Firearms Owners Against
Crime
"We should never despair, our Situation before
has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.
If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion
our Efforts to the exigency of the times." -- George
Washington (letter to Philip
Schuyler, 7/15/1777) Reference:
E-Newsletter & FOAC
Meeting Notice
August 10, 2008
Meeting Agenda Issues:
6.1
Attorney General Tom Corbett
6.2
Congressional Candidate
(4th District-PA) Melissa Hart
9.0 NEW BUSINESS
9.1
Targeted races in the PA House, PA Senate and
Congress
9.1.1 State Races Preliminary Endorsements
9.1.1.1
39th House District (Levdansky v. Douglas)
Developments
9.1.1.2
Rep. Ramaley withdraws from Senate Race
9.1.1.3
House & Senate Races Open Seats
9.1.2 Federal Races Preliminary Endorsements
9.1.2.1
Congress District 4 – 8 – 11 – 12 – 17 – 18
9.2
Candidate interactions, meetings, developments and
grassroots efforts (i.e. Door to Door, etc.)
9.3
Political Events Review and Summary and Candidate
Positions and Statements
9.3.1 Preliminary Endorsement Issues
9.3.2 Mothers
Against Guns free
billboards in
9.4
Membership committee developments
9.5
PA Mayors Conference Presentation
9.6
Review of State & Federal legislative developments 2008
9.6.1 H.R.
861 National
Concealed Carry for Non-Residents
9.6.2 H.R.
6691 Invalidates
D.C. Gun Laws
Federal issues:
9.7
USSC: Heller v. D.C. – National
developments and D.C. implementation issues
Events:
**PA Gun Collectors Gun Show: Sept 13th & 14th (Westmoreland Mall Annex)
**Monica Douglas Fundraiser: August 28th (
**Monica Douglas Fundraiser: August 23rd (Pancake Breakfast - 9AM - Clairton Sportsmen’s Club)
**ACSL Monthly Meeting: August 14th (Satellite Meeting – Clairton Sportsmen’s Club)
FOAC - 2008 Meeting Schedule
Jan 13, 2nd Sunday,
Feb 10, 2nd Sunday, Mar 9, 2nd Sunday, Apr 13, 2nd Sunday, May 4,
1st Sunday, Jun 8, 2nd Sunday, Jul
13, 2nd Sunday, Aug 10, 2nd Sunday,
Sep 14, 2nd Sunday, Oct 12, 2nd Sunday, Nov 2, 1st Sunday, Dec 14, 2nd Sunday
**Time of Meeting: 10:00 AM
**Location:
****Coffee and Donuts will be
provided
***General Election – Nov. 4
McCain, Obama divide sharply in replies to FOP
questionnaire
by Dave Workman, Senior Editor
Republican Sen. John McCain says bluntly that restrictive gun control laws, including bans, waiting periods, licensing and registration "don't work as crime fighting tools."
Liberal Democrat Sen. Barack Obama wants to clamp down on the so- called "gun show loophole." He would reinstate the ban on military-style sport-utility rifles and expose sensitive gun trace records kept by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by repealing a statute that protects those records.
That was the gist of their reactions on gun-related issues as part of a questionnaire submitted to both presidential candidates by the national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).
McCain also told the FOP that he would consider legislation amending the 1996 "Lautenberg Act" that has cost many police officers their jobs because it prohibits anyone with even a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction from owning or possessing firearms.
Obama said he does "not support the repeal of this law."
Gun Week obtained copies of questionnaire responses that were submitted to the FOP by both candidates. By the time this issue reaches readers, it is likely those responses may be widely circulating on Internet forums and chat lists.
The questionnaires are telling.
Glorified Cop Killer
Quizzed about the way some people have elevated convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose real name is Wesley Cook, to the status of cult hero, McCain took off the gloves while Obama seemed to dance around the ring.
"In December 2006, as the FOP
marked the 25th anniversary of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel
Faulkner a small town in the suburbs of Paris decided to name a street after
(his) killer" the FOP noted. "Similarly, a
Obama's reply seemed more like a campaign speech than a response.
"Our nation's law enforcement are our communities (sic) first line of defense from those who would do our citizens harm," Obama's response noted. "I deplore acts to harm or kill our nation's police officers, and oppose efforts to glorify those who commit such acts. My administration will focus on honoring our nation's law enforcement officers, who day after day put themselves in harm's way, by ensuring that they receive the funding and support needed to equip and train them, provide them the technology they need to keep themselves and our communities safe, and to protect their right to unionize and collectively bargain."
McCain, however, was blunt.
