Why Would Anyone Need to Carry in a Park?: During oral arguments last
month on a case challenging the City of Clyde's ban on concealed carry
in its public parks, Republican Paul Pfeifer proved himself dangerously
out of touch. Pfeifer remarked that he just couldn't understand why
someone would want to lug a gun around in a park, especially in the
summer when it would be harder to conceal. He mocked persons who would
chose to exercise their Constitutional right to bear arms for
self-defense, evoking an image of a jogger strapping a gun to his
jogging shorts. He ignorantly suggested that pedophiles are a greater
danger in city parks, drawing laughter when he suggested a bullwhip
might be a more appropriate weapon. Last week, Fernando Gonzalez had
just finished a jog with his dog in the Swan Creek Metropark when he was
stabbed in the face by a violent, cold-blooded criminal.
http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/5638
---
The Gun Thing: ..."The gun thing" is something that I thought I
understood until I met my capital "l" Libertarian husband over ten years
ago. "Guns protect us from the government," he told me, which I thought
at the time was a statement made only by anti-government freakish types.
I now respect such supposed freakish types much more than I used to. In
any case, I thought he was really nice and that he'd make a great
father. Three children later, I still think he makes a great dad and I'm
even more fond of him these days, but my ideas on the gun thing have
changed...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shore/shore16.html
---
Hogwash from Virginia: In Virginia, guns rule. The most recent General
Assembly session proved that. How else can you view a legislature that
would seriously consider mixing deadly weapons with whiskey in a bar?
How else can you view a proposal that would allow people without a
concealed-carry permit to stash a loaded weapon in the glove box of the
car? And what about the commonsense proposal to make unlicensed gun
dealers follow the same rules as licensed dealers and run background
checks on gun buyers at gun shows? (Readers can post comments.)
http://www.newsadvance.com/lna/news/opinion/editorials/article/a_baby_step_on_loophole_at_gun_shows/4457/
---
Rule Five Reminder: A teacher at Myrtle Beach High School was suspended
with pay after accidentally bringing a loaded gun to the school Tuesday
morning, according to Horry County Schools spokeswoman Teal
Britton...The teacher drove her husband's pickup truck to work Tuesday
because the vehicle was being appraised, according to a police report.
Her husband reminded her to remove the weapon from the car before going
to work, Britton said. ``She did remove it, place it on the hood of the
car and somewhere in the hurry scurry of loading the car, she forgot
that it was there and drove to school,'' Britton said. (Rule Five:
Maintain control of your firearm.)
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/breaking_news/story/434232.html
---
There's a Reason God Put Those People on an Island: ...Two unarmed
detectives against five guys who had chains and hammers. Things looked
grim, particularly when one of the gang became curious as to what the
cops had eaten for breakfast and produced a knife to help him find out.
But then help arrived in the form of a nondescript private citizen
wielding a cheap samurai sword. "Leave him alone, he's a police
officer!" he yelled, and charged the gang single-handedly. He fought
bravely, if not particularly well, and managed to inflict a minor wound
on one of the burglars. Criminals being a cowardly and superstitious
lot, the gang broke and ran. The detectives managed to tackle and bag
one criminal each, but by the time they had subdued their respective
catches the good Samaritan had slipped away. That guy had balls as big
as churchbells, and I don't just mean that because he went toe-to-toe
with a swarm of ne'er-do-wells. While self defense is not illegal in
England, or at least it isn't technically illegal, it is against the law
to use anything designed as a weapon to defend yourself. Local Detective
Inspector Peter Bent stated "It needs to be said we cannot condone
vigilantism or people running around with swords or weapons. It will be
up to the Crown Prosecution Service whether they see his actions as
justified or going beyond reasonable force."
http://www.hellinahandbasket.net/
---
Does Access to Firearms Increase Suicide Rates?: A man triggered panic
in a northern Japanese city yesterday when he killed himself by mixing
detergents in his house, releasing toxic fumes that drove 350 people
from their homes - the latest in a series of such suicides. The panic in
Otaru came just hours after national police urged Internet providers to
crack down on websites that have spurred a wave of detergent-related
suicides. Some 50 people have reportedly killed themselves over the past
month in Japan by mixing household chemicals to produce hydrogen sulfide.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/05/02/detergent_suicides_cause_alarm_in_japan/
---
From Gun Week:
Kansas tornado produces gun rights bill
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
Eleven months after a devastating massive tornado swept through
Greensburg, KS - after which unidentified "authorities" acting under
questionable instructions seized firearms from homes - the Kansas House
of Representatives unanimously passed legislation that would make such
gun confiscations illegal in the wake of such a disaster.
