Free teachers to be armed. . .if they choose

By: Raquel Okyay - 12/28/2013
One year after spree-shooting at the Sandy Hook School, a leading firearm trainer told Guns & Patriots that while strategies to prevent deadly shootings at schools are being implemented, more must be done.

The question is not should we arm teachers, the question is should we allow teachers to be armed, said Rob Pincus, owner and operator of I.C.E. Firearm Training Services. I.C.E. is a full service company offering training and consulting to armed professionals and those interested in self-defense.

Being armed is a personal choice, not a prerequisite to being a school teacher, he said. When you sign-up to be a teacher you do not make a decision to be armed.

Since the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last year, calls for specifically arming teachers have fallen on deaf ears because it is not the right solution, he said.

Conn. gun owners rush to register weapons, ammo

By GOPUSA - 12/30/2013

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut gun owners are rushing to register certain firearms and ammunition that will be considered illegal contraband in the new year.

People have been lining up early in the morning at the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection's headquarters in Middletown in recent days to turn in applications for assault weapons certificates and high-capacity magazine declaration forms so they can legally keep the items.

Under a wide-ranging gun control law, passed earlier this year in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting in Newtown, gun owners have until Tuesday to submit the paperwork.

Michael Lawlor, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's undersecretary for criminal justice, predicted a flood of registrations over the final days of 2013.

Anti-second amendment UN Treaty blocked in US Senate

By Dick Morris - 12/29/2013
The Inhofe Amendment to the Defense Appropriation Bill has passed and been signed by the president!

The Arms Trade Treaty will not receive any money for implementation for all of 2014!

As you may recall, the Treaty  a backdoor UN gun control effort was signed by Secretary of State Kerry in March of 2013. While it has not been ratified by the Senate (and probably cannot be), under the Vienna Convention, it acquires the force of law in the U.S. until it is either turned down by the Senate or withdrawn by the president. Harry Reid will not bring the Treaty up for a vote, so it would remain in force for the duration of the Obama presidency. By 2017, its structures and commitments would have bitten deep into American law and practice.

But Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) saved the day by inserting a ban on funding for the Treaty into the Defense Appropriation Bill for 2014. With the Administration eager to get the money, he was able to keep it in the final bill that was signed by the president on Thursday.

Be prepared: Wall Street advisor recommends guns, ammo for protection in collapse

By Paul Bedard - 12/26/2013

A top financial advisor, worried that Obamacare, the NSA spying scandal and spiraling national debt is increasing the chances for a fiscal and social disaster, is recommending that Americans prepare a bug-out bag that includes food, a gun and ammo to help them stay alive.

David John Marotta, a Wall Street expert and financial advisor and Forbes contributor, said in a note to investors, Firearms are the last item on the list, but they are on the list. There are some terrible people in this world. And you are safer when your trusted neighbors have firearms.

Mall shooting proves New Jersey's anti-carry laws make state less safe

By: Raquel Okyay -12/22/2013

A leading Garden State Gun rights advocate told Guns & Patriots New Jersey state laws that prohibit gun owners the right to carry firearms in public puts lives in danger and penalizes innocent citizens.

Criminals in this state realize that anybody they attack is a defenseless victim, said Frank Jack Fiamingo, president of the New Jersey Second Amendment Society. NJ2AS promotes the free exercise of Second Amendment protected-rights within the community and New Jersey Legislature.

Except for a few narrowly-defined exceptions, no one is able to properly defend their lives outside of their homes, he said. If you live in New Jersey the criminal already knows you are a victim; the criminal already knows you are not armed.

Fiamingo said an example is the case of Dustin Friedland, a 30-year old Hoboken-attorney shot in the head and killed, when two assailants attempted to steal his 2012 Range Rover in the parking lot of Short Hills Mall in Essex County last week.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, Creator of AK-47, Dies at 94

By C. J. CHIVERS - 12/23/2013

Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the arms designer credited by the Soviet Union with creating the AK-47, the first in a series of rifles and machine guns that would indelibly associate his name with modern war and become the most abundant firearms ever made, died on Monday in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic, where he lived. He was 94.

Viktor Chulkov, a spokesman for the republic's president, confirmed the death, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Born a peasant on the southern Siberian steppe, General Kalashnikov had little formal education and claimed to be a self-taught tinkerer who combined innate mechanical skills with the study of weapons to conceive of a rifle that achieved battlefield ubiquity.

His role in the rifle's creation, and the attention showered on him by the Kremlin's propaganda machine, carried him from conscription in the Red Army to senior positions in the Soviet arms-manufacturing bureaucracy and ultimately to six terms on the Supreme Soviet.

Armed response, not restrictive gun laws, brought swift end to school shooting

By Valerie Richardson - 12/18/2013
The Washington Times
CENTENNIAL, Colo.  It's a stark fact that is fueling an already intense debate about gun rights in this state: It was an armed deputy who stopped the Arapahoe High School gunman last week from unleashing a deadly massacre, not the expansive new gun control laws approved by Colorado Democrats in March in reaction to two mass shootings.

That is the increasingly inescapable takeaway as details emerge from the school shooting Friday, when the 18-year-old gunman injured another student at random before turning the gun on himself in the school library as the armed deputy was closing in on him.

The gun control laws didn't make a difference, said state Sen. Greg Brophy, a Republican who is seeking his party's nomination for governor next year. What made a difference was a person in the building who was armed and who rushed to end the threat.

Even Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Democrat who signed three gun control bills in March at considerable political risk, acknowledged on CBS- Face the Nation on Sunday that the laws in this specific case aren't going to make a difference at all.

Connecticut's gun laws hamper business

By GOPUSA - 12/1713

BRANFORD -- It's been about 10 months since Mike Higgins opened the doors at TGS Outdoors, and while he'd like to hire more employees, he said the state's new gun laws are hindering his business's ability to grow.

"I'd love to hire more people if I could grow my business, but I don't have the product to sell," Higgins said.

Higgins said his shop's spot in Branford is a prime location near a number of hunting clubs. The opening of the store caused some controversy and sparked a couple of town meetings, although Higgins argued that the number of supporters vastly outnumbered the opposition, and that the media sensationalized the issue.

New state laws have created a tough situation for gun store owners, he said. Before the law went into effect, Higgins said, for example, he could have sold a standard Glock pistol with a 13-round magazine. The same applies to a number of other guns.

Judge: Gun waiting period 'burdens' 2nd Amendment

Possession of firearm necessary prerequisite to exercising right to bear arms'

By Bob Unruh - 12/13/2013

A federal judge in California has ruled in a Second Amendment case that a state-imposed waiting period to take possession of a firearm is a burden on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

The ruling came in a challenge brought by the Second Amendment Foundation to the state�s mandatory 10-day waiting period to obtain firearms. The case, Silvester v. Harris, continues.

It was Senior Judge Anthony Ishii of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California who said in an 11-page decision that California Attorney General Kamala Harris argues that the WPL (Waiting Period Law) is a minor burden on the Second Amendment, [but] plaintiffs are correct that this is a tacit acknowledgement that a protected Second Amendment right is burdened.

Gun-Control Dishonesty

By Charles C. W. Cooke - 12/13/2013

The push to do something, anything, has nothing to do with preventing deaths.
 
Earlier in the year, as the gun-control movement tried clumsily to transform an abomination into a cudgel, the Washington Post's Kathleen Parker distilled its problem into a single sentence. Nothing proposed in the gun-control debates would have prevented the mass killing of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Parker contended plainly, and everybody knows it.

This was abundantly clear at the time, and it is even more so in retrospect. And yet I must nitpick ever so slightly with Parker's excellent contention, for it is missing the crucial word almost. Almost everybody knows it. The public seems to know it. Legislators seem to know it. But, judging by the abundance of vexed anniversary columns, a significant cabal of journalists and activists have never got the message. A year later, their cry is as it was at the outset: Why won't we act?

Yesterday, Michael Bloomberg delivered a speech in which he utilized what I have come to regard as the Newtown Template. Having established the tragedy in the audience's mind December 14 will mark a very somber anniversary, Bloomberg noted, correctly  he went on to claim that unlicensed sellers of firearms were illegally flooding the Internet with weapons, causing a massive online, unregulated, second-hand firearms market that threatens public safety. Then, for good measure, he took a swipe at the government for doing nothing.

California has toughest gun control laws in country

By Los Angeles Times - 12/10/13

SACRAMENTO -- California has the toughest gun control laws in the nation, receiving an A- grade in a state-by-state analysis by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, officials said Monday.

In the year after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, eight states, including California, passed "major gun reforms," said Amanda Wilcox, the legislation and policy chair for the California Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

California chapters of the Brady Campaign supported 18 bills sent to Gov. Jerry Brown.

"A record 11 bills were signed into law, including measures to keep guns out of dangerous hands and closing loopholes in California's law prohibiting large capacity magazines," Wilcox said. "The research shows that strong gun laws can keep people safe from gun violence. We know that California's strong gun laws are saving lives."

The best .22 pistol? An examination of modern rimfire pistols

By Richard L. Johnson - 12/8/2013

Everybody should own a .22 pistol.  They are incredibly valuable as a training tool, can be used to shoot competitively and can bag small game for dinner.  Add to the mix that they are just plain fun to shoot, and you've got a winner of a platform.  But the question becomes what is the best .22 pistol?

