Archive for October, 2015

Black Panthers and the Origins of Gun Control

From The Root:

On May 7, 1967, the Black Panthers showed up on the steps of the California Capitol in Sacramento brandishing loaded rifles and black berets in a show of defiance that would forever brand them as enemies of the establishment. They were there to protest the passage of the Mulford Act (nicknamed the “Black Panther Bill” by the press), which had been fast-tracked through the Legislature and signed by then-Gov. Reagan. The bill reversed an existing California law that made it legal to carry a loaded firearm in public as long as it was not concealed or brandished in a threatening manner. Reagan himself was quoted as saying that he saw “no reason why, on the street today, a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

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New 2 Pound Missile Can Be Fired From A Rifle

Raytheon has created the Pike which one of the smallest laser guided missile.

Pike™ is a 17-inch-long, semi-active laser-guided precision weapon, measuring 40 mm in diameter and weighing two pounds. It’s the world’s only hand-launched precision-guided munition. Fired from a rifle-mounted grenade launcher, the miniaturized munition can travel one and a half miles and hit within five yards or less of a target, minimizing collateral damage.

 

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Bill Removes Suppressors From National Firearms Act

From American Suppressor Association:

The American Suppressor Association (ASA) is pleased to announce the introduction of the Hearing Protection Act (HPA) by Rep. Matt Salmon (AZ-05). This historic piece of legislation will remove suppressors from the purview of the National Firearms Act (NFA), replacing the antiquated federal transfer process with an instantaneous NICS background check. The HPA also includes a provision to refund the $200 transfer tax to applicants who purchase a suppressor after October 22, 2015.

 

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Trophy Hunter Sues Delta For Discrimination

From Takepart.com:

In a lawsuit filed Oct. 15, Dallas Safari Club, Houston Safari Club, Conservation Force, Knowlton, and others argue that Delta’s ban on big game trophy transport is unlawful, “robbing the species of the enhancement tourist hunting provides,” the suit claims.

Essentially Knowlton and the pro-hunting groups are arguing two points: Delta can’t discriminate against what its passengers can transport if it’s been deemed “legal cargo” by federal authorities, and the new ban is hindering conservation efforts raised through trophy hunting permit fees like Knowlton’s.

 

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Tom Gresham of Gun Talk on NPR

Tom Gresham sat down with John Hockenberry on his program for a short interview:

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Clinton Reverses Herself on Australian-style Gun Ban

From Breitbart.com:

Clinton said “the [Australian] government was able to curtail the supply and set a different standard for gun purchases in the future.” She went on to say, “it would be worth considering doing it on the national level” here in the U.S.

But Monday morning, Palmieri told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that Clinton was not suggesting firearm confiscation.

Mitchell asked: “Was [Clinton] suggesting in her town hall meetings in New Hampshire on Friday, when she said she would look into the Australian system, was she suggesting confiscation of guns?”

Palmieri responded, “Of course not. What she was referring to is places where there have been mass shootings and the countries have done something to act on it. She has put forward a very common-sense proposal that would have background checks for everyone, that would remove the special protections the gun industry has from liability, but it’s all very common-sense measures the majority of the public supports.”

 

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Holding Our Leaders Accountable

From SOFREP:

Many are quick to light their torches and encircle presidential candidate Hillary Clinton without due process. It’s worth taking a step back to acknowledge that Clinton’s role as secretary of state was largely to serve as a public figurehead; the day-to-day, on-the-ground operations were run by Patrick Kennedy.

The big questions that should be asked by the House Select Committee on Benghazi are, “Why didn’t Mrs. Clinton hold Kennedy and Lamb accountable in the aftermath?” and “What do these two have on her that keeps Hillary blocking and tackling in the media for two diplomats whose decisions got good Americans killed that day?”

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San Fran Sheriff Failed Gun Qualification

From SFGate:

A sergeant under San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi who oversaw the department’s shooting range was transferred after he questioned whether the sheriff could take a marksmanship test in light of his domestic violence case, The Chronicle has learned.

Mirkarimi then took the test and failed it, preventing him from carrying a gun, department employees said.

Sheriff’s Department officials strongly denied Thursday night that the sergeant had been transferred because he potentially stood in the way of Mirkarimi’s being granted permission to carry a gun. They described his transfer as a budgetary move and said Mirkarimi had nothing to do with it.

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New Air Force One Deal

From The New York Times:

The Defense Department hopes to sign an initial contract with Boeing in the coming weeks to begin the long process of assembling a new presidential aircraft capable of ferrying the commander in chief around the world with the capacity to run a war from midair if necessary. Built on the frame of a Boeing 747-8, it will be bigger, more powerful, able to fly farther and vastly more advanced technologically than the current customized Boeing 747-200B jumbo jet.

“It’s way overdue,” said Joseph W. Hagin, a White House deputy chief of staff under President George W. Bush who initiated plans for a new plane only to see them shelved when the nation’s finances grew precarious. “You can hang new engines on it, you can cram all sorts of new technology on it, but it’s still a very old airplane.”

