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At State Level, More Attempts to Limit Guns

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Posted by: resqjyw0


Demonstrators outside the Supreme Court, which is close to ruling on a handgun ban in the District of Columbia.


By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: April 15, 2008

State lawmakers across the country are ramping up efforts to pass new restrictions on guns, following nearly a decade in which state legislative efforts have been dominated by gun advocates.

Much of the proposed legislation — some 38 states are considering gun-related bills — focuses on cutting off gun access to convicted criminals and the mentally ill and on improving methods to trace guns used in crimes.

Underlying many of the proposals is an effort to redefine the gun debate as a law enforcement issue, rather than one that focuses on broad-based gun ownership, to sidestep prickly Second Amendment concerns.

“The key thing is that we want to protect Second Amendment rights,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican who has supported several bills that focus on guns used in crimes but not bills that would curtail ownership rights. “Democrats and Republicans can work together on this.”

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a prominent antigun group, has identified 52 bills it considers a priority for passage in 22 states, compared with 30 such bills two years ago.

“For years we were chasing the N.R.A.’s tail,” Brian Malte, the group’s state legislation and politics director, said of the National Rifle Association. “But now we feel they are chasing our priorities.”

Still, the new efforts come as organizations like the N.R.A., the country’s biggest gun advocacy group, continue to wield tremendous influence in state capitals and are pushing strongly for laws of their own.

Several legislatures are contemplating that would increase access to guns, including proposals to allow guns on college campuses or in the parking lots of workplaces.

The N.R.A. is tracking 208 pieces of gun-related legislation in 38 states, both proposed restrictions it opposes and other bills it supports, the highest number since the gun group began monitoring state laws in 2001.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the N.R.A., said, “There has been a brick-by-brick restoration of the Second Amendment” over the past 10 years or so at the state level, and he added that his organization continued to build upon it. “It is one of the most uncovered, fundamental sea changes in American politics,” Mr. LaPierre said.

The catalysts for the latest round of legislation include a spate of high-profile gun crimes — at shopping malls, schools and universities and the streets of several large cities — and a new federal law that gives financial rewards to states that better share information about mentally ill gun buyers.

The spike in lawmaking activity also comes against the background of a case before the Supreme Court that challenges the constitutionality of a ban on the private possession of handguns in the District of Columbia. Legal and gun experts said a ruling against the ban was likely to stymie additional efforts to limit rights on gun ownership — and could even embolden advocates of fewer restrictions — but might leave undeterred the pursuit of laws focused on illegal guns.

Lawmakers also credit the relatively new Mayors Against Illegal Guns, championed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, which has over 300 members across party lines, and its counterpart among state legislators, which has worked assertively to remove guns from the hands of criminals.

Seven states are considering bills that would require microscopic imprints on ammunition — following a pioneering bill that became law in California last year — that would help forensic experts identify the provenance of guns used in crimes.

Nearly a dozen states are considering forcing gun owners to report their weapons stolen or lost. New Jersey has already enacted such a law, and others are mulling criminal background checks on ammunition buyers, and efforts to keep people with a criminal record getting others to do their gun buying for them.

Earlier this year, President Bush signed into law a measure that authorized the distribution of federal money to states to maintain and update the criminal history and mental health records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. As such, many legislatures are trying to close loopholes that have allowed those with a history of mental illness to obtain guns.

More than a dozen states have signed or are debating bills that would compel states to upload mental health records to the National Instant Check System. West Virginia’s governor recently signed into a law a measure requiring his state to upload disqualifying records to the system.

Bills that focus on keeping guns out of the hands of those found mentally impaired or criminals “have more of a bipartisan support,” said Dan Brady, a Republican state lawmaker in Illinois, where nearly a dozen gun bills have hit the Statehouse this year. Mr. Brady said he had voted for such a bill.

“When you have pieces of legislation that start to erode the law-abiding citizens’ right to own firearms, you begin to have the debate about bounds,” Mr. Brady said.

Debates about the proposed gun laws are taking place in many states not between party members, but rather between residents in rural areas and those in crime-ridden cities. For some states, momentum on any bill that regulates guns is considered unusual.

For instance, last week in Pennsylvania lawmakers debated a bill that would have compelled gun owners to immediately report a lost or stolen gun to law enforcement officials. The bill was defeated, but it was the first time that the state, whose constitution articulates support for individual gun ownership well beyond the federal doctrine, had taken up a significant gun regulation bill in roughly 15 years.

