Ex-soldier who handed in gun to police faces five years imprisonment for “doing his duty”

Ex-soldier faces jail for handing in gun

thisissurreytoday.co.uk | Nov 17, 2009

A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for “doing his duty”.

Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year.

The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year’s imprisonment for handing in the weapon.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: “I didn’t think for one moment I would be arrested.

“I thought it was my duty to hand it in and get it off the streets.”

The court heard how Mr Clarke was on the balcony of his home in Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, when he spotted a black bin liner at the bottom of his garden.

In his statement, he said: “I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges.

“I didn’t know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him.

“At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.”

Mr Clarke was then arrested immediately for possession of a firearm at Reigate police station, and taken to the cells.

Defending, Lionel Blackman told the jury Mr Clarke’s garden backs onto a public green field, and his garden wall is significantly lower than his neighbours.

He also showed jurors a leaflet printed by Surrey Police explaining to citizens what they can do at a police station, which included “reporting found firearms”.

Quizzing officer Garnett, who arrested Mr Clarke, he asked: “Are you aware of any notice issued by Surrey Police, or any publicity given to, telling citizens that if they find a firearm the only thing they should do is not touch it, report it by telephone, and not take it into a police station?”

To which, Mr Garnett replied: “No, I don’t believe so.”

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a “strict liability” charge – therefore Mr Clarke’s allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.

But despite this, Mr Blackman urged members of the jury to consider how they would respond if they found a gun.

He said: “This is a very small case with a very big principle.

“You could be walking to a railway station on the way to work and find a firearm in a bin in the park.

“Is it unreasonable to take it to the police station?”

Paul Clarke will be sentenced on December 11.

Judge Christopher Critchlow said: “This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge.

“The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”

Guns near Obama fuel ‘open-carry’ debate

This man, who would not tell reporters his name, carried an AR-15 rifle near an Aug. 17 appearance in Phoenix by President Barack Obama.Jack Kurtz / The Arizona Republic via AP

Second Amendment activists divided by public displays of firearms

MSNBC | Aug 25, 2009

By Mike Stuckey

Gun owners may be arguing among themselves and with gun-control activists about it, but for Mustapha Kassou, there’s no debate over the “open-carry” movement, which created a furor this month when pistol- and rifle-packing citizens showed up near several public appearances by President Barack Obama.

Kassou was working the cash register in the Richmond, Va., market he owns on July 11 when a gunman stormed the store with robbery on his mind. In an incident captured on surveillance video, the bandit ordered the eight customers to the floor and pumped two bullets from his snub-nosed pistol into Kassou, who fell to the floor behind the counter.

As the store’s patrons prayed and screamed, one of them drew a .45-caliber revolver from a holster in plain view on his hip and ordered the robber to drop his gun. In the shootout and hand-to-hand struggle that followed, the customer managed to wound the robber three times and prevent him from shooting anyone else. By the time police responded to a 911 call, the robber lay mortally wounded in a pool of blood; he died three days later in a hospital.

“Thank God he had his gun that day,” Kassou said of the man with the .45, a friend of his and a member of the loosely organized open-carry movement who has declined to be publicly identified and eschewed any notion that he was a hero.

“He saved many lives that day,” Kassou told msnbc.com in a telephone interview. “If it wasn’t for him, probably I would not be here.”

Kassou and other open-carry advocates say the case is an example that supports their notion that openly armed citizens can deter and stop crime effectively.

While the outcome of the gunfight at Kassou’s Golden Food Market is perhaps the best publicity the open-carry movement could hope for, some in its ranks are cringing at the far greater coverage given to the recent open-carrying activities of others. Outside presidential town hall meetings from New Hampshire to Arizona, these gun owners have worn their loaded revolvers and semiautomatic pistols for all the world to see. One man slung a military-style AR-15 rifle over his shoulder.

One of the biggest attention-getters was William Kostric, who strapped a 9 mm Smith & Wesson in a SWAT-style leg holster and wore it to Obama’s Aug. 11 town hall meeting on health care in Portsmouth, N.H. “I wanted people to remember the rights that we have and how quickly we’re losing them in this country,” he told msnbc-tv’s Chris Matthews.

The White House, hoping to allay fears of a security threat, has said that people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. “Those laws don’t change when the president comes to your state or locality,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The incidents have stirred fear and anger among some Americans, and contempt from gun-rights activists for what they see as overreaction and unfair spin by the national media. They have also exposed a subtlety and nuance in America’s ongoing debate over firearms that are  often lost in the predictable, shrill arguments between gun-control advocates and Second Amendment defenders.

As much as any issue, open carry reveals divisions within the gun-rights community, often characterized by gun-control advocates as a monolithic force that is led in lock-step by the powerful and well-heeled National Rifle Association. But you won’t find the NRA weighing in on this issue; the 4-million-member group did not respond to msnbc.com’s requests for an interview.

“They’re obviously avoiding taking a stand on this one,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the nationwide advocacy group for “sensible” gun laws. “It’s a no-win for them.” If NRA officials criticize those who open-carry near Obama events, they run the risk of irritating their “rabid membership,” Helmke said. If they support the behavior, “they’re going to lose all credibility not only with the public but with the elected officials who usually vote their way.”

Other gun-rights groups, however, have not shied away, offering a range of reaction.

‘It’s their right’

“We do applaud them for being a positive example of responsible gun owners,” said John Velleco, director of federal affairs for the Gun Owners of America, probably the loudest voice of support for those who have displayed firearms near Obama events. “We’re not calling for people to do that but if they’re doing so legally it’s their right to do it,” said Velleco, who has said he would have no concerns over thousands of citizens openly carrying firearms to an event at which the president was speaking.

But Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, another staunch defender of gun rights, was not applauding. Gottlieb said the open carrying of firearms near presidential town hall meetings on health care “is not the time or the place for it. I’m not for disallowing them to do so, I just don’t think it’s politically intelligent. … I would like to see gun owners think twice before they go to a rally like that with a firearm strapped on. It doesn’t necessarily put our best face forward.”

John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, a social-networking Web site for gun owners that catalogs weapons laws across the nation and chronicles efforts to loosen and remove restrictions against the public carrying of firearms, praised the low-key response of the White House and the Secret Service to the incidents. But he also worried a bit about the actions of those who wear guns near presidential venues.

“I absolutely believe open carry should be legal anywhere that a citizen can legally be,” he explained. “Having said that, one of the things that I find a little bit less than perfect about the recent situation is not the fact that citizens were open-carrying, but rather that they were there as a form of open conduct to disagree with a political position that the president has taken, whether it’s about health care or the economy.” Doing so with a gun strapped on sends a “very mixed message,” said Pierce.

Velleco of Gun Owners of America dismissed that. It “might be a different story” if the town hall open-carry incidents were organized. “You have to remember, this is a leaderless action,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it a movement. I don’t know of anyone who is coordinating people to show up at these events armed. … Gun Owners of America would not call for an armed rally. These people are doing it on their own.”

But some gun-control activists said they see a clear link between the recent open-carrying actions and past campaigns by the NRA and other groups.

“Leading into the election last year, the NRA spent something like $15 million saying if Obama is elected he’ll take your guns away,” said Helmke of the Brady Campaign. “That whole lead-in from last year is really kind of setting the table for some of what we’re seeing with this open carry at Obama events.

“When you’re seeing some of the NRA language from the ads last year being parroted by some of … the picketers and protesters, you start realizing there’s consequences to what they’re saying.”

Jim Kessler of Third Way, the successor organization to the gun-control group Americans for Gun Safety, said openly carrying firearms near the town halls is the sort of thing done by “a very tiny faction of the extreme right wing that’s a real paranoid conspiracy theorist group.”

While he does not believe the NRA is behind the open-carrying, he said it could work to the gun group’s advantage. “I think they (NRA leaders) think these people are whack jobs, to be honest with you, but they love a fight. What the NRA is interested in the most is raising money and increasing membership. They love having Obama as president. It means their membership is going to go up.”

The “whack job” image is a big concern to Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation. He does not like provocative open-carry actions just as “I don’t like gun owners running around with the T-shirts saying, ‘Kill Them All and Let God Sort Them Out.’ If someone from the media is at a gun show, that’s the kind of person they’re going to put on TV.”

And that collides harshly with the image that Pierce and others are trying to craft for the open-carry movement, which he said is “normal law-abiding citizens being able to exercise their rights as they go about their everyday lives.”

