GOP to press Sotomayor on gun rights

excerpt:
Though Republicans are a pronounced minority in both the House and Senate, they have used the gun issue to their advantage to divert the legislative agenda, forcing Democrats from moderate and conservative states to take politically risky votes on gun provisions.

Sotomayor's judicial record appears to provide the GOP with another opportunity to bring the issue to light. Since the Supreme Court decided in a landmark case last year that restrictive laws in Washington, D.C. -- a federal entity -- infringed on a constitutionally protected right to own a handgun, the debate has shifted to whether that ruling also affected handgun control laws in individual states.

This year, Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York that held the 2nd Amendment did not apply to the states. At a news conference Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other senators said they were concerned about the decision and pledged to grill Sotomayor about it at her confirmation hearings, which begin July 13. ...

Read the whole story in the LA Times. 

Posted Thu Jun 25 14:07:37 CDT 2009

URGENT ALERT -- YOUR IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED
GUN CONTROL GROUPS WANT YOU ARRESTED, TRIED, AND JAILED FOR TOUCHING GUNS

In a strong show of bipartisan support earlier this spring, the Illinois General Assembly overwhelmingly passed HB182. This important piece of legislation clarified ambiguities in the unlawful weapons use statutes. These clarifications ensured that law-abiding citizens would not accidentally violate the law while preserving the justice system's ability to arrest and try violent criminals.

As you might expect, the gun-control extremists are blasting the General Assembly for making these reforms. The gun grabbers are mounting a campaign to have Governor Quinn veto HB182.

WHAT IT WOULD MEAN TO YOU IF GOVERNOR QUINN VETOES HB182

1. You would not be able to handle a firearm in any manner outside your own home, a gun shop, or gun range.

2. Let's say you were invited to a birthday party for your friend Hank. Let's say that one of Hank's gifts was a new shotgun. Hank notices you admiring the shotgun and hands it to you so that you could examine it. If Gov. Quinn vetoes HB182, then you could be subject to arrest and felony prosecution for handling Hank's new shotgun -- even if you possess a valid FOID.

3. Let's say your buddy Bill asks you and Hank to come down to his farm for a day and for you to bring a couple of rifles with you for some good old fashioned plinking. If Gov. Quinn vetoes HB182, then you and Hank could be subject to arrest and felony prosecution for plinking on Bill's farm, despite the fact that Bill gave you permission and despite the fact that you possess a valid FOID.

4. Let's say you're on the road and stop off at a hotel in a seedy part of town. Once inside your room, you unpack and load a pistol and place it on the hotel room nightstand. If Gov. Quinn vetoes HB182, then you could be subject to arrest and felony prosecution for preparing to protect yourself within your hotel room.

Once again, we see that the primary interest of the gun control movement is to harass law abiding gun owners.

WHAT YOU MUST DO TO PROTECT YOUR GUN RIGHTS:

1. Call Governor Quinn's Office as soon as possible at (312) 814-2121 and POLITELY tell the person who answers the phone that you are a law-abiding firearm owner and that you are tired of being treated like a criminal. Politely tell the person that you would like Governor Quinn to sign HB182 into law at his nearest convenience.

2. Pass this alert along to all your gun owning friends and neighbors.

3. Post this alert to any and all Internet blogs or bulletin boards to which you may belong.

REMEMBER -- GUN CONTROL IS A DISEASE -- YOU ARE THE CURE!

Posted Fri Jun 12 08:42:11 CDT 2009

Kane County: Now there are 91!
2nd Amendment resolution-"lite" passes on 19-4 vote

GENEVA -- It took three votes -- including one that went to a chairman's tiebreaker -- but a non-binding resolution in support of the Second Amendment won Kane County Board approval Tuesday.

The 19-4 vote, with one member voting present, didn't come without some jousting by board members. Drawn up as a general recitation of the constitution's guarantee of freedom to keep and bear arms, the resolution weathered one attempt to table it for more discussion and one member's effort to strengthen its opposition to restrictive gun legislation.

For two years, the group Illinois Pro 2A has asked all of the state's 102 counties to pass a resolution affirming support of the Second Amendment. Pro 2A provides a template that offers a strong objection to certain gun control proposals, but Kane's County's modified version was tempered to be more general. Based on the group's data, Kane becomes the 91st county to adopt such a resolution, although it isn't clear what specific language is used in each of those measures. ...

