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Knife Rights Report On Boston Hearing

September 9, 2011 by 1 Comment

The hearing on a proposed requirement that business that sell knives have a special license was held last night. Knife Rights was represented by Jim Wallace, Executive Director of the Gun Owners’ Action League.
The report on the hearing is below.

Boston City Council Holds Knife Control Hearing

On Thursday, September 8, 2011, the Public Safety Committee of the Boston City Council held a public hearing concerning the potential licensing of businesses that sell knives. According to the supporters of the proposed license, the action is needed as a means to address the “ever increasing knife violence in Boston.” Knife Rights was represented by Jim Wallace, Executive Director of Gun Owners’ Action League, who was also representing his own organization.

The politicians attending were clearly firm in their conviction that action must be taken, some scapegoat must be found. There were grieving parents and their genuine heart wrenching stories of lost loved ones. Public safety officials offered supportive testimony for the proposal. For anyone who attended the infamous Gun Control hearings here a decade ago, the only difference was that the word “guns” was replaced with “knives.”

The testimony and statements during the public hearing were frighteningly reminiscent of past gun control hearings. “Why would we allow any corner store to sell these dangerous weapons (knives).” “Selling knives does not support families.” “We must do everything we can to restrict access to these dangerous weapons.” “Why would anyone need a knife with a blade more than two inches long.””Knives are fine if you need them for work, but employers should require they be left on the job.”

To anyone who has been involved in the Second Amendment battle in the last few decades it sends a shiver up your spine, because this is exactly how gun control efforts were initiated. To make matters more frightening, law enforcement officials testified that “the modern way of approaching these issues is to go after the source of the items rather than the criminals themselves.”

Wallace urged the City Council to take careful and meaningful steps in addressing the problem of violent crime. “I urge the City Council to review what it is about to do and reflect on the failures of gun control,” said Wallace. “Over a decade ago I had to testify before committees in the state house with grieving families in the background. Now I sit before you a decade later with grieving families behind me again. If you proceed down this path and get it wrong again, ten years from now we will likely repeat this scene yet again.”

Wallace also reminded the councilors that these stores are already licensed by the city, for which they pay a fee and are subject to city oversight as to their compliance with the law, and that there is already an ordinance on the books that makes it illegal to sell a knife with a blade two inches or longer to anyone under age 18. He reiterated that there is no need for new regulation.

Even in high security of prisons rudimentary knives (shivs) are readily available, which shows the futility of trying to control the source of a such an easy to make weapon, as opposed to penalizing law-abiding citizens and making it more difficult for them to obtain the versatile tools used by millions every day at work, home and while recreating.

The City Council took no action on the matter during the hearing. It is likely that it will be some weeks before a draft ordinance is presented to the City Council as a whole.

In the meantime, we will work to try to ensure that history does not repeat itself. We have an unusual advantage in this situation to know what the future will bring if we follow this path of knife control proposed by Boston. We know without any doubt that citizens’ rights will be trampled. Most certainly grieving families will still be burying loved ones because politicians would appear to prefer going after the source of an inanimate object rather than the human criminal element – the source of the crime. The solution offered up today is no solution at all.

If you are a Boston citizen, here is a link to the councilors’ webpages where you can find a link to contact them and POLITELY express your outrage: http://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/councillors

We urge all Boston area Knife Rights members to contact the Boston City Council and express their opposition to this measure.

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Dave Kopel On The Origins Of The Bogus Collective Right Theory

September 9, 2011 by

The gun prohibitionists love to say that the Second Amendment is a collective right and that is what the Founders meant. Unfortunately for them, history is not on their side. Dave Kopel, the Research Director of the Independence Institute, in an interview with Cam Edwards discusses his article showing the origins and bogus nature of the collective rights argument.

Here is a link to his article that was published in America’s 1st Freedom.

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Weapon Linked To Fast And Furious

September 9, 2011 by

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich backtracked last week and said only three weapons have been found at violent crime scenes in the U.S. that could be linked to Operation Fast and Furious. Unfortunately, two of those were found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder.


Lori Jean Gliha seems to be a rather tenacious reporter in Phoenix and she filed the report below. She has also linked almost 50 Project Gunwalker firearms to other crimes in Arizona.

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Brady Bunkum

September 9, 2011 by

From Wikitionary:

Noun

bunkum (countable and uncountable; plural bunkums)

  1. (slang) senseless talk; nonsense; a piece of nonsense (countable)
  2. (Washington circa 1828) any bombastic political posturing or an oratorical display not accompanied by conviction; speechmaking designed for show or public applause. 

As the word bunkum derives its origins from the western North Carolina county of Buncombe, I think it is the perfectly appropriate word to apply to the nonsense that the Brady Campaign put out today.

As Sebastian at Snowflakes In Hell observed:

You’d think the anniversary of 9/11 would be above political posturing, and should be about remembering the victims, rather than pushing a political agenda, but pretty clearly the Brady Campaign does not think so. Have they no shame? Pushing bills after a high profile tragedy is standard operating procedure for the Brady folks, but it’s hard fathom anyone could think attempting to usurp the tenth anniversary of 9/11 for political gain is anything other than disgusting.

What Sebastian so appropriately called disgusting is the Brady Campaign’s attempt to use the 10th anniversary of the 9-11 Terror Attack to push Senator Frank Lautenberg’s (D-NJ) S. 34 and Rep. Peter King’s (Rino-NY) HR 1506 which would ban the sale of a firearm to anyone on the FBI’s secret Terror Watch List. Both bills are of dubious constitutionality and both would abrogate your right to due process under the law.

One of the examples cited by the Brady Campaign is the case of Major Nidal Hasan who perpetrated the massacre at Fort Hood. They cite his case as an example of someone who would have been prevented from purchasing a firearm under either bill. To think that a serving Army Officer and Physician would have been placed any sort of a terror watch list is utter nonsense. As it was, his commanding officers at Walter Reed had ignored his comments and behavior and just wanted to pass on a problem to another base.

Paul Helmke was a politician. He was not above using a tragedy to push an agenda. That said, with Helmke gone and Dennis Henigan in charge, I think the Brady Campaign has gone off the deep end. Even Paul Helmke wouldn’t have put out the bunkum below.

A Fitting Tribute To 9/11 Victims: No Easy Access To U.S. Weapons For Terrorists
“That Congress is willing to allow persons on the Terrorist Watch List to stockpile military-style firepower suggests an extraordinary lapse of common sense and political will.”

Sep 8, 2011

Washington, D.C. — A decade ago on 9/11, al Qaeda terrorists shocked the world by hijacking commercial airliners and using them to kill 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

While federal officials have since taken extraordinary steps to prevent planes from being turned into incendiary devices or loaded with bombs, our congressional leaders have repeatedly failed to deny suspected or known terrorists access to assault guns and large-capacity clips in this country.

“As a lasting tribute to the Americans and others who lost their lives so tragically on 9/11, Congress should close the gaps in U.S. gun laws that make it easy for terrorists to purchase weapons that can then be turned on our families and communities,” said Dennis Henigan, Acting President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

After the Norway Massacre, President Obama in a CNN interview identified the “lone wolf terrorist,” someone with a single weapon being able to carry out a wide-scale massacre, as the most dangerous terror threat in the United States.

“The risk that we’re especially concerned over right now is the lone wolf terrorist, somebody with a single weapon being able to carry out wide-scale massacres of the sort that we saw in Norway recently,” (the president) said, according to an AP report of the interview. “You know, when you’ve got one person who is deranged or driven by a hateful ideology, they can do a lot of damage, and it’s a lot harder to trace those lone wolf operators.”

We could not agree more with the president, and a University of Maryland Global Terrorism study indicates also that terrorists with guns are the greatest threat. In the 10 years since 9/11, the majority of deaths from terror attacks have come from attacks with guns. Most notable is the attack by Army Major and Psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, who is accused of the Nov. 5, 2009 Fort Hood Massacre in which 13 people were killed.

Because of the gap in our laws that allows suspected and known terrorists to buy guns, Hasan, was able to walk into the heart of the Fort Hood military base and shoot down the men and women working to protect this nation from such threats.