In rural Virginia, where he grew up, “every corner had a rifle or a shotgun in it,” Pierce said. “It was simply a part of life. Everybody hunted. Firearms were just a part of life, a noncontroversial part of life.” He’d like all Americans to feel the same and sees the work of OpenCarry.org as largely educational.

One positive of the current controversy, Pierce said, “is that it does make open-carry very visible. A lot of people living in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, the Northeast, basically … when they see this, it’s a real wake-up call that there are rights that are exercised in the rest of the country that are so far outside their experience. It makes people begin to wonder about the limits that laws in their states have placed on their rights.

“Open-carry IS the Second Amendment,” Pierce said. “If you believe in the Second Amendment, you believe in open carry.”

But the Brady Campaign’s Helmke has a different take. “They’re showing the rest of the country how weak our gun laws are,” he said. “When you open-carry, you don’t have a permit, no one has checked you out, you don’t have to go through any training in a lot of places. You can carry a .50-caliber sniper rifle down the street. When folks see that, then maybe they’ll wake up to the fact that we really don’t have many laws on the books with regard to guns.”

Third Way’s Kessler said that despite last year’s landmark Heller ruling by the Supreme Court that upheld individual rights to own guns, “There is no constitutional right to carry a firearm. This is not even close on the constitutional scale — I have a right to carry a firearm wherever I go — it’s just not.”

Kessler and Helmke caution that gun-rights advocates, who have enjoyed years of legislative and legal success on issues from relaxed concealed-carry laws to the expiration of the 1994 federal assault-rifle ban, could push too far.

They cite the Senate’s failure, albeit by a narrow margin, in July to pass an amendment that would have made a concealed-weapon permit from any state valid in all.

“I think the gun lobby is starting to lose its clout,” Helmke said.

As for open-carry, which, although at least tacitly supported by most in the gun-rights community is still criticized by many as less tactically shrewd than concealed-carry, Kessler said, “You have to decide what kind of society you want to live in. Do you want to live in a society where the person next to you is openly carrying a firearm? Does that make you happy? I think for most people it disturbs them. It would for me.”

It shouldn’t, said Velleco of Gun Owners of America. “These people, if anything, are contributing to public safety, not endangering it. … Lawful gun owners use firearms over a million times a year successfully in self-defense. And they make our streets and neighborhoods safer than they would be otherwise. That’s what people don’t understand.”

Kassou, who has recovered from his wounds and returned to work in his Virginia store, said his attitude has changed. “Nobody likes to carry a gun,” he said, and before he was shot he didn’t. “We’re not here in a war zone, we’re just trying to make a living, but sometimes you have to defend yourself.”

So now Kassou straps a gun on each day when he heads for his market. Does he wear it openly, as lawful firearms owners are allowed to do in Virginia?

“Yes sir, I do.”

Gun foes see new hope with Sotomayor

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor (L) hugs U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) after concluding her fourth and final day of testimony at her confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington July 16, 2009. Reuters

Aim to break grip of NRA

Washington Times | Aug 4, 2009

By Stephen Dinan

After years of losing, gun control advocates say this week’s vote on confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court will be their long-awaited win that shatters conventional wisdom and proves that the Second Amendment is no longer the unstoppable force of Washington politics.

Proponents of gun control say the National Rifle Association (NRA) and similar groups have overreached. They point to a Senate vote last month blocking an effort to expand concealed-carry laws.

“The lesson that’s going to come out of this is you can vote against the NRA and still win, and win in gun-friendly areas,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the nation’s leading gun control group, which is billing this week’s vote as a chance to defeat the NRA.

Gun rights supporters dismissed suggestions that they’ve lost their long hold on the Capitol. The NRA’s spokesman dared lawmakers to test Second Amendment voters at their “own peril.”

Since the 2000 elections, few lawmakers have bucked gun advocacy groups, and the NRA in particular. The powerful lobby had proved too often that it could swing elections in battleground states simply by sending its traditional election-time blaze-orange postcards telling voters how their elected officials scored on gun rights.

When an effort by Sen. John Thune, South Dakota Republican, to expand reciprocity for concealed-carry laws throughout the nation failed July 22 to overcome a filibuster in a 58-39 vote, gun control groups said they’d made a dent. This week, they expect Judge Sotomayor to be confirmed to the Supreme Court despite the vocal opposition of the NRA and Gun Owners of America (GOA).

