March 20, 2013
The House on Tuesday approved a bill that would remove the governor's authority to suspend or limit the sale, dispensing or transportation of firearms during an emergency.
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March 20, 2013
An overwhelming majority of Iowa House lawmakers approved legislation Monday that would make permits to purchase and carry firearms confidential.
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March 19, 2013
Will trampling the rights of law-abiding gun owners really do anything to help keep our children safe? Will piling unnecessary weight on a federal regulatory system that’s already drowning help keep guns out of the wrong hands? The answers, of course, are “no” — which is why a so-called “universal background check” system should be dismissed by any lawmaker who is serious about protecting constitutional freedom and improving public safety.
A mandate for truly “universal” background checks would put the federal government squarely in the middle of every sale, loan or gift of a firearm between private individuals. In other words, it would criminalize all private firearms transfers, even between family members or friends who have known each other all of their lives.
Such a sweeping and intrusive new mandate would crush the current National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS), which is already overwhelmed.
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March 19, 2013
The leader of the Democrat-controlled Senate on Tuesday dropped a proposed assault weapons ban from the chamber’s gun-control package – dealing a blow to supporters of the ban, though it could still come up for a vote.
The sponsor of the measure, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., revealed that Reid told her the proposed ban would not be in the initial package. Feinstein said she's "disappointed" with the decision, and is expected to nevertheless offer it as an amendment.
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March 19, 2013
Gun control advocates are hoping to reverse some of the political influence of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights proponents by urging the White House to strip the president's next budget proposal of any provision that limits how federal agencies track firearms.
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March 19, 2013
While New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said two months ago he was determined to fight for a ban on assault weapons, the outspoken gun critic said Monday he's concentrated on another legislative proposal."Our focus is on background checks," he said on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper."
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March 19, 2013
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Monday that a controversial assault weapons ban will not be part of a Democratic gun bill that was expected to reach the Senate floor next month.
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March 19, 2013
The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, meanwhile, will meet at 3 p.m. for a closer look at Senate Bill 101. The proposal would keep the names and personal details of gun owners licensed to carry a weapon in Georgia secret, and it would prohibit local officials from banning guns in public housing unless required by federal law or regulation.The bill would also get Georgia out of the business of licensing gun dealers. Out of state gun owners with permission to carry guns at home would be allowed to carry guns here. And it would lower to 18 the state's prohibition on anyone under the age of 21 from carrying a gun, but only for military service members who have completed basic training.
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March 19, 2013
Since mid December, Bob Arthur has watched as the time Maryland State Police need to review a gun application stretched to more than a month.For the owner of Shooters Supply and other shop owners, the reason is simple: demand is high.
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March 19, 2013
Minnesota House lawmakers are weighing whether to expand background checks for firearm purchases, a critical step in whether that measure can pass and become law.
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March 19, 2013
Montana lawmakers behind two pro gun measures said Monday that restrictions on carrying concealed weapons in cities and on university campuses violate Second Amendment rights.House Bill 240 would curb the Montana Board of Regents' authority to restrict firearms on college campuses.It followed two other pro gun measures on Monday including House Bill 304, which would allow people to carry concealed firearms without a permit in cities.
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March 18, 2013
It's great to be here today, among so many friends, and I appreciate your warm welcome. As you might imagine, I don't get invited to many parties in this town. That's okay. I came to Washington when I was about your age, but I didn't come here to be popular. I came here to stand for what I believe is true.The political elites may not like it. The liberal media can keep hating on me. But I'm still standing, unapologetic and unflinching in defense of our individual freedom. They can call me crazy and whatever else they want, but NRA's nearly 5 million members and America's 100 million gun owners will not back down -- not now, not ever.
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March 18, 2013
Leading up to the 2012 U.S. presidential election there was a great deal of controversy surrounding proposed voter identification laws in various states -- notably in Texas and South Carolina. Currently 20 states, the District of Columbia and all U.S. non state territories do not require voters to produce identification of any kind at the polls. Opponents of voter ID laws claim they would deprive minorities of their voting rights. Yet those same opponents have begun to clamor for more stringent gun laws, which would deprive those same minorities of their right to bear arms.
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March 18, 2013
A week before it opens a treaty conference to impose worldwide limitations on arms sales, the United Nations co hosted and paid for a series of meetings involving 48 African nations and an anti gun group that espouses much greater national and international control of firearms, including registration of small arms and ammunition.
