New Book: The War on Guns
—TED CRUZ, U.S. senator, Texas
Outdoor commentary and legislative issues.
“Barack Obama has never missed an opportunity to exploit some tragedy in an effort to curtail legal gun ownership,” CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb observed. “But the other day he granted leniency to people who have actually committed crimes while armed. As many people have been led to suspect with his foreign policy decisions, his action on Wednesday leaves us convinced that he can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys.
“Considering who he wants to have replacing him in January,” he continued, “that’s really not difficult to believe. But the fact remains that the president seems more worried about people who haven’t committed crimes with guns they legally own than people who have committed crimes while carrying guns they probably did not legally own.” Read more
BOSTON, Mass. – The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry, today announced that it will pursue legal action to challenge the “Enforcement Notice” issued by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey that would appear to ban sales of semiautomatic rifles in the commonwealth.
“With this ‘Enforcement Action,’ the Attorney General’s office has demonstrated how little it understands about firearms and has generated considerable uncertainty and confusion,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “Attorney General Healey and/or her staff have overreached their authority and decided to legislate from her office without the benefit of any public process. Her actions totally disregard 18 years of Massachusetts firearm law, supported by all state regulatory agencies and understood by all concerned, in which firearm retailers have operated. The Attorney General has undermined the legislative and public process by unilaterally declaring products that were legal to be illegal. In doing so, she has endangered the livelihoods of family-owned businesses and made potential felons out of tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens.”
“This unlawful overstepping of power must be challenged,” Keane said. NSSF has retained Michael Sullivan of the Ashcroft Law Firm, who is a former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and former acting director, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Boston-based law firm of Kenney and Sams, P.C. Read more
NEWTOWN, Conn. – The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms industry, is pleased to announce that Smith & Wesson has joined NSSF’s #GUNVOTE Chairman’s Club with a $500,000 contribution to the association’s critical voter registration and education campaign. This is the largest contribution the #GUNVOTE campaign has received to date. Read more
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE: RGR) is proud to announce the Ruger $5 Million Match Campaign to benefit the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). The NRA, through its Institute for Legislative Action, is leading the charge to preserve the Second Amendment and individual firearm rights of U.S. citizens.
Between August 1 and October 31, 2016, any donation made to the NRA-ILA that is affiliated with this Campaign will be matched by a donation from Ruger, up to a maximum cumulative Ruger contribution of $5,000,000. All donations will benefit the NRA-ILA’s efforts to protect the Second Amendment in the upcoming November elections. Read more
The case involves former at-large Pennsylvania delegate Deanna Vicites. She was arrested after allegedly shooting and wounding her husband, Fayette County Commissioner Vincent Vicites more than a week ago. She resigned her post as a delegate last week. Another twist to the story is that she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary some years ago and is reportedly prohibited from possessing a firearm.
“If this case demonstrates anything,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “it would be that all the gun laws pushed by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats didn’t stop the suspect in this case from getting her hands on a gun. But instead of trying to keep everybody from having guns, maybe it’s just Hillary’s delegates who should be disarmed.
“However,” he observed, “just because you can’t trust people in your own party with guns doesn’t mean you can’t trust anybody with a gun. Clinton Democrats should not apply their standards to the entire population. Millions of responsible Americans own firearms. Of course, they’re probably not planning to vote for Hillary, because they’re as responsible with their votes as they are with their firearms. Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today condemned attempts by the agenda-driven media, led by CBS, to provide cover for Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton’s war on gun rights by trying to debunk Republican Donald Trump’s statement Thursday night that Clinton “wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment.”
“CBS News and others argue that Trump’s allegation is not true, and that ‘Clinton has spoken up for Second Amendment rights on several occasions,'” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “They are being disingenuous at best, and they know it.
