McDonald and McDonald, as Seen in Chicago Magazine: ...Otis McDonald wants a handgun - a pistol to carry around the house and keep on his bedside table at night. An avid hunter, he has two shotguns in the house, but he says those weapons are too unwieldy to use when facing a midnight intruder. More to the point, McDonald believes that if Chicago residents were allowed to keep handguns in their homes, criminals would think twice before breaking in - a fairly common rationale among gun-rights supporters. McDonald, however, is no ordinary gun-rights supporter: In 2008, he joined three other residents in a lawsuit to get rid of the city's handgun ban, the most restrictive gun law in the country and probably the most far-reaching because of Chicago's size... Adam Samaha, a constitutional law expert and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, argues that McDonald's race is more than just PR - it's a tactic. He points out that in the Heller opinion, the majority - Justices Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy - revisited an interesting episode in history involving freed slaves and guns. Scalia wrote: "Blacks were routinely disarmed by Southern States after the Civil War. Those who opposed these injustices frequently stated that they infringed blacks' constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Needless to say, the claim was not that blacks were being prohibited from carrying arms in an organized state militia." In expressing sympathy for freed slaves, Samaha says, the justices signaled that they were interested in framing the Second Amendment in a broader civil liberties context. Does casting Otis McDonald as the lead plaintiff help draw the link? "That's perfect," Samaha says... http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/January-2010/In-Their-Sights-Lawsuit-challenging-Chicagos-1982-handgun-ban-to-be-heard-by-Supreme-Court/ --- More Brady Bunch Bull: Yesterday, we talked about the potential impact health care "reform" could have on gun rights. We looked specifically at efforts on the part of some to portray such concerns as delusional "gun nut paranoia." We'll expand a bit on that today. As I mentioned yesterday, the Brady Campaign's Paul Helmke contemptuously dismissed the idea that Obamacare would ever pose a threat to gun rights - for example: "Regardless of whether it was even conceivable that health care providers could "require" disclosure of a firearm in the home under health care reform - and it never was . . ." early all the rest of piece, though, chastised the Senate for adopting Senator Grassley's* gun rights amendment - presumably because Helmke is disappointed about possibly losing a weapon against gun ownership... If no such potential for new gun restrictions ever existed in Obamacare, why would advocates of more restrictive gun policies care about efforts to (supposedly) remove that potential? ... http://www.examiner.com/x-2581-St-Louis-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m12d30-Brady-Campaign-says-health-care-bill-no-threat-to-gunsbut-objects-to-gun-rights-amendment-anyway?cid=exrss-St-Louis-Gun-Rights-Examiner --- Another Look at the MAIG Luntz Poll: Mike Bloomberg and his Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) caused quite a stir in the gun rights community recently when they released a poll declaring that gun owners and NRA members support the group's gun control agenda. The poll was conducted by Frank Lutz's company "Word Doctors." The media gleefully reported the poll as indisputable fact while NRA and others cried "Foul," pointing out flaws in the pollster's methodology and challenging the results. The flaws and distortions are undoubtedly real, but it is important for rights activists to carefully examine this poll to find data we can use to help our cause. In spite of its flaws, this poll demonstrates a serious failure on the part of rights groups and supporters in efforts to educate our less activist brethren. We're not preaching to the choir enough and not getting the right messages through to them... The pollster who developed this poll for MAIG, Frank Luntz, is on the record saying that it is easy to get a person to endorse conflicting ideas by asking the right questions and using the right words. He demonstrated that with this poll, but he also demonstrated that we, the engaged rights activists, need to be doing a better job educating those around us about the critical issues of the day. Perhaps this poll can be used as a teaching tool. I am going to post the entire poll along with some alternate questions and some correct answers to help with that idea. Look for it at www.FirearmsCoalition.org and see if you can use it to start an important conversation with someone close to you. http://www.firearmscoalition.