Posts Tagged ‘Gun Control’

Sensenbrenner Bill Would Abolish ATF Over Bullet Ban

Posted: March 6, 2015 by gamegetterII in BATFEIEIO
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A House Republican is introducing legislation to abolish the beleaguered Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives amid a contentious debate over the agency’s proposed ban on a bullet used in AR-15 rifles.

Wisconsin Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said the policies under ATF’s jurisdiction could be easily incorporated into other agencies, The Hill reports.

And, he adds, the agency has been caught up in too many controversies in recent years, including the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking operation.

“The ATF is a scandal-ridden, largely duplicative agency that lacks a clear mission,” the lawmaker said, according to The Hill. “Its ‘Framework’ is an affront to the Second Amendment and yet another reason why Congress should pass the ATF Elimination Act.”

The agency has come under fire recently for its proposed ban on some types of 5.56 mm rounds used in widely available and popular AR-15-style rifles because the bullets can also be used in some new types of handguns.

Republicans also have complained \hunters frequently use the bullets, The Hill notes.

But the bureau says it initiated the regulation to help protect law enforcement officers from bullets that can pierce armored vests – a contention that has been shot down by the leader of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Sensenbrenner’s bill would transfer the ATF’s functions related to guns, explosives and violent crime to the FBI; responsibilities regarding alcohol and tobacco laws would fall under the Drug Enforcement Administration’s jurisdiction, The Hill reports.

The ATF director would have 180 days, or about six months, to submit a plan to Congress on how to wind down the agency.

Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, previously introduced a bill in 1993 to turn over the ATF’s duties to other parts of the Justice Department.

Meanwhile, 239 members of the House have now signed a letter opposing the bullet ban, Fox News reports.

“This attack on the Second Amendment is wrong and should be overturned,” Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, who started the petition, told Fox News. “A clear, sizable majority of the House agree.”

Police rep says proposed 5.56mm ammo ban unnecessary

Posted: March 5, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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A Fraternal Order of Police official said 5.56mm armor-piercing ammo is not typically used against officers

WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) — The leader of a national police organization this week said a proposal to ban armor-piercing 5.56mm pistol rounds would be less effective than the government thinks.Last week, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it plans to outlaw steel-tipped 5.56mm ammunition because it now qualifies as an armor-piercing round. Sale of the ammo has been legal since 1986 because it’s a round that could not, until recently, be fired from a handgun — the stipulation necessary for prohibition of any bullet. Traditionally, the 5.56mm bullets have been fired only in AR-15 rifles.

In a 17-page report, the bureau cited new handguns that are able to fire the round, increasing the likelihood, the ATF believes, that the bullets will be used against law enforcement officers.

However, James Pasco, executive director of the Washington office of the Fraternal Order of Police, believes that banning the ammunition wouldn’t amount to much additional protection.

“This specific round has historically not posed a law enforcement problem,” he said in a report by the Washington Examiner. “While this round will penetrate soft body armor, it has not historically posed a threat to law enforcement.”

With around 325,000 members, the Fraternal Order of Police is the largest organization of sworn officers in the world.

Pasco’s statements give fuel to critics who allege the bullet ban is merely a backdoor attempt by the Obama administration to render AR-15 assault rifles useless.

Supporters of the proposed ban, however, feel that newer handguns available to shoot 5.56mm ammo increase the threat to police.

“We are looking at additional ways to protect our brave men and women in law enforcement and believe that this process is valuable for that reason alone,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. “If there are armor-piercing bullets available that can fit into easily concealed weapons, that it puts our law enforcement at considerably more risk.”

Still, opponents to the ban believe it’s unlikely criminals will purchase the expensive handguns — and even if they did, the firearms are much too large to be considered a concealed weapon.

The ATF is asking for public comment regarding the ban, to be concluded March 16. But the proposal has already encountered stiff resistance. In the House of Representatives, more than half of lawmakers have signed a letter challenging the ban, and the National Rifle Association is urging the public to ask Congress to prevent it. A similar measure is moving through the Senate.

Since news of the proposed ban earlier this month, sporting goods stores have been selling large quantities of the affected ammunition — now at higher cost.

Bipartisan Majority of the U.S. House Opposes Obama Administration’s Ammo Ban

Posted: March 5, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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238 Members Sign Letter Opposing Proposed Ban on AR-15 Ammunition

Fairfax, Va. – In an overwhelming show of bipartisan opposition, 238 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed a letter to the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, opposing the Obama Administration’s attempt to ban commonly used ammunition for the most popular rifle in America, the AR-15.  The National Rifle Association worked closely with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to gather signatures on this critical effort.

