Gun Rights Policy Conference set for Texas Sept. 29-Oct. 1
Second Amendment activists and advocates from across the map will converge in Dallas, TX, next month for the 32nd annual Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC).
Co-sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the GRPC will be held Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the Westin Dallas Fort Worth Airport hotel. It typically attracts hundreds of participants to hear panel discussions and individual reports on issues pertaining to the Second Amendment from politics to legal cases.
Anticipated speakers for this year’s conference include SAF founder and CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, SAF President Joe Tartaro, author and researcher John Lott, radio personalities Mark Walters with Armed America Radio and Tom Gresham, host of Gun Talk. Tim Schmidt, founder of the United States Concealed Carry Association, is also expected.
The event is one of the largest single gatherings of gun rights advocates in the country. Representatives from several state and local gun rights organizations will be in attendance and participating in the networking that is a key purpose of the review and strategy event, and there are evening receptions scheduled both Friday and Saturday evenings.
Attendance and registration for the Gun Rights Conference is free.
The hotel offers a special discounted room rate for GRPC attendees. Pre-registration is now open. For details, visit saf.org/grpc.
Teen burglary suspect kills partner accidentally
It’s not often one finds a criminal suspect so cooperative in the fight against crime that he plugs his own partner, but police in Macon, GA, were looking hard for a 16-year-old who accidentally killed his older accomplice in a residential burglary gone very bad.
According to WMAZ News and Blue Lives Matter, the late James Robert Young was stopped in his tracks by a head shot, fired by his teen partner when they broke into the home of a woman in mid-June. Instead of making off with her television set, they woke her up unintentionally and she got noisy pretty fast.
As the pair ran off, with the teen in the lead and Young following, with the television in his arms, the teenager—identified as Aurie Mathis—allegedly turned to fire a shot at the pursuing woman. Instead, he put that bullet right in Young’s noggin.
The Bibb County Sheriff’s office was investigating because the teenager didn’t stick around to examine the damage.
Thief brings pepper spray to gun shop and gets shot
You can add to the list of items you don’t want to bring to a gun fight: pepper spray and sledgehammers.
Those were the tools a would-be thief brought to a Brooklyn, NY, sporting goods store on June 28 in his attempt to steal handguns, according to the New York Daily News.
The unidentified thief entered the store and demanded to be shown the handguns. When the cautious proprietor, Frank Taormina, asked to see the man’s New York State pistol license, he got a dose of pepper spray in the face. Then the man tried breaking into display cases with a sledgehammer.
That’s when the store owner whipped out his own licensed pistol and fired two shots at the thief, at least one of which is believed to have wounded the man, who was last seen running and bleeding from the gun shop.
The store owner was not seriously injured, and police told the newspaper that no charges were expected against him since he was legally defending his business.
At last reporter, the pepper spray thief was still at large, but probably still nursing a bullet wound.
United Airlines sells child passenger’s seat twice
Just when you thought airlines travel couldn’t get worse comes another horror story.
A Hawaii middle school teacher travelling to Boston via Houston appears to be the latest passenger to be caught up in an airline mishap—and again United Airlines was the center of the controversy.
Shirley Yamauchi who was forced to hold her 2-year-old son on her lap for a three-hour-plus flight last month after United assigned the child’s seat, for which she had paid $969, to a passenger flying standby.
Yamauchi said she bought two round-trip tickets for $969 each for the June journey to a union gathering in Boston, and that she and her son each sat in their assigned seats during the first portion of the trip, to Houston. But Yamauchi said her seats were changed for the connecting flight to Boston and that once on board, her son’s seat was given to another passenger who told her he paid $75 for the standby ticket.
After a flight attendant asked if her son was with her, the attendant walked away “and this man comes, and he says, ‘you’re sitting in my seat,’” Yamauchi said.
United said it has apologized to Yamauchi, the second time in four months it had to backtrack in the face of criticism it mistreated paying customers. The carrier triggered a public relations nightmare when it had a passenger forcibly removed from a flight in Chicago in April, and then initially blamed the customer for not being cooperative.
Yamauchi said she was reluctant to complain because her son had fallen asleep on her lap, and because she was intimidated by stories of other passengers who had been forced to surrender a seat.
Top UK cop castigated for self-defense comments
Politicians in Great Britain are apparently anti free speech as well as anti-gun.
The city council in the United Kingdom port city of Plymouth formally admonished Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez for her off-the cuff comments to a BBC Radio program following the recent terrorist attacks in Manchester and London.
According to The Toronto Globe and the NRA, Hernandez’s mere suggestion that an armed citizenry might be capable of providing some protection against terrorist violence proved too much for the council to tolerate.
