BELLEVUE, WA – The capture of a convicted killer Monday near the Michigan vacation home of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley proves that guns in the right hands are necessary for personal safety, the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

“Mayor Daley is protected by an armed guard,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “but what about the citizens of his city, who have no such luxury? The mayor is a world class hypocrite, who has bodyguards with guns to protect him from escaped killers like Charles Smith. Yet he is continuing to stubbornly fight against average citizens who are willing to protect themselves, but unable to because of Daley’s deranged double standard about firearms and personal protection.”

The Second Amendment Foundation is challenging Chicago’s handgun ban and the case may be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Smith broke out of prison with two other men, a rapist and another murderer, in Michigan City, Indiana. At last report the other two were still at large, and one is believed to be in the Grand Beach, MI area where Daley’s summer home is located. Authorities there have been warning residents to stay inside.

“While Daley can lounge in the protective shadow of armed bodyguards even when he is out of state,” Gottlieb added, “average citizens in Chicago and all over Illinois must contend with the mayor’s elitist attitude about gun ownership. Most people can’t afford armed bodyguards.

“So long as Daley fights to keep his fellow citizens unarmed,” he observed, “he does not deserve the protection of men with guns. Daley’s self-importance is of little interest to the single mom who worries about an ex-boyfriend, or the shop keeper trying to make an honest living in a neighborhood ruled by gang bangers and drug users.

“Richard Daley’s arrogance has been revealed by this incident,” Gottlieb concluded. “Take away his bodyguards and just tell him to dial 9-1-1 like the rest of us. No public official should place his own safety above that of his constituents.”

By Glen Wunderlich
Outdoor Columnist
Member Professional Outdoor Media Association

Over the years several campaigns against litter have spawned various degrees of success to battle this public enemy. There were the “Every Litter Bit Hurts” and the “Don’t Be a Litter Bug” mantras during my childhood. The “Adopt a Highway” litter control program gets volunteers to pick up trash along our roadways. Unquestionably, one of the most successful devices to date has been the Bottle Law passed over 30 years ago, which was done so by an overwhelming margin of Michigan voters. However, it can be argued that the costs associated with recycling bottles and cans have resulted in higher costs at the cash register to consumers. Fair enough, but the landscape is cleaner nonetheless.

In an attempt to expand the current law to non-carbonated beverage containers (SB 0054), the fight appears to have stalled insofar as it has gone nowhere in almost six months after its introduction January 27, 2009. Never fear; lawmakers have a new scheme to battle the plague of illegal dumping, fast-food packaging, non-returnables, and even cigarette butts: HB 5081.

This bill introduced June 11th aims to control behavior by rewarding snitches. In essence, HB 5081 would pay a reward to any person that provides information that materially contributes to the imposition of a civil fine. The money would come from civil fines collected and would pay the informant(s) 50 percent of the amount.

Government rewards people that don’t work and many people ride the gravy train for all its worth. Illegal aliens don’t have health care insurance, so taxpayers reward them by providing services in hospitals for whatever ails them. Beer cans are tossed aside by human pigs and others are rewarded 10 cents each time they bend over to clean up after them. Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated.

I really don’t know anyone who appreciates litter, although many are oblivious to it. However, by imposing stiff penalties to offenders and compensating those most offended and willing to act, the idea may have merit and it will be interesting to see where this legislation goes.

Written into the proposal are only two purposes that money shall be expended from the fund that evolves: 1) payment of rewards, and 2) publicizing the availability of rewards. This is where some tweaking is in order. Half the money collected must be put into advertising? What a waste! We can do better than that!

Think, for example, how much taxpayers squander on the campaign to wear seatbelts. Millions are spent on billboards, television and radio spots to tell us what we already know. Enough already! What driver doesn’t know about the consequences of seatbelt law infractions? Not one. Yet, our government keeps fueling the drive with our money.

Let’s amend HB 5081 to provide for more practical use of funds generated. Politicians never seem to be at a loss as to how to spend money but advertising to preach to the choir will pay little in dividends, once such a program takes hold. After all, we don’t have to tell people to pick up cans and bottles, do we? Let the debate center on doing something better with litterbugs’ cash, because we certainly don’t need another billboard littering the landscape!

By Glen Wunderlich
Outdoor Columnist
Member Professional Outdoor Media Association

After reading comments from one Kathy Griffin on the opinion page of The Argus-Press (of Owosso, MI) last week, I had to agree with her conclusion that moral decency has taken a southbound turn with little chance of returning to the days of Andy Griffith and Mayberry. She wonders if society will ever be able to restore some of the standards of a moral and wholesome life. Ms. Griffin, I can tell you hope for such praise-worthy principles is alive and well.

I rediscovered the value of The Golden Rule in rural Grand Rapids, Ohio last weekend amid a gathering of tractor enthusiasts, while attending my first Cub Fest. (Cubs are tractors made by International Harvester and production began in 1947; they were extremely popular garden tractors in their day.) I learned of the event while at a tractor show in Apache Junction, Arizona this past March. As I stood looking over a Cub, one Bob Zimmerman approached and we began to talk. The conversation ended with an invitation to attend the event in northwest Ohio.