“There are many people who believed that we would never discuss hand gun legislation in this building, let alone have a vote,” said Johnna A. Pro, the spokeswoman for Dwight Evans, a Democrat in the Pennsylvania Statehouse, who was behind the bill. The bill came to the floor only after the state’s legislative black caucus pulled a parliamentary measure impeding budget votes, and became one of the outgrowths of a resulting special session on crime.

“This bill was a defining moment,” said Kate Harper, a Republican lawmaker from the suburbs of Philadelphia who voted for the bill even though many of her colleagues were unhappy with her, she said.

“These are difficult votes for me because it hurts me with my caucus, and it also hurts with really strong Republican voters who don’t want government interference,” Ms. Harper said. “On the other hand, I’ve got soccer moms and people who have never fired a gun and are afraid of them.”

Many states are also contemplating legislation that would increase gun ownership rights. There are roughly three dozens states that have considered over the last two sessions bills that would allow employees to bring guns to the workplace, leaving them in the cars.

The Florida Legislature recently passed a measure preventing businesses from prohibiting customers or employees who hold concealed-weapons permits to keep their guns in their cars on their property. The state’s governor has indicated, in the face of enormous pressure on both sides, that he intends to sign it.

The violence on college campuses also prompted a host of legislative proposals for allowing students or faculty to carry weapons, while such legislation was almost unheard of two sessions ago. The N.R.A. is also focused on bills protecting the use of deadly force as a first resort when threatened.

“On the state level there is a lot of action,” said Andrew Arulanandam, an N.R.A. spokesman. “Things tend to move faster at the state and local level.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/us...hp&oref=slogin




Posted by: resqjyw0


Philadelphia police officers examine handguns after
a news conference on the "Groceries for Guns Exchange"
program in Philadelphia.


Gun rights, gun deaths divide Pa. voters


But issues are barely visible in Democratic presidential campaign


updated 1 hour, 31 minutes ago

Video: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...88041#23188041

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are gingerly threading their way between two of the most politically charged numbers in Pennsylvania: the state's almost 1 million licensed hunters and Philadelphia's nearly one-a-day rate of gun murders.

Gun control arouses deep emotions here. Deadly shootings have earned the state's largest city the ominous nickname: "Killadelphia." One of the strongest antigun control groups, the National Rifle Association, has 250,000 members in Pennsylvania, more than in any other state. This month the Pennsylvania House soundly defeated a bill to require handgun owners to report the theft or loss of their guns to police.

As the state's hotly contested April 22 primary approaches, the Democratic presidential candidates have struggled to avoid alienating either side, to the point of pandering.

Unlike most members of Congress, neither senator has taken a position on the historic case before the U.S. Supreme Court over whether the District of Columbia's ban on handguns violates the Constitution's Second Amendment.

Previous problems
Democrats have shied away from gun control since 2000, when they blamed presidential and congressional losses in part on their aggressive stance at the time.

Clinton that year supported far-reaching measures including a federal mandate for state-issued photo gun licenses, as well as a national registry for handgun sales. Obama repeatedly backed tougher state gun controls as an Illinois lawmaker.

Such proposals have been brushed aside in favor of vague talk about "common sense" regulation and assertions by the candidates that they honor the Second Amendment.

Their ability to duck the issue may end April 16 — the date Clinton and Obama square off in their only Pennsylvania debate.

Politics of Virginia Tech
It's also the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre — the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history — in which a lone gunman killed 32 people and himself. "Lie-in" demonstrations to dramatize the need for tougher guns laws are planned in many states, including one near the debate site, Philadelphia's National Constitution Center.

Amrita Grewal, the 24-year-old organizer of the Philadelphia demonstration, is a 2006 Virginia Tech graduate whose best friend and former roommate was killed in the shooting.

"That changed the rest of my life in one day," she said.

So far, the Democratic candidates have carefully crafted their gun control positions to reach voters on both sides.

Obama assures people he has "no intention of taking away folks' guns," but believes in background checks for prospective gun buyers.

Clinton has called for renewing the national ban on assault-type weapons and allowing federal authorities to share gun-tracing information with local police.

Obama has ridiculed the New York senator's attempts to identify with the rural gun culture, joking that "she's talking like she's Annie Oakley." This, as the Illinois senator tries to overcome the furor over his remarks that embittered blue-collar voters "cling to guns and religion" because they trust no politician to relieve their economic plight.

Philadelphia ground zero
What's lost in this is a precise sense of how they balance gun rights and controls.