 “This letter sends a clear message to President Obama that Congress opposes his attempt to use his pen and phone to thwart the will of the American people,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “Obama said he would enact his gun control agenda ‘with or without Congress.’ He is now trying to make good on that promise. The NRA would like to thank Chairman Goodlatte and all who signed the letter for opposing this unconstitutional attack on our Second Amendment freedom.”

The NRA is working with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on a similar letter of opposition from the U.S. Senate.

Read the letter @ https://shared.nrapvf.org/sharedmedia/1507341/letter-to-atf-director-jones-apa-framework-final.pdf

Anti-gun Blatherings From the Mayor and Police Chief of St. Louis

Posted: March 4, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Since its adoption, scholars and lawyers have debated what the Second Amendment means, and how it applies. Until recently, there seemed to be a consensus that reasonable regulations on guns, the purchase of guns, and the use of guns were both constitutional and wise policy.

That consensus no longer exists in our state.

Last year, we argued against a proposed constitutional amendment that made Missouri law far more protective of guns than the federal Second Amendment requires. We spoke out against the new state amendment because there are too many guns on the streets. Guns are too easy to get, and the plentiful supply of legal guns means they are readily available to criminals. Hundreds of guns are stolen from law-abiding citizens each year: In 2014 alone, more than 470 guns were reported to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department as stolen. The number of unreported stolen guns in Missouri is not known, because even the simple requirement that legal owners report stolen guns to local police departments is apparently too controversial to be a law.

We also argued that the proposed state constitutional amendment was ambiguous. We warned, loudly and in many venues, including the courts, that it could lead to unforeseen results, results that could endanger our city.

But despite the warning and even though the language was ambiguous, sponsors of the proposed amendment were not dissuaded. They asserted that the amendment could not be used to protect the “right” of a convicted criminal to carry a gun anywhere he pleased. One of the amendment’s proponents, a state senator, even said explicitly that the intent of the amendment was to leave in place the laws prohibiting convicted criminals from carrying guns.

Reassured by this, voters of Missouri adopted the new amendment. Now, we are starting to see the troubling results of that decision.

Last week, a state judge in St. Louis declared that the law banning criminals from carrying guns was unconstitutional, based on the amendment. He ruled that a convicted felon in undisputed possession of a firearm cannot be charged.

The judge’s decision will be appealed, though the law will still be enforced, and the city will follow the case closely through the court system. Also pending in the Missouri Supreme Court is a challenge brought by law enforcement officials and an advocacy group of parents to declare the amendment itself invalid. The outcome of neither case is certain.

The Missouri Legislature, therefore, should not wait.

Many voters took legislators at their word that Amendment 5 would not make it more dangerous for police officers and more difficult for prosecutors to their jobs. It has. Legislators should act immediately to restate the law barring felons from possessing firearms.

In the meantime, we should be resolved as a region to take a hard look ourselves at gun laws. We cannot stand by and allow careless state policy to trump reasonable regulations aimed at keeping our families safe. We must begin to push the limits at the local level, looking at all of our legal options, whether that is a new ordinance, new policing strategies, or a new gun docket in the court system to track those gun criminals that are prosecuted. And we must press our legislative delegation to either fix the law, or to revisit the constitutional amendment in 2016, and let the voters decide whether they want to keep this amendment on the books now that we know how bad its results are.

Francis Slay is mayor of St. Louis. Sam Dotson is the city’s police chief.

Gun rights bill would block ammunition regs

Posted: March 4, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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New gun legislation would push back against a controversial policy from the Obama administration effectively banning armor-piercing ammunition.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) proposed last week to prohibit gun companies from manufacturing and selling 5.56mm projectiles for M855 cartridges that provide ammunition for AR-15 rifles.

But the move is causing an uproar among Republicans, who suggest it would trample on hunters’ Second Amendment rights.

The Protecting Second Amendment Rights Act, introduced Friday by Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), would roll back the ATF’s power to regulate ammunition.

“The Obama administration’s proposal would unilaterally strip law-abiding hunters and sportsmen of their Second Amendment rights,” Rooney said in a statement. “Congress has made its intentions clear that this ammunition is for sporting purposes and should not be restricted. We cannot and we will not stand by while the Obama administration tramples on the Constitution, the rule of law, and the Second Amendment rights of hunters.”