Owning a Cub of my own, I loaded it onto my trailer and headed south last Saturday, after the torrential downpour of the night before. As soon as I unloaded the machine, the connection to yesteryear began.

The camping area was well behind the farmhouse of host Rick Prentice and I was offered a ride on an International-red golf cart with all my gear. That sure was neighborly, I thought.

Back to where all the commotion was, I mingled under a portable shelter, where several men hovered over a Cub with a belly-mounted blade underneath. I learned that a young man in attendance had obtained the tractor from his grandparents and rode it some three miles to the gathering in hopes of getting a coolant leak repaired.

After removing the hood, the men were able to get to the source of the leak and had it repaired in short order. But, that wasn’t good enough. The little Cub’s get-up-and-go seemed to have got up and went and adjusting the air mixture on the carburetor didn’t help a bit.

On the other side of the tractor was Cecil, all the way from Albany, New York. He stated that the magneto was not mounted properly and was causing a timing malfunction. Off it came with the governor. I asked Cecil how he knew there was a timing issue and he said confidently, “I can tell by looking at it.” He then showed me marks inside the governor that needed to be lined up once it had been removed. In short order the carb was tweaked after timing and the young man departed but not until shaking hands with all the help-fest masters.

The scene repeated itself many times and the men kept their vow to make sure no Cub left until it was right. The cost was always the same: a simple thank-you.

The event included hayrides, torque and horsepower testing on Rick Prentice’s dynamometer, good food, and plenty of Cub talk around the campfire. But, most of all, the event centered on sharing, camaraderie, and The Golden Rule. Mayberry lives!

From Michigan DNR….

Odwalla is re-running its successful Plant a Tree promotion for 2009, and has DOUBLED the funding they will put towards the trees from $50,000 in 2008 to $100,000 in 2009. Only 11 State Park systems will be eligible for the funding, based on the states that participate in the Park Visitor Welcome Kit program.

How it works:
Each time someone goes to www.parkvisitor.com/odwalla and chooses Michigan, $1 will be added to our state’s tree fund. Each computer will only be allowed to participate once. The program will remain open until all funds are used, or until Dec. 31, 2009. The state with the most clicks gets the most dollars! To see how you are doing, click on the Number of Trees Planted tab.

Please go on line and click for Michigan State Park Trees. Feel free to pass this info on to your friends and family and ask them to click too! It only takes a moment. One state park that participated last year received over $20,000. Let’s start clicking to replace ash trees lost to the Emerald Ash Borer.

BELLEVUE, WA – Legislation introduced by veteran anti-gun New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg is designed to expand his gun prohibition agenda under the cloak of national security, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said.

Sen. Lautenberg’s new “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009” would place unprecedented authority in the hands of the Attorney General to deny someone their Second Amendment rights without having been convicted, or even charged, with any crime. Instead, under this legislation, someone whose name is added – for whatever reason – to a terrorist watch list can suddenly find himself or herself prohibited from exercising their constitutionally-protected rights based on nothing more than suspicion.

“Frank Lautenberg has devoted his entire political career to stripping as many citizens as possible of their firearm civil rights,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “His motivation appears to be a Government Accountability Office report that asserts 963 cases of known or suspected terrorists trying to buy firearms over a five-year period from 2004 through February of this year. However, in 90 percent of those cases, the purchases were allowed after the buyer cleared an FBI instant background check.

“Lautenberg calls this the ‘terror loophole’,” he added, “yet neither he, nor anyone else, can adequately explain how someone gets their name on a so-called ‘terrorist watch list,’ and there appears to be no way to get one’s name off such a list once it is there.

“In Lautenberg’s world view,” Gottlieb observed, “any American citizen interested in owning a gun is a potential terrorist. Would he add all of our names to such a watch list, thus stripping us of our Second Amendment rights, without first being charged, prosecuted and convicted of some crime? Probably he would.

“In 2007,” Gottlieb recalled, “Lautenberg lamented that a similar bill went nowhere. He claimed it was blocked because too many of his colleagues ‘knuckled under to the gun lobby.’ Better that Congress protect gun owners’ civil rights than be browbeaten by a knucklehead.”

SCI today filed a motion to intervene in litigation concerning the Endangered Species Act (ESA) delisting of the Western Great Lakes wolves.

SCI’s action comes in response to five animal rights groups that have challenged the delisting. The groups want wolves back on the endangered species list immediately and have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. If the motion succeeds, wolves will be returned to federal management for the duration of the litigation. SCI is actively preparing a defense to that motion.

SCI is a leader in the hunting community in litigation concerning the ESA. It is the preeminent organization in litigation related to hunting, and has defended wolf delisting and state management in each of the cases brought to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s efforts to recognize the recovered status of wolves. This recent intervention effort marks the sixth lawsuit in which SCI has participated.

SCI’s goal is to preserve management of this predator species with the individual states in which wolf populations are having an impact on other wildlife species’ numbers and behavior. SCI is also currently participating in two lawsuits to defend the delisting of the grizzly bear population in the Yellowstone area.

