Category: Gun Control

The Illusion of Gun-Free Zones

BELLEVUE, WA – Wednesday’s tragic shooting incident on the UCLA campus in California serves as yet another reminder that restrictive gun control laws and so-called “gun-free zones” provide a dangerous illusion, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, including universal background checks, and state lawmakers are presently working to add more,” noted CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “But those laws, and the fact that firearms are not allowed on California college and university campuses, has once again provided a false sense of safety to the thousands of students and faculty affected by Wednesday’s crime, which appears to be a murder-suicide.

“While authorities are still sorting out what happened,” he added, “it is clear that simply writing a law or adopting a rule is not going to deter someone bent on committing a violent act. It should have been abundantly clear after San Bernardino that pursuing a policy of restrictive gun control has been a failure in the Golden State.

“Sadly,” Gottlieb observed, “too many lawmakers in Sacramento are deliberately blind to this fact, and their likely reaction to the UCLA incident will be to propose still more laws that only restrict the rights of law-abiding California residents. That’s not common sense, it’s nonsense.” Read more

Gun Control

John Lott, Jr. on Clinton’s Gun Control Ideas

President Obama is taking a big step towards creating a national gun registry.  Hawaii looks like it is about to provide the federal government with the list of all the gun owners in the state.  Supposedly, keeping a list of gun owners’ names will enable the FBI to tell police if a gun owner ever gets arrested.

But a national gun registry isn’t necessary to do this check.  The FBI isn’t the only organization that can do background checks on already existing gun owners.

Hawaii already has a gun registry, and can regularly run its list of names to see if people have gotten arrested.

Some concealed carry states do that for their concealed handgun permit holders.  For example, Kentucky checks its list of permit holders every month.

Hawaii is going to pay for entering the names in the new federal registry by charging gun owners a new fee.  But, even if this registration reduced crime, it would hardly be just the gun owners who have registered their guns who would be the only ones who benefit.  Economics would indicate that the people who benefit from this proposal should be the ones to pay for it.

If Hawaii officials really think that this will reduce crime for everyone and they aren’t just pushing this as a way to reduce gun ownership even further, they can pay for these checks out of general revenue.

This will undoubtedly be a waste of money. Out of all the guns owned in the US, just hundredths of one percent are used in committing crimes, and the rate that registered guns are used in crimes is a tiny fraction of that.  For concealed handgun permit holders the revocation rate for any firearms related violation is thousandths of one percent, and almost all of those are trivial, nonviolent offenses.

Gun control advocates have long claimed that gun registration will help solve crime. Their reasoning is straightforward: If a registered gun is left at a crime scene, it can be used to identify the criminal.
Unfortunately, it rarely works out this way. . . . .

The rest of the piece is available here.
Firearms, Gun Control

Voters Do Not Support Lawsuits Against Firearms Manufacturers, Retailers, Poll Finds

 


NEWTOWN, Conn. – Seven of 10 American voters do not support allowing crime victims to sue firearm manufacturers and retailers when firearms they made or sold lawfully after background checks are used illegally in crime. Instead, voters from across political parties and geographic regions back the defense that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) provides the firearms industry.More than 70 percent of voters disagree with a position one presidential candidate has made a centerpiece of her campaign. Like that candidate, others running for federal office have chosen to run against and misrepresent this decade-old law that prevents crime victims from suing firearm manufacturers and retailers who have not broken any laws.

These findings were among the results of a national scientific poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted in mid-April by Harper Polling and released today by the National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry.

Some 72 percent of those surveyed agree that the PLCAA “should be kept and we should punish the criminals who commit these acts not the law-abiding manufacturers and retailers of lawful products which get misused” instead of “this law should be repealed because the current protection enables manufacturers and retailers to sell guns to people who shouldn’t have them, because they know they cannot be sued and don’t face any consequences” (26 percent). Only 4 percent were not sure. Read more

Gun Control

Tennessee legislature makes major moves to get rid of gun-free zones at public universities and businesses

From John Lott, Jr.