The NRA said the Thune amendment vote should be cold comfort to gun control groups.

“Only the Brady Campaign will try to spin getting 39 votes in the U.S. Senate as a resounding victory,” said Andrew Arulanandam, the NRA’s spokesman.

He said gun rights remain as potent an issue as ever.

Some Second Amendment supporters say that defeating Judge Sotomayor’s nomination is not central to their mission, and that it was the wrong time to stage a fight.

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Va. Tech families want shooting probe reopened

“We cannot comprehend that Dr. Miller, knowing the intensity of the search for these records, did not recall taking them home with him in 2006,” the families said.

AP | Jul 29, 2009

By SUE LINDSEY

ROANOKE, Va. — Families of the Virginia Tech shooting victims asked Gov. Tim Kaine on Tuesday to reopen a state commission’s investigation of the 2007 mass killings in which 32 people died.

Relatives of many those killed as well as students injured in the rampage and their families issued a statement urging Kaine to reopen the review because of inaccuracies and omissions in the report.

The families’ statement followed disclosure last week that the former director of the university’s counseling center recently found missing mental health records for student gunman Seung-Hui Cho at his home.

Related

Ex-Va. Tech official had gunman’s “missing” mental records all along

Virginia Tech counseling center director “accidentally” kept gunman Seung Hui Cho’s “missing” mental records at home for years

Cho committed suicide after killing students and faculty members in a dormitory and classroom building on the Blacksburg campus on April 16, 2007 — the worst mass shootings in modern U.S. history.

Kaine named the Virginia Tech Review Panel to review the handling of events the day of the shootings and other issues related to the shootings. A separate criminal investigation is ongoing.

“We still suffer emotional pain dealing with the impenetrable layers of bureaucracy in our simple quest for answers,” the statement said. “An accurate, complete and thorough accounting of what happened before, during and after April 16th, 2007 is the legacy we seek on behalf of those who died and those who survived.”

The families said they want more information about the discovery of Cho’s records at the home of Dr. Robert C. Miller. Miller has said he inadvertently took the files as he left his job as director of Cook Counseling Center more than a year before the shootings.

“We cannot comprehend that Dr. Miller, knowing the intensity of the search for these records, did not recall taking them home with him in 2006,” the families said.

Kaine said in response to a caller’s question on his monthly radio show on Washington’s WTOP that the professional staff who investigated and wrote the Virginia Tech Review Panel report is already investigating Miller’s possession of Cho’s records.

He said he had already assured relatives of the slain and wounded that the report, done quickly in 2007 to expedite changes in state law during the 2008 General Assembly, would be updated.

“We are going to reopen the factual narrative of that report and look at any information that has come in since the report was done,” he said. “And yes, the contents of this file are going to be examined very carefully to see if their contents suggest that the report needs to be corrected.”

Reconvening the appointed members of the panel, including former State Police Superintendent Gerald Massengill and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, would be a problem because all were volunteer members when they served.

“Obviously these records are critical. They shouldn’t have been removed from the counseling center. I want to know why … they were not found until now,” Kaine told a caller who identified herself as a mental health professional.

A telephone message left for Massengill was not immediately returned.

Suzanne Grimes, whose son Kevin Sterne was wounded but survived, said she and other family members who have conducted their own investigation of the events of that day have found other errors and omissions in the report.

“With the revelation that Dr. Miller has discovered the missing records, it just raises whole new questions of what else is out there that we’re unaware of,” she said.

Holly Sherman, whose daughter Leslie was killed, said she didn’t join in Tuesday’s statement because she couldn’t stand the ordeal of publicity about another investigation.

“If we were to get involved with another investigative fact-finding body and follow it like we did with the panel, it would open the wounds again,” she said.

Sherman said she wouldn’t want an investigation by the same panel anyway, and hoped Kaine would appoint a small committee to look into the new information.

More than two hours passed after Cho killed two people in a dormitory before university officials notified the campus by e-mail. Cho began his rampage in a classroom building about 15 minutes later.

The panel concluded that the Virginia Tech campus should have been notified sooner that a killer was on the loose.

Gun sales soar amid fears of Barack Obama weapons ban

President Barack Obama may never have fired a gun but he is turning out to be one of the best firearms salesmen in American history.