SCI President Merle Shepard stated: “The science is clear. The wolves of the Western Great Lakes have merited delisting for years and the states are more than ready to assume management authority of the wolves within their boundaries. In 2007 and 2008, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin demonstrated their ability to manage and conserve their own wolves. SCI will show the court that the states are the best managers for their own recovered wildlife populations.”

In this effort, SCI is again collaborating with the National Rifle Association of America to provide a powerful voice for the hunting community.

NRA-ILA has recently received several calls from NRA members in border states who have been visited or called by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In some cases, agents have asked to enter these people’s homes, and requested serial numbers of all firearms the members possess.

In each case, the agents were making inquiries based on the number of firearms these NRA members had recently bought, and in some cases the agents said they were asking because the members had bought types of guns that are frequently recovered in Mexico.

This kind of questioning may or may not be part of a legitimate criminal investigation. For example, when BATFE traces a gun seized after use in a crime, manufacturers’ and dealers’ records will normally lead to the first retail buyer of that gun, and investigators will have to interview the buyer to find out how the gun ended up in criminal hands. But in other cases, the questioning may simply be based on information in dealers’ records, with agents trying to “profile” potentially suspicious purchases.

On the other hand, some of the agents have used heavy-handed tactics. One reportedly demanded that a gun owner return home early from a business trip, while another threatened to “report” an NRA member as “refusing to cooperate.” That kind of behavior is outrageous and unprofessional.

Whether agents act appropriately or not, concerned gun owners should remember that all constitutional protections apply. Answering questions in this type of investigation is generally an individual choice. Most importantly, there are only a few relatively rare exceptions to the general Fourth Amendment requirement that law enforcement officials need a warrant to enter a home without the residents’ consent. There is nothing wrong with politely, but firmly, asserting your rights.

If BATFE contacts you and you have any question about how to respond, you may want to consult a local attorney. NRA members may also call NRA-ILA’s Office of Legislative Counsel at (703) 267-1161 for further information. Whether contacting a local attorney or NRA, be sure to provide as many details as possible, including the date, time, and location, agent’s name, and specific questions asked.

BELLEVUE, WA – Firearms regulations in Washington, D.C. are being amended today by emergency order in response to a federal lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation that challenged the arbitrary nature of previous regulations enforced in the District of Columbia.

The District had adopted new handgun registration regulations following last year’s landmark Second Amendment ruling that struck down the city’s decades-old handgun ban as unconstitutional. Under the new regulations, which take effect immediately, the city essentially acknowledges the State of California’s roster of approved handguns –upon which the District’s own regulations were based – is inadequate.

Citizens who had been previously denied an opportunity to register their handguns will be invited to re-apply under the new guidelines, which now include information from so-called “safe gun rosters” maintained by Maryland and Massachusetts.

“This is a genuine victory,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “because the city is admitting that its existing roster of handguns approved for registration in the District was arbitrary. The city has recognized that handguns had been removed from the California roster for administrative reasons having nothing to do with the safety of a specific handgun model.

“Until today,” he added, “the city had been disqualifying certain handguns based on such factors as color, even though they functioned identically to approved models. This ends that nonsense.”

Attorney Alan Gura, representing SAF in the lawsuit, noted that under the new regulations, approved guns no longer expire from the list, and are no longer banned “because they are the wrong color.”

“It’s impossible to list every single gun protected by the Second Amendment,” Gura stated. “We won’t stop until this list is scrapped.”

Fairfax, Va. – Today, the National Rifle Association filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of NRA v. Chicago. The NRA strongly disagrees with yesterday’s decision issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Second Amendment does not apply to state and local governments.

“The Seventh Circuit got it wrong. As the Supreme Court said in last year’s landmark Heller decision, the Second Amendment is an individual right that ‘belongs to all Americans’. Therefore, we are taking our case to the highest court in the land,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist. “The Seventh Circuit claimed it was bound by precedent from previous decisions. However, it should have followed the lead of the recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Nordyke v. Alameda County, which found that those cases don’t prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

This Seventh Circuit opinion upholds current bans on the possession of handguns in Chicago and Oak Park, Illinois.

“It is wrong that the residents of Chicago and Oak Park continue to have their Second Amendment rights denied,” Cox concluded. “It’s time for the fundamental right of self-defense to be respected by every jurisdiction throughout our country.”

From the NRA-ILA

In the last few weeks, NRA-ILA has received hundreds of e-mails warning us about “SB-2099,” a bill that would supposedly require you to report all your guns on your income tax return every April 15.

Like many rumors, there’s just a grain of truth to this one. Someone’s recycling an old alert, which wasn’t even very accurate when it was new.

There actually was a U.S. Senate bill with that number that would have taxed handguns—nine years ago. It was introduced by anti-gun Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and it would have included handguns under the National Firearms Act’s tax and registration scheme. This has nothing to do with anyone’s Form 1040, of course.

Fortunately, S. 2099 disappeared without any action by the Senate, back when Bill Clinton was still in the White House. We reported about it back then, just as we report about new anti-gun bills every week. Now, it’s time for gun owners to drop this old distraction and focus on the real threats at hand.