YEAR
IN REVIEW
The year 2001 has been on balance
favorable
to gun rights.
In fact, some are saying it’s
been a great year for gun rights.
There have been federal court decisions in favor of individual gun ownership, to the news that Attorney General JOHN ASHCROFT plans to protect the Second Amendment, and other victories that keep piling up.
The best news is that 2001 has seen
gun manufacturers
stopping the lawsuit brigade dead in its tracks. Back in the 1990s, the gun control crowd and the CLINTON administration prodded some 30 cities
and counties to
sue the gun industry
like they did the tobacco industry.
Dreaming of huge windfalls, lawyers
brought forward the novel concept that gun companies sold unreasonably dangerous products and should be held liable
for urban violence.
The first was launched by New Orleans
Mayor MARC MORIAL. His lawyers argued that guns were “defective” because they didn’t have gimmicks to prevent
“unauthorized users” from firing them, and they didn’t have other gimmicks to tell users that there was a round
in the chamber.
Gun owners realized this was really
an effort to force gunmakers to redesign guns to make them either unusable or unaffordable.
State legislatures realized the same
thing. Louisiana and several dozen other state passed state laws shielding manufacturers
from government lawsuits.
That prompted a number of ugly lawsuits. In April, the Louisiana Supreme Court doused Mayor Morial’s brushfire, ruling that “the lawsuit
constitutes an indirect attempt to regulate the lawful design, manufacture, marketing and sale of firearms.” When
His Honor the Mayor appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, they declined to hear the case.
2001 also saw lawsuits filed by Chicago, Miami-Dade County, Philadelphia and the state of New York unceremoniously tossed out of court.
The latest anti-gun assault is being
launched to shamelessly exploit the events of September 11. The Sarah Brady bunch is demanding that a crackdown on terrorism include
stricter gun laws.
They have dug deep to find instances
when terrorists had possessed firearms (gee, what a surprise!) or even expressed a desire to possess firearms (double
gee-whiz!).
But everybody remembers that the
Islamist terrorists who hijacked four airplanes on September 11 and killed thousands of innocent American civilians
didn’t have
a gun among them.
And how could you raise funds with
a slogan like “Box-cutter Control”?
Fund-raising is where the gun control
crowd is having its roughest time these days. They don’t admit it, but contributions are down. Anti-gun groups just hope that wealthy left-wing foundations will come in to bail them out.
One of the few victories of the anti-gun
crowd is more symbolic than substantive: the news media are still talking about “gun violence” rather than “criminal
shootings.”
We’ll know we’ve really won when the media start talking straight.
CONCEALED
GUN PERMIT UPDATE
As Americans deal with fears of terrorism,
applications
to carry a concealed weapon
are on the
rise all
over the nation.
Colorado officials reported more than triple
the number of background checks for concealed-carry permits than they did a year earlier. One sheriff waived the
$100 fee as a patriotic gesture and asked applicants to donate the money to the victims of the terrorist attacks.
Increases have also been reported
in Texas, Washington, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
JOE WALDRON, Executive Director of the Citizens Committee for the Right
to Keep and Bear Arms,
said, “People want to be safe. They don’t want to be left defenseless. It’s easy enough to say that armed individuals
won’t deter terrorism, but people don’t buy it. They do
buy guns.”
Requests by Texans seeking state
permits to carry concealed handguns have more than doubled since the 9/11 attacks, state officials said.
Applications for permits in Texas have gone from an average of 1,060
a week in the month before 9/11 to more than 2,900 in subsequent weeks, according to the Texas Department of Public
Safety.
A concealed gun permit in Texas allows a gun owner to carry a firearm
without having to display it openly.
NEW
MEXICO MAYOR’S LAWSUIT TEMPORARILY BLOCKS CONCEALED CARRY
The New Mexico State Supreme Court
has temporarily
blocked the government from issuing licenses to carry concealed handguns, saying it wants written legal arguments from opponents and supporters of the new law.
