Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page

Urgent Action: Tell Pennslyvania House Members to Oppose HB 22, HB 18 and HB 29
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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Anti-gun rights Governor Rendell plans to take an unprecedented step and personally attend Tuesday’s PA House Judiciary Committee meeting to attack gun owners and our constitutional freedoms by forcing bad legislation (HB 18, HB 22, and HB 29) out of committee. You need to act now!!!

Please contact members of the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee today and keep it up through Tuesday morning.

ASK THE MEMBERS TO OPPOSE HB 22, HB 18 and HB 29.

The Committee Votes are scheduled Tuesday November 20 at 10:00 AM.

Phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses are at the end of this message. PLEASE USE THEM.

DC: The Week Ahead
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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On Tuesday, the Justices are scheduled to hold a private conference. (Click here for our list of petitions to watch.) Among the cases up for consideration are District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290) and a cross-petition, Parker v. District of Columbia (07-335), both stemming from the District’s handgun ban. Orders reflecting grants of certiorari (if any) are expected Tuesday afternoon[emphasis added]; all other orders are expected the following Monday, November 26.

PA: A lesson in gun control
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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'Ok, people, we're going live, with simulated ammunition." So started my gun safety lesson last Wednesday at Philadelphia Archery & Gun Club in Southeast Philly.

After last weeks's tragic crime, I was searching for anything that would make me feel safer on an increasingly dangerous campus. Given the prevalence of guns in Philadelphia, I thought that getting acquainted with a little metal might be a helpful way to protect myself. So I ventured to the gun club ready to get my lesson in self-defense.

... I left with a valuable lesson about gun safety and a familiarity and confidence with guns that every Penn student should have.

WA: Rally planned by family of man shot to death at gas station
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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The event is part of the family’s continued questioning of Pierce County prosecutors’ decision not to charge the 21-year-old shooter after ruling he acted in self-defense.

The shooter told investigators he was sitting in his car when Nicholas Cruz, 23, of Eatonville, approached and punched him several times, reportedly after breaking the driver’s side window of the car.

The driver, who has a valid concealed weapons permit, pulled his .357-caliber handgun and shot Cruz twice, police reported.

Call for each gun owner to buy 100 rounds of ammunition
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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It's National Ammo Day, "a period dedicated to buying bullets to support the Second Amendment," according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Organizers want each supporter to buy 100 rounds of ammunition: The goal of National Ammo Day is to empty the ammunition from the shelves of your local gun store, sporting goods, or hardware store and put that ammunition in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Make your support of the Second Amendment known--by voting with your dollars!

TX: Activist Calls 'Neighbor Shooting' Murder
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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Horn's attorney said it was self-defense.

"He told them to stop. They stopped and looked at him and became terrified. Then they jumped and he fired," attorney Tom Lambright said Friday.

"He killed those men in cold blood. Mr. Horn did not have to kill those men. So, we say that a life is too precious to go out with a gun over some stolen merchandise when no one's life is in danger," Quanell X [with the New Black Panther Party] said.

Quanell X and the other community leaders said they do not agree with breaking into someone's home. But they also said that crime does not justify shooting and killing the suspects.

180 Degrees Of Separation
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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For instance, consider the Second Amendment. It’s been around for well over 200 years, and for most of that time people have understood it to mean that our citizens had a constitutional right to own guns. True, states could pass legislation that required registration, instruction in the proper use of firearms, waiting periods to obtain permits, and proof that one wasn’t a convicted felon. But the right to bear arms was inviolate. Then, one day, some addle-brained leftist woke up and decided to revoke the Second Amendment, and, what’s more, to make the issue a plank in the Democratic platform. Then, when law-abiding gun owners spoke up on their own behalf, the left accused them of being divisive.

Gun Rights First Redux
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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The most important factor in the decision is that a "scholarly and judicial consensus" that the Second Amendment protects only the right to bear arms as part of an organized militia has been breached in favor of individual gun rights. And, interestingly, this decision appears to have been driven by the work of several liberal professors including that of Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, who says that, after years of thought and study, he believes that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns.

