NRA Warns Against New Gun Control Push ...From EPA - THEY ARE AFTER THE AMMUNITION!

http://politics.usnews.com/news/washington-whispers/articles/2010/08/27/nra-warns-against-new-gun-control-push--from-epa.html

THEY ARE AFTER THE AMMUNITION!

Environmental agency ponders whether lead in bullets is poisoning wildlife.

By Paul Bedard

Posted: August 27, 2010

The National Rifle Association, already on high alert over gun control rumors, has gone to battle stations to fight a new scheme before the Environmental Protection Agency to restrict hunters and anglers from using lead bullets, shot and sinkers.

Chief NRA lobbyist Chris Cox charges in a letter to the EPA that the effort amounts to "a vehicle to implement gun control

" and could end hunting by most who can't afford the higher priced alternatives to lead.

[See who in Congress gets the most money from gun rights groups.]

At issue: lead, the most widely used material for making bullets, shot, and sinkers. The Center for Biological Diversity says in a 100-page petition that lead used by outdoorsmen and women can be blamed for causing deaths in some 130 species of birds like eagles. "Lead-based bullets fragment on impact, distributing toxic lead particles widely throughout carcasses, and making it impossible for scavenging animals or humans to avoid ingesting lead along with meat," says the center, joined on petition by the American Bird Conservancy, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, and two other groups.

The NRA counters that claims lead is causing a horrific toll on wildlife is bogus. The proof, they say, is the population explosion of American Eagles around the nation, including some inside Washington's beltway.

But more importantly, says the NRA, the EPA is barred from regulating ammo or fishing sinkers under the Toxic Substances Control Act. But the ammo foes think that they have found a way around that by asking the EPA to regulate elements of ammo and the element they want banned is the lead.

Cox said that would counter what Congress has intended in previous laws. "Put another way, if Congress exempts a cow from regulation, one could hardly argue that it nevertheless would allow for regulation of the hide attached to the cow's body," said Cox.

Despite the opposition from the NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearm and ammunition industry, the EPA is considering banning lead. It is seeking public comment until Halloween.

Chicago approves new handgun restrictions

Move comes days after Supreme Court

ruling cast doubt on city ban.

Mayor (MORON) "Guns is the problem" Daley

by DON BABWIN

(Associated Press)

CHICAGO — The Chicago City  Council on Friday approved what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the United States.

The 45-0 vote came four days after a Supreme Court ruling made it almost certain that Chicago's handgun ban would be overturned. The high court ruled Americans have a right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live.

The new city ordinance bans gun shops in Chicago and prohibits gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or garages, with a handgun. It will take effect in 10 days.

The ordinance also:

— Limits the number of handguns residents can register to one per month and prohibit residents from having more than one handgun in operating order at any given time.

— Requires residents in homes with children to keep them in lock boxes or equipped with trigger locks.

— Requires prospective gun owners to take a four-hour class and one-hour training at a gun range. They would have to leave the city for training because Chicago prohibits new gun ranges and limits the use of existing ranges to police officers. Those restrictions were similar to those in an ordinance passed in Washington, D.C., after the high court struck down its ban two years ago.

— Prohibits people from owning a gun if they were convicted of a violent crime, domestic violence or two or more convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Residents convicted of a gun offense would have to register with the police department.

— Calls for the police department to maintain a registry of every handgun owner in the city, with the names and addresses to be made available to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders.

Those who already have handguns in the city — which has been illegal since the city's ban was approved 28

years ago — would have 90 days to register those weapons, according to the proposed ordinance.

Residents convicted of violating the city's ordinance can face a fine up to $5,000 and be locked up for as long as 90 days for a first offense and a fine of up to $10,000 and as long as six months behind bars for subsequent convictions.

Though Monday's Supreme Court ruling did not specifically strike down Chicago's handgun ban, it ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling.

Mayor Richard Daley moved quickly to get a new ordinance in place and has indicated that he expects legal challenges to the new restrictions.

Meanwhile, a northwestern Wisconsin prosecutor said he won't prosecute a range of state weapon violations in light of the Supreme Court ruling.

Jackson County District Attorney Gerald R. Fox said in a statement he will no longer prosecute people for carrying uncased or loaded guns in vehicles, carrying concealed weapons, carrying firearms in public buildings or taverns or carrying switchblades and butterfly knives.

Fox said the Supreme Court ruling invalidated Wisconsin's laws against those practices.

Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Fox is inviting crime into Jackson County and if he won't enforce the state's laws he should be removed from office.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38061266/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Why Guns Are Good

By John Stossel

Published June 23, 2010 FOXNews.com

You know what the mainstream media think about guns and our freedom to carry them.

Pierre Thomas of ABC: "When someone gets angry or when they snap, they are going to be able to have access to weapons."

Chris Matthews of MSNBC: "I wonder if in a free society violence is always going to be a part of it if guns are available."

Keith Olbermann, also of MSNBC, who usually can't be topped for absurdity: "Organizations like the NRA ... are trying to increase deaths by gun in this country."