"Gun control is divisive, controversial and likely to divide their core support," said Terry Madonna, a professor and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.

"They want to delay anything really specific right now until they get more of a feel of where this (court case) is going to go," said Buddy Savage, a Republican who owns a gun shop just outside of Pittsburgh. "They're looking for anything that can help them. ... They want to be with a winner. "

In Pennsylvania's debate over gun control, Philadelphia is ground zero.
In the City of Brotherly Love, police say 343 people were killed by guns in 2006, and 330 more in 2007. The pace is slower so far this year, but already 58 have died in shootings.

The Legislature has placed gun regulation under its exclusive control, so Philadelphia is powerless to impose its own restrictions. City officials, legislators and second-term Gov. Ed Rendell — a gun-control advocate who has a home in Philadelphia — perennially push for state laws they say would help police crack down on illegal gun trafficking, but without success.

This month's defeat of the gun theft reporting measure left some wondering whether any gun-control measure can pass.

"This is one of the more simple things that could be done," lamented Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Clinton supporter.

Tough Pennslyvania constitution
Outside Philadelphia and other cities, the traditions of hunting and gun ownership run deep in this mostly rural state.

Between 2002 and 2006, nearly 2 million rifles, shotguns and handguns were legally purchased or transferred in the state, according to the state police.

Last year, the state Game Commission sold 945,000 general hunting licenses, including more than 850,000 purchased by deer hunters.

Even the 232-year-old right-to-bear-arms section of the Pennsylvania Constitution is more straightforward about the rights of individual gun owners than the U.S. Constitution.

The Second Amendment says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." In the D.C. case, the Supreme Court is expected to interpret the amendment for the first time since it was ratified in 1791.

The older Pennsylvania provision declares, "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

Some pro-gun lawmakers consider any legislation advanced by gun-control forces an attempt to chip away at that right.

"Many of us believe their objective, ultimately, is to disarm American citizens," said Republican state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe.

While there are no state laws restricting the purchase of assault weapons or multiple handguns, the state has required criminal background checks on nearly all firearms purchases since 1998.

The Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence ranks Pennsylvania's laws 10th best nationally, even though the state scored only 26 out of 100 points in a survey of whether specific laws are in place.

Paul Helmke, the group's president, said Pennsylvania ranks high because most states do a worse job of regulating firearms, but its weaknesses stand out compared with stronger laws in neighboring New York and New Jersey.

"When Pennsylvania is the weak one in the region," he said, "that's where people go to get their guns."


Posted by: Wolfman

Quote:
Lawmakers also credit the relatively new Mayors Against Illegal Guns, championed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, which has over 300 members across party lines, and its counterpart among state legislators, which has worked assertively to remove guns from the hands of criminals.
...and has worked just as assertively to remove guns from the hands of everyone else, for that matter.


Posted by: cj3441

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg, and Menino are all gun grabbing lefty liberals. Schwarzenegger is the biggest fraud to ever govern, the Republicans should throw him out of the party.


Posted by: Killjoy

Typical misinformed, liberal media propaganda.

-How exactly is microstamping going to solve crimes, unless criminals register their guns?
-Hasn't the recent school shootings proven the empty promise of "gun-free" zones? Virgina Tech taught me that Americans should not be victims, but fight back.
-Mayor Bloomberg is such an outstanding citizen he hires people to commit felonies to try to force his disarming ideals down our throats. He also tries to convict legitimate gun dealers of the crime of not reading the gun buyers' mind.
-Schwarzenegger is a big fraud...but he's married to a Kennedy, so does that surprise anyone?


Posted by: mpd61

If the Supreme Court frigs this up then they can send my Pension and VA checks to me in Switzerland!


Posted by: resqjyw0


The real thing? Nope — state Rep. John DeBerry, D-Memphis,
displays a toy during a committee meeting in Nashville on Thursday.
States are taking a look beyond gun control to implement fake-gun control.

15 states seek safety crackdown on fake firearms

Lawmakers consider limits on real-looking toys; industry declines comment


updated 2:05 a.m. ET, Sun., May. 4, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Concerns that realistic-looking toy weapons are confusing police and threatening safety have led 15 states to try going beyond gun control and cracking down on fake firearms.

Officer Micheal Hoover knows a fair amount about guns as a sniper instructor for a Tennessee SWAT team. He recalls the night two years ago when a car pulled up beside him on a highway and the passenger waved what looked like an Uzi.

"It scared me," he said. "If anyone is in their right mind, I don't see how it wouldn't."