PA: Rendell To Press For Passage Of 3 Gun Control Bills
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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Rendell will testify Tuesday before the state House Judiciary Committee for the first time ever as governor. Aides said he is taking the unusual step because gun violence in Philadelphia has gotten out of control.
It's a move that most residents NBC 10 spoke with Monday welcome after another bloody weekend left four more people dead in the city, all of them killed by gunfire. Some residents are fed up and said the answer is clear that lawmakers need to enact stiffer gun laws.

UT: Packing heat: In the city, a big iron on your hip is a bad idea
Submitted by: Mark A. Taff

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TRIBUNE: "Because the purpose of carrying a weapon at the ready in a holster presumably is self-defense, that utililty [sic] is undermined by having it unloaded." FACT: Possessing a firearm unconcealed and unloaded is often called "Israeli carry" and refers to the defensive action of the owner to load a semiautomatic pistol in one motion immediately after drawing it from its holster. Revolver handguns need only be triggered once before they're loaded pursuant to Utah law. Either loading method takes less than a second and is the preferred style of possessing a firearm unconcealed and unloaded even when its owner has been issued a concealed-weapon permit. It's about choice and personal conditions.

12 years later...a look back at the ATF
Submitted by: Red's Trading Post Inc.
Website: http://www.redstradingpost.com

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I found the Time Magazine Article on the ATF "ATF UNDER SIEGE" from 1995 very interesting:
The ATF may be the most hated federal agency in America today, surpassing even the IRS in its notoriety. Gun-rights advocates have demonized the agency as a dark legion of storm troopers who trample the rights of ordinary citizens.

"Any agent who's honest with you will tell you this agency has to be gutted," says Diane Klipfel, a supervisory agent in ATF's Chicago division

"I've never been more ashamed of being an ATF agent than I am right now," an agent wrote in a recent letter to a magazine published by the agents' association. "This is an agency out of control!"

PA: House Judiciary Committee Set To Take Up Gun Control
Submitted by: RPA-PAC
Website: http://www.rpa-pac.org

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Pennsylvania's House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider three proposed anti-gun laws tomorrow. The package includes legislation, House Bill 22, for a one-gun-a-month policy. Rep. John Myers (D-Philadelphia) is sponsoring the bill, which would disallow a law-abiding Pennsylvanian to purchase more than one handgun in 30 days. "To some extent, we need to create a public policy saying we want to cut down on the availability of guns," Rep. Myers told The Bulletin. "I really can't even imagine where I would store 12 guns in my house in a year."

ATF's Sullivan responds to National Ombudsman about abuses
Submitted by: Red's Trading Post Inc.
Website: http://www.redstradingpost.com

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Here is Acting ATF Director Michael J. Sullivan's response to JPFO, GOA, NSSF and NRA's complaints to the National Ombudsman regarding the ATF shutting down firearms dealers.

Sullivan states that "there is no correlation between the dramatic decrease of nearly 150,000 licensees and ATF revocation actions".

In regards to our case Sullivan states that our 2000 inspection violations were WILLFUL, which is incorrect even according to the ATF's standards. He also brings up the mysterious 2001 inspection where we received no violations, yet 6 years later they claim to have found them.

Sullivan has demonstrated that he is unable to address the issues but rather he makes excuses to defend the agencies actions.

Unholster the Second Amendment
Submitted by: RPA-PAC
Website: http://www.rpa-pac.org

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It's been 68 years since the Supreme Court examined the right to keep and bear arms secured by the Second Amendment. It's been 31 years since the District of Columbia enacted its feckless ban on all functional firearms in the capital. It's been eight months since the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declared the D.C. ban -- among the most restrictive in the nation -- unconstitutional. The obvious incongruity of those three events could be resolved soon.

FBI's Forensic Test Full of Holes
Submitted by: none

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Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing...

In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body.."unreliable and potentially misleading." ..linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence."

A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis.

