GUN RIGHTS AFFIRMED

 

The right to keep and bear arms is an individual right to own a gun. Gun owners know that. Gun control advocates disagree. But now a federal appeals court has ruled that it is the law.

In a landmark decision, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals swept away 60 years of judicial uncertainty and anti-gun rhetoric by finding that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects an individual right. The court provided a meticulous 84-page historical examination of the Second Amendment, clarifying points that have been muddied by repeated distortions from the gun control faction.

The court ruled in a 2-to-1 decision in the case of U.S. v. Emerson, stating that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual citizen to keep and bear private arms, “regardless of whether the particular individual is then actually a member of the militia.”

Writing for the majority, Judge WILLIAM GARWOOD noted that the government’s long-standing interpretation of the 1939 Miller case, that the Second Amendment merely expresses a “collective right” is not supported by the actual Miller decision. He further noted that “we are mindful that almost all of our sister circuits have rejected any individual rights view of the Second Amendment. However, it respectfully appears to us that all or almost all of these opinions seem to have done so either on the erroneous assumption that Miller resolved that issue or without sufficient articulated examination of the history and text of the Second Amendment.”

 DAVE LaCOURSE, public affairs director of the Second Amendment Foundation, said, “For years, gun control extremists and constitutional revisionists have insisted that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms. We now can say with the support of the federal court that we have been right, and they have been wrong, all along.”

Acknowledging that in his dissent, Judge ROBERT M. PARKER also noted the Second Amendment right is “subject to reasonable regulation.”

LaCOURSE agreed, but with a caveat: “No right is absolute, not freedom of speech or the press. The Constitution does not protect slander or libel, nor does it guarantee an absolute right to practice a religion that might include human or animal sacrifice. What remains to be determined, and what we will have to continue fighting over, is the definition of ‘reasonable regulation.’”

The appeals court, however, did remand the case against Dr. TIMOTHY EMERSON back to Texas for trial, overturning a district judge’s decision that he was wrongly prosecuted for possessing a pistol while under a temporary restraining order during a divorce. The appeals court said the restraining order was a valid restriction on his gun ownership for as long as the restraining order was valid. The order has been removed now that the divorce is final.

Whether Dr. Emerson wins his personal battle is a matter the courts have yet to resolve. But the issue of the Second Amendment protecting an individual right to own a gun is settled. Gun rights are affirmed.

 

COPING WITH TERROR

The September 11th terrorist attacks have changed America down to the grassroots. Americans everywhere are arming for protection. It’s the kind of thing the TV nightly news would headline “America Armed.”

Gun stores around the country are reporting a run on pistols, rifles, shotguns and ammunition, as well as American flags, gas masks, military field rations, water storage containers and shooting targets.

Some buyers are longtime owners who want more guns and more ammo, store owners said.

But gun dealers also say that they are mostly selling to people who’ve never owned a gun.

Gun shop owners nationwide are seeing a new profile of gun buyers in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Many are professionals who have never owned a firearm, but want extra protection in the case of another attack.

TOM CHRISTY, who runs The Firing Line in Denver, said, “There has definitely been a lot more people coming in who are first-time buyers, which I guess as a result of these attacks have just figured maybe the government is not enough to protect its citizens and maybe they should do something for themselves.”

The same thing is happening across the country. In Texas, the number of applications for concealed carry permits has almost doubled since Sept. 11, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Single mom Maria De Avila of El Paso, who has never considered owning a gun, signed up for a self-defense and handgun-use course with a private instructor.

She told a reporter, “I felt we had been violated as a country and as a family” after watching the terrorist attacks with her 7-year-old daughter. She hasn’t decided to buy a gun yet, but wants to be ready.

In West Chester, Pennsylvania, Deputy Sheriff JOSEPH G. CROCETTI says firearms permit applications have tripled since 9-11.

“We’ve had a few who mention a fear of what is going on,” CROCETTI said.

“We’ve also seen more women applying. But most are actually younger applicants than we usually get, kids that have recently turned 21.”

