Assaults on the Second Ammendment - NRA update 2DEC07

From email:

OUTRAGE OF THE WEEK!

Brady's Shamelessness-Will They Ever Learn? This week's outrage comes, not surprisingly, from the Brady Center. You may recall back in May, we reported on the Brady Center prescribing its remedies for the horrific Virginia Tech slayings well before any of the facts were known. Not content to stop there, they even sent out an extremely distasteful fundraising solicitation seeking contributions in the amount of $32-one dollar for each of the Virginia Tech slayings.

You'd think the Brady Center would have learned its lesson after being pilloried for this stunt by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (among others), who said, "People who want to take this (the Tech shootings) within 24 hours of the event and make it, you know, their political hobby horse to ride, I've got nothing but loathing for them. To those who want to, you know, try to make this into some little crusade, you know, I say take that elsewhere. Let this community deal with grieving individuals and be sensitive to those needs."

Once again, though, the Brady Bunch has proven it has no learning curve.



Boston Gun Search Policy Raises Concerns: Boston police may soon begin asking parents to allow searches of their homes and children's bedrooms for firearms-without notice or warrants.



STATE ROUNDUP (please click to see any updates on states not listed below.)

COLORADO: BLM Plans to Close Canyons of the Ancients to Recreational Shooting: The Bureau of Land Management has released a draft management plan for the 164,000-acre Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwest Colorado. All four management alternatives would close the entire Monument to recreational shooting. The BLM cites vandalism of cultural and natural resources and visitor safety as the reasons for closure. For more information about the plan, please go to http://www.blm.gov/rmp/canm/. Comments from the public are being accepted until January 25, 2008. It is critical that gun owners and sportsmen take an active role in this process!

BLM Plan Will Set Game Retrieval Restrictions: The Bureau of Land Management has released a draft management plan for travel routes on lands it administers within San Luis Valley, Colorado. The proposal will limit the retrieval of game off designated routes except to a perpendicular distance of 300 ft. from the edge of a route. Comments on the plan are being accepted until December 31. The document can be viewed at http://www.blm.gov/co/st/en/fo/slvplc/Travel_Management.html. For further information, please contact Mark Swinney, Project Lead, by phone at (719) 655-2547, or by e-mail at mswinney@co.blm.gov. Once again, it is critical that gun owners and sportsmen take an active role in this process!

ILLINOIS: Continue to Express Your Opposition to Proposed FOID Card Regulations! As we have previously reported, the Illinois State Police has proposed enacting an age limit to obtain an Illinois Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) card. This is apparently in response to an editorial by Daily Southtown columnist Howard Ludwig, who wrote an article about obtaining a FOID card for his ten-month-old son. Illinois law does not set an age requirement for issuance of a FOID card with a parent's consent, but imposing one could have disastrous effects on Illinois' rich hunting heritage and would endanger the lives of children. The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) will determine if this rule will be enacted, but you can still submit comments in opposition to the proposal. Please address your comments to: Mr. John M. Hosteny, Interim Chief Legal Counsel, Illinois State Police, 801 South 7th Street, Suite 1000-S, P.O. Box 19461, Springfield, IL 61794-9461. Please be sure to ask Mr. Hosteny to share your comments with the members of JCAR. You can also send your comments directly to the JCAR at 700 Stratton Office Building, Springfield, Illinois 62706 or email jcar@ilga.gov.

VIRGINIA: Hunting With Hounds Under Review: The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has launched a review of hound hunting in the Commonwealth. Virginia Tech is conducting focus group meetings around the state during November and December. Trespass complaints from property owners have sparked this review. The Department's goal is "To provide diverse opportunities for hunting with hounds in Virginia in a manner that is fair, sportsmanlike and consistent with the rights of property owners and other citizens." The process includes many avenues for hound hunters to participate, such as focus group meetings with individual stakeholder groups, a survey conducted through the Department's website, opportunity to review all developments, public meetings, and by letter or e-mail. About half of the focus groups will be comprised of bear, deer, fox, and raccoon hound hunters. The remainder of the focus groups will be populated by landowners, government representatives, other hunters and outdoor enthusiasts. If you are a hound hunter, make your views known during this public process. Go to www.dgif.state.va.us/hunting/hounds for more information about how you can participate.