AR-15 rifles are popular with some hunters, but they provide a big cause for concern for law enforcement officials because they can fire bullets to penetrate bullet-proof vests.

To date, the ammunition for AR-15s has been exempt from the Law Enforcement Officers Act, but the ATF’s draft framework would change that.

“No final determinations have been made and we won’t make any determinations until we’ve reviewed the comments submitted by industry, law enforcement and the public at large,” ATF spokesman Corey Ray told The Hill last week.

But Republicans are looking to pre-empt the ammunition restrictions. The Protecting Second Amendment Rights Act would “would prohibit the ATF or any other federal agency from issuing or enforcing any new restriction or prohibition on the manufacture, importation or sale of ammunition in the United States.”

http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/234292-gun-legislation-protects-ar-15-ammunition

Lawmakers aim to repeal Safe Act

Posted: March 4, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

COOPERSTOWN — State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, is sponsoring legislation that is aimed at repealing and amending the controversial NY SAFE Act gun control legislation enacted two years ago.

Seward, in a statement, this morning, acknowledged that winning passage of the package of four bills will be “a difficult fight” because of what he called New York’s “political landscape.”

To repeal or significantly amend the law would require that the measures co-authored by Seward and Assemblyman Anthony Brandisi, D-Utica, would require that that the bills be approved by the Assembly, which is dominated by New York City area Democrats, who largely favor the gun control measure advanced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The SAFE Act was also supported by Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, who heads the GOP conference of which Seward has been a member for 28 years.

Cuomo has maintained the law has helped protect New Yorkers from gun crimes. But many county sheriffs, including Otsego Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr., Schoharie Sheriff Tony Desmond and Delaware Sheriff Thomas Mills, have criticized the statute as an encroachment on the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

Seward, who voted against the SAFE Act, said though he favors the full repeal of the law, he is also “working to chip away at several of the law’s worst features.”

“The reactionary, hastily drafted and passed NY-SAFE Act was meant for headlines and has done nothing to stop criminals from getting guns and using them for illegal purposes,” Seward said. “We need to take action now to correct the many technical issues the law created for responsible gun owners who shoot for sport, collect firearms, and carry guns to protect themselves and their families.”

The Seward-Brindisi package aims to accomplish the following:

■ Amend the NY-SAFE Act to again allow for the gifting of long guns to close relatives and to holders of valid statte pistol licenses.

■ Repeal the provision struck down in federal court which limits the number of legally permissible cartridges in a 10-round magazine to seven.

■ Terminate an “ overly burdensome” state program requiring all ammunition retailer register with the state and conduct background checks on all customers. The bill also redirects state funding allocated to this program to public school districts to assist in the hiring of school resource officers.

■ Prohibit county judges and other licensing officers from imposing “extraneous restrictions that go above and beyond state law” when issuing pistol and handgun licenses.

White House: AR-15 Ammo Ban Would Save Cops’ Lives

Posted: March 4, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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The White House says a proposed bill that would ban a popular ammo for the AR-15 assault rifle would help protect police officers.

“We are looking at additional ways to protect our brave men and women in law enforcement, and believe that this process is valuable for that reason alone,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday, according to The Washington Times.

The proposal would make it illegal to buy and sell the .223 M855 green-tip ammo commonly used in the AR-15, a civilian version of the military’s M16 rifle. The legislation would use the fact that the ammo is armor-piercing to declare it illegal.

Earnest said the ban would save first responders’ lives.

“The president has long believed that there are some common-sense steps that we can take … to ensure that we’re protecting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans while also taking some common-sense steps to prevent people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them,” Earnest said.

“This seems to be an area where everyone should agree that if there are armor-piercing bullets available that can fit into easily concealed weapons, that it puts our law enforcement at considerably more risk.”

More than 100 lawmakers in Congress have signed a letter addressed to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Director Todd Jones that is against the legislation, reports the Times. The ATF is asking the public to comment on the proposal.

“[The ban] will interfere with Second Amendment rights by disrupting the market for ammunition that law abiding Americans use for sporting and other legitimate purposes,” the letter reads, according to the Times.

The lawmakers add that there are no documented cases of a single M855 green-tip round being fired at a police officer.