This brutal irony did not persuade a House Judiciary Committee led by Republicans to vote for an amendment to the Patriot Act in May that would have blocked people on the FBI’s Terrorist Watch List from purchasing firearms or explosives. The bill, offered by Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, was rejected on a party line vote, with 21 Republicans opposed to it.

Recently, Illinois Rep. Robert Dold became one of the few Republicans to publicly support a bill (H.R. 1506), which could close the terror gap. A companion Senate bill (S.34) sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg also awaits action.

In an April 27 letter to Sen. Lautenberg, the Director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, Eileen Larence, said her department found that from February 2004 through December 2010, more than 1,300 people on the Terrorist Watch List were able to purchase a gun because they were not disqualified under state or federal laws.

An earlier department report indicated that some on the Terrorist Watch List appeared to be making multiple attempts to purchase guns. Some 1,228 purchase attempts through February 2010 were by just 650 individuals. Nearly 70 percent of the individuals (450 of 650) were involved in multiple transactions and six were involved in 10 or more transactions.

In June, a month after the House Judiciary Committee rejected closing the terror gap in federal gun laws, one of al Qaeda’s terrorist recruiters – American-born Adam Gadahn – explained how easy it is to acquire assault weapons in the United States:

“America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”

It should matter to Congress that potentially dangerous individuals, encouraged by al Qaeda, are able to buy firearms with no questions asked.

“Our government has put forth remarkable effort to prevent another 9/11 attack with planes, as it should have,” said Henigan. “But the failure to close the terror gap in U.S. gun laws risk even more American lives to terrorist attacks with guns. That Congress is willing to allow persons on the Terrorist Watch List to stockpile military-style firepower suggests an extraordinary lapse of common sense and political will.”

One last thing – the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism or START puts out the Global Terrorism study. Here is what they said in assessing the impact of 9-11:

Terrorists’ weapons of choice within the United States remained incendiary devices (used in 51% of pre-2001 cases and 56% of post-2001 cases) and explosives (27% and 28%, respectively). In the post-9/11 era,though, terrorists in the United States were far less likely to use firearms in attacks than they had been in the pre-9/11 era, with the rate of terrorist firearm usage decreasing from 18% to 6% post-9/11.

Not only is the Brady Campaign run by shameless ghouls but they are liars as well. Go figure.

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Wildlife Resources Public Hearings In North Carolina

September 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is holding public hearings across the state beginning this week and ending September 28th. They will be considering changes in fishing, hunting, and trapping regulations. Some of the changes are very minor but some are not. The full list of proposed regulation changes can be found here.

For example, under current NCWRC regulations you are virtually prohibited from being on Game Lands with a pistol over .22 LR outside of certain hunting seasons. Given that all National Forests in North Carolina are part of the Game Lands program, this means you could well be in violation of wildlife regulations if you went hiking in Pisgah National Forest and carried concealed. Proposed regulations change H8 would change this.

H8. Allow individuals who possess a valid concealed handgun permit to carry that handgun on wildlife conservation areas, boating access areas, fishing access areas and game lands, except for these game lands (and any boating or fishing access areas on them) which are exempted at the request of the landowner: Buckhorn, Harris, Sutton Lake, Mayo, Hyco, Lee, Chatham, Pee Dee River north of U.S. 74, Butner-Falls, Jordan, Vance, Kerr Scott, Dupont, Bladen Lakes and that portion of R. Wayne Bailey-Caswell that is north of U.S. 158 and east of N.C. 119. Also, allow hunters who possess a valid concealed handgun permit to carry that handgun while dog training and during the deer archery and muzzleloader seasons on both public and private lands.

Thus, even if you don’t hunt, fish, or trap but are a concealed carry holder, you have a definite interest in these public hearings. The National Forests in North Carolina comprise over 1.2 million acres of land including over a half million acres each for western NC’s Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. That’s a lot of area to have excluded from where you can legally carry concealed.

If you can’t make the hearings, you can still submit comments by mail or online. The mail address is N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission at 1701 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-1701.

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No One Has Ever Accused NY Politicians Of Being Classy

September 8, 2011 by 2 Comments

In a rather gloating press release, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman touts the state’s win in Kachalsky et al v. Cacace et al. To say Judge Seibel’s decision was a win for the United States Constitution is ludicrous.

