A Milestone, of Sorts: With the mailing list having hit 594, I spent
some time yesterday rebuilding it in seven sections, to ensure that none
of the subsections exceed my ISP's limit of 100 recipients. If you fail
to receive a mailing in the coming days, let me know - I am pretty well
accustomed to sending only six sets each morning.
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Senators Debate Mexican Impact of US Gun Laws: Two members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee last week clashed over whether the lack of
gun-control laws in the United States is responsible for violence in
Mexico. At a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee's
subcommittee on Crime and Drugs and the Senate Caucus on International
Narcotics Control, conservative Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions from
Alabama said just because Mexican drug traffickers are smuggling U.S.
guns into Mexico to wreak bloody havoc, doesn't mean that U.S. gun laws
are somehow responsible... But liberal Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of
Illinois, the current majority whip, directly blamed American laws and
policies for facilitating the influx of weapons into Mexico...
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45452
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The Beat Goes On: There are a number of reasons but the most prevalent
are people are afraid the Obama administration, sooner or later, will
get around to creating more-restrictive gun ownership laws and taxes.
And those are not unfounded fears. So gun owners are stocking up on
ammunition, handguns and semiautomatic rifles. Sales are up 50 percent
since Barack Obama was elected. And gun-control advocates have taken
notice. In a story in Seacoast Sunday last week, Peter Hamm of the
Washington-D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence used words
like "lunacy" to describe people who are buying guns...
http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090322-OPINION-903220321
Gun sales are up significantly across the nation the past few months.
Some point to a significant change in the White House, Congress and the
economy as the reason for the rapid rise. The Braintree Rifle and Pistol
Club is open to its members, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And more
people are coming than ever before. But why? Is economic turmoil leading
to a predicted rise in break-ins and the increased need for protection?
Or is the belief that the Obama Administration will renew the ban on
assault weapons leading to a spike in the sale of guns and ammunition?
In the days following the election in November, sales were brisk at
Northeast Trading Company in North Attleboro, Mass. Now more than four
months later, gun dealers continue to be busy and new members are coming
to shoot in record numbers at the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club...
http://www.necn.com/Boston/New-England/2009/03/22/Gun-sales-on-the-rise-but/1237772495.html
The popular handguns are on back order. Some kinds of semiautomatic
rifles are even harder to get. Ammo, too, is at a premium. In short, the
gun industry is weathering the recession just fine. In Massachusetts and
across America, the recent surge in gun buying has been fueled by fears
that President Obama will restrict gun rights, and by creeping anxiety
about crime and the economy. "It's a tug-of-war between the anxiety of
the general public and their lack of money," said Andrew Molchan,
president of the Professional Gun Retailers Association. "Right now,
anxiety seems to be winning out." At M&M Plimoth Bay Outfitters in
Plymouth, AR-15s and other military-pattern semiautomatic rifles, once
heavily restricted as so-called assault weapons, have been quickest to
sell...
http://www.hollandsentinel.com/business_market/x2087806903/Fears-about-crime-and-economy-trigger-higher-gun-sales
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Full-Auto Fib: When General Wesley Clark was recently on Geraldo
Rivera's Fox News show, he said that the United States needs to impose a
new "assault weapons ban," and said that if Americans want machine guns,
they should join the military. I don't know how many times it has to be
said, but the so-called "assault weapons" that Attorney General Holder
wants to ban aren't machine guns. They're the same semi-automatic
firearms that have been around for more than 100 years. General Clark is
deliberately misleading the American people. Clark also said that the
problem we have isn't sealing the border from south to north, but from
north to south. The Los Angeles Times recently reported the opposite.