Even in anti-gun Oakland, California, demand for concealed carry permits has increased so much the county clerk wants to hire two more people to cope with a new concealed weapons law.

Before the new concealed carry law took effect July 1, the clerk’s office handled about 2,200 applications a year. Clerk G. WILLIAM CADDELL expects 7,000 to 9,000 this year. Much of the demand appears to be in response to the terrorist attack.

Roll Call magazine, which covers Capitol Hill, reported an ironic twist in America Armed: Members of Congress, including some advocates of strict controls on handguns, are now seeking firearms training in hopes of protecting themselves if the need should arise.

Predictably, gun control groups are urging caution to first-time gun owners, and suggesting ownership may not increase a family’s security.

Americans aren’t buying it.

They are buying guns.

Police officers are urging gun training for all Americans. BOBBY WHITTINGTON, a 19-year veteran of the Lawton, Oklahoma Police Department, said every citizen should be trained and armed.

It’s a theme we’ll be seeing more of in the days to come. The G-T Report will keep tabs on developments in “America Armed.”

 

AUTHOR OF PRIZE-WINNING ANTI-GUN BOOK CAN’T PROVE HIS CLAIMS

MICHAEL A. BELLESILES, historian at Atlanta’s Emory University, wrote a book published last year called, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. It got rave reviews and even won the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history.

Its purpose was to prove that the Second Amendment was not intended by the Framers of the United States Constitution as a protection for the individual right to own a gun, but a mere allowance for the collective right of members of a citizen militia.

BELLESILES’ “proof” is this: private gun ownership was exceedingly rare at the time. Most of those that did exist were old or broken.

Wait a minute. Are we to believe that the famous statue of the Minuteman holding his firearm is wrong? That it was probably a spear or something?

“Guns stayed scarce until after the Civil War”, says BELLESILES.

Then gun rights groups created the “gun culture” that we know today and that we ascribe, incorrectly, to the Framers.

Unbelievable? Not to everyone.

Book reviewers for the New York Times and Washington Post swallowed all that whole, without so much as checking one footnote. They wanted to believe it.

Others did check the footnotes, and the text. Two professors at Northwestern University Law School issued a paper titled, “Counting Guns in Early America,” in which they found that guns were plentiful, widespread and highly valued from Revolutionary times onward. Authors JAMES LINDGREN and JUSTIN LEE HEATHER said their data “directly contradicts the assertions of Michael Bellesiles” in his book. That’s the closest thing to a fistfight you’ll likely find among historians.

Not surprisingly, many others are now saying that BELLESILES appears to have invented much of his “research” for the book. The National Review’s MELISSA SECKORA calls BELLESILES’ book “one of worst cases of academic irresponsibility in memory.”

“For example”, SECKORA wrote, “BELLESILES claims to have checked thousands of probate records, which is how he ’discovered’ that guns were scarce at the time of the framing, and how he concluded that half the guns that did exist were either old or broken”.

But when challenged by other historians, he either couldn’t locate the records he consulted or, when records could be found, the actual numbers showed vastly more gun ownership than BELLESILES reported, just as the Northwestern University scholars found. Are we suspicious yet?

Worse, one set of San Francisco probate records BELLESILES says he relied on was actually destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906, along with City Hall.

Caught with his historical drawers down, BELLESILES issued several lame excuses, like saying he actually examined the records in the San Francisco Superior Court. Nope, CLARK BANAYARD, deputy clerk of the court says. They never were there.

When a researcher pointed this out to BELLESILES, he changed his story and said it was in the Mormon Church’s Family Research Library. Nope, ELAINE HASELTON of the Library says. They have no probate records from the time in question, just lists of the records that say nothing about gun ownership.

Oops. No such records exist. Or at least BELLESILES can’t find them anymore.

Time for a reckoning. JAMES MELTON, chairman of Emory University’s history department, has demanded that BELLESILES defend his research.

Academic ethics would require that BELLESILES respond point by point to every  complaint of error submitted by other scholars. It is not clear whether BELLESILES is going to do that.

