Those Damn Guns Again

thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
source: Los Angles Times

In a turnabout, Colorado Democrats win back seats lost in gun recall
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Colorado Democrats won back a pair of seats lost in a 2013 recall election. Former State Sen. President John Morse, one of those ousted for supporting gun controls, said he always knew Democrats would take the seats back in the 2014 midterm election. (Michael Ciaglo / Associated Press)
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</aside> Few states have experienced the political volatility that Colorado has over the last two decades.

Control of the Legislature flipped back and forth. The state see-sawed in presidential contests.

The last two years, though, have been particularly eventful.

In 2013, after Democrats seized control of the statehouse under Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, lawmakers went on a spree, passing a liberal wish list that thrilled left-leaning constituents but alienated plenty of others, especially rural conservatives upset by a brace of gun-control measures adopted after the July 2012 Aurora theater massacre.

The result, just a few months later, was a nationally publicized recall that ended in the ouster of two Democratic lawmakers, one of them president of the state Senate.

On Tuesday, however, in a little-noticed footnote to Colorado’s closely watched gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, the Democrats won back both of those seats, and it wasn’t at all close in either Pueblo or Colorado Springs.

At the time, the recall was trumpeted far and wide as a victory for pro-gun activists; a third state senator in the Denver suburbs quit soon after rather than face the prospect of being tossed from office before this year’s elections.

Now it’s gun-control activists who are crowing.

Mark Glaze, former executive director of the group Everytown for Gun Safety, said the results showed that when a significant portion of the electorate turns out, rather than a small, agitated minority, support for something like universal background checks for gun buyersis a politically winning position. (That was part of the package Hickenlooper, who was reelected Tuesday, signed into law.)

“The message remains that the [National Rifle Association] can bully politicians or buy them for a few pieces of silver but they have no influence over the general public,” Glaze said.

Interesting statement from a man who doles out money the way he does,” replied Laura Carno, a conservative strategist in Colorado Springs who helped lead the recall effort against then-State Senate President John Morse. The reference was to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose generous contributions and organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, became an issue in the recall.

Once in Denver, the state capital, the Republicans who replaced the two booted Democrats joined efforts to overturn the state’s background check requirement, as well as a new law limiting the size of gun magazines to 15 rounds or fewer.

Both attempts failed but not before the Republican who replaced Morse, Bernie Herpin, rather indelicately suggested it was “maybe a good thing” that accused killer James Holmes showed up at the Aurora theater with a 100-round magazine “because it jammed.”

"If he had four, five, six 15-round magazines, there’s no telling how much damage he could have done until a good guy with a gun showed up," Herpin said.

The remark caused great upset, not least for relatives of the Aurora victims, but didn’t necessarily damage Herpin’s reelection chances. Strategists on both sides say gun issues played little role in this fall’s campaign, in either Pueblo or Colorado Springs.

Allies of Morse did, however, take particular pleasure in Herpin’s defeat by Democrat Michael Merrifield, who once worked for Bloomberg’s anti-gun group.

As for the former lawmaker, his feeling is less a sense of vindication than an attitude of I-told-you so.

He noted that both Senate districts are heavily Democratic and even the relatively meager turnout for Tuesday’s midterm election far exceeded the 20% of voters who cast ballots in the September 2013 recall vote.

“It’s like, yeah, of course,” Morse said in a telephone interview from Denver, where he opened a certified public accounting practice. “We were always going to take back that seat and we did.”

Morse had been scheduled to leave office under term limits in January 2015.

“I had an eight-year contract, in two four-year increments. The voters let me out after seven years,” he said. He professed no regrets.

“I’m glad I did what I did,” Morse said of his support for the gun legislation.

As for Herpin, he called during a break in a Republican caucus luncheon, where lawmakers were awaiting a count of votes in suburban Adams County to learn which party will control the Senate starting next year.

He expressed no regrets either. “It was an honor to serve,” Herpin said of his relatively brief Senate term, adding it was too soon to say whether he will run again in 2016.
 

thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
source: Raw Story


More guns, more crime: Stanford research undermines the NRA’s favorite study


Researchers at Stanford have concluded that, contrary to the political commonplace that right-to-carry (RTC) or concealed-carry laws decrease violent crime, such laws have actually increased the number of violent crimes in the states that have passed them since 1999.

Law professor John J. Donohue III said that “[t]rying to estimate the impact of right-to-carry laws has been a vexing task over the last two decades,” in large part because the most frequently cited study, John Lott and David Mustard’s “More Guns, Less Crime” (1997), ended “just before the extraordinary crime drop of the 1990s.”

Despite its problems, Lott and Mustard’s study is regularly mentioned in public policy debates by pro-gun advocates and the National Rifle Association. As Donohue notes, “even as the empirical support for the Lott and Mustard thesis was weakening, its political impact was growing [as] legislators continued to cite this work in support of their votes on behalf of RTC laws.”

“The ‘More Guns, Less Crime’ claim,” he added, “has been invoked often in support of ensuring a personal right to have handguns under the Second Amendment.”

Donohue and his assistants, Stanford law student Abhay Aneja and Johns Hopkins doctoral student Alexandria Zhang, contend that a more accurate estimate of the effect of RTC laws on violent crime would examine data from 1999-2010, because that “period does include the immense increases and then declines associated with the rise and fall of the crack epidemic.”

When the “confounding influence” of the crack cocaine epidemic is accounted for, the trio found that “[t]he totality of the evidence based on educated judgments about the best statistical models suggests that right-to-carry laws are associated with substantially higher rates” of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

The strongest evidence was for aggravated assault, which increased by almost 8 percent, but homicides also increased in the eight states that adopted RTC laws between 1999 and 2010.

Read “The Impact of Right to Carry Laws and the NRC Report: The Latest Lessons for the Empirical Evaluation of Law and Policy” here.
 

Greed

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Court won't revisit concealed weapon permits case

Court won't revisit concealed weapon permits case
Associated Press
By PAUL ELIAS November 12, 2014 7:43 PM

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gun owners and advocates scored another big legal victory Wednesday in their quest to loosen restrictions on carrying concealed weapons in California.

A divided federal appeals court kept in place a ruling requiring the San Diego County sheriff to issue concealed weapon permits to most law-abiding citizens who apply for one, a standard that all California sheriffs and police chiefs must also follow.

Police and county sheriffs have the authority in California to issue concealed weapons permits. The applications process has, for the most part, been left to sheriffs.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February struck down the San Diego sheriff's requirement that applicants must show a "good cause" beyond self-defense to obtain a permit as an infringement of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

The 9th Circuit said requiring applicants to show they were in immediate danger or otherwise had a "good cause" for a permit was too restrictive. If the ruling stands, concealed weapon permit applicants will still have to pass background checks and undergo training.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris asked the court to reconsider that ruling after the San Diego sheriff declined to appeal. Harris argues that loosening concealed weapon permitting standards and allowing more people to carry guns threatens law enforcement officials and endangers the public.

On Wednesday, the same three-judge panel by the same 2-1 vote barred Harris and the advocacy group the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence from intervening in the case. The court said Harris and the Brady Center waited too long to try to interject themselves in a case originally filed in 2009.

C.D. Michel, a guns right lawyer who often represents the National Rifle Association, said the ruling striking down the "good cause" requirement "was a long overdue recognition of the right to obtain a license to carry a firearm to defend yourself."

David Beltran, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said it was reviewing the 9th Circuit ruling to determine its next step, which could include a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The attorney general has also asked the 9th Circuit to reconsider a separate, but similar, ruling that struck down Yolo County's concealed weapons policy as too restrictive. The 9th Circuit hasn't ruled on that matter.

After the February ruling, concealed weapon applications spiked and counties have reacted differently.

