CONCEALED CARRY VICTORIES
CONCEALED
CARRY VICTORIES
Gun Rights activists fired the first shot in Florida
15 years ago. They never let up. Now the movement, to overturn laws against carrying concealed firearms, has spread and taken hold.
Where at
least 40 states in the 1980s prohibited
concealed weapons, today only 6 states, Kansas,
Illinois, Missouri,
Nebraska, Ohio
and Wisconsin, have
outright bans on concealed weapons and
12 others have harsh restrictions on concealed carry permits.
On the plus side, 28 states this year
are considering concealed carry laws. We can see possible victories in Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio
and perhaps Wisconsin.
On the minus side, anti-gun groups such as the Brady Campaign
to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.) are chipping away at bills before legislatures. So far
they’ve helped defeat a concealed carry bill in the Colorado Senate and turned back a Utah bill to ease training requirements.
The Colorado
situation hinges on politics. Senate President STAN MATSUNAKA (D-Loveland) is running for Congress in Colorado’s
pro-gun 4th District, and is trying to push a “compromise” concealed carry bill through the Senate to gain votes
in November, angering anti-gun Democrats.
Colorado Senate Majority Leader BILL THIEBAUT said he didn’t
think MATSUNAKA would get enough support from either side. “Philosophically, it’s too restrictive for the Republicans
and too liberal for some Democrats,” THIEBAUT said.
The bill began as a plain “shall-issue” measure introduced by Republican Sen. KEN CHLOUBER that would require
concealed-carry permits to be issued to anyone over 21 who passed a background check, completed a gun safety course,
and paid a fee of about $100.
CHLOUBER has long championed such a bill to end the crazy-quilt of local ordinances that now passes for
policy. It passed in April 1999 only to be withdrawn because of the Columbine tragedy. The Senate Judiciary Committee killed CHLOUBER’s new bill this February, voting along party lines with Democrats in control of the Senate. A similar
bill is still alive in the House.
Then came MATSUNAKA with a compromise bill. He and House Speaker
DOUG DEAN seem close to agreement that law enforcement will be able to deny permits if there’s documentable proof of an applicant’s instability under
a so-called “naked-man” provision. That would apply to people who have done weird things but avoided being charged
with crimes. DEAN says he’ll support that if denials can be appealed.
A newspaper poll in Denver found that 63% say
they back the plain statewide permit plan.
MATSUNAKA knows that, and he wants to be Congressman MATSUNAKA after the next election. We’ll see if he can get
something useful on the Governor’s desk before then.
Michigan’s
new concealed carry law is generating applicants (40,000 since the law changed in July, 2001), money ($1.5 million
for state and county governments), and headlines (“Gun permits surge, but not violence”).
The biggest problem Michigan is having with the new law is backlog. In Wayne
County, with the biggest backlog in the state, has 3,000 waiting for
permits.
Wayne County Sheriff ROBERT FIANCO blames the problem on staffing
in his department. Michigan requires county sheriff’s departments to process the applications
by taking fingerprints and conducting criminal background checks.
In Missouri, the House Committee on Sportsmanship, Safety and Firearms has
voted 9-1 in favor of a bill that would allow permit-holders to carry concealed weapons with four hours of training.
A second bill that would allow concealed carry in a vehicle’s passenger compartment passed 10-0.
The proposals now move to the House floor, where they are expected to face stiff opposition.
Wisconsin
got a lesson in political chicanery when the two Democrats who control the State Senate broke their
own rules to block a Right to Carry bill.
Wisconsin Senate President FRED RISSER (D-26) and Senate Majority
Leader CHUCK CHVALA (D-16) declared motions by pro-gun senators for a full and fair vote to be out of order because they violated
“rule of Senate decorum.”
Parliamentarians noted that those rules only apply to wearing proper attire, not smoking or reading newspapers while in
the Senate chamber. None of those rules
were violated.
Senate President RISSER claimed that he “did not hear the objections” that were literally
shouted at him throughout the proceedings.
Majority Leader Chvala refused to answer
questions asked by other Senators.
The two Senate leaders stopped the vote. Wisconsin has no concealed carry law this year, but the session isn’t over yet.
The Ohio House passed a concealed carry bill that Gov. BOB TAFT has pledged to veto. The vote was 66-27
across party lines to allow qualified citizens to carry handguns.
”We are protecting the people of Ohio because each one of us is going to be more fully able to protect ourselves,” said state Rep. ANN WOMER BENJAMIN (R., Aurora).
