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Florida joins the ranks of states telling the federal government to stick their ILLEGAL gun law’s where the sun doesn’t shine.

WAY TO GO FLORIDA

Introduced in the Florida House on July 6, 2009, the “Firearms Freedom Act” (HB-21) seeks to provide “that specified firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition for personal use manufactured in state are not subject to federal law or regulation” in the State of Florida.

The bill is sponsored by Florida State Reps O’Toole and Plakon. They follow in the path of Montana, and Tennessee who have already passed such legislation. And they join with Utah, Texas, South Carolina and others who are considering it in an effort to limit federal regulation of guns, and specifically invoke the 9th and 10th Amendments as restrictions on federal power:

“the regulation of intrastate commerce is vested in the states under the ninth and tenth amendments to the United States Constitution, particularly if not expressly preempted by federal law. Congress has not expressly preempted state regulation of intrastate commerce pertaining to the manufacture on an intrastate basis of firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition”

Read the full text of the legislation below:

A bill to be entitled An act relating to regulation of firearms; creating s. 790.34, F.S.; creating the Florida Firearms Freedom Act; providing a short title; providing legislative findings; providing definitions; providing that specified firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition for personal use manufactured in the state are not subject to federal law or regulation; providing that the importation into the state of specified parts and the incorporation of such parts into a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in the state does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation; providing that certain basic materials are not subject to federal regulation of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition under interstate commerce; providing that specified firearm accessories imported into the state from another state do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce; providing legislative findings with respect thereto; providing exceptions; providing applicability; requiring that firearms manufactured and sold in the state must bear an indicia of manufacture by a specified date; providing an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:

Section 1. Section 790.34, Florida Statutes, is created to read:

790.34 Florida Firearms Freedom Act.–
(1) SHORT TITLE.–This section may be cited as the “Florida Firearms Freedom Act.”

(2) LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS.–

(a) The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees to the states and their citizens all powers not granted to the Federal Government elsewhere in the constitution and reserves to the State of Florida and its citizens certain powers as they were understood at the time that Florida was admitted to statehood in 1845. The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the State of Florida and the citizens thereof and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Florida and the United States in 1845.

(b) The regulation of intrastate commerce by the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees to the people rights not granted in the constitution and reserves to the State of Florida and its citizens certain rights as they were understood at the time that Florida was admitted to statehood in 1845. The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the State of Florida and the citizens thereof and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Florida and the United States in 1845. 52

(c) The regulation of intrastate commerce is vested in the states under the Ninth Amendment and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, particularly if not expressly preempted by federal law. Congress has not expressly preempted state regulation of intrastate commerce pertaining to the intrastate manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition.

(d) The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution reserves to the people the right to keep and bear arms as that right was understood at the time that Florida was admitted to statehood in 1845. The guaranty of that right is a matter of contract between the State of Florida and its citizens and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Florida and the United States in 1845.

(e) Section 8, Article I of the Florida Constitution clearly secures to the citizens of Florida, and prohibits government interference with, the right of individual Florida citizens to keep and bear arms. This constitutional protection remains unchanged from the original Florida Constitution, which was approved by Congress and the people of Florida, and the right exists as it was understood at the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Florida and the United States in 1845.

(3) DEFINITIONS.–As used in this section:

(a) “Basic materials” means raw materials, including, but not limited to, unmachined steel and unshaped wood, used in the creation and manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition that have manufacturing or consumer product applications other than applications in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.

(b) “Borders of Florida” means the boundaries of Florida as described in s. 1, Art. II of the Florida Constitution.

(c) “Firearm accessories” means items that are used in conjunction with or mounted on a firearm but are not essential to the basic function of a firearm, including, but not limited to, telescopic or laser sights, magazines, flash or sound suppressors, folding or aftermarket stocks and grips, speed-loaders, ammunition carriers, and lights for target illumination.

(d) “Generic and insignificant parts” includes, but is not limited to, springs, screws, nuts, and pins that may be used in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition but that have manufacturing or consumer product applications other than applications in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.

(e) “Manufactured” means the creation of a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition from basic materials for functional usefulness, including, but not limited to, forging, casting, machining, or any other processes used to form materials used in the creation of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.

(4) FIREARMS, FIREARM ACCESSORIES, AND AMMUNITION FOR PERSONAL USE MANUFACTURED AND REMAINING IN FLORIDA NOT SUBJECT TO FEDERAL LAW OR REGULATION; LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS.

