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AN AMERICAN WARNING
Because you should know!
January 2009 - Posts
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The incoming Obama administration continues to signal that it's not going to "play nice" with gun owners, hunters and sportsmen. The latest cause for concern is the appointment of Cass Sunstein to be the new "Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs," or "regulation czar."
Sunstein has expressed support for an outright ban on hunting, telling students at Harvard University that hunting should be banned if its only purpose is for "sport or game." As "regulation czar," Sunstein may not have the authority to ban hunting, but he'll certainly be in a position to craft environmental regulations that could have profound impacts on hunters in this country.
Appointments like this mean every gun owner must be vigilant to threats to our Second Amendment freedoms, and joining the NRA means that you're signing up with 4 million other Americans to guard our liberty from those who would try to legislate or regulate it away.
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For over a year now, the NRA and I have been highlighting the problems with the anti-gang initiatives paid for by Los Angeles taxpayers. The conviction of Hector "Big Weasel" Marroquin, a high-ranking gang leader who also ran an anti-gun program paid for by city funds, was one case we highlighted, but the fact is there are plenty of low-level gang members drawing a paycheck with the help of taxpayer dollars.
The latest is 30-year old Marlo "Bow-Wow" Jones, a contract employee with the city-funded Unity One anti-gang program. Jones was arrested recently and charged with a Jan. 5 robbery in which a male victim was beaten and choked in his hotel room and stripped of his jewelry.
Jones has been terminated from the anti-gang program, but he never should have been there to begin with. Maybe it's time for the city of Los Angeles to take another look at paying "former" gang members to run anti-gang programs.
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New Jersey wants to ration Second Amendment rights to "one a month." But the reasoning behind their legislation doesn't add up.
The New Jersey state Assembly passed the legislation just days ago. But in the Senate, it faces a lot of opposition- and for a lot of good reasons.
New Jersey already has some of the strictest anti-gun laws in the country. For example, you need a permit and approval from the state police just to buy an air gun in New Jersey. Buying a handgun there is tougher than in almost any other state.
Yet Jersey's violent crime rates are almost triple those of its northern neighbor Vermont, which has few restrictions on gun rights, and where you can carry a concealed handgun without even getting a permit.
Only three other states—California, Maryland and Virginia—have "one-gun-a-month" laws. South Carolina—the first state ever to impose such a limit—repealed the law after it failed to cut crime … even after almost 30 years on the books.
Virginia passed its "one-gun-a-month" law 15 years ago.
Yet New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" claims that Virginia still ranks near the top as a source for crime guns in New York City.
So if "one-gun-a-month" hasn't worked and won't work, then why do the gun-banners in Jersey want to pass it?
Maybe because they know that every failed gun ban gives them cover to demand more and more.
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As a new administration takes charge of the nation, our work defending firearms freedom enters a new chapter. I hope his administration respects the Second Amendment Rights of all law abiding citizens.
Gun owners, however, cannot rely on hope. We must, as always, rely on ourselves and each other to continue the unending fight to preserve our civil rights - that eternal vigil which is, indeed, the price of liberty. Make no mistake: There will be renewed, emboldened attempts to infringe on our rights. Politicians will try to ban entire classes of firearms. They will try to tax and regulate ammunition to the point that ordinary Americans simply can't afford it. And they will try to silence those who warn voters about their actions.
That's why I'm asking you to help make the NRA stronger than ever before. If you recruited a new member last year, I'm asking you to sign up two, or three, or four. If you've never recruited a new member, I'm asking you to take that step today.
Renew your membership if it's expired, and buy memberships for your kids and relatives. We must have as strong and as large an organization as possible if we're going to beat back the gun-control legislation already being introduced in Congress and in statehouses around the country.
This is a time for activism, not apathy. We must let those in power know we're watching and we're listening. We must stand with deeper ranks and broader strength and more resolve than ever. So that if it becomes necessary - and I believe it will - this Association will swiftly act with the formidable unity and dogged resolve that have proven us the singular and most potent guardian of this freedom so essential to a free state.
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I've heard the arguments against extending Right-to-Carry onto college campuses before, but I've never heard them stated in such a way that belittles college students. In the Tulsa World, columnist Wayne Greene (who makes some pretty ridiculous arguments himself) quotes a "former academic" named Mark Taylor, who says college students "are unprepared for dealing with adult decisions of any kind, and especially with decisions of life and death."
The columnist writes that Taylor believes overprotective parents "have produced a generation of students who don't know how to fend for themselves but believe that they are tremendously important."
That argument is so ridiculous I hardly know where to begin, and if I were a college student I'd find it incredibly insulting. Are these the same students who are taking part in ROTC programs at colleges around the country? What about the military veterans who are going to school on the GI Bill? Are they "unprepared for dealing with adult decisions of any kind"? What about non-traditional students who live off-campus but drive in for evening classes? Do they not know how to "fend for themselves"?
Right-to-Carry holders are, statistically, far more law abiding than the general population. Forty states in this country have shall-issue Right-to-Carry laws, and not one state has moved to repeal their statute. Right-to-Carry holders aren't the problem … and in fact are part of the solution when it comes to public safety.
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Are gun owners going to be a high priority target for the Obama administration?
