April 1, 2013
U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), the author of S. Con. Res. 7 – the bipartisan resolution which makes clear a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that undermines Constitutional freedoms of American gun owners will not be ratified by the Senate – released the following statement today on Iran, North Korea and Syria blocking the U.N. ATT last night.
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April 1, 2013
Even though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has stripped the controversial “assault weapons” ban out of the Democratic gun-control package headed to the Senate floor, Sen. Dianne Feinsteinhas vowed to graft parts of her arbitrary ban onto other gun-control legislation with bipartisan support. Throughout this process, the California Democrat and some of her colleagues have engaged in predictable public theatrics, factual distortions and outright scare tactics to obscure the real issues regarding gun violence in America.
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March 29, 2013
The moves, which have not been widely touted by the administration, come as Obama ups his pressure on Congress to take action on gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The Senate is expected to begin floor consideration of legislation when it returns in April.
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March 29, 2013
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Thursday joined a group of Republicans threatening to filibuster gun control legislation in the Senate.“We, the undersigned, intend to oppose any legislation that would infringe on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without being subjected to government surveillance,” he wrote in a statement on his website.
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March 29, 2013
New York is suspending its ban on the sales of gun magazines larger than seven rounds because few manufacturers make clips with the seven bullet capacity the state initially required, as part of the state budget the Assembly began approving yesterday.
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March 29, 2013
Criminal background checks on gun purchases in Delaware would include most transactions between private sellers and buyers under a bill the state House approved Thursday.The bill cleared the Democrat controlled House on a 24 17 vote and now goes to the Senate.
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March 28, 2013
The 50-49 vote on the budget could spell the most trouble for gun control legislation, which is next on the Senate docket.Democrats have struggled to unify behind gun legislation, and budget defectors Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Baucus all hail from states where restrictions on firearms are unpopular. Already, Democrats from conservative states are pushing back on television ads financed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) that urge them to support a universal background check system for gun purchases.
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March 28, 2013
Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday the expected upcoming Senate votes on gun control are only the beginning of the White House's fight.The fate of gun control legislation is unclear. A vote on a Senate bill, including expanded background checks and harsher penalties for gun trafficking, is expected next month.The White House also has been pushing for limits on military style assault weapons and high capacity magazines, but those provisions won't be part of the Senate bill. Instead they are to be offered as amendments, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says they don't have enough support to pass."That doesn't mean this is the end of the process. This is the beginning of the process," Biden said during a conference call organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns pushing for the gun control measures.
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March 28, 2013
Despite President Obama's best efforts to exploit the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School for his political agenda, the public is starting to see through his maneuver. Polls show that the support for Mr. Obama's gun control wishlist is falling. Even so, the polls continue to be skewed in a way that gives the false impression of a higher approval than really exists.
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March 28, 2013
In January 1994 – less than a year into President Clinton’s first term – George Stephanopoulos received a memo from Jody Powell. “If there is an area that needs ‘new thinking, ‘rethinking, ‘a different kind of Democrat,’ and all that, crime/gun control is it,” Powell wrote. “As much as I hate to say it, the NRA is effective primarily because it is largely right when it claims that most gun control laws inconvenience and threaten the law-abiding while having little or no impact on violent crime or criminals.”Would criminals comply, Powell asked, and, if not, can we effective enforce the laws? “If the answer is ‘no’ in both cases,” he continued, “consider whether the benefits are worth making Bob Dole majority leader.”Powell was prescient. A year later, Dole was indeed the Senate majority leader, and Newt Gingrich Speaker of the House. The new legislative leadership reduced welfare benefits, cut the capital gains tax, and impeached Bill Clinton.
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March 28, 2013
New York City Nanny, er, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is bankrolling a $12 million television ad campaign to lobby senators in key states, Pennsylvania included, to vote for new gun control legislation, specifically universal background checks.But a dangerous thing happened on the way to a TV screen near you.In one of the ads, a supposed common guy outfitted in a flannel shirt, seated on the tailgate of a pickup truck and touting "responsible" gun ownership, violates three fundamental rules of safe gun handling.
