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Dems Betray Wisconsin CCW-Veto Override: Repeating last year's
performance, enough Democratic members of Wisconsin's assembly backed
away from the Personal Protection bill they had previously approved to
cause the override of the governor's veto to fail.
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=60254
http://www.weau.com/news/headlines/2234797.html
---
College Carry Fails In Virginia: A bill that would have blocked
Virginia's universities from banning handguns on campus died in
committee in the General Assembly.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/wb/xp-50658
---
Amendment Would Require Metal Detectors For Nebraska CCW: In a move to
ensure the maintenance of defenseless-victim zones, an amendment tacked
onto the bill for licensed CCW would require metal detectors in
courthouses and bars.
http://www.columbustelegram.com/articles/2006/01/30/news/news1.txt
---
NRA Credited With Victory Against Bloomberg's Girlfriend: The National
Rifle Association killed the appointment of NYC Mayor Bloomberg's
girlfriend to a top federal post in retaliation for his campaign against
the gun group, Senate sources said yesterday. Diana Taylor, the state
banking commissioner, had been widely seen as a shoo-in as late as last
week to head the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which oversees the
nation's banks.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1569254/posts
---
VCDL Provides Beleaguered Residents With Self-Defense Training: The
Virginia Citizens Defense League is providing instructors to Norfolk
residents who may choose to be armed against increasing crime. (It's too
bad that the reporter could not spell "VanCleave" correctly or tell that
a .410 shotgun is not a rifle.)
http://www.wtkr.com/Global/story.asp?S=4432011&nav=ZolHbyvj
---
Oops, Wrong Car: An off-duty police officer in Texas killed one man and
wounded another when they attempted to carjack her. (Note that she
prevailed even thought the incident began when she had a gun pointed at
her head.)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3625471.html
---
Oops, Wrong Rifles: Burglars stole 20 drill rifles from a high-school
ROTC program in Santa Fe NM. The rifles cannot be made to fire live rounds.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/38712.html
---
Et Tu, Florida?: Florida's review board for personalized license plates
has no problem with BNUDE but rejected GOT GUN.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-ppplates30jan30%2C0%2C6019351.story?coll=sfla-news-sfla
---
Girls-And-Guns Posters Irk Ohio Town: Burton OH seems to be seeking ways
you force a local gun dealer to remove a couple of posters of girls with
guns from his shop's window.
---
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/geauga/1138699901122070.xml&coll=2
---
Canadian Crime Rate Back In News: Commentary in The Washington Times
quotes SAF's Alan Gottlieb on rates of rimes in Canada, compared to the US.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060131-091244-4588r.htm
---
From Gun Week:
Hurricane Katrina Case:
First Permanent Injunction Entered in Gun Grab
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
A permanent injunction order has been entered in the lawsuit filed last
year by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and National Rifle
Association (NRA) that brought a halt to the arbitrary confiscation of
firearms from private citizens in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
However, the order applies only to St. Tammany Parish. The city of New
Orleans has largely ignored the lawsuit, insisting that its police
department had not seized anyone's firearms. Evidence suggests
otherwise. Gun Week interviewed Texan Jason Clemm in the Dec. 1 edition,
in which he explained how his pistol, and one owned by a co-worker, were
taken by New Orleans police. They later recovered both handguns, but a
laser sight had been removed from one of the pistols.
Ironically, days after SAF and NRA attorneys conferred on their next
move, gunfire erupted at a Martin Luther King gathering in New Orleans,
and according to Associated Press, three people were wounded.
The consent order, dated Jan. 5, releases Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack
Strain and his deputies from any remaining claims. It does not apply to
the other defendants in the landmark lawsuit, New Orleans Mayor Ray
Nagin and now-former Police Chief P. Edwin Compass III. Compass retired
from his police job last year just days after the NRA and SAF had
secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the gun
confiscations. Compass is now reportedly living somewhere in Texas.
Gunowners across the country were outraged in the days after Katrina,
when Compass and then-Deputy Chief Warren Riley were both quoted as
saying all guns would be confiscated and only police would be allowed to
have firearms. As police officers from around the country descended on
the city to restore order after days of looting and random violence, one
detachment of California Highway Patrol officers was filmed by a San
Francisco television news crew gang tackling a woman identified as
Patricia Konie, to disarm her and move her out of her house against her
will. Konie suffered a serious injury from that incident and had to
undergo surgery late last year, Gun Week learned from her attorney,
Ashton O'Dwyer. O'Dwyer, ironically, had his own confrontation with
police who disarmed him and held him in detention for several hours.
In another irony, many gun rights activists engaged in blistering
dialogue, criticizing the NRA for allegedly standing by as the guns were
being grabbed, while in reality, NRA and SAF had almost immediately
begun working in cooperation on the lawsuit, the first of its kind in
the nation. In the days prior to heading to federal court, NRA and SAF
had dispatched investigators to New Orleans to track down and interview
possible plaintiffs, and had also retained the services of a local attorney.
The biggest problem investigators encountered, Gun Week learned, was
locating those who had been disarmed, sometimes at gunpoint, because
many had been forcefully evacuated to other parts of the country.
Eventually, though, all the pieces came together. On Sept. 23, the
opening day of the Gun Rights Policy Conference, sponsored by SAF and
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Los
Angeles, CA, the attorneys marched into federal court for the Eastern
District of Louisiana and swiftly, upon reviewing evidence that included
film clips, Judge Jay Zainey issued the temporary order.
Suddenly, all the critics fell silent and activists began cheering NRA
and SAF for their court action.
It was a smashing victory for both gun rights organizations. Not
surprisingly, SAF and NRA are now partners, along with the Law
Enforcement Alliance of America, in a lawsuit to overturn the San
Francisco handgun ban. Yet the TRO in Louisiana was only temporary,
pending more legal work that led to the permanent order issued against
St. Tammany Parish.
In that order, the court acknowledged that St. Tammany Parish Sheriff
Strain denied the allegations that it was ever the policy to seize
lawfully-possessed firearms from private citizens. The sheriff also
insisted that any firearm seizures were terminated shortly after the
hurricane, and that they were done "in good faith, under emergency
circumstances."
The permanent order enjoins the sheriff and his deputies from
confiscating lawfully-possessed firearms from all citizens. The court
further ordered Strain to return all seized firearms, which had actually
started within hours after the TRO was issued in September. A chief
plaintiff in the case, Buell O. Teel, actually got his guns back the
same day the TRO was entered.
There is no question that many guns were seized, but just how many
remains a mystery. It appears less than a 100 were taken from citizens
in St. Tammany Parish, and many, if not most of those confiscations were
done by visiting law enforcement officers, including federal officers
from various agencies, and not by St. Tammany deputies. Gun Week has
learned that Strain and most of his deputies are NRA members, or members
of related organizations, and that the department quickly returned
firearms to their rightful owners.
So many New Orleans residents have not returned to the city and may
never come back, sources familiar with the lawsuit acknowledge. Because
of that, it may never be possible to determine just how many citizens of
the city lost their firearms.
There is no indication that many, if any, guns were seized elsewhere in
the path of the hurricane, in Louisiana or Mississippi. Indeed, in other
areas, public officials have been outspoken in the other direction. The
mayor of Montgomery, AL, for example, has advised his constituents to
arm themselves.
Both NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and SAF founder Alan
Gottlieb have been telling gunowners ever since the lawsuit, "Remember
New Orleans." That has become a rallying cry for activists all over the
map, and both gun rights leaders have vowed that such gun seizures will
never happen again.
This article is provided free by GunWeek.com.
For more great gun news, subscribe to our print edition.
--
Stephen P. Wenger
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
