Showing posts with label assaultweaponsban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assaultweaponsban. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
A many who was already facing charges of aggravated assault broke into this home. From the Philly Inquirer.
An Elkins Park man was killed late Friday after he forced his way into a stranger’s apartment in Cheltenham Township.Jasper Brisbon, 32, wandered up to a couple late Friday at the Lynnewood Apartments as the pair spoke outside their unit. . . .
But as they entered their home Brisbon jumped between them, forcing his way in.
The male of the couple ran to get a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle and insisted Brisbon leave. Brisbon refused. Instead, as the man yelled “Stop! Stop Stop!” Brisbon moved menacingly toward the man, police said.
The man fired a shot striking Brisbon in the torso and immediately called 911, police said.
An ambulance rushed Brisbon to Abington Memorial Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. . . .
Police said the residents of the apartment . . . did not know Brisbon and that the AR-15 was legally purchased.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The new PoliceOne.com survey of police and their views on gun control is available here (article is here). PoliceOne has about 450,000 members when the survey was done. Here is information on previous surveys as well as a piece that I wrote for the WSJ.com.
A full 86 percent feel that casualties would have been reduced or avoided in recent tragedies like Newtown and Aurora if a legally-armed citizen was present (casualties reduced: 80 percent; avoided altogether: 60 percent). . . .
In addition, the survey asked, “On a scale of one to five — one being low and five being high — how important do you think legally-armed citizens are to reducing crime rates overall?”
Three quarters of you (75 percent) answered either four or five, with more than 50 percent answering five. . . .
I find myself in virtually complete agreement with the police in answering this survey. I am not a big fan of open carry, but I am of concealed handguns. I agree with them on the efficacy of gun buybacks, bans on ammunition magazines that hold more 10 rounds, national databases on gun ownership, and background checks.
The answers to question #20 are extremely important: 77 percent of officers think that private gun ownership is either extremely or very important in reducing crime.
Question #19 shows 91 percent support right-to-carry concealed carry with a background check.
Monday, March 25, 2013
William Jacobson has an extremely accurate discussion of the issue available here:
. . . The limit almost certainly was unconstitutional, as it amounted to a de facto ban on most handguns. So it had to go, either by legislation or the courts.I was going to make the same points, but I couldn't do a better job than he has done.
But why via the budget?
Lumping it in with the budget deprives opponents of the opportunity to make the gun law a separate issue and to point out the haste with which the legislature acted.
Most important, this maneuver deprives opponents of the gun law the chance to vote against changing the 7-round limit in isolation? Huh, you say.
The limit is unworkable as the Governor admits, and makes a mockery of the entire gun law. By keeping the limit in place, opponents of the gun law in general would have created a situation where the gun law all but imploded of its own weight. . . .
Saturday, March 9, 2013
So if the background checks for mental illness are passed would Feinstein they all retired military veterans to own these guns? I suspect not.
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: If I understand this, this adds an exemption of retired military. As I understand our bill, no issue has arose in this regard during the 10 years the expired ban was in effect and what we did in the other bill was exempt possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States. So that included active military.
The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this. . . .
Monday, February 25, 2013
Mitch McConnell, who might be in a tough senate race next year, is the early target of ads from gun control groups. The point is that an assault rifle is the exact same as a semi-automatic hunting rifle. It fires the same bullets with the same rapidity, doing the exact same damage.
“I am a Vietnam vet and a hunter,” Gary Nutt of Cub Run, Ky., says in the ad. “I only shot my rifle one time this last season. One shot, one deer. But I’d be a pretty bad hunter if I needed an assault rifle to shoot that buck. I support the plan to ban assault weapons and keep ’em out of the wrong hands. Because I know these guns. I know what they can do. The NRA and the gun manufacturers have given a ton of money to Sen. Mitch McConnell. And now he’s blocking reform. Senator, whose side are you on?” . . .Meanwhile actress Ashley Judd looks like she is running against McConnell:
"My impression is this is something she wants to do, and she is now taking the time to make the contacts she needs to make throughout the state to try and generate commitments of support and in some cases fundraising," Yarmuth said. "She is certainly acting like a candidate, a potential candidate.
"I think in her own mind ... she has made a decision to run and she's doing the right thing and not ruffling any feathers along the way," he added. . . . .
Monday, February 18, 2013
I wish that the nonsensical parts of the proposed assault weapon ban that this provision is part of would also get critically discussed, but at least this might keep the law from getting passed. From the Seattle Times:
Forget police drones flying over your house. How about police coming inside, once a year, to have a look around?
As Orwellian as that sounds, it isn’t hypothetical. The notion of police home inspections was introduced in a bill last week in Olympia.
That it’s part of one of the major gun-control efforts pains me. It seemed in recent weeks lawmakers might be headed toward some common-sense regulation of gun sales. But then last week they went too far. By mistake, they claim. But still too far.