"Trying to?" Well, I admit that I bought that nonsense for years. Living in Manhattan, working at ABC, everyone agreed that guns are evil. And that the NRA is evil. (Now that the NRA has agreed to a sleazy deal with congressional Democrats on political speech censorship, maybe some of its leaders areevil, but that's for another column.)

Now I know that I was totally wrong about guns. Now I know that more guns means -- hold onto your seat -- lesscrime.

(This will be the topic, by the way, tomorrow night on my Fox Business News show.)

How can that be, when guns kill almost 30,000 Americans a year?

Because while we hear about the murders and accidents, we don't often hear about the crimes stoppedbecause would-be victims showed a gun and scared criminals away.

Those thwarted crimes and lives saved usually aren't reported to police (sometimes for fear the gun will be confiscated), and when they are reported, the media tend to ignore them. No bang, no news.

This state of affairs produces a distorted public impression of guns. If you only hear about the crimes and accidents, and never about lives saved, you might think gun ownership is folly.

But, hey, if guns save lives, it logically follows that gun laws cost lives.

Suzanna Hupp and her parents were having lunch at Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, when a man began shooting diners with his handgun, even stopping to reload. Suzanna's parents were two of the 23 people killed. (20 more were wounded.)

Suzanna owned a handgun, but because Texas law, at the time, did not permit her to carry it with her, she left it in her car. She's confident that she could have stopped the shooting spree if she had her gun. (Texas has since changed its law.)

Today, 40 states issue permits to competent, law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns (Vermont and Alaska have the most libertarian approach: no permit needed. Arizona is about to join that exclusive club.) Every time a carry law was debated, anti-gun activists predicted outbreaks of gun violence after fender-benders, card games and domestic quarrels.

What happened?

John Lott, in his book "More Guns, Less Crime," explains that crime fell by 10 percent in the year after the laws were passed . A reason for the drop in crime may have been that criminals suddenly worried that their next victim might be armed.

Indeed, criminals in states with high civilian gun ownership were the most worried about encountering armed victims.

In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries occur when residents are home. But in the United States, where many households contain guns, only 13 percent of burglaries happen when someone's at home.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in the Heller case that Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun ownership was unconstitutional. District politicians then loosened the law but still have so many restrictions that there are no gun shops in the city and just 800 people have received permits. Nevertheless, contrary to the mayor's prediction, robbery and other violent crime are down.

Because Heller applied only to Washington, that case was not the big one. "McDonald v. Chicago" is the big one, and the Supreme Court is expected to rule on that next week. Otis McDonald is a 76-year-old man who lives in a dangerous neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. He wants to buy a handgun, but Chicago forbids it.

If the Supremes say McDonald has that right, then restrictive gun laws will fall throughout America.

Despite my earlier bias, I now understand that striking down those laws will probably save lives.

John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his site at johnstossel.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC. DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

In Debate Over Gun-Carry Laws, Critics Are Quick to Shoot Down the Facts

John R. Lott, Jr. is a FOXNews.com contributor. He is an economist and author of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, May 2010).Published June 24, 2010 FOXNews.com


People walking the streets armed with guns must be dangerous, right? A newly revised study by the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center found that even those individuals who have legally obtained permits to carry concealed handguns are extremely dangerous. With millions of Americans already having been issued such permits from the various states, this is an important issue.

The gun control organizations have frequently made these claims in the press, and Dennis Henigan, the vice president of the Brady Campaign, will likely make these claims again when he and I appear on John Stossel’s FoxBusiness show today. But the gun control advocates inaccurately describe many shooting cases, choosing to ignore that the majority of incidents involve people properly defending themselves.

Over the past three years, the number of active permit holders in the United States has gone from about 5 million to more than 6.2 million today. The numbers issued by the state regulatory agencies show time after time that these permit holders abide by the law.

Take Florida, which currently has the most concealed handgun permit holders in the country and is one of the two most populous states with right-to-carry laws. Between Oct. 1, 1987, and May 31 this year, permits had been issued to 1.8 million people. On average, the permits had been held for quite a long time, well over 10 years. For all those individuals across the more than 22 years of legal carry, there were only 167 cases where the permit was revoked for a firearms related violation, or about 0.01 percent of permit holders. While the state doesn't provide a precise breakdown of the reason for those revocations, the vast majority were apparently for people who accidentally carried their concealed handgun into a gun-free zone, such as an airport or school.

Throughout the past 29 months, beginning January 2008, only three additional permit holders have had their permit revoked for a firearms-related violation. With more than 729,000 active permit holders, that is an annual revocation rate of 0.00017 percent.

In sharp contrast, the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center portray Florida as Ground Zero for problems with concealed handgun permit holders. They boldly assert that 17 Florida permit holders have "killed" people with their guns over the past three years and that this one state by itself accounts for 17 of the 96 "killer" permit holders nationwide. The other 79 cases are scattered across 26 other states, with no other state accounting for more than 10 cases. Florida is also said to account for 2 of the 7 cases where permit holders are said to have killed law enforcement officers.