Read the whole story in the Beacon News. 

Posted Wed Jun 10 08:27:13 CDT 2009

Missouri: CCW permits up, driven by fears of actions by Obama & Co.

excerpt:
"People just don't feel safe, whether it's with the political structure or the economic situation," said Noelle Fearn, assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at St. Louis University.

In the St. Louis area, the surge is most marked in St. Charles, Warren, Lincoln and Jefferson counties, where applications for the first four months of 2009 are between 114 percent and 144 percent higher than for the same period last year, according to data provided by sheriff's departments.

In St. Louis, applications are up 49 percent this year, and St. Louis County's have risen 53 percent. Illinois does not allow concealed carry. ...

Read the whole story in St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 

Posted Mon Jun 8 08:38:40 CDT 2009

Tribune recognizes that Chicago's gun ban will fall,
turns toward prosecution of criminals.

excerpt:
This decision is a model of judicial humility and restraint. But it tells nothing about how the Chicago ordinance will fare once it reaches the highest court in the land. Much as we wish it were otherwise, the landmark 2nd Amendment verdict offers little hope that the city's ban will survive.

In that decision, the Supreme Court found there is "an individual right to possess a firearm" and "to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." The original Bill of Rights limited only the power of the federal government, not the states. But the Supreme Court has found that the 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, protected most constitutional rights from infringement by states and local governments as well.

Now that it has recognized a right to gun ownership, it's hard to see any reason the court would not require states to respect that right. The federal appeals court for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, recently concluded that, other precedents notwithstanding, states and cities may not violate the 2nd Amendment right to own a gun. ...

Read the whole editorial in the Chicago Tribune. 

Posted Mon Jun 8 08:24:19 CDT 2009

2008 election affecting Democrats stance

Democrats are looking down the barrel of a gun as they vie to keep their power in Washington.

Poised after last year's election to push back against the National Rifle Association's heavy firepower, the Democrats have in rapid order conceded ground on the gun issue. They've allowed concealed-carry weapons in national parks, considered easing gun restrictions in the District of Columbia, and turned back a campaign pledge on gun-record transparency.

The moves, which tended to be riders to other bills, have given Republicans a rare sense of success as a minority. They also have the potential to force some Democrats in rural states "into the cross hairs" for the next election cycle by daring them to clarify their views on gun control.

For Democrats, reluctance to take on the gun lobby is tied to a desire to hold onto their majority in Washington as they pursue a progressive agenda on issues ranging from the economy to healthcare. ...

Read the whole story @ abcnews.  

Posted Mon Jun 8 08:19:35 CDT 2009

Retirees in Peoria yearn for CCW

excerpt:
Their dwelling and station in life seem far removed from the gangs, shootings and mayhem that regularly plague certain slices of the city. Still, they feel the creep of crime, so much so they often feel like prisoners in their own home. They'd feel much safer if they could pack a firearm when about town.

"I would not think twice about using it if my life was bring threatened," says Wanda, who describes herself as a "gun-toting granny."

She doesn't carry one now, but she used to. Wanda, 69, grew up on a farm in Tennessee, where she learned to use a gun from her father and brothers, avid hunters all. ...

Read the whole story in the Peoria Journal-Star. 

Posted Thu Jun 4 23:24:29 CDT 2009

Kane County to consider Pro-2nd Amendment resolution

County Board members are set to debate showing support for the right to bear arms.

During Wednesday’s Executive Committee, the board was presented a resolution supporting the 2nd Amendment, and the members will debate it at the full board meeting next week.

The resolution is a request from a gun lobbying group Illinois Pro 2A. The group claims 88 counties in the state have passed resolutions supporting the 2nd Amendment and wants Kane to do the same.

Read the whole story in the Kane County Chronicle. 

Posted Thu Jun 4 08:58:18 CDT 2009

"Appeals court upholds Chicago's strict gun laws"
really means: ISRA's suit goes to the Supreme Court

excerpt:
Until the middle of the 20th century, most parts of the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government, not to states or localities. In a step-by-step process, however, the high court decided that most of the rights in the Bill of Rights were fundamental to liberty and, therefore, limit the action of states and municipalities.