Maybe there’s enough of a backlash growing that this dumb assed ban won’t happen?
We can only hope. If BATFEIEIO bans M85 surplus ammo,what’s to stop them from banning 7.62×51 surplus ammo because it can be fired from a handgun? (TC Contender,etc.)
This is a very slippery slope BATFEIEIO is going down,we all know the ban has nothing whatsoever to do with “officer safety”,it wasn’t too long ago that Holder’s DOJ claimed cops were racist trigger happy civil rights violating threats to society-now it’s all about protecting cops? Bullshit.
BATFEIEIO needs to be disbanded,the FBI already does the NICS checks-which also need to go,but hey,one corrupt useless ,gov inc. gestapo type agency with it’s own stormtrooper force at a
time-we can get rid of the FBI next,followed by DEA,BLM,USFS,USFWS,DOI,EPA,DOE-(education and energy)-HUD,HHS…

Gun Owners of America to score amnesty votes in politician gun ratings

Posted: March 3, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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News that can help shape the political landscape of the gun rights advocacy community was broken last night on the nationally-syndicated Armed American Radio program, when Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, announced GOA will begin scoring politicians on their support or opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens.

GOA has been alone among national gun rights groups warning that a “pathway to citizenship” will provide for millions of new anti-gun voters with the electoral clout to undo all hard-won legislative and judicial gains gun owners have enjoyed in recent years. That the administration is working toward that and other agenda goals is corroborated by what Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told the United Conference of Mayors, when he maintained that “the approximately 11 million people who are in the country illegally have ‘earned the right to be citizens.’”

The danger of allowing that to happen was emphasized recently by Oregon’s Rep. Kurt Schrader, who declared immigration “will decide who is in charge of this country for the next 20 or 30 years.” Plus, Obama’s counting on that.

The discussion took place in the third hour of the program, beginning at the 45-minute mark. I was one of the panelists, along with Pratt, host Mark Walters, Neil W, McCabe of Human Events, and blogger, trainer and gun authority George “Mad Ogre” Hill. Referencing back to a guest from the second hour, Georgia Congressman Doug Collins, I regretted not being able to establish his position on joining with so-called “Republican rebels” and separating Barack Obama’s amnesty from Department of Homeland Security funding.

“I know that there are pro-gun politicians that get A-ratings and things like that, but should not amnesty also be a part of the way that these people are scored?” I asked Pratt.

“Well the answer you’re going to get from us at GOA is absolutely, it should be a part of scoring, and it’s something that we plan on including in our rating of Congress this next year, because as we’ve already discussed, if we don’t block this amnesty move now, before we get five, eight-million previously illegal aliens now voting 85 percent anti-gun Democrats, that’s the ballgame,” Pratt replied. “That’s it.

“We lose our Second Amendment, it doesn’t matter whether it’s still in the Constitution in writing or not,” he continued. “The National Archives can’t protect it from this kind of assault.”

At that point, legislative and judicial avenues will be closed, and all gun owners will need to make a decision that carries terrible personal consequences.

GOA’s decision will offer further contrast with the way political grades are assigned by the larger National Rifle Association. With NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that “[T]o defend firearm freedom, we need more than just firearm freedom … One right depends on another,” with a recent NRA advertising campaign promoting the message that all rights are connected, and with NRA’s bylaws mandating the organization to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States [and] promote public safety, law and order, and the national defense,” the continued “single issue” excuse for avoiding amnesty is neither consistent nor credible.

http://www.examiner.com/article/gun-owners-of-america-to-score-amnesty-votes-politician-gun-ratings?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Grandstanding Doctors and Lawyers Call for Gun Control

Posted: March 1, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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From NRA-ILA

On Tuesday, nine doctors and lawyers, claiming to represent their medical and legal organizations (and by extension, the members of their professions), strained their credibility and made fools of themselves with a call to action in favor of gun control.

The nine are Steven E. Weinberger, of the American College of Physicians; David B. Hoyt, of the American College of Surgeons; Hal C. Lawrence, of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; Saul Levin, of the American Psychiatric Association; Douglas E. Henley, of the American Academy of Family Physicians; Errol R. Alden, of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Dean Wilkerson, of the American College of Emergency Physicians; Georges C. Benjamin, of the American Public Health Association; and William C. Hubbard, of the American Bar Association.

If their proposals for dealing with “firearm violence” sound familiar, it’s because you’ve heard them all before, mostly from anti-gun politicians (like President Obama) and dedicated gun control advocates (like Michael Bloomberg). Doubtless, all concerned hope the usual tired agenda will sound more convincing when promoted by learned professionals. Instead, it just makes those professionals sound like they’re out of their depth and playing politics.

The group calls for “background checks for all gun purchases, including sales by gun dealers,” believing that “purchases at gun shows do not require such checks.”

Seriously? They really don’t know that dealers have to run checks at gun shows?

