers to questions about the Second Amendment, particularly her ruling that the right to bear arms does not apply to the states.

This leaves unresolved the depth of her understanding of the Second Amendment, as well as a 2008 Supreme Court case, District of Columbia v. Heller, which ruled that individual Americans have the right to keep and bear arms, said Sessions.

When CNSNews.com asked whether he was satisfied with Sotomayor’s answers about the Second Amendment, Sessions said: “Not really. I think that remains a huge issue.

“The reason that it is really important is that post-Heller, after the Heller decision, she rendered an opinion,” said Sessions, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. “She’ll soon be on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court alone can reverse that opinion.”

In the Heller case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit first ruled in 2007 that gun ownership is an “individual right” guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Then, in June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court’s ruling.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. … We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.”

Despite those rulings, in June 2009, Sotomayor denied a claim that a ban on a man’s martial arts weapon violated his Second Amendment rights in the Maloney v. Cuomo case in New York.

She justified her position by maintaining that the Second Amendment only applies to the federal government.

Currently, Sotomayor is a federal judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District that ruled on the Maloney v. Cuomo case.

Sessions warned that if Sotomayor’s decision remains in its present condition, it will be detrimental to the rights guaranteed by Second Amendment.

“If they do not reverse her opinion, it will disarray the protections of the Second Amendment, because any city like D.C. could vote to eliminate firearms, even handguns in your home,” Sessions told CNSNews.com. “So it’s a huge issue, and it’s not settled yet.”

During the July 16 Judiciary Committee hearing on Sotomayor’s nomination, committee member Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) continued to question her on issues largely dear to conservatives, including how citizens will be able to enjoy their right to keep and bear arms if it only pertains to the federal government, as the Maloney case holds.

Coburn asked Sotomayor: “Tell me how American citizens will be able to enforce their individual constitutional rights to bear arms if you’re holding that it does not apply to the states?”

Sotomayor responded with what has become her generally predictable answer to all questions pertaining to court rulings: “precedents.”

“Maloney was decided on the basis of precedent, it was decided on precedent the Supreme Court recognizes as precedent,” Sotomayor told Coburn. “It [the court] decided it on the rule of law.”

The 14th Amendment established the Doctrine of Incorporation, which holds that
“[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Prior to the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868, it was the Supreme Court’s position in Barron v. Baltimore (1833) that the Bill of Rights only applied to federal law and that states were able to pass laws based on their individual constitutions.

Later on, the Supreme Court recognized that the Bill of Rights should provide individual Americans with basic liberties and that states could add more freedoms but could also contravene fundamental constitutional rights.

The Ninth Circuit Court has been the only one to incorporate the Second Amendment while federal appellate courts in the Second and Seventh circuits have denied incorporation.

Sotomayor’s stance on incorporating the Second Amendment is important to conservatives – and many others who cherish their right to keep and bear arms – because if she rules against it, that right could be infringed.

Despite the uncertainty among Republican senators about how Sotomayor will rule on Second Amendment issues, Sessions conducted a press briefing after one of the July 16 hearing breaks, where he indicated that there would be no attempt to filibuster any decision to confirm her, placing the Democrats at an advantage.

This means the judge only needs a 51-vote majority to be confirmed.

In addition, during the July 13 hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R- S.C.) told Sotomayor, “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”

Although Sotomayor had acknowledged before the committee that the Heller ruling holds the Second Amendment as an “individual right,” the question of whether it is a “fundamental right” remained unanswered.

“I do believe, at the end of the day, you’re not going to find a law book that tells you whether or not a fundamental right exists vis-à-vis the Second Amendment, that you’re going to have to rely upon your view of America, who we are, how far we’ve come and where we’re going to go in our relationship to gun ownership,” said Graham.

He added: “You may not agree with that, but I believe that’s what you’re going to do, and I believe that’s what every other justice is going to do.”

Graham kept probing to get a sense of Sotomayor’s personal views of the Second Amendment rather than a list of legal “precedents.”

“You hire judges for their judgment, not their personal views or what their sense of what the outcome should be,” said Sotomayor. “You hire – you appoint judges for the purpose of understanding whether they respect law, whether they respect precedent.”

Graham continued to question how she would rule in a case questioning whether the Second Amendment is a “fundamental right.”

“I don’t doubt that you respect the law, but you’re going to be asked along with eight other colleagues – if you get on the court – to render a decision as to whether or not the Second Amendment is a fundamental right shared by the American people,” said Graham.

He added, “There is no subjective judgment there?”

“The issue will be controlled by the court’s analysis of that question in the case fundamental as defined by the incorporation, and likely will get by the court, a case that challenges state regulations,” said Sotomayor.

“At that point, I will presume that the court will look at its older precedent in the way it did in Heller, consider whether it controls the issue or not,” she said. “It will decide – even if it controls it – whether it should be revisited under the [incorporation] doctrine.”

Graham was unsure how Sotomayor would rule on a case involving Second Amendment incorporation, adding that he expects her to stay away from being an activist judge and that he thinks she is open-minded.