But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors.

MI: Motor City Named Nation's Most Dangerous
Submitted by: motoboy

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DETROIT (AP) - In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.
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This simply cannot be true! We have been told for years by "experts" that easy availability of guns is the cause of "gun crime." Therefore, the real Most Dangerous City in America must be somewhere in the south or the Rocky Mountains.

NY: Cameras on guns will monitor valley officers
Submitted by: RPA-PAC
Website: http://www.rpa-pac.org

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It's the ultimate first-person shooter. PistolCams, cameras that can be attached to handguns and record video images of a weapon's target as it is being discharged are being marketed to police agencies for a little less than $700. The cameras are being sold by Legend Technologies, a company based out of Keeseville, Essex County. The Orange County Sheriff's Office is planning to purchase the cameras for its Emergency Service Unit through $35,000 grant from a state procured by Sen. William Larkin, R-Cornwall.

NJ: Report: N.J. Gang Retaliation Fear Quiets Witnesses
Submitted by: jac

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TRENTON, N.J. -- Fear of gang retaliation is forcing police in New Jersey to use fewer witnesses, according to a recent report.

The New York Times reported that Gov. Jon Corzine has directed law enforcement to use witnesses sparingly.

Authorities in Newark and Trenton said they're wary of getting citizens involved because they might not be able to protect them.

The Corzine administration is pressing for tougher sentences for intimidation and more money to relocate witnesses whose lives are at risk.

Submitters note: But they won't let the witness have a carry permit.

Court, capital and handgun Submitted by: RPA-PAC Website: http://www.rpa-pac.org	There are no comments on this story Post Comments \| Read Comments
In the next couple of weeks, the Supreme Court is likely to announce whether it will hear the Washington, D.C., handgun ban case. Handgun bans exist in only half a dozen U.S. cities, because although gun control is sometimes popular, gun prohibition is not. Ed.: We expect SCOTUS might grant certiorari to the Heller and Parker cases as early as Tuesday afternoon.

FL: Cop Under Fire After Spraying Mace �Like It Was an Air Freshener� Submitted by: none	There are no comments on this story Post Comments \| Read Comments
"(The officer) sprayed the mace low and then he sprayed it high so it could go through the people," a witness said of the incident that was caught on church video.

FL: Officer's 'Mace Cloud' Over Apparently Peaceful Crowd Investigated
Submitted by: none

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"I felt like we were treated like complete animals."

"Is it common for you guys to clear people out at Church Street with mace or is that not a practice that you use?" Local 6's Tarik Minor asked.

"That is a very broad question," Orlando Police Chief Michael McCoy said. "We are going to do things right and if we don't do them right we will investigate it and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Chief, there were church members maced," Minor said. "If that is true, how does that strike you?" Minor asked.

"I'm here on church day," McCoy said. "Nobody should be maced inappropriately."

NJ: SWAT-ted Away
Submitted by: Bruce W. Krafft

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"The first order the city's new Public Safety director issued after being sworn in yesterday was to disband the Police Department's SWAT team, after photos surfaced of some of its members cavorting with Hooters waitresses and allowing them to hold their weapons during a Hurricane Katrina relief mission in 2006."

"'The unit itself has been disbanded permanently,' said Public Safety Director Bill Bergin."

"He added that while the SWAT team is dissolved, its members will continue their normal duties." ...

"There may be more disciplinary measures coming, said Bergin ..."

"'Even a rookie on the job knows better than to shoot from the hip,' Bergin said. 'Anything I do without proper investigation could cause problems down the road.'" ...

FL: Broward County sheriff's deputy shoots Dalmatian Submitted by: Anonymous	There are no comments on this story Post Comments \| Read Comments
Damiano said in the police report that the Estersons' property is unfenced, that the dog was not restrained by a leash and that there are no warning signs saying there was a dog. Esterson said the dog was inside his family's property, restrained by a collar that delivers a shock whenever he crosses the property boundary. Esterson thinks the deputy shot his dog unnecessarily.