69th Anniversary of Bad Gun Laws

Check out the date in the red text and toward the bottom of the letter.


(h/t) JPFO

The Merced, CA Pitchfork Murders

Presented without comment...

Deaths in Merced
The Mary Carpenter Letter


Mary Carpenter in her own words.
Part 1



Part 2

Will Pepper Spray Save Your Life?

More words of wisdom from Katey...

Microstamping Part Deux!

It seems that lawmakers are once again trying to revive the failed technology long trumpeted in California. Only this time, they're trying to do it at the national level. I had hoped it would have been dropped since it has been proven to be too costly and too easy to defeat, but that is not the case.

Criminals could defeat microstamping with simple hand tools, sand paper, replacement firing pins, revolvers, picking up their brass, reloading, collecting and then planting other peoples brass...if I've forgotten any, please let me know.

From the article:

"Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., arranged for Friday's demonstration in a basement firing range in the Rayburn House Office Building. He and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., are crafting a microstamping bill that aides said has law enforcement support.

"A month ago we saw the reason we need to take action," Becerra said, referring to the Virginia Tech massacre April 16."

"There are ways we can reduce gun violence in America in a smart way, in an effective way and a way that doesn't infringe on anyone's personal ownership rights," he said."

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So he's seriously stating that microstamping could have/would have somehow magically stopped Cho from killing 32 people? What kind of twisted logic is that?

What is this guy smoking, because I want some!

It doesn't help either that he has paired himself with "The Frogman Of The Chappaquiddick" in an attempt to get his failed technology/ignorant legislation rammed through congress. Why is it that most gun control legislation is written and/or cosponsored by people with a (D) after their names?

Let's hope this dies a quick and painful death.

Many thanks to Ride Fast and Shoot Straight

Convicted School (murderer) Shooter Loves Gun Control

(Yeah, I wonder why... -Yuri)

Fifteen years ago, Wayne Lo went on a killing spree at his Massachusetts campus. Here's his take on Virginia Tech.

By Samantha Henig
Newsweek
Updated: 2:00 p.m. PT May 2, 2007
May 2, 2007 - Before Virginia Tech, before Columbine, there was Simon’s Rock.

Late on the evening of Dec. 14, 1992, Wayne Lo, an 18-year-old student at Simon’s Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington, Mass., approached a security-guard shack on the campus and began shooting, as he says now, “at anything that moved.” Lo fired at least nine rounds during the following 20 minutes, killing another student and a Spanish professor and wounding four others.

A gifted violinist who had moved with his family from Taiwan to Billings, Mont., at age 12, Lo had bought his weapon, an SKS carbine rifle, that very afternoon at a sporting-goods store in nearby Pittsfield, Mass. His Montana driver’s license was the only documentation the purchase required. The cab driver who took him to the store would later describe Lo to the press as “a real gentleman.” That same morning he had received a package containing 200 rounds of ammunition, purchased the previous day from a mail-order company using his mother’s credit card.

Shortly after the shooting, Lo surrendered to police. When he appeared in court the next day, he was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words SICK OF IT ALL, the name of a rock band he liked. His lawyer would later use an insanity defense, but Lo never testified and has subsequently said he doesn’t believe he was insane. On Feb. 4, 1994, Lo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

This week, almost 15 years since that murderous night and two weeks after an even bloodier morning at Virginia Tech, Lo met with NEWSWEEK’s Samantha Henig in a conference room at MCI-Norfolk, the Massachusetts medium-security prison. Wearing a black T shirt tucked into the elastic waistband of his gray pants, Lo looked more like a young professional on casual Friday than a campus killer. He spoke candidly about his murderous tear at Simon’s Rock and shared his insights into the Virginia Tech shooting, which he said he had been following closely so that he could be ready with his opinion “if anybody wants to listen.” Yet his tone was oddly similar to that of most people when confronted by the tragedy—bewilderment at how such a thing could happen.

NEWSWEEK: What was your reaction when you heard about the Virginia Tech shooting?
Wayne Lo: When they said it was a perpetrator who was Asian, that really shocked me. The stereotype is that Asians don’t do these things. The Secret Service came and interviewed me for a report on school shooters that they put out in 2002, and even they said Asians don’t really do this.

Did you relate to Seung-Hui Cho because you’re both Asian?
At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but as more details came out, there were just too many eerie similarities to me. He was an immigrant, like myself. The events leading up to the shooting, the warning signs he gave out really reminded me of what happened at Simon’s Rock. They said he had mental-health issues. I don’t really think I had mental-health issues, but I did give out those warning signs. He harassed women, and I also had an incident where I was accused of stalking a female classmate. He went and purchased a gun at a store 40 minutes out of town; so did I. He wrote papers that got people’s attention; I did that, too.