“I think and believe, based on what I know about you so far, that you’re broad-minded enough to understand that America is bigger than the Bronx, it’s bigger than South Carolina,” he said.

60 Minutes and their anti gun Nazism

60 Minutes propaganda. Gun Show loophole. Virginia law states something to the effect of private gun sales need not do a background check. There are a lot of myths about this. If I live in Virginia and sell a firearm to a private citizen and if I do not notify the police it is on me if something happens. If the firearm is used in a crime and found, I have to then prove to the police that it is no longer mine. I.E. I’m guilty until proven innocent. If the gun is stolen or lost from the person who bought it they can not prove it is theirs.
Personally I sold one of my pistol’s to my father. My parent’s live in a completely different state from me. Before I allowed my parent to even take control yet alone leave with it, we went to my local police department and filed a change of ownership for it. I do not believe my parents would commit a crime with it. However if it were stolen they could not prove it was theirs. Again also if said stolen gun was used in a crime it comes back to me.
As far as we are concerned any firearm that is sold privately, and no change of ownership is filed, it was stolen to begin with. Any law abiding citizen who purchases a firearm without a change of ownership is a fool and should not own a gun. If you go to a store and buy a shotgun, riffle, 223 riffle, or anything like that, you must fill out paperwork for at least the transfer of ownership to then be filled with the state and the feds.
Back to the point. While yes there are states that do not require private gun sales to file paperwork. All that can come from it is trouble. Again we are sure there some,a small amount, of private sales that are legitimate. We are not stupid enough to believe otherwise. However prier to 1934 there no requirements to do so. So we say this is a good thing. As always an armed society is a polite society.

The Senate has rejected the measure on concealed weapons across state lines

We here at Guns and Ammo Enthusiast are gun right’s activists. We are also more in favor of the Second Amendment, and removing all illegal gun laws from America. (Every law since 1934 is a violation of the constitution). So with that said we are pleased that this law failed. Simply because we want all laws repealed, and no more laws passed. While initially we loved the idea of this law. We realized this law was just a conformation of a laws stating you need permission to carry a concealed firearm. Hence a violation of the second amendment! So here is the report from the Anti Gun Nazis AP.

Gun control proponents scored a rare victory as the Senate rejected the carrying of concealed weapons across state lines.

The 58-39 vote Wednesday defeated a measure giving people with concealed weapons permits the right to carry their firearms into other states that have similar gun laws. Sixty votes were needed to approve the provision, an amendment to a defense spending bill.

It is an unusual setback for the gun rights side, which has been able to muster majorities of Republicans and pro-gun Democrats to move its agenda through both the Bush and Obama administrations. Opponents say the concealed weapon proposal would force states with tough gun laws to accept gun-carrying visitors from states with weaker laws.

NRA Member is this insane frivolous lawsuit how you want your dues spent?

An Allegheny County judge this morning dismissed a National Rifle Association legal challenge to Pittsburgh’s lost-or-stolen gun ordinance.

The NRA and four Pittsburgh gun owners sued the city in April over an ordinance requiring gun owners to notify police within 24 hours if their firearm is lost or stolen or within 24 hours of discovering a firearm is missing.

Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick ruled that since none of the gun owners have been affected by the ordinance, they lack legal standing to sue the city, noting that “a court may intervene only where this is actual harm.”

Finally a city is trying to do something with firearms that does NOT violate the second amendment of the constitution

For the first time in at least 15 years, the Colorado Springs Police Department has stopped destroying weapons that have been confiscated in criminal investigations and is looking into whether they can be auctioned for profit.

The idea of selling confiscated firearms is the brainchild of Vice Mayor Larry Small, who proposed it in February as a money-making endeavor when the City Council was trying to close a nearly $17 million budget gap.

Only Councilwoman Jan Martin sided with the Police Department, which recommended against auctioning the weapons and essentially putting them back on the street.

“They are still looking into the different legal requirements and how best we could actually sell the guns, what’s going to be the most cost effective way for us to get it done,” said Sgt. Scott Schwall, a police spokesman.

“We are not at a point yet where we’re going to sell any guns. But we are researching it and should have a proposal for City Council here in a month or so,” he said.

Since February, police have accumulated a small arsenal of weapons, although the exact number and type were not immediately available.

Selling firearms no longer needed as evidence is expected to generate $10,000 this year, an amount the president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police said may not be worth the effort or the possibility of a future tragedy.

“I would feel badly if I released a gun, even legitimately and legally, and then down the road it would end up in the hands of the wrong person … and be used against an officer or used in the commission of a crime against a citizen,” Jack Rinchich, chief of the Department of Safety and Security at the University of Charleston, said today.

Rinchich said he is “strongly in favor” of people’s right to bear arms but he tends to favor disposing weapons in police custody.

“Anything that’s been seized or used in the commission of crime, or has the potential of getting back on the street, ought to be eliminated,” he said. “There’s enough guns out there.”

Small said he’s no more concerned about a weapon that police would auction ending up in the wrong hands than a weapon someone could buy from a registered gun dealer.