"If I were a member of the
House in 2006," he replied, "I would have voted to condemn the
decision of
"I believe any politically motivated attacks on law enforcement officers should be investigated as a crime and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In 1994, I championed legislation that would have expanded the Federal law that prohibited violent criminals and spies from profiting from their crimes to all federal felons. It is absolutely unconscionable that any felon should profit from his crime or be celebrated for his actions, such as Wesley Cook."
Tiahrt Amendment
But it is on the issue of gun control where the two candidates differ most sharply.
Again, speaking as though he were making a campaign speech, Obama stated, "I greatly respect the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms. But I also believe that we can respect the Second Amendment and stem gun violence in our communities. It is especially important to stop the trafficking of illegal guns, and my legislative priorities will focus on the common-sense steps we can take to do just that.
"First, we know that when law
enforcement agencies operate in concert at the federal, state, and local
levels, the chances of solving a crime increases. But
since 2003, the Tiahrt Amendment has restricted the ability of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to share gun trace information
with members of state and local law enforcement. The ATF has a wide-ranging database
of gun information, yet
"Second," he continued,
"I support requiring background checks and closing the gun-show loophole
that has been exploited by everyone from foreign terrorists to the
Semi-Auto Ban
"Finally," Obama
concluded, "I believe we should reinstate and make permanent the expired
federal assault weapons ban. We've witnessed the need for the ban in my
hometown of
McCain's reply was shorter and more pointed.
"I believe the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental individual Constitutional right that must be protected," the Arizona Republican stated. "We have seen the record of gun control, and it is a record of crime fighting failure. Assuming that criminals will abide by gun restrictions is dangerously naďve. Gun bans, waiting periods, ammunition bans, registration and licensing of gun owners—each of these has a common theme: they only affect law abiding citizens. And they have another common theme: they don't work as crime fighting tools. The way to reduce crime is to prosecute criminals to the fullest extent of existing laws—which, if elected President, gun owners can count on my Administration to do." The New GUN WEEK, August 1, 2008
Media support Dems 100-1,
says Investors Business Daily
by Dave Workman, Senior Editor
Democrats are far more likely to get financial support from media and individual reporters, according to a July p story in Investors Business Daily (IBD), further reinforcing the opinion among gun rights activists that the press does not play squarely with Republicans, conservatives and especially gunowners.
This flap erupted with the refusal
by The New York Times to publish a John McCain rebuttal to an Op-Ed written by
rival Barack Obama on
It seems no secret that the networks and large daily metropolitan newspapers and wire services favor Obama over McCain.
How does this translate to the gun
rights issue? In the wake of the US Supreme Court's historic June 26 ruling
that the Second Amendment does protect an individual civil right to keep and
bear arms for uses other than militia participation, and that the
The New York Daily News, for example, editorialized, "since 1791, when the amendment was ratified, the high court has not once specifically defined this "right" as applying to individuals as well as to armed militias (read: National Guard).
"Now, 217 years later, the court's five conservatives have decided it is an individual right after all. And now Americans have a brand-new right they did not explicitly have before.
"We think it's a dubious new right. We think the five justices 'are off the wall. As do the four justices in dissent. But five beats four."
Liberal journalist Bill Press, writing in The Hill, criticized Justice Antonin Scalia for his majority opinion in the Heller case, observing, "For Scalia and four other conservatives on the court, if militia in colonial times could have a musket in their home, then men today can have an automatic killer pistol in their home.
"How simplistic. How wrong. How dangerous."
The Salt Lake Tribune editorialized, "The U.S. Supreme Court's holding Thursday that the Second Amendment enshrines in the Constitution an individual right to keep firearms in the home outside the context of a state militia was wrongly decided and turned decades of settled judicial precedent on its head. No fair reading of the plain language of the amendment or its history could have reached the conclusion the court announced."
And The Chicago Tribune, on its Internet edition, simply argued that the Second Amendment should be repealed.
In Tate's piece, he noted that journalists, identified as "mainly freelancers," defend their bias toward Democrats, and particularly anti-gun Sen. Obama, by arguing that Obama is the "more newsworthy" candidate.
But there is an equally compelling argument that these journalists and the news agencies for which they work have something of a vested interest in tilting the news more toward Democrats.
According to Investors Business Daily, NBC and NBC Universal gave $104,184 to Democrats while only giving $3,150 to Republicans. CBS contributed $45,508 to Democrats and a comparatively meager $966 to Republicans. ABC reportedly contributed $17,320 to Democrats and $4,717 to Republicans. Even Fox News, thought by many to be a bastion of conservativism reportedly gave Democrats $1,280 while giving nothing to Republicans. But that put Fox and Fox
News in company with The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time and the New York Times, and USA Today, all of which gave money to Democrats but none to Republicans.