There are exceptions. For example, the 5th Amendment says persons can be charged with a serious crime only by "indictment of a grand jury," but this right was not extended to the states.

Gun-rights advocates have been focused on the issue since last year's high court ruling.

"We believe it is time for this issue to be decided," said Alan Gura, a Virginia lawyer who won the D.C. gun case last year. He said he would file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a review of the Chicago ruling.

Gura represented four gun owners who are challenging the near ban on private handguns in Chicago. In April, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came to the opposite conclusion on the 2nd Amendment. Its judges said that because the right to bear arms is a fundamental right, it should apply to local and state ordinances. ...

Read the whole story in the LA Times. 

Posted Thu Jun 4 08:19:11 CDT 2009

Mayor wants CCW test for Peoria

Mayor Jim Ardis wants to see a push for Peoria to become a pilot city for statewide concealed-carry legislation that would allow people to carry guns in a responsible manner, he said Thursday.

Ardis wants to see legislation passed in Springfield allowing Peoria to enact an ordinance permitting citizens the right to carry a concealed weapon.

His comments come one day after a gas station attendant was shot and killed in the East Bluff and a shot was discharged on Newman Golf Course during a botched robbery. ...

Read the whole story in the Peoria Journal Star. 

Posted Fri May 29 07:42:29 CDT 2009

Why Sonia Sotomayor is simply wrong for the Supreme Court

While she is certainly an example of what someone with drive and ambition can achieve in America, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is someone who should not serve on the highest court in the land.

Gun rights activists are already lobbying hard against Sotomayor’s nomination, not only because her position on the Second Amendment is clearly spelled out in this year’s Second Circuit ruling in Maloney v. Cuomo, but because she is an unabashed liberal activist judge, and such judges – as a Washington Times editorial points out – are typically bad news for the country.

This goes deeper than a gun rights issue, however. ...

Read the whole story in The Examiner. 

Posted Thu May 28 08:24:57 CDT 2009

Students hone character in gun club

While other young men his age kick around soccer balls, throw footballs, or shoot basketballs for their sports, 16-year-old Lockport student Nick Mavrin uses his Beretta Urika 391 12-gauge shotgun to blast bright orange clay targets into a hundred pieces into the Morris sky as his sporting interest. ...

Read the whole story in the Herald News (external link)

Posted Sun May 24 07:43:15 CDT 2009

Ninth Circuit Rules 2nd Amendment Incorporated to States

BELLEVUE, Wash., April 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation today applauded the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco for ruling that the Second Amendment is incorporated against the states and local governments.

The majority opinion was written by Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain, with a concurring opinion from Judge Ronald M. Gould, who wrote, "The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion...That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived."

Although the court found against the plaintiffs in the case of Nordyke v. King - Russell and Sallie Nordyke, operators of a gun show in Alameda County, CA - the court acknowledged that its earlier position that the Second Amendment protected only a collective right of states has been overruled by the Supreme Court's 2008 historic ruling in District of Columbia v. Dick Anthony Heller. That was the case in which the high court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms. ...

Read the whole press release @ PRNewswire.

Posted Mon Apr 20 20:30:58 CDT 2009

Department of Homeland Security recent assessment:
The recent guns and ammo purchases are "cause for concern", returning veterans are subject to recruitment by "right-wing extremists"

A controversial nine-page “assessment” issued earlier this month by the Department of Homeland Security (DSH) was like gasoline on a fire, as already-angry taxpayers have now been essentially linked at the hip to white supremacists and “violent antigovernment groups.”

The report made headlines in the Washington Times, and the ensuing controversy was also covered by Reuters and WorldNetDaily.

The DHS document, titled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment has outraged people who don’t even own firearms, but who do advocate smaller government, and criticize government intrusion into their personal lives. It appeared on the heels of another controversial document issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center that linked Libertarians to the militia movement. Release of that report, and the angry public reaction to it, caused the removal of the director of that agency. ...

Read the rest of Dave Workman's Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Column.