Telegraph | Jul 11, 2009

By Toby Harnden in Memphis

“I’ve sold probably four times as much in the last six months as I have in 20 years combined,” said Cliff Hunter, owner of Tommy Bronson Sporting Goods in Memphis. “Hand guns and the tactical weapons, they’re absolutely off the charts.”

Most of his gun sales used to be for hunting, or personal protection in a city riddled with crime. But just before the November election, anxiety that Mr Obama would win and enact a radical programme of curtailing gun rights began drove business right up.

“Obama’s a liberal socialist and I think he’s proven quickly how extreme he is,” he said. “When they get through healthcare, guns are on the table. They’re not talking about it but it’s going to happen.”

The FBI recorded a 49 per cent rise in gun background checks during election week compared to the same week a year earlier.

“Sales have been up 50, 60 per cent sinces Osama got elected,” said Jay Hill, owner of the Classic Firearms gun store in Cordova, just outside Memphis, smiling as he deliberately mixed up the name of the US president with the leader of al-Qaeda.

“He speaks with a forked tongue. I don’t trust him a bit.”

Crime would always mean there was a demand for gun, especially in a state like Tennessee which is in the South and where permits to carry a concealed weapon are available.

This week, a travelling jewellery salesman who was ambushed by four men, at least two of them armed, pulled out his pistol and shot two of them. The other two would-be robbers fled as the wounded men lay moaning on the ground.

“Bingo,” said Mr Hill. “They’re in critical condition in hospital last time I heard. He had a hand gun and a legal carry permit, so he’s back at home having dinner with the kids. Mark one up for the good guy.”

While Mr Hill does not believe an outright ban would be attempted, he suspects that a “backdoor” attempt to limit gun ownership might be on the cards.

“What they want to do is limit the amount of handguns you can buy, assault rifles, things like that. The constitution doesn’t say you have the right to keep and bear ammunition. A car’s no good without gasoline so one way you can get to banning or controlling guns is by attacking the ammo.”

Sales of high-end collectible rifles, which cost several thousand dollars, have fallen as the recession has deepened. But the value of military-style rifles such as the AR-15, a variant of the AK-47, had increased by at least 25 per cent.

This has made modern rifles a potentially lucrative investment. Some people are banking on Mr Obama introducing gun control legislation, a move that would lead to a hefty profit as demand soared and people scrambled to beat a ban on purchases.

A week before the election, Mr Hunter bought about 20 Sig .556 calibre rifles. “I’d probably sold six or eight of those in 20 years. I placed one call to an investment firm here in Memphis and within 45 minutes every one had been pre-sold.

“People are afraid they won’t be able to get them in the future. Everybody’s guessing what they [the Obama administration] are going to do. People are stockpiling ammunition. We’re just starting to see more inventory on that but ammo is not slowing down.” Americans, he said, would not allow their Second Amendment right to bear arms to be taken away from them.

“The country’s divided but this is something that’s dear to a true American’s heart. It goes way back to the cowboy days when a gun was a man’s most prized possession.”

Jason Hart, 31, who was buying ammunition from Mr Hill’s store, said: “I was raised not to have a gun. My mum told me to stay away from them. But we get four or five murders a day here in Memphis.

“Everybody else has guns, especially since Obama came in and people got afraid and started buying. I’ve been in a lot of situations where I was able to fight my way out because I’m a martial artist. But everybody has a gun I didn’t want to be the only one without one.”

Lawmaker aims at making Texas firearms exempt from federal regulation

Star Telegram | May 4, 2009

By ANNA M. TINSLEY

A Texas lawmaker wants to further push state sovereignty from the federal government.

Rep. Leo Berman, a former Arlington mayor pro tem, has filed a bill to make guns, ammunition and gun parts that are made, sold and kept in Texas free from federal regulation.

That would exempt them from federal gun registration, dealer licensing rules and buyer background checks. State laws would still apply.

“This does two things,” said Berman, a Tyler Republican. “It tests our sovereignty in relationship to the federal government, and it would attract new small gun manufacturers to the state to manufacture certain types of weapons and ammunition that are only used in intrastate commerce.”

Guns and sovereignty are fiery issues in the Lone Star State, where residents resist federal regulations that could trample on either right.

Sparks flew last month when Gov. Rick Perry talked about how some Texans might want the state to secede from the U.S. and when a bill advanced in the Legislature to tell the federal government to “cease and desist” imposing regulations on the state.

