Tombstone declares itself Second Amendment City
City officials in Tombstone, AZ, have declared the city a gun-friendly city where guns are an integral part of the Old West, The Associated Press reported.
Tombstone Mayor Dusty Escapule on Jan. 10 signed a proclamation naming Tombstone “America’s Second Amendment City.” The proclamation does not change any existing laws or ordinances but the mayor says it is a symbolic way for the city to show support for the right to bear arms.
Escapule says Tombstone, with a population of about 1,300 residents, is the only city in the country with such a proclamation. He said he hopes other mayors in Arizona step up and proclaim their city as a second amendment city.
A little more than a week after issuing the proclamation, Escapule was in Las Vegas for the SHOT Show in an effort to gain support for his “Second Amendment City” campaign around the country.
California releases personal info of firearms instructors
There is always a danger when governments get to keep lists with personal information. Here’s just one thing that can happen.
Personal data of 3,424 firearms instructors in California was leaked due to an administrative error at the California Department of Justice (DOJ) last year, according to a Fox News report.
When a journalist from the southern California Public Radio (KPCC) made a Freedom of Information request in August, he accidentally received dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and California identification numbers of 3,424 firearms instructors. The leak was discovered two months later, and the data didn’t seem to have been made public online, Fox News said.
The DOJ sent a letter to firearms instructors in California informing them about the data breach and advising them to place a fraud alert on their credit.
“The Department discovered the data breach on October 17, 2016, and notified the requestor of the error and asked that the information be destroyed and that no further dissemination of it occur,” said the letter, sent by the office of then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is now in the US senate.
The reporter was asked to destroy all information received, otherwise he would be taken to court.
National Rifle Association officials reportedly stated it was time California government showed gun owners more respect and accused the Department of Justice of taking too long to inform the victims.
Australia honors Peters for her gun control work
The Australia Day Honors List is full of people who are making significant contributions to that country and beyond, even gun controllers, according to the Australian Broadcasting System.
Rebecca Peters is one of the them—she has been honored with an Order of Australia award for her work on gun control.
For the past 30 years Peters has been at the forefront of gun law reform, both in Australia and at the United Nations.
She helped build the National Coalition for Gun Control which worked with then Prime Minister John Howard to pass a massive gun grab after the Port Arthur massacre. She was also the long-serving director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).
RN Breakfast’s Alison Carabine tracked her down in Guatemala, where she was reportedly working with survivors of gunshot wounds and raising funds to buy hundreds of wheelchairs.
Maybe the news will encourage Michael Bloomberg to lobby for a US Medal of Freedom award.
Obama clemency releases record number of inmates
President Obama commuted the sentences of 330 more federal inmates on Jan. 19, his last day in office, capping an unprecedented clemency effort that has now released 1,715 prisoners — more than any other president in history—and, some observers note, more than the previous 11 presidents combined.
The clemency grants announced on Obama’s last full day in office also set a one-day record, USA Today reported.
“Proud to make this one of my final actions as President. America is a nation of second chances, and 1,715 people deserved that shot,” Obama tweeted on his final day as president.
The clemency initiative, which began in 2014, was targeted at drug dealers who received mandatory-minimum sentences during the War on Drugs from the 1980s to the 2000s.
But the effort ultimately fell far short of the 10,000 clemency grants former Attorney General Eric Holder predicted when the initiative began. And while Obama set a record for granting commutations, he also set a record for denials. As of the end of 2016, he had denied 14,485 petitions and closed another 4,242 without action — an overall grant rate of 5.9%, a couple of percentage points higher than many of his predecessors, USA Today reported.
The pardons wipe away any legal liabilities from a previous conviction. Commutations are different. They typically shorten the sentences of people in prison, often by many years, but do not eliminate a conviction or restore rights lost, such as the right to vote and especially the right to acquire and keep or bear arms.
In many cases, the people selected to have their sentences commuted have participated in drug treatment, or educational or vocational technology courses while in prison, the newspaper added.
Pro-leniency commentators hailed Obama’s liberal criminal justice reform policy. Others complained that he didn’t do nearly enough to reduce the population in federal prisons.
