Violent crime declines as American gun ownership rises

For the third consecutive year, violent crime has declined in the United States during the same period when gun and ammunition purchases have increased dramatically, something that should not be happening, if one were to believe the gun prohibition lobby. The FBI on Monday released preliminary uniform crime data showing that the four major violent crime categories are all slipping. Overall, 2009 experienced a 7.2 percent drop in murders, an 8.1 percent decrease in robbery, a 4.2 percent decline in aggravated assault and 3.1 percent reduction in forcible rape. Yet, according to data from the FBI’s National Instant Check System and – from all places – the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, gun and ammunition sales are up dramatically. NICS background checks are up this year, and the excise tax apportionments to the states from the sale of firearms and ammunition have climbed from $336,474,545 in Fiscal Year 2009 to a whopping $472,719,710 for FY 2010. Do any kind of math you like, that still translates to more than $136 million in additional excise tax revenues over 2009, which further translates to a lot more guns and ammunition, and hunting/shooting-related gear changing hands at the retail counter.

Read The Rest At Orwell's Dreams

Kentucky Joins Movement to Resist Abuses of Commerce Clause, 2nd Amendment

In states around the country, there's a growing movement to address and resist two of the most abused parts of the Constitution -- the Commerce Clause and the 2nd Amendment. Already being considered in a number of state legislatures, and passed as law in Montana and Tennessee this year, the Firearms Freedom Act (FFA) is a state law that seeks to do just that.

The latest to join the FFA movement? Kentucky. Pre-filed for the 2010 legislative session, HB87 seeks to "Create new sections of KRS Chapter 237, relating to firearms, firearm accessories and ammunition that are made in Kentucky, marked made in Kentucky, and used in Kentucky, to specify that these items are exempt from federal law"

While the FFA's title focuses on federal gun regulations, it has far more to do with the 10th Amendment's limit on the power of the federal government. The bills in state houses contain language such as the following:

"federal laws and regulations do not apply to personal firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition that is manufactured in [this state] and remains in [state]. The limitation on federal law and regulation stated in this bill applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured using basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported into this state."

NULLIFICATION

Some supporters of the legislation say that a successful application of such a state-law would set a strong precedent and open the door for states to take their own positions on a wide range of activities that they see as not being authorized to the Federal Government by the Constitution.

The principle behind such legislation is nullification, which has a long history in the American tradition. When a state ‘nullifies' a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,' within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as the state is concerned.

All across the country, activists and state-legislators are pressing for similar legislation, to nullify specific federal laws within their states.

A proposed Constitutional Amendment to effectively ban national health care will go to a vote in Arizona in 2010. Fourteen states now have some form of medical marijuana laws - in direct contravention to federal laws which state that the plant is illegal in all circumstances. And, massive state nullification of the 2005 Real ID Act has rendered the law nearly void.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Supporters say the growth of such a movement is long overdue.

"For far too long elected officials and unelected bureaucrats at the federal level have passively forgotten or actively neglected the Tenth Amendment that guarantees rights not enumerated in the Constitution be left to the individual states," said Minnesota State Rep. Tom Emmer, who introduced an FFA in his state. "The willful disregard of the Tenth Amendment in relation to a citizen's right to bear arms isn't the only constitutional infringement that we should be worried about, but it is one that has been singled out by the new administration."

"Enough is enough," urged Tennessee State Senator Mae Beavers. "Our founders fought too hard to ensure states' sovereignty and I am sick and tired of activist federal officials and judges sticking their noses where they don't belong."

LITIGATION

In October, the Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed a lawsuit in federal court in Missoula, MT to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA).

"We feel very strongly that the federal government has gone way too far in attempting to regulate a lot of activity that occurs only in-state," explained MSSA President Gary Marbut. "The Montana Legislature and governor agreed with us by enacting the MFFA. It's time for Montana and her sister states to take a stand against the bullying federal government, which the Legislature and Governor have done and we are doing with this lawsuit. We welcome the support of many other states that are stepping up to the plate with their own firearms freedom acts."