Jim Shepard, who writes the Shooting Wire, says:
"Democratic insiders are telling us the firearms industry will be used as an object lesson to both sides of the aisle.
To the left, it's the always-popular smackdown of a group of right-wing loonies (that's you and me, by the way) who want gunfights on the streets of our hometowns.
To the right, it will represent a little payback for the rhetoric that was taken very personally by the incoming administration. In other words, a little taste of the whip should keep both sides nicely in line."
We don't know yet what the Obama administration has in store for us, but as Shepard reminds us, it's a matter of "when," not "if," the Second Amendment is going to come under attack. I know you're ready to defend your firearms freedom, but if you know a gun owner who's not yet a member of the NRA, get them to join. We need to be as strong as possible in 2009 in order to fight these attempts to restrict your constitutional rights.
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Blogger Andrew Breitbart has a new group blog called Big Hollywood, and he says the objective is to "change the entertainment industry" and make Hollywood "something we can believe in again."
I’d love to see that happen, and I even have a suggestion for a movie. Wouldn't it be great to see Charlton Heston's life story on the big screen? From his service in World War II, his days as a struggling actor in New York while supporting a wife and family and the leadership he provided in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s to his fight to clean up the entertainment industry in the 1990s, and of course, his time as president of the National Rifle Association!
Chuck Heston was an American hero, and even though he's no longer on the silver screen, his story could be. If we want to make Hollywood someplace we can believe in again, let's look back at the men and women who made it that way in the first place.
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Anti-gunners in New Jersey are still trying to pass a bill that would ration pistol purchases in the state. Even worse, the gun-control crowd is trying to convince residents that this bill wouldn't restrict anyone's rights.
Bryan Miller, the head of the anti-gun group Ceasefire NJ, said the bill is about balance "between the privilege of a tiny minority of handgun owners in the state and the common good of public safety."
That's a bunch of bull. The Second Amendment is a right guaranteed to all Americans, even the ones who live in New Jersey. There is no Second Amendment privilege, just as there's no First Amendment "privilege to speak." If the government of New Jersey decided to treat the First Amendment as badly as it's treated the Second Amendment, Mr. Miller would be applying to the local police for permission to speak about political matters, just as gun owners currently have to get a pistol purchase permit before they can legally buy a firearm in the state.
Even the current draconian gun laws aren't enough for Bryan Miller though. He thinks that the state should be able to decide just how many firearms are "enough" for you, and he's trying to sell New Jersey on the idea that a gun rationing system would somehow reduce violent crime.
Given the hoops legal gun owners already have to jump through in New Jersey, it's ridiculous to think that this proposal is going to reduce crime. What it will do is tell residents that their rights are in strict subordination to the whims of the state legislature, and the Second Amendment is only the starting point. Every New Jersey resident, gun owner or not, should stand opposed to this restriction on individual liberty.
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Tucked away in one of the District of Columbia's new gun regulations is the following provision:
"Except as provided in subsections (c), (d), or (e) of this section, beginning January 1,
2009, a pistol that is not on the California Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale, also known as the California Roster of Handguns Determined Not to be Unsafe, pursuant to California Penal
Code Section 12131 as of January 1, 2009, may not be manufactured, sold, given, loaned,
exposed for sale, transferred, or imported into the District of Columbia."
This means for a resident in Washington, D.C., to buy a handgun, it has to be approved by the California Department of Justice. And D.C. council members like to whine about taxation without representation? What about the loss of a right based on the whim of an unelected state bureaucrat almost 3,000 miles away?
And if you think California's roster of "safe" handguns is based on safety features, you're wrong. The state of California long ago began to disguise gun bans as gun safety.
For example, they say newly manufactured non-microstamped handguns will be considered "unsafe" on January 1, 2010. With the California legislature's declaration that a handgun is safe or unsafe based on cosmetic features they like or don't, they've opened a giant back door to gun bans. And not only Californians but also residents of D.C. are victims of these infringements of their Second Amendment rights.
I've pointed out just a few of the problems in D.C.'s new gun laws. Residents of the District deserve better. They deserve a city council that seeks to secure their rights, not restrict them. But in the absence of good politicians making good law, gun owners across the country will have to once again team up to ensure that the courts enforce the Constitution.
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Washington, D.C., must be looking for more court fights, because the City Council recently passed a bill that'll trigger yet another legal battle over Second Amendment rights.
Instead of respecting the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller, the Council passed a bill that ignores the high court's ruling.
Over the next few days, I'll be talking about just some of the dirty secrets buried in D.C.'s new anti-gun laws.
Let's start with one provision that should have privacy rights advocates furious. In addition to the requirement to re-register a firearm every three years, the Council makes gun owners submit a letter every year to inform the city whether they still own that gun, and if not, why not!
They've mandated you tell them "how and why" you disposed of the firearm, and that you disclose "any person or persons" that may now be in possession of the firearm.
So if you give your shotgun to your granddaughter in West Virginia, the D.C. Council wants to know why you did so, how the transfer was conducted and who your granddaughter is.
And they think this respects the Second Amendment rights of Americans? It's an outrage!
In my next post, I'll talk about how California is coming to the District of Columbia.
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