(a)1. It is the finding of the Legislature that a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition for personal use that is manufactured commercially or privately in Florida from basic materials without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state and that remains within the borders of Florida is not considered to have traveled in interstate commerce.

2. A firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition that:
a. Is for personal use;
b. Is manufactured commercially or privately in Florida from basic materials without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state;
c. With respect to a firearm, has the words “Made in Florida” clearly stamped on a central metallic part of the firearm, such as the receiver or frame; and
d. Remains within the borders of Florida is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

(b)1. It is the finding of the Legislature that generic and insignificant parts that may be used in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition but that have manufacturing or consumer product applications other than applications in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition are not considered to be firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.

2. The importation into the state of generic and insignificant parts that may be used in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition but that have manufacturing or consumer product applications other than applications in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition, and the incorporation of such parts into a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in the state, does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation.

(c)1. It is the finding of the Legislature that basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, that may be used in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition but that have manufacturing or consumer product applications other than applications in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition are not considered to be firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.

2. Basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, that may be used in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition but that have manufacturing or consumer product applications other than applications in the manufacture of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition are not subject to congressional authority to regulate firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition under interstate commerce as if such basic materials were actually firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition.

3. The authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce in basic materials does not include the authority to regulate firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition manufactured in the state from basic materials and that remain within the state.

(d) Firearm accessories that are imported into the state from another state and that are subject to federal regulation as being in interstate commerce do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce by virtue of being attached to or used in conjunction with a firearm in Florida.

(5) EXCEPTIONS.–This section does not apply to:

(a) A firearm that cannot be carried and used by one person.
(b) A firearm that has a bore diameter greater than 1 1/2 inches and that uses smokeless powder, rather than black powder, as a propellant.
(c) Ammunition with a projectile that explodes using an explosion of chemical energy after the projectile leaves the firearm.
(d) A firearm that discharges two or more projectiles with one activation of the trigger or other firing device.

(6) APPLICABILITY.–This section applies to firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition described in subparagraph

(4)(a)2. that are manufactured in Florida after October 1, 2010, and remain within the state.

(7) FIREARMS MANUFACTURED IN FLORIDA; INDICIA OF MANUFACTURE REQUIRED.–Effective October 1, 2010, a firearm manufactured and sold in this state must have the indicia “Made in Florida” clearly stamped on a central metallic part of the firearm, such as the receiver or frame.

Section 2. This act shall take effect October 1, 2010.

Winchester Ammunition is sponsoring the 2009 Grand Pacific Trapshooting Event in Olympia WA

The Pacific International Trapshooting Association is set to host the annual Grand Pacific Trapshooting event, July 19 to July 25, at the Evergreen Sportsmen’s Club in Olympia, Wash.
Winchester® Ammunition is one of the proud sponsors of the 2009 Grand Pacific and will provide the ammunition for the warm up day, donated ammunition to be used as awards and support their youth program.
“We are extremely proud to support the Pacific International Trapshooting Association and expect this to be a very competitive event with talented shooters,” said Dick Hammett, president of Winchester Ammunition.
Trapshooting, which is a type of clay target shooting, is a game of movement, fast-action and split-second timing. It requires the accuracy and skill to repeatedly aim, fire, and break a 4 1/4-inch disc, which is hurled through the air at a speed of 41 mph, simulating the flight path of a bird fleeing a hunter.
“The 2009 Grand Pacific will be a celebration of the successes we have enjoyed for the past seventy-eight years,” said Sharon Gillis, executive committee president. “You will be amazed at how much fun you will experience. I am blessed to be part of this long line of contributors who gave us the responsibility of preserving the past traditions of trapshooting and ensuring the future of the Pacific International Trapshooting Association.”
The Pacific International Trapshooting Association is a non-profit organization made up of both state and provincial organizations. Their goal is to promote the sport of trapshooting through organized shooting events such as the Grand Pacific.
For more information about the Grand Pacific, visit www.shootpita.com/2009gp.htm or call 541.258.8766.
For more information about Winchester and its complete line of products visit www.winchester.com.