Even the most ardent supporters suggest that the real test will come if the federal courts rule against the FFA. Will they give up at that point, or will they follow in the footsteps of medical marijuana activists around the country?

The latter faced down nearly the entire federal apparatus -- federal agencies who didn't recognize state law, countless federal raids and arrests, and a Supreme Court that ruled against their cause in 2005. Even with such stacked odds, they persisted in their state-level efforts, and today, enough states have medical marijuana laws that the federal government is unable (or unwilling) to oppose them.

Only time will tell if gun rights activists have the same courage.

Source: Campaign For Liberty

Traditional Americans are losing their nation

In the brief age of Obama, we have had "truthers," "birthers," tea party activists and town-hall dissenters.

Comes now, the "Oath Keepers." And who might they be?

Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia."

Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," says founding father Stewart Rhodes, an ex-Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer. "My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.

"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."

Prediction: Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom.

And if the Pelosi-Reid progressives went postal over town-hall protesters, calling them "un-American," "Nazis" and "evil-mongers," one can imagine what they will do with the Oath Keepers.

It's not too late to rescue the nation! Read how in "Save America Now! The New Revolution to Save Freedom and Liberty"

As with Jimmy Carter's long-range psychoanalysis of Joe Wilson, the reflexive reaction of the mainstream media will likely be that these are militia types, driven to irrationality because America has a black president.

Yet, the establishment's reaction seems more problematic for the republic than anything the Oath Keepers are up to. For our political and media elite seem to have lost touch with the nation and to be wedded to a vision of America divorced from reality.

Progressives are the folks who, in the 1960s, could easily understand that urban riots that took scores of lives and destroyed billions in property were an inevitable reaction to racism, poverty and despair. They could empathize with the rage of campus radicals who burned down the ROTC building and bombed the Pentagon.

The "dirty, immoral war in Vietnam" explains why the "finest generation we have ever produced" is behaving like this, they said. We must deal with the "root causes" of social disorder.

Yet, they cannot comprehend what would motivate Middle America to distrust its government, for it surely does, as Ron Brownstein reports in the National Journal:

"Whites are not only more anxious, but also more alienated. Big majorities of whites say the past year's turmoil has diminished their confidence in government, corporations and the financial industry. ... Asked which institution they trust most to make economic decisions in their interest, a plurality of whites older than 30 pick 'none' – a grim statement."

Is all this due to Obama's race?

Even Obama laughs at that. As he told David Letterman, I was already black by the time I was elected. And he not only got a higher share of the white vote than Kerry or Gore, a third of white voters, who said in August 2008 that race was an important consideration in voting, said they were going to vote for Obama.

With black voters going 24 to 1 for Obama, he almost surely won more votes than he lost because of his race.

Moreover, the alienation and radicalization of white America began long before Obama arrived. He acknowledged as much when he explained Middle Pennsylvanians to puzzled progressives in that closed-door meeting in San Francisco.

Referring to the white working-class voters in the industrial towns decimated by job losses, Obama said: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Yet, we had seen these folks before. They were Perotistas in 1992, opposed NAFTA in 1993 and blocked the Bush-Kennedy McCain amnesty in 2007.

In their lifetimes, they have seen their Christian faith purged from schools their taxes paid for, and mocked in movies and on TV. They have seen their factories shuttered in the thousands and their jobs outsourced in the millions to Mexico and China. They have seen trillions of tax dollars go for Great Society programs, but have seen no Great Society, only rising crime, illegitimacy, drug use and dropout rates.

They watch on cable TV as illegal aliens walk into their country, are rewarded with free educations and health care and take jobs at lower pay than American families can live on – then carry Mexican flags in American cities and demand U.S. citizenship.

They see Wall Street banks bailed out as they sweat their next paycheck, then read that bank profits are soaring, and the big bonuses for the brilliant bankers are back. Neither they nor their kids ever benefited from affirmative action, unlike Barack and Michelle Obama.

They see a government in Washington that cannot balance its books, win our wars or protect our borders. The government shovels out trillions to Fortune 500 corporations and banks to rescue the country from a crisis created by the government and Fortune 500 corporations and banks.

America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right.

Source: World Net Daily

Attacking the First and Second Amendments at the same time - FIRE

Examiner.com, New York

A couple separate recent incidents illustrate the fact that to the forcible citizen disarmament lobby, the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms is only one of the freedoms that must be suppressed. To such people, when faced with concerned citizens who dare to speak out against citizen disarmament, the only option is to go after their First Amendment rights, as well.

First, we have the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC), a Pittsburgh area community college. Back in April, a student, Christine Brashier wanted to start a chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). This group, as one may have guessed, advocates permitting defensive handgun carry on college campuses, thus ending the status, shared by nearly every institution of higher learning in the nation, of mandated victim disarmament.

Stunningly, she was told she could not form such a group at CACC.

A student who wants to form a gun-rights group at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) has been threatened with disciplinary action for her efforts. Student Christine Brashier has turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help after reporting that administrators banned her informational pamphlets, ordered her to destroy all copies of them, and told her that further "academic misconduct" would not be tolerated.

"CCAC has demonstrated a shocking lack of respect for the rights of free speech and free association," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "Across the country, students are increasingly denied the First Amendment right to debate the Second Amendment. At CCAC, this censorship trend has reached a new low."

Fortunately, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) took up Ms. Brashier's cause. No matter what one's position is on defensive handgun carry on college campuses, we should all agree that students must not be forbidden to debate the issue. Because of the attention brought by FIRE, to CCAC's free speech suppression, the school was recently forced to relent, and has rescinded the Orwellian policy it held this spring.

After months of national media attention, a student threatened with punishment for attempting to form a gun-rights group at Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is finally allowed to distribute pamphlets about the group on campus. The college has also rescinded its unconstitutional policy demanding "prior written approval" for "personal contact with individuals or groups related to non-sponsored college material or events."

Ms. Brashier, FIRE, and SCCC all deserve kudos for their hard work.

The second incident might be even more unforgivable. This time, the advocacy group was the Second Amendment Sisters, and the event was an "empty holster" day in Washington D.C. The response, this time apparently by an officer of the Department of Homeland Security, was a threat far more grave than the prospect of "academic misconduct."

He then said that he would have to ask me to remove my holster and I got the distinct feeling that he intended to confiscate it. When my husband pulled the video camera out of the bag, he changed his tone only slightly and asked me again to remove the holster, this time saying that I needed to "put it away". I asked him why and he told me that it was illegal to have "gun paraphernalia". I told him that I had no guns, no ammunition and no magazines and that the holster was only a piece of leather and not against the law.

That is exactly the kind of attitude an aspiring agent of tyranny hates to encounter.

The DHS officer asked her to [sic] get that camera out of his face, which of course she did not comply with. As time progressed, the officer gradually backed down from demanding to requesting that I remove my holster until he was "advising" me that it was in my best interest to comply. Finally he conceded that he could not make me remove my holster but warned me that if I persisted that I *would* be detained and possibly arrested or shot, that not every LEO was "pro-gun" like he was!

You read that correctly--a woman was threatened with arrest or with being shot, for wearing an empty holster.

Some among those who wish the citizenry to be disarmed would prefer that we not utilize the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment in defense of the rights guaranteed by the Second. They should draw comfort from the fact that we have not--yet--been forced to do the reverse.

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Where does YOUR attorney general stand on the Second Amendment?

We spoke on Tuesday about California Attorney General Jerry Brown petitioning the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to Chicago's gun ban. 33 other state AGs have also lent their names to the effort.

From NRA-ILA:

Two-thirds of the nation’s attorneys general have filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in the case of NRA v. Chicago and hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This bi-partisan group of 33 attorneys general, along with the Attorney General of California in a separate filing, agrees with the NRA’s position that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental individual right to keep and bear arms in the home for self-defense, disagreeing with the decision recently issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

You can read their brief here.

One of the AGs, Mike Cox of Michigan, addressed criticism of his signing the brief in The Detroit Free Press. He does a good job and I encourage you to read his rebuttal.

I like his ending the best:

I make no apologies for my support of the Constitution and the Second Amendment.

Amen. None of us should.

Here are the states that joined in the amicus brief. As mentioned, California acted on its own:

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.

If your state is not listed, contact your attorney general and give him an earful. Here's a resource to help you do that, or to thank yours for doing the right thing.

Source: The Examiner

New Orleans still illegally confiscating guns

The ACLU, not exactly known for being sympathetic to the right to keep and bear arms, is going to bat for a New Orleans man who had his gun confiscated. From the Associated Press:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed the federal lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Errol Houston Jr., who was arrested last year following a traffic stop. The lawsuit says the district attorney's office declined to prosecute Houston but has refused to return his .40-caliber firearm.

Why? After all:

"Mr. Houston has done nothing wrong. There are no criminal charges against him. His firearm, which he is and was entitled to carry, has been confiscated for no reason..."

District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro is not pleased:

Cannizzaro said he doesn't know why one of his predecessors refused to prosecute Houston, whom he said had a gun under the floor board of his car when police stopped him.

"I have a serious question as to why this charge was refused in the first place," he said.

With all due respect, Mr. DA, and it appears very little is due, that's not your call. As an officer of the court, sworn to uphold the law, you don't get to disregard it, or to make up edicts of your own.

This is the kind of authoritarian mentality that leads to "terror watch list" gun bans, to prior restraints, and to "no rights" lists where suspicion trumps all.

This is supposed to be America, Mr. Cannizzaro. If Mr. Houston is a menace to society, he needs to be charged, convicted and segregated from it. If you can't do that, our criminal justice system presumes his innocence.

Perhaps we ought to be assessing the danger of having a DA who ignores that, and who presumes to be a law unto himself.

Source: The Examiner

Lawful gun owners don't shoot up bars

The anti-gun crowd has their propaganda machine in full gear in Arizona and Tennessee. Tennessee recently overrode their governor's veto of a bill allowing concealed carry license holders to carry their defensive firearms into restaurants that serve alcohol (provided they do not drink themselves) and Arizona is currently considering similar legislation.

"When you're in a bar, you're supposed to be out having fun, so leave the gun at home," said Eileen Conners of Larry's Cocktails, expressing her opposition to the Arizona bill.

I'm going to guess her agenda is not only that she doesn't like guns, but also that since this bill prohibits drinking alcohol while armed that it would therefore cut into profits if they only had non-alcoholic beverages to drink. Of course, a customer killed by a robber will probably affect sales as well.

In Tennessee, where the new law is being challenged in court, they've taken to outright lying to the public while levying hideous insults against gun owners.

"We apparently are going to have 225,000 vigilantes shooting in bars," said David Smith, one of the attorneys for the opposition.

Calling gun owners vigilantes is a common tactic by anti-gun pundits. Attack the reputation of gun owners and try to turn the public against them. Defending your life isn't taking the law into your own hands regardless of whether you're at home in bed or out with friends. This statement is also supposing that all 225,000 permit holders in Tennessee regularly visit bars, though the reality is that this kind of legislation most commonly affects patrons at ordinary restaurants that happen to include alcoholic beverages on the menu.

The biggest lie of all, though, is that these ccw holders are going to be shooting up bars and restaurants. What the anti-gunners won't tell you is that 39 other states have some provision in their laws for citizens to be allowed to carry firearms into places that serve alcohol, and in not one of these states is it a problem. Lawfully armed citizens aren't the ones breaking the laws, it is the criminals who do so.

Some states even allow permit holders to consume alcohol while they're carrying and yet still there are no problems. Lawful gun owners are responsible, trustworthy, and law abiding. It is the armed robbers, muggers, rapists, gang members, and killers that are the problem. The very people that armed citizens are wanting to defend themselves against.

They can go on telling their lies, but they can't change the facts. Lawfully armed citizens, whether in their homes, businesses, parks, restaurants, or bars, are not now and never have been the problem. That is the uncomfortable truth the gun grabbers don't want you to hear.

Source: The Examiner