The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Task Force Seeks Ban on Assault Weapons

November 13, 2009

Washington Post - A binational task force on U.S.-Mexico border issues will call Friday on the Obama administration and Congress to reinstate an expired ban on assault weapons and for Mexico to overhaul its frontier police and customs agencies to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The recommendations are among a broad set of security, trade, development and environmental proposals that come as President Obama and his Mexicans counterpart, Felipe Calderón, move to deepen engagement on issues including economic recovery, climate change, illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking.

Robert C. Bonner, the U.S. co-chairman of the private task force, which included several former senior government officials from both countries, said the changes could be included in a follow-up to the Merida initiative, a $1.4 billion three-year commitment of U.S. aid to support Mexico's crackdown on drug cartels that ends next year.

The proposals "will transform management of the border from a source of contention and frustration into a model of cooperation," states a report by the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations titled, "Rethinking the U.S.-Mexico Border." The 30-member task force blamed lack of collaboration for violence, billions of dollars in lost economic opportunities and a public perception of a "broken" system.

The study comes as Mexico's struggle to combat narco-traffickers and public corruption from the multibillion-dollar North American drug trade has forged a tighter relationship between the neighbors. In reaction, policy analysts and think tanks, most recently the School of the Northern Border in Mexico and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, have developed border development proposals.

Skeptics say U.S. attention to its troubled partner is outpaced by what it spends to combat drugs in places such as Colombia or Afghanistan, while the southbound flow of weapons into Mexico -- where private gun ownership is illegal -- has been a flashpoint as Mexico's death toll from drug-related violence has topped 15,000.

In Mexico City in April, Obama pledged to push the Senate to ratify an inter-American arms-trafficking treaty but backed away from a campaign promise to reinstate a ban on assault weapons that Congress let expire in 2004. Obama said that it would be too difficult politically to enact new gun legislation soon and that enforcing existing measures would have a more immediate effect.

Mexican officials want a ban, saying that 90 percent of guns seized in drug crimes in Mexico and submitted for tracing to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives originate in the United States, including most assault rifles.

Bonner, who led U.S. drug enforcement and customs agencies under Republican administrations from 1990 to 1993 and from 2002 to 2005, said the task force sought to identify bold steps for each side. Bonner took over the panel from Alan D. Bersin, whom Obama has nominated to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Task force co-chairman Andres Rozental, former deputy foreign minister of Mexico, said Mexico should realign and strengthen 16 agencies that share border responsibilities to combat corruption and improve coordination with the DHS, as Canada did after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mexico has taken some steps, including hiring 1,400 new customs agents.

Mexico is the third-largest U.S. trading partner and the No. 2 destination for U.S. exports, he noted. The panel recommended adding private border crossings that collect tolls and prioritizing jointly planned improvements based on economic benefit.

If the United States legalizes most of its illegal immigrants and allows for a flexible flow of legal workers, Mexico should stop illegal immigration from its side of the border, the panel said.

New York Congress Critters, Attorney General Holder Move Against Second Amendment

November 24, 2009

Infowars - Senator Gillibrand and Representative McCarthy have introduced the Gun Trafficking Prevention Act of 2009. Ostensibly designed to prosecute gun traffickers, the bill would also deny the Second Amendment to anybody on the so-called terror watch list. The legislation is supported by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, and the Brady Campaign.

The number of unique names on the U.S. terror watch list totals 400,000, newly released FBI data reveals. The Washington Post reported that during a 12-month period ending in March of this year, 1,600 people were nominated daily by the U.S. intelligence community to be put on the list due to ‘reasonable suspicion.’

In July, 2008, the terror watch list contained well over a million names, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ’suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office in July, 2008. “Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon.”

Obama did not fix it. Instead, as noted below, his attorney general and two Congress critters from New York are well on their way to making sure over a million Americans are stripped of their constitutional right to own firearms.

...Attorney General Holder revealed his support for a national gun owner registration scheme and authorizing the government to ban firearm possession for any person by merely adding that person’s name to the terror watch list.

Drawing reasonable conclusions from what Holder publicly said, we now know:

• Holder wants a national, permanent gun registration system administered by law enforcement. A registration of honest citizens that have cleared the federal background check for gun purchases with those records permanently retained by and shared among law enforcement.

• Holder wants new federal authority to prohibit any person on the federal watch list (reported to be 400,000 names) from buying guns and supports confiscating guns from those on the list who possess them.

Transcribing General Holder:

“The position of the Administration is that there should be a basis for law enforcement to share information about gun purchases.” “… [It's not] inconsistent to allow law enforcement agencies to share that kind of information, for that information to be retained and then to be shared by law enforcement.” “It seems incongruous to me that we would bar certain people from flying on airplanes because they are on the terrorist watch list and yet we would still allow them to posses weapons.”

LEAA’s Executive Director Jim Fotis said:

“Those behind the badge don’t believe more restrictions on honest gun owners is a reasonable, practical or constitutional response to acts of terrorism. As a retired officer, I know that America’s men and women in blue want to fight terrorism, to stop terrorists; not waste time keeping records on innocent gun owners!”

Go to the Hospital in Illinois and Lose Your Gun Rights

November 19, 2009

Illinois Gun - The Illinois State Rifle Association has issued a warning to its members of a disturbing trend that is a direct threat to gun ownership.

