Given El Dorado County’s Old West name, maybe it isn’t surprising that the big issue in its biggest election this year is about carrying guns.
Everywhere the six non-incumbent candidates for sheriff go – even Monday’s forum in an upscale retirement community – Topic A has been who gets a license to carry a concealed weapon.
“That’s El Dorado County for you,” said Paula Lee, League of Women Voters moderator for that forum. “They ask it over and over just because they want to hear these candidates’ commitment to what they want.”
Those candidates in the June election – John D’Agostini, Larry Hennick, Ernest Hillman, Robert Luca, George Nielsen and Craig Therkildsen – don’t argue whether the licenses, known as CCWs (carry concealed weapon) should be easier to get.
They differ only on just how much easier it should be, and sometimes that difference is hard to discern.
“I don’t think there’s more than 5 percent difference in all of us,” said Therkildsen, currently a captain with the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.
Yet the question persists.
“The NRA is very strong in El Dorado County,” Lee said.
Gun control is not.-[source]
Ariz. House approves concealed weapons bill
The Arizona House voted Thursday to make the state the third in the nation to allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit, sending the governor a bill that would allow Arizonans to forego background checks and classes that are now required.
The legislation, approved by the House 36-19 without discussion, would make it legal for most U.S. citizens 21 or older to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona without the permit now required. Currently, carrying a hidden firearm without a permit is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.
Sen. Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican who sponsored the measure, said last week that he added changes requested by Gov. Jan Brewer’s office, an indication that she is likely to sign it. The governor can sign or veto the measure, or allow it to become law without action. Continue Reading ‘AZ The Second Amendment Is Your Permit’
The House Finance Committee advanced two bills Thursday to expand gun rights, despite concerns from Alaska state prosecutors.
One bill expands the lawful use of deadly force in self-defense. The other restores gun rights for some nonviolent felons. Both now go the House floor.
Current law authorizes deadly force in self-defense to stop a few specific crimes, including robbery, sexual assault, kidnapping or murder. But if people know they can safely withdraw, they’re obligated to do so. That duty to retreat doesn’t apply at home or the workplace.
The bill by Rep. Mark Neuman, R-Big Lake, would essentially eliminate the obligation to retreat by saying that “any place where the person has a right to be” is also an authorized location – just as the home and the workplace are.-[source]
George Bush’s decision merely to eavesdrop on American citizens without oversight, or to detain without due process Americans such as Jose Padilla and Yaser Hamdi, provoked years of vehement, vocal and intense complaints from Democrats and progressives. All of that was disparaged as Bush claiming the powers of a King, a vicious attack on the Constitution, a violation of Our Values, the trampling on the Rule of Law.
Yet here you have Barack Obama not merely eavesdropping on or detaining Americans without oversight, but ordering them killed with no oversight and no due process of any kind. And the reaction among leading Democrats and progressives is largely non-existent, which is why Olbermann’s extensive coverage of it is important. Just imagine what the reaction would have been among progressive editorial pages, liberal opinion-makers and Democratic politicians if this story had been about George Bush and Dick Cheney targeting American citizens for due-process-free and oversight-less CIA assassinations.
The American Prospect‘s Adam Serwer has an interesting post reporting that civil rights groups have issued a joint letter opposing the closing of Guantanamo if it means — as the Obama administration has suggested — that Guantanamo and its defining injustices will simply be re-located to U.S. soil. As part of his reporting, Serwer writes this:
[B]road assertions of executive power haven’t even been limited to the last administration. Instead, we’ve seen the powers of the president expand, with the Obama administration asserting the right to assassinate American citizens without any due process or finding of guilt whatsoever.
From a civil libertarian point of view, we’re in a much worse place than we were during the Bush administration, when Democrats were willing to oppose Bush’s expansive claims of executive authority. Now we have only muted criticism from Democratic legislators and hysterical cries from Republicans that Obama isn’t going far enough.
A proposed constitutional amendment asserting state sovereignty received first-round approval today from the Missouri House.
The resolution would bar the state from enforcing or recognizing certain federal policies, most notably requirements mandated by the health care law signed recently by President Obama. It would also cover issues such as cap and trade, abortion laws, gun control and same-sex marriage.