“They always say, we’ll never go house to house to take your guns away. But then you see this, and you have to wonder.”
That’s no gun-rights absolutist talking, but Lance Palmer, a Seattle trial lawyer and self-described liberal who brought the troubling Senate Bill 5737 to my attention. It’s the long-awaited assault-weapons ban, introduced last week by three Seattle Democrats. . . .
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Hill newspaper points out how Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) are unlikely to push for the assault weapon ban. But at the same there is a push for broader background checks.
For my concerns about the push for background checks see this discussion here.
Manchin is part of a quartet of legislators working to tighten background checks required to purchase a gun. The other members of the group are Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). . . .What worries me is Manchin's discussion about these background checks: "What we are trying to do is have a well balanced piece of legislation which I think makes sense and do an awful lot of good."
For my concerns about the push for background checks see this discussion here.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Newtown continues to be used as a prop for more gun control, but what proposal being put forward by Democrats would have prevent the attack if it had been in effect? Can anyone explain to me which proposed regulation would have stopped the attack? Yet, Nancy Pelosi will bring student from Newtown as a prop for Obama's State of the Union.
"Universal background checks" -- The killer didn't buy the gun. BTW, would this rule have stopped any of the attacks this last year? No. Of course, even if one of these killers would have been prohibited from buying a gun, that is not the same thing as saying that they would have not gotten a gun. When people have 4 months of planning and have the time to put together dozens of bombs they don't even acknowledge how difficult it can be to stop such a person from getting weapons. As Jamie Fox at Northeastern University correctly writes: "Most mass murderers do not have criminal records or a history of psychiatric hospitalization. They would not be disqualified from purchasing their weapons legally. Certainly, people cannot be denied their Second Amendment rights just because they look strange or act in an odd manner. Besides, mass killers could always find an alternative way of securing the needed weaponry, even if they had to steal from family members or friends."
Assault weapon ban -- The gun used in the Newtown attack wasn't even banned under the Connecticut Assault Weapon Ban. It wouldn't have been banned under the feature set that would ban guns under the Feinstein bill. New sales of the Bushmaster would have been banned by name under the Feinstein bill. Of course, banning guns by name and not objective features shows how arbitrary the law is.
Magazine size -- Even if you somehow believe that magazine size would have altered the rate of fire in the Newtown attack, the key point there is that it took 10 minutes between when the first 911 call was made and first responders showed up outside the school.
UPDATE: Here are a couple other relevant facts on these points. From the Hartford Courant:
"It's just weird [that he popped in earplugs] given what he was about to go do," a source said. "It's not like he had to worry about long-term protection of his hearing because he had to know he wasn't coming back out of the building."
As police wrap up at least the crime-scene portion of their investigation into Lanza's murderous spree that left 26 people dead in the school, including 20 first-graders, the earplugs are not the only evidence that shows Lanza might have carried habits either from the shooting range or the virtual world of video games into his real-world massacre.
Lanza changed magazines frequently as he fired his way through the first-grade classrooms of Lauren Rousseau and Victoria Soto, sometimes shooting as few as 15 shots from a 30-round magazine, sources said. . . .
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Surely a lot of states are going to pass very stringent gun control laws. I don't know about federal regulations, but we will have to see if Biden is right there. From The Hill newspaper:
. . . “I’m not asking you to vote for something you don’t believe, but I don’t want to hear about, ‘well we can’t take it on because it’s too politically dangerous.’ The world has changed,” Biden said in a 25-minute address to Democrats at their annual retreat in Leesburg, Va.
Biden argued that the political and media climate had shifted dramatically from 1994, when many Democrats blamed their support for an assault weapons ban and other gun-control measures on the party’s loss of its congressional majorities.
“There’s an overwhelming consensus about the need to act that didn’t exist in ’94 and a general consensus about the kinds of thing we have to do,” Biden said. . . .
“It’s not acceptable for us to do anything other than try to do all of them,” the vice president said of his task force’s recommendations. . . .
Monday, February 4, 2013
Powerlineblog has a useful discussion of Obama's dishonest gun control speech on Monday (click here). It is amazing that he can make so many false statements in a speech and yet the media isn't pointing out all these errors.
From CNN:
President Barack Obama on Monday reiterated his call for a comprehensive package of steps against gun violence as the focus on possible Senate legislation appeared to narrow to expanded background checks and limited ammunition magazines, rather than a ban on semi-automatic rifles that mimic assault weapons. . . .
Reid told ABC on Sunday that he backed expanding background checks to private gun sales at shows and other steps, but he refused to endorse a ban on what are called assault-style rifles modeled after military weapons. . . .
Sunday, February 3, 2013
In case the video isn't shown above, her video is also available here.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Friday, February 1, 2013
There were a couple of points that I wanted to make about Zerlina's comments. The main way that gun control regulators argue is usually through hypothetical cases. In Zerlina's case, she just asserts certain things as true. For example, the case of the person with the permitted concealed handgun being more likely to be shot by police. In fact, there is not a single case where a permit holder has stopped one of these multiple victim public shootings that has occurred. Nor in her example of the permit holder will shoot bystanders has that ever occurred in these multiple victim public shootings.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Now that California has registered undesirable guns, they are talking about using that registrations to confiscate those guns.
AB 174 (Asm. Rob Bonta, D-Oakland)) - Would begin the conversation on ending the grandfathering of existing weapons which are now illegal to purchase but are still legal to possess. “State laws on the books currently restrict the purchase and sale of assault weapons and large capacity magazines, but almost all laws only apply on a going forward basis and exempted weapons remain on our streets,” Bonta said. “With AB 174 we will closely examine this loophole and do what’s right for the children and people of California.”The full list is available here.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Obama claims that he is the one who wants to compromise, not Republicans.
The Associated Press only had this:
President Obama is suggesting that House Republicans on the issue of gun control appear neither willing to work with him nor inclined to listen to the American public on the issue.Meanwhile, the media covers demonstrations over guns by only mentioning those who oppose guns and ignoring those who support people being able to defend themselves. Here is a picture from the demonstration this past Saturday.
“The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they're really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies,” the president said in an interview with The New Republic. . . .
Thousands of people, many holding signs with names of gun violence victims and messages such as "Ban Assault Weapons Now," gathered in front of the Capitol on Saturday for a March on Washington for Gun Control.Senator Feinstein admits the obvious.
Marchers were led by Mayor Vincent Gray and other officials Saturday morning, and the crowd stretched for about two blocks along Constitution Avenue. Police blocked off half the road.
Participants held signs reading "Gun Control Now" and "Stop NRA," among other messages. Other signs were simple and white, with the names of victims of gun violence.
About 100 residents of Newtown were expected at the march. It was organized in response to the December shooting there that killed 20 first-graders and six teachers. . . . .
The Democrat who's introduced an assault weapon ban acknowledges the measure faces an "uphill climb" to pass Congress but says public support is on her side. . . .
MORGAN: Explain to me why you believe you need an AR-15 style assault rifle.
CELIA BIGELOW, DIR. OF CAMPUS ACTION, AMERICAN MAJORITY ACTION: Well, I personally bought one for self defense. One, they're lightweight. They're quite accurate. I can shoot them much more accurately than a handgun or a shotgun.The interview provides an example of someone using an AR-15 for self-defense. Here is another case that just occurred.
And three, these -- I'm going to pull a David Gregory right here and I can hold up my 30-round magazine right here, because it's actually legal in Virginia. But I want a gun that can hold a lot of ammo because if I'm faced with an intruder or multiple intruders that come into my home, I want to make sure I have enough ammo to get the job done, especially if they're armed.
So I want -- they essentially serve as an insurance mechanism to make sure that I have enough rounds, that if multiple intruders come in and they're armed, I don't have to take the time to reload.
This week, two students at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York used an “assault rifle” that may soon be banned by law to frighten away armed burglars who had broken into their home.
Local station ABC 13 reports that the students, Christopher Boise and Raymond (no last name given) were awakened in the wee hours Tuesday morning to noises coming from the basement.
Boise got up to investigate and found two men, one with a gun pointed at him, at the bottom of the stairs in the lower level of his apartment.
Hearing Boise’s cry of alarm, Raymond instinctively went for his AR-15 rifle, which he kept legally for self-defense.
When the men came to Raymond’s door, they saw the barrel of his gun at the ready and fled immediately.
“Nothing was taken and no shots were fired,” the station reports.
Police officials confirmed that the gun was legal and Raymond had acted rightly in protecting his property. . . .
Friday, January 25, 2013
Democratic Congressman Mike Thompson from North Carolina has some claims in the Wall Street Journal this week.
Many people on both sides also agree that everyone who buys a firearm should go through a comprehensive background check. No one wants convicted criminals or people with a history of dangerous mental illness to have access to guns. Yet our laws allow people to buy firearms privately or at some gun shows without going through a background check, and many states remain deficient in transferring important records to the federal database used to conduct background checks on gun buyers. This needs to change. . . .The problems with background check claims is available here.
A majority of Americans also agree (according to a Pew poll released this month) that assault magazines have no place in our society. These magazines hold more than 10 rounds and allow a shooter to inflict mass damage in a short period of time without reloading. Banning them will save lives. . . .We tried the ban during the 1994 to 2004 Assault Weapon Ban and yet there didn't seem to be any beneficial effect from the ban nor was their a great benefit the longer the ban was in effected. Even the research that Feinstein cites doesn't support her conclusion.
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