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March 18, 2013
The National Rifle Association, which is battling a raft of gun control measures on Capitol Hill, also has an international fight on its hands as it gears up to oppose a U.N. treaty designed to restrict the flow of arms to conflict zones.
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March 18, 2013
In 2011, only a handful of assault style rifles were used in the nearly 200 firearm related homicides in Virginia.In an analysis of Virginia State Police data, the Richmond Times Dispatch found only four and possibly five cases in 2011 the last year for which complete state crime data are available in which a semi automatic version of an assault style rifle was used in a killing.
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March 18, 2013
Whether it's a purchase from a big box outdoor supply store or a swap between close friends, Coloradans should have to undergo a background check when they sell and transfer a firearm, the state House and Senate decided Friday.
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March 18, 2013
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's commission on the Newtown school shooting made one of the farthest reaching recommendations in the gun debate so far, suggesting Friday that the state ban the sale and possession of all semi automatic weapons that can fire more than 10 rounds.The proposed ban would affect both high capacity rifles and hand guns, including those currently owned lawfully in Connecticut.
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March 18, 2013
A proposal to require criminal background checks of more people who buy firearms at gun shows has cleared another legislative hurdle, but it was unclear whether a final vote would come before lawmakers adjourn Saturday.The Senate Judiciary Committee sent the House passed bill to the full Senate late Thursday on a party line vote, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed.GOP Gov. Susana Martinez, who is licensed to carry a concealed handgun, has said she would sign the legislation if it remains unchanged.
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March 18, 2013
Gov. Bill Haslam has signed a bill that would allow people with handgun carry permits to store firearms in their vehicles no matter where they are parked.
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March 18, 2013
A proposal to let school districts and state colleges designate employees who can carry concealed weapons, and another to expand the number of public buildings where concealed weapons are permitted, passed the Kansas House with broad support Thursday.
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March 15, 2013
The exchange between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) about the constitutionality of her proposed ban on "assault weapons" at yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee meeting nicely illustrated a familiar pattern in which people who favor new gun restrictions respond to challenges with emotion-laden non sequiturs. Feinstein, who admonished Cruz for treating her like "a sixth-grader," later told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I just felt patronized. I felt he was somewhat arrogant about it." If you watch the video at the end of this post, you can judge for yourself whether Cruz seemed patronizing or arrogant. But the question he posed was perfectly fair: Given that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms, just as the First Amendment protects an individual right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, isn't telling people they may not possess certain guns analogous to telling them they may not possess certain books? In both cases, people retain most of the right guaranteed by the Constitution, but in the First Amendment context that has never been deemed enough for a restriction to pass muster. Feinstein proudly cites the list of more than 2,000 gun models specifically exempted from her ban as evidence that it does not violate the Second Amendment, which Cruz suggested is rather like publishing a list of officially permitted titles as evidence that a book ban does not not violate the First Amendment.
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March 15, 2013
Yesterday, S. 374, or the "Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013" as it has been inexplicably termed, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by ten votes to eight. If it were to become law, S. 374 would usher in what advocates refer to as a system of "universal background checks." It would do a lot more, besides. As it stands in our ostensibly ghoulish status quo, a free American citizen may leave his guns with his unrelated roommate for more than seven days; he may lend a gun to a friend so that that friend is able to go shooting or hunting; he has more than 24 hours in which to report to the police if his guns are stolen; and he may even -- shock, horror! -- teach a friend to shoot on his own land. Most important, he may do all of these things without spending five years in prison in consequence. This, the Senate's bill would change.
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March 15, 2013
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a measure to reinstate a ban on assault weapons in the first major Congressional test of the issue since the law expired in 2004. But the ban remains unlikely to clear the full Senate.
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March 15, 2013
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Thursday Sen. Dianne Feinstein's "assault weapons" ban by a straight party line vote, despite Republican efforts to point out the obvious holes in the legislation.
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March 15, 2013
Feinstein got into a tense exchange with GOP Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas), who pointedly challenged her on whether the bill complied with the Second Amendment or would be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.“I am not a sixth grader,” Feinstein bristled. “Congress is in the business of making the law. The Supreme Court interprets the law. If they strike down the law, they strike down the law.