Mexican standoff on guns and ammo, the second amendment, and BOLD FACED LIES by the so called “news” media

Big lies die slowly. After a claim by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that 90% of Mexican drug dealers’ military weapons (machine guns, hand grenades and missiles) come from American gun stores was exposed as a lie several months ago, it’s back — this time with the imprimatur of the Government Accountability Office.

A June 21 CBS “60 Minutes” report by Anderson Cooper was clearly coordinated to coincide with release of the GAO report and a similar one by “activist” Josh Sugarmann.

You are likely to soon hear and read that the GAO report commissioned by Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., confirms what Mexico’s attorney general, Eduardo Medina-Mora, told Cooper: “Two thousand two hundred grenades, missile and rocket launchers!”

Cue Cooper as a video of machine guns, hand grenades and other weaponry fill the screen: “It turns out 90% of them are purchased in the U.S.”

That’s not all. You will hear from Sugarmann that Mexican drug dealers are buying FN Herstal Five-seven pistols from licensed U.S. gun merchants because those pistols fire bullets that penetrate protective body armor.

What you are unlikely to hear and read is that all such military weapons are illegal in the U.S., that Mexican criminals are supplied through an international black market and that this black market prominently features weapons the U.S. sold to the Mexican military and that are resold to drug cartels by corrupt Mexican officials.

Neither are you likely to hear or read that the vest-penetrating ammunition made for the FN Herstal Five-seven is available only to military and special police units.

The facts don’t matter. Reinstatement of the federal “assault weapon” ban that lapsed in 2004 matters, and is nothing short of a fetish among powerful supporters who will tell almost any untruth to achieve it.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she would pick the time and place to ram the ban through. The foundation work for her plan includes TV face time for renewal activists, and politicians and law enforcement organizations that will get larger budgets and more power if the ban is reinstated.

Journalists don’t always repeat these lies in bad faith. Often they publish untruths as a combination of journalistic ignorance of firearm features and laws, and anti-gun loathing common to the “metrosexual” class.

Canadian-born Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer admitted as much before the first “assault weapon” ban went into effect in 1994:

“The ‘assault weapons ban’ will have no effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. . . . Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of (all) weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.”

Last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Heller v. D.C. that the Second Amendment right to own firearms is an individual one may crimp confiscation plans, but the current set of lies being told in order to achieve renewed restrictions goes on.

Savvy operators like Sugarmann have told them for years. “Assault weapon” is a military term Sugarmann and others intentionally misapply to civilian firearms to frighten the public and play on its ignorance.

As Sugarmann himself told supporters in 1988: “The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns vs. semiautomatic ‘assault’ weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.”

Among previous Sugarmann inventions are the “plastic gun” and “cop-killer bullet” scares. In the former case, Sugarmann claimed that plastic guns able to evade detection by metal detectors were being sold — but no such gun existed or can be made.

In the second case, he asserted that handgun ammunition was being expressly manufactured to kill police officers. Reporters and politicians ate it up; yet there has never been any such thing as a cop-killer bullet, notes David Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute:

“The issue is a fiction, invented for purposes of politics. . . . In any case, since 1986, federal law has prohibited the rare types of handgun ammunition that have unusual abilities to penetrate body armor.”

Are individuals smuggling guns into Mexico? Yes, just as they are smuggling cigarettes into Canada. Gun smuggling has been going on since the 1800s, in no small part due to Mexico’s prohibitive gun laws.

But the guns going to Mexico are legal American firearms, not war materiel. The news media have knowingly or incompetently lied to Americans in service of a political cause. For this they should be deeply ashamed. But for that to happen they have to have same to begin with!!!

Attorney General Eric Holder to define gun owners, anti-abortion activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists

   Amendments to the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, which has already been passed by the House, would empower the Attorney General Eric Holder to define gun owners, anti-abortion activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists in light of recent federal reports that classify millions of Americans as “extremists”.
Former impeached Florida judge and now Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings has introduced amendments to H.R. 2647: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which would give Holder dictator powers to demonize legitimate protest groups as being affiliated with violent race hate organizations.
The bill is ostensibly aimed at preventing race “extremists” and gang members from joining the Army, but since the Army already hires felons, criminals, racists and gang members, the real purpose behind the legislation is to codify the move to label gun owners, “anti-government” activists and tax protesters as domestic terrorists, a process that has been ongoing since at least the start of the decade.
The bill’s definition of “people associated or affiliated with hate groups” include, “Groups or organizations that espouse an intention or expectation of armed revolutionary activity against the United States Government,” or “Other groups or organizations that are determined by the Attorney General to be of a violent, extremist nature.”
The evidence required to show that such an organization is affiliated with a violent hate group includes people possessing tattoos identifying them with the group, individuals who attend conferences or rallies sponsored by a “hate group,” people who engage in online discussion forums of an “extremist” nature, people who possess documents, books or photographs or simply “related materials as defined by the Attorney General” that represent “hate propaganda.”
The amendments introduced by Hastings were passed by the House and the bill now moves on to the Senate for approval before it is signed by the President.
Since the definition of an “extremist” has already been established by numerous federal documents over the last few years that list law-abiding citizens as domestic terrorists, Hastings’ amendments are simply an attempt to centralize the power to demonize such groups into the hands of the Obama administration.
“This is arguably one of the worst pieces of legislation to come down the pike in a long, long time. In essence Attorney General Eric Holder — a Bill Clinton retread — will have the discretion to label Americans terrorists. Hastings is a dangerous man and should be forced to resign from congress. This amendment is part and parcel of the trend in this country to suppress dissent by patriots by calling them domestic terrorists,” warns writer Mike Baker.
Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) expressed his concern about the amendment on the house floor, noting that under Homeland Security’s very definition of what constitutes an “extremist”, the majority of Americans will be characterized as hate criminals.

   “While the amendment seeks to keep gang members and members of violent groups out of the military, the amendment by its language is much more broad. Specifically, it confers upon the Attorney General the ability to categorize groups as hate groups, and this sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as “extremists,” warned Franks.

   “I take extreme offense that the federal government — through a report issued under the authority of a Cabinet-level official — would dare to categorize people who are “dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition or abortion or immigration” as “right-wing extremists” and it begs the question of whether the Attorney General, under Mr. Hastings’ Amendment, can look to the Napolitano report to decide who is an extremist, or can make the same categorization of the majority of Americans as extremists who may then be kept from joining the military, or who may be discharged,” said Rep. Franks.

As we reported in April, a recent Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment equates gun owners with violent terrorists and states that radical extremists are “stockpiling” weapons in fear of an Obama administration gun ban.
The document, Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, states;

   

“Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

A similar report was also issued by the DHS at the end of March which listed the “alternative media” with other radical extremist groups and implies that people who disagree with the mass media’s version of events are potential domestic terrorists.

Both documents were just the latest in a long sordid line of training manuals in which the federal government characterizes millions of American citizens as potentially violent terrorists who are a threat to law enforcement, and designates them under the umbrella term of “extremists,” in the same context cited in Hastings’ amendments.

   As we have exhaustively documented with the MIAC report and a whole host of others, the federal government apparently has very little concern for any perceived terrorist threat to America coming from the MIddle East or Al-Qaeda cells within the country, and indeed if any such threat existed we are only in more danger, because the feds have been busy training law enforcement that law-abiding American citizens who exercise their legal right to purchase firearms or who exercise their first amendment right to discuss politics or run websites, are potential terrorists who want to instigate a violent revolution.

   In addition, current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.

   Over the last few years we have documented countless examples of security assessment reports from the likes of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, as well as police training manuals, which state that anti-war protesters, gun owners, veterans, Ron Paul supporters and those who merely cite the Constitution should be equated with extremists and domestic terrorists.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

   The fact that the government is now treating people who merely criticize its conduct as domestic terrorists is the clearest signal possible that the United States has entered a period in history similar to Germany in the early 1930’s and that it can only be a matter of time before the right “emergency” provides the justification for dissidents to be targeted for round-ups and mass imprisonment.

   No one can claim now that this is merely a paranoid delusion – the government itself is training its law enforcement and military arms that protesters and people who use their First Amendment rights are domestic terrorists.

   The facilities for round-ups of “extremists” who dare to exercise their First or Second Amendment rights are already being prepared, again with the help of Hastings, who sponsored (HR 645) – the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act.

   The bill authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to set up a network of FEMA camp facilities to be used to house U.S. citizens in the event of a national emergency.

   Ominously, the bill also states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.
   The bill mandates that six separate facilities be established in different Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions (FEMA) throughout the country.

   The camps will double up as “command and control” centers that will also house a “24/7 operations watch center” as well as training facilities for Federal, State, and local first responders.

   The bill also contains language that will authorize camps to be established within closed or already operating military bases around the country.