Further, according to the business newspaper, "An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans."
Wade reported that 235 journalists had donated to Democrats, but only 20 had given to Republicans. By a 20-to-1 margin, he revealed, journalists have contributed to Obama over McCain.
The names of 311 reporters, news editors, anchors, correspondents, newspaper editors and publishers have shown up on Democrat donor lists, but only 30 have donated to Republicans, and the totals are lopsided, with $279,266 reportedly going to Democrats and only $20,709 to Republicans.
This is not the first time the press has looked at itself and found a decidedly liberal tilt in its ranks Last year, MSNBC did a story on contributions by journalists—a practice that at one time could get someone suspended or fired— and found that "Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left." In June 2007, MSNBC reporter Bill Dedman wrote that a search of public records revealed that 144 journalists had given political contributions since 2004, and the overwhelming majority donated to "Democrats and liberal causes." Only 17 contributed to Republicans.
And more recently, a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy "found that the media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign was more likely to be spun in a positive manner toward Democrats than Republicans," according to MythBusters writer Terry Trippany.
In his IBD report, Wade noted that "most major news organizations have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations." The New GUN WEEK, August 15, 2008
Forget gun control in
That's the word from The Sunday
Telegraph, which said that almost 60 people each day are stabbed or mugged at
knife-point in the
More than 40 teens have been slain
in the country this year, including more than 20 in
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has offered up a Youth Crime Action Plan that includes a requirement that young criminals be forced to visit emergency rooms to see what knife wounds look like up close, the newspaper reported.
Prime Minister Gordon Blair has held talks with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to use his new police powers to require clubs and bars to search patrons for guns and knives.
The newspaper said during the first three months of this year, the nation record 20,803 "serious knife crimes." That averages 56 a day.
Responding to Smith's plan to deal with the crime wave, Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers said the plan was a "damp squid," the newspaper reported. The New GUN WEEK, August 15, 2008
by Dave Workman, Senior Editor
The settlement stemmed from a
lawsuit Marchiafava filed after he was arrested,
handcuffed and disarmed while openly carrying a handgun at a Tanger Factory Outlet on Jan. 28, 2006. Marchiafava,
who does not have a concealed carry license in
He acknowledged, however, that police might confront someone who does open carry.
"Hell," he said, "you can be hassled for anything You can be hassled for jaywalking."
The attorney noted that most law
enforcement officers in
Marchiafava said at the time that when he was confronted by police officers outside a store, he tried to explain to them that there was no law against open carry. A police officer abruptly told him, "Tell it to the judge."
Subsequently, when he was being transported to the police station, where he spent the next couple of hours, the officer told him, "I don't care what the laws or the Supreme Court say. We are not going to have people running around, wearing guns, with women and children everywhere."
Marchiafava has posted this story on the internet, and he has turned his case into a crusade. His case became something of a cause celeb among gun rights activists. He occasionally takes pokes at gun rights organizations including the National Rifle Association and Second Amendment Foundation for not helping out with his case.
He now spends part of his time in
Open carry demonstration in
The open carry movement has come to
According to The Detroit Free Press, the group met at Richie's Koffee Shop and then walked outside and over to a fountain in front of the County Courthouse, where they listened to a speech by gun rights activist Skip Coryell, who was also openly packing a gun.
The newspaper noted that the Open
Carry movement is growing in the
It was the right of open carry, and
the exercise thereof by residents in
Coryell reportedly called open carry "the next wave of the Second Amendment."
According to Newscenter
3 TV, there were plenty of people who turned up for the event to watch the
spectacle. Despite some objections, Hastings Police decided not to intervene in
anyway because it is legal in
Coryell said of marchers that "we just want people to know this is not something they should be afraid of, we want to put them at ease around guns. There is this stigma that guns equal crime and gun owners equal criminals, and that's just not true."
Not everyone in
The practice of open carry went out of vogue long ago, but not off the law books. In an earlier time, Americans generally considered carrying a concealed handgun to be the act of a criminal or shady character. How times have changed.
Nowadays, open carry advocates are struggling to educate police agencies and the public that toting a firearm in full view is not illegal, and is no more a threat to public safety than hay fever or the common cold.
The Free Press said this is not the
first time an open carry demonstration had been conducted in
Open carry caught some criticism from Peter Hamm, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He told The Free Press that open carry activists are "pushy and aggressive." The New GUN WEEK, August 15, 2008
Bradys, anti-gun churches, spawn new
demonizing term
by Dave Workman, Senior Editor
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and anti-gun clergy have spawned a new term to demonize gunowners they see as "a religious movement without spiritual grounding."