Orange County has issued hundreds of concealed weapons since February without requiring "good cause," but other counties such as San Diego have been waiting for a final court ruling before approving applications listing only self-defense as a reason for wanting to carry a concealed weapon.

San Diego Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Janet Caldwell said the ruling Wednesday was being reviewed.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, was also barred from intervening in the case. Center director Jonathan Lowy said his organization is also considering its next steps.

Legal experts said the initial ruling by the appeals court relied heavily on a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision that law-abiding citizens have a fundamental right to keep handguns in the home for self-defense. The U.S. Supreme Court didn't address whether that right extended outside the home. The 9th Circuit panel concluded it did.

"A right to bear arms is no right at all if you need to demonstrate a need to carry that firearm which satisfies the police," said Joyce Malcolm, a law professor at George Mason University law school.

https://news.yahoo.com/court-wont-revisit-concealed-weapon-permits-case-221546995.html
 

thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
No parent should ever have to receive a text like this.

Last night a gunman opened fire inside a campus library at Florida State University, injuring at least three people.

This was the 91st school shooting since Newtown.



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thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
source: Raw Story

Woman dead after accidentally shooting herself with gun bought for Ferguson protection


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A woman accidentally shot and killed herself late Friday with a gun she bought to protect herself from unrest in Ferguson.

The woman, identified by police as 26-year-old Becca Campbell, was riding in a car with her boyfriend near some vacant lots in downtown St. Louis, reported CNN.

The 33-year-old man, whose name was not released, said Campbell waved the gun around and joked that the couple was ready for possible violence related to the pending grand jury decision in the death of Michael Brown.

“We’re ready for Ferguson,” she allegedly said.

Police are continuing to investigate to determine whether physical evidence backs the boyfriend’s account.

Retailers report a sharp spike in gun sales in recent weeks in the Ferguson area as a St. Louis County grand jury decides whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting death of the unarmed 18-year-old.

The man said he ducked to avoid the weapon and accidentally wrecked into the rear of another vehicle.

The crash caused the gun to fire accidentally, and Campbell was struck in the head by a bullet.

She later died at a hospital.



Paul Hampel @phampel
Follow

1. On 8/18, I took this pic of #Ferguson protester Becca Campbell arguing w a cop. Campbell was fatally shot on Fri.
<time pubdate="" class="dt-updated" datetime="2014-11-24T01:41:41+0000" title="Time posted: 24 Nov 2014, 01:41:41 (UTC)">8:41 PM - 23 Nov 2014</time> Brentwood, MO, United States



Police are continuing to investigate to determine whether physical evidence backs the boyfriend’s account.

Retailers report a sharp spike in gun sales in recent weeks in the Ferguson area as a St. Louis County grand jury decides whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting death of the unarmed 18-year-old.
 

QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator

Why didn't police taze him?
Slain Cleveland boy's father, Anonymous ask​

The father of the 12-year-old Ohio boy fatally shot by police – and
an online hacking group – are asking why police didn't use a Taser.​


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This undated photo provided by the family's attorney shows Tamir Rice. Rice, 12, was fatally shot
by police in Cleveland after brandishing what turned out to be a replica gun, triggering an inves-
tigation into his death and a legislator's call for such weapons to be brightly colored or bear
special markings.



In the wake of the police fatal shooting of an Ohio 12-year-old boy who was brandishing an air pistol, the child's father is asking why police couldn't have resorted to using lesser force – a taser – and the online hacking consortium Anonymous is echoing the call.

"Why not taze him?" Gregory Henderson, Tamir Rice's father, posed to Northeast Ohio Media Group. "You shot him twice, not once, and at the end of the day you all don't shoot for the legs, you shoot for the upper body."

Then Anonymous blamed the Cleveland police department for a "lack of appropriate training" for the admittedly "rookie officer" who shot the boy in a statement in warning they would shut down police websites – and later, it was reported that the city of Cleveland website was disabled.

"Why did he not use a Taser on this child? Shooting him in cold blood was not necessary with these non-lethal options available," a man behind a Guy Fawkes mask says in a YouTube video that appears to come from the group.

The subject of excessive - or reasonable - force by police has become a hot topic in America in the wake of the August fatal shooting by Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

The man who called Cleveland police said the gun was "probably fake" and that the "guy" waving it was scaring people, The New York Daily News reported.

Cleveland Deputy Chief Edward Tomba says he doesn't know whether a 911 dispatcher told responding officers that the gun was "probably fake."

Dispatched police said they were responding to reports of a "male with a gun threatening," and Tamir did not follow orders from the officers to keep his hands up, according to Northeast Ohio Media Group. Tomba says surveillance video of the shooting is "very clear" about what occurred.

Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association president Jeff Follmer said taking a Taser out when it is believed a suspect is armed puts the officer at risk.

"We're not trained to shoot people in the leg," Follmer said. "If we pull that trigger, we feel our lives are in danger."

Anonymous anticipated this response: "The excuse 'we feared for our lives' is ludicrous when the victim was only 12 years old and only had possession of a toy airsoft gun."

Cleveland police's Use of Deadly Force Investigation Team is investigating the shooting, and evidence will be turned over to a grand jury to decide if it was justified.

Meanwhile, State Rep. Alice Reece, a Democrat from Cincinnati and the president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, announced Sunday that she will introduce legislation requiring all BB guns, air rifles and airsoft guns sold in Ohio to be brightly colored or have prominent fluorescent strips, The Associated Press reported.

The replica pistol used by Tamir Rice, did not have any bright markers, so it looked like a real gun, said Cleveland police.

"The shooting of John Crawford III devastated many people in our community and left us looking for answers," Reece said in a news release. "This bill is but one small step in addressing this tragedy and helping to prevent future deadly confrontations with someone who clearly presents little to no immediate threat or danger. With Saturday's deadly shooting of a 12-year-old in Cleveland, it is becoming crystal clear that we need this law in Ohio."
?

"Why did he not use a Taser on this child? Shooting him in cold blood was not necessary with these non-lethal options available," a man behind a Guy Fawkes mask says in a YouTube video that appears to come from the group.



http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Up...im-Slain-Cleveland-boy-s-father-Anonymous-ask


 

thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
source: Atlanta Black Star



Caught on Tape: You Won’t Believe What This Gun Dealer in Ferguson Told This Black Woman Who Tried to Buy a Gun



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thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
source: NBC10

6 Dead, 1 Wounded and Gunman on the Loose in Montgomery County Shooting Spree


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Bradley Stone (pictured left) is suspected in the shooting deaths of six people, including his ex-wife Nicole Hill (pictured right), the Montgomery County District Attorney said. He's also accused in shooting a man. He remains at large.

A manhunt is underway for a former Marine reservist who prosecutors say went on a shooting spree early Monday killing six family members, including his ex-wife, and wounding a teen in three towns across Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

Bradley William Stone, 35 of Pennsburg, is considered armed and dangerous. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said police are actively searching for him and residents of one town are being asked to lock themselves indoors.

Stone stands 5-feet-10-inches tall and weighs 195 lbs. He is believed to be clean-shaven, but earlier officials said he could have a red beard and close-cropped hair. He is known to use a cane or walker to assist in moving, Vetri Ferman said. He may also be wearing military fatigues — either green or brown.

The man served more than eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and was deployed to Iraq, according to a Marine Corps spokesman. During his time, he earned several medals and his specialty was Artillery Meteorological Man — effectively a meteorologist that monitors weather conditions to ensure military fire accuracy.

Family friends and neighbors who know Stone said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and was discharged from the military because of it.

SWAT officers used military-grade vehicles and equipment to search Stone's home in the town of Pennsburg and the surrounding area. But so far have no definitive idea of where he may be.

