At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.
Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That's up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normal year.
It has happened, oddly, at a time when the two concerns that usually make people buy guns and bullets — crime and increased gun control — seem less threatening than usual.
The explanation for the run on bullets lies partly in economics: Once rounds were scarce, people hoarded them, which made them scarcer.
But the rush for bullets, like this year's increase in gun sales, also says something about how suspicious the two sides in the gun-control debate are of each other, even at a time when the issue is on Washington's back burner.
The run started, observers say, as people heeded warnings from the gun-rights lobby that a new Democratic administration would make bullets more expensive or harder to get. Now that the shortage is starting to ease, gun-control groups are voicing their own dark worries about stockpiled ammunition.
In between, in the 12 months since last October, gun shops sold enough bullets to give every American 38 of them.
“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,' ” said Michael Tenny, who runs a Fort Worth-based Internet sporting goods store called Cheaper Than Dirt. Read more
“This law has turned into an absolute nightmare,” says ex-prosecutor John Fitzgibbons. “A sheriff and prosecutors in one county may interpret this law completely different that the sheriff and prosecutors in the adjoining county.”
Some cases in point: in Wesley Chapel last August, deputies arrested a man for shooting his unarmed, intoxicated neighbor after he kept coming at him. Yet just last week, prosecutors cleared Gregory Stewart of aggravated battery charges, because Stewart, under “stand your ground”, swore he was in fear of his life when he pulled the trigger.
But in Tampa, where tow truck driver Donald Montanez shot and killed a man he said was trying to run him over with a car, the Judge denied him a “stand your ground” defense to second degree murder charges. This after Montanez testified, “it scared the hell out of me, I thought he was going to run me over, he was coming right at me, I was scared to death”.
The judge said Montanez, wearing a bullet proof vest and a semi-automatic pistol, was looking for confrontations as he towed cars from a lot near a bottle club. Read more
Current Ohio law prohibits firearms by law abiding citizens in almost any commercial establishment that serves alcohol for consumption on premises if anyone in the facility is consuming, even if the armed citizen is not. The only current exception for most people is retail stores such as a grocery store doing a wine tasting. In that situation, a person can carry as long as they do not drink any liquor.
HB 203 would extend that exception to restaurants, again provided that the person carrying a firearm for self-defense does not drink. In the map below (courtesy of OpenCarry.org), you can see that Ohio is one of only 8 states with a total prohibition. Most states have some provision for carrying a firearm in a restaurant, often with a stipulation to not consume alcohol while doing so.
Allowing a person the right to carry their firearm with them into such a restaurant not only continues to ensure their safety while dining, but also to and from the restaurant.
Any self-defense expert will tell you that a parking lot, particularly at night, is a favorite location for many crimes. Not only muggings, but also car break-ins. A firearm left in a vehicle can be easily stolen and used in future crimes. Keeping that firearm safely with the citizen keeps them safe and keeps the gun safe. Read more
The bill (H.R. 3962) is 1,990 pages long and weighs over 20 pounds. And even though a search of the bill will not reveal the word “gun” or “firearm,” that doesn't mean the bill is neutral in regard to your Second Amendment rights.
For starters, this bill will — like all the ObamaCare versions before it — most likely result in all of your gun-related health data being dumped into a government database that was created in the stimulus bill. This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned… or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms.
The bill will also create special “wellness” programs in section 112 which would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles — and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Sebelius from decreeing that “no guns” is somehow healthier.
The bill purports to cut Medicare by $500 billion — in a move which will result in massive rationing for seniors, while ultimately adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit.
The bill will mandate that you purchase expensive government-approved policies and will (according to some studies) triple your insurance premiums through taxes and government requirements.
Of course, this all means that you will have less money to spend on pursuing your real passions — like providing for your family and purchasing guns and ammunition!
ACTION: Write your Representative. Tell him or her to oppose this bill. Don't be discouraged by reports in the liberal media which have tried to tell us — since January — that this battle is hopeless. We can win, and, with your help, we will win.
The Pelosi health care bill, sponsored by Rep. Dingell, has now been made public.
For starters, this bill will — like all the ObamaCare versions before it — most likely result in all gun-related health data being dumped into the government database that was created in the stimulus bill. This includes any firearms-related information that doctors have gleaned… or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude a person from owning firearms.
The bill will also create special “wellness” programs in section 112 which would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles — and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Sebelius from decreeing that “no guns” is somehow healthier.
The bill will, according to some studies, triple insurance premiums through taxes and government requirements — while mandating that Americans purchase expensive government-approved policies.
But, perhaps most instructively, there is this: Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid promised to produce a $900 billion bill which would not add “one dime” to the deficit.
This bill will cost $1.3 trillion and will increase the deficit by AT LEAST $150 billion.
The only way Pelosi or the Congressional Budget Office can continue to pretend to the contrary is to take $247 billion in bill costs and slip them through in separate legislation.
In short, this process is fraudulent.
I have many issues with this legislation. And so I urge you to oppose this legislation and keep the government from inserting itself even more into my everyday life.
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Police say the woman broke up with the 29 year old man, who had a history of domestic violence, nearly 4 years ago.
Last week, the ex-boyfriend reportedly broke in to the woman's home on the 700 block of West Louise Drive, and waited in ambush until she arrived home that night. At this point, the ex-boyfriend is said to have emerged from the bedroom closet and attacked the woman.
The woman reported grabbed her self defense gun and fired, fatally wounding the home invading ex-boyfriend and saving herself from the violent attack. Police say that neither of the home's children, ages 9 and 15, were harmed.
As a matter of biology and perhaps cultural norms, men tend to be physically stronger than women. The result is that cowardly abusive men can and do use their superior physical strength to harm their victims.
However firearms are the great equalizer, and when a woman is armed, she is in the best position possible to defend herself. A few examples illustrate this point: This armed woