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Center For Biological Diversity Loses Again

May 24, 2013 by

The US District Court for the District of Columbia has dismissed the lawsuit brought by the Center for Biodiversity and other groups to force the Environmental Protection Agency to ban lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation was granted permission to be an intervenor. It was their motion to dismiss the case that was granted. They have more on the case and the dismissal below:

U.S. District Court Dismisses
Lawsuit to Ban Traditional Ammunition

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today dismissed a lawsuit brought by the radical anti-hunting Center for Biological Diversity and six other groups demanding the Environmental Protection Agency ban traditional ammunition containing lead components.

Traditional ammunition represents 95 percent of the U.S. market and is the staple ammunition for target shooters, hunters and law enforcement, with more than 10 billion rounds sold annually.

NSSF filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit last August. The court today agreed with NSSF that EPA does not have the authority to regulate traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

EPA had already twice denied attempts by CBD to have the agency ban traditional ammunition, and the court had dismissed an earlier case brought by CBD seeking the same relief.

“We are gratified that the court has found this second frivolous lawsuit, which is essentially the same as the one dismissed last year, was equally without merit,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. “This was a waste of taxpayers’ dollars and EPA resources spent in having to defend a baseless lawsuit.”

CBD’s serial petitioning of EPA and its repeated lawsuits were designed to cripple the shooting sports in America by banning the ammunition that millions of hunters and target shooters choose to use safely and responsibly.

“There is quite simply no sound science that shows the use of traditional ammunition has harmed wildlife populations or that it presents a health risk to humans who consume game taken with such ammunition,” said Keane. “Banning traditional ammunition would cost tens of thousands of jobs in America and destroy wildlife conservation that is funded in part by an 11 percent excise tax on the sale of ammunition. The protection and management of wildlife is properly handled by the professional biologists in the state fish and game agencies, as it has been for over a hundred years.

In addition to NSSF, the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International and the Association of Battery Recyclers intervened in the case.

Organizations that joined CBD in its lawsuit were the Cascades Raptor Center of Oregon, the Loon Lake Loon Association of Washington, Preserve Our Wildlife of Florida, Tennessee Ornithological Society, Trumpeter Swan Society and Western Nebraska Resources Council.

NSSF was represented by Roger Martella and Christopher Bell from Sidley Austin.

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A Round-Up On The Compromise CCW Bill In Illinois

May 24, 2013 by 8 Comments

Facing a June 9th deadline, it looks like the Illinois State House might be able to pass a compromise bill. They have already shot down Rep. Brandon Phelps’ (D-Harrisburg) shall-issue bill as well as a may-issue bill. The compromise bill is just that – it doesn’t really satisfy either side but it may be the best one can get given the bifurcated nature of Illinois politics.

The Illinois State Rifle Association released the following alert this afternoon. It is important to note that they are neutral on the bill.


CCW BILL ALERT – SB 2193 – VIABLE PROPOSAL ON THE TABLE

After many years of working to advance a Right to Carry bill, there is a viable proposal on the table. This bill, SB 2193, sponsored by Representative Brandon Phelps, is not a perfect bill but it does have several good points, for example:


  • Shall issue

  • Statewide pre-emption of all gun laws

  • Commercially available training

  • Vehicles will be a safe haven

However, the bill does call for:


  • 16 hours of training, although some previous training will count toward those hours

  • $150.00 license fee, for five years

  • Carry on mass transportation prohibited

This bill, if passed, will bring Right to Carry to Illinois, but due to the restrictions in the bill we are neutral on the bill.

While many people have been involved in this effort, Representative Brandon Phelps has demonstrated superior leadership and should be commended for his resolve.

The actual bill is being offered as an amendment to SB 2193. The language of the amendment can be found here.

According to the Rockford Register Star, the National Rifle Association has not taken a position on the bill.

“It’s a combination, a balance of both sides,” Phelps said, adding that he believes pro-gun groups such as the National Rifle Association have not taken a position on the bill. The NRA endorsed previous versions sponsored by Phelps.