   As we have previously highlighted, in early 2006 Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root was awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.

   The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps would also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”

   As far back as 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.

   A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, was more recently updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”

   Alex Jones has attended numerous military urban warfare training drills across the US where role players were used to simulate arresting American citizens and taking them to internment camps.

   Hastings’ efforts to have millions of law-abiding American citizens lumped in with racist gangs and designated as “extremists” arrives on the back of Federal hate crimes legislation, which in reality would criminalize “thought crimes,” that has cleared the House and now faces the Senate as S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act).

   S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in “hate speech” transmitted over television, radio, and the internet. The House version of the bill states:

   “Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce [radio, TV, internet] any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. (HR 1966, SEC 3, Sec. 881a)”

  In other words, if a talk show host engages in “hostile” speech against a person or persons of the above mentioned federally protected group that talk show host will face federal prosecution and the prospect of a two year prison term.

   The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would similarly criminalize free speech on the Internet if it can be deemed in any way to have been “harmful” to an individual. This represents the end of political blogging and free speech on the world wide web.

   If both bills are not opposed and thrown out then the First Amendment will become nothing more than a relic of a bygone age.

   All of these coordinated moves to demonize informed, armed and pissed off Americans as extremists, terrorists and hate criminals represents the federal government’s final push to brainwash the population into accepting the notion that some Americans are dangerous, that they are enemies of the state, and that they can be targeted in the same way that victims of the “war on terror” are now being targeted across the world – through misappropriation of guilt, torture and indefinite imprisonment.

As we have been saying an armed society is a polite society. So get your guns and ammo!

Here is incontrovertible proof that gun control doesn’t work. Load up on guns and ammunition. From the folks at CNN

And so the violation of the second amendment by the obama administration has begun!

In front of a run-down shack in north Houston, federal agents step from a government sedan into 102-degree heat and face a critical question: How can the woman living here buy four high-end handguns in one day?

The house is worth $35,000. A screen dangles by a wall-unit air conditioner. Porch swing slats are smashed, the smattering of grass is flattened by cars and burned yellow by sun.

“I’ll do the talking on this one,” agent Tim Sloan, of South Carolina, told partner Brian Tumiel, of New York.

Success on the front lines of a government blitz on gunrunners supplying Mexican drug cartels with Houston weaponry hinges on logging heavy miles and knocking on countless doors. Dozens of agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — sent here from around the country — are needed to follow what ATF acting director Kenneth Melson described as a “massive number of investigative leads.”

All told, Mexican officials in 2008 asked federal agents to trace the origins of more than 7,500 firearms recovered at crime scenes in Mexico. Most of them were traced back to Texas, California and Arizona.

Among other things, the agents are combing neighborhoods and asking people about suspicious purchases as well as seeking explanations as to how their guns ended up used in murders, kidnappings and other crimes in Mexico.

“Ever turning up the heat on cartels, our law enforcement and military partners in the government of Mexico have been working more closely with the ATF by sharing information and intelligence,” Melson said Tuesday during a firearms-trafficking summit in New Mexico.
Firearms dealers visited

The ATF recently dispatched 100 veteran agents to its Houston division, which reaches to the border.

The mission is especially challenging because, officials say, that while Houston is the number one point of origin for weapons traced back to the United States from Mexico, the government can’t compile databases on gun owners under federal law.

Agents instead review firearms dealers’ records in person.

People who are legally in the United States and have clean criminal records, but are facing economic problems are often recruited by traffickers to buy weapons on their behalf in order to shield themselves from scrutiny.

Knocks at the door of the shack that looked to be the definition of hard times went unanswered.

“I am out of here,” Sloan said a few moments later, as a pit bull lazily sauntered from the back yard. “I don’t like pit bulls walking up behind me.”
Best information source

On second thought, Sloan switched to Spanish and interviewed a neighbor.

The neighbor said the woman left a month ago after a fight with her husband or boyfriend, who still lived there with what she called “other degenerates.”

“An angry ex-girlfriend or wife is the best person in the world, the greatest source of information,” Sloan said.

The night before, the duo were in a stakeout where they watched a weapons sale.

They also combined efforts with the Drug Enforcement Administration for an aircraft to stealthily follow traffickers to the border.

On this day, agents weren’t wearing raid jackets or combat boots and weren’t armed with warrants.