The measure now goes to the Senate, which voted in favor of such
a bill seven years ago only to see it die in the House.
Republicans will have to decide whether they want to confront
Gov. TAFT on the issue during an election year. He has vowed to veto such a bill without the official support of
law-enforcement groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police and Ohio Highway Patrol. If the vote holds firm, though,
it would be enough to override a Taft veto.
Under the bill, Ohioans who are at least 21 and have lived in the state at least 45 days may apply for permits
to carry concealed handguns. They would
undergo criminal, mental health, and domestic violence background checks and must complete four hours of sidearms
training.
State Rep. JOYCE BEATTY (D., Columbus) suggested many of those
supporting the bill are too isolated from the gun violence of urban areas. Most of the no votes were from urban
Democrats. It could also be that urban Democrats oppose gun rights in general.
California
police officers could carry their guns into “the happiest place on Earth” or anywhere else, whether on duty or
not, if Assembly Bill 1917 by Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews becomes law. It has passed out of the Assembly Public
Safety Committee for a vote by the full Assembly, then goes to the Senate.
Under the new law, Disneyland
and any other privately owned public place could
not forbid off-duty or retired peace officers from bringing firearms onto their properties. Good idea, but why just cops? Why not every qualified person?
Matthews, D-Tracy, citing terrorist threats in the aftermath
of Sept. 11, said it’s time to change that.
“Peace officers are never really off-duty,” Matthews said. “There
are numerous times when you hear about off-duty officers who intervene in really heroic ways.”
She said having a few thousand trained people in public places
“would help us be prepared for any kind of terrorist or criminal activity. These are trained personnel.”
The measure, Assembly Bill 1917, has been approved by the Assembly
Public Safety Committee and is awaiting a vote of the entire lower house. It would then go to the Senate.
Gun Rights activists fired the first shot in Florida 15 years ago. They never let up. Now the movement,
to overturn laws against carrying concealed firearms, has
spread and taken hold.
Where at
least 40 states in the 1980s prohibited
concealed weapons, today only 6 states, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin, have outright bans on concealed weapons and 12 others have harsh restrictions on concealed carry permits.
On the plus side, 28 states this year
are considering concealed carry laws. We can see possible victories in Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio and perhaps Wisconsin.
On the minus side, anti-gun groups such as the Brady Campaign
to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.) are chipping away at bills before legislatures. So far
they’ve helped defeat a concealed carry bill in the Colorado Senate and turned back a Utah bill to ease training
requirements.
The Colorado situation hinges on politics. Senate
President STAN MATSUNAKA (D-Loveland) is running for Congress in Colorado’s pro-gun 4th District, and is trying to push a “compromise” concealed carry bill
through the Senate to gain votes in November, angering anti-gun Democrats.
Colorado Senate Majority Leader BILL THIEBAUT said he didn’t
think MATSUNAKA would get enough support from either side. “Philosophically, it’s too restrictive for the Republicans
and too liberal for some Democrats,” THIEBAUT said.
The bill began as a plain “shall-issue” measure introduced by Republican Sen. KEN CHLOUBER that would require
concealed-carry permits to be issued to anyone over 21 who passed a background check, completed a gun safety course,
and paid a fee of about $100.
CHLOUBER has long championed such a bill to end the crazy-quilt of local ordinances that now passes for
policy. It passed in April 1999 only to be withdrawn because of the Columbine tragedy. The Senate Judiciary Committee killed CHLOUBER’s new bill this February, voting along party lines with Democrats in control of the Senate. A similar
bill is still alive in the House.
Then came MATSUNAKA with a compromise bill. He and House Speaker
DOUG DEAN seem close to agreement that law enforcement will be able to deny permits if there’s documentable proof of an applicant’s instability under
a so-called “naked-man” provision. That would apply to people who have done weird things but avoided being charged
with crimes. DEAN says he’ll support that if denials can be appealed.
A newspaper poll in Denver found that 63% say they back the plain statewide permit plan. MATSUNAKA knows that, and he wants to be Congressman MATSUNAKA
after the next election. We’ll see if he can get something useful on the Governor’s desk before then.
Michigan’s new concealed carry law is generating applicants (40,000 since the law changed in July, 2001),
money ($1.5 million for state and county governments), and headlines (“Gun permits surge, but not violence”).
The biggest problem Michigan is having with the new law is backlog.