"We actually recovered his vehicle and his personal cell phone so we do not have information about how he might be traveling," Vetri Ferman said. She asked for the public to keep an eye out for Stone and call 911 right away if they spot him.

A man, wearing fatigues and fitting Stone's description, attempted to carjack a driver at knifepoint in the Doylestown, Bucks County area shortly before 8 p.m., county dispatchers tell NBC10. The carjacking victim then fired shots at the man as he fled into the woods, officials said.

Police spent four hours searching the area -- locking down the Central Bucks YMCA and Stonington Farms Apartments. Philadelphia Police sent one of their tatical helicopters, equipped with an infrared camera, to the area to help, officials said.

Having turned up nothing, the search was suspended around midnight, but officials asked residents to remain vigilent.

Among Stone's seven victims is his former wife, Nicole Hill Stone. She was shot inside her apartment in the Harleysville section of Lower Salford Township, just feet from their kids, around 4:55 a.m., police sources, prosecutors and neighbors tell NBC10.

“I heard the kids say, ‘Mommy no. We need my mom. I want my mom.’ And I heard [the suspect] say ‘Let’s go. We have to go now. We’re leaving,’” the woman’s next-door neighbor, at the Pheasant Run Apartments along 150 Main Street, said.

Moments after being jolted awake by the gunshots and hearing the yelling, the woman saw the children, believed to be 8-and 5-years-old, and a man running to a car parked outside.

“I opened the window and I asked him ‘Is everything OK?’ He just looked at me and said ‘She’s hurt pretty bad. We have to leave. She’s hurt.’ And he just got in the car and just left," she said.

When police arrived, they found the mother dead inside the second-floor apartment, police sources tell NBC10. Two bullet holes dotted the apartment's outer wall.

The children were located safe at the home of Stone's neighbor in Pennsburg, Vetri Ferman said.

Hill Stone was last on her ex-husband's hit list, the prosecutor said.

Stone shot the woman's mother, Jo Anne Koder, and her 75-year-old grandmother, Patricia Hill, inside their home along W. Fifth and Pierce Streets in Lansdale around 4:25 a.m., Vetri Ferman said.

The county's 911 call center received a hang up call shortly before the shooting, she said. Police spent three hours searching the area following the shooting, but turned up nothing.

A check shortly before 8 a.m. at the Souderton home of Hill Stone's sister, Trish Flick, turned up another gruesome scene.

Stone barged into Flick's Penn Avenue home around 3:30 a.m. and shot her, her husband Aaron, their 14-year-old daughter Nina and 17-year-old son Anthony, according to prosecutors.

SWAT officers surrounded the home after arriving and spent hours trying to make contact with a person they could see moving inside.

Around 11 a.m., officers fired a diversionary device into the home and, following the resulting boom, entered. They found all, but Anthony Flick dead. He was rushed to a waiting medical helicopter and flown to Thomas Jefferson Hospital's trauma center in Philadelphia, officials said.

Still, Stone was nowhere to be found.

The situation prompted homes to be evacuated and a shelter in place order to be activated in the town's school district. That was lifted around noon as SWAT officers left the Penn Avenue scene. That house remains under investigation as an active crime scene, Towamencin Township Police Chief Paul Dickinson said.

Those officers, driving a mine-resistant vehicle, then made their way to a fourth home, a duplex owned by Stone, along Main and W. 4th streets in Pennsburg. That home is about 20 miles from Souderton and is where additional SWAT officers had been stationed for hours.

Police broke down a garage door and the front door, fired several gas canisters inside and used a megaphone to say "Bradley, this is the police. Come out now."

After getting no response for hours, SWAT officers moved inside and found nothing. They then expanded their search to areas nearby.

Sources said officials have asked other county law enforcement agencies to send two-men patrol cars to assist in the search. Officials in neighboring Bucks County and the FBI confirmed they are also supporting the effort.

Because of the manhunt, the Upper Perkiomen School District, which serves Stone's town, announced its schools will be closed on Tuesday.

Officials have not released a motive for the shooting, but several of Nicole Hill's neighbors and friends said the woman feared for her life as the two went through a bitter custody dispute.

"She knew and [Bradley] would tell her that he was going to kill her," said friend Evan Weron. "She would go around to all the ladies in the neighborhood 'This man's going to kill me.' She felt threatened."

 

Greed

Star
Registered
Texas lawmakers put new gun rights laws in their sights

Texas lawmakers put new gun rights laws in their sights
Reuters
By Jim Forsyth
December 14, 2014 12:06 PM

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Several proposed new gun laws await the new Texas legislature when it opens next month, including one to allow open carrying of handguns in public and another providing a sales tax holiday for firearms purchases.

The Republican-dominated legislature will become even more conservative due the party's landslide win in the November election, with many members pledging to expanding firearms rights in the state often seen as an incubator of conservative policies nationwide.

Proposed measures would ban cities and counties from restricting gun rights and try to have any new federally imposed restrictions on firearms declared illegal in Texas. Lawmakers are also looking to prohibit schools from punishing students who fashion their breakfast pastries into the shape of a gun.

"We have so many gun bills that have been filed that we can't have anything but an open carry law passed next year," said C.J. Grisham, founder of the activist group Open Carry Texas.

The group has been pushing for the unlicensed open carrying of handguns, pointing to laws in Texas and elsewhere that allow for the unlicensed open carrying of long guns such as rifles.

Current Texas law grants citizens the right to carry concealed handguns with a permit.

An open carry measure seems likely with nine pieces of legislation up for consideration and Governor-elect Greg Abbott, a Republican who takes office in January, saying he supports the move.

There has been some push back after members of Open Carry Tarrant County were criticized for endangering public safety by staging rallies this year where armed members took to streets, stores and restaurants seeking support for their cause.

In response to a wave of school shootings across the United States, some conservative Texas lawmakers advocate measures that would make it easier for teachers and administrators to carry weapons, arguing that this is a way to prevent violence.

A so-called "Pop-Tart bill" to bar punishment for children who make firearms inferences has attracted much attention. It was inspired by the case of a Maryland school that suspended a second-grader for chewing a breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun.

"The bill is a proactive effort to prevent even the chance of a Texas student losing valuable instruction time due to an act of non-disruptive, non-threatening behavior by a child," said State Representative Ryan Guillen, a Democrat sponsoring the bill.

http://news.yahoo.com/texas-lawmakers-put-gun-rights-laws-sights-170603399.html
 

thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
source: New York Times

Tracing the Gun Used to Kill 2 New York City Police Officers

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<figure id="media-100000003416327" class="media photo lede layout-large-horizontal" data-media-action="modal" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/12/25/nyregion/25gun-photo1/25gun-photo1-articleLarge-v2.jpg" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group"><figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description"> The Arrowhead Pawn Shop, in Jonesboro, Ga., is where the gun used to kill two New York City police officers was last purchased in a legally traceable transaction, in 1996, according to a police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. Credit Kevin Liles for The New York Times </figcaption></figure>
JONESBORO, Ga. — The silver Taurus semiautomatic handgun used to kill two police officers in New York City began its journey into the hands of the gunman, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, a felon with a history of mental illness, at a pawnshop here bristling with guns for sale.

It was at Arrowhead Pawn Shop, a sprawling store tucked into a shopping center along a busy commercial corridor in this city of 4,700 people just south of Atlanta, that the gun was last purchased in a legally traceable transaction in 1996, according to a police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.

An Asian man purchased the gun, according to the official, but that buyer told investigators this week that he gave the weapon to a cousin. Federal investigators are now trying to determine what happened to the gun after that.

“We’ll try to piece together the trail of that gun,” the police official said, “from hand to hand, from person to person, to find out how it gets to him.”

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The silver Taurus semiautomatic handgun used to kill two police officers in New York City.