 

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The Atlantic: Gun Rights Are Racist

The Atlantic:

Public-carry advocates like to cite historical court opinions to support their constitutional vision, but those opinions are, to put it mildly, highly problematic. The supportive precedent they rely on comes from the antebellum South and represented less a national consensus than a regional exception rooted in the unique culture of slavery and honor. By focusing only on sympathetic precedent, and ignoring the national picture, gun-rights advocates find themselves venerating a moment at which slavery, honor, violence, and the public carrying of weapons were intertwined.

The NRA’s response:
The authors of this piece are correct in their sense that our current gun debate has its roots in the 19th-century American South—but they managed to get the true alignment of things completely backwards. It is the modern gun control movement that is absolutely a product of racist legislators trying to deprive black Americans of the ability to defend themselves.

When the Civil War ended and the Reconstruction Amendments freed the slaves and assigned them equal rights under the law, the white landowners at the top of the socio-economic ladder found themselves in a predicament. Not only were they deprived of their resource pool of unfree labor, but they now lived side by side with a black population that outnumbered them—and was about to enjoy equal access to both ballot boxes and firearms. These landowners acted swiftly to defend their dominant position. Encouraging poor whites to cling to a sense of racial identity and despise their black neighbors was part of their strategy. The other part was an explosion of new legislation that spat in the face of the Constitution’s clear intention to guarantee the rights of the former slaves.

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Court Upholds NY SAFE Act

From Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

The decision Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that the SAFE Act in New York and laws in Connecticut following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 do not infringe on the Second Amendment, as gun-rights groups contended in their lawsuits.

“We hold that the core provisions of the New York and Connecticut laws prohibiting possession of semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity magazines do not violate the Second Amendment, and that the challenged individual provisions are not void for vagueness,” the court ruling states.

From American Thinker:

The SAFE (“Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement”) Act was presented to the New York State Senate and passed into law in 15 minutes.  No debate was allowed, and senators did not have time to read the bill before voting it into law.

The SAFE Act is a complete ban on the sale or transfer of all military-style semi-automatic rifles manufactured within the past several decades.  It is a total ban on the AR-15, AK-47, M-14/M-1a, HK G3, Steyr AUG, and many other civilian copies of military firearms.  Prior to the passage of the law, Gov. Cuomo publicly stated that he was considering “confiscation” of existing rifles, but the final version of the law allowed existing owners to keep their rifles as long as they registered them with the State.  Upon the death of the owner, the rifle will be confiscated; it cannot be transferred to an heir within New York State.

The full decision is here with the names of the judges attached.

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Pentagon Avoiding Questions About Female Rangers

From The Daily Caller:

Rep. Steve Russell of Oklahoma, himself a veteran and Ranger School graduate, has been investigating claims that Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver, the first ever female graduates of Ranger School, received special treatment. In September, he sent a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh requesting Army records relating to the women’s test scores, medical history, evaluations, and other background details that may help indicate whether they benefited from a lower standard.

But new documents, first written about by Susan Keating of PEOPLE and now obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, suggest the Pentagon may be playing a cat-and-mouse game with Russell, first stalling for time and then later telling Russell that the information he requested had been destroyed.

 

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Sheriff Will Refuse Gun Registration Executive Order

From Fox News:

An Indiana sheriff vowed that he will not enforce any executive actions by President Obama requiring law enforcement officers to begin registering firearms.

Elkhart County Sheriff Bradley D. Rogers made the remarks in a recent panel discussion on local TV station WNIT.

“If President Obama today said, ‘I’m creating an executive order that all sheriffs and police chiefs around this nation need to start registering firearms,’ I will disregard it,” he said.

 

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Medal of Honor To Be Given To Capt. Florent Groberg

From Army.mil:

Retired U.S. Army Capt. Florent “Flo” Groberg was born in Poissy, France, May 8, 1983. Groberg became a naturalized U.S. citizen, Feb. 27, 2001, and graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Md., in June of the same year.

Groberg entered the Army in July 2008 and attended Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga. He received his commission as an infantry officer, Dec. 4, 2008. After completing Infantry Officer Basic Course, Mechanized Leaders Course, U.S. Army Airborne and U.S. Army Ranger Schools, he was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colo., as a platoon leader.

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Supreme Court May Hear Gun Ban Case

From MSNBC:

If the court agrees to hear the case, it would cast a shadow over similar bans in seven states. But declining to take it up would boost efforts to impose such bans elsewhere, at a time of renewed interest in gun regulation after recent mass shootings.

Gun rights advocates are challenging a 2013 law passed in Highland Park, Illinois, that bans the sale, purchase, or possession of semi-automatic weapons that can hold more than 10 rounds in a single ammunition clip or magazine. In passing the law, city officials cited the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

 

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