Albuquerque Mayor JIM BACA, who leaves office this month, asked the court in November to invalidate the law, contending it is unconstitutional.
State Attorney General PATRICIA MADRID
said BACA
is misreading the state constitution. Although it doesn’t guarantee the right to carry concealed weapons, MADRID said it doesn’t preclude the state from authorizing it in a statute.
The law, passed earlier this year,
allows New
Mexicans 21 and older to carry loaded, concealed handguns if they get training, pass a background check and obtain a license. Cities and counties may
opt out.
BACA is known for his extremism. He was the CLINTON administration’s first head of the
Bureau of Land Management for a short time. But his arrogance upset so many people the administration had no alternative but to fire him.
THREE
STATES SIGN DEAL ON CONCEALED HANDGUNS
Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Florida residents with concealed handgun
permits are now permitted
to carry their firearms in all three states.
Pennsylvania Attorney General MIKE
FISHER recently entered into an agreement with the Florida Department of Public Safety and the Kentucky State Police.
The three states have compatible
firearms statutes. The agreement also means each state will provide verification of the authenticity and status
of its licenses to the other states.
The Pennsylvania Sheriff’s Association
has long supported the agreement. Lackawanna County Sheriff JOHN SZYMANSKI said his office gets many calls from
residents asking how
to legally transport their handguns to Florida and while en route.
“A lot of people have winter homes
in Florida,” he said.
Pennsylvania, however, has no reciprocity agreement with any other state.
LAND RIGHTS GROUP THUMPS NRA FOR BACKING LAND GRAB BILL
An email campaign by the American
Land Rights Association (ALRA)
knocked the National
Rifle Association’s
Board of Directors for supporting a bill in Congress called “CARA,” HR 701, the Conservation and Reinvestment Act.
CARA provides over one billion dollars
per year for government to condemn private property. The feds already own a third
of the United States, says ALRA.
It seems that JIM BAKER, the NRA’s top lobbyist, backed this CARA land grab bill.
Why? BAKER insists that some of those CARA dollars would be targeted to nationalize farm lands for hunting use. But CARA never even mentions hunting.
ALRA says grassroots gun owners don’t believe in forcing people to give up their land so they can go hunting. But JIM BAKER
does. When ALRA
urged him to oppose CARA, he said, “We only protect the Second Amendment.”
ALRA complains that BAKER seems to think
he can ignore the Fifth Amendment’s property protection clause and sell it out to benefit the Second Amendment.
Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that guns are property and gun
ownership relies on property rights. Second Amendment rights and Fifth Amendment rights go hand in hand. ALRA says BAKER treated the land rights appeal with total contempt.
And that started a big war. With
ALRA help, grassroots NRA members pounded their directors demanding that the NRA stop backing CARA. It came to a head at the recent NRA board meeting,
where a horrendous debate resulted in new restrictions and qualifications on NRA support for CARA. It was a partial
win for land rights.
ALRA has published a CARA scorecard for
NRA board members, dividing them into “Heroes and Zeroes.” JIM
BAKER was the worst zero.
The Heroes include Sen. LARRY
CRAIG (R-ID),
who led the charge against CARA. Heroes DAVE KEENE of Virginia, with WAYNE
ROSS of Alaska, helped revise NRA position language
that said CARA helps land owners. GROVER NORQUIST of Washington, D.C. noted that the NRA was becoming isolated among gun owners
and hunting groups and its own
chapters because
of its support
for CARA.
The pullback from full NRA support
for CARA was the work of many people. ALRA
says the bill
is now sidetracked
in Congress, and although not dead, is seriously wounded, along with NRA’s reputation among its grassroots members.
14th ANNUAL NATIONAL SECURITY SURVEY
RESULTS
A mail survey of 23,113 Chiefs of
Police and Sheriffs in the United States was recently conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.
