gun rights

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WRAL On Gun Rights Legislation In The NC General Assembly This Week

March 5, 2011 by 1 Comment

Laura Leslie, Capitol Bureau Chief for WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC, has a report on some of the gun rights legislation discussed in the North Carolina General Assembly this week. It is a fairly balanced report.

The only objection I have is the attempt to find “man on the street” comments objecting to concealed carry in parks. They interviewed someone in a park in Cary which is just outside Raleigh. Cary has been one of the fastest growing communities in the state for the past couple of decades with significant in-migration from Northern states. Unfortunately, many of the newcomers have brought their Northern attitudes especially towards guns with them. This has led to jokes about Cary standing for Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.

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Arkansas Moves To Protect Gun Rights During An Emergency

March 2, 2011 by

On Monday, the Arkansas General Assembly sent SB 115 to Gov. Mike Beebe (Democrat) for his signature. The bill passed both houses of the General Assemby in overwhelming and bipartisan fashion. The House vote was 89-0 with nine not voting and the Senate vote was 29-5 with one not voting.

This bill, if signed by the Governor, would do two thing to preserve gun rights in the State of Arkansas. First, it clarifies the prohibition against any city, county, town, or other local unit from suing any firearms manufacturer, dealer, or trade association except for breach of contract or warranty.

Second, and more importantly, the bill would prevent any local body from enacting any emergency ordinance to regulate the the transfer, transportation, or carrying of a firearm or its parts.

Now if the North Carolina General Assembly would follow the lead of Arkansas and amend our laws regarding firearms during emergencies, I’d be a  happy camper.

Arkansas SB 115 – Regulation of Firearms by Local Governments

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Nein! Non! No! Na!

February 13, 2011 by 5 Comments

Switzerland is a quad-lingual country if you count the infrequently spoken Romansch. The other official languages are German, French, and Italian.

Regardless of the language, the voters of Switzerland have said “No” in today’s referendum to greater gun control.

Pro-gun campaign poster in Switzerland.

A bit over 56% of the Swiss voters rejected attempts by a coalition of the Green Party, unions, pacifists, church groups, and NGO’s to force military weapons to be kept in armories. The referendum would have also created a gun registry and banned the sale of both full auto weapons and pump-action rifles.

A overwhelming majority of the cantons – 20 out of 26 – were won by the pro-gun vote in this referendum. For a referendum to pass in Switzerland, both a majority of the cantons and a majority of the votes must be for it.

Here is how the AP reported the results of the vote.

Neutral Switzerland is among the best-armed nations in the world, with more guns per capita than almost any other country except the United States, Finland and Yemen.

At least 2.3 million weapons lie stashed in basements, cupboards and lofts in this country of less than 8 million people, according to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey.

On Sunday, Swiss voters made sure it stays that way, rejecting a proposal to tighten the peaceful Alpine nation’s relaxed firearms laws.

While gun rights forces won today, I think Sebastian is right that the anti’s will be back. The membership of gun clubs is aging and younger voters were more likely to have voted for the gun restrictions proposed in the referendum.

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The Second Amendment Isn’t About Duck Hunting

December 9, 2010 by

An autograph auction house, Alexander Autographs, is auctioning a note sent by Barack Obama on White House stationary saying he supports the Second Amendment. The note was in response to a letter sent to him by a gentleman who noted how much money is raised for wildlife conservation by the sale of firearms and ammunition. The letter is included with this autographed note. You can read the full letter on the Alexander Autographs auction page above.

More on the auction and on Obama’s stance on gun rights is in a story from U.S. News and World Report’s Washington Whispers column entitled Obama Backs Gun Rights.

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Civil Rights for Wounded Veterans

October 15, 2010 by

Grass Roots North Carolina just released this video regarding gun rights for veterans. It features a speech by Senator Richard Burr of NC on his bill that would have protected the rights of wounded veterans. He gave it at GRNC’s Gun Rights Gala held in Charlotte this past May.

In light of the Second Amendment Foundation’s newest lawsuit, the timing is impeccable. And yes, that is Alan Gura sitting to Burr’s right on the dais.

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Working for Gun Rights in India

July 30, 2010 by 2 Comments

After the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British rulers of India banned all non-Europeans from owning firearms. It was their way of keeping the Indian people defenseless, if not totally submissive. Even Gandhi, the foremost proponent of non-violence, termed this act “the blackest” of the many misdeeds of the British rule in India.

The Indian Government replaced that law in 1959. Its replacement “granted every citizen the right to bear arms, regardless of race or social standing.” That was then and this is now.