The Associated Press articles by Erik Schelzig and by Jim Abrams have given extensive, uncritical coverage to these claims. Members of the gun control organizations have made these claims unchallenged on such places as Fox News and on the Huffington Post (e.g., here and here).

So what is the evidence? The gun control groups don't actually point to actual court cases. They look at news stories and selectively report what is reported in those stories. For Florida, there are eleven "pending cases." The gun control groups assume that anyone involved in a shooting will be convicted. Indeed, in 7 of the 11 cases no one was even charged with a crime. Three cases involved suicides, and three had convictions for some type of offense. (See this link for a detailed presentation of sources.)

But there is something that the gun control advocates conveniently omit: When a permit holder uses a gun defensively and kills an attacker in a public place, the police often arrest them. Typically, he will later be released, but the police must first investigate what happened. The police can’t just take the shooter's word for it that they used the gun defensively.

Take the four pending cases where charges were filed, two of which involved the "killing" of law enforcement.

-- Humberto Delgado, Jr. was charged with the death of a police officer. Delgado obviously engaged in a horrible crime, but there is one major problem with the stories as presented by the gun control groups. He also was charged with carrying a concealed firearm. If he had a concealed handgun permit, he obviously couldn't have been charged with this crime. Delgado was just your typical criminal, who didn't have a permit, who killed a police officer.

-- James Wonder was charged with the death of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection Agent Donald Pettit. Pettit is said to have engaged in road rage against Wonder and then followed Wonder's car into a Post Office parking lot solely to continue harassing Wonder. Pettit had over shot the parking lot and had to circle back to go into it. He had no intention to do business with either the Post Office or any other nearby business. Pettit was clearly the aggressor in the situation. The Sun-Sentinel newspaper wrote on August 29, 2008: "local lawyers said [Wonder] may be able to make a strong claim under Florida law that he was within his rights to shoot Pettit." One measure of the severity of the case is that Wonder was released on a very minimal bond of $10,000. Neither the Brady Campaign nor the Violence Policy Center noted these points in their discussion of the case.

-- Gabriel Mobley shot two people outside a bar, and the gun control groups’ discussions fail to mention the defensive nature of Mobley's actions. A friend of Mobley's had an argument with two other men in a bar. Mr. Mobley separated the men, but the two waited outside and Mobley's lawyer, Richard Della Ferra, told me that they pounced on Mobley and his friend as soon as they left the bar. Witnesses saw one of the two attackers throw a punch that shattered the friend's eye socket. Mobley says that he shot when he thought one of the two men was reaching for a weapon, and police found the DNA of one of the men on a steak knife at the scene.

-- On January 7, 2008, Adam Hill was accused of accidentally firing his gun, the bullet fatally striking a friend while the friend had visited Hill to use his washing machine. Since the case has yet to go to trial, the law office that is representing Hill was unwilling to discuss the case, but they did say that the news articles did not accurately represent what had happened in the case. The law office representing Hill in his legal case emphasized to me in a telephone discussion that news articles on these cases can be quite misleading because defense lawyers warn their clients not to talk to others about their case, including the press.

Two of the three convictions in Florida are quite different than what gun control groups represent. One involved a boyfriend who accidentally shot his girlfriend when he was showing her how to use a gun in her home. There was no evidence of arguing or any disagreement. In another case, the issue was whether the permit holder had done enough to avoid the confrontation. A convicted felon confronted the permit holder. According to newspaper accounts, even the prosecutor acknowledged: “Kallenbach was in some way defending himself during an escalating altercation between the men caught on the security video” and that "People can look at that tape and interpret it two or three different ways.”

While this discussion focuses on Florida, the just released third edition of More Guns, Less Crime provides a detailed analysis for all states from 1990 to July 1, 2008. In state after state, permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Arizona, there were 99,370 active permits as of December 1, 2007. During 2007, 33 permits were revoked for any reason -- a 0.03 percent rate. In Texas, there were 288,909 active permit holders. Of these, 160 were convicted of either a misdemeanor or a felony, a rate of 0.05 percent. That is about one-seventh the conviction rate in the general adult population, and the convictions among permit holders are for much less serious offenses.

I went to some other cases from the gun control groups after July 1, 2008. In two of the other five killings involving law-enforcement, it also appears as if the person who fired a gun didn't have a concealed handgun permit. In one case, in Pennsylvania, Christina Korbe fired a shot killing a police officer when police raided her home. The police were serving an arrest warrant on her husband, and she didn't know it was the police who were breaking into her home, and she was concerned about the safety of her two children, ages 4 and 10.

The Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center evaluate the benefits of concealed handgun laws based solely on the claimed costs -- they don't compare the cases where defensive uses occurred to the bad things that happen, but only count what they claim are the bad cases. They ignore lots of amazing defensive gun use cases. But even more bizarrely, they count legitimate self-defense cases as bad events even when no charges are filed or the permit holder is later exonerated.