Although Arrowhead is nearly 900 miles away, New York police officials are familiar with the store, where on Tuesday a yellow, black and red sign in a neon-rimmed window promoted a $279.99 “super buy” for a 9-millimeter pistol. Another window featured a three-word advertisement, just above a notice of a Christmas sale, in bold, yellow letters: “We Buy Guns.”

As recently as 2010, Arrowhead was the leading out-of-state source of guns recovered in crimes by the New York Police Department, according to an article in The Daily News. Georgia is also part of the “Iron Pipeline,” a chain of Southern states with looser gun laws that is responsible for sending a steady stream of firearms into New York and other Northern cities, where there are many more restrictions on who can purchase a gun.

When a gun is recovered in a crime, investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assist local law enforcement agencies by identifying through purchasing records the last time the gun was sold through a licensed a gun dealer. Gun control advocates, as well as some law enforcement officials, including in New York City, have called for curbs on stores that are responsible for unusually high volumes of crime gun traces. They are particularly concerned about places where there is a short duration between when the gun was last sold and when it was recovered by the police in a crime.

Information in the federal database on which gun dealers turn up most frequently in these traces is closely protected, as a result of legislation passed in 2003. But The Washington Post obtained four years’ worth of trace data in 2010 and found Arrowhead was the fifth-largest source of crime traces in the country.

In 2006, in two separate lawsuits, New York City, under the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, sued 27 dealers whose guns were turning up repeatedly in crimes. But Arrowhead, which Georgia records show was first registered with the state in 1989, was not among them. Eventually, most of the gun dealers settled with the city, agreeing to a federal monitor to oversee their businesses for three years and to make various changes to prevent gun trafficking.

A store’s guns turning up frequently in crimes is not necessarily evidence that its employees are doing anything illegal. It could simply be an indication that the store does brisk business.

Speaking about Arrowhead, a former federal law enforcement official who carried out gun investigations in the South said: “They were like a Crazy Eddie of gun dealers. They had a lot of volume and they did a lot of business.”

A high number of traces could also be a tipoff that a store’s employees are not doing enough to weed out “straw purchasers,” people who are purchasing guns on behalf of people who are not legally allowed to have them because of felony convictions or other reasons.

“Some of it is a willful ignorance, or just a mind-set of, ‘My obligation is only to follow the letter of the law,’ as opposed to some gun dealers who sort of take it to the next length and say, ‘Anything I think doesn’t seem right, I have no obligation to sell, and I’m not going to sell,'” said Daniel Webster, the director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, who has researched gun trafficking.

On Tuesday, employees at Arrowhead, which is nestled between a store selling school uniforms and a Hibachi Grill Supreme Buffet, refused to discuss the transaction related to the police shooting.

“We’re not going to answer any questions today,” an employee said. “Please leave.”

Reached by telephone later that day, Arthur Banks, the store’s chief executive, declined to comment.

On its website, Arrowhead describes itself as “a family-owned business dedicated to good prices, good customer service and good vibes.” It began as a small store of about 2,000 square feet, and it expanded to four times that size after a 2007 fire.

Rows of guns line the walls of the store, which includes a poster for the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” campaign, a push by the firearms industry and law enforcement officials to discourage illegal purchases. Christmas music played on Tuesday afternoon as customers browsed among a collection of televisions, jewelry, stereos and guitars.

Mr. Brinsley had multiple felony convictions on his criminal record, which would have prohibited him from being able to legally purchase and possess a firearm. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge in Fulton County, Ga., for shoplifting from Neiman Marcus. In 2011, he was convicted on multiple felony charges for firing a bullet into a woman’s car, using a stolen handgun.

As investigators track the history of the gun used in the shooting, they are running it through regional ballistics databases to see if it has been used in other crimes. So far, the East Coast regional system check has come back negative, the police official said. But officials are still checking other parts of the country.
 
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Appeals court ruling could put gun case on Supreme Court track

Appeals court ruling could put gun case on Supreme Court track
National Constitution Center By NCC Staff
2 hours ago

A federal court ruling upholding gun rights for people who had a past mental illness is being closely watched as a potential Supreme Court test case.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in Tyler v. Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Department that a “strict scrutiny” test should be applied to a gun ownership case, potentially invalidating a federal law that restricts gun ownership by someone “adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution”
According to court documents, Clifford Tyler, now 73, was committed to a Michigan mental institution for about a month in 1985 after suffering issues after a divorce. After he was released and returned to work, Tyler had no other instances of being committed.

Tyler applied a gun permit in 2011, but he was denied under a federal law that excludes ownership for people with any past history of mental illness unless they fall into a category of exception.

However, Tyler wasn’t eligible for a federal-state program that gives some people an exception, because Michigan doesn’t take part in it. Tyler also didn’t qualify for a federally based program, because Congress has refused to fund the program since 1992 and it doesn’t pay government workers to review applications for people like Tyler.

Judge Danny Boggs wrote the 48-page opinion in the case, and he faulted Congress in part for Tyler’s situation.

“This is case presents an important issue of first impression in the federal courts: whether a prohibition on the possession of firearms by a person ‘who has been committed to a mental institution’ violates the Second Amendment,” Boggs said. “Because Tyler’s complaint validly states a violation of the Second Amendment, we reverse and remand.”

“Congress, in its efforts to keep firearms away from the mentally ill, may cast a wider net than is necessary to perfectly remove the harm,” Boggs continued.

He found that Tyler was stuck in a “Catch 22” situation, because Congress wouldn’t fund the federal program Tyler needed for gun ownership, because Congress wanted Michigan to offer a similar program. When Michigan refused, Tyler was left without options.

“An individual’s ability to exercise a “fundamental righ[t] necessary to our system of ordered liberty … cannot turn on such a distinction,” Boggs found, citing the Supreme Court’s McDonald decision about gun rights.

For now, the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court will allow the federal government to dispute claims that Tyler isn’t mentally ill, and then the case will court to a federal court to allow Tyler to claim he has a right to gun ownership.

In broader terms, Judge Tyler’s opinion strikes down the part of the federal law that bars anyone with a history of mental illness from owing a gun, saying it fails the strict scrutiny test protecting fundamental constitutional rights.

A second judge in the case, Julia Smith Gibbons, agreed with the overall reasoning, but didn’t concur with Tyler’s use of a strict scrutiny standard.

“I write separately to express my view that we should avoid extensive discussion of the degree of scrutiny to be applied and the ultimate application of strict scrutiny. … I have substantial doubts as to whether strict scrutiny applies in this particular context—especially considering the general trend of our sister circuits it is unnecessary to reach the issue,” Gibbons said.

“For one thing, both parties agree that intermediate scrutiny is the appropriate standard. For another, Tyler has a viable Second Amendment claim under either degree of scrutiny; thus it seems most appropriate to assume, without deciding, that intermediate scrutiny applies here,” she added.

The case is seen as having potential for Supreme Court review because it is the first to recommend the invalidation of a federal gun law since 2008, when the Court clarified its stance on such laws in the Heller case.

Constitution Daily contributor Lyle Denniston, writing for SCOTUSblog, explained the potential challenge.

“Since the Justices’ ruling in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, finding in the Second Amendment a guarantee of a right to have a gun for personal use, at least in some circumstances, federal courts have struggled with how to apply that ruling in specific cases testing specific gun laws. Before the Sixth Circuit ruled, however, none had declared that gun laws should be judged by a ‘strict scrutiny,’ test,” he said.

For now, the ball is in the Justice Department’s court about how it wants to proceed in what will be a closely watched case.

https://news.yahoo.com/appeals-court-ruling-could-put-gun-case-supreme-111808837.html
 

QueEx

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The Tragic Myth

Millions of gun owners successfully use their firearms
to defend themselves and their families from criminals



The Tragic Truth

Guns are more likely to do harm than good.