In Wayne County, with the biggest backlog in the state, has 3,000 waiting for permits.
Wayne County Sheriff ROBERT FIANCO blames the problem on staffing
in his department. Michigan requires county sheriff’s departments to process the applications by taking fingerprints
and conducting criminal background checks.
In Missouri, the House Committee on Sportsmanship, Safety and Firearms has
voted 9-1 in favor of a bill that would allow permit-holders to carry concealed weapons with four hours of training.
A second bill that would allow concealed carry in a vehicle’s passenger compartment passed 10-0.
The proposals now move to the House floor, where they are expected to face stiff opposition.
Wisconsin got a lesson in political
chicanery when the two Democrats who
control the State Senate broke their own rules to block a Right to Carry bill.
Wisconsin Senate President FRED RISSER (D-26) and Senate Majority
Leader CHUCK CHVALA (D-16) declared motions by pro-gun senators for a full and fair vote to be out of order because they violated
“rule of Senate decorum.”
Parliamentarians noted that those rules only apply to wearing proper attire, not smoking or reading newspapers while in
the Senate chamber. None of those rules
were violated.
Senate President RISSER claimed that he “did not hear the objections” that were literally
shouted at him throughout the proceedings.
Majority Leader Chvala refused to answer
questions asked by other Senators.
The two Senate leaders stopped the vote. Wisconsin has no concealed
carry law this year, but the session isn’t over yet.
The Ohio House passed a concealed carry bill that Gov. BOB TAFT has pledged to veto. The vote was 66-27
across party lines to allow qualified citizens to carry handguns.
”We are protecting the people of Ohio because each one of us
is going to be more fully able to protect ourselves,” said
state Rep. ANN WOMER BENJAMIN (R., Aurora).
The measure now goes to the Senate, which voted in favor of such
a bill seven years ago only to see it die in the House.
Republicans will have to decide whether they want to confront
Gov. TAFT on the issue during an election year. He has vowed to veto such a bill without the official support of
law-enforcement groups such as the Fraternal Order of Police and Ohio Highway Patrol. If the vote holds firm, though,
it would be enough to override a Taft veto.
Under the bill, Ohioans who are at least 21 and have lived in the state at least 45 days may apply for permits
to carry concealed handguns. They would
undergo criminal, mental health, and domestic violence background checks and must complete four hours of sidearms
training.
State Rep. JOYCE BEATTY (D., Columbus) suggested many of those
supporting the bill are too isolated from the gun violence of urban areas. Most of the no votes were from urban
Democrats. It could also be that urban Democrats oppose gun rights in general.
California police officers could carry their guns into “the happiest place on Earth” or anywhere else,
whether on duty or not, if Assembly Bill 1917 by Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews becomes law. It has passed out
of the Assembly Public Safety Committee for a vote by the full Assembly, then goes to the Senate.
Under the new law, Disneyland and any other privately owned public
place could not forbid off-duty or retired
peace officers from bringing firearms onto their properties. Good idea, but why just cops? Why not every qualified person?
Matthews, D-Tracy, citing terrorist threats in the aftermath
of Sept. 11, said it’s time to change that.
“Peace officers are never really off-duty,” Matthews said. “There
are numerous times when you hear about off-duty officers who intervene in really heroic ways.”
She said having a few thousand trained people in public places
“would help us be prepared for any kind of terrorist or criminal activity. These are trained personnel.”
The measure, Assembly Bill 1917, has been approved by the Assembly
Public Safety Committee and is awaiting a vote of the entire lower house. It would then go to the Senate.
ISRAEL ARMS CITIZENS
In a move to fight the growing wave of terrorism, Israel’s Interior
Ministry has decided that 60,000 additional
gun permits will be distributed to Israeli civilians.
Police Inspector-General SHLOMO AHARONISHKY recommended to the
Interior Ministry committee responsible for firearms registration that the criterion for people allowed to carry weapons be widened due to the security situation.
While acknowledging there is a risk that extra guns on the street
could result in Israelis becoming light on the trigger, AHARONISHKY said it has been proven civilians carrying
guns saved lives during terror attacks.
Indeed, armed civilians have played a very significant role in bringing down terrorists during the Palestinian uprising. In a recent action, a 46-year-old
civilian packing a pistol fatally shot a Palestinian gunman at a Tel Aviv restaurant where a wedding party was
under way.