Here are some sample survey questions
and majority results:
l
Should any law-abiding citizen be able to purchase a firearm for sport or self-defense? Yes 93.4%
l
Within the past year, has your agency been called upon to arrest anyone who has made a false statement on an application
to purchase a firearm? No
90.1%
l
Are you of the opinion that anyone (such as a convicted felon) in violation of state or federal firearm possession
laws, should be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney and, if convicted, receive a maximum prison term? Yes 86.5%
l
Do you believe law-abiding citizens should be limited to the purchase of no more than one firearm per month? No 69.3%
l
Do you maintain that criminals are able to obtain basically any type of firearm by illegal means? Yes 95.4%
l
Is it your belief that any sworn peace officer or retired officer should be permitted to carry a firearm from state
to state? Yes
94.5%
l
Do you agree that a national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime as recent studies in some state have already reflected? Yes 62.3%
ZOGBY - O’LEARY POLL REVEALS WARTIME FEELINGS
A Zogby
Poll conducted in conjunction with The O’Leary Report found that 72% of Americans would prefer to have George W.
Bush in the White House rather than former President Clinton (20%) during this critical period in our history.
46% support the right to carry a firearm and 51% own or plan to own a gun. 98% said it was important to keep
our constitutional freedoms;
93% said it was “very important.”
GUN
CONTROL POLICY, JALALABAD STYLE: HE WHO GRABS ALL THE RIFLES WRITES THE RULES
Gun control is not in the Afghan
tradition.
Everybody who can get a gun has one.
But life in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, is different since the Taliban’s leaders fled recently. The new Sheriff in town is an old rebel who’s fought the Taliban for years. His name is HAZARAT ALI,
and he’s the law-and-order minister for the Eastern Shura, which controls Jalalabad and three surrounding provinces.
He’s been driving around in a sound
truck, blaring, “Don’t carry weapons. If you are found with a weapon, you will be punished, no questions asked.”
It’s a disagreeable thing to do for Mr. ALI, but lawlessness and
murder became such a problem when war came to town that relief supplies are being slowed or stalled. Getting some
semblance of order in place is tough.
Mr. Ali has 6,000 men loyal to him
patrolling the streets. They all have guns. Now the problem is going to be how to control the cops. It’s an old
problem, one even the Roman Empire had a saying for 2,000 years ago: In Latin, it’s “Quis custodiet custodes?” In English, “Who will guard the guards?”
JAPANESE
MOBSTER SHOOTS TWO AFTER PEEKING UP SKIRT
Japanese culture is sometimes hard
to fathom. Peeking
up skirts on the subway
is evidently a big thrill for grown men. Even for 52-year-old “yakuza” gangsters, in the Japanese Mafia. Once such man,
a member of the huge YAMAGUCHI crime syndicate, was trying to look up a woman’s skirt on the Tokyo subway recently
when a policeman noticed and tried to question him.
The peeking mobster fired off shots, injuring two officers before being
subdued and arrested.
Japan’s strict gun control laws are supposed
to stop criminals from getting the guns necessary for such shootings, but obviously criminals don’t obey those
laws.
Japan may be the only place on earth where
gangsters
shoot you because they’ve been peeking up skirts. Whatever became of extortion and running numbers?
MEMBER
OF PARLIAMENT BERATES CANADIAN GUN CONTROL
GARRY BREITKREUZ, Saskatchewan Member of Parliament, is the Official Opposition’s gun control critic. “Our soon-to-be billion dollar gun registration
program doesn’t work. The Statistics Canada report shows it. So why don’t the Liberals finally heed the Statistics
Canada numbers and put an end to this charade?”
Here are some of the numbers M.P. BREITKREUZ cites:
Of the 542 homicides in Canada in 2000, stabbing, beating and strangulation accounted for 58% and firearms for 34%. Obviously, says Mr. BREITKREUZ, violent individuals are the problem
and registering a person’s firearms doesn’t prevent someone from killing another person.
Canadian law since 1934 has required
all handguns to be registered. Yet of the 183 firearms homicides in 2000, 58% were committed with handguns. Mr. BREITKREUZ notes that registration is a fatal
flop as a way to prevent the criminal use of firearms.
