Slow news day
Even Blue States Love Guns: A liberal reporter goes to a gun show and
learns that many states that now lean left have constitutional RKBA
provisions that are unambiguous about individual rights.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/219-01092007-986824.html
The Whole List:
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/statecon.htm
---
Do These Bills Stand A Chance?: H.R. 73, the Bartlett bill, would
protect the right to obtain firearms for security and to use firearms in
defense of self, family, or home, and to provide for the legal
enforcement of such right. H.R. 226, the Stearns bill, would set
national standards according to which non-residents of a state who
possess permits to carry concealed firearms issued by other states may
carry concealed firearms in the state. (In my opinion, letting the feds
get involved in the regulation of CCW would be a big mistake.)
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18822
---
Californian Re-Opens Tucson Gun Store: The building that housed a local
institution, Jensen's Arizona Sportsman, will be opening again Tuesday
under a new owner and a new name: Second Amendment Sports. The company
is based in Bakersfield, Calif.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/163521
---
From Gun Week:
2006 Ends with a Whimper As 2007 Promises Struggles
by Joseph P. Tartaro, Executive Editor
January 10, 2007
This column is being written as this issue goes to press in the week
between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. It's usually a mixed bag week
with people often preoccupied by the holiday season, winter vacations,
visiting relatives and, depending on where you live, bad weather.
There's usually a mix of bad news, too, if you get to read a paper or
watch TV.
To paraphrase the poet TS Eliot, 2006 is ending with a whimper of sorts.
Everyone is sort of gearing up for the start of a busy and surprising
2007. However, these recent days point to what we can expect in the new
year.
As the year neared an end, Washington and the media that covers the
Capitol Hill beat were in a dither. With the Democrats maintaining the
narrowest possible margin of control in the Senate as the new Congress
is about to be convened, Sen. Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat,
suffered a stroke and was rushed to a hospital.
Before the ambulance even reached the emergency room, the media was
speculating that the Democrats would lose the majority control they won
on Nov. 7. Everyone expected Vice President Dick Cheney to be rushed
into daily service breaking ties in the Senate.
However, following emergency brain surgery, Johnson was reported to be
recovering nicely and was expected to go back to work soon. The event,
however, provided a quick lesson on how fast things can change and power
shift. Johnson's sudden illness raised questions about the Democrats'
one-vote majority in the upcoming Senate session. South Dakota's
Republican governor, Mike Rounds, would appoint a replacement if
Johnson's seat were vacated by his death or resignation.
That's just one story that illustrates how events change the political
environment and how some people are quick to take advantage of those
changes to advance their own agendas.
Another end of the year story provided anti-gunners new music for their
old songs.
Reuters news service reported that murders, robberies and other violent
crimes reported in the United States jumped 3.7% in the first half of
2006, continuing a troubling upswing that began in 2005, based on an FBI
report released Dec. 18.
The FBI said law enforcement agencies reported that robberies soared by
a startling 9.7%, followed by an increase in murders of 1.4% and
aggravated assaults of 1.2%.
Last year, the number of violent crimes increased by 2.5%, the largest
percentage gain in 15 years. The increase came after years of declines.
The U.S. Justice Department then announced that it would conduct a study
of why the crime numbers are increasing, a study that has yet to be
completed.
Department officials have cited as possible reasons a surge in
gang-related violence, spreading use of the illegal drug methamphetamine
and demographics, with children of the baby-boom generation entering the
years when individuals are most likely to commit crimes.
The officials have rejected any suggestion that an emphasis on
preventing terrorism since the September 11 attacks and funding cuts for
federal programs to put more police officers on the street were to blame
for the increase.
While violent crimes increased, so-called property crimes went down by
2.6%, mainly reflecting a decline in motor vehicle theft of 2.3%. But
burglaries showed an increase of 1.2% and arsons also went up by 6.8%
nationwide.
The ink was still wet on the newspapers which printed this news when the
leaders of major anti-gun groups were spinning the information for their
own purposes.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and
the former three-term mayor of Fort Wayne, IN, issued the following
statement about the FBI's crime data:
"The statistics released by the FBI yesterday are very troubling,
particularly to a former mayor of a mid-sized city like me. We have all
heard how the police are struggling in America's largest cities, but the
FBI report also shows that we are seeing a tremendous surge in violent
crime--of more than five percent--in cities with populations from 25,000
to half a million. Such small to mid-sized cities represent the heart of
America.
"When I served as Mayor during the 1990's, the Administration and
Congress helped local communities fight crime by providing funds to hire
more police, and making it harder for criminals to get guns. As a
result, crime decreased. Over the past few years, however, the approach
seems to have been switched. Now cities are often seeing less police but
more guns on their streets. These new crime statistics indicate that
we're doing things backwards.
"Violent crime is up in America for a number of reasons, but one very
likely cause is that it has become easier for criminals to arm
themselves, and with ever more deadly weapons.
"For almost six years, many have systematically made it easier for
criminals to have access to firearms by weakening enforcement of laws
that cut illegal gun trafficking, supporting policies that encourage
more firearms on the streets of American cities, putting AK-47s and
other military-style semiautomatic weapons back onto our streets and
even placing huge restraints on the ability of governments and
individuals to hold the gun pushers accountable through the civil court
system.
"These policies and rollbacks of laws have helped increase violent crime
in our country. I urge the new Congress to take a more sensible approach
to restoring the safety net that the gun pushers have gutted."
Not to be upstaged in the rush to push an anti-gun agenda on the back of
the briefest report, Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center, on
Dec. 19, climbed on the same dead horse.
"The shouts from police, mayors, and scholars are getting louder, but is
anyone listening?" Sugarman began. "The latest evidence that America is
facing a coming tide of violent crime can be found in data released this
week by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to the FBI,
violent crime continued to rise with a 3.7 percent jump in the first
half of 2006 compared to same period in 2005 (which showed similar
increases compared to 2004).
The report documented a 9.7 percent jump in robbery, a 1.4 percent
increase in murder, and a rise in aggravated assault of 1.2 percent.
While murder in cities over one million increased 6.7 percent, the
biggest jump--8.4 percent--was seen in cities between 500,000 to
999,999. The data, contained in the FBI's Preliminary Semiannual Uniform
Crime Report, January-June, 2006, compiles the voluntary submissions of
11,535 law enforcement agencies and is the precursor to the agency's
annual Uniform Crime Reports.
According to today's front-page Washington Post story, "James Alan Fox,
a criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston who has been
critical of the Bush administration's crime-fighting strategies, said
the overall rise in violent crime should be expected given dramatic cuts
in assistance to local police and simultaneous increases in the
population of males in their teens and 20s." The Post quotes Fox as
stating, "We have many high-crime areas where gangs have made a
comeback, where police resources are down and where whatever resources
there are have been shifted to anti-terrorism activity. It's robbing
Peter, and maybe even murdering Peter, to pay Paul."
So far, the repeated warning signs over the past two years that
America's crime lull is coming to an end have been ignored. On Capitol
Hill, all too many Members of Congress--with notable exceptions--find
themselves at the same quiescent place: mute on the issue of increasing
violent crime. But for different reasons. Some engage in the
time-honored tradition of blaming the victim, viewing the issue solely
through prisms of race, class, or an equally false urban/rural divide.
Others, on both the left and right, fear that talk of violent crime in
general, and increasing homicide rates in particular, could lead to talk
of gun control. Others simply don't care and hope that by ignoring the
problem it will magically evanesce.
If today's story in the Post is any indicator, all these hopes,
regardless of their origin, are false. Crime is back. And the issue
can't be avoided.
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