"MADE IN ARIZONA"-The Arizona Firearms Freedom Act Becomes Law

On Monday Arizona made a bold move to check unlimited federal power. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the Arizona Firearms Freedom Act (HB 2307) into law, making Arizona the sixth state to pass this type of historic Tenth Amendment legislation.

However, this was hardly Arizona’s first act of defiance against federal overreach. Last year, the Arizona Legislature passed a concurrent resolution known as the Arizona Health Care Freedom Act, which will appear on the ballot this November. If approved by Arizona’s voters, it will amend the state’s constitution and guarantee Arizonans two things:
-That all Arizonans have the right to spend their own money to obtain legal health care services.
-That all Arizonans have the right NOT to participate in any health care system, of any type.

Arizona is also on the verge of passing a bill that would nullify Cap and Trade (SCR 1050), as well as passing another bill that declares “..any incandescent lightbulb manufactured entirely within Arizona and not exported to any other state is not subject to federal regulations.” (HB 2337).

Question: What do all these bills have in common? Answer: They all push back against Congress’ abuse of the “commerce clause”.

In an official statement released yesterday, Governor Brewer issued a stern warning to the federal government when she noted that the Arizona Firearms Freedom Act should:
“..send a clear and convincing message that politicians in Washington should not attempt to get between Arizonans and their constitutional rights.”

Originally introduced and passed in Montana, the Firearms Freedom Act (FFA), declares that any firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress under its constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states. The FFA is primarily a Tenth Amendment challenge to the powers of Congress under the “commerce clause,” with firearms as the object. (source, FirearmsFreedomAct.com)

States that have signed FFA’s into law now include Arizona, Monatana, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota. Idaho’s Governor Butch Otter is expected to sign House Bill 589 into law, which will bring the total to seven states. Additionally eighteen other states have introduced nearly identical bills in their state legislatures. These bills have passed through one or more houses in five of those states.

Arizona’s FFA (HB 2307) is about much more than the right to keep and bear arms. The legislative findings contained in the act affirm that our union is a compact between the people of the several states, their state governments, and the federal government of the United States. It also declares that,

“The tenth amendment to the United States constitution guarantees to the states and their people all powers not granted to the federal government elsewhere in the constitution and reserves to the state and people of Arizona certain powers as they were understood at the time that Arizona was admitted to statehood in 1912. The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the state and people of Arizona and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed on and adopted by Arizona and the United States in 1912.”

Furthermore, the act explicitly denies that the federal government has any authority whatsoever to regulate commerce which takes place exclusively inside Arizona’s borders (intrastate commerce), which pertains to the manufacture of firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition. This assertion is clearly a direct challenge designed to confront the perversely expansive interpretation of the “commerce clause” which has prevailed in the US Supreme Court for decades.

In spite of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ assertion that the federal laws they enforce supercede the U.S. Constitution and the Tenth Amendment, the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed a lawsuit late last year in federal court to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA).

While it is true that court challenges may be a valid component of an effective constitutional resistance movement, opponents of federal usurpation must be extremely cautious! Constitutionalists should always remember that court challenges and federal elections are NOT the last lines of defense.

If unconstitutional federal gun regulations, nationalized health care or Cap and Trade regulations are upheld by the federal courts down the road, we must be prepared. Supporters of these acts of usurpation will repeatedly cite these court rulings as proof that the constitutionality of these acts have been settled, once and for all.

Such false claims must not cause advocates of limited government to flinch, even for a moment. For while we cannot deny that the court’s rulings have any authority, we need not accept the finality of those decisions. A law’s constitutionality is not determined by the courts alone, not even at the level of the Supreme Court.

State governments have a concurrent power to decide when the federal government has overstepped its boundaries and violated the Constitution. They also have the authority to determine the best method to redress such a grievance when it occurs. Since the federal government is a limited creation of the people of the several states, it has no authority to usurp powers that were never granted to it in the Constitution, even when it is given extra-legal permission to do so by its own judicial branch. As Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge, Byron Payne declared in 1854,
“Every jot and tittle of power delegated to the Federal Government will be acquiesced in, but every jot and tittle of power reserved to the states will be rigidly asserted and as rigidly sustained.”

H. Robert Baker points out in his excellent book about Wisconsin’s battle to resist the federal government’s Fugitive Slave Acts of 1850:
“Paine believed that the US Supreme Court could not close down avenues of resistance when questions of fundamental liberty were at stake. If the national government usurped authority, it was up to the states rather than the Supreme Court to enforce the proper understanding of the Constitution. State officers, reasoned Paine, would be bound to protect the fundamental liberty that was the province of state authority.”

If the courts fail to uphold the Constitution according to its original meaning, the people of Arizona and every other state have at least three more measures which could be unstoppable if combined and executed in a coordinated and orderly fashion. These three lines of defense are state nullification, interposition and non-violent civil disobedience.
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

The laughter is finally dying down. Hopefully the feds will be wise enough not to fight the states and we the people will have the last laugh.