“It is a requirement that when they’re auctioned off, they be auctioned off to registered dealers,” he said.

Two or three years ago, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said he started auctioning weapons that have either been turned over or gone unclaimed.

“It costs money to destroy them, first of all,” he said. “Second of all, it’s an opportunity for us to raise revenues to support our own firearms replacement and ammunition replacement.”

Maketa disputed the argument that the firearms could end up in criminals’ hands.

“That just carries no logic at all,” he said. “The intent is to sell them to dealers, and they’ll follow the rules and systems in place to get them into the hands of law-abiding citizens that are using them for lawful purposes. I’m not aware of any resurfacing again and having been involved in a crime.”

Just when you thought things were calming down with the Legislature, a handful of New York lawmakers, are trying to screw things up, again!

Let me start off by saying Tenth Amendment and we do not agree with more gun law’s we need them ALL abolished.

Just when you thought things were calming down with the Legislature, a handful of New York lawmakers, led by Long Island Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel have found themselves up to their eyeballs in an issue facing the U.S. Senate — the Thune amendment, scheduled for a vote tomorrow, that would allow reciprocity of concealed carry gun laws across state lines.

What this means, explained Schimel, is that, if the amendment passes, a person from Vermont for instance, could freely drive into New York State with a concealed weapon based on Vt. law.

The problem, the way Schimel and other gun-control advocates see it, is that some states such as Vermont have fairly relaxed laws for carrying a concealed weapon. Vermonters need to be 16 years old and have ID to carry a concealed handgun while New Yorkers need a judge-approved pistol permit.

Schimel, who has pushed for a number of gun control measures such as microstamping of ammunition, is one of a handful of New Yorkers at the National Conference of State Legislators meeting this week in Philadelphia. She’s been buttonholing legislators from swing states in the Thune amendment debate, including Colorado and Pennsylvania, trying to get those lawmakers to call their respective US Senators and persuade them not to support the measure.

The amendment, named for South Dakota Sen. John Thune has been attached to a defense spending bill that federal lawmakers are debating.

The point that Schimel is trying to make to fellow lawmakers from other states is that each state has unique needs regarding gun control.

“What’s good for Nevada isn’t good for New York,” said Schimel, a Democrat, adding, “We have rules specific to New York for a reason.”

obama administration is fighting back in a fight over states’ rights and firearm owner’s right’s as well!

The Obama administration is raising the stakes in a fight over states’ rights and firearm ownership by arguing that new pro-gun laws in Montana and Tennessee are invalid.

In the last few months, a grass-roots, federalist revolt against Washington, D.C. has begun to spread through states that are home to politically active gun owners. Montana and Tennessee have enacted state laws saying that federal rules do not apply to firearms manufactured entirely within the state, and similar bills are pending in Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, and South Carolina.

Yet the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives now claims that that not only is such a state law invalid, but “because the act conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulations, federal law supersedes the act.”

EVER HEARD OF THE 10th TENTH AMENDMENT

Tennessee’s law already has taken effect. The BATF’s letter on July 16 to firearms manufacturers and dealers in the state says “federal law requires a license to engage in the business of manufacturing firearms or ammunition, or to deal in firearms, even if the firearms or ammunition remain within the same state.”

A similar letter was sent to manufacturers and dealers in Montana, where the made-in-the-state law takes effect on October 1, 2009. Neither law permits certain large caliber weapons or machine guns, and both would bypass federal regulations including background checks for buyers and record-keeping requirements for sellers.

While this federalism-inspired revolt has coalesced around gun rights, the broader goal is to dust off a section of the Bill of Rights that most Americans probably have paid scant attention to: the Tenth Amendment. It says that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Read literally, the Tenth Amendment seems to suggest that the federal government’s powers are limited only to what it has been “delegated,” and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1918 confirmed that the amendment “carefully reserved” some authority “to the states.” That view is echoed by statements made at the time the Constitution was adopted; New Hampshire explicitly said that states kept “all powers not expressly and particularly delegated” to the federal government.

More recently, federal courts have interpreted the Tenth Amendment narrowly, in a way that justifies almost any law on grounds that it intends to regulate interstate commerce. In the 2005 case of Gonzales v. Raich, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled that a person growing marijuana for her own medicinal use could have a “substantial effect on interstate commerce.”

(In an impassioned dissent at the time, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: “If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything — and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.”) That is exactly what is happening now!

Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said in an interview on Monday that he expects to be facing off against the Obama administration in court soon. “We will find the right test cases to get us in court,” he said.

Marbut believes that the letters weren’t that meaningful because they were addressed to gun manufacturers and dealers who already are licensed by the federal government. “Those people already are under the thumb of the Feds,” he said. “We’ve assumed they wouldn’t want to put their circumstances at risk in dabbling in the state-made guns business. The people who the letters are addressed to are pretty irrelevant to the whole discussion.”

Translation: If you’re a gunsmith talented enough to build a made-in-Montana gun under the state’s forthcoming law, give Marbut a ring. Just don’t be surprised if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives is not entirely pleased.

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