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=496:lessons-from-the-dark-side&catid=19:the-knox-update&Itemid=144 The Poll: Some of these questions are incredibly biased. http://www.firearmscoalition.org/images/stories/JeffStuff/luntz_poll_questionnaire_and_responses.pdf --- Appeals Court Rejects Challenge to NFA: A former commander in the Tennessee State Guard has lost an appeal to overturn his conviction for trying to provide his soldiers with homemade machine guns for possible use in defending the state. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati threw the case out of court. "Whatever the individual right to keep and bear arms might entail, it does not authorize an unlicensed individual to possess unregistered machine guns for personal use," said the three-judge panel of the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals. Richard Hamblen was arrested in 2004 by federal firearms agents and charged with possession of nine unregistered machine guns. At trial and in his appeal, Mr. Hamblen argued that he and his soldiers had a Second Amendment right as members of the state militia to possess military-grade weapons. He said Tennessee's state guard arsenal included only 21 M-16 rifles for 3,500 volunteer soldiers. Concerned that his unit, the 201st Military Police Battalion, might get called into active duty, Hamblen obtained gun conversion kits to make semi-automatic rifles into fully automatic rifles. At least one machine gun was used in a training exercise... http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2009/1230/No-right-to-bear-unlicensed-machine-guns-federal-court-says --- Any Decent Senate Candidates in Illinois?: We've been discussing an Associated Press story over the last couple days, where we've been told "Ill. Senate hopefuls bite bullet on gun control." We've seen how the shallow level of reporting completely masked Republican front runner Rep. Mark Kirk's continued committed subversion of the right to keep and bear arms. And we've asked why should we support Republicans who are just as much enemies of the Second Amendment as their Democrat opponents. The AP story did give us a ray of hope: "Kathleen Thomas, a historical researcher in Springfield, opposes any restrictions...GOP candidates Patrick Hughes, Hinsdale developer, and Andy Martin, a lawyer and talk-show host, also oppose a federal ban on assault weapons and emphasize their support of the right to keep and bear arms." But we've already been disappointed by the lack of any real depth this article provided in examining candidate positions beyond the superficially misleading. So what do the candidates themselves have to say about RKBA? On their campaign websites...? ... http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m12d30-Are-there-any-true-progun-candidates-in-the-Illinois-Senate-race --- Georgia Prepares to Debate RKBA: Georgia lawmakers will soon debate major changes to the state's firearm laws. One proposal would allow licensed gun owners to carry their weapons almost anywhere including school zones, college campuses, churches, and parts of airports. Supporters say that more gun owners licensed to carry concealed weapons would lower the crime rate. Opponents argue that letting more people carry guns almost everywhere would lead to more violence. Legislators say they need to clarify and balance Georgia's gun laws. One thing for certain, more Georgians are buying guns and getting permits so they can carry concealed guns for protection. Dougherty County Sheriff Kevin Sproul said "We see more and more people in their 50 to 60 year old brackets, coming in to get guns, to get permits for them to carry weapons." ... http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=11749133 --- Yeah, Right: An idea, a proposal, no taxes on guns? If approved by Oklahoma lawmakers this next session it would remove taxes from gun sales one weekend out of the year. Meredith Saldana visited a local gun shop and has more on this story. The idea is to have a "Second Amendment Weekend" much like our "Tax Free Weekend" in August, only this would be for gun sales... Oklahoma State Senator John Sparks is the Norman senator proposing the legislation. He's asking that fellow lawmakers approve the measure to make it law. If approved, all shotguns, rifles and handguns would be tax free for a few days out of the year... But, some anti-gun activists say this tax free weekend could cause a rise in crime... http://www.kten.com/Global/story.asp?S=11750294 --- New Mexico Tea Party Welcomes Firearms: The Otero Tea Party Patriots and two other groups are planning a rally in Alamogordo on Saturday for people who want to voice their dissatisfaction with health care reform legislation, big government and the Obama administration. Aside from the usual poster board signs, participants are encouraged to bring their guns. Police Lt. Hal Alton says a permit allowing the Otero Tea Party Patriots, the Alamogordo Second Amendment Task Force and the Sons of Liberty Riders to hold the weekend rally was approved Wednesday. Alton says officers will