It’s your move federal government…

8 Pro-Gun bills signed by AZ Governor

Arizona Only -- Gun Law Update

EIGHT GUN BILLS SIGNED BY AZ GOVERNOR

All anti-rights bills defeated, some pro-rights bills died

Basically, the state did very well if you're a rights supporter


Waiting until the last possible moment, Arizona governor Jan Brewer on July 13 signed all eight gun-related bills enacted by the state legislature in 2009. Two crucial bills, Constitutional Carry and penalty reduction for discreet carry without a permit, failed passage at the last minute and didn't make it to her desk. The eight bills signed into law, which will become effective on Sep. 30, 2009 (except SB 1242, effective immediately), are:

HB 2569 Smuggling people for profit, involving a deadly weapon

SB 1113 CCW in liquor-licensed places OK without drinking, unless no-gun signs

SB 1088 Domestic violence protection extended to romantic or sexual partners

SB 1168 Parking lots cannot ban firearms locked in vehicles, with exceptions

SB 1242 Exemptions from CCW and more for more "proper authorities"

SB 1243 Defensive display of a firearm in self defense defined and protected

SB 1437 AZ High School Marksmanship Program instructor definition expanded

SB 1449 Retroactive self-defense clarification (Harold Fish law)

At least 14 gun-related bills were introduced this year, with the few anti-rights bills repudiated early in the session and defeated. One other pro-rights bill died at the end, the effort to reduce required classes to three or four hours for people already well trained in gun use through military, police or private programs. Some 20legislators walked out very late on the final session (which went all night and ended at 7:30 a.m.) stealing away votes that had been verbally committed and were needed for passage of that and the petty offense amendment for discreet carry without a permit. The pro-rights people were left with 30 votes, and needed 31 to pass the laws.

The entire session was run in a bizarre manner -- no legislative work for months in the Senate while the Napolitano deficit was being resolved, then an impossibly crowded and rushed legislative calendar in the final few weeks, with no room for error, adjustment or contemplation. The procedures were a disgraceful humiliating embarrassment to good governance.

Constitutional Carry, which would have allowed law-abiding Arizonans to carry a firearm discreetly -- with the same freedom they've had since statehood in 1912 to carry openly -- got tied up in the Rules committee in the closing days of the session. A late amendment to the bill, which created a conflict with federal law, forced Rules to hold the bill and there wasn't enough time left in the session to make the needed changes.


The amendment was added by Judiciary chairman Jonathan Paton (R-Tucson), normally a good supporter of RKBA, who insisted he wouldn't hear the bill without the new language. The amendment criminalized smuggling guns across the Mexican border, which DPS wants even though it's a federal matter. That carrot might have helped move the cart on Constitutional Carry, which DPS is basically against, but in the end, scuttled the bill.

Following standard practice, this year's changes will be produced as an insert and included with copies of The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide, posted on our website, and available as a formatted pdf file or plain text for downloading. This is a preliminary analysis for review and comment.


Summarizing this year's changes:

KEY: AGOG Page# / Bill# / Statutes Affected / Description

43, 71, 79, 80 / SB 1113 / §§ 4-229, 4-244, 4-246, 11-441, 13-3102, 13-3112, 38-1102

Carry in restaurants for CCW permitees only.

CCW-permit holders can carry in places licensed to serve alcohol, unless the places post official signs from the Dept. of Liquor Licenses banning entry to anyone with a firearm. The ban was written broadly enough to prohibit anyone from carrying, even on-duty police or employees, if signs are posted.

If access is not banned and you possess a firearm, you may not drink. If you enter you have an affirmative defense against prosecution (meaning you must prove your innocence) if you were not informed of the ban, the sign fell down, the sign was posted less than 30 days before you were charged, or you weren't a resident of the state. The exemption for going in to seek aid in an emergency has been preserved, and you have permission to go in far enough to see if there's a sign posted.

You can expect to see No Guns Allowed signs springing up all over the state, featuring official wording and an image of a gun inside a red circle with a slash through it. Drinking while carrying in a liquor-serving establishment, or carrying in such a place if it's posted for no guns, is a class 3 misdemeanor.

The guns-in-restaurants bill also says: Members of a sheriff's volunteer posse who have received specified training (AZPOST) can bear arms while on duty, with conditions. A U.S. law enforcement officer with 10 consecutive years of service and a special picture ID can carry concealed without a permit, and their most recent law-enforcement employer must issue the card on request. AZPOST-certified LEOs who volunteer for their agency's reserve program are exempt from taking the CCW training program. Misconduct with weapons in an act of terrorism is raised to a class 2 felony. Note that terrorism is broadly defined (§13-2301) and this law could be applied beyond the common understanding of terrorism (e.g., a felony with a firearm intended to influence policy or affect the conduct of the state). Another extra guarantee against localities banning LEOs from carrying firearms has been added.