WISCONSIN: Vote Scheduled for Critical Emergency Powers Legislation! Assembly Bill 581 is likely to be voted on Tuesday, December 4. Sponsored by Assemblyman Scott Gunderson (R-83), AB 681 would prevent the state of Wisconsin from restricting the possession, transfer, sale, transport, storage, display, or use of firearms or ammunition during a declared state of emergency. Please contact the members of the Assembly Committee on Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness and respectfully urge them to pass this important legislation. Contact information for the Committee can be found by clicking here.

I ask again, what part of "...shall not be infringed" do these people NOT understand?

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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A Constitutional Stand earns a Mental Evaluation?

I heard about this on Steve Gill this morning and I have to say, it really set me off.

From TownHall:

College Admins: If You Favor Second Amendment Rights, You Must Be Crazy
By Jon Sanders
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Send an email to Jon Sanders

A Minnesota college student was suspended and ordered to undergo "mental health evaluation" for his response to campuswide e-mails from school officials concerning the Virginia Tech massacre.

The college, Hamline University, a private, liberal-arts institution affiliated with the Methodist Church, has a policy on "Freedom of Expression and Inquiry" that guarantees that Hamline students will be "free to examine and discuss all questions of interest to them and to express opinions publicly or privately."

With such a strong guarantee on students' "freedom from censorship and control" by the university, student Troy Scheffler's e-mail must have been horrifically bad to warrant such a crackdown. Right?

Wrong. What Scheffler did was make a gun-rights case for concealed-carry permits on campus to help ward off potential Cho Seung-Huis before they strike Hamline. This was no monstrous act; in fact, it was in line with public debate across the nation following Cho's rampage, not to mention an issue of perennial debate in America. Many researchers, most notably John R. Lott Jr., have shown conclusively that gun ownership itself wards off crime while laws banning guns lead to increases in crimes. Criminals are less likely to strike if they have reason to believe their prospective victims could be armed.

Scheffler had written in his April 17 e-mail reply to David Stern, Hamline vice president of student affairs, that "Considering this university also pushes 'diversity' initiatives like VA Tech, maybe its 'leadership' will reconsider [Hamline's] ban on conceal carry law abiding gun owners... Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldnt have happened if the school wouldnt have banned their permits a few months ago."

He added, "I just dont understand why leftists dont understand that criminals dont care about laws; that is why they’re criminals... Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law abiding citizens rights."

Two days later, Hamline President Linda Hanson e-mailed the campus about Virginia Tech. Scheffler replied to that e-mail also, expanding upon his comments to Stern.

In both messages, Scheffler made it clear to all but the most hysterically inclined person that his advocacy of concealed-carry permits was to protect the students from criminals. Scheffler recognized that this protection would be afforded primarily by predators' foreknowledge that any one of the students at Hamline could shoot back, but also – given that the administrators had both brought up the VT massacre – by students being able to stop a killing rampage before it got started.

In short, what Scheffler wrote was no preamble to a blood-lusty explosion of violence. At worst it was crude criticism of the university administration combined with a stark assessment of the true risk of a concealed-carry society like Virginia Tech's: total defenselessness against a Columbine-inspired mass murderer. Regardless, it should have been protected by the university's stated policy guaranteeing free expression.

Nevertheless, on April 23 Scheffler received a hand-delivered letter from Dean of Students Alan Sickbert that informed him his e-mails were "deemed to be threatening and thus an alleged violation of the Hamline University Judicial Code" and that he was placed on "interim suspension" to be lifted only after he agreed to a psychological evaluation by a licensed mental health professional...

So the kid does what the administration asks, sends his opinion, taking a Constitutional stand on the matter, and he's suspended and told he has to have a psych evaluation before he's allowed to return to school? Is Hamline College in some place other than the United States? Is this a lesson to be learned, that when a college administration asks for opinions, they really don't want to hear what you think? Such elitist thinking. It's no wonder academia is viewed as being a bunch of pompous leftist blowhards who have no substance.