150114_defilippis_guns_ap.jpg




p o l i t i c o
January 14, 2015


In the early hours of Nov. 2, 2013, in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, a pounding at the door startled Theodore Wafer from his slumber. Unable to find his cell phone to call the police, he grabbed the shotgun he kept loaded in his closet. Wafer opened the door and, spotting a dark figure behind the screen, fired a single blast at the supposed intruder. The shot killed a 19-year-old girl who was knocking to ask for help after a car accident.


Shortly after midnight on June 5, 2014, two friends left a party briefly. Upon returning they accidently knocked on the wrong door. Believing burglars were breaking in, the frightened homeowner called the police, grabbed his gun and fired a single round, hitting one of the confused party-goers in the chest.

On Sept. 21, 2014, Eusebio Christian was awakened by a noise. Assuming a break-in, he rushed to the kitchen with his gun and began firing. All his shots missed but one, which struck his wife in the face.

What do these and so many other cases have in common? They are the byproduct of <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">a tragic myth:</span> <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">that millions of gun owners successfully use their firearms to defend themselves and their families from criminals.</span> Despite having nearly no academic support in public health literature, this myth</span> is the single largest motivation behind gun ownership. It traces its origin to a two-decade-old series of surveys that, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">despite being thoroughly repudiated</span> at the time, <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">persists in influencing personal safety decisions and public policy throughout the United States.</span>​

In 1992, Gary Kleck and Marc Getz, criminologists at Florida State University, conducted a random digit-dial survey to establish the annual number of defensive gun uses in the United States. They surveyed 5,000 individuals, asking them if they had used a firearm in self-defense in the past year and, if so, for what reason and to what effect. Sixty-six incidences of defensive gun use were reported from the sample. The researchers then extrapolated their findings to the entire U.S. population, resulting in an estimate of between 1 million and 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year.

The claim has since become gospel for gun advocates and is frequently touted by the National Rifle Association, pro-gun scholars such as John Lott and conservative politicians. The argument typically goes something like this: Guns are used defensively “over 2 million times every year—five times more frequently than the 430,000 times guns were used to commit crimes.” Or, as Gun Owners of America states, “firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.” Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum has frequently opined on the benefits of defensive gun use, explaining: “In fact, there are millions of lives that are saved in America every year, or millions of instances like that where gun owners have prevented crimes and stopped things from happening because of having guns at the scene.”

It may sound reassuring, but is utterly false. In fact, gun owners are far more likely to end up like Theodore Wafer or Eusebio Christian, accidentally shooting an innocent person or seeing their weapons harm a family member, than be heroes warding off criminals.

* * *​

In 1997, David Hemenway, a professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, offered the first of many decisive rebukes of Kleck and Getz’s methodology, citing several overarching biases in their study.

First, there is the social desirability bias. Respondents will falsely claim that their gun has been used for its intended purpose—to ward off a criminal—in order to validate their initial purchase. A respondent may also exaggerate facts to appear heroic to the interviewer.

Second, there’s the problem of gun owners responding strategically. Given that there are around 3 million members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the United States, ostensibly all aware of the debate surrounding defensive gun use, Hemenway suggested that some gun advocates will lie to help bias estimates upwards by either blatantly fabricating incidents or embellishing situations that should not actually qualify as defensive gun use.

Third is the risk of false positives from “telescoping,” where respondents may recall an actual self-defense use that is outside the question’s time frame. We know that telescoping problems produce substantial biases in defensive gun use estimates because the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the gold standard of criminal victimization surveys, explicitly catalogs and corrects for it.

Specifically, NCVS asks questions on the household level every 6 months. The first household interview has no time frame. Follow-up interviews are restricted to a six-month time frame and then NCVS corrects for duplicates. Using this strategy, NCVS finds that telescoping alone likely produces at least a 30 percent increase in false positives.

These sorts of biases, which are inherent in reporting self-defense incidents, can lead to nonsensical results. In several crime categories, for example, gun owners would have to protect themselves more than 100 percent of the time for Kleck and Getz’s estimates to make sense. For example, guns were allegedly used in self-defense in 845,000 burglaries, according to Kleck and Getz. However, from reliable victimization surveys, we know that there were fewer than 1.3 million burglaries where someone was in the home at the time of the crime, and only 33 percent of these had occupants who weren’t sleeping. From surveys on firearm ownership, we also know that 42 percent of U.S. households owned firearms at the time of the survey. Even if burglars only rob houses of gun owners, and those gun owners use their weapons in self-defense every single time they are awake, the 845,000 statistic cited in Kleck and Gertz’s paper is simply mathematically impossible.

Despite survey data on defensive gun uses being notoriously unreliable, until recently there have been only scattered attempts at providing an empirical alternative. The first scientific attempt was a study in Arizona, which examined newspaper, police reports and court records for defensive gun uses in the Phoenix area over a 100 day period. At the time Arizona had the 6th highest gun death rate, an above average number of households with firearms and a permissive “shall issue” concealed carry law meaning that defensive gun use should be higher than the national average.


Extrapolating Kleck-Gertz survey results to the Phoenix area would predict 98 defensive killings or injuries and 236 defensive firings during the study period. Instead, the study found a total of 3 defensive gun uses where the gun was fired, including one instance in which a feud between two families exploded into a brawl and several of the participants began firing. These results were much more in line with (but still substantially less than) extrapolated NCVS data, which predicted 8 defensive killings or injuries and 19 firings over the same time frame.

Brand new data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-partisan organization devoted to collecting gun violence data, further confirms Hemenway’s suspicion that Kleck and Getz’s findings are absurd. The archive found that for all of 2014 there were fewer than 1,600 verified defensive guns uses, meaning a police report was filed. This total includes all outcomes and types of defensive uses with a police report—a far cry from the millions that Kleck and Getz estimated.


Many gun advocates will protest at this point that not all defensive gun uses are reported to the police, which is true. However, Kleck’s surveys and the NCVS reports indicate that more than 50 percent of such incidents are reported to the police. This would indicate 3,200 defensive uses on an annual basis, still well short of what surveys suggest. Further, if there actually are 50,000 defensive gun uses as NCVS’ data suggests, or more than 1 million as Kleck and Getz’s surveys claim, that would mean only 3.2 percent or 0.16 percent respectively of defensive gun uses are reported to the police. Believing that such a small fraction of incidents are reported is indulging in fantasy.

Kleck and Gertz often defend their paper by claiming that their results are consistent with the findings of other private surveys. They explain that the reliability of a survey should be judged by the degree to which it coheres with the estimates of other surveys. However, using a tool we know to be flawed, over and over again, does not increase the quality of estimates deriving from the tool—it merely produces convergence to an arbitrary number. Surveys, for example, regularly show that men have sex with women more often than women have sex with men. Survey results don’t mean anything if they don’t pass muster with reality.

* * *​

The spurious conclusions in these surveys don’t just distort the pro-gun community’s perception of defensive gun use. For example, the claim that millions every year shoot their guns in self-defense has led some to posit that there are more defensive gun uses than criminal uses. This assertion is inexplicable—not backed by any substantive evidence. We have yet to find a single study examining the question that does not show that criminal uses far outweigh defensive uses.

You might hear gun advocates substantiate this claim by comparing inflated survey numbers like Kleck’s with NCVS crime numbers. But defensive gun use surveys and the NCVS use different methodologies. To compare those two data sets is to break one of the most important laws of statistical analysis: You must always compare likes to likes.

And indeed, comparing NCVS results to NCVS results yields a very different picture—that more than 9 times as many people are victimized by guns than protected by them. Respondents in two Harvard surveys had more than 3 times as many offensive gun uses against them as defensive gun uses. Another study focusing on adolescences found 13 times as many offensive gun uses. Yet another study focusing on gun use in the home found that a gun was more than 6 times more likely to be used to intimidate a family member than in a defensive capacity. The evidence is nearly unanimous.