monitor the rally, but he expects it will be a lawful assembly. It's legal to openly carry a firearm in most places in New Mexico. Exceptions include bars, schools and a few other places. Alton says at least 150 people are expected to participate. http://www.newswest9.com/Global/story.asp?S=11750350 --- Clark County Opens New Range, Reporter Keeps Mind Closed: Will they let us in without a gun? that's my biggest concern as we drive to the new Clark County Shooting Park at the northern end of Decatur. I ask my cohort whether we can borrow her brother's pistol; but shortly the talk turns to how her mother got shot in the foot once in a family gun-handling accident - "blood spurted straight up!" I decide we'll go gunless... The next day I call the park director, Don Turner, who assures me the park, though understaffed for the unexpected 2,000 or so visitors last weekend, is safer than your average street corner. "If it wasn't safe we wouldn't do it." If something or someone goes wrong (I am reminded of a guy at the park who yelled at the driver of a massive red pick-up truck parked on the sidewalk: "They put sidewalks in for people to walk on, not for you to park your fucking truck on!"), county employees will handle it. And if they can't, they'll get help from the volunteer safety officers, or they'll call Metro, he says. It's surely safer than the illegal open-desert shooting that this park was meant to curtail... (County Commissioner Tom Collins demonstrates how not to wear hearing protection while State Senator John Lee does not even bother - probably a posed photo. I hope those are shotguns they've got pointed over the backstop.) http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/news/2009/dec/29/family-funand-guns/ --- Improvised Burglar Alarm: A Fargo [ND] apartment dweller who set beer cans in front of his door to alert him to intruders ended up tussling with an alleged burglar early Tuesday, police said... An investigation found the suspect had entered the tenant's apartment while he was sleeping, he said. "The renter of the apartment had set up a stepstool with empty beer cans on it and set that in front of the door so that if anybody were to open the door it would knock all the beer cans off and that would wake him up, which it did, so I guess it worked," Ahlfeldt said. "He called it his burglar alarm. He said that he doesn't really lock his doors, so he just does that instead," he said... http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/264234/ --- ATK Lands Naval Ammunition Contract: Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) has received a $5.8 million contract for ammunition from the Crane Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. The contract is for the production of Mk318 5.56mm and Mk319 7.62mm caliber cartridges. The ammunition will be manufactured in Anoka, Minn. The 5.56mm and 7.62mm products chosen by Crane were optimized under a development contract to complement gun maker Fabrique Nationale Herstal's (FNH) newly released Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR) weapon system. The SCAR emerged from U.S Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)'s Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle program and is highly modular for easy adaptability to future upgrades and enhanced ammunition designs. The contract ammunition is also compatible with existing 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons systems and utilizes ATK's unique barrier defeat projectile. This feature ensures proper functioning through barriers commonly encountered during warfare. ATK led the cartridge development contract for the Mk318 and Mk319... (Anoka is the home of Federal Cartridge Co., an ATK subsidiary.) http://www.gunreports.com/news/news/ATK-Alliant-Techsystems-Crane-Division-Naval-Surface-Warfare-Center_1738-1.html?ET=gunreports:e603:183810a:&st=email --- NRA-ILA Year in Review: NRA-ILA reminds us of some of what we've been through this past year. http://www.nraila.org/GrassrootsAlerts/read.aspx --- Tangentially Related: Men are not always enslaved as a result of kidnapping, piracy or war. We often surrender our freedoms willingly, in the name of safety, and in increments we barely notice. Moreover, we become accustomed to the successive changes, degree by degree, over long periods of time, until we "suddenly" find ourselves living - or barely living - in conditions we might once have thought impossible. Exactly a century ago, when the horse was still our primary mode of short-distance transportation, the following memorandum might have seemed like a dystopian nightmare, so extreme as to be laughable. Would you have believed it then? ... http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=120497 -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. The tactics and skills to use a firearm in self-defense don't come naturally with the right to keep and bear arms. http://www.spw-duf.info .