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March 15, 2013
Thursday's hearing focused on 11 bills pending before the public safety committee. Legislative leaders are also holding private talks on a bipartisan, omnibus gun control bill. The group is scheduled to meet again on Friday as is a task force appointed by Malloy after the Newtown tragedy.Hundreds of people flocked to the Capitol for Thursday's hearing, many wearing stickers and holding signs. Busloads of workers from Colt Defense LLC and Colt's Manufacturing Co. came holding signs reading, "Save Our Jobs."
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March 15, 2013
A Senate panel passed a bill Thursday night that would impose universal background checks for gun purchases, but that measure still has a tall and rocky hill to climb before becoming law in Minnesota.
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March 15, 2013
South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard has signed a bill making concealed weapons permits valid for five years, up from the current four years.
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March 15, 2013
The Hawaii House Committee on Public Safety is advancing a bill to require background checks for people who bring in guns from outside the state.
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March 15, 2013
Texas is one of the strongest gun rights states in the country and has allowed concealed handgun licenses since 1995. License holders must be at least 21 years old and pass a training course. They are allowed to carry their weapons many places, including the state Capitol where simply showing their license to security will allow them to bypass metal detectors.But college campuses remain off limits for weapons and the campus carry question erupted into one of the most contentious issues of the 2011 session before if failed. Supporters, including the Texas Rifle Association, are pushing the measure again, calling it a gun rights and self defense issue. Thursday's meeting drew a large police presence outside the committee with at least four state troopers stationed inside the room or in the hallway.
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March 15, 2013
A group of Chicago area gun dealers and owners filed a lawsuit Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, aiming to halt a new $25 tax on every gun purchase in Cook County.The special county tax doesn't kick in until April 1, but Chuck's Gun Shop in south suburban Riverdale -- one of the better known gun stores in the area -- is among the plaintiffs asking a judge to order the county to hold its fire. The suit says the tax is a violation of the right to bear arms.
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March 14, 2013
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a renewed assault-weapons ban, advancing the measure to the Senate floor where it will face intense resistance from Republicans and other gun-rights supporters.
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March 14, 2013
When I go shooting with friends, we head out into the desert and inevitably we admire each other's firearms and swap 'em for a try to compare their accuracy, feel and overall abilities. That makes us criminals under the "background check" bill currently under consideration in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Charles Schumer, who proposed the measure, has packed his legislation full of legal snares virtually guaranteed to turn gun owners into lawbreakers. That's an impressive little sleight of hand for legislation considered to be the only sort of gun control with a chance to make it through Congress.
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March 14, 2013
With gun safety measures headed to the Senate floor, members of the House and Senate appropriations committees have quietly made permanent four formerly temporary gun rights provisions largely favored by Republicans. Those provisions are part of a spending bill that would keep the government running through Sept. 30.
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March 14, 2013
Now only the signature of Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper is needed on a bill that bans Coloradans from purchasing ammunition magazines of more than 15 rounds, as lawmakers in the House on Wednesday gave final approval to the measure and shipped it to his desk.
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March 14, 2013
The Glendale City Council has indicated that it will ban gun shows.Before Tuesday night's decision, the attorney for the operator of the Glendale Gun Show threatened legal action."This ordinance, in the way it's drafted ... will necessarily require litigation," Sean Brady said to council members and the roughly 140 people packed inside City Hall.
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March 14, 2013
A Senate panel is set to vote on changes to Minnesota's gun laws, including whether to require background checks for all gun purchases.
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March 14, 2013
Harvard medical researchers just published a scholarly paper in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, claiming that more firearm laws in a state are associated with a lower rate of gun homicides and suicides. However, examination of their data and research methods shows the opposite.McMaster University researcher Caillin Langmann, MD, PhD noted that the Harvard authors' own best analysis:* Does not show that states with more gun laws have fewer gun deaths* Demonstrates that "assault weapon" bans have no effect on homicide* Demonstrates that laws prohibiting guns in public places have no effect on homicideEven more damning, Dr. Garen Wintemute, well known for research advocating gun control, agrees with Dr. Langmann. In his editor invited commentary Wintemute faults the Harvard authors for relying on a state gun law grading system used by the Brady Center (formerly known as Handgun Control, Inc.) and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Both of these organizations are dedicated gun control advocates. Using their political ploy in a scientific journal is disgraceful.
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March 14, 2013
The Kansas House on Wednesday advanced three gun measures, including one that could allow people to carry concealed weapons into some government buildings and another that is meant to bar federal authorities from confiscating firearms made in the state.
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