Todd Vandermyde, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association in Illinois, declined to comment Wednesday and deferred all questions to the organization’s national headquarters. NRA officials could not be reached for comment.

 The biggest plus of the bill is that it does away with home-rule by Chicago and Cook County on firearms laws. This would mean that items like the Chicago’s rules for issuance of firearms license would be gone as would Cook County AWB. This post from Illinois gun rights group GunsSaveLife.com does a good job in pointing the full impact of getting rid of home-rule on firearms laws. They contend that by agreeing to this House Speaker Michael Madigan has thrown Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle under the bus.

Thirdpower who is an Illinois resident finds it to be a particularly unappetizing sandwich.

Miguel at GunFreeZone gives his opinion here. He believes we’re getting shafted by the bill.

Sebastian thinks it might be the best we can get right now.

My feeling is that it’s a shall-issue bill, with preemption. It’s the
final offer from the leadership. I’d take the deal and then work to
improve the bill through legislation, and I’d re-litigate over the steep
fees and argue that many of the places you’re prohibited from carrying
are not “sensitive places” per the Heller decision.

The Rockford Register Star article details the prohibited places referred to by Sebastian.

Weapons would be prohibited from special events open to the public, schools, amusement parks, zoos and museums, libraries, property owned by park districts, playgrounds, universities and colleges, state and federal buildings, sporting events, residential mental health facilities, and police stations. Guns would be barred from parking lots under ownership of these places.


If riding public transit, an individual’s gun would have to be unloaded and stored away in a backpack or other carry-on bag.

One other thing about the bill – it has no provision for reciprocity with other states. The argument given by Rep. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago) is that other states’ mental health reporting laws are weaker than that of Illinois. If you want to carry in Illinois and you aren’t a resident, it will cost you $300 plus you have to meet their training requirements.

If the pro-gun proponents of this bill are correct, future changes to the firearms laws will only take a simple majority instead of a 3/5’s majority since home rule provisions will be eliminated. If correct, I think you might see more changes in the Illinois gun laws in the future. There has been a majority to liberalize the state’s gun laws but not a super-majority.

Regardless of what happens in the State House, the bill will still have to pass the State Senate.

UPDATE: Please see the comment below from David Lawson. He and his wife Colleen were co-plaintiffs along with Otis McDonald in the ground-breaking Second Amendment case of McDonald v. Chicago. The Lawsons have been at the forefront of the fight for gun rights in the state of Illinois for many years. His perspective on these issues is important and should be given heed.

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Smith & Wesson Tops The Globe 100

May 23, 2013 by

The Boston Globe publishes an annual list which ranks the best performing public companies in Massachusetts. The winner this year probably surprised them but certainly not those of us in the gun culture. It was the 161-year old firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson which is located in Springfield.

In an article that is mostly unbiased for the left-leaning Globe, they explain why S&W topped the list.

With its sights trained on firearms once more, Smith & Wesson increased profits 14 times over in 2012, netting $66 million on sales of $538.6 million and rocketing to the first position on this year’s Globe 100 list.

‘We went back to what we do best, which is handguns. We divested the security business very successfully and since that point have not looked back.’ – James Debney, CEO, Smith & Wesson

But the company’s renaissance is not merely a case of addition by subtraction. In recent years, Smith & Wesson has ventured beyond its core revolver business, introducing popular polymer handguns and modern sporting rifles.

The latter — often referred to as assault rifles — represent Smith & Wesson’s fastest-growing product line. Sales increased by 85 percent last year, and a line that did not exist in 2010 delivered more than a fifth of the company’s total revenue.

“It’s become an important piece of our business,” Debney said, acknowledging some concern about legislative efforts to ban the controversial weapons. “But at the end of the day, we come back to our core competency, and where we’re strategically focused, in terms of product, is the [military and police] pistol.”

At the moment, civilian sales of polymer handguns outnumber law enforcement sales, 20 to 1. Smith & Wesson only launched a polymer handgun line in 2006, but the company now views it as the main driver of future growth.

Currently, Smith & Wesson is the third ranked firearms manufacturer by number of firearms produced in the US behind Ruger and Remington. Their current order backlog is approximately $668 million which is greater than the previous year’s sales.