MELTON said, “If there is prima facie evidence of scholarly misconduct, the university has to conduct a thorough investigation. Whether it be a purely internal inquiry, or the university brings in distinguished scholars in the field, will depend on how Michael responds. It is important that he be accorded due process.”

Is BELLESILES faking for political purposes? That’s sure what it looks like.

 

BRADY CAMPAIGN MISLED MEDIA ON LAWSUIT STATUS

 

ROBERT T. DELFAY, president and chief executive officer of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, says that DENNIS HENIGAN, director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence’s Legal Action Project, seriously misled media and the public with his comments following the U.S. Supreme Court decision declining to revive a lawsuit by the City of New Orleans against firearm manufacturers.

Commenting on the status of nearly 30 lawsuits filed against the firearms industry, HENINGAN stated, “You have cases going both ways. It’s pretty much split down the middle.”

But DELFAY took sharp exception to HENIGAN’s assessment. “These comments by Mr. Henigan totally misrepresent the true status of the municipal litigation against the firearms industry. There have been 18 suits decided so far and 17 have been fully or partially dismissed in favor of firearms manufacturers. That’s not pretty much split down the middle.”

DELFAY further stated, “What Mr. Henigan failed to tell reporters was that every appellate decision so far rendered in these cases, including decisions by the supreme courts of Louisiana and Connecticut and now the United States Supreme Court, has ruled in favor of the firearms industry. In addition, the highest courts in New York and California both recently ruled in favor of firearms manufacturers in private lawsuits that sought to hold firearms manufacturers responsible for criminal violence committed with firearms.”

DELRAY urged HENIGAN to apologize for his misleading statements.

 

MARYLAND LAW CAUSES SHARP DROP IN HANDGUN SALES

A new Maryland gun control law requiring state police to collect ballistics information about each individual new handgun sold has discouraged thousands from buying handguns.

During the first nine months of the year, state police processed 17,909 applications to buy handguns. At that rate, fewer than 24,000 people would apply to buy handguns this year, a 30 percent decline from 2000.

Spent shells contain markings and grooves that are unique to each gun, which helps police identify crime weapons. But many gun manufacturers simply stopped shipping their products to Maryland rather than comply with the law, saying it was not worth the expense to send a spent shell with each handgun to suit a state that accounts for only 2 percent of sales nationwide.

Even after a spike in sales after the September 11 terrorist attacks, sales have declined.

 

BILL IN CONGRESS COULD DISARM MANY AMERICANS

Senate bill S. 1438, the Department of Defense (DoD) annual reauthorization bill, contains a provision of grave concern to gun owners, especially hunters and sports shooters.

Section 1062 of this bill give the Secretary of Defense the power to require “demilitarization” of any “significant military equipment” that has ever been owned by the DoD.

This would include all firearms such as the M1, M1 Carbine, and Model 1911, as well as all Civilian Marksmanship Program rifles, even “sporterized” surplus bolt-action Springfields, firearm barrels, ammunition, and gun powder now legally in private hands.

Demilitarization is the term for rendering such items permanently inoperable. The bill allows for this action to be carried out by their owner, a third party, or by the DoD, with the owner paying the cost.

If the DoD decided to do the job by itself, it may also decide that it might cost too much to return the inoperable firearm and could simply keep it and reimburse the owner only for the fair market scrap value of the item.

The provision also forces private owners to determine themselves if an item is subject to demilitarization, and face criminal penalties for failure to comply.

 

SWISS GOVERNMENT PLANS MORE GUN CONTROL

As a result of a shooting that left 14 high ranking government officials dead, Switzerland’s Justice Minister said that the country’s gun control rules needed tightening.

RUTH METZLER told reporters, “There are deficiencies in the 1999 gun control law. We are preparing changes.”

Gun control in low-crime Switzerland is the least onerous in Western Europe. The neutral country’s defense has traditionally been based on a part-time militia whose members keep their weapons at home.

Under the rules introduced in 1999, anyone buying a gun from a store must show the seller a permit. The permits are issued by local police or authorities in the different Swiss cantons (states). The only document required in a sale from one private individual to another is a contract of sale.

