Outdoor commentary and legislative issues.
Another mass killing in a gun-free zone – the perfect scenario for another perverted mind. And, the idealists wonder why anyone would want to carry concealed in a place such as a church? Wonder no more about a failed attempt to make us feel safe. Details of the misconception are here by John Lott.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry, applauds the introduction yesterday of H.R. 2710, the Lawful Purpose and Self Defense Act of 2015, by Congressman Rob Bishop (R-UT), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
The bill would revise the Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended, to replace the “sporting purposes” and “sporting use” sections with modernizing language used to better define whether firearms and ammunition can be lawfully imported, possessed and transferred. NSSF considers the “sporting purpose” and “sporting use” provisions to be outdated and a hindrance to bringing lawful products to market. The 2008 Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller noted that the core purpose of the Second Amendment is self-defense, and the language of H.R. 2710 will more accurately reflect this core meaning of the right to bear arms.
H.R. 2710 would prevent narrow interpretations of federal law, such as reclassifying certain rifle ammunition as “armor piercing.” Lack of a clear definition of what “sporting purposes” and “sporting use” mean has allowed, for example, the Obama Administration to try to circumvent Congress and attempt to ban a popular type of ammunition for modern sporting rifles. Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – New legislation mandating so-called “authorized user” technology on handguns is nothing more than a re-packaged “smart gun” scheme, and it’s a stupid idea that should be dead-on-arrival on Capitol Hill, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
The “Handgun Trigger Safety Act of 2015” was announced yesterday by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY). It would require that within five years of passage, all handguns manufactured in the United States include “smart gun” technology that allows them to be used only by “authorized’ users. “This is like listening to a broken jukebox, playing the same song over and over again,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This is nothing more than backdoor handgun ban, but this time Maloney and Markey are dropping it on the front porch. They know that reliable technology doesn’t exist.” Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – Today’s nationwide effort by the Michael Bloomberg-supported Everytown for Gun Safety to promote the wearing of orange garments in an effort to push the gun control agenda at least uses a color so many of Bloomberg’s former colleagues are already wearing, in prison, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms observed.
“We’ve been watching social media throughout the day, and we’re stunned that the organizers of this event chose the same color that many prison inmates, including several ex-members of Bloomberg’s other group, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, are wearing every day of the year,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “At least they’re sticking with a color familiar to so many anti-gun politicians.”
Two Bloomberg-supported groups, Everytown and Moms Demand Action, along with other gun control organizations – essentially the entire gun prohibition lobby – are endorsing and participating in today’s “wear orange” effort. “When this publicity stunt was launched,” Gottlieb observed, “the organizers tried to peddle this as an adoption of the color that hunters wear for safety in the field. What they didn’t expect, however, is that millions of hunters and gun owners are now fighting back, reminding the gun grabbers on social media that orange is also the color of prison jumpsuits. Read more
Predictably, the Fraud in Chief has one more attempt at disarming Americans on his agenda. Details of his plan are here…
BELLEVUE, WA – The North Carolina Supreme Court today accepted an amicus brief from the Second Amendment Foundation in a case that challenges the ability of a county ordinance to completely prohibit the construction and operation of shooting ranges, thus preventing the exercise of protected Second Amendment activities inside the county.
The case, Byrd v. Franklin County, revolves around the county’s Unified Development Ordinance (UDO). The state Court of Appeals has interpreted the UDO to “prohibit entirely” the development of shooting ranges in the county. SAF’s amicus curiae brief challenges that interpretation on Second Amendment grounds.
“This is an important issue to the foundation,” noted SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “because we had to sue the City of Chicago to overturn their law prohibiting the operation of shooting ranges inside the city limits, while requiring training at a range facility in order to obtain a city handgun permit.
“We believe this judicial interpretation creates an impermissible infringement on the Second Amendment rights of Franklin County residents,” he added. Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today said a White House suggestion that more gun control is one solution to the kind of violence that rocked Baltimore over the holiday weekend in that city’s continuing unrest is “simply ludicrous.”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was quoted by various news sources suggesting that stricter gun regulation might be necessary to stem the violence that claimed nine lives last weekend in Baltimore.
“Obviously there’s some common sense things we could do – certainly passage of some gun safety laws in Congress that could keep guns out of the hands of criminals would be one thing that we could do to try to limit the violence,” Earnest reportedly stated. Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – The federal district court judge handling the Second Amendment Foundation’s challenge to the District of Columbia’s “good reason” concealed carry permit requirement has denied the city’s request for an immediate administrative stay of his ruling last week granting a preliminary injunction against further enforcement of the requirement. The District is also seeking a stay pending appeal. Read more
BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation is asking the federal court to force the District of Columbia to abide by a May 18 ruling requiring the city to drop its requirement to show a “good reason” before issuing concealed carry permits, or find the city in contempt.
The request comes after SAF learned the city is denying permit applications for 90 days to “review” the order by Judge Frederick J. Scullin. SAF is noting in its new complaint to the court that, “Since ‘good reason’ and ‘proper reason’ no longer need be investigated, there is no need for the process to take even 90 days, let alone 180 or more days. Nor does the Court’s order allow for a 90-day ‘review’ period. The order itself is unambiguous. If Defendants do not understand it, they should have moved immediately for clarification. In any event, the Court’s order is supposed to be in effect now. All elements of contempt are plainly established: “(1) there was a court order in place; (2) the order required certain conduct by the defendant; and (3) the defendant failed to comply with that order.” Read more
On Thursday morning in the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Michael Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced an amendment to the Financial Regulatory Improvement Act to prohibit federal banking and credit union regulators from implementing or participating in the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice originated “Operation Choke Point.” In his remarks, Crapo aptly compared the administration’s logic in launching Operation Choke Point to the strategy used in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie “Minority Report,” as if it could be determined who might commit a crime (in this case fraud) ahead of any actual evidence of wrongdoing. In the real-world case, however, entire industries were targeted.