Guns were hidden under civilian shirts.

Another tip took agents on a 30-minute drive from the shack to a sprawling home with a pool in the back and an American flag out front.

It turned out two handguns, of a type drug gangsters prefer, were bought by a pastor for target practice.

Some stories, they say, are hard to believe.

The lamest so far came from a police officer: He said he bought a few military-style rifles, left them in his car and — on the same night — forgot to lock a door. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t file a police report or why he visited Mexico the day after the alleged theft.

Winchester Ammunition Launches Two 22LR Loads In 2009

Winchester® Ammunition recently expanded its rimfire ammunition line for hunters and shooters by launching two new .22 Long Rifle (LR) loads; the new Hyper Speed HP™ .22 LR and the 555 round .22 LR bulk pack.

The new Winchester Hyper Speed HP™ .22 LR features a 40-grain, plated hollow point bullet, with a muzzle velocity of 1,435 feet per second (fps). This load provides plenty of punch for improved penetration on small game and pests. This round is also designed to provide consistent hunting accuracy and small game stopping power.

The new Hyper Speed HP™ .22 LR features:
• 40-grain, plated hollow point bullet
• Muzzle velocity of 1,435 fps
• Boxed in convenient 100-round plastic tray
• Symbol number: XHV22LR

Also in the line-up for small game hunting, plinking and target shooting is Winchester Ammunition’s 36 gr., copper plated hollow point in the 555-round bulk pack. This round features a copper plated hollow point bullet to reduce fouling and has a muzzle velocity of 1,280 fps. for improved cycling in semi-automatics.

The new .22 LR 555 Round Bulk Pack features:
• 36-grain, copper plated hollow point bullet
• Muzzle velocity of 1,280 fps
• 555 rounds per box
• Symbol number: 22LR555HP

Winchester® ammunition was first introduced in 1866; 143 years later rimfire is the world’s most popular ammunition. The company offers a wide selection of rimfire products ideal for precision target shooting, silhouettes, plinking, small-game and varmint hunting, and pest control.

For more information about Winchester Ammunition and its complete line of products visit www.winchester.com.

Winchester is Proud to be a Leader in the Shooting Sports

Winchester® Ammunition pledged $500,000 to permanently endow the NRA’s Marksmanship Qualification Program, thus becoming the exclusive sponsor of the officially renamed Winchester/NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program.

The Winchester/NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program is a self-paced shooting development program. Open to adults and youngsters alike, the program measures an individual’s shooting proficiency against established par scores in 13 courses of fire across three disciplines: pistol, rifle and shotgun.

By supporting the Winchester/NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program, Winchester is providing everyone the chance to explore the benefits that hunting and the shooting sports have to offer.

To learn more about the Winchester/NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program, please call 800-672-3888 ext. 1505 or visit www.nrahq.org/youth.

About Winchester:
The company who brought to life “the Gun that Won the West” is the same company who today continues to supply sportsmen with the best sporting ammunition in the world.

Gun control supported by criminals who use guns and ammo to commit their crimes?

New York state senator Timothy Sullivan, a corrupt Tammany Hall politician, represented New York’s Red Hook district. Commercial travelers passing through the district would be relieved of their valuables by armed robbers. In order to protect themselves and their property, travelers armed themselves. This raised the risk of, and reduced the profit from, robbery. Sullivan’s outlaw constituents demanded that Sullivan introduce a law that would prohibit concealed carry of pistols, blackjacks, and daggers, thus reducing the risk to robbers from armed victims.

The criminals, of course, were already breaking the law and had no intention of being deterred by the Sullivan Act from their business activity of armed robbery. Thus, the effect of the Sullivan Act was precisely what the criminals intended. It made their life of crime easier.

As the first successful gun control advocates were criminals, I have often wondered what agenda lies behind the well-organized and propagandistic gun control organizations and their donors and sponsors in the US today. The propaganda issued by these organizations consists of transparent lies.

Consider the propagandistic term, “gun violence,” popularized by gun control advocates. This is a form of reification by which inanimate objects are imbued with the ability to act and to commit violence. Guns, of course, cannot be violent in themselves. Violence comes from people who use guns and a variety of other weapons, including fists, to commit violence.

Nevertheless, we hear incessantly the Orwellian Newspeak term, “gun violence.”