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March 28, 2013
The wait for Illinois Firearm Owner’s Identification Cards is more than 60 days, and the Illinois State Police Firearms Service Bureau is in the midst of its busiest month ever processing applications for them.Illinois State Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said Tuesday that the wait typically now is about 64 days. According to Bond, more than 70,000 FOID card applications already have been received by the state police in March, putting it on track to be the all-time record month thus far for the Firearm Owner’s Identification Card program.
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March 28, 2013
Despite a federal ruling that Illinois' concealed carry ban is unconstitutional, police, prosecutors and judges alike say they are disregarding the finding and continuing to enforce the law at least for now.
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March 28, 2013
New York will spend $27.74 million to develop a statewide electronic handgun permit database as part of its new gun control law, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday.Silver said the measure in the tentative state budget will create a central database of handgun permit records now kept at the county level.
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March 28, 2013
The Senate Judiciary committee released a bill Wednesday that would require Delaware gun owners to report lost or stolen guns. Gun advocates crowded inside a hearing room in Legislative Hall to oppose the measure that they say targets law abiding citizens, would do little to curb gun use by criminals and would be virtually unenforceable.
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March 28, 2013
The state House is set to vote on a bill subjecting most gun sales between private sellers and buyers in Delaware to criminal background checks.
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March 28, 2013
Hunters across the country say they are boycotting Colorado because of recent legislation meant to curtail gun violence.Colorado last week became the first Western state to ratchet back gun rights in response to mass shootings at a suburban Denver movie theater and an elementary school in Connecticut. Opponents warned that the gun controls would hurt hunters, especially an expansion of background check requirements to apply to personal and online gun sales.
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March 27, 2013
Past a deadline to move hundreds of bills, Maryland's House of Delegates turned its attention back to Gov. Martin O'Malley's sweeping gun control legislation on Tuesday.
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March 27, 2013
U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said Tuesday that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should worry about crime and gun issues in his own city, not North Dakota.Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat, was responding to a $12 million national ad campaign launched by Mayor's Against Illegal Guns, a group that Bloomberg co founded. The ads support background checks, and about $156,000 will be spent to run the ads in North Dakota.
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March 27, 2013
A bill that would expand the number of public buildings in Kansas where concealed weapons are allowed and let public school and college employees carry concealed firearms won first round approval Tuesday night in the state Senate.
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March 27, 2013
The Missouri Senate has given first round approval to a proposed constitutional amendment bolstering certain gun rights after a Democratic state senator blocked a vote for several hours.
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March 27, 2013
The North Carolina House has voted to bar the public from reviewing the detailed records of concealed weapons and pistol permit holders issued in the name of safety.
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March 26, 2013
Soon after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced an assault weapons ban would not be part of a gun control bill, a new CBS News poll shows support for stricter gun control laws overall has dropped since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Currently, support for stricter gun control laws stands at 47 percent today, down from a high of 57 percent just after the shootings. Thirty-nine percent want those laws kept as they are, and another 11 percent want them made less strict.
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March 26, 2013
Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee are threatening to filibuster gun control legislation, according to a letter they plan to hand deliver to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office on Tuesday."We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions," the three conservatives wrote in a copy of the signed letter obtained by POLITICO.
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March 26, 2013
All things being equal, New York State's infamous new gun laws will go down in history as a prime example of the folly of hysterical calls to action; and Governor Andrew Cuomo, who led the chase for the measures, will join them in disgrace. After 20 children were killed in Newtown, Conn., last December, progressives saw a golden opportunity to reverse the liberalizing tide of recent firearms law and leverage the national outrage in favor of long desired gun control codes. Freed by his reelection, the president declared, in an increasingly tiresome formulation, "Now is the time to do the right thing for our children, our communities, and the country we love." In Albany, it appears that the governor took him literally.
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March 26, 2013
Gun owners relaxed a little last week when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid conceded that Democrats lack the votes for Senate passage of an "assault weapon" ban. But relaxing the fight is premature. Gun control advocates had a good week, too, with small victories in Colorado and Maryland. The struggle over who gets to determine the meaning of the Second Amendment continues.