24 / SB 1088 / §13-3601 / Domestic violence expansion

Penalties for domestic-violence offenses, including restraining orders and firearms confiscations, can now be applied, in addition to problems between family members, to people who are or were in "a romantic or sexual relationship." The law is a response to the case of a woman murdered by her boyfriend. A restraining order was unavailable because they weren't married. It's unclear, as always, how much a piece of paper from a court would have influenced a murderer. Now, people in a casual relationship have an enormously powerful weapon they can use on each other in the event of a quarrel -- confiscation of any collection of arms and a ban on possession. Questions linger as to how much of a relationship qualifies, which the statute left ambiguous.


55, 70 / SB 1168 / §12-781 / Ban on prohibiting guns in parked vehicles

It's unlawful for a property owner, tenant, public or private employer or business entity (called the "responsible party" below for brevity) to create a policy or rule that prevents a person from lawfully transporting or storing any firearm in a privately owned motor vehicle if: 1 – the vehicle is locked or the firearm is in a locked compartment on a motorcycle; and 2 - the firearm is not visible. Any attempt to do so is null, void, unenforceable and without legal effect.

The ban on gun bans in private vehicles doesn't apply under four conditions: 1 - possession of the firearm is already banned under federal or state law; 2 - the vehicle is owned or leased by the responsible party in which case the ban is at their discretion; 3 - the responsible party has a facility secured by a fence or other physical barrier, and also limits access by a guard or other security measure, and the responsible party provides secure storage with ready access and retrieval, similar to the gun-locker rules for public buildings and events; and 4 - compliance with this statute would violate another applicable federal or state law. Nuclear generating stations must comply with gun-
locker requirements.

The parking area for a single-family detached residence is exempt from this law. Department of Defense contractors whose property is located wholly or partially on a military base are exempt from this law. A responsible party can provide an alternate parking facility close to the main facility, ban firearms at the main one, and allow them at the alternate facility, as long as they don't charge any extra fee.

Anticipating possible legal challenges from large corporations or other property owners whose parking space is open to the public, the legislature included a six-point set of findings, rare in state bills, to clarify that: 1 - the state and federal Constitutions provide strong protection for the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for self defense; 2 - the enjoyment of this right is impaired if people are deprived the right to keep arms in their vehicles; 3 - people are deprived of their rights if firearms cannot be kept in their private vehicles; 4 - your locked private vehicle is private, not a public space, you have the right to furnish it any way you like that is legal to enhance your comfort, security, ease of movement and enjoyment of liberty; 5 - parking lot operators are not unduly burdened by the presence of legally possessed property secured within the vehicle by its owner; and 6 - this act is for the benefit and protection of people who choose to exercise and enforce their fundamental right to bear arms in self defense in their movements throughout this
State, including in their personal motor vehicles.


114 / SB 1243 / §13-421 / Defensive display of firearms protection

"Defensive display of a firearm" means: 1 - Verbally telling someone that you have a firearm or can get one; 2 - Exposing or displaying a gun in a way that a reasonable person would understand means you can protect yourself against illegal physical or deadly physical force; and 3 – Placing your hand on a firearm while it is in your pocket, purse or other means of containment or transport.

Defensive display is justified when and to the extent a reasonable person would believe physical force is immediately necessary to protect yourself against another person's use or attempted use of
unlawful physical or deadly physical force. A defensive display is not required before using or threatening physical force, in a situation where you would be justified in using or threatening
physical force.

Defensive display is not justified if you intentionally provoke the other person, or if you use a firearm in the commission of a serious offense or violent crime (defined in §13-706 and §13-901.3).

This important new law clarifies that a proper defensive reach for or announcement of firearm possession is an acceptable element in the continuum of self-defense, and should not be charged as a crime. Improper display of a firearm can be anything from a class 1 misdemeanor (e.g., disorderly conduct) to a class 3 felony (e.g., aggravated assault). It also helps balance out the problematic and arbitrary "threatening exhibition" of a gun allegation that prosecutors can make in charging a felony as a "dangerous offense" (§13-702 and 704). The threat of this extra charge can be used to coerce a plea agreement, and now this is balanced with a specified stipulation of proper
display of a gun without firing at a potential assailant.


44 / SB 1437 / §15-714.01 / High school marksmanship training expansion

Instructors for the Arizona Gun Safety Program, a marksmanship course for high school students, can be certified by a national association of firearms owners, in addition to the Arizona Game and Fish Dept.


SB 1449 / Retroactive self defense (Harold Fish law)

In certain cases, "Laws 2006, chapter 199 applies retroactively... regardless of when the conduct underlying the charges occurred." The state enacted amendments in 2006 to make it clear that, if a person claims self-defense, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted without justification (the appropriate "innocent until proven guilty" standard). One of the laws amended, which had been quietly slipped in by prosecutors without review ten years earlier, forced a defendant to prove innocence, the exact opposite of what American laws should be (it made you guilty unless you could prove your innocence, a tyrannical standard). Part of these changes became known as the Castle Doctrine -- you can stand your ground if attacked, intruders in your home are a legally recognized threat, and self defense was to receive robust protection
under the law.