Very few children are killed by firearm accidents compared to other causes of child deaths. Yet, gun control advocates have created the false impression that there is a national epidemic in accidental firearm deaths of children. In fact, the National MCH Center for Child Death Review, an organization that monitors causes of child deaths, reports that seven times more children die from drowning and five times more from suffocation than from firearm accidents. Yet we don’t hear of “drowning violence,” “swimming pool violence,” “bathtub violence,” or “suffocation violence.”

The National MCH Center for Child Death Review reports that 174 children eighteen years old and under died from firearm accidents in 2000. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reports that 125 children eighteen years old and under died from firearm accidents in 2006. In 2006 there were 77,845,285 youths in that age bracket.

In 2006 violence-related firearm deaths of eighteen year olds and under totaled 2,191. A large percentage of these deaths appear to be teenagers fighting over drug turf.

According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, drugs are “one of the main factors leading to the total number of all homicides. . . . murders related to narcotics still rank as the fourth most documented murder circumstance out of 24 possible categories.”

According to the National Drug Control Policy, trafficking in illicit drugs is associated with the commission of violent crimes for the following reasons: “competition for drug markets and customers, disputes and rip-offs among individuals involved in the illegal drug market, [and] the tendency toward violence of individuals who participate in drug trafficking.” Another dimension of drug-related crime is “committing an offense to obtain money (or goods to sell to get money) to support drug use.”

Obviously, decriminalizing drugs would be the greatest single factor in reducing incarceration rates, the crime rate, and the homicide rate. Yet, gun control advocates do not support this obvious solution to “gun violence.”

Those who want to outlaw guns have not explained why it would be any more effective than outlawing drugs, alcohol, robbery, rape, and murder. All the crimes for which guns are used are already illegal, and they keep on occurring, just as they did before guns existed.

So what is the real agenda? Why do gun control advocates want to override the Second Amendment. Why do they not acknowledge that if the Second Amendment can be over-ridden, so can every other protection of civil liberty?

There are careful studies that conclude that armed citizens prevent one to two million crimes every year. Other studies show that in-home robberies, rapes, and assaults occur more frequently in jurisdictions that suffer from gun control ordinances. Other studies show that most states with right-to-carry laws have experienced a drop in crimes against persons.

Why do gun control advocates want to increase the crime rate in the US?

Why is the gun control agenda a propagandistic one draped in lies?

The NRA is the largest and best known organization among the defenders of the Second Amendment. Yet, a case might be made that manufacturers’ gun advertisements in the NRA’s magazines stoke the hysteria of gun control advocates.

Full page ads offering civilian versions of weapons used by “America’s elite warriors” in US Special Operations Command, SWAT, and by covert agents “who work in a dark world most of us can’t even understand,” are likely to scare the pants off people who are afraid of guns.

Many of the modern weapons are ugly as sin. Their appearance is threatening, unlike the beautiful lines of a Winchester lever action or single shot rifle, or a Colt single action revolver, or the WW II 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, guns that do not have menacing appearances. Everyone knows that they are guns, but they are also works of art.

A little advertising discretion might go a long way in quieting fears that are manipulated by gun control advocates.

The same goes for hunters. Recent news reports of “hunters” slaughtering wolves from airplanes in Alaska and of a hunter, indeed, a poacher, who shot a protected rare wolf in the US Southwest and left the dead animal in the road, enrage people who have empathy with animals and wildlife. Many Americans have had such bad experiences with their fellow citizens that they regard their dogs and cats, and wildlife, as more intelligent and noble life forms than humans. Wild animals can be dangerous, but they are not evil.

Americans with empathy for animals are horrified by the television program that depicts hunters killing beautiful animals and the joy hunters experience in “harvesting” their prey. Many believe that a person who enjoys killing a deer because he has a marvelous rack of antlers might enjoy killing a person.

This is not a screed against hunters. There are many families with the tradition of bringing in the venison once or twice a year. With the near extermination by man of deer predators, deer are so abundant in many localities as to have become a nuisance and a danger to motorists. Nevertheless, the defense of gun rights has little to gain from TV programs depicting the fun of killing Bambi’s mother.

In the US, shooting is a hand-eye coordination sport. It is likely that 99% of all ammunition is fired at paper targets, metal silhouettes, or clay and plastic discs. It is a sport for amateur physicists who are interested in ballistics and who experiment with different combinations of powder and bullet seeking the most accurate for their rifle or pistol. Few of these shooters hunt as their interest in shooting is unrelated to killing.