What was the paper that you wrote?
It was for my sophomore English class. The assignment was to come up with a 10-step program for anything, so being the smart ass that I am, I wrote a paper on how to eliminate AIDS, and at the end it was calling for the extermination of all people with AIDS—you know, tongue-in-cheek satire. But that’s not how the class interpreted it.

Do you think that Cho’s writings should have been more of a red flag than they were?
It’s ludicrous that they didn’t stop this guy with all the warning signs. I mean, come on, I did this 15 years ago. I was one of the first school shooters. The question is, how don’t we learn from it? They’ve done studies; they know the typical warning signs now. How could they not see this coming?

What should be done when teachers or parents spot these warning signs?
Drastic measures should be taken. You should kick the kid out of school.

But did either of you really do anything that warranted kicking you out?
No. I certainly didn’t. But for him, in 2007, with all these precedents, there should be different standards.

Do you believe that stricter gun control would help prevent such tragedies?
The people who do these things are people who don’t want contact. They wouldn’t be capable of going out there and stabbing people to death. But there’s such a disconnect when you’re using a gun. You don’t even feel like you’re killing anybody. The fact that I was able to buy a rifle in 15 minutes, that’s absurd. I was 18. I couldn’t have rented a car to drive home from school, yet I could purchase a rifle.

You were from Montana, and a member of the NRA. Had guns and hunting been a part of your life?
That night was the first time I fired a gun. Why should a person who has never touched a gun be able to buy one and the first time he fires it, be able to kill people? You wouldn’t be able to drive a car without a license.

What sort of gun control do you propose, then?
Ideally, guns should be eliminated, but I know that won’t happen. There should be stricter checks. Obviously a waiting period would be great. Personally, I only had five days left of school before winter break: school got out on Friday, and I did that on a Monday. If I had a two-week waiting period for the gun, I wouldn’t have done it.

You’ve talked about "warning signs." One of the common ones is social isolation. Is that something you experienced?
Most people at Simon’s Rock choose to leave high school because they felt isolated there. [Simon’s Rock College is designed for gifted students who want to pursue a college degree without having completed high school.] So the outcasts basically become the majority. For me, it wasn’t that I felt isolated at high school—I just wanted to get away from my parents. I was basically your typical normal kid. I wasn’t an outcast in high school. I was the kind of kid who made them feel isolated.

So did that make you an outsider there?
They didn’t like me. I felt defensive toward them, like, "If you don’t like me then I don’t like you." But I did have a close group of friends at Simon’s Rock.

You also mentioned relating to Cho because you are both immigrants.
The issue of mental health and stuff like that is not talked about in the Asian community, even within families. It puts a lot of pressure on you as a young person. As it builds up and builds up and builds up, [Cho] acted out just like I did. Asians tend to be passive aggressive: we don’t get in fights, so it doesn’t come out in little bits; it all comes out in one big act.

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SAF SAYS D.C. CIRCUIT DENIAL ON RE-HEARING OF PARKER CASE WAS RIGHT

BELLEVUE, WA – This morning’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to deny a petition from the District of Columbia for a hearing of Parker v. District of Columbia before the full court was “right and proper,” said Alan M. Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation.


“This is a strong signal that the D.C. Court of Appeals, which is the second most powerful court in the country, feels the original ruling by Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman is solid,” Gottlieb stated. “It is now up to the district to accept the ruling and begin the process of licensing handguns to be kept legally in district residences, or to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.”


The Parker case has become the most significant Second Amendment case in the nation’s history, because for the first time, a gun control law was struck down on the grounds that it violated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Judge Silberman’s ruling found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms that goes beyond service in a militia.


“The time is long past due for the Supreme Court to hear a case that has such gravity in terms of the Second Amendment and its true meaning,” Gottlieb observed. “For almost 70 years, a state of confusion has existed over whether the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right, as we are certain it does, rather than affirming some convoluted ‘collective right’ of the states to form militias. That interpretation has been carefully fabricated over the years by anti-gun zealots whose ultimate goal is to strip American citizens of their firearms rights.


“We think this question must be answered,” he continued, “to forever silence those gun control extremists who have been misinterpreting – we believe deliberately – the 1939 U.S. v Miller case in an on-going effort to destroy the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights, and the foundation for liberty in this country. This appears to be the right case, and this is certainly the right time.”


The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

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What the Gun Banners REALLY want!

The disarming of America
-by Dan Simpson

LAST week's tragedy at Virginia Tech in which a mentally disturbed person gunned down 32 of America's finest - intelligent young people with futures ahead of them - once again puts the phenomenon of an armed society into focus for Americans.

The likely underestimate of how many guns are wandering around America runs at 240 million in a population of about 300 million. What was clear last week is that at least two of those guns were in the wrong hands.

When people talk about doing something about guns in America, it often comes down to this: "How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there."