I’m sure Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago said similar things when Chicago won in McDonald v. Chicago at the lower court levels. However, he was crying in his beer after the Supreme Court ruled for Otis McDonald and the rest of the plaintiffs in their landmark decision applying the Second Amendment to the states through incorporation.

In light of the number of shootings in New York City over the past weekend, the statements of Richard Aborn, head of Citizen’s Crime Commission of NYC and former President of the Brady Campaign, ring hollow.

WHITE PLAINS – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced that his office has won a major court victory in defense of New York State’s gun safety laws. In a decision in the case of Kachalsky, et al. v. Cacace, et al, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York rejected a constitutional challenge to New York’s handgun licensing statute, ruling that individuals do not have a constitutional right to carry a concealed handgun in public.

“Every day, my office fights to ensure all New Yorkers are safe and secure in their communities,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “This means ensuring that our state’s gun laws are protected and vigorously enforced. This federal court decision is a victory for New York State law, the United States Constitution, and families across New York who are rightfully concerned about the scourge of gun violence that all too often plagues our communities.”

“This is a major victory for the public safety of all New Yorkers,” said Jackie Hilly, Executive Director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. “We applaud Attorney General Schneiderman for vigorously defending the state’s gun laws that clearly indicate that individuals have no constitutional right to carry dangerous, concealed weapons in public. For law enforcement officers and communities across this state, this decision means fewer deaths and injuries – it’s that simple.”

“This critical decision protects New York’s right to decide the conditions under which a concealed weapon may be carried,” said Richard M. Aborn, President of Citizens Crime Commission of New York City. “As a result of Attorney General Schneiderman’s aggressive defense of our state’s gun laws, our communities will be safer and more secure.”
In Kachalsky, et al. v. Cacace, et al, five individual plaintiffs residing in Westchester County, and one organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, Inc., argued that the “proper cause” provision of the New York law governing the issuance of licenses to carry concealed handguns in public violates their rights under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as defined in two recent landmark decisions by the United States Supreme Court, District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. The “proper cause” provision requires a license applicant to show “a special need for self protection distinguishable from that of the general community or of persons engaged in the same profession.”

The defendants in this case, four State Court judges who also serve as “licensing officers” under the New York statute, were represented by Attorney General Schneiderman’s office, which argued that the “proper cause” provision of the New York law did not violate the Second Amendment as described by the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald. Judge Cathy Seibel agreed, ruling that the Second Amendment provides the right to keep arms for the purpose of self defense in the home, but does not extend to a right to carry concealed handguns in public.

The judge further ruled that even if the Second Amendment were read to cover such a right, the New York “proper cause” provision passes constitutional muster under the Heller and McDonald rulings because the law is substantially related to important governmental interests, namely the promotion of public safety and the prevention of crimes perpetrated with concealed handguns. Judge Seibel also ruled that the “proper cause” provision does not violate the Equal Protection clause of the constitution because it does not discriminate against handgun license applicants.

Accordingly, Judge Seibel granted the State defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and dismissed the plaintiffs’ case in its entirety.

The case was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Monica Connell and Anthony Tomari under the supervision of Bruce McHale, Deputy Bureau Chief of the New York City Litigation Bureau.

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Two Weeks Until The Gun Rights Policy Conference!

September 8, 2011 by 2 Comments

The 2011 Gun Rights Policy Conference is just two weeks away! It is hard to believe it is almost here. I’ve had my plane tickets and hotel reservations for months now and I’m ready to go.

The Illinois State Rifle Association will also be holding its annual meeting in conjunction with the conference. The conference will be held in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont which is near Chicago O’Hare Airport. In other words, in the belly of the beast!

If any of my readers are planning to attend, let me know either in the comments or by e-mail (jpr9954@gmail.com) as I would love to meet you there. Of course, for those that can’t attend, I will be blogging about the event and the speakers throughout the conference.

The release below from the Second Amendment Foundation has some updates on the speakers at the conference.

The 26th Annual Gun Rights Policy Conference attracts over 700 leaders from across the country, including speakers Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms; Joseph Tartaro, president of the Second Amendment Foundation; Sandy Froman, former president of the National Rifle Association Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association and many others.