Beyond the defensive gun use versus criminal use dichotomy lies an important question: Are all defensive gun uses good? Undergirding gun advocates’ rhetoric touting the millions of defensive gun uses every year is the assumption that these uses are necessarily good. However, most cases of defensive gun use are not of gun owners heroically defending their families from criminals.

Kleck himself admitted in 1997, in response to criticism of his survey, that 36 to 64 percent of the defensive gun uses reported in the survey were likely illegal—meaning the firearm was used to intimidate or harm another person rather than for legitimate self-defense. His conjecture was confirmed by a Harvard study showing that 51 percent of defensive gun uses in a large survey were illegal according to a panel of 5 judges. This was even after the judges were told to take the respondents at their word, deliberately ignoring the tendency of respondents to portray themselves in a positive light.

Let’s assume for a moment that Kleck and Getz’s estimates are accurate. Rather than being a boon to civilized society, then, these estimates of 1 million to 2.5 million defensive gun uses annually would instead indicate an epidemic of irresponsible gun owners—millions! Lucky for us, despite what the NRA’s favorite criminologists claim, this clearly isn’t the case.

The myth of widespread defensive gun use is at the heart of the push to weaken already near catatonic laws controlling the use of guns and expand where good guys can carry guns to bars, houses of worship and college campuses—all in the mistaken belief that more “good guys with guns” will help stop the “bad guys.” As Wayne LaPierre of the NRA railed in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”

But the evidence clearly shows that our lax gun laws and increased gun ownership, spurred on by this myth, do not help “good guys with guns” defend themselves, their families or our society. Instead, they are aiding and abetting criminals by providing them with more guns, with 200,000 already stolen on an annual basis. And more guns means more homicides. More suicides. More dead men, women and children. Not fewer.


Evan DeFilippis is a cofounder of ArmedWithReason and a research analyst for Quest Opportunity Fund. Devin Hughes is a cofounder of ArmedWithReason and the founder of Hughes Capital Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Devin Hughes is a cofounder of ArmedWithReason and the founder of Hughes Capital Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor.




Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-gun-ownership-myth-114262.html#ixzz3P7egsZb7





 
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Judge rules federal interstate handgun transfer ban unconstitutional

Judge rules federal interstate handgun transfer ban unconstitutional
Reuters
February 11, 2015 7:53 PM

(Reuters) - A U.S. ban on the interstate sales of handguns by federal firearms dealers to buyers from other states violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor stemmed from a challenge to the ban brought by a Texas firearms dealer and a couple from the District of Columbia in July 2014.

The federal law prohibits a dealer from transferring a handgun, but not a rifle or shotgun, to an individual who does not live in the state in which the dealer's business is located.

"While we expect the government to appeal, we are confident that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will agree with Judge O'Connor's sound ruling," attorney William Mateja, who represented the challengers, said in a statement.

Andrew and Tracey Hanson met with licensed firearms dealer Fredric Mance Jr. in Texas about buying two handguns, but did not complete the transaction because they could not take immediate possession of the weapons, according to court papers.

Federal law required Mance to transfer the handguns to a federally licensed dealer where the Hansons live, Charles Sykes in the District of Columbia, where they could complete the purchase after paying shipping and transfer fees.

The Hansons and Mance, all members of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, argued in their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas that the ban limits consumer choices and infringes on their rights.

O'Connor found that the ban violated the second and fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He also distinguished the ban from other firearms restrictions such as those that target specific people, such as felons or the mentally ill.

"As law abiding, responsible citizens, the Hansons likely do not pose the threat to public safety that motivated Congress to enact the federal interstate handgun transfer ban," O'Connor wrote in his decision.

O'Connor said the government demonstrated a compelling interest in preventing handgun crime, but failed to show how the transfer ban alleviates the problem of prohibited people acquiring handguns by crossing state lines.

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-rules-f...-transfer-ban-unconstitutional-005354669.html
 

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Re: Judge rules federal interstate handgun transfer ban unconstitutional

Judge rules federal interstate handgun transfer ban unconstitutional
Reuters
February 11, 2015 7:53 PM

(Reuters) - A U.S. ban on the interstate sales of handguns by federal firearms dealers to buyers from other states violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge in Texas ruled on Wednesday.

The death lovers want to export their madness to the civilized states!


source: CNN

New York City goes 12 days without a homicide -- a modern record

<cite class="el-editorial-source">New York (CNN)</cite>New York City's longest recorded homicide-free streak ended late Friday night, when a 28-year-old man was shot multiple times just before midnight.

Eric Roman was transported to a nearby hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds to his head, hand and leg and died Saturday, according to the New York Police Department.

New York City had gone 12 days without a homicide, its longest stretch on modern record, police said Monday.

The last reported homicide was February 1, Super Bowl Sunday, in Upper Manhattan, police said.

That day, police responded to a 911 call about multiple shots being fired and found five individuals with gunshot wounds, the NYPD said. One of those five, Graham Shadale, 28, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police have not yet made arrests in either case and both investigations are ongoing, officials said.

The streak has been the longest since the New York Police Department began recording statistics with a computerized program called Compstat in 1994, a police representative said.

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton hushed talk of the streak Friday on "CBS This Morning."

"Shh ... we don't want to jinx it," Bratton told host Charlie Rose. "We're into our 12th day now, Charlie. Eleven is a record and let's keep it going."

Despite the record-breaking streak, there has been an uptick in shooting incidents compared with the same time period last year.

The week between February 1 and February 8 experienced 110 shooting incidents in 2015 versus 91 in 2014, according to Detective Cheryl Crispin of the NYPD public information office.

New York City's last record for a streak of days without a homicide was 10 days. In 2014, there were no recorded homicides between February 13 and February 22.
 

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US considers banning type of popular rifle ammunition

US considers banning type of popular rifle ammunition
Associated Press
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
March 3, 2015 9:54 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is considering banning a type of ammunition used in one of the most popular types of rifles because it says the bullets can pierce a police officer's protective vest when fired from a handgun.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is proposing the ban of some types of 5.56 mm rounds — or .223-caliber — used in widely available and popular AR-15-style rifles because the bullets can also be used in some new types of handguns. Other types of 5.56 mm rounds would still be legal to buy, own and fire from guns.

The rule change would affect only "M855 green tip" or "SS109" rounds with certain types of metal cores. People who already own the ammunition would be allowed to continue to legally own it, but manufacturers would not be allowed to produce, sell, import or distribute it.

In a letter to ATF Director B. Todd Jones last month, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., objected to the rule change, saying it would "interfere with Second Amendment rights by disrupting the market for ammunition that law-abiding Americans use for sporting and other legitimate purposes."

Armor-piercing handgun ammunition has been banned since 1986 as a way to protect police officers under the federal Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act. The rifle bullets now facing a ban were long considered exempt because they were used for sporting purposes, such as target shooting.

An ATF spokeswoman, Ginger Colbrun, said Monday the agency is considering eliminating the exemption now because of the production of so-called AR pistols that can fire the same cartridge. The agency is accepting public comment about the proposed change until March 16 at the email address APAComments@atf.gov, by fax or postal mail. Colbrun said it's unclear when a final decision will be made.

At issue is the material in the core of the bullets. As long as the bullet's core does not contain particular types of metal, including steel, iron or brass, the bullet would still be legally available.

Colbrun said 32 manufacturers make roughly 168 types of ammunition that can be used in the rifles and would remain legal.

The semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, a commercially available gun that resembles the military's M-16 rifle, has become wildly popular among gun enthusiasts in recent years. It's also been the target of Democratic lawmakers who sought to ban the weapons after the 2012 shooting deaths of a dozen people at a movie theater in Colorado and 20 children and six adults at a school in Connecticut. Those efforts failed, but gun rights advocates, including the National Rifle Association, warned that the administration would continue a push to ban the popular guns.

NRA Institute for Legislative Action Executive Director Chris W. Cox said Tuesday "the NRA and our tens of millions of supporters across the country will fight to stop President Obama's latest attack on our Second Amendment freedoms."

ATF's proposed ammunition ban has been under consideration since 2011.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-considers-banning-type-popular-rifle-ammunition-082315307--politics.html
 
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QueEx

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Re: US considers banning type of popular rifle ammunition

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74% of Members of the NRA Support
Background Checks for ALL Gun Sales


<iframe width="780" height="1500" src="http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2015/mar/18/lena-taylor/most-nra-members-back-background-checks-all-gun-pu/" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 

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0bd480e2-5239-4a40-ad69-baf09edfb77e.jpg


Live coverage: 9 killed in Charleston church shooting; manhunt under way
http://news.yahoo.com/charleston-church-shooting-massacre-manhunt-live-103930165.html

Gun laws in South Carolina

South Carolina is a "shall issue" concealed carry permit state. No permit is required to purchase rifles, shotguns, or handguns. South Carolina also has "Castle Doctrine" legal protection of the use of deadly force against intruders into one's home, business, or car.[3] It is unlawful to carry a firearm onto private or public school property or into any publicly owned building except interstate rest areas without express permission. Open carry is not allowed, but no permit is required to carry a loaded handgun in the console or glove compartment of a car. As of September 12, 2008, states with which South Carolina has reciprocity are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.[4][5]

South Carolina law also now supports a "stand your ground" philosophy under the "Protection of Persons and Property Act" SECTION 16-11-440(C) with the following language. The act was apparently ruled non-retroactive in State v. Dickey.[6]

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in another place where he has a right to be, including, but not limited to, his place of business, has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to himself or another person or to prevent the commission of a violent crime as defined in Section 16–1–60.

South Carolina also has the “alter-ego” clause with respect to the defense of others, under which a person who uses deadly force to defend a friend, relative or bystander will be allowed the benefit of the plea of self-defense if that plea would have been available to the person requiring assistance if they had been the one who used deadly force. In other words, the person intervening is deemed to “stand in the shoes” of the person on whose behalf he is intervening. If that individual “had the right to defend himself, then the intervening party is also protected by that right. To claim self-defense, a person has to be in a place they have a legal right to be, not be involved in any illegal activity, must not have started the confrontation, and must be in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm.
 

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<iframe width="635" height="500" src="http://player.theplatform.com/p/2E2eJC/nbcNewsOffsite?guid=f_fh_relative_sc_150618" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>
 

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<iframe src="http://www.vox.com/2015/6/20/8544507/gun-murders-ownership-charts" width=800 height=1000></iframe>
 

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<iframe src="http://investigations.blog.ajc.com/2015/05/11/gun-deaths-up-in-georgia-45-other-states/" width=800 height=1000></iframe>
 

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Why Didn't a Background
Check Stop Dylann Roof?
FBI Director James Comey said an error in the system allowed the Charleston
shooter to obtain a gun he should have been barred from buying.​



How did Dylann Roof pass a criminal background check to buy a gun? Initial reports suggested that Roof’s purchase of the gun he used to murder nine people at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was legal. But now FBI Director James Comey says that’s wrong: Roof should have been prevented from buying the .45 caliber pistol, but something went awry during the background-check process.

Federal laws prevent certain people from purchasing guns, including those facing charges that might result in a prison term of at least a year. Roof was charged earlier this year for the possession of a drug called Suboxone, a misdemeanor offense that did not meet that threshold, and so would not have barred him from making the purchase. But the rules also bar anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from buying a gun. When he was arrested on March 1 for possession, Roof told investigators that he had used the drug, which should automatically have disqualified him. Somehow, that crucial fact never made it into the background-check database.

Comey disclosed the error to reporters on Friday at FBI headquarters. “Comey indicated that the data was not properly entered in federal criminal justice computer systems, or had been mishandled by an analyst with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System,” The Washington Post reported. He said, “this rips all of our hearts out” and “we are all sick this happened,” according to CNN.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, one line of speculation had been that a relative purchased the gun for Roof, then transferred it to him—a private transaction that would have been exempt from checks. Instead, it seems the problem is just a failure in the system. The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI official charged with conducting the background check had faxed requests to the police in West Columbia and to the county’s law-enforcement office, but had not received details of the arrest swiftly enough to prevent the sale.

Under federal law, if there’s a delay in obtaining information from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, a gun can be legally transferred to a buyer after three days, which is what reportedly happened in Roof’s case. Sometimes, NICS turns up information after those three days that should have prevented a gun sale, and a retrieval referral is issued. There were more than 2,500 such referrals in 2014. It’s unclear how long it takes for an arrest to make its way into NICS. Roof was arrested in February and bought his gun in early April.​


MORE OF THIS STORY AT: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/dylann-roof-background-check/398267/



 

QueEx

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Super Moderator
Re: US considers banning type of popular rifle ammunition

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74% of Members of the NRA Support
Background Checks for ALL Gun Sales



Since the shootings in Charleston, President Obama and others
have called for stricter gun laws. Polls show that a huge
majority of Americans support stronger standards for background
checks, among other measures, but legislation has stalled on
Capitol Hill. Some gun-rights advocates pointed to Comey’s
revelation
on Friday as evidence that the problem isn’t lack of
laws—it’s the failure to effectively enforce the ones already on the books.​




Remedies ought not to be viewed as mutually exclusive.
Why not consider BOTH viewpoints as contributors towards a solution.
 

Greed

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African-Americans still favor gun control, but views are shifting

African-Americans still favor gun control, but views are shifting
By Tariro Mzezewa and Jessica DiNapoli
11 hours ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Horace Augustine was raised in Oklahoma City by a mother with strong convictions about guns: She didn’t want them in her house. Faith, she insisted, would keep her family safe.

Augustine, now an account executive with a staffing agency in Atlanta, has recently found himself at odds with his mother’s views: He wants to buy a gun, in part to protect the church he attends.

Augustine began thinking last year that he should buy a gun for protection, and the shooting last month at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston intensified his conviction. As an African American and a board member of his church, Augustine worries about someone coming in with a firearm during services, and he wants to be prepared.

“They won’t be the only one pulling a trigger,” he said.

While it’s not yet clear what effect, if any, the church shooting in Charleston will have on gun purchases, a growing number of African-Americans across the United States have changed their position on firearms in recent years, breaking with a long tradition of gun control advocacy among blacks and embracing the kind of pro-gun positions that are more widely held by whites.

To be sure, attitudes toward guns are still deeply divided along racial lines, with 60 percent of blacks prioritizing controls on gun ownership over protecting gun rights, while 61 percent of whites say they consider gun rights more important than gun controls, according to a December poll by the Pew Reserch Center.

But the level of African American support for gun control has fallen by 14 percentage points since 1993, when it stood at 74% according to the Pew data.

During that same period, the number of blacks prioritizing gun rights over stricter gun controls nearly doubled, up to 34 percent in December from 18 percent in 1993.

Collins Idehen, a 31-year-old African American attorney in Texas, said he used to hide his interest in guns because he was concerned about being stereotyped as a “young black thug.” Idehen, who makes YouTube videos under the name Colion Noir as a commentator for the NRA, worried there was no space to openly discuss his interest in guns.

As he put it in one video: “The image of black gun ownership has been hijacked and vilified by an anti-gun mainstream media.”

The NRA has made an effort in recent years to diversify its membership by partnering with millennials like Idehen, especially minorities and women.