Because I have little or no power to influence the "if" part of the issue, I will stick with the "how." And before anyone starts to hyperventilate and think I'm a crazed liberal zealot wanting to take his gun from his cold, dead hands, let me share my experience of guns.

As a child I played cowboys and Indians with cap guns. I had a Daisy Red Ryder B-B gun. My father had in his bedside table drawer an old pistol which I examined surreptitiously from time to time. When assigned to the American embassy in Beirut during the war in Lebanon, I sometimes carried a .357 Magnum, which I could fire accurately. I also learned to handle and fire a variety of weapons while I was there, including Uzis and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

I don't have any problem with hunting, although blowing away animals with high-powered weapons seems a pointless, no-contest affair to me. I suppose I would enjoy the fellowship of the experience with other friends who are hunters.

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submit a request for their weapons, federal, state, and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.

It would have to be the case that the term "hunting weapon" did not include anti-tank ordnance, assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, or other weapons of war.

All antique or interesting non-hunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.

Gun dealers could continue their work, selling hunting and antique firearms. They would be required to maintain very tight inventories. Any gun sold would be delivered immediately by the dealer to the nearest arsenal or the museum, not to the buyer.

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

The "gun lobby" would no doubt try to head off in the courts the new laws and the actions to implement them. They might succeed in doing so, although the new approach would undoubtedly prompt new, vigorous debate on the subject. In any case, some jurisdictions would undoubtedly take the opportunity of the chronic slowness of the courts to begin implementing the new approach.

America's long land and sea borders present another kind of problem. It is easy to imagine mega-gun dealerships installing themselves in Mexico, and perhaps in more remote parts of the Canadian border area, to funnel guns into the United States. That would constitute a problem for American immigration authorities and the U.S. Coast Guard, but not an insurmountable one over time.

There could conceivably also be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating various of their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.

That is my idea of how it could be done. The desire to do so on the part of the American people is another question altogether, but one clearly raised again by the Blacksburg tragedy.

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Click here to read David Codrea's (The War on Guns) take on this.

NEW JERSEY COURT RECOGNIZES SECOND AMENDMENT

NEW JERSEY COURT RECOGNIZES SECOND AMENDMENT AND HOLDS THAT IT TRUMPS GUN FORFEITURE LAW

Belvidere, N.J, March 19, 2007—In a landmark written opinion filed
February 27, a New Jersey Superior Court recognized the Second
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and held that a citizen's
Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms cannot be involuntarily
waived under a New Jersey firearms forfeiture law.

"The recognition of Second Amendment rights in New Jersey is long
overdue," said attorney Evan F. Nappen, whose law firm (including
Richard V. Gilbert, Esq. and Louis P. Nappen, Esq.) represented
appellant Dennis W. Peterson in the Warren County case. "In this
appeal, the Second Amendment was applied to New Jersey via the
Constitutional doctrine of fundamental fairness, overcoming a
significant legal hurdle needed for the Federal Bill of Rights to
apply to the State."

This decision coincides with the recent Parker v. District of
Columbia case, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia struck down a decades-old handgun ban in Washington,
D.C. on the ground that it violates the Second Amendment.

"The legal significance of the Second Amendment is finally being
recognized by American courts," Nappen continued, "and this New
Jersey case is part of a growing trend in American jurisprudence."

In the New Jersey case, the appellant was denied re-issuance of his
Firearms Purchaser ID card based on his consent to relinquish
firearms seized in a domestic dispute in 2000. In 2004, New Jersey
enacted a law barring Firearms Purchaser ID cards to any person
whose firearms have been seized and not returned.

The Honorable John H. Pursel, J.S.C. held that the statute did not
apply and the Firearms Purchaser ID card should be issued because
the appellant did not know that his prior consent to relinquish his
firearms would subject him to permanent loss of his Second Amendment
rights under the 2004 law.

The ruling states in key part:

"Fundamental fairness is a doctrine to be sparingly applied. It is
appropriately applied in those rare cases where not to do so will
subject the defendant to oppression, harassment, or egregious
deprivation." Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1 (1995), citing State v.
Yoskowitz, 116 N.J. 679, 712, 563 A.2d 1 (1989) (Garibaldi, J.,
concurring and dissenting). Egregious deprivation would surely be
the result if this applicant were precluded from obtaining a
firearms purchaser identification card by virtue of the fact that he
consensually surrendered his weapons at a time when it was
impossible for him to have known that such action would later
subject him to lifelong deprivation of his second amendment right.

Additionally, it is clear that in consenting to the disposition of
the weapons seized as a result of the temporary restraining order,
the applicant did not intend to waive his right to bear arms as
provided by the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He
therefore could not have knowingly, intelligently, or voluntarily
waived that right." (Emphasis added.) Click here for full text.

The Warren County Prosecutor has filed a notice of appeal in the
case.

For more information, contact Evan F. Nappen at 732-389-8888.