“Is the truth that hard to swallow
or is it that the Liberals just hate admitting they made such a huge mistake?” Mr. BREITKREUZ said.
GUNS
IN CHINA
Yes, that
China. Communist China. Once dismissing crimes with guns
as a manifestation of American decadence that didn’t affects its own better regulated society, even the government
is admitting criminal shootings are up.
Unofficial sources say crimes with
guns are way up. According to China News Week,
more than 500 police officers died in the line of duty last year, up from about 360 in 1996.
And the black market can sell you anything from pistols to automatic rifles.
APPEALS COURT SHOOTS DOWN NEW JERSEY ANTI-GUN SUIT
The 3rd United States Circuit Court
of Appeals has upheld
the dismissal of a suit brought by Camden County,
New
Jersey,
that accused gun makers of creating a “public nuisance” and sought to recoup the governmental costs associated with gun-related crimes.
The original ruling by U.S. District
Judge JEROME B. SIMANDLE was unanimously upheld by the appeals court.
The unanimous opinion of the three-judge
panel in the case known as Camden
County Board of Chosen Freeholders v. Beretta USA Corp., et al., stated, “Whatever the precise scope of public nuisance law in New Jersey maybe, no New Jersey
court has ever allowed a public nuisance claim to proceed against manufacturers for lawful products that are lawfully
placed in the stream of commerce.”
The suit invoked three theories of
liability: negligence, negligent entrustment and public nuisance. All three were trashed. Good riddance.
COURT WON’T HEAR NEW JERSEY FIREARMS CASE
The United States Supreme Court has
refused to
hear a challenge to New Jersey’s “assault-weapons” ban.
New Jersey’s law, passed in 1990, lists 37
models by name but also covers others that are “substantially identical.” The intent was to keep gun makers from
making tiny adjustments to banned firearms as a means to circumvent the law.
In February the Supreme Court turned
away a challenge to California’s 1989 ban, the nation’s first. Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Massachusetts also have passed bans. Congress passed the federal ban in 1994.
GUN BAN IN UTAH STATE OFFICES SHOT DOWN
A long-standing ban on guns in state
offices conflicts with Utah law and likely will be thrown out in the immediate future.
The Utah Attorney General has issued
a legal opinion stating the ban was effectively negated in 1999 by changes the Legislature made of the state’s
gun laws.
The A.G. opinion said state employees
who hold concealed-weapon permits will likely be able to carry guns on the job.
FRESNO OFFICIAL SUES STATE OF CALIFORNIA OVER “ASSAULT WEAPON” BAN
ED HUNT, district attorney for Fresno,
is taking the unusual step of suing the state attorney general to overturn the regulations behind California’s
stringent 1999 ban on so-called “assault weapons.”
Mr HUNT, who has been chief prosecutor
for 19 years says the rules are so vague that
police, gun
dealers, prosecutors and gun owners cannot figure out which firearms are banned.
“It’s a matter of due process,” said
Mr. HUNT. “If I don’t understand the law, how can Joe Sixpack?”
The 1999 act bars the sale or import
of weapons loosely known as “assault weapons” (a media term of no technical meaning), almost all of them civilian
semiautomatic rifles and shotguns of various types. The law was a major expansion of the state’s original 1989
assault weapons ban.
But unlike previous assault weapon
laws passed in California and other states, the 1999 law and the resulting regulations by the state Department of Justice
did not specify particular makes and models of guns that were banned.
Critics such as Mr HUNT contend that the law and resulting
regulations are so badly written, and so at odds with the standard definitions used by gun makers and federal regulators,
that it is very difficult to tell whether a gun is legal or illegal.
This suit does not directly attack the law, which has been upheld by state courts in previous challenges. It attacks the regulations, and offers another avenue into the legal
morass of the “assault weapons” ban.
SMITH
& WESSON ON COMEBACK TRAIL
Saf-T-Hammer Corporation, the parent
company of Smith
& Wesson,
recently announced that sales
for the month of October were $7.6 million, resulting in a $663,000 profit.