Tag Archives: guns

Nelson, Georgia, Passes Meaningless Law Requiring All Households to Own Guns

by wqds234der Posted on April 2, 2013

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Reuters published this story on April Fools’ Day, but it does not appear to be a joke:

A small Georgia town on Monday passed a law requiring the head of each household to own a gun as a way to keep crime down.

The ordinance, approved unanimously by the City Council in Nelson, is symbolic, however, because there is no penalty for violating it, according to Councilman Duane Cronic, who introduced the measure last month.

It serves as an expression of support for gun rights and sends a message to would-be criminals, Cronic said.

The measure was passed amid the debate over gun laws in the United States following the December shooting rampage in which a gunman killed 26 people at a Connecticut elementary school.

The Nelson ordinance exempts convicted felons, residents with physical and mental disabilities and those who do not believe in owning firearms, Cronic said.

Crime in Nelson, which has only one police officer, consists mainly of petty theft, Cronic said.

The measure, dubbed the Family Protection Ordinance, was modeled on a law passed in nearby Kennesaw, Georgia in 1982; towns in Idaho and Utah have considered similar laws. For instance, the 140 residents of Byron, Maine rejected a mandatory gun law last month (the proposal was nixed even by the guy who proposed it, after he concluded he should have simply made it a recommendation).

Because Nelson’s new law is symbolic and unenforceable, there is zero chance of a resident being punished for not buying a gun. It’s like the law in Kentucky that makes it illegal to have ice cream cones in your back pocket. “I likened Nelson’s new law to a security sign that people put up in their front yards,” Cronic told the AP. “I really felt like this ordinance was a security sign for our city.”

The city council’s agenda notes that the ordinance will also serve as “opposition of any future attempt by the federal government to confiscate personal firearms.”

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Nelson, Georgia, Passes Meaningless Law Requiring All Households to Own Guns

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Investigators Discover NRA Materials in Newtown Killer’s House

by f45 Posted on March 28, 2013

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Shortly after the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, police investigators seized a large arsenal of weapons from the killer’s home, according to search warrants made public on Thursday. That the home of Adam Lanza and his mother, Nancy, contained an array of powerful handguns and rifles is no surprise, but the documents reveal an even darker picture than previously known to the public: Investigators also found a cache of knives, samurai swords, 1,600 rounds of ammunition, a military uniform, and news clippings about prior mass murders in the United States and abroad.

They also discovered links to the National Rifle Association.


Gunmakers and the NRA Bet Big on Silencers. What Could Go Wrong?


EXCLUSIVE: Unmasking the NRA’s Inner Circle


Meet the NRA’s Board of Directors


The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys


How Republicans and the NRA Kneecapped the ATF


Does the NRA Really Have 4 Million Members?


How the NRA and Its Allies Helped Spread a Radical Gun Law Nationwide

See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

In addition to the pile of weaponry, the home contained a certificate from the NRA bearing Adam Lanza’s name, a NRA guide to shooting, and training manuals for various firearms, including the Bushmaster that Lanza used to carry out the slaughter. The CEO of the company that sells Bushmaster rifles sits on a powerful committee inside the NRA, as we first reported in January.

For the NRA, which has been highly effective with its messaging in the gun debate over the years, the news is a blow. The new details begin to disarm the gun group’s strategy to divert attention from the highly lethal weapons Lanza used by focusing on him as just another deranged criminal with no connection to “good guys with guns.” In his audacious speech a week after the Newtown massacre, NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre talked of “genuine monsters” lurking across America, of “people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them.” He continued: “They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn’t planning his attack on a school he’s already identified at this very moment?”

Now we know that “next Adam Lanza” may well have NRA certification and know-how at his fingertips.

The NRA’s response on Thursday seemed telling: flat-out denial, with some defensive kick to it. “There is no record of a member relationship between Newtown killer Adam Lanza, nor between Nancy Lanza, A. Lanza or N. Lanza with the National Rifle Association,” it said in a statement. “Reporting to the contrary is reckless, false and defamatory.”

Since the NRA makes virtually no information available to the public about its inner workings or its alleged membership, naturally we’ll have to take the group’s word against that of Connecticut law enforcement officials.

Details in the newly released documents also underscore why Lanza was capable of such terrible carnage on December 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary. The military-style assault rifle and 30-round magazines he used—defended by the NRA as tools of hunting and sport—allowed him to unleash 154 bullets in less than five minutes. These were the same type of highly lethal firearms used in numerous other mass shootings, which the White House and Democrats in Congress seek to outlaw.