Smith & Wesson was given a $ 6 million tax incentive to expand their plant back in 2010. That tax incentive required them to hire an additional 225 over the next seven years. They have already met this requirement as they have hired 350 new workers in the past two years to meet the demand for new firearms. Their payroll is now $80 million annually and their total workforce in Massachusetts now numbers 1,500.

There are a number of comments on S&W topping the Globe 100. Most are as one might expect from what JayG calls the Volksrepublik. They include stuff like “Glorifying a company that manufactures guns?” and “Surely there must be a more worthy #1 pick than an assault weapons manufacturer.” It is actually rather amusing to watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth over this. I know for certain that the 350 people who have gotten good paying steady work are not among them.

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Those Connecticut Politicians Do Like Their Secret Bills

May 23, 2013 by

The draconian gun control bill that was shoved through the Connecticut legislature at the beginning of April was a product of secret negotiations between Gov. Daniel Molloy (D-CT) and both Democrat and Republican leaders in the Connecticut legislature. Now comes word that they are at it again but this time it deals with the release of records relating to the school shooting in Newtown last December.

The staffs of the state’s top prosecutor and the governor’s office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre — including victims’ photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.

The behind-the-scenes legislative effort came to light Tuesday when The Courant obtained a copy of an email by a top assistant to Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, Timothy J. Sugrue. Sugrue, an assistant state’s attorney, discussed options considered so far, including blocking release of statements “made by a minor.”

“There is complete agreement regarding photos etc., and audio tapes, although the act may allow the disclosure of audio transcripts,” Sugrue wrote to Kane, two other Kane subordinates and to Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who is directing the investigation of the killings.

The bill that’s being crafted has not been handled under routine legislative procedures — it hasn’t gone through the committee process, which includes a public hearing, for example. Sugrue’s email Tuesday indicated that a draft of the bill was being worked on by leaders in both the House and Senate, and might be ready as soon as the end of the day.
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He wrote: “I just received a call from Natalie Wagner” — a member of the legal counsel’s staff in the office of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

“She believes that draft language will be forthcoming today (the work of both houses) in the form of a special act. …” Sugrue wrote that Wagner “will send me the draft in confidence when she receives it, and I will immediately forward it.”

I have to admit that I’m getting more than a little tired of the Newtown parents being trotted out every time someone wants to pass either a new gun control law or, as it seems now, a restriction of the freedom of information. I feel for those parents and can understand their grief. However, since they have now achieved sainthood in the eyes of some, can’t we just give them their golden halos and say enough is enough.

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Catching Up

May 23, 2013 by

I’ve been out of town the last couple of days on business which accounts for the slow blogging.

To all the road warriors and/or people with ultra-long daily commutes, my hat’s off to you. I had about a 2 1/2 hour drive to get home last night and I’m whupped! It could be age or just inexperience in doing this on a regular basis but it wears me out. It also doesn’t help not to be in your own bed with your own pillow.

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DOJ Inspector General To Investigate ATF Sting Operation In Milwaukee

May 22, 2013 by 1 Comment

An ATF sting operation called Operation Fearless will now be investigated by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General. This operation in Milwaukee featured a storefront sting effort that went horribly bad. They had merchandise stolen, left behind confidential documents, damaged the building that they were renting, and had an ATF-owned automatic weapon stolen which is still missing.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigated it and has a whole series on it.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote to two members of Congress that the Milwaukee sting appeared to raise “significant management issues relating to the oversight and management” of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The issues, the letter said, were especially troubling coming after the agency had promised reforms.

A bipartisan group of congressional members demanded answers after a Journal Sentinel investigation of the sting that revealed an agent’s guns, including a machine gun, were stolen, the ATF storefront was ripped off of $40,000 in merchandise and agents allowed an armed felon who threatened to shoot someone to leave the store. At least four of the wrong people were arrested and three of them charged, including a man who was in prison. The ATF machine gun is still missing.