Also scheduled to speak: Attorney Alan Gura, winner of the landmark Second Amendment Heller, McDonald and Ezell cases; John Fund, Wall Street Journal and Fox News contributor; Larry Pratt, executive director, Gun Owners of America; Hawaii State Sen. Sam Slom, and gun rights leaders from New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Virginia, as well as international activists from Canada and Italy.

The Gun Rights Policy Conference offers an opportunity for grassroots gun rights activists from across the country to gather under one roof for the opportunity to network, exchange strategies and hear from national gun rights leaders on major issues relating to firearms litigation and politics.

This year’s agenda includes panel discussions on, Gun rights litigation, the UN threat to gun rights, Federal and State legislative updates, Media Bias, Self-Defense and Right-to-Carry, Open Carry and Guns and the “Fast and Furious” Obama Administration fiasco.

If you don’t know, the conference is FREE. You will come home with a stack of books and other gun rights material that is at least a foot tall plus a wealth of knowledge that you won’t get anywhere else. The only requirement is that you register for the conference. You can pre-register by going to this link.

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Is A Second Front Opening

September 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

Mike Vanderboegh has been calling for a “Second Front” in the investigation into Project Gunwalker.

The selective release of the emails proves that the Obamanoids are now in full damage control mode, for as Ben Franklin quoted Samuel Johnson, “Nothing concentrates the mind so wonderfully as the prospect of being hung in morning.”

That same sentiment can work for the investigation into the truth of the matter, for once some of these malefactors are put on the Congressional hot seat under oath they will more reason to come clean. Let’s face it, not enough questions are being asked of too few people who were at the genesis of this scandal, and if that pace continues some of the malefactors will die of old age before they face justice.

So, it is time to open a second front, or even a third front, on the search for truth in the Gunwalker Plot. As before, since the beginning, this will have to be from the bottom up.

By a Second Front he means hearings by other committees such as the House Judiciary Committee or the House Foreign Affairs Committee as they would have jurisdiction over the Justice Deparment and transnational arms smuggling respectively.

A Second Front may be opening due to pressure from what I would consider an unexpected source – Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

According to an article in the Arizona Daily Star of Tucson, McCain has sent a letter to Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), Chairman and Ranking Member respectively of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, asking for committee hearings into Operation Fast and Furious.

In a letter sent Wednesday, McCain said additional information released about the operation last week warrants a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which McCain is a member.

“The committee should hold a meeting as soon as possible to examine these new revelations and determine what additional measures are needed to help prevent this type of malfeasance from occurring again,” McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The veteran Arizona Senator is asking for the committee to call the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder; the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; and the ATF’s acting director, B. Todd Jones; as witnesses.

A PDF of the letter can be found here.

I am anxious to see what comes of this push by McCain to have hearing on Project Gunwalker in the Senate. While I think the Senate Judiciary Committee is probably a lost cause given the chairmanship of Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), this committee may hold some promise. Lieberman broke from the Democratic ranks to support John McCain for President in 2008 and given he has said he isn’t running for re-election he has nothing to lose by going after Obama and Holder. It will be interesting.

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Holder Continues To Deny Involvement In Project Gunwalker

September 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

Attorney General Eric Holder continues to deny any involvement in Operation Fast and Furious according to a report from the Reuters News Service.

“The notion that somehow or other that this thing reaches into the upper levels of the Justice Department is something that, at this point, I don’t think is supported by the facts,” Holder told reporters.

I wonder just what Mr. Holder considers the upper levels of the Justice Department. I don’t think there is much debate among informed observers that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden were not involved in some capacity.

Holder goes on to claim that the investigations by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as the work of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) are politically motivated.

Holder questioned whether the congressional probe, led by Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate, was politically motivated.

He admitted it was a “flawed enforcement effort,” but said, “my hope would be that Congress will conduct an investigation that is factually based and not marred with politics.”

There is nothing that is NOT political in Washington and Holder well knows it. The very effort to use guns walked to Mexico as a pretext for more gun control was political.

As to my response to Attorney General Holder’s denial that he and other upper level executives in the Justice Department were not involved at some level in Project Gunwalker, it is below.

BS Flag gif