"Gundamentalism,"
according to the Rev. Rachel Smith of
At least, that's the report in FrontPage magazine, which noted last month that the Brady Campaign's "God Not Guns" project calls anyone who does not embrace gun control a "gundamentalist." The article identified Smith as "Rev. Nancy Smith." It was written by Mark D. Tooley, director of the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).
Tooley told Gun Week that he was not familiar with the God Not Guns Coalition until a few weeks ago. He said part of his job is monitoring activities like this and informing church members about positions that church leaders may be taking that their congregations know nothing about. As an example, he said the United Methodist convention adopted a position about four years ago in favor of banning all private handgun ownership.
Positions like this, he said, do not represent church members, and contribute to the decline of church congregations.
Founded last year, the God Not Guns
Coalition held its first Sabbath observance last Sept. 28-30 in communities
across the country. Anti-gun Rev. Jesse Jackson preached a sermon at a
The group has been quick to brand gunowners with the mark of fanaticism, while Rev. Smith, identified by Front Page as the founder and leader of the anti-gun coalition, herself remarks in a short statement, "I believe the first commandment which says 'You shall have no other gods before me' and I believe that guns are revered as idols in our culture."
But comments from readers have blistered Smith for what they suggest is some fanaticism on her part.
One reader observed, "I truly cannot believe that someone has this much extra time on their hand to sit around and create new terms and ideologies to support their bizarre views. Come on now....Calling shooting enthusiasts and gunowners as worshippers of the gun. Sounds like a Monty Python skit to me. Can't believe anyone listens or writes about this dribble."
Another reaction came from a man identifying himself as a priest in the Oithodox Christian Church.
"The inane drivel of the 'liberal churches'," he wrote, "never ceases to amaze me. These holier-than-thou folks are mere spoiled brats with an ax to grind who haven't an idea what it is to suffer for Christ, offering trite and irrational slogans with nothing more than a false spiritual sounding dichotomy—`God or guns'?
A third response noted, "Ms. Smith seeks to use her office to oppose a Christian's fundamental right to self- defense, defense of family, and defense against tyranny. Instead of lifting the name of Jesus Christ before a lost world of sinful, unrepentant men, she's allowed herself to become the willing tool of totalitarians bent on the destruction of American uniqueness."
On the God Not Guns website, Rev.
Smith implored in her blog, "What do we need with so many guns? What
happens when the perceived 'right' to gun ownership is complicit in the deaths
of so many?"
According to the Front Page
article, God Not Guns "includes agencies of the
Basic ignorance of firearms appears
to be no barrier to Rev. Smith's blog diatribes, however. In one recent column,
she complained, "A friend of mine who is a pastor recently visited the
home of someone in his congregation. After dinner the host said, 'I want to
show you something,' left the dinner table, and returned with a double barrel
pistol. The gun's top barrel was a .410 shotgun and the bottom barrel was a
.357 pistol. My pastor friend, who happens to be
"I wondered that same thing," she continued, "when the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire a few years ago. Why does anybody need a military- style assault weapon?
"I also wondered the same thing when concealed carry laws became so prevalent," Smith added. "Why does anyone feel the need to take a gun to work, or to the mall, or to a public park?"
The Brady Campaign is soliciting contributions for the God Not Guns project. The New GUN WEEK, August 1, 2008
Lawsuit filed against new DC gun regulations
Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the
Supreme Court case that struck down
He and maybe two other plaintiffs argue that the city's regulations are "highly unusual and unreasonable" in the complaint filed in US District Court, Associated Press reported.
The lawsuit supported by the National Rifle Association claims the District of Columbia continues to violate the intent of the Supreme Court's June 26 decision by prohibiting the ownership of most semi-automatic firearms, requiring an "arbitrary" fee to register a firearm and establishing rules that make it all but impossible for residents to keep a gun in the home for immediate self-defense.
The DC Council passed emergency gun legislation July 15, which will remain in effect until the council begins work in September on permanent legislation as reported previously of Gun Week.
The regulations maintain the city's ban of machine guns, defined in the law as weapons that shoot more than 12 rounds without reloading. That definition applies to most semi-automatic firearms.
Handguns, as well as other legal firearms such as rifles and shotguns, also must be kept unloaded and disassembled, or equipped with trigger locks in the home unless there is a "reasonably perceived threat of immediate harm." The New GUN WEEK, August 15, 2008
DC's new gun law fiddles court ruling
by Joseph P. Tartaro, Executive Editor
The District of Columbia Council approved new temporary firearms legislation on July 15 that is intended to allow residents to begin applying for home handgun licenses, and set the stage for more perma