As noted in an article in the Indian newspaper The National,

Along with highly restrictive curbs on the sale of ammunition and the creation of a national database of firearm owners, the new regulations also require gun-licence applicants to prove a “grave and imminent threat” to their lives in order to be approved.

Indian gunowners are outraged and have finally formed The National Association of Gun Rights India (Nagri) to fight for their gun rights. They have patterned it after the NRA. They aim to lobby lawmakers as well as fund legal cases to make it easier to own and carry firearms.

This month the organisation began a membership drive – and in doing so, they have provoked a debate about the role of fire arms in the land of Mahatma Gandhi.

“The bottom line is it’s about freedom,” said Abhijeet Singh, 37, an entrepreneur and one of Nagri’s founders.

“The first line of defence has to be the citizen. It always has been like that, it will always continue to be like that.”

Their opposition, Control Arms Foundation of India (Cafi), takes the same approach as the Brady Campaign and seeks to blame the gun and not the criminal.

But anti-gun campaigners say arming citizens is not the way forward. The Control Arms Foundation of India (Cafi), which was set in up 2004 in response to rising gun crime in the north-east, estimates there are already some 46 million firearms in India, making it the country with the second largest number of guns in civilian hands after the US.

“If I say I am going to protect myself then I exempt the state from doing its job. What India are we living in? This is not some failed state,” said Arundhati Ghose, a former India ambassador to the UN who campaigns for Cafi.

The founder of NAGRI counters that is nonsense. He notes that criminals can get more firepower and be less traceable if they go to the black market.

This is a group that bears watching. It would be nice to see real gun rights come to the second largest country in the world.

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Disarming the Elderly

July 20, 2010 by

David Codrea has written an excellent article on the elderly and firearms in his Examiner Gun Rights column. The article was in reaction to a New York Times “health” article entitled “Guns in Frail Hands”.

Codrea speculates that with an aging population in the United States this may be next front for gun control advocates.

Which leads us to a ripe-for-exploiting “loophole” (that’s what the anti’s call anything impeding total control, don’t they?) of sorts:

“Families find little help in the law when trying to pry guns away from impaired family members.”

Except there really is no gap in law. It’s just that:

“The federal Brady Act bars gun sales to anyone adjudicated mentally “defective,” a legal process few children want to put parents through.”

It really does get down to taking responsibility for our elderly relatives and making the hard decisions. I know of what I speak. I buried my Mom two years ago after a four year stay in a nursing home with advanced dementia. There were hard decisions that needed to be made including the very first one about getting her into a nursing home – a place she didn’t want to be but she needed to be.

Codrea sums it up by saying:

We have an aging population. Many of us still have parents, others of us are starting to realize we ourselves aren’t getting any younger. The decisions we are or will be faced with aren’t easy ones. That means there is no one-size-fits all solution where we can just pass another “gun control” law and consider the problem solved.

We need to have this discussion in the gun community, to develop tools and resources to help us help ourselves and our loved ones.

Or we could just let government take over and make the best decisions for us.

He is absolutely correct. We need to have this conversation and we don’t need a one-size fits all sort of law imposed by our “betters” from on high.

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Texans Aren’t Stupid

June 7, 2010 by

Democrat running for governor could find simply owning a gun isn’t enough for Texas voters 

Bill White, Mayor of Houston, is the Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas. He thought that Texas gun owners might be impressed that he owns a Springfield 9mm and a shotgun. He also thought they might forget that he was aligned with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns until 2009. That was when he sought his first statewide office and was running against a pro-gun Democrat.

White says he quit because the group opposed a federal law that would have allowed conceal-carry permit holders to carry their firearms across state lines.

Perry spokesman Mark Miner questioned White’s reason for leaving the group, saying he only quit after he caught flak from pro-gun Democrat John Sharp when both were running for the U.S. Senate. White’s name had appeared earlier on a letter opposing the expansion of rights for conceal-carry permit holders.

“He’s totally lying,” Miner said. “He is anti-gun and he’ll do anything including lying to try to get elected.”

Unfortunately for Mayor White, he is running against Rick Perry who not only has a concealed carry permit but used his Ruger LCP to kill a coyote that was threatening his daughter’s Labrador Retriever pup.

Perry is rated A+ by the NRA and has been endorsed by the Texas State Rifle Association.

“He (White) went outside of the state of Texas and aligned himself with out-of-state mayors for heaven sakes,” said Alice Tripp, legislative director of the Texas State Rifle Association.

I guess that about says it all.