The ATF promised better oversight in the wake of Fast and Furious, where agents in Arizona encouraged the sale of more than 2,000 firearms to gun traffickers but lost track of the weapons. Many ended up at crime scenes in Mexico and at the scene where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed. The inspector general’s report on Fast and Furious was sharply critical of the ATF and the U.S. attorney’s office, finding “a significant lack of oversight” by both agencies.

Horowitz’s letter on the Milwaukee operation, called “Operation Fearless,” said the ATF’s internal report on the incident addressed the management issues that concerned him. But Horowitz said his office would still examine the Milwaukee sting, along with other recent ATF operations.

He said he would determine if the Justice Department and the ATF have responded appropriately to the inspector general’s recommendations after Operation Fast and Furious. He gave no timetable for when the review would be done.

You have to wonder if ATF really has become the gang that can’t shoot straight.

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The Third Event

May 22, 2013 by 2 Comments



Yesterday I said things happen in groups of three and wondered when we’d be hearing that CBS New Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson was targeted. Well, that didn’t take long!


It was revealed in Politico today that her personal and work computers have been compromised and the incident is under investigation.

“I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some
investigation on my end for some months but I’m not prepared to make an
allegation against a specific entity today as I’ve been patient and
methodical about this matter,” Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I
need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on
info we make public.”

And when did she first notice this intrusion? It was in February 2011 which is when she began working on the Operation Fast and Furious story. According to her interview with WPHT Philadelphia, she was also working on a story about green energy spending by the Obama Administration.

I realize that correlation is not causation. However, it does seem very strange to me that right after Sharyl Attkisson starts work on a big story such as Project Gunwalker, her computers are compromised. When you add in the targeting of William LaJeunesse of Fox News, it gets even stranger.

You wonder if her post on CleanUpATF.org was the trigger or was it something more sinister such as the surveillance of bloggers Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea who passed the story on to her. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but the timing is too coincidental and the topic too sensitive for the Obama Administration.

UPDATE: In an article in Commentary Magazine, Jonathan Tobin calls the attack on the press a fundamental attack on democracy. He discusses both Sharyl and William LaJeunesse.

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Mag Ban On The Move In Illinois

May 21, 2013 by 2 Comments

Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) is now pushing SB 1002 which would ban magazines over 10 round capacity. A “special” feature of this bill are large fines and prison time for possession of standard capacity magazines for AR-15s and other modern sporting rifles.

The ISRA Alert on this bill is below. Please notice their warning in the last paragraph. It seems Sen. Kotowski has no problem using the Illinois State Police as his private storm troopers to stifle dissent.

URGENT ALERT – YOUR IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED

MAGAZINE BAN ON THE MOVE IN THE ILLINOIS SENATE


Anti-gun extremist State Senator Dan Kotowski has introduced a ban on all magazines having a capacity exceeding 10 rounds. The bill (SB1002) banning magazines also requires large fines and prison sentences if you are caught with magazines for AR-15 and other modern sporting rifles.


SB1002 IS A BOLD AND BRAZEN ATTACK ON THE 2ND AMENDMENT:


1. SB1002 will have no effect on the criminal use of firearms yet will infringe on the right of law-abiding citizen’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms.


2. SB1002 is a backdoor way to limit your ability to defend yourself and family under the upcoming Illinois concealed carry law.


3. SB1002 is the first step towards the banning of semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns.


BLOOMBERG AND THE GUN GRABBERS WILL PUSH HARD TO GET SB1002 PASSED


Magazine bans are on the top of gun controllers’ wish list this year. They want to see Illinois join with the likes of New York, Maryland, California, and now Colorado in the destruction of the 2nd Amendment.


ONLY YOU HAVE THE POWER TO STOP SB1002. ACT NOW OR LOSE ANOTHER CHUNK OF YOUR GUN RIGHTS!


Here is what you need to do to stop SB1002:


1. Call your State Senator and politely tell the person who answers the phone that you are a law-abiding Illinois firearm owner and that you oppose SB1002 and you expect the Senator to vote against the bill when it comes to the floor. If you do not know who your State Senator is, the Illinois State Board of Elections has an interactive search page here:
www.elections.state.il.us/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx


If you already know who your State Senator is and just need the contact info, you can find that here: www.ilga.gov/senate/.