The additional gun controls being planned were not described. The GT-Report will follow up on this story.

 

CANADIANS TO GET FREE GUN REGISTRATION

At first, gun owners had to pay the government to register their firearms under a new law, which wasn’t very popular. Many Canadians responded by simply not registering their guns.

Now Canada’s federal government is refunding firearms registration fees to those who have already paid them, and offering free registration to those who haven’t, in an effort to get more guns registered.

It was the latest twist in the multimillion-dollar program, and brought more embarrassment to an already expensive and detested initiative.

The refunds are being rolled out one region at a time so administrators won’t be overwhelmed. Atlantic Canada was first, Ontario second.

Justice Minister ANNE McLELLAN said, “The government of Canada is committed to making the firearm registration process more convenient and user-friendly.”

 

AUSTRALIAN GUN REGISTRATION PROGRAM SHOWS WIDE OWNERSHIP

The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) has experienced soaring gun registrations in the past two years due to people taking advantage of a government amnesty to register firearms.

According to NSW government figures, as of August this year there were 54,145 handguns registered in the state, compared to 46,000 in August 1999.

In total there were 642,155 registered firearms in NSW and 175,244 firearm licenses.

The average license holder owned about four firearms.

This is cause for alarm to Australian gun control groups. The National Coalition for Gun Control (NCGC), said it was worried about the availability of guns “which could eventually enter the blackmarket and be used unlawfully.”

Should gun owners worry about NCGC members who could eventually enter the underworld and commit crimes because they’re continually obsessing about guns?

 

SAF-T-HAMMER WINS PATENT FOR GUN TRIGGER LOCK

The parent company of Smith & Wesson has announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent for one of the company’s safety products designed to prevent unauthorized use and accidental discharge of a firearm.

Saf-T-Hammer was issued the patent for the Saf-T-Trigger™ firearm trigger lock.

The patent covers two “embodiments” of the device, one when it is installed below the trigger guard, the second when it is installed on top of the actual trigger.

Saf-T-Hammer chairman and CEO, MITCHELL SALTZ, said, “This product will be included with or incorporated into certain Smith & Wesson hand gun models.”

Saf-T-Hammer acquired Smith & Wesson in May of this year. Smith & Wesson has been making firearms for nearly 150 years.

 

CONNECTICUT COURT DENIES GUN APPEAL

The Connecticut state Supreme Court has ruled that the city of Bridgeport has no legal standing to pursue a lawsuit against firearms makers to recover the costs of gun-related crime.

Joining courts in other states, Connecticut’s high court said Bridgeport had not suffered such direct losses from gun makers that it was legally able to pursue its case.

The court said the city’s claims of injury to its citizenry, budget and reputation are too specious and indirect to litigate.

The Connecticut ruling is the first by the highest court of any state in the country on the issue of whether municipalities have standing to sue gun manufacturers for the fallout costs of gun abuse - from hiring more officers to reduced property values.

The answer from Connecticut’s justices was a resounding “no!”

Bridgeport’s anti-gun Democrat Mayor JOSEPH GANIM told the Associated Press that an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was probably not an option, considering the city’s weak position.

 

NEW ORLEANS ANTI-GUN LAWSUIT DOWN IN FLAMES

The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court dismissing the City of New Orleans’s lawsuit against gun manufacturers to recover the costs of gun crime. That’s the end of that.

The suit was brought under the orders of anti-gun Democrat Mayor MARC MORIAL, and set the stage for more than two dozen suits that followed.

The New Orleans suit was also the first to be rejected by a state supreme court, which came earlier this year.

 

MARYLAND GUN SHOW BAN STRUCK DOWN

U.S. District Court Judge MARVIN J. GARBIS has struck down an attempt by the Montgomery County, Maryland Council to abolish gun shows held at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds Agricultural Center.

The Council passed a law strictly regulating where gun shows could be held last May, caving in to the demands of a handful of gun control extremists.

However, the fairgrounds are privately owned, and because it is located in the City of Gaithersburg, the Council was prohibited by state