“More than a year ago,” he recalled, “Clinton made gun control a cornerstone of her campaign. She talked about using Australia’s gun confiscation as something that might be considered. She told a private fund raiser last October that she thinks the Supreme Court was wrong on the Second Amendment, and in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, she even questioned whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Read more
From Jim Shepherd…
Effective “immediately” AG Healey’s ban is designed to stop the sale of those modern sporting rifles (a/k/a “assault rifles”) that had been modified so as to pass the multi-point exam as to what actually constituted an “assault rifle” under Massachusetts state law.
“The gun industry doesn’t get to decide what’s compliant,” she said, “We do.”
“We” of course, meaning those who agree with her position.
Almost simultaneous with AG Healey’s announcement, Massachusetts gun rights groups like the Gun Owner’s Action League of Massachusetts, said her unilateral action, taken with “actually going through the process, then telling licensed retailers they’re not allowed to sell something” would “probably be a very interesting legal challenge at some point.”
Healey’s actions are, apparently, aimed at the myriad of changes that gun makers have made to the modern sporting rifle in order to make them “compliant” in states like California -and Massachusetts. Those changes have included non-removable, reduced-capacity magazines, fixed versus adjustable stocks and other largely cosmetic changes.
Operating systems, however, have remained essentially untouched because semi-automatic rifles or handguns operate on long-established mechanical principles, not eyewash legislation designed to ban the most popular long-gun in the country simply because of a resemblance to military-issued, fully automatic rifles.
According to Healey’s new interpretation of the law, a gun sharing the same basic operating system or having any interchangeable parts in common with a banned weapon is now verboten.
Healey used what has become standard operating language for opponents to modern sporting rifles, telling those present that those “deadly assault weapons were intended for military use” and “do not belong in civilian hands.”
If a dealer in Massachusetts has any of the now-banned guns in stock, they will be allowed to sell them to out-of-state dealers, but not individuals. If you’re a Massachusetts-resident and purchased on of the “copycat” rifles before Wednesday (July 20), you’ll be allowed to keep it.
But Healey warns that no Massachusetts resident will be able to possess an assault-style weapon purchased after Wednesday -even if they bought it elsewhere.
After announcing her sweeping change, Healey refused to categorize her action as an assault on legitimate businesses in Massachusetts, saying that her intent wasn’t to criminalize dealers.
Rather, she said her press conference was simply to “get the word out.”
Apparently, that’s not worked so well. Notices were reportedly mailed Tuesday, but none of the dealers we spoke with yesterday have yet received them. Many had, however, seen Healey’s Op-Ed in the Boston Globe where she accused the gun industry of “exploiting” a “loophole of potentially horrific proportions” -writing, “And it’s time we act.”
Does she expect a legal challenge? Definitely. In her Op-Ed, she writes that other states have banned assault weapons, and “Many of those bans have been challenged (unsuccessfully) by the gun industry, and we anticipate our directive may be too.”
“But,” she writes, “our job is to enforce state laws and to keep people safe. And this directive will do both.”
If it were only that simple.
Editor’s Note: You can read Attorney General Healey’s Boston Globe Op-Ed yourself at:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/07/20/the-loophole-mass-assault-weapons-ban/eEvOBklTriWcGznmXqSpYM/story.html
You can also read the Attorney General’s letter to Dealers Here:
http://www.mass.gov/ago/public-safety/awbe.html
BELLEVUE, WA – Traffic fatalities rose 7.7 percent last year and more than 35,000 people were killed, so why aren’t Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Congressional Democrats cracking down on car owners the way they do on gun owners, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms wants to know.
“Last year saw the highest number of people killed on the highways since 2008,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “On the other hand, FBI crime data shows a continuing decline in the number of gun-related homicides, yet Democrats insist on treating all gun owners like criminals.
“Anti-gunners say we should treat guns like cars,” he added, “but that might be a little dangerous, considering the increase in traffic fatalities. However, if we did treat guns like cars, people would be able to carry their guns in all 50 states, just like they drive their cars.” Read more