January 25, 2013
Six states are eager to capitalize on last month's horrific shooting of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn. New York's quick draw Gov. Andrew Cuomo was the first to craft a gun control package behind closed doors and ram it into law within a matter of days.
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January 25, 2013
President Obama has called for stricter federal gun laws to combat recent shooting rampages, but a review of recent state laws by The Washington Times shows no discernible correlation between stricter rules and lower gun crime rates in the states.
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January 25, 2013
Faced with a boycott by gun enthusiasts and fierce criticism from the National Rifle Association, a British exhibition company is postponing indefinitely its show 10 days after announcing a ban on assault weapons sales at the event.In a statement released Thursday, Reed Exhibitions said it had halted plans for the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show, scheduled for Feb. 2 to 10, because of controversy surrounding its decision not to let vendors sell a class of weapons the company called modern sporting rifles (MSRs).
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January 25, 2013
The House Local Government Committee voted 7-6 to kill the legislation. But the measure's main sponsor, Rep. Lance Russell, said he may ask the full House to override the committee and debate the bill, which he said would help law abiding citizens protect themselves without causing any increase in crime.
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January 25, 2013
A Republican lawmaker has filed a bill that would allow Texans to openly carry handguns in public places.
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January 25, 2013
Two home intruders, one holding a handgun, broke into a New York apartment on Tuesday and waited at the bottom of the stairs for a potential “victim” to come down. While their intentions are unknown, it is clear they were criminals up to no good.
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January 24, 2013
Imagine a grandfather who wants to give a family shotgun to his 12-year-old grandson having to do a background check on his grandson before giving him the shotgun.
Or a friend having to do a background check on his lifetime best buddy before lending him a hunting rifle.
Or, if your mother had a prowler at her home, having to do a background check on your own Mom before you could give her one of your guns for protection.
That’s what “universal background checks” do. They turn traditional innocent conduct into a criminal offense. They target you, law-abiding gun owners.
Read more at Ammoland.com: http://www.ammoland.com/2013/01/universal-background-checks-absolutely-not/#ixzz2IwI64Oxj
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January 24, 2013
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein will begin her fourth full term as a U.S. senator much as she started her Senate career: fighting for a ban on assault weapons.Feinstein's new bill, which will be introduced today in the Senate, among other things proposes to:
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January 24, 2013
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office confirmed that she will be introducing in the Senate Thursday a new version of the so-called assault weapon ban. A spokesman said the full text will be released at a press conference on Thursday. The California Democrat intends to expand on the ban that expired in 2004, by including handguns and shotguns, in addition to rifles. She would decrease from two to one the number of cosmetic features on a gun to have it be considered an “assault weapon.” This means that if a gun has just one item like a pistol grip or bayonet lug, then it is illegal. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the same ban in New York last week.
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January 24, 2013
One day after President Barack Obama won re election, his Administration agreed to a new round of international negotiations to revive a United Nations sponsored treaty regulating the international sale of conventional arms, which critics fear could affect the Constitutionally protected right of U.S. citizens to purchase and bear firearms.
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January 24, 2013
Vice President Joe Biden will sit down for an interview Thursday with Google Inc. (GOOG) to discuss gun violence, his first live interview since he and President Barack Obama were inaugurated for a second term.The interview, which will be broadcast on Google's YouTube and Google+ pages, come as the administration is under heavy criticism from gun rights groups about its proposals to change gun laws.
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January 24, 2013
Legislation that would let church officials decide whether they want to allow people with concealed handgun permits to carry weapons in places of worship was endorsed Wednesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.A House committee approved a resolution reaffirming the Legislature's support for gun rights.
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January 24, 2013
Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon is inviting new lawmakers from across Illinois to work with her on a concealed carry law.A federal appeals court panel ruled last month that Illinois' ban on concealed weapons is unconstitutional. Attorney General Lisa Madigan is appealing the ruling. But lawmakers still face a 180 day deadline to pass a bill legalizing concealed carry.
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January 24, 2013
Texas lawmakers already are considering a bill that allows concealed handguns in college classrooms. A similar measure failed in 2011, but last month's shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., had already helped renew the debate over safety in schools, and Tuesday's gunfire at Lone Star College had supporters looking to rally more support.Sen. Brian Birdwell, R Granbury, who filed the Campus Personal Protection Act last week, called the Lone Star College shooting a prime example for the need for his bill."It affirms what we know is true: When you disarm law abiding citizens that we ought to trust, we make them defenseless," Birdwell said.