The news came on a day when President Obama appeared at the White House with Newtown families and other mass-shooting victims to once again demand action from Congress. (Though the president’s focus is now on passing universal background checks, with political prospects dimmer for legislation banning assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.) The anguish is still fresh in Newtown and well beyond, the president said, pushing back on the notion that the emotional impact of the tragedy has started to fade:

It’s been barely a hundred days since 20 innocent children and six brave educators were taken from us by gun violence, including Grace McDonnell and Lauren Russo and Jesse Lewis, whose families are here today. That agony burns deep in the families of thousands, thousands of Americans stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun over these last 100 days, including Hadiya Pendleton, who was killed on her way to school less than two months ago, and whose mom is also here today, everything they lived for and hoped for taken away in an instant.

The president didn’t mention the NRA or its allies, but he took direct aim at their argument against universal background checks, a policy he noted has extraordinary public support, with 90 percent of Americans—including an overwhelming majority of gun owners—behind it. “What we’re proposing is not radical, it’s not taking away anybody’s gun rights. It’s something that, if we are serious, we will do it. Now is the time to turn that heartbreak into something real.” Watch his full remarks:

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Investigators Discover NRA Materials in Newtown Killer’s House

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New Hampshire House Votes to Repeal Stand Your Ground

by publik23 Posted on March 28, 2013

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By a slim five-vote margin, New Hampshire’s House of Representatives yesterday passed a bill to repeal the state’s Stand Your Ground law, the controversial self-defense statute that essentially allows anyone who feels threatened by someone else to shoot first rather than retreat.

No one in New Hampshire has claimed Stand Your Ground as a legal defense since the law was enacted in 2011. The proposed repeal will likely face an even tougher fight in the state’s Republican-controlled senate.

Florida became the first state to adopt Stand Your Ground in 2005. By 2011, with a boost from the National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council, 24 more states, including New Hampshire, had passed similar laws.

Meanwhile, study after study shows SYG laws don’t deter crime and are associated with more murder and manslaughter. Between 2005 and 2010, justifiable homicides by civilians using firearms doubled in Stand Your Ground states, while falling or remaining the same in others. And they’re not applied equally to white and black shooters, as MoJo‘s Hannah Levintova pointed out: “homicides involving white shooters and black victims are 11 times more likely to be deemed ‘justifiable” than those where the scenario is reversed.”

The interactive map below shows how Florida kicked off a campaign to spread Stand Your Ground nationwide.

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New Hampshire House Votes to Repeal Stand Your Ground

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Louisiana Judge Rules That Violent Felons Have Gun Rights Too

by Sheeritwern Posted on March 25, 2013

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A New Orleans judge ruled last Thursday that a law forbidding felons from owning firearms infringes their rights to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the state’s newly amended constitution.

Although Louisiana already had extremely permissive gun laws (and second highest gun-murder rate in the country), last November voters overwhelmingly passed an initiative backed by the National Rifle Association that made gun ownership a fundamental right with the same levels of protection as the freedoms of religion and speech.

The amendment requires judges to review gun-control legislation using “strict scrutiny,” the most stringent standard of judicial review. In his decision, Judge Darryl Derbigny wrote that statute RS 14:95.1, which bars firearm ownership for people convicted of violent crimes, such as murder, assault, rape and battery, and certain misdemeanors, is “unconstitutional in its entirety.”

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Louisiana Judge Rules That Violent Felons Have Gun Rights Too

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Mayor Mike Bloomberg Will Spend $12 Million to Push Gun Control Through Congress

by Selina R. Pinkstaff Posted on March 23, 2013

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New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg wants new gun control legislation so bad that he’s set to spend a staggering $12 million of his own money on ads targeting US senators in a dozen states.

As the New York Times reports, Bloomberg’s new wave of ads, which begin on Monday, support universal background checks for nearly all gun purchases, but do not mention a ban on assault weapons. The ads, run under the auspices of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group funded and co-chaired by Bloomberg, will target Sens. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Patrick Toomey (R-Penn.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).


Gunmakers and the NRA Bet Big on Silencers. What Could Go Wrong?


EXCLUSIVE: Unmasking the NRA’s Inner Circle


Meet the NRA’s Board of Directors


The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys


How Republicans and the NRA Kneecapped the ATF


Does the NRA Really Have 4 Million Members?