The new rules were supposed to protect people in a predicament like Harold Fish, a schoolteacher with a clean record out hiking in May 2004. He was attacked by a homeless known troublemaker with violent dogs on a forest trail outside Payson. Mr. Fish, who survived by shooting his assailant three times in the chest at close range, was at first released in what appeared an obvious self defense, but was then attacked by the county attorney, in a trial that reeked of unfairness.

The legislature is here making it clear that people are entitled to the full protection of the law, and the public's safety will likely be enhanced with this small measure that serves notice on the powers that be. Other problems, like failure to fully inform juries, bad jury instructions, exclusion of exculpatory or illuminating evidence, exorbitant cost and inordinate timeframes, and other potholes in the criminal justice system remain to be fixed.


HB 2569 (§13-2319) and SB 1242 (§13-3102)

Two additional gun laws will affect the statutes in the back of The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide, but have little direct impact on the general public or the text of the book. §13-2319 is amended to make smuggling people for profit or a commercial purpose a class 2 felony if the offense "involved the use of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument." In §13-3102, we find that more "proper authorities" have been exempted from gun laws that restrict the public, like carrying without a permit, concealed carry in a car without a permit, making, having, transporting or selling prohibited weapons, having a defaced deadly weapon, entering a public establishment or public event with a deadly weapon after being told not to, and more. The new crop of exempt special people includes community correctional officers, detention officers, and special investigators with DOC or the Dept. of Juvenile Corrections. Other sections of the bill repeat language found in SB 1113, a common practice to help assure passage (if one bill fails, the language gets through in the
other bill).

It's interesting to note that, at the federal level, a growth process like this took place for decades, with a new batch of people added 32 times, until the statute grew so embarrassingly long (one sentence of 741 words) Congress shortened the law by 610 words, cutting out all the named groups, but expanded the impact by simply making it applicable to "any officer or employee of the United States. That statute, 18 USC §1114, makes it a greater crime to kill them than to kill you or me. How that comports with equal protection under the law is unclear.

-------------

Our gun laws got better this year thanks to the tireless work of the National Rifle Association, the Arizona Citizens Defense League, the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association and the concerned citizens who back them up. You want to help defend your rights? Join. Or rejoin. Or upgrade your membership. At least get on their free alerts list. http://www.nrahq.org



Our thanks for this information to:
Alan Korwin, Author

PRELIMINARY GUN BAN LIST IS REVEALED

Jan. 5, 2008

1. Officials stocking up on AR-15-style long guns
2. Preliminary gun ban list revealed

1. S&W sales
With bans on AR-15 and AR-15-styled rifles to the public expected under the Obama administration (see gun-ban lists below), Smith and Wesson has just announced expansion of that market, with the sale of 275 of its M&P15 rifles to the Chicago police department. http://tinyurl.com/742qre

Chicago, president-elect Obama’s home town, has virtual bans on handguns and strict repressive limits on long guns, but police are excluded and criminals blithely ignore the provisions.

The M&P15 strongly resembles the AR-15, a high quality, semi automatic long gun used by the U.S. military and the public for decades. What the Chicago police expect to do with 275 of the guns, vilified as assault weapons by the lamestream media, was undisclosed.

Assault, it has been noted, is a type of behavior, not a type of hardware.

In other news, the Minnesota State Patrol has purchased 90 of the high-quality M&P15 firearms, which retail for more than $1,000 each.

In still other news, actor David Spade donated $100,000 to the Phoenix police department, to buy 50 new AR-15 rifles made by Colt, an S&W competitor. Spade was apparently moved by a “news” broadcast that said Phoenix officers had to buy their own rifles due to lack of funding, and he wanted to help them out.

2. Gun-ban list proposed
Slipping below the radar (or under the short-term memory cap), the Democrats have already leaked a gun-ban list, even under the Bush administration when they knew full well it had no chance of passage (HR 1022, 110th Congress). It serves as a framework for the new list the Bradys plan to introduce shortly.

I have an outline of the Brady’s current plans and targets of opportunity, I’m working on getting that news out asap after these ban lists, probably be ready in the next few days. It’s horrific. They’re going after the courts, regulatory agencies, firearms dealers and statutes in an all out effort to restrict we the people. They’ve made little mention of criminals.

Now more than ever, attention to the entire Bill of Rights is critical. Gun bans will impact our freedoms under search and seizure, due process, confiscated property, states rights, free speech, right to assemble and more, in addition to the Second Amendment. See what 250 of your peers thought during our recent Bill of Rights Day event at the Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix: http://www.gunlaws.com/BOR-Day-2008-Report.htm

The Democrats current gun-ban-list proposal (final list will be worse)

Rifles (or copies or duplicates):
M1 Carbine, Sturm Ruger Mini-14, AR-15, Bushmaster XM15, Armalite M15, AR-10, Thompson 1927, Thompson M1;

AK, AKM, AKS, AK-47, AK-74, ARM, MAK90, NHM 90, NHM 91, SA 85, SA 93, VEPR;

Olympic Arms PCR; AR70, Calico Liberty, Dragunov SVD Sniper Rifle or Dragunov SVU, Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, or FNC, Hi-Point Carbine, HK-91, HK-93, HK-94, HK-PSG-1, Thompson 1927 Commando, Kel-Tec Sub Rifle;

Saiga, SAR-8, SAR-4800, SKS with detachable magazine, SLG 95, SLR 95 or 96, Steyr AU, Tavor, Uzi, Galil and Uzi Sporter, Galil Sporter, or Galil Sniper Rifle (Galatz).