2. When you call your Senator’s office, you may hear all kinds of nonsense about how SB1002 will not affect law-abiding gun owners. Politely tell the person that you are not interested in hearing that, you are only interested in seeing SB1002 defeated.


3. Pass this alert on to your friends and family and tell them to make calls as well.


4. Post this alert to any and all Internet blogs or bulletin boards to which you may belong.


5. Help keep ISRA on the frontlines of this fight for your rights, go the extra mile and recruit a new ISRA member. Sign them up over the phone at 815-635-3198, or browse to isra.org/join .


SPECIAL NOTICE: DO NOT call Senator Kotowski unless he is your Senator, and even then be very careful. Kotowski has a track record of having the State Police investigate and harass people that disagree with him.

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Happening In Threes

May 20, 2013 by 1 Comment

It is often said that things, especially bad things, happen in threes. I wonder if that will be true of disclosures about Project Gunwalker.

The first thing that happened is that the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Justice released a report saying that former US Attorney for the District of Arizona Dennis Burke had leaked a sensitive document to the press with the intention of undermining the credibility of ATF Senior Agent John Dodson. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) blasted this in a release earlier today.

The second thing that happened was the revelation that the Department of Justice targeted two FoxNews reporters and one producer. While much of the attention is about their targeting of Fox’s Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen, what caught my attention was that they also targeted William LaJeunesse. You may remember that LaJeunesse was one of two mainstream reporters who reported extensively on Operation Fast and Furious.

I’m now wondering if we will soon find out that the DOJ was also targeting CBS’s  Emmy-award winning Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. She not only was the lead mainstream reporter on Project Gunwalker but has also made the White House’s shit list over her reporting on the Benghazi scandal.

You know I wouldn’t be surprised given the Obama Administration.

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Third Anniversary

May 20, 2013 by 3 Comments

Driving to work this morning it hit me that yesterday was the third anniversary of starting this blog. The realization that three years has elapsed gives me an even greater appreciation for bloggers like Kevin, Tam, JayG, Sebastian, and SayUncle who have been doing this for much longer.

Looking back over these three years is interesting.

We won the McDonald case and it has opened a whole new avenue of Second Amendment litigation in the states. Since then, we’ve won some and lost some. We are still waiting for another case to make it to the Supreme Court. I anticipate it will be a case involving carry outside the home in some manner.

We have seen tremendous growth in the sales of firearms and ammunition. The important thing about this growth is that many of these firearms are going to first time gun owners.

Illinois will have carry in some form thanks to the twin cases of Shepard v. Madigan and Moore v. Madigan. The Illinois General Assembly is still fighting it out to see what form it will take.

Despite some well publicized mass shootings and in the face of a full court press from White House, the media, and gun prohibitionists, we’ve beaten back efforts for new gun control legislation at the Federal level. Unfortunately, the gun prohibitionists have turned more of their attention to the states and have had some success. The usual areas such as California, New York, and Maryland have new gun control laws. More surprising was the enactment of background checks and magazine bans in Colorado.

We are still working to get to the bottom of the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal. Attorney General Eric Holder is still fighting requests for documents from Congress. Moreover, while some involved have been reassigned, no one has yet to lose their job over this much less be indicted for violations of Federal law.

Among the gun prohibitionists, the old line groups such as CSGV, Violence Policy Center, and the Brady Campaign are fading in influence. Taking their place, for the most part, is Mayor Bloomberg and his Illegal Mayors. To be more exact, it is Bloomberg’s willingness to spend some of his personal fortune that is pushing this effort more than anything the mayors themselves are doing. I still see the Giffords-Kelly creation of Americans for Responsible Solutions as being on the periphery for now. They are useful mostly as a reliable photo op.

Summing up, we have gained more than we’ve lost over the last three years. The key is to hold on to what we’ve gained by beating back the threats organized and financed by Mayor Bloomberg. The saying about eternal vigilance is true. We have to stay alert, stay focused, and continue to educate and energize those who believe in freedom.

The next three years should be interesting!