During a June 12 interview on BBC Radio Cornwall, Hernandez was asked by a caller, and licensed gun dealer, “If there should ever be a terrorist attack, what happens if I and other people try to defend themselves using those guns? What would be the repercussions?” Hernandez responded that this type of citizen response “might be some of our solution to our issues.”
When pressed further on the topic by the BBC Radio host, Hernandez added, “I’m just saying, let’s officially have a look at that and see what would be the implications of it…. We work with businesses to keep our communities safe. I’d really be interested in exploring that with the chief constable.”
The negative official response to Hernandez’s sensible comments was immediate. The same day as the radio interview, Devon and Cornwall Deputy Chief Constable Paul Netherton issued a statement rebutting Hernandez’s comments.
That disavowal was not enough for the Plymouth City Council’s Labor Party Caucus. On July 3, Labor city council members, led by Councillor Chris Penberthy, offered a motion for a vote of no confidence in Hernandez.
To her credit, Hernandez has not been intimidated by the Plymouth City Council’s actions.
Gun activist picked as MA game chief
Gun rights advocate and sportsman Ronald Amidon will take over as the Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s fish and game commissioner.
Amidon is president of the Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) and has worked on identifying “cold water refuges for trout and the restoration of upland bird habitat,” according to the Baker administration, which on Wednesday announced Amidon’s appointment and the retirement of Commissioner George Peterson Jr.
“Ron’s been around the sporting and outdoor world for an awful long time,” GOAL Executive Director James Wallace told the News Service. He said, “He’s certainly got his heart into it.”
Baker’s choice of Amidon was seen as a challenge to the potential gubernatorial aspirations of anti-gun state Attorney General Maura Healey, according to a report in the Boston Herald.
Amidon, a Templeton resident, will succeed Peterson, a US Army veteran who spent about two decades in the House as a Grafton Republican, rising to the position of assistant minority leader.
Federal judge nixes profs’ campus carry challenge in Texas
A federal judge dismissed the longshot lawsuit filed by three University of Texas at Austin professors seeking to overturn the state’s 2015 campus carry law, which allows people to carry concealed handguns inside most public university buildings.
District Judge Lee Yeakel wrote in his decision that the professors — Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter — couldn’t present any “concrete evidence to substantiate their fears” that campus carry would have a chilling effect on free speech.
The professors claimed, among other arguments, that the law violated their First Amendment rights since the possibility of a gun being in their classrooms might make them hesitant to discuss controversial issues. In dismissing the suit, Yeakel said the professors didn’t have standing to sue.
But Renea Hicks, the attorney representing the three UT professors, said the specifics of the ruling leave the case’s future uncertain. While Yeakel threw out the case entirely, he only addressed the question of a First Amendment violation and not the plaintiffs’ other legal arguments.
“We had other claims in the lawsuit beyond that — a Second Amendment claim, an equal protection claim. The order accompanying his dismissal doesn’t seem to address those issues,” Hicks said in an interview with the Tribune. “So there’s a bit of confusion on our part.”
Hicks, who had not yet conferred with his clients when first interviewed, said he is not sure what course of action he and the plaintiffs will take. They have 28 days from July 6 to ask Yeakel for clarification and 30 days to file an appeal to the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office defended the state in the case, praised the decision.
“The court’s ruling today is the correct outcome,” Paxton said. “The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside.”
Campus carry became law in Texas in 2015, but didn’t go into effect until Aug. 1, 2016.
Mayors’ resolution opposes passage of ‘reciprocity’ bill
Led by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel the US Conference of Mayors has come out in opposition to House and Senate legislative proposals to allow national reciprocity for concealed carry gun license holders.
The resolution was offered, among others, and came as the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a California law setting strict limits on who can carry concealed weapons.
The bills — introduced by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) in the House and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Senate — are supported by the National Rifle Association and just about every pro-gun or gun industry organization in the nation.
While opponents have labeled the bills as primarily Republican many Democrats have also signed on as co-sponsors. Despite the national interest in the reciprocity measures, neither bill has received a hearing or date for consideration yet.
Hudson, however, reportedly said that after the recent shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a “number of members have approached me and asked me if we could move up the timetable” for marking up his bill.
Gun-control groups are strongly opposed to the measure, claiming it would “gut local public safety laws” and turn the weakest state’s laws effectively into nationwide laws.
At its annual meeting, the Conference of Mayors adopted the broad resolution stating that the “goals of this legislation are completely antithetical to all of the efforts to reduce and prevent gun violence….”