Berman’s bill, similar to measures in Montana and Alaska, would push the sovereignty button even further.

The bill is pending in the House Public Safety Committee.

Texas-made

Berman said his bill is geared to help smaller “mom and pop” gun, ammunition and gun-part makers in Texas.

Those who make and sell their products in the state would put a “Made in Texas” stamp on items meant to stay in Texas.

Lawmakers say the federal government regulates firearms and ammunition through its power to regulate interstate commerce. If Texas prevents those products from leaving the state, federal officials’ arguments for regulating them are rendered moot, state lawmakers say.

“The bill requires every component to be made and stay in Texas,” Berman said. “If it leaves Texas, it will be subject to federal legislation.”

Critics say the bill is a long shot. They worry that if residents try to follow such a law, they would risk prosecution from the U.S. government, which may not recognize the legislation. Karl Dean Pifer, who owns KC Precision Ballistics in Granbury, said he has mixed feelings about the bill.

He and his wife and daughter make federally licensed ammunition at their home for up to .50-caliber firearms. Last year, they sold about 10,000 rounds — an amount they have already reached in the first quarter of this year, Pifer said.

While he would like some of the regulatory relief the bill could bring, Pifer said, he’s worried that manufacturers might not be under strict-enough guidelines.

“With no regulation, it could open it up to a lot of bad guys doing a lot of bad stuff,” he said. But “it would be great to sell within the state without any additional taxes or regulations.”

Test case?

A similar bill is pending in Alaska, where House members have approved the Alaska Firearms Freedom Act.

Some there say they see the bill as a way to reclaim some of their rights from the federal government.

But Texas lawmakers are keeping an eye on the Montana measure, which takes effect Oct. 1. That is the gun-sovereignty law they believe most likely to be tested in court.

Some have said they hope to set off a court battle by finding a Montana resident to notify the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he or she will build and sell “made in Montana” rifles without federal licensing.

If not allowed to proceed, the resident would file a lawsuit in the hope of making it to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final ruling.

“This will be the test case, to challenge the federal law,” Berman said. “I’m very interested in our Second Amendment rights under the Constitution.”

Montana Fires a Warning Shot Over States’ Rights

Associated Press | Apr 30, 2009

By Kahrin Deines

HELENA – Montana is trying to trigger a battle over gun control — and perhaps make a larger point about what many folks in this ruggedly independent state regard as a meddlesome federal government.

In a bill passed by the Legislature earlier this month, the state is asserting that guns manufactured in Montana and sold in Montana to people who intend to keep their weapons in Montana are exempt from federal gun registration, background check and dealer-licensing rules because no state lines are crossed.

That notion is all but certain to be tested in court.

The immediate effect of the law could be limited, since Montana is home to just a few specialty gun makers, known for high-end hunting rifles and replicas of Old West weapons, and because their out-of-state sales would automatically trigger federal control.

Still, much bigger prey lies in Montana’s sights: a legal showdown over how far the federal government’s regulatory authority extends.

“It’s a gun bill, but it’s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana,” said Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who signed the bill.

Carrie DiPirro, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had no comment on the legislation. But the federal government has generally argued that it has authority under the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution to regulate guns because they can so easily be transported across state lines.

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Guns, Gold, Secession

LewRockwell.com | Apr 2, 2009

by Karen De Coster

There is a secession movement afoot and its proponents are determined to put a halt to the federal government’s ambitions to destroy and reconstruct an entire economy and dissolve the last remnants of individual liberty. Twenty-eight states are invoking the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, by rolling out legislation to assert their sovereignty as free states in order to keep from being undermined by the never-ending swarm of unrestrained federal decrees.

The speed with which the federal government intends to take over private institutions and usurp states’ rights and individual autonomy is unprecedented. When the Bush-Obama regime maneuvers are compared to the Hoover-FDR New Deal era, it looks like today’s hare vs. yesterday’s turtle. The state’s various propaganda arms, from big media to institutionalized special interest forces, are being empowered to publicize and sell the agenda of the totalitarian state by painting it in glossy colors that warm the hearts of unresisting Americans. There are, however, growing pockets of dissenters who conclude that life, liberty, property, and the futures of their children are more important than the trivial things that occupy the minds of the submissive class. For that reason, the state’s militarized police force, which has been given unparalleled powers by the contrived crises following 9-11, has snowballed in size and is being fortified in expectation of confronting rebellion from those citizens who intend to resist the tyranny of an over-reaching Leviathan.