The paper says military weapons, including machine guns, anti-tank
rockets, RPGs, grenade launchers and grenades are the new weapons of
choice for the drug cartels. Sorry, General, but they're not getting
that kind of weaponry at a gun show in Arizona...
http://www.nranews.com/blogarticle.aspx?blogPostId=508
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F Troop in Iraq: Amid the orderly transfer of power, our new Chief
Executive has issued a call for responsibility. As is the case with most
of his public statements, his meaning is not clear. However, if he means
holding government officials accountable for their actions, a novel and
great idea, it is something that we can all embrace. It is particularly
true of those officials within agencies with a long and well documented
history of abuses of entrusted powers. Somehow, ATFE comes to mind as
the poster boy for irresponsibility and unaccountability... ATFE Special
Agents were deployed in Iraq on 90-day TDY assignments between 2003 and
2008. During that time, they were paid $4,175,731.00 in unauthorized and
unlawful overtime pay. They filed fraudulent claims for the overtime and
ATFE senior officials did nothing to monitor the claims or review them
for conformity with federal law and regulations. In other words, the
ATFE Special Agents, law enforcement officers who are sworn to
faithfully execute the laws of the United States, filed false time and
attendance reports claiming pay for overtime which was not worked and
for which payment was not authorized under federal law...
http://www.sofmag.com/wp/2009/02/18/sof-exposes-batf-corruption-in-iraq/
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A Matter of Perspective: A black woman from the District of Columbia who
lost children to "gun violence" and who advocates for the victims of
unsolved murders is calling on liberal Democrats to come to grips with
the Second Amendment and vote for a bill before Congress that would give
D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives at the cost of rescinding
the city's stringent gun control laws. "I want my vote to be counted. I
want representation in Congress. And I also want the right to bear
arms," Valencia Mohammed, director of Mothers of Unsolved Murders, is
quoted in the March 21 Washington Post. Mohammed went on to note the
racist history of gun control against slaves and former slaves during
Reconstruction before asserting she wants "all of those rights that they
were denied." But while it's great that the Post actually printed
Mohammed's views, they were buried in paragraphs 24-27 of a 35-paragraph
story on how a "Gun Law Compromise May Be Unavoidable to Pass Bill." ...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2009/03/21/powerful-pro-gun-argument-buried-post-article-d-c-vote
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The Armed Lifestyle: When I worked for the police department my partner
and I would go to the range at least twice per month, although we
weren't required to qualify with our firearms but twice per year. We
enjoyed shooting but our main concern was maintaining our shooting
skills. Besides, we could shoot as much as we desired as the department
provided all the ammo, at least for department approved service weapons.
Further, we attended every training class that was scheduled by our
department... I can't say enough about maintaining one's shooting
skills. Many of the officers with my department balked about having to
qualify on the range twice per year. I probably did some shooting every
weekend. I still hit the range frequently thirty some years later. I
figure since I carry a concealed firearm every day every place I go (and
I don't go places my firearm is not allowed if I can help it) I must
continually maintain my shooting skills, especially since I am getting
older and my eyesight is a bit weaker, not to mention a somewhat slower
response time...
http://daveinvegasguntalk.blogtownhall.com/
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Indiana Could See Campus Carry: Imagine life at PUC with no gun ban.
Picture a campus on where students, faculty, and visitors could all
carry a concealed weapon, whether in the parking lot or the classroom.
This scenario could soon be reality should State Senator Johnny Nugent
of Lawrenceburg find three times a charm in a possible January, 2010
revival of his controversial gun legislation. Having failed in the
Indiana Senate during the 2008 session and again last week for 2009,
Nugent's bill would prohibit public colleges and universities in
Indiana, which rely heavily on taxpayer funds, from establishing any
regulation of firearms or ammunition. Co-author of the bill Senator Sue
Landske of Cedar Lake, who has before carried a gun for self-defense,
feels the gun ban leaves students vulnerable. I may not carry a gun [for
protection] anymore...but maybe somebody else will," Landska said...
http://media.www.pucchronicle.com/media/storage/paper1082/news/2009/03/23/News/Puc-Could.See.A.New.Gun.Law-3678462.shtml
--
Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