Despite opposition from the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police, the
Pratt County sheriff and Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the state
legislature passed HB-2280, a sweeping bill that says no officer or
employee of the state, or any political subdivision, may "temporarily or
permanently seize, or authorize seizure of, any firearm, the possession
of which is not prohibited under state law, other than as evidence in a
criminal investigation..."
The bill also prohibits the governor, currently anti-gun Democrat
Kathleen Sebelius, from suspending or limiting the sale or
transportation of firearms, while the governor may still limit sale,
dispensing or transportation of alcoholic beverages, explosives and
combustibles.
Pro-gun Republican state Sen. Phil Journey was elated. A former member
of the National Rifle Association (NRA) board of directors, Journey
described the bill to Gun Week as "the basic (Hurricane) Katrina
legislation." The vote was 121-0 in the House and 30-2 in the Senate.
Following the devastating 2005 hurricane that hit New Orleans and the
surrounding area, police and some National Guard units moved through the
city confiscating firearms from everyone, without warrant or probable
cause. The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and NRA teamed up on a
landmark federal lawsuit to stop the New Orleans gun seizures, and
afterward, the NRA pushed for legislation in many states, including
HB-2280 in Kansas, to prevent such gun confiscations.
Allegations of gun seizures appear to be at the center of the Kansas
legislation.
A monster tornado at least two miles wide struck Greensburg, a small
community in south-central Kansas west of Wichita on the night of May 4,
2007. Eleven people were killed and the town was largely destroyed.
Entire neighborhoods were leveled and aerial photographs that appeared
in The Wichita Eagle showed that much of the town had simply
disappeared, leaving a landscape of building foundations, denuded trees,
debris and little else.
But according to residents who spoke with Gun Week, insult was added to
injury when guns were removed not only from wrecked homes but from homes
that survived, even from secure cabinets and lockers. These firearms
were stored in a tractor trailer, where they quickly deteriorated from
heat and humidity. Officers, apparently from various agencies in the
area, allegedly claimed that martial law had been imposed when it had
not, and ordered all residents to leave the town. Some guns have never
been recovered, others were damaged beyond repair.
Some people believe the order for collecting firearms came from the
sheriff of a neighboring county, who has not returned calls from Gun
Week. That sheriff opposed the new legislation.
Residents whose guns were grabbed want answers and they're not getting
any. Aaron Einsel, who had stored several of his personally owned guns
with friends, told Gun Week that after the tornado, one of his friends
discovered that Einsel's guns had been taken from his house.
"I have no idea why they did that," Einsel said. "After the storm,
people were trying to gather their belongings. You'd take your guns and
put them in a basement or closet, cover them up with a mattress, to hide
them and protect them. And those guns were gone. They were in that gun
trailer."
Einsel eventually recovered his firearms. Another Greensburg resident,
Bob Martin, is afraid he will never again see a couple of prized
firearms, including a Browning trap gun, that has disappeared.
Martin, 83, was out of town at a trap shoot, and when he returned on the
morning after the disaster, several, but not all, of his guns were
missing. When he finally got back to what was left of his home, which
wasn't much, he discovered that someone had taken prized shotguns out of
waterproof cases, left the cases open so they were damaged, and the guns
were put in the storage trailer where they suffered damage.
"If they'd have left the guns in (the cases)," Martin lamented, "they
wouldn't have been damaged."