Since the Bush II regime took control and 9/11 became its launch pad for sweeping hegemony, the police state has moved more swiftly than ever to demonize resistance and criminalize dissent. The most recent example is the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) report that profiled individuals according to their political convictions, especially those ideas that agitate against the institutionalization of unconstitutional acts that are intended to grow state power at the expense of individual liberties. Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr (!), guns & ammo, taxes, the Federal Reserve, secession, and resistance to universal government service or anti-privacy actions – all of those topics have become keywords in the crusade to criminalize individuals who refuse to be rounded up like cattle and marched toward serfdom.

Two years ago, a similar thing happened in Alabama when its Homeland Security Department released a report pigeonholing freedom activists as “anti-government types” who “claim that the U.S. government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government’s policies are criminal and immoral.” Such groups, the report said, “May hold that the current government is violating the basic principles laid out by the U.S. Constitution…” Don’t bother to look up that report, however, because LewRockwell.com blogger Chris Brunner’s post on the Alabama report spread like wildfire ’round the Internet, resulting in that report being pulled from the website.

In addition, the MIAC report was quickly stifled by hordes of liberty activists, leading Chuck Baldwin to say, “the most effective way to fight an ever-encroaching federal leviathan is to focus on our individual states.”

The struggle for sovereignty, though begun on the part of spontaneous individuals with leanings toward the radical principles of our nation’s founding, has reached state legislatures across America in the form of sovereignty bills. According to the Christian Science Monitor, twenty-eight states are now commencing resolutions as a reaction to the sudden and massive expansion of federal powers. Even the Republic of Lakotah is declaring its withdrawal from all treaties and agreements imposed on it by the US government. The notion of state secession, once written off as a subject matter for political crackpots and eccentrics, has become a legitimate and practical solution for undoing the years of accumulated assaults on individual liberty that has come from the centralized state.

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Barack Obama fuels gun buying boom with pledge to tighten laws

Firearms sales have soared across America after US President Barack Obama pledged to tighten gun control laws  Photo: AP

A pledge by US President Barack Obama to tighten gun control laws has led to firearms sales soaring across America.

Telegraph | Mar 14, 2009

By Jacqui Goddard in Miami

Manufacturers are struggling to keep up with demand, and many gun shops running low on stock as the US public buys weapons in anticipation of tighter controls.

On the campaign trail last year Mr Obama proposed restoring a Clinton-era ban on several types of military-style semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, as well as background checks for buyers at gun shows, and other “common-sense measures”.

His pledge has proved a potent catalyst, with manufacturers recording soaring profits since his election.

“Since November, sales of firearms – in particular handguns and semi-automatic hunting and target rifles – are fast outpacing inventory,” said Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the US firearms and ammunition industry.

“Americans are clearly concerned about their ability to be able to purchase these products in an uncertain future,” he added.

Smith and Wesson last week posted third-quarter profits of $2.4 million (£1.7 million), reversing a loss of $1.8 million over the same period the previous year, as its pistol sales leapt 46 per cent and tactical rifle sales more than tripled. Another manufacturer, Sturm Ruger & Co. reported an 81 per cent increase in takings.

Demand for certain ammunition is also outstripping supply as enthusiasts build up stockpiles ahead of threatened tax increases on bullets.

Industry watchers say the rush is also down to people taking up arms against the recession, anxious to defend themselves against rising crime driven by the economic gloom.

Personal background checks – which, under federal law, are required of people purchasing rifles and handguns – jumped 42 per cent at gun stores to a record 1.5 million in November after Mr Obama was elected. Since then, they have risen by an average of 25 per cent each month.

In Florida, state authorities have hired an extra 61 people just to help process the waiting list for gun permits.

Gun control advocates are pinning their hopes on the president as they lobby for tougher legislation that they say could help prevent massacres such as that carried out by Michael McLendon in Alabama last week, in which ten people died.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, said: “Our nation must take action to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons.”