State Representative Brian Nieves (R, Washington, Mo.) sponsors the resolution.
“The U.S. Constitution is not a living, breathing document…we as a sovereign state, and as a nation of independent sovereign states, need to interpret the constitution by its original intent,” Nieves said.
State Representative Jeanette Mott Oxford (D, St. Louis) calls the resolution “ridiculous.”
“It seems to be in a similar vein with a number of other resolutions that we’ve heard this year that are really about positioning for the November elections, running against President Obama and the federal government, and trying to whoop up lots of anger at supposedly the overstepping of the federal government into our lives,” Oxford said.
The resolution needs one more vote before moving to the Missouri Senate. If it passes both chambers, the resolution would go before voters in November. And if it succeeds, Oxford says she expects it to be challenged in court.-[source]
The government would not be allowed to seize legal firearms in emergencies under a measure that has passed both chambers of the Hawaii Legislature.
The House approved the measure Tuesday, sending it to a conference committee for final negotiations.
The proposal gained momentum after February’s tsunami warning, when lawmakers said their constituents asked if their weapons could be taken in an emergency situation.
Gun-rights activists have pursued this kind of law since Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans police confiscated guns in an attempt to restore order.
The bill prohibits the seizure of firearms or ammunition when the government invokes emergency powers during a disaster. -[source]
State officials in Wyoming and Utah plan to enter a lawsuit pending in Montana to argue the federal government lacks authority to regulate firearms that are made and sold in the same state.
The attorneys general of Wyoming and Utah say they plan to file a brief in the Montana case this week. It’s possible other states may sign on as well.
The states involved have adopted “firearms freedom” laws that seek to exempt guns manufactured and sold in the same state from federal regulations.
In Montana, pro-gun groups sued the federal government last year over its contention that federal guns laws still apply despite the state law.
The U.S. Department of Justice argues Montana lacked authority to exempt guns from national gun control laws.-[source]
After nearly 20 years, there Canada appears poised to end one of its boldest experiments in gun control – the required registration of long guns, approved or shotguns and hunting rifles.
Last November, pharmacy a bill to abolish the Long-Gun Registry, enacted in 1995 and gradually phased in through 2003, passed a second reading in the Canadian House of Commons by a tally of 164 to 137. It faces a third and final reading in that chamber later this year; prospects are good for passage in the Canadian Senate.
The bill would delete from federal law the obligation to register so-called nonrestricted firearms, though licensing requirements for long-gun owners to buy or possess firearms and to buy ammunition would remain in place.
The legislation would also require all registration information collected to date to be destroyed.
About 7 million long guns have been registered, but as many as 8 million guns, according to various estimates, have not been in what many say is outright defiance. The Conservative government has also extended to May 16, 2011, an existing amnesty for rifle and shotgun owners facing charges for failing to register their firearms.
Opponents cite runaway costs, gun rights, and lack of effectiveness in pushing the repeal measure. The author of the legislation, MP Candice Hoeppner, says the registration requirement pays lip service to reducing crime without actually doing so.
“Canadian taxpayers have shelled out $2 billion and counting to hassle hunters, farmers and sport shooters with registration requirements, while receiving nothing in return in crime reduction or prevention,” Hoeppner told a recent gathering of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH).-[source]
Just about everybody on the Metro Police force has heard of Tim Farrell, patient and he sometimes gets mistaken for a law enforcement officer.
Farrell is simply a 29-year-old wireless Internet engineer — and a gun rights crusader. He is one of what appears to be a growing number of people taking up the “open-carry” cause, more about advocating a constitutional right to openly carry firearms.
“The open-carry movement has gained momentum over the last four or five years because people are waking up to their rights,” Farrell says. “I don’t need a permit to exercise free speech. I don’t need a permit to be tried by a jury if I’m accused of a crime, so why do I need a permit to carry a gun if I have a constitutional right to carry a gun?”
Nevada is a better place than most for Farrell because it is “an open–carry state.” Nevada reiterates the right to bear arms in its constitution and does not have blanket restrictions on law-abiding citizens’ open carrying of firearms.-[source]
Loading ...
Given El Dorado County’s Old West name, maybe it isn’t surprising that the big issue in its biggest election this year is about carrying guns.
.Com Chatter