Hudson said the mayors’ resolution “shows a misunderstanding of the legislation.” Hudson noted that his proposal did not alter the requirements for background checks on handgun purchases or override any state, county or municipal ban on carry concealed weapons.
“You keep hearing about carrying a gun in Times Square,” Hudson said. “If the city of New York prohibits carrying a gun in Times Square, then any visitor with a concealed-carry privilege would have to follow that law and wouldn’t be able to carry their weapon.”
Hudson added: “It’s just like a driver’s license. If you go into a town where it’s 35 miles per hour everywhere, I have to drive 35.”
Zinke announces distribution of $1.1 billion to state agencies
US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke in late June announced $1.1 billion in annual funding for state wildlife agencies from revenues generated by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration acts. State-by-state listings of the final Fiscal year 2017 apportionments can be found on the Fish & Wildlife Service website.
The announcement was made during day one of a four-day trip across the Northeast where Zinke met with New Hampshire Fish and Game Executive Director Glenn Normandeau, whose state will receive $8,146,960 through the acts. The meeting was part of a Pittman-Robertson Dingell-Johnson Grants Roundtable that focused on recreation and partnerships between New Hampshire and the Department.
“For nearly eight decades, the nation’s hunters and anglers have generated billions of dollars to protect wildlife and habitat simply by purchasing items that help them engage in the outdoor activities they enjoy,” Zinke said. “Their support has helped state wildlife agencies protect our country’s environmental legacy for future generations of hunters, fishers, recreationalists, and conservationists.”
The funds, which are distributed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, support critical state conservation and outdoor recreation projects. They are derived from excise taxes paid by the hunting, shooting, boating and angling industries on firearms, bows and ammunition and sport fishing tackle, some boat engines, and small engine fuel.
Allocations of the funds are authorized by Congress. To date, the Fish and Wildlife Service has distributed more than $19 billion in apportionments for state conservation and recreation projects.
“The conservation and outdoor recreation gains made possible by this funding mechanism, which is unique to the United States, serves as the bedrock of wildlife conservation in our country,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Acting Director Jim Kurth.
The recipient state wildlife agencies have matched these funds with approximately $6 billion throughout the years, primarily through hunting and fishing license revenues.
CDC issues warning on cooking walrus
Here’s some advice from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), according to the website Newsier:
Cook your walrus well before eating it. The agency has issued an official warning that eating rare walrus can lead to trichinellosis, also known as trichinosis, the Consumerist reports.
The warning may not mean much to most residents of the contiguous US, but it comes after two outbreaks in Alaska, where eating walrus is much more common. The parasite-caused infection can cause numerous unpleasant-sounding symptoms ranging from vomiting to heart and breathing problems—or even death.
Court upholds ban on Nashville shows
The Tennessee Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling that the Tennessee State Fairgrounds is allowed to ban gun shows at the Nashville Convention Center, according to the Associated Press.
In a recent opinion, the court affirmed a lower court’s decision favoring Nashville’s government over the Tennessee Firearms Association and International Gun-A-Rama Inc.
The court agreed that the Tennessee State Fairgrounds’ gun show ban was not breaking a state law that generally pre-empts local governments from regulating guns. The opinion says the fairgrounds is a recreational property with the authority to approve or disapprove of a gun show there.
Tennessee Firearms Association and International Gun-A-Rama, which does business as Bill Goodman’s Gun and Knife Show, filed a lawsuit in April 2016 over the ban. A Davidson County chancellor ruled against them in July 2016.
TN cities unclear about guns on buses
The four biggest cities in Tennessee are now letting guns on their buses due to a new state law, but the change might not be obvious to riders from the vaguely worded rules posted by cities that opposed the law, the Associated Press reported.
Transit policy changes in Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga rely on riders to know beforehand, or at least look up on their own, who can carry a gun. Memphis officials are still changing the wording of their policy on guns on buses and in stations, but have started letting permit holders carry their guns.
Gun club purchases body armor for police
Weston Shooters Club of Weston, MA, has donated $15,000 to purchase body armor for the Framingham, MA, Police Department.
With funds provided by Weston Shooters Club, Framingham PD was able to purchase 25 sets of ballistic vests, helmets, and related equipment for its officers.
Shue takes NRA National Pistol Title at Perry
Jonathan E. Shue of Mebane, NC, captured the National Rifle Association’s National Pistol Championship at the National Matches held at Camp Perry, OH, with a total three-match score of 2638-126X on July 13.
SFC Adam Sokolowski of the US Army, a resident of Midland, GA, took second place by firing a 2636-124X aggregate, and Army SSG Greg A. Markowski of Columbus, GA, was third with a 2633-130X score.
The finishing order was somewhat juggled in the ,45-caliber 900 as Sokolowski’s 885-40X took first place in that event with Shue’s 881-46X earning him second place in the event and Markowski’s 881-44X earning him third.
None of the top three finished in comparable positions in the centerfire or ,22 rimfire matches, but their total scores were what counted.
The Centerfire 900 was won by SFC James M. Henderson of Midland, GA, who posted a score of 890-45X. He was followed by SFC Patrick W. Franks, of Phenix City, AL, who shot an 889-38X score, and Army Reservist Keith A. Sanderson, of Colorado Springs, CO, whose score earned him third place.
Henderson finished first in the .22 caliber 900, posting a score of 890-45X, with Franks’s 889-38X earning him second place, and Sanderson taking third with a score of 887-45X.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program reported that the US Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) swept the 2017 National Trophy Pistol Matches, held earlier in July at Camp Perry, with its members claiming overall wins in each of the prestigious events, along with capturing the National Trophy Team (NTT) Match for the eleventh year.
Helping to lead the charge was Henderson, 50, of the AMU, who fired a score of 392-16x to win the President’s Pistol Match for the eighth time over his career. Henderson is also the current record-holder of the match, along with holding the overall record for the National Trophy Individual (NTI) event.
FL lawmakers react to judge’s ruling on law
Several Florida state lawmakers took to Twitter in early July to weigh in on a Miami judge’s ruling that new changes the Legislature made to Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law were unconstitutional and beyond the purview of their law-making duties, the Miami Herald reported.
SB 128 passed the Legislature along partylines with Democrats opposed, and Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law in June. Scott’s office had no immediate reaction to the news other than acknowledging they were “reviewing the ruling.”
But here’s what some lawmakers had to say:
House Speaker Richard Corcoran (R-Land O’Lakes):
“It is the role of the Legislature to write the laws that govern how Floridians may exercise their statutory and constitutional rights>
“The Florida House will continue to stand with ordinary citizens who exercise their right to self-defense. There’s a reason this judge is constantly overturned. We look forward to this decision being reversed on appeal.
Sen. Rob Bradley, the Fleming Island Republican who, for two years, sponsored the legislation to change Florida’s Stand Your Ground law:
“The Miami trial court decided that the Legislature didn’t have the authority to pass SB128 in the first place.
“In ruling the law unconstitutional, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch said the changes should have been crafted by the Florida Supreme Court instead of the Legislature.”
The Orlando Sentinel said: “The 14-page order is a victory for prosecutors who have firmly opposed the law. Critics have said the law makes it easier for defendants to get away with murder and other violent crimes.
The Legislature HAD modified the 2005 statute with backing from the National Rifle Association.
The new law requires prosecutors to shoulder the burden of disproving a self-defense claim. State attorneys have said that essentially forces them to unfairly try a case twice, making it easier for criminals to escape justice.
Colorado crime up, including gun thefts, newspaper reports
The Denver Post reported recently that gun thefts in the Centennial State hit a 10-year-high in 2016, with 273 reported firearms being stolen, and if statistics continue at their present level this year, the end result could match that figure.
What is clear is that Colorado gun laws requiring background checks on all transactions haven’t prevented firearms from falling into the wrong hands. Gun theft isn’t the only crime that went up last year, the newspaper reported separately.
Robberies were up 5.9 percent last year over 2015 and aggravated assaults spiked upward 8.3 percent. Additionally, rape was up 5 percent per 100,000 residents and murders were up 9.9 percent from the previous year.
The data cited by the newspaper came from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which said that roughly one-third of the murders happened in Denver, which is to Colorado what Seattle is to Washington, Portland is to Oregon and San Francisco is to California.
In the process of reporting this crime spike, the Denver Post noted the following: “Some Colorado lawmakers, police and legal experts partly blame the marijuana industry, claiming that it has lured transients and criminals to the state. Others point to a dramatic increase in the number of cars stolen to commit other crimes or to ship to Mexico. Increases in crime are often a reflection of economic conditions, said Steve Davis, spokesman for the Lakewood Police Department.
“I think it would be naive not to believe the increase in drug use is not having an impact on the crime rate,” said Rep. Cole Wist (R-Centennial), who serves on the House Judiciary Committee. But Cole added that it’s not just marijuana that is having an impact on crime, but also an increase in the use of heroin and illegal prescription drugs.”
By no small coincidence, Colorado and Washington both legalized the recreational use of marijuana at the same time. Some Evergreen State conservatives have suggested that liberal policies in Seattle and surrounding King County – including so-called “safe injection sites” for drug users and programs to accommodate homeless people – have created a “magnet effect” that attracts a criminal element.