German Massacre Raises Issue of Gun Control in Europe

Time | Mar 13, 2009

By Bruce Crumley

Europeans might once have viewed massacres at educational institutions as a uniquely American scourge, but they no longer have that luxury: Friday found Germany still mourning the 16 victims of Wednesday’s carnage in Winnenden, while Scotland marked the 13th anniversary of Europe’s first mass school shooting, the bloodbath at Dunblane in which 16 grade-school students and their teacher were mowed down by a lone gunman. Clearly, Europe has a problem to which there’s no simple solution.

“When you compare us to countries with enormous gun ownership like the U.S., it’s obvious we’re less vulnerable to gun violence,” says Christophe Soullez, chief of France’s National Observatory on Delinquency. “But less vulnerable doesn’t mean fully protected. Guns are more difficult to get here, but they can be and are obtained — and, at times, used.”

The killing spree by 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer in Winnenden provided another reminder that while increasingly stiff gun-control legislation has slowed the incidence of gun violence, it has failed to halt the phenomenon. Since Dunblane in 1996, there have been 11 school massacres across Europe, which left at least 70 people dead and 80 wounded. And most of them followed a similar pattern.

“When a lone individual snaps and a gun is available, the potential for violence is just horrible,” says Marc Trévidic, an investigating magistrate in France’s special antiterrorism division. “Usually that involves someone grabbing their father’s hunting rifle and shooting until they’re overwhelmed. But when automatic weapons are involved, it’s a different story. Fortunately, those are far harder to obtain.”

Harder, but not impossible.

Kretschmer used a semiautomatic pistol he obtained at home — the only one of his father’s 15 guns that was not kept under lock and key. Seven years earlier, expelled student Robert Steinhause had killed 18 people at a school in the German town of Erfurt, using weapons obtained legally. That massacre had provoked Germany to considerably tighten its gun legislation to the point that it is now among the most stringent in Europe. That was still not enough to prevent Kretschmer’s killing spree.

Other European countries have also stiffened gun laws over the past decade, and many are going even further now. Unlike the U.S., whose courts recognize a constitutional right to bear arms, European nations tend to view gun ownership as a responsibility that must be both justified and earned. Finland, which saw two school massacres in 2007 and 2008, last week banned the ownership of firearms by anyone under 20. Portugal is moving to increase penalties for the use of guns in crimes, while Denmark is doubling the sentence for unauthorized possession of arms.

Even Switzerland, whose militia defense system permits people to keep automatic weapons in their homes (there are an estimated 1.5 million nationwide), is planning a referendum on rescinding that right. People in favor of a ban say prolific gun ownership has fueled a recent spate of suicides and murders, including the killing of a family of four near Geneva this month in a suspected domestic incident.

Though it may pale in comparison to America’s 88.8 registered weapons per hundred people, the rate of gun ownership in Europe is higher than one might imagine. In Switzerland there are 45.7 guns per hundred people; in Finland, 45.3; France’s 31.2 is a little higher than Germany’s 30.3. The U.K., which banned most gun ownership after two massacres, has a rate of 6.2 registered guns per 100 people.

“Statistically, France is lucky,” says Aaron Karp, professor of political science at Virginia’s Old Dominion University and a senior consultant with the Small Arms Survey in Switzerland. “As for why Germany and Finland have suffered more mass gun violence, I don’t think anyone knows.”

What may be more instructive, Karp counters, is how stringent gun-control laws have helped reduce rates of gun violence elsewhere. Following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre that killed 35 people, Australia banned all semiautomatic rifles and shotguns and passed strict laws requiring trigger locks and secure storage of guns in homes. “That is the next step for Europe,” Karp says, noting that such controls could have prevented Wednesday’s killings. “Making that move will be easier in Europe than in the U.S., because no one in Europe dares pretend they own a gun for their own defense.”

Experts believe that tightening controls on Europe’s legally owned guns may be more important than curbing the flow of illegal weapons into Europe. “You need connections and money to buy black-market guns, and crazed people who decide to go kill usually don’t have the time or information to procure illegal arms in time,” says Trévidic. Even when gang members and other delinquents acquire weapons, Soullez says, they’re careful about using them. “Up to now, using guns against each other — and most of all, against police — has been that last barrier of violence they haven’t wanted to jump,” Soullez notes. “As we’ve seen, guns are most dangerous in the hands of normal people pushed over the boundaries of sanity, because then we have no idea when or how they’ll use them.”