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March 26, 2013
Mike Bloomberg is spending $12 million on attack ads designed to force U.S. senators to vote for national gun control laws that will supposedly save lives. However, the New York mayor's commercials running in 13 states over the next two weeks could cause injury or death by showcasing irresponsible handling of a firearm. Mr. Bloomberg's organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, produced two ads featuring a man holding a shotgun, wearing plaid flannel with a camouflage cap and sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck. While a child swings on a tire in the background, the man says, "I support comprehensive background checks so criminals and the dangerously mentally ill can't buy guns." The ad does not specify if the man is an actor, but the text accompanying it says he is a "gun owner." Either way, the man violates all three gun safety rules taught by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
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March 26, 2013
The Senate unanimously passed two concealed carry bills on Monday, including one that expands the number of weapons that wouldn't require a permit under Idaho's concealed weapons rules.Both proposals have already received a nod from the House and were headed to the desk of Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter for his signature.One of the bills carves out an exemption in the concealed weapons law for Tasers, pepper spray and knives with blades shorter than 4 inches, including kitchen knives. People who carry the items wouldn't need a permit.
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March 25, 2013
The chief executive of the National Rifle Association said Sunday that his organization would lead a national campaign against efforts by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to persuade Congress to adopt stricter gun controls.
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March 25, 2013
National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre said Sunday that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to "buy America" by spending millions of his personal fortune to urge key senators to vote for gun control."He can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public," LaPierre said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They don't want him in their restaurants, they don't want him in their homes, they don't want him telling what food to eat. They sure don't want him telling what self defense firearms to own. He can't buy America."
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March 25, 2013
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday: Sometimes government does know best. And in those cases, Americans should just cede their rights.“I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom,” Mr. Bloomberg said, during an appearance on NBC. He made the statement during discussion of his soda ban — just shot down by the courts — and insistence that his fight to control sugary drink portion sizes in the city would go forth.
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March 25, 2013
Gun control advocates complain that Congress stopped the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from making firearms dealers conduct costly annual inventories to keep their records straight. But ATF already has the power to investigate records and inventories in a number of common sense circumstances, such as a criminal investigation or when there is a suspected violation.Common sense tells us that placing additional burdens on law abiding gun retailers will do nothing to reduce crime, but placing the full weight of our criminal justice system on lawbreakers will.
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March 25, 2013
President Barack Obama called on the Senate to vote on a controversial ban on semiautomatic firearms modeled after military style assault weapons, despite dim predictions from Senate leadership that such a ban will have any luck passing the upper chamber.
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March 25, 2013
In the last batch of amendment votes to the budget, the Senate voted on several foreign policy proposals.Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced an amendment that would prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty in order to uphold the Second Amendment. His amendment passed on a 53 46 vote.
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March 25, 2013
Gov. John Hickenlooper, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, called a ban on assault weapons "a tough sell."Colorado last week adopted three gun control bills -- limiting ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, requiring universal background checks and charging gun owners for the cost of the checks.
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March 25, 2013
Gov. Cuomo and state lawmakers rushed a gun-control law through in January that prohibits the sale of magazines that can hold more than seven bullets, the nation’s lowest limit.Problem is, nobody makes seven-bullet magazines.Now, state leaders are planning to suspend the prohibition, which is due to take effect April 15, until they can rewrite the measure.
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March 25, 2013
New York Rep. Charlie Rangel appeared on MSNBC this morning to opine about the assault weapons ban getting dropped from the Senate gun-control bill.He made a few claims about politics as usual and the power money can have in this type of a case, but his most noteworthy comment was about his knowledge on crime statistics.
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March 25, 2013
The effort to let Georgians carry concealed weapons in more places took another step forward Friday as the House approved the latest version of a gun bill.Senate Bill 101, as amended in the House, will allow churches to decide if concealed weapon permit holders may bring weapons into sanctuaries and will allow guns on most areas of public college campuses.
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March 25, 2013
A bill that would allow concealed carry without a permit is shooting toward passage after receiving the Senate's initial endorsement.House Bill 304 would allow people carry concealed weapons within city limits without obtaining a concealed carry permit. The measure is one of the many pro gun measures on the docket this session.
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March 25, 2013
Guns and ammo are selling briskly these days, and that means weapons makers are hiring. Some manufacturers are scrambling to find enough workers.
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