Hoover was off duty and called for police help. A 20-year-old man was charged with aggravated assault after police found a black plastic Uzi submachine gun under the car's passenger seat, but he was acquitted because jurors felt the officer should have been able to tell it was only a toy.

Lawmakers across the country are coming to a different conclusion, deciding that it is so hard to differentiate the toys from the fakes that public safety demands they take action.

Among those 15 states, seven bills limiting fake guns are pending this year and 21 have been enacted since 1990, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some states have enacted or are considering multiple measures. They range from prohibiting imitation firearms in vehicles to banning the toys from convenience stores.

Preventative measures
Tennessee lawmakers are considering a proposal by state Rep. John Deberry to make it a misdemeanor to intentionally display or expose "an imitation firearm in a public place in a threatening manner." Exceptions include justifiable self defense, lawful hunting, and displays such as a museum collection.

Deberry said he wants to prevent incidents like one last year in which a 12-year-old boy was killed in West Memphis, Ark. DeAunta Farrow was shot by a police officer who said he thought the boy was carrying a gun and that the youngster refused to obey orders to halt. Investigators later said DeAunta had a toy gun.

"It's important that a child cannot walk into one of these little convenience stores, plop down a dollar and walk out with something that can get him shot on the spot without question," Deberry said.

A spokeswoman for the Toy Industry Association declined to comment on the trend toward fake gun legislation but referred a reporter to its Web site, which states that it "emphatically rejects the scenario that casts toys as villains."

Federal law requires toy guns or imitations to bear an orange tip to indicate they're not real.

However, lawmakers say those tips are often disguised or removed.

"It only takes 30 seconds for a kid to either take a marker or some paint, or shoe polish, and that orange tip is gone," said Deberry. He said the imitation guns are nearly identical in size, design and color to real ones.

"One of the imitation weapons I got at a convenience store looked very much like the assault weapons that the secret service and other FBI agents carry under their suits," he said. "Another one was a handgun that had a silencer on it."

'It won't eradicate the human element'
New Jersey state Sen. Bob Smith has proposed legislation that would make it a crime to remove the tips or "obscure" a firearm by adding a tip to it.

"If police are called to the scene and don't see those tips, then they open fire because it appears the person has a deadly weapon," said Smith. "The officer doesn't have too many choices."

In Florida, state Sen. Gary Siplin has a bill that would prohibit individuals from carrying a paintball gun in a vehicle. He said he had been told about youngsters brandishing such guns while driving. He said if they're bold enough to do that they might use the fake weapon to commit a crime.

"Sometime these people try to go into a store and try to rob it with a toy gun, and if the police come they may shoot thinking it's a real gun," Siplin said.

The leading U.S. opponent of gun control doesn't think much of legislation that seeks to control fake guns.

National Rifle Association spokesman Ashley Varner said anti-toy gun legislation is "silly" because "it doesn't deal with issues of crime."

"It won't eradicate the human element of the crime," she said. "It doesn't target getting criminals off the street."


Posted by: BB-59

Quote:
Originally Posted by Killjoy View Post
Typical misinformed, liberal media propaganda.

-How exactly is microstamping going to solve crimes, unless criminals register their guns?
-Hasn't the recent school shootings proven the empty promise of "gun-free" zones? Virgina Tech taught me that Americans should not be victims, but fight back.
-Mayor Bloomberg is such an outstanding citizen he hires people to commit felonies to try to force his disarming ideals down our throats. He also tries to convict legitimate gun dealers of the crime of not reading the gun buyers' mind.
-Schwarzenegger is a big fraud...but he's married to a Kennedy, so does that surprise anyone?
Then I really have to ask why isn't the Bloombergs and Rosentlhalls prosecuted like everyone else?

Just wait until Obama gets in, even LE will not be safe.


Posted by: frank

Quote:
"If police are called to the scene and don't see those tips, then they open fire because it appears the person has a deadly weapon," said Smith. "The officer doesn't have too many choices."
Even if a gun had an orange tip and some idiot points it at me, they may still get shot. Period.

Quote:
In Florida, state Sen. Gary Siplin has a bill that would prohibit individuals from carrying a paintball gun in a vehicle. He said he had been told about youngsters brandishing such guns while driving. He said if they're bold enough to do that they might use the fake weapon to commit a crime.
Uh, what are they going to do then? Walk to the paintball field with their guns instead of driving? Yeah, that's an even better idea.

Maybe they'll just take the bus with it.




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