He said lawmen he encountered when he and his wife returned from the
trap shoot told him the town had been placed under martial law, and they
could not enter. But he went around another way and got into town,
finally found the ruins of his home and immediately began securing his
remaining guns and searching for two Model 12 Winchesters, one of which
had been given him by his father.
Browning BT99
He got most of his guns back from the gun trailer, which was parked at
the Highway Department lot in town, but is still missing is an expensive
Browning BT99 trap gun.
Storm victim Jason Wacker said his home was still standing, but all of
his guns went missing.
"That was the only things that were taken," he said.
When he recovered them from the trailer several days later, he found
that parts had been broken off, some of the stocks were cracked, and
five days of heat and humidity in that trailer had resulted in extensive
damage.
Wacker asserted that his firearms had been secured in the home and that
whoever took them "had to break in somehow."
Another resident, Jeremy Butler, told Gun Week that "they only got one
of mine, and I got it back but it was ruined."
"Everything was wet after the tornado," he recalled. "They just threw
(guns) in a trailer and wouldn't let anyone get them until they were
rusted clear up."
What happened in Greensburg after the tornado might never have been
widely known had it not been for the efforts of Patricia Stoneking, a
member of the board of directors of the Kansas State Rifle Association
and legislative liaison for the Tri-County Rod and Gun Club.
Outrage
She met with a resident of Greensburg when testimony on the bill,
originally numbered HB-2811, was held earlier this year and heard about
the gun "collection." Stoneking began digging and forwarded a lengthy
report to the NRA and Gun Week. Her allegations also made the rounds on
several Internet forums and chat groups.
Stoneking found the reports to be "stupefying."
"We had been told that there hadn't been any problems, that everything
was fine," she recalled. "Everyone told us that the only guns that were
picked up were the ones exposed. Nobody has any problems picking up
(loose) guns."
Others interviewed by Gun Week affirmed that opinion, explaining that
with the town a mass of wreckage, it would make perfect sense for
emergency crews and even local residents to pick up any firearms they
found lying in the destruction, simply to assure that they did not fall
into the wrong hands.
But Journey suggested that once authorities from surrounding communities
moved in to "maintain order," they did not maintain a perimeter around
the flattened town and "keep thieves out."
"A lot of firearms disappeared," Journey said. "It was a dumb move to
evacuate the town."
Once Stoneking felt she had verified the account of Aaron Einsel, she
told Gun Week that it was "probably a really good idea to get the 'big
guns' involved." That's when she started contacting NRA and other gun
rights groups.
Answer Needed
Ultimately, she said, "nobody knows who issued what orders to do what."
"It would be interesting to have that question answered," Sen. Journey
observed.
In her widely-circulated report, Stoneking said that Greensburg "was
locked down tight for several days and no one was allowed in or out."
"There were some houses that were not destroyed and were intact and
habitable," Stoneking wrote. "Those folks did not want to leave but were
forced to do so. When they returned they found their houses had been
broken into and all of their guns missing. One gentleman reports that
when he went to claim his guns, taken from his secure home, they were
returned to him in damaged condition. They were not damaged by the
tornado. They were locked up in his home and illegally confiscated. So
how do we suppose that damage occurred?"
Sorting fact from fiction and determining exactly what did happen in
Greensburg following the tornado may take some time. Meanwhile,
residents will be frustrated as they go about rebuilding their lives,
but at least they have legislation that will prevent the kind of gun
round-up alleged to have occurred in their community from ever happening
again.
Martin and his wife sold their property in the town and now live about
12 miles outside of Greensburg in the home of a friend. But he knows
from neighbors who had been monitoring police radio transmissions that
night that lawmen had gone to his home and were trying to get into his
gun safe.
But he is still angry about what happened. When he arrived on the
outskirts of town on the morning of May 5, officers from various
agencies said the area was under martial law.
"Nobody declared it," Martin said. "If I'd have known it, I had a gun of
my own in the car, and I'd (have) loaded it and gone in. Ain't nobody
going to keep me off my property."
This article is provided free by GunWeek.com.
For more great gun news, subscribe to our print edition.
--
Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