“The N.R.A doesn’t care about your gender, race or anything else,” Idehan said. He said he feels welcome in the N.R.A. and believes the organization and the second amendment are color blind.

Still, some African-American gun supporters see a need for gun groups specifically aimed at their concerns. “If anyone should have the right or need to carry a gun, it should be the African-American community,” said Philip Smith, who earlier this year founded the National African American Gun Association, which he says now has a couple of hundred members.

He cited slavery and the Jim Crow-era South as reasons that blacks should arm themselves, noting that “all those things happened to us because we weren’t able to defend ourselves.”

Smith says he expects that the massacre in Charleston last month will draw more African Americans to the idea that guns are necessary for protection. “Just think if one of those folks had a gun, or two or three,” he said.

The idea that guns provide protection appears to be quickly gaining currency among American blacks. In December, 54 percent of blacks polled by Pew said they believed guns were more likely to protect people than to put their safety at risk. That figure was up from 29 percent two years earlier. For whites, 62 percent said guns protect people, up from 54 percent in 2012.

Pew conducted the poll last year shortly after decisions clearing police officers in the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and the timing may have had an effect on the black response, said Carroll Doherty, director of political research.

Smith understands that many African-Americans don’t embrace his views on guns, including some of his close associates. He has agreed to disagree, for example, with his friend, Lisa Bratton, a history professor at a historically black college.

“I do know it’s far too easy to get a gun in this country,” Bratton said. “To me, it’s obvious, there’s so much violence in this country.”

Jooyoung Lee, a sociologist who has studied the effect of gun violence on black men in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, said that he hears young black men in the inner city complaining that African American leaders at the forefront of the gun debate are distant from the struggles of those who may need guns to protect themselves.

Lee said his research found a strong sense of distrust between African Americans and the police. The perception was that “police don’t always respond when people are in trouble, and when they do, sometimes they beat and abuse people,” Lee said.

Mistrust of the government is strongly correlated to support for gun rights, said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. People feel like they have to take care of themselves, he said.

In some cases, that attitude has led - as it has with some white gun owners - to deliberately provocative displays of gun rights. At the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in Texas, formed last year after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, members participate in open-carry displays during demonstrations against police brutality.

Club co-founder Darrin Reed, who is also a member of the New Black Panthers, said more blacks are arming themselves now then in the past because the government and police have shown “they’re not able to keep drug dealers” out of African American communities.

“They failed to protect the black community,” he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/african-americans-still-favor-gun-control-views-shifting-205336945.html
 

thoughtone

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Re: African-Americans still favor gun control, but views are shifting

African-Americans still favor gun control, but views are shifting
By Tariro Mzezewa and Jessica DiNapoli
11 hours ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Horace Augustine was raised in Oklahoma City by a mother with strong convictions about guns: She didn’t want them in her house. Faith, she insisted, would keep her family safe.

Augustine, now an account executive with a staffing agency in Atlanta, has recently found himself at odds with his mother’s views: He wants to buy a gun, in part to protect the church he attends.

Augustine began thinking last year that he should buy a gun for protection, and the shooting last month at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston intensified his conviction. As an African American and a board member of his church, Augustine worries about someone coming in with a firearm during services, and he wants to be prepared.

“They won’t be the only one pulling a trigger,” he said.

While it’s not yet clear what effect, if any, the church shooting in Charleston will have on gun purchases, a growing number of African-Americans across the United States have changed their position on firearms in recent years, breaking with a long tradition of gun control advocacy among blacks and embracing the kind of pro-gun positions that are more widely held by whites.

To be sure, attitudes toward guns are still deeply divided along racial lines, with 60 percent of blacks prioritizing controls on gun ownership over protecting gun rights, while 61 percent of whites say they consider gun rights more important than gun controls, according to a December poll by the Pew Reserch Center.

But the level of African American support for gun control has fallen by 14 percentage points since 1993, when it stood at 74% according to the Pew data.

During that same period, the number of blacks prioritizing gun rights over stricter gun controls nearly doubled, up to 34 percent in December from 18 percent in 1993.

Collins Idehen, a 31-year-old African American attorney in Texas, said he used to hide his interest in guns because he was concerned about being stereotyped as a “young black thug.” Idehen, who makes YouTube videos under the name Colion Noir as a commentator for the NRA, worried there was no space to openly discuss his interest in guns.

As he put it in one video: “The image of black gun ownership has been hijacked and vilified by an anti-gun mainstream media.”

The NRA has made an effort in recent years to diversify its membership by partnering with millennials like Idehen, especially minorities and women.

“The N.R.A doesn’t care about your gender, race or anything else,” Idehan said. He said he feels welcome in the N.R.A. and believes the organization and the second amendment are color blind.

Still, some African-American gun supporters see a need for gun groups specifically aimed at their concerns. “If anyone should have the right or need to carry a gun, it should be the African-American community,” said Philip Smith, who earlier this year founded the National African American Gun Association, which he says now has a couple of hundred members.

He cited slavery and the Jim Crow-era South as reasons that blacks should arm themselves, noting that “all those things happened to us because we weren’t able to defend ourselves.”

Smith says he expects that the massacre in Charleston last month will draw more African Americans to the idea that guns are necessary for protection. “Just think if one of those folks had a gun, or two or three,” he said.

The idea that guns provide protection appears to be quickly gaining currency among American blacks. In December, 54 percent of blacks polled by Pew said they believed guns were more likely to protect people than to put their safety at risk. That figure was up from 29 percent two years earlier. For whites, 62 percent said guns protect people, up from 54 percent in 2012.

Pew conducted the poll last year shortly after decisions clearing police officers in the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and the timing may have had an effect on the black response, said Carroll Doherty, director of political research.

Smith understands that many African-Americans don’t embrace his views on guns, including some of his close associates. He has agreed to disagree, for example, with his friend, Lisa Bratton, a history professor at a historically black college.

“I do know it’s far too easy to get a gun in this country,” Bratton said. “To me, it’s obvious, there’s so much violence in this country.”

Jooyoung Lee, a sociologist who has studied the effect of gun violence on black men in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, said that he hears young black men in the inner city complaining that African American leaders at the forefront of the gun debate are distant from the struggles of those who may need guns to protect themselves.

Lee said his research found a strong sense of distrust between African Americans and the police. The perception was that “police don’t always respond when people are in trouble, and when they do, sometimes they beat and abuse people,” Lee said.

Mistrust of the government is strongly correlated to support for gun rights, said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. People feel like they have to take care of themselves, he said.

In some cases, that attitude has led - as it has with some white gun owners - to deliberately provocative displays of gun rights. At the Huey P. Newton Gun Club in Texas, formed last year after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, members participate in open-carry displays during demonstrations against police brutality.

Club co-founder Darrin Reed, who is also a member of the New Black Panthers, said more blacks are arming themselves now then in the past because the government and police have shown “they’re not able to keep drug dealers” out of African American communities.

“They failed to protect the black community,” he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/african-americans-still-favor-gun-control-views-shifting-205336945.html


Another ridiculous NRA sponsored article.

How does:

... 54 percent of blacks polled by Pew said they believed guns were more likely to protect people than to put their safety at risk. That figure was up from 29 percent two years earlier. For whites, 62 percent said guns protect people, up from 54 percent in 2012.
Equate to:

African-Americans still favor gun control, but views are shifting
?

I'm sure every "Black" person in a so called "gang infested" area that is a victim of gun violence thinks that a gun would have protected them.

Way to go NRA and their supporters., loving every minute of another tragedy to boost your love of guns.

Also, if
African-Americans still favor gun control, but views are shifting
is true, then eventual, according to the premise of the article, Dylan Storm, Adam Lanza, James Holmes and every murderous thug with a gun should eventually have no restrictions put on them for owing a gun in the views of "Black" people.
 
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