How the NRA and Its Allies Helped Spread a Radical Gun Law Nationwide

See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

Bloomberg’s $12 million ad buy further cements his position as the main political force challenging the clout of the National Rifle Association. For decades, the NRA has used its money and manpower to oust politicians who support any new regulation of guns in America. The threat of NRA attacks helped stifle any effort at new gun laws, including requiring background checks for most gun purchases and reinstating the ban on assault rifles, which expired in 2004. Now, by pumping money into Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Independence USA, his super-PAC, Bloomberg hopes to counter the might of the NRA, while giving cover to pro-gun-control legislators.

Here’s more from the Times on Bloomberg’s new ad blitz:

In each state, the commercials urge support for the measure to require background checks for nearly all firearms purchases, not just those in gun stores, the most debated element of the legislation and a coveted goal of gun control advocates.

Mr. Bloomberg has singled out Mr. Flake, who already voted against the expansion of background checks in the Senate Judiciary Committee, by producing a special, scolding commercial aimed at Arizona. “Flake’s vote,” the ad declares, equals “no background checks for dangerous criminals.”

The mayor, who over the years has spent tens of millions of dollars to support his favored candidates, holds the power to use his “super-PAC” to wield influence in the midterm Congressional elections next year and beyond. He said he would heavily favor “candidates who will stop people from getting killed.”

“There is an easy measure of how you decide who those are,” he said, noting that gun rights groups rate lawmakers. “The NRA keeps score of it for you. They are public information.”

To those who might fear his financial might, he added: “If they pass sensible gun legislation, there is not an issue.”

Bloomberg has scored a handful of recent gun-related victories. He pumped nearly $10 million into Independence USA in the 2012 elections; the super-PAC went on to spend $3 million to defeat Rep. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), a pro-gun rights congressman. Independence USA also spent millions last month in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 2nd congressional district to defeat Debbie Halvorson, who had an “A” rating from the NRA. Democrat Robin Kelly, whom Bloomberg supported, ultimately cruised to victory.

The NRA has said it plans to fire back at Bloomberg with an advertising campaign of its own. And an NRA lobbyist told the Times that it’s confident that many Americans won’t buy into Bloomberg’s message. “What he is going to find out is that Americans don’t want to be told by some elitist billionaire what they can eat, drink and they damn well don’t want to be told how, when and where they can protect their families,” Chris Cox, the NRA’s top lobbyist, said.

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Mayor Mike Bloomberg Will Spend $12 Million to Push Gun Control Through Congress

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GOP Sen. Wants to Require a Two-Thirds Majority for Gun Laws

by Isela Harris Posted on March 22, 2013

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The Senate is expected to reject an assault weapons ban when it’s introduced as an amendment to a large gun control package next month. But Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) isn’t taking any chances. On Friday, the first-term conservative is planning on filing an amendment to the Senate budget resolution making it impossible for any gun control legislation to pass the Senate without a two-thirds majority—a standard currently reserved for the ratification of treaties. (That’s an even higher threshold than that imposed by filibusters, which can be broken with 60 votes.)

“If the Lee amendment is passed, the practical effect will be that gun control can never again pass the Senate,” the far-right Second Amendment group Gun Owners of America boasted in an email to members on Friday.

Lee’s amendment won’t pass. But the fact that Republicans would consider carving out an entirely new voting threshold just for gun control legislation tells you just how little ground they’re willing to concede, at least publicly, on this fight.

Here’s the amendment:

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GOP Sen. Wants to Require a Two-Thirds Majority for Gun Laws

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NRA Targets UN Arms Trade Treaty, Again

by pwdt8w4 Posted on March 18, 2013

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The United Nations kicked off the first of nine days of final debate today in New York on the Arms Trade Treaty, an international pact seeking to regulate the $70 billion market in conventional weapons. Due to the unsupported belief that its largely unenforceable regulations would violate Americans’ Second Amendment rights, the treaty has once again found itself in the sights of gun-rights groups, including the National Rifle Association.

In reality, the Arms Trade Treaty, first discussed in 2006 and rejected by the Bush administration, is aimed at halting the cross-border flow of weapons into the hands of terrorists and soldiers in war-torn nations. That market is mostly unregulated now, and weapons advertised at international arms bazaars like the one in Abu Dhabi in February commonly find their way to conflict zones abroad. The treaty would take aim at weapons including tanks and missile launchers but also “small arms,” which the NRA claims could lead to a domestic crackdown on civilian-model AK-47s and other assault weapons.