Here’s another. They claim “40% of firearm transfers take place through means other than a licensed dealer; as a result, an estimated 6.6 million firearms are sold annually with no background checks.” The source of these figures, they claim, is a summary of the Cook-Ludwig Guns in America survey of 1993.

Two years ago, the authors of the survey saidthat the correct number is probably between 14 and 22 percent, but “we don’t know the current percentage — nor does anyone else.”

There’s more. They claim, “The only way to ensure that all prohibited purchasers are prevented from acquiring firearms is to make background checks a universal requirement for all gun purchases or transfers of ownership.”

They really believe that background checks stop criminals from stealing guns, buying them on the black market, and hiring “straw purchasers” to buy guns for them?

They claim that a ban on “assault weapons” and “large” magazines would be “compliant with the Second Amendment” and “constitutionally sound” according to the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller(2008).

The same Heller decision that said “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms,” and questioned only whether fully-automatic firearms were within the amendment’s scope, on the grounds that they’re not commonly owned.

“Patients trust their physicians to advise them on issues that affect their health, and physicians can answer questions and educate the public on the risks of firearm ownership and the need for firearm safety,” the anti-gunners claim.

First, however, these doctors and lawyers might want to educate themselves. Better yet, they should stick to medicine and law, rather than dabble in matters in which they have little understanding and zero practical experience. For bunion removal or estate planning, doctors and lawyers have a lot to offer. When serving as the gullible mouthpieces for a political agenda, they do themselves and the good standing of their professions a disservice

California Cartridge-Microstamp Law Upheld

Posted: February 28, 2015 by gamegetterII in anti-gun asshattery
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(Bloomberg) — California’s ban on new semiautomatic handguns that don’t stamp identifying information on the cartridge was upheld by a U.S. judge in a major loss for gun-rights groups.

The law barring sales of handguns without the microstamping technology doesn’t violate the Constitution’s Second Amendment because gun owners don’t have a right to buy specific types of firearms, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller in Sacramento said in her ruling.

“Plaintiffs insist they have the right to determine the precise way in which they would exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Mueller said. The insistence upon particular handguns falls “outside the scope of the right to bear arms,” she said.

California in 2013 became the first state to bar retailers from selling new models of semiautomatic handguns not equipped to imprint the weapon’s make, model and serial number on the cartridge when a bullet is fired. The statute was supported by law enforcement because it can help deter or solve crime.

Thursday’s ruling that the requirement doesn’t violate the Second Amendment will prompt other states to impose similar requirements, in particular because there’s wide popular support for ballistic fingerprinting, said Allison Anderman, an attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco.

“Microstamping is a really important tool for law enforcement,” Anderman said in a phone interview.

De Facto Ban

Calguns Foundation Inc. and the Second Amendment Foundation argued that the requirement amounts to a de facto ban on sales of new semiautomatics because several manufacturers said they wouldn’t produce guns that included microstamp technology even if it meant their firearms couldn’t be sold in California, the most populous U.S. state.

About 1.5 million handguns were legally sold in California since opponents sued in 2009 to block the microstamping requirement, which according to Mueller’s ruling shows that the law doesn’t effectively ban the sale of firearms in the state.

The District of Columbia, the only other place in the U.S. to mandate microstamping, is set to begin enforcing that requirement next year, Anderman said.

The two gun rights groups said in a court filing Thursday that they will appeal the ruling by Mueller, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama.

‘Strong Case’

“The court’s reasoning, that California’s prohibition of most handguns doesn’t even implicate the Second Amendment, is interesting,” Alan Gura, a lawyer for the groups, said Friday in an e-mail. “But we’re confident that we have a strong case on appeal.”

The case may go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2008 upheld individuals’ right to own handguns, calling them the “quintessential self-defense weapon.”

The 2008 high court ruling left room for gun-control backers to impose new rules to promote safety. California, New York and Maryland, among other states, enacted restrictions that U.S. gun manufacturers and retailers contend are intended to regulate their $14 billion industry out of business.

The California law was signed in 2007 by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and was put on hold until 2013 when state Attorney General Kamala Harris, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate next year, determined the technology was available to all gun makers and wasn’t encumbered by patent claims.

“The court’s ruling means that more gun crimes will be solved, more lives will be saved, and California communities will be safer,” Mike Feuer, the Los Angeles city attorney and the author of the microstamping bill, said in a statement.

The case is Pena v. Cid, 09-cv-01185, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California (Sacramento)

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