Pistols (or copies or duplicates):
Calico M-110, MAC-10, MAC-11, or MPA3, Olympic Arms OA, TEC-9, TEC-DC9, TEC-22 Scorpion, or AB-10, Uzi.

Shotguns (or copies or duplicates):
Armscor 30 BG, SPAS 12 or LAW 12, Striker 12, Streetsweeper.

Catch-all category (for anything missed or new designs):A semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and has (i) a folding or telescoping stock, (ii) a threaded barrel, (iii) a pistol grip (which includes ANYTHING that can serve as a grip, see below), (iv) a forward grip; or a barrel shroud.

Any semiautomatic rifle with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds (except tubular magazine .22 rimfire rifles).

A semiautomatic pistol that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine, and has (i) a second pistol grip, (ii) a threaded barrel, (iii) a barrel shroud or (iv) can accept a detachable magazine outside of the pistol grip, and (v) a semiautomatic pistol with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.

A semiautomatic shotgun with (i) a folding or telescoping stock, (ii) a pistol grip (see definition below), (iii) the ability to accept a detachable magazine or a fixed magazine capacity of more than 5 rounds, and (iv) a shotgun with a revolving cylinder.

Frames or receivers for the above are included, along with conversion kits.

Attorney General gets carte blanche to ban guns at will:
(Remember the name Eric Holder? We warned you about him a while back)
Under the proposal, the U.S. Attorney General can add any “semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General.” Note that Obama’s pick for this office (Eric Holder, confirmation hearing set for Jan. 15) wrote a brief in the Heller case supporting the position that you have no right to have a working firearm in your own home.

In making this determination, the bill says, “there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.

”In plain English this means that ANY firearm ever obtained by federal officers or the military is not suitable for the public.

That presumption can be challenged only by suing the federal government over each firearm it decides to ban, in a court it runs with a judge it pays. This virtually dismisses the principles of the Second Amendment.

The last part is particularly clever, stating that a firearm doesn’t have a sporting purpose just because it can be used for sporting purpose -- is that devious or what? And of course, “sporting purpose” is a rights infringement with no constitutional or historical support whatsoever, invented by domestic enemies of the right to keep and bear arms to further their cause of disarming the innocent.

If these near-total bans aren’t enough, the most dangerous part may be the phrase “pistol grip” because: “The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumbhole stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.” In other words, any semi-auto long gun with a grip (that’s ALL semi-auto long guns) would be banned under the existing proposal. It’s not clear what they hope to achieve by deceptively banning guns with grips instead of just calling to ban the guns -- even an idiot can tell it’s the same thing.

I didn’t cover all the magazine bans, transfer bans, dealer record-keeping and centralized reporting, and a host of nuisance details -- there will be time enough for that when the new lists are released soon: “As soon as President-elect Obama is inaugurated and the 111th Congress is sworn in,” according to Ms. Brady. Congress is set to be sworn in on Jan. 6, Inauguration Day is Jan. 20.

No one expects the new proposal to be less abusive than the current one supported by the party of the Democrats. Remember -- these bans were proposed when the congressional anti-rights crowd had no chance of success. Now they are ready to run wild, or according to Sarah herself, “I have never been so confident.” The “news” media has failed to report on any of this, preferring instead to blare that the incoming president supports the Second Amendment and commonsense (sic) laws.

To see the whole bill, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and search for HR 1022, (switch to the 110th Congress if the 111th has begun).

The excellent Firearms Coalition started by the late Neal Knox and now run by his family members makes these important points about the upcoming Judiciary hearings for Attorney General nominee Holder:

“The Democrat members of the Judiciary Committee are all sworn enemies to the Second Amendment and are unlikely to be swayed at all by any firearms related arguments, but might hesitate to confirm based on Holder’s participation in the pardons of 16 Puerto Rican terrorists and billionaire financier and arms merchant Marc Rich [and perhaps the Elian Gonzalez abduction by federal agents Holder authorized]. Any letters to Democrats should focus on those issues.

“On the Republican side, Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the committee has never been a friend to gun rights, but he owes his reelection to NRA support and has expressed concern over the pardon issues. Among the other Republicans, most are relatively reliable votes, but only Coburn has routinely taken a leadership role on Second Amendment matters. All of them need to be pressed hard to do everything they can to block the appointment.

“For more information about Eric Holder and why his appointment must be fought tooth and nail, go to our web site at http://www.FirearmsCoalition.org.”

Respectfully submitted,
Alan Korwin, Author
Gun Laws of America
http://www.gunlaws.com/gloa.htm

Permission to circulate or post this Gun Law Update granted.