A new law (PA 95-0564) that requires health care providers to report patients to the state police is playing havoc with Illinois gun owners. The Law was passed by the Illinois General Assembly in a knee jerk response to the Virginia Tech shooting.

The law requires mental health care providers to report patients that are deemed a threat to themselves or society to the Illinois State Police (ISP) but the new law has taken an unexpected twist.

The ISRA has learned that during certain hospital admission procedures a short interview with a Psychologist maybe part of the admissions process. The admittance process that triggers an interview with a psychologist may include stress, alcohol treatment or other scenarios.

These seemingly innocent hospital knock and talk interviews are being used by the ISP as a disqualifier for gun ownership.

The ISRA has learned of gun owners being sent notices from the ISP that their FOID card has been revoked after a visit to the hospital.

Apparently Hospitals strapped for cash have included Psychologist interviews as part of their admittents process.

The ISRA is encouraging its members to respectfully decline these interviews if possible.

They are also suggesting that if a member is caught in one of these interviews that they remove their guns from their homes as quickly as possible to a friend or family member with a valid FOID card for safe keeping.

Until the passage of the new law, Illinois and federal gun laws disqualified people from owning a firearm if they had been adjudicated for mental health reasons.

Prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act and the Illinois FOID card law, non-violent felons and people with mental illness were allowed to own guns, yet crime was low.

The health care community understood that the vast majority of people suffering from mental health problems were withdrawn and not a threat to themselves or society. Plus there was the notion that people could be treated with mental health problems and expect a full recovery.

Will the new law force Illinoisans to put mental health back into the closet or seek alternative means of treatment?

The media loves to associate gun violence with mental illness but ignores the side effects of psychotropic drugs like Prozac and their possible link to violence.

The United States has a long history of guns being given to family members as heirlooms; will that tradition come to an end in Illinois?

If the State of Illinois wants to put Mental Health back into the closet their doing an excellent job.

Ammo Sales, Prices Skyrocket

November 2, 2009

UPI - U.S. firearms owners have bought an estimated 12 billion rounds of ammunition during the past year, gun industry analysts said.

The figure far outstrips the 7 billion to 10 billion rounds sold in a typical year, The Washington Post reported Monday. The spike in sales began when people started to take seriously warnings from the gun lobby that with Democrats controlling the White House and Congress there would be new restrictions on gun ownership, the newspaper said.

As consumers stepped up purchases, supplies tightened, prices went up and a shortage developed. The shortage has begun to ebb and gun-control advocates are expressing concern about the record amount of stockpiled ammunition, the Post said.

"We've had people buy ammunition for calibers they don't even have the gun for: 'Oh, I want to get this gun eventually. And when I get it, ammunition may be hard to get,'" Michael Tenny, who runs an Internet sporting goods store based in Fort Worth, Texas.

U.S. taxes on guns and ammunition -- which are used to fund wildlife conservation -- increased after Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 and after Democrats took control of Congress in 2006. At the current rate those tax receipts will set a record in 2009.

Obama Takes First Step in Banning All Firearms

October 14, 2009

Reuters - The United States reversed policy on Wednesday and said it would back launching talks on a treaty to regulate arms sales as long as the talks operated by consensus, a stance critics said gave every nation a veto.

The decision, announced in a statement released by the U.S. State Department, overturns the position of former President George W. Bush's administration, which had opposed such a treaty on the grounds that national controls were better.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would support the talks as long as the negotiating forum, the so-called Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, "operates under the rules of consensus decision-making."

"Consensus is needed to ensure the widest possible support for the Treaty and to avoid loopholes in the Treaty that can be exploited by those wishing to export arms irresponsibly," Clinton said in a written statement.

While praising the Obama administration's decision to overturn the Bush-era policy and to proceed with negotiations to regulate conventional arms sales, some groups criticized the U.S. insistence that decisions on the treaty be unanimous.

"The shift in position by the world's biggest arms exporter is a major breakthrough in launching formal negotiations at the United Nations in order to prevent irresponsible arms transfers," Amnesty International and Oxfam International said in a joint statement.

However, they said insisting that decisions on the treaty be made by consensus "could fatally weaken a final deal."

"Governments must resist US demands to give any single state the power to veto the treaty as this could hold the process hostage during the course of negotiations. We call on all governments to reject such a veto clause," said Oxfam International's policy adviser Debbie Hillier.

The proposed legally binding treaty would tighten regulation of, and set international standards for, the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons.

Supporters say it would give worldwide coverage to close gaps in existing regional and national arms export control systems that allow weapons to pass onto the illicit market.

Nations would remain in charge of their arms export control arrangements but would be legally obliged to assess each export against criteria agreed under the treaty. Governments would have to authorize transfers in writing and in advance.

The main opponent of the treaty in the past was the U.S. Bush administration, which said national controls were better. Last year, the United States accounted for more than two-thirds of some $55.2 billion in global arms transfer deals.

Arms exporters China, Russia and Israel abstained last year in a U.N. vote on the issue.

The proposed treaty is opposed by conservative U.S. think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, which said last month that it would not restrict the access of "dictators and terrorists" to arms but would be used to reduce the ability of democracies such as Israel to defend their people.

The U.S. lobbying group the National Rifle Association has also opposed the treaty.

A resolution before the U.N. General Assembly is sponsored by seven nations including major arms exporter Britain. It calls for preparatory meetings in 2010 and 2011 for a conference to negotiate a treaty in 2012.