While there is no single best pistol for every person and situation, there are several exceptionally good guns on the market.  This is a look at currently produced .22 LR pistols, and not a look at every rimfire handgun ever made.  If I expanded the scope of the article to that level, I would have to include pistols like the old Hi Standard and Colt Woodsman.  Likewise, there are some exceptional revolver and .22 Magnum options on the market.

I no particular order, here are some of the best 22 pistols currently being sold.

CNN Poll: Support for stricter gun control fades

By CNN Political Unit - 12/5/2013

Washington (CNN) - As memories fade from last December's horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a new national poll indicates that support for stricter gun control laws appears to be fading, too.

According to a new CNN/ORC International survey, 49% of Americans say they support stricter gun control laws, with 50% opposed. The 49% support is down six percentage points from the 55% who said they backed stricter gun control in CNN polling from January, just a few weeks after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a lone gunman killed 20 young students and six adults before killing himself, in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

The poll's Wednesday release comes on the same day that 911 tapes from the Newtown shootings are being released.

The Three Most Important Ongoing Second Amendment Cases

Brian Doherty - 12/4/2013

 

Since the 2010 Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, which applied the ruling in the 2008 Heller case (which said the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms) to states and localities, the Court has so far evaded any new case about the limits and meaning of the Second Amendment.
Those two cases, though, did not resolve all the important questions about how and when and why the government can restrict Second Amendment rights. Heller and McDonald said that the right to possess commonly used weapons for self-defense in the home cannot be infringed, but Justice Antonin Scalia in his majority opinion in Heller explicitly said this didn’t mean anything goes when it comes to Americans and their guns.

100,000 veterans lose their 2nd Amendment rights under Obama administration

By Dom Raso, NRA News Commentator - 12/04/2013

Under Obama's administration, there's been a serious downsizing of our military. I've got my own thoughts on that, but I'll save them for another time. Reality is, we've got a large number of people getting out of the military with a ton of combat and military experience; men and women being thrown back into civilian life. There have been several incidents already involving these vets and their rights being taken away from them.

Recently, there was a vet that had to defend his home from a felon who was trying to break in. He fired a warning shot in the ground to scare the guy off and then told the police that his military training kicked in. Now whether that's true or not, or even if he went into combat mode, the guy was having his house broken into. He clearly stated to the guy that was trying to force entry into his home and that he was going to give him a warning shot if he didn't stop his forward progress. All he did was fire a warning shot into the ground, and then the criminal ran off.

Anti-Gun NFL: National Frauds League

By Michelle Malkin - 12/4/2013

The National Football League's hypocrisy and selective decency standards reek like a post-game locker room. On the one hand, the organization refuses to run a firearms manufacturer's self-defense Super Bowl ad under the guise of neutrality and taste. Yet, the professional football conglomerate routinely revels in raunchiness, gratuitous physical violence and anti-gun screeds.

Welcome to the National Frauds' League.

Guns and Ammo magazine first broke news last week of the sports empire's rejection of a commercial created by gun-maker Daniel Defense. The polished paid spot emphasized home security protection and self-defense without even showing or mentioning any of its actual products. But a quick flash of the company's logo at the end of the ad, which includes a DDM4 rifle, apparently violated the NFL's high-minded advertising regulations.

How the Nazis Used Gun Control

The Weimar Republic's well-intentioned gun registry became a tool for evil.

By Stephen P. Halbrook - 12/2/2013

The perennial gun-control debate in America did not begin here. The same arguments for and against were made in the 1920s in the chaos of Germany's Weimar Republic, which opted for gun registration. Law-abiding persons complied with the law, but the Communists and Nazis committing acts of political violence did not.

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for public safety. The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group.

Young developer of 3-D printer gun proud to make ‘most dangerous people in world’ list

By Joe Saunders - 1/1/2013 

The former law student who developed a one-shot gun that can be created on a 3-D plastic printer has been voted among Wired magazine's 15 most dangerous people for 2013.

And he still has higher ambitions.

I hope to make it back up the first, but I'll settle for 14, Cody Wilson said, according to the Daily Mail. It was a good run.

Governments around the world would probably agree with Wired that Wilson is a dangerous man even at the young age of only 25. The Obama administration's State Department certainly does.

Women the "Holy Grail" of gun rights movement?

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By: Raquel Okyay - 12/2/2013

Women seeking to arm themselves and their daughters are figuring out that guns are not taboo but a powerful means of protection.

Women are the holy grail of the Second Amendment movement, said Skip Coryell nationally recognized firearm expert and author of the newly released The Shadow Militia.

The Second Amendment will stand or fall depending on the way women vote, he said. Women make-up about 52% of the population and they vote with a mind of their own.

Women and particularly women with children have been raised with an idea that guns are dangerous. Yet once women get over their initial fear of the firearm, they feel empowered by it, he said. Women want to be armed and capable.