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January 24, 2013
The Kansas Attorney General's Office has seen a dramatic uptick in applications for licenses to carry concealed handguns in the past three weeks.Assistant attorney general C.W. Klebe told the House Federal and State Affairs Committee members to "draw your own conclusions" about why, but the agency has already received almost 2,000 applications in 2013.
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January 24, 2013
Warning about "weapons designed for the theater of war," President Obama on Wednesday called for immediate action on a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He said that "more of our fellow Americans might still be alive" if the original assault weapons ban, passed in 1994, had not expired in 2004. Last month, in the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) promised to introduce an updated version of the ban. She too warned of the threat posed by "military weapons."
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January 24, 2013
Talk of stricter gun control has stirred up a lot of unease here, a place where hunters vie for top prize (a 26 inch LED television) in the Big Buck Photo Contest, and ads for a gun simulator game ask, "Feel like shooting something today?"But before Senator Joe Manchin III invited a group of 15 businessmen and community leaders to lunch last week to discuss the topic, he had only a vague idea of how anxious many of his supporters were."How many of you all believe that there is a movement to take away the Second Amendment?" he asked. About half the hands in the room went up. Despite his best attempts to reassure them -- "I see no movement, no talk, no bills, no nothing" -- they remained skeptical. "We give up our rights one piece at a time," a banker named Charlie Houck told the senator. If there is a path to new gun laws, it has to come through West Virginia and a dozen other states with Democratic senators like Mr. Manchin who are confronting galvanized constituencies that view any effort to tighten gun laws as an infringement.
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January 24, 2013
A Web video attacking Rep. John Barrow for taking "NRA blood money" selectively edits an old campaign ad in which Barrow touts his support for the Second Amendment and the NRA's endorsement of him. The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, which produced the video, edited out all references in which Barrow explains why he supports gun rights -- including his statement that his father owned a rifle "just to keep us safe."
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January 23, 2013
Wayne LaPierre, the executive director of the National Rifle Association, angrily accused President Obama on Tuesday of demonizing law abiding gun owners and of wanting to put "every private personal firearms transaction right under the thumb of the federal government."In a fiery speech at a hunting conference in Nevada, Mr. LaPierre criticized Mr. Obama's Inaugural Address on Monday when the president said Americans should not "mistake absolutism for principle."
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January 23, 2013
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D N.J.) introduced legislation Tuesday that would make it illegal to manufacture or sell a magazine that contains more than 10 rounds.
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January 23, 2013
One persistent suggestion in the post Newtown conversation about gun control is a law requiring the registration of all guns, even so called "long guns" like the rifle Adam Lanza used in the school killings. Lost in the discussion: Canada tried it and gave up, discovering like several other nations that attempting to identify every gun in the country is an expensive and ultimately unproductive exercise. Criminals, of course, don't register their guns. And even law abiding citizens tend to ignore registration when it comes to long guns mostly used for hunting and target shooting.
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January 23, 2013
Under current law, only licensed firearms dealers have to conduct criminal background checks on buyers at gun shows. Attempts to extend that requirement to private sellers have failed several times in recent years.A revised version of the proposal would allow only licensed dealers to sell firearms at gun shows. Private sellers would be allowed to put guns on consignment with dealers.
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January 23, 2013
In pro gun regulation Illinois -- where politicians would rather play gun control politics than fight the murderous street gangs -- a young man was admitted to the hospital.Sam Insley, 16, of Oak Lawn, wasn't admitted with a gun problem.Sam had a tonsil problem."It was an infected tonsil," Mary Rita Insley told me of her son Sam, a strapping, 6 foot 2 inch, 195 pound lacrosse player at St. Rita High School on the Southwest Side."Yes, he's a big kid, but regardless of his age and stature, my husband and I were with him the entire time he was there."Sam was admitted to Advocate Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn on Jan 4. A resident and two medical students began jotting down notes for a routine medical history. At one point, Mrs. Insley said, they asked her to step out of the room."I felt uneasy, but I stepped out so my son wouldn't be embarrassed," she told me, saying she figured they would ask drug and alcohol questions. Sam doesn't take drugs or alcohol, she said.Later that day, Sam told her what the doctors had asked him."By the way, Mom," she recalled him saying, "when you were out of the room they asked me if we had any guns in the house."