2000px-Flag_of_Tennessee.svg
By overwhelming votes, the Tennessee legislature passed two bills that get rid of gun-free zones at public universities and provides immunity to businesses if they don’t post ban.  CPRC’s John Lott testified on both bills when they started in the state Senate Judiciary Committee.
The gun-free zones at public universities allows “full-time employees of state public colleges or universities to carry a handgun while on property owned, operated, or used by the employing college or university if the employee has a valid Tennessee handgun carry permit.”  This bill passed by a 28 to 5 vote in the state Senate and 69 to 24 in the state House.  Republican Gov. Bill Haslam might veto the bill because it didn’t give the institutions the power to opt out, but with a 85 to 15 percent vote in the Senate and a 74 to 26 percent in the House, there are more than enough votes to over ride a veto.  It was the Senate version of the bill that was passed.
The other bill “provides immunity to the business/entity if the business doesn’t post” signs banning permitted concealed handguns.  This bill passed by a 26 to 4 vote in the state Senate and by 77 to 12 in the state House.  The governor hasn’t spoken out on this bill, but even if he were to veto it, it looks as if it would be easy to override the veto.
Taken together these two bills will make a major difference in eliminating gun-free zones in the state.  Tennessee will be the 13th state that is ending gun-free zones on college campuses.  The immunity bill appears to be the first one in the country.
Gun Control

The Top 5 Media Misrepresentations Of Gun Ownership (That Are Actually Totally Normal)

GW:  All good information at the link below, but what I never hear about why someone would want particular guns and particular ammo relates to the real reason for the Second Amendment:  It’s there to protect citizens from tyrannical rule, which by the way, we get closer to with each passing day.  Certainly, government officials avoid such talk at any cost.

“Nobody needs thousands of rounds of ammunition in their home.”

“Nobody needs armor-piercing bullets.”

“Nobody needs a stockpile of guns.”

“Nobody needs assault weapons.”

“Nobody needs…”  You finish the statement.

The logical responses to these bogus questions are here…

Ammunition, Firearms, Gun Control

Should the Capitol Remain “Gun-Free”?

From John Lott, Jr…

Like so many mass public shootings, the gunman who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Monday first tried shooting a uniformed officer.  Fortunately, the lone gunman was quickly subdued and no one other than the attacker was seriously injured. But it raises questions of what would have happened with a more coordinated terrorist attack.

With terror attacks occurring regularly around the world, we can’t ignore the fact that the Capitol would provide a primary target for terrorists.  Indeed, an FBI informant foiled such an attack in January.

Police are crucial – probably the single most important factor in reducing crime. But uniformed police have a tough job stopping terrorists since they are often the first targets in any attack.

In late 2013, Ron Noble, who at the time was secretary-general of Interpol, Europe’s version of the FBI, noted two means of protecting people from mass shootings:

“One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves (should be) so secure that in order to get into the soft target, you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.”

But with terrorists planning these attacks many months or even years in advance, Noble warned that his experience taught him it was virtually impossible to stop killers from getting weapons.

Read more

Gun Control, Self Defense

SAF: Garland Nomination Should Be Rejected


BELLEVUE, WA – The founder of the Second Amendment Foundation today said that the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama should be rejected.

SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, reacting to this morning’s announcement, was blunt: “This is not a good nomination and Judge Garland should not be confirmed.”

President Obama nominated Garland, who is the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to fill the seat left vacant by the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the landmark 2008 Second Amendment ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. Scalia was considered a giant on the court and one of its finest conservative voices.

On the other hand, “Judge Garland voted to grant an en banc hearing to Heller after the three judge panel struck down the District of Columbia’s gun ban law. The only reason to do so would be to overturn the pro Second Amendment ruling. That was hostile to gun rights.” Read more

Gun Control
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