Shooting is a sport that offers comradeship and competition in which even old people can participate, people who do not or cannot play golf or tennis or bowl. There is a vast variety of events from black powder muskets to antique military and frontier weapons to distance shooting.

Sports shooters punching holes in paper targets comprise the vast majority of active gun owners. They are a threat to no one. Accidents are extremely rare at gun clubs. A large network of small businesses provide the parts and supplies necessary for shooting. There is no reason to strip gun owners of their hobby and possessions and family businesses of their livelihood, as has been done in Great Britain and as the gun control lobby intends to do in the US.

The NRA is correct to insist that “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” We have known this since the Sullivan Act.

Guns and ammo industries maintains that Ban on Traditional Lead Ammunition is Wrong policy following CA. Condor report

A report issued yesterday by the California Fish & Game Commission on blood lead levels in California condors is inconclusive and supports the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s contention that there is no scientific basis for the state’s ban on hunters using traditional ammunition in condor regions.

“The problem all along with linking the use of traditional ammunition and the health of the California condor has been lack of conclusive scientific evidence that justifies banning ammunition containing lead components,” said Steve Sanetti, president and CEO of NSSF, trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. “This report only serves to support industry’s position that the ban is unwarranted.”

“The report’s data certainly does not justify the commission’s intent to increase the scope of the ban to include upland and small game in the condor region,” added Sanetti. “Expanding the ban will only create another barrier to hunting, reducing funds derived from license fees and tags that support wildlife conservation in the Golden State.”

The firearms and ammunition industry vigorously opposed the effort to ban use of traditional ammunition in condor regions, citing lack of conclusive evidence to support claims that some condors had higher elevated blood lead levels from ingesting ammunition fragments while scavenging entrails from hunter-harvested big game. Nevertheless, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the ban into law, which went into effect July 1, 2008.

Then last month the F&G Commission announced its intention to consider expanding the ban to cover small and upland game hunting, a move the F&G Department did not support since condors do not feed on small game and hunters retrieve upland birds from the field. The fact that no scientific evidence exists for condors feeding on small game supports the department’s position.

The report, which the commission approved by unanimous vote, covers the first sampling of blood lead levels in free-flying California condors since the ban went into effect. In its summary, the F&G Department and F&G Commission caution that the data was not “systematically collected” and “thus, the information should not be considered conclusive of any ’cause and effect’ relationship between the prohibition of lead projectiles in condor range and blood lead levels detected in condor.”

The department and commission note that the “sources of lead in sampled condors are unknown, relationship of sampled condors to hunting activity are unknown, and . . . the condor feeding habits for this period . . . are unknown.”

Said Sanetti, “Given all of these caveats, no one should rush to give credence to this report as evidence supporting the state’s ban on traditional ammunition.”

NSSF questions the report’s use of standards for humans as the basis for measuring blood lead levels in condors. The standard “background” blood lead level of 10 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL) for condors is the same threshold for concern established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a human child.

“To our knowledge, there is no baseline blood lead level established for condors, or any other species of animal, and it strikes us as arbitrary to use a human threshold for a bird species,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for NSSF.

Data in the report was derived from blood lead levels sampled during calendar year 2008 and was provided to the F&G Department by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Samples were taken from 72 free-flying condors in California in 2008. During the January to June period, 59 percent of condors sampled had blood lead levels considered above background levels (greater than 10 ug/dL), and 45 percent of condors had levels above background during July to December of 2008.

The data, said the F&G Department and Commission, is considered inadequate for “any in-depth or meaningful comparative analyses regarding the possible consequences of the ‘2008 lead ammo ban’ in condor range. However, the department and commission conclude that the data provides a basis for future comparison. Beginning in fall 2009, a more comprehensive data collection plan is expected to be in place.

The commission’s intent to expand the ban is in response to a lawsuit settlement between the state and plaintiffs the Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for Biological Diversity that stipulates the commission will consider amending regulations requiring alternative ammunition for taking small and upland game within the condor range.

For more information about traditional ammunition and how it relates to the California condor, see http://www.nssf.org/media/FactSheets/Lead_Ammunition.cfm.

About:
NSSF, founded in 1961, is the trade association for the firearms, ammunition and recreational shooting sports industry. It promotes the safe ownership and responsible use of products its members make and sell. For more information, visit www.nssf.org