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January 23, 2013
A divided Pasco County Commission voted Tuesday to move forward with a proposal to require a three day waiting period and background checks for most firearm purchases at gun shows.
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January 23, 2013
Arkansas lawmakers are taking up a proposal to allow concealed handguns in church and a resolution encouraging government officials to not infringe on 2nd Amendment rights.
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January 23, 2013
In an interview with CBS4last week, Senate President John Morse (D-Colo. Springs) proclaimed his belief that additional background checks and a ban on high capacity magazines would do little to limit gun violence, stepping on a key message coming from supporters of gun control in his own party.
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January 22, 2013
A newspaper has removed an interactive online map of handgun permit holders in two New York counties that drew nationwide anger and prompted threats against its staff, the publisher said Friday.
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January 22, 2013
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's ambitious gun control package would require citizens who move to the state to register guns purchased elsewhere and make it illegal for residents younger than 21 to purchase or own registered firearms or ammunition.
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January 22, 2013
With President Obama's blueprint to rein in gun violence now up for a great public and political debate, one thing's for sure in the Sunshine state: More and more Floridians enjoy the personal security that a concealed weapons permit provides.
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January 22, 2013
An older couple in one of Bill Hayes' concealed weapons classes will have to learn how to shoot after they finish the classroom work. Neither one has previously owned a gun.They are among new gun buyers in the Low country and the state who have driven the number of concealed weapons permit applicants to levels never seen before.
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January 22, 2013
Some Mississippi lawmakers propose cutting off public access to records about state issued permits for people to carry concealed guns.Rep. Mark Baker of Brandon and Sen. Will Longwitz of Madison say they want the change because a newspaper in New York published names and other information about people there who have concealed weapons permits.
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January 22, 2013
While President Obama is calling for further restrictions on access to guns, Oklahoma lawmakers are pushing in the other direction, introducing dozens of bills that would make it easier for people to carry firearms and to carry them into government meetings, state parks and even public schools.More than two dozen bills were filed in the Senate to expand gun rights before Thursday's bill filing deadline, and nearly that many were prepared in the House. The 2013 session opens Feb. 4."Clearly in Oklahoma we are strong supporters of gun rights and gun ownership rights, and I think you're going to see a lot of legislation protecting that, whether it's my bill or other bills that are out there," said Sen. Patrick Anderson, R Enid.
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January 22, 2013
A bill filed Friday in Massachusetts would require gun owners to purchase liability insurance in the event that a firearm is used to injure.
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January 22, 2013
The majority leaders of the Vermont state Senate says he's withdrawing a bill that would have reinstated in Vermont a now expired federal assault weapons ban.Democratic Sen. Philip Baruth, of Chittenden County, says there's not enough support among his colleagues and there's mounting opposition from outside the Statehouse.
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January 22, 2013
Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans."Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them," Clinton said.
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January 22, 2013
As President Obama prepares for a battle in Congress over proposed gun control legislation, California and San Francisco are moving forward with even more far reaching proposals.The Golden State already has some of the toughest firearms laws in the nation, including a sophisticated background check database that has resulted in the confiscation of more than 10,000 guns since 2006.
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January 18, 2013
Two-out-of-three Americans recognize that their constitutional right to own a gun was intended to ensure their freedom.The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of American Adults think the purpose of the Second Amendment is to make sure that people are able to protect themselves from tyranny. Only 17% disagree, while another 18% are not sure.
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January 18, 2013
Republican reaction to President Obama's gun control agenda generally has been negative, but Sen. Marco Rubio (R Fla.) was particularly combative in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night."I actually think the president, and he just doesn't have the guts to admit it, is not a believer in the Second Amendment, although he states that he is," Rubio said. "If he doesn't want the Second Amendment to be in the Constitution or if he wants to reform it, then have the guts to admit that."
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January 18, 2013
The directives on gun violence President Obama signed Wednesday were meant to seem harmless. A closer look at the president's first memorandum reveals it to be a sneaky assault on congressional authority in order to fund gun control propaganda.
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January 18, 2013
Massachusetts gun owners would be required to purchase liability insurance in case their firearm was ever used to injure someone under a bill being filed at the Statehouse.The initiative is included in a gun control measure which would also change standards for gun licenses and outlaw large capacity magazines.
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