Posted Thu Apr 16 07:35:15 CDT 2009

Take action on your late FOID

The ISRA issued a press release on January 23rd, 2009, concerning the failure of the Illinois State Police to issue the FOID or provide an explanation for denial within 30 days of receipt of the application, as provided for by Illinois law.

The ISRA is working on the problem, but that doesn't immediately help those awaiting a new FOID or a FOID renewal. If you are waiting for your FOID and you sent in your application 30 days ago or more, please follow these steps:

1. Call the ISP Police Firearms Services Bureau at 217-782-7980 and make an inquiry into the status of your card. Disregard any recorded message that tells you not to bother unless you’ve been waiting more than 56 days. It’s your rights that have been put on hold, it’s your freedom that is put in jeopardy, it’s your prerogative to call and ask for action.

2. Call your Illinois Representative and Illinois Senator at their Springfield offices and inform them of your difficulty getting your new or renewed FOID. It is very likely that your call will be answered by a secretary. Always be polite to the secretaries, they’re your portal to the legislators. Provide details on your situation: when you sent in your application, date your check cleared, etc. Ask for the legislator to make an inquiry on your behalf. It’s important for the legislators to know that the FOID delays are impacting citizens in their districts.

3. Do you need to find out who your state legislators are? You can find out by checking the website of the Illinois State Board of Elections on the page for District/Official Search. If you know who your legislators are but need their phone numbers, you can look them up on the ISRA website. There is a page for the representatives and another for the senators.

4. Show your solidarity for your fellow Illinois Gun Owners by joining us in Springfield on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 for IGOLD – Illinois Gun Owner Lobby Day. Go to the IGOLD website at igold.isra.org for details.

Here's a web page version of this alert, right here at ISRA.

Posted Tue Feb 10 14:41:16 CST 2009

Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush files anti gun bill on the first day in session
Bill would enact national gun licensing ala FOID.

Quoting Jeff Knox:
"Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL) filed a comprehensive anti-gun wish-list bill in the 111th Congress on its first day in session. No sooner were the new members of Congress sworn in than Mr. Rush, a former Black Panther leader, file his bill which he calls the "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009". The bill has no cosponsors and was automatically referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

If passed, this bill would require that anyone wishing to purchase, own, or possess a "qualifying firearm" - that's any handgun, and any long gun capable of accepting a detachable magazine - would have to be licensed by the state or the federal government in a licensing program managed by the Attorney General. To get a license you would have to prove you're you, provide a passport-style photo, a thumbprint, and take a written exam which includes questions about firearms safety, safe storage, the risks of firearms ownership, and anything else the Attorney General deems appropriate. All transfers would be required to go through a licensed dealer with the exception of occasional gifts or bequests between parents, children (18 or over), and grandparents, or loans of not more than 30 days between "persons who are personally known to one another." (It actually says that. I'm not making this up.) And all transfers would have to be recorded in a "Transfer Record" established and maintained by the Attorney General. " ...

Read the whole story at the Firearms Coalition.

You can look at the submitted legislation at the U.S. Government Printing Office website.

Posted Thu Jan 15 20:30:49 CST 2009

SAF Press Release:
SAF Files Lawsuit Challenging Chicago's Handgun Ban

BELLEVUE, WA – Following Thursday’s 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms, and that a municipal gun ban violates that right, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) filed a federal lawsuit challenging the City of Chicago’s long-standing handgun ban. The case is McDonald v. City of Chicago.

“Chicago’s handgun ban has failed to stop violent crime,” SAF founder Alan Gottlieb stated. “It’s time to give the Constitution a chance.”

In addition to SAF and ISRA, plaintiffs include Chicago residents Otis McDonald, a retiree who has been working with police to rid his neighborhood of drug dealers, and who wants to have a handgun at his home; Adam Orlov, a former Evanston police officer; software engineer David Lawson and his wife, Colleen, a hypnotherapist, whose home has been targeted by burglars. Attorney Alan Gura, who argued the District of Columbia challenge before the high court, and Chicago area attorney David G. Sigale, represent the plaintiffs ...

Read the whole press release at Second Amendment Foundation.

Posted Fri Jun 27 07:54:49 CDT 2008

Follow the Chicago 2nd Amendment Suit

Learn more and follow along at ChicagoGunCase.com.

Posted Fri Jun 27 00:27:31 CDT 2008