The notion that the treaty would attack gun-owners’ constitutional rights ties into a popular right-wing conspiracy theory, embraced by the likes of Rand Paul, that it would lead to “full-scale gun CONFISCATION” and place lawful gun owners in an Orwellian international database. However, as the Washington Post reported, the treaty “lacks real enforcement mechanisms, but activists said it could be used to name and shame arms exporters who violate its terms.”

In 2011 and 2012, the NRA joined Larry Pratt’s conspiratorial Gun Owners of America in lobbying for a House resolution that would “express the sense of the Congress that the United States should not adopt any treaty that poses a threat to national sovereignty or abridges any rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, such as the right to keep and bear arms.” The bill died in committee. But pressure from the gun lobby led the Obama administration to abandon talks last July on a draft of Arms Trade Treaty. Major players in the global arms trade including China and Russia also objected to the draft’s language.

In February, the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights concluded that the Arms Trade Treaty “would not require new domestic regulations of firearms” nor compromise the Second Amendment (PDF). In a statement last Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry said the administration “will not support any treaty that would be inconsistent with U.S. law and the rights of American citizens under our Constitution.”

But such reassurances are unlikely to convince the NRA and its allies.

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NRA Targets UN Arms Trade Treaty, Again

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Elizabeth Warren Goes After NRA, Big Banks, GOP

by ker3roa Posted on March 16, 2013

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Since joining Congress, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been fighting to penalize bad banks, expand consumer protections, and confirm Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she helped create in 2011. Yesterday she took her message to the Consumer Federation of America. “I know I’m preaching to the choir,” Warren told the group’s members, “but it is time for Washington to stop protecting a handful of the big guys.”

Warren said the 43 Senate Republicans who sent a letter to President Obama demanding a change of structure at the CFPB were trying to weaken the agency, and she called the NRA’s attempts to limit data gathering on gun violence “dangerous.”

Watch a portion of the speech, and read her full prepared remarks below.

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Elizabeth Warren CFA Remarks – March 14, 2013 (PDF)

Elizabeth Warren CFA Remarks – March 14, 2013 (Text)

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Elizabeth Warren Goes After NRA, Big Banks, GOP

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Elizabeth Warren Goes After NRA, Big Banks, GOP

by 1LymSlagter473 Posted on March 16, 2013

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Since joining Congress, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been fighting to penalize bad banks, expand consumer protections, and confirm Richard Cordray as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she helped create in 2011. Yesterday she took her message to the Consumer Federation of America. “I know I’m preaching to the choir,” Warren told the group’s members, “but it is time for Washington to stop protecting a handful of the big guys.”

Warren said the 43 Senate Republicans who sent a letter to President Obama demanding a change of structure at the CFPB were trying to weaken the agency, and she called the NRA’s attempts to limit data gathering on gun violence “dangerous.”

Watch a portion of the speech, and read her full prepared remarks below.

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Elizabeth Warren CFA Remarks – March 14, 2013 (PDF)

Elizabeth Warren CFA Remarks – March 14, 2013 (Text)

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Elizabeth Warren Goes After NRA, Big Banks, GOP

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WATCH: Feinstein Smacks Down Cruz Over Gun Ban: "I Am Not a 6th-Grader"

by RubinkJoseph Posted on March 14, 2013

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On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the so-called assault weapons ban on a party-line vote, paving the way for the full chamber to vote on the measure as early as next week. But not before Sen. Ted Cruz, the freshman Republican from Texas, aimed to give Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the five-term Democrat from California, a lesson about the Bill of Rights. He suggested that it was a slippery slope from banning bazookas to banning books. Feinstein was not impressed. Watch:

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Here’s the text of some of Feinstein’s remarks:

Let me just make a couple points in response. One: I’m not a sixth-grader. Senator, I’ve been on this committee for 20 years. I was a mayor for nine years. I walked in and I saw people shot. I’ve looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons. I’ve seen the bullets that implode. In Sandy Hook, youngsters were dismembered. Look, there were other weapons. I’m not a lawyer, but in 20 years I’ve been up close and personal to the Constitution. I have great respect for it. This doesn’t mean that weapons of war—and the Heller decision clearly points out three exceptions, two of which are pertinent here—and so I, you know, it’s fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know that I’ve been here for a long time. I’ve passed on a number of bills. I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated… Incidentally, this does not prohibit—you use the word “prohibit”—it exempts two thousand two hundred and seventy one weapons. Isn’t that enough for the people of the United States? Do they need a bazooka?

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WATCH: Feinstein Smacks Down Cruz Over Gun Ban: "I Am Not a 6th-Grader"

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