I don't normally advocate this, but my advice to Mr. Scheffler is to get a good lawyer and sue them for violating his constitutional rights of free speech. Totally unConstitutional behavior on the part of Hamline College.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man


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Start the bans NOW! STOP THE INSANITY! And could someone pass the Tobasco Sauce, please?

My friends, I have decided that I am going to jump on the bandwagon here, early, a few days ahead of what I had planned on in making any kind of commentary whatsoever after the Virginia Tech shootings.

I'm stepping up to the plate (think baseball here, not the dinner table) and joining in in promoting the beginnings of immediate bannings, thanks to the wise words of a commenter on our site who goes by the handle DigitalTraveler. Without his inspired wisdom I wouldn't have seen the light that should have been so clear to me all along. To those of you over at RadioActive Liberty, I'm sorry, guys, but we're going to have to start with the source of your battle cry; bacon has got to go. Bacon has killed so many, many people through the years, sitting there in the meat section of the local grocery store, so unassuming looking as you pass by and peruse the different brands and cures. It has caused untold heartache in it's silent but deadly overuse and abuse. Heart disease and high blood pressure, oh the sadness that this evil product causes.

In fact, let's ban all pork. That's the answer. We have to remove pork from the hands of Americans before it causes more harm, more pain, more grief.

But wait.

We don't eat pork by itself, do we? A LOT of pork is consumed at breakfast, and so are a lot of...EGGS! YES! EGGS are evil, TOO. Full of cholesterol, usually SALTED to improve their taste...wait, SALT? SALT?!? HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE! We've got to get rid of salt, too.

Wow, I'm starting to feel really GOOD now, knowing that I'm serving my fellow man and pointing out how we need to BAN the evil salt, bacon, and eggs in order to SAVE humanity.

But wait. What about the utensils? One doesn't NORMALLY eat eggs with their fingers, right?

OH MY GOD we have to ban forks. Yes, forks have GOT to go. We can no longer sit idly by and allow forks to murder us. Something has to be done. Congress MUST be made aware of the clear and present danger that forks present to us on a daily basis. I wonder how many people a DAY across this country are killed by random acts of eating involving the use of forks. Why did you know that they even make plastic forks that can't be detected by metal detectors? THIS HAS GOT TO BE STOPPED.

I KNOW! We can ask Rosie O'Donnell to be our poster-girl on why utensils MUST BE BANNED!! Every cause NEEDS a celebrity behind it, right? We can get Rosie to tell us ALL about how forks, knives, and spoons have turned her into the hate filled, fallacy speaking, drivelling idiot she is today.

We must be cautious, however; the other side is SURE to bring out heavy hitters like Emeril Legasi, Alton Brown, and, steady men, steady...Rachel Ray. She in particular would be a DEVESTATING distraction to the men in our movement...

AHEM.

I have a prediction to make at this point, regarding what I've said so far. In reading this, Conservatives are going to be laughing their asses off at the supreme ridiculousness of what I just said (um, other than that about Rachel Ray, insert wolf whistle here, and Rosie O'Donnell, insert gagging noise here), Liberals are going to be pissed as hell and think, rightfully, that they're being mocked for their lack of logic and thinking.

I'm going to save further comment on the gun side of the Virginia Tech story for now; I honestly hope that in reading this posting it will make EVERYONE stop for a moment and think how inappropriate it is to debate gun control YET AGAIN so soon after this tragedy. Those of you who follow our blogsite here know full and well that I'm a very firm Constitutionalist and a member of the NRA. Nuff said there. My hope is that people will see that there is a time and a place for every discussion and examination; right now is a time for trying to heal. We already know who is responsible, we're beginning to understand why. Guns aren't the why, mental stability is.

Remember the families of those who lost loved ones at Virginia Tech, keep them in your hearts, keep them in your prayers.

And to those of you over at RadioActive Liberty, all I have left to say to YOU, compadres, is BACON!

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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