Heller May Halt Erosion of RKBA in Hawaii: Ten days ago the U.S. Supreme
Court released its landmark Second Amendment decision on District of
Columbia v Heller, the Washington, D.C., gun ban case. Hawaii gun laws,
among the strictest in the nation, are now subject to scrutiny relative
to that decision. Will it have an effect here? Attorney General Mark
Bennett has announced he will review Hawaii's gun laws...The decision
should make it harder for gun-control advocates in Hawaii to get enough
support to pass de facto gun bans and impossibly strict storage laws
like the overturned D.C. statutes. Bennett will hopefully look hard at
Hawaii's present ban on standard factory magazines for ordinary handguns
commonly kept in the home for self-defense...
http://starbulletin.com/2008/07/06/editorial/commentary.html
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Women Empowered by Heller: ...Much to feminists' dismay, men and women
are different. For better or worse, men tend to be taller, stronger, and
weigh more than women. So when it comes to physical confrontation, women
don't have the best odds - especially when they are sitting ducks, as
they were under D.C.'s gun ban. If nothing else, the ban emboldened
criminals with the knowledge that their victims would be unarmed. But
not anymore. Now women can finally rest assured that if, God forbid,
there is a confrontation in their home, they will have a viable means of
self-defense - regardless of the size of the intruder...
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AllisonKasic/2008/07/07/dc_gun_ban_lift_empowers_women
---
Richard Mack on Heller: ...Former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack
said he was pleased with the court's decision. The court previously
ruled in Mack's favor in 1997 when he challenged the legality of some
aspects of the Brady Act. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was
signed into law by President Bill Clinton on Nov. 30, 1993. The law
required chief law enforcement officers to perform background checks on
an interim basis on persons buying handguns until the federal
government's system was up and running. Mack believed requiring local
law enforcement to perform the background checks was unconstitutional.
"After fighting and being involved in the gun rights cause, I was so
elated the Supreme Court addressed the issue," he said. "It's a little
unsettling and a little scary (however), that there are four judges that
don't understand the Second Amendment."
http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2008/07/06/news/doc486c20d408033800603901.txt
---
Mumbo Jumbo from Chicago: ...For years, anti-gun activists and others
have whispered that the National Rifle Association, the most powerful
gun lobby in the nation and one of the most powerful Washington lobbies
on any issue, has really never wanted the Supreme Court to define the
Second Amendment. Why? Well, the theory went that a ruling such as the
one the court handed down last week in District of Columbia v. Heller
could dent the group where it hurts the most: fundraising...And in fact,
it wasn't the NRA that filed the lawsuit that brought Washington, D.C.'s
gun ban down, it was a group of libertarians, acting on their own with
help from the CATO Institute... (Yes, the NRA opposed the original DC
lawsuit but has definitely jumped into the saddle in litigation against
similar gun bans, particularly those in Chicago and its suburbs. Is this
why the Chicago Tribune is blowing this smoke?)
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/07/does_the_gun_ruling_hurt_the_n.html
---
A Different Heller: Rep. Dean Heller once explained that as proud as he
was to have bagged the giant elk whose head is displayed at his home in
Carson City, his greatest hunting prize has been persuading his wife, a
one-time USC song leader, to go shooting with him...Gun culture remains
strong in much of Nevada, but particularly so in Heller's far-flung
district, which includes the entire rural North. Heller, a Republican,
has been a fierce advocate of gun owners' rights during his first term
in Congress. He was an early signatory to an amicus brief in the recent
Supreme Court case overturning the ban on keeping guns at home in the
District of Columbia. Last year, he supported legislation that would
have done as much. And he supports the Bush administration's proposal to
lift a ban on concealed weapons in national parks in some states,
including Nevada...
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jul/06/count-these-nevadans-defend-gun-owners-rights/
---
American Fined for Trying to Cross Canada with Handguns: ...The charges
were laid on Thursday after Swart attempted to enter Canada with his
family en route to a new job in Alaska...Court heard Swart and his
family first attempted to cross the border at Regway. Swart told customs
officials he had a number of firearms with him, including four rifles, a
nine-millimetre semi-automatic handgun with an ammunition clip, a
380-calibre semi-automatic gun with a clip and a .25-calibre
semi-automatic handgun with a clip. Even though Swart owns the guns
legally in the United States, he was told he couldn't enter Canada with
the last three guns as possession of those weapons is regulated here...
(The detachable ammunition holders for those pistols are actually
magazines.)
http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=fc0084ac-2aa4-4fa1-80e7-e8356532418d
---
Toronto Mayor Calls for More Infringements in US: With 11 murders in
Toronto so far this year, Mayor David Miller is once again calling for
more action south of the border to stem the flow of illegal U.S. guns
into Canada. Miller wants Ottawa to exert diplomatic pressure on
Washington to change what he calls "incredibly lax" U.S. gun laws in a
number of states. Miller says Canada should make it a national security
issue. But Corporal Norm Massie of the RCMP's B.C. border-integrity unit
says Canadian and U.S. customs and law-enforcement agencies cooperate
closely to try to curb gun smuggling...
http://680news.com/news/local/article.jsp?content=20080706_102040_1484
---
Three Injured by Exploding Cannon: For the second consecutive year,
metal shrapnel from an exploding cannon struck a Thurston County child
during a Fourth of July celebration. A cannon exploded about 10:30 p.m.
Friday during an outdoor gathering in the 9200 block of Applegate Loop
in Rochester, sending an 11-year-old boy to Harborview Medical Center in
Seattle with severe lacerations to his leg and his abdominal area, said
Thurston County sheriff's Sgt. Cheryl Stines. Two adults also were
injured: a 34-year-old man suffered severe abdominal injuries and a
woman in her 30s suffered abdominal and leg injuries, Stines said...The
explosion occurred after the cannon had been loaded with smokeless
gunpowder and paper towels, Stines said. It's about 1 foot tall, with a
base about 2 inches wide, she said. (Granted that reporters are not
generally the best source of technical details about firearms, such
cannon are usually designed to be fired with black powder, not smokeless
powder.)
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/405921.html
--
Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