The handgun permits will be issued by the army to
40,000 reserve officers of the rank of captain and above. Permits will also go to former combatants from commando
units, and retired police and Prison Authority officers.
Police are conditioning the granting of permits to businesses
on their stationing armed guards at their
entrances.
New regulations will make it mandatory for any store larger than 500 square meters -- including hotels, swimming pools, amusement parks, movie
houses, gas stations, and outdoor fairs -- to
employ an armed guard.
All this has led to heavy demand for handguns and weapons shortages.
An arms embargo by most European countries has worsened the shortages. Bureaucratic foot-dragging in granting permits
has only compounded the problem.
It took hours of pressure and scuffling between gun traders for
ELI RAVIV, who is responsible for arms at the S. Nir security guard company, to purchase only 16 of the 40 guns
he had originally requested.
RONI COHEN, manager of the Neshek Ha’tsafon arms store in Upper
Nazareth, said that many companies want to purchase weapons but the stores cannot supply them. “There are companies
that are asking to 30 or 40 guns. I am having a hard time meeting the demand.”
BRITS BUY GUNS DESPITE U.K. GUN BANS
Thousands of normally anti-gun Britons are worried and sharing their beds with a gun. Nearly half of them are prepared to kill with it, said a recent survey.
A huge crime wave in the United Kingdom is behind the change. Street crime was up 40 percent in January alone.
The Home Office said there were only 125,000 licensed firearms altogether in England and Wales.
The telephone survey of 1,000 respondents, taken by security
firm Micromark, indicates the government
doesn’t know where all the guns really are.
CHINA DOESN’T LIKE OUR RIGHTS RECORD
Communist China’s government report, “Human Rights Record of
the United States,” has just come out. “The
United States is the country with the biggest number of private guns,” moans China.
The U.S., columnist DAVE KOPEL retorted, is also “the country
with the biggest number of private books, private churches, private newspapers, private computers, private single-family
homes, and other tools and incidents of freedom.”
PAKISTANI TRIBES AND THE GUN TRADE ARE INSEPARABLE
Some 10,000 residents of Pakistan’s northwestern tribal area
out of a population of 80,000 earn their livelihood from the weapons trade, which provides a salary three to four
times the national average of $140 a month.
The main street of tribal town Darra Adam Khel is lined with
dozens of weapons stores stacked floor to ceiling with replicas of Russian, Chinese and American arms. Many of
these guns go to Afghanistan and terrorist networks. Short of breaking down the entire tribal system, this traffic is not likely to stop.
BOSTON DROPS LAWSUIT AGAINST GUN
INDUSTRY, MAKES LAME EXCUSE
The city of Boston cited financial concerns in dropping its lawsuit against the gun industry. The case was set to go to trial in September.
Do we believe the reason they gave? Not a bit.
Boston sued gun manufacturers, distributors and trade groups
in June 1999, alleging they were responsible
for criminal use of guns. The suit sought
to recover the costs of gun-related crimes. It was expected to be the first of 16 similar suits involving 25 other cities to go to trial.
Boston’s top health official, JOHN AUERBACH, said the city was
spending $30,000 a month on the first phase of the lawsuit. He couldn’t cite a total amount spent.
Mayor THOMAS M. MENINO said that going to trial was too expensive.
He added something about the gun industry improving its attention to safety.
The truth is more likely that Boston could not prove its case and was about to have it thrown out of court by the judge. Courts have dismissed similar suits brought by New Orleans, Miami, Bridgeport, Connecticut,
and Camden, New Jersey.
Five other suits have been dismissed but are being appealed.
Gun rights defenders applauded Boston’s decision to drop the
case.
JERSEY CITY SUES GUN COMPANIES
Smith & Wesson Corp., Beretta USA Corp., Glock Corp. and
Colt Manufacturing were named along with other gun makers in a lawsuit filed by Jersey City in Hudson County Superior
Court.
The suit seeks money damages for costs associated with police
and emergency services, as well as health-care for shooting victims.
Predictably, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the renamed
Handgun Control Inc., will provide legal representation to the city.
Jersey city became the 34th municipality to file such an anti-gun
lawsuit.
FLORIDA TRIGGER LOCK LAW RULED
“NULL AND VOID”
The Florida Court of Appeal for the 3rd District has found the
City of South Miami’s trigger-lock ordinance “null and void” under state preemption law.
The ordinance, proposed by Miami-Dade’s anti-gun Mayor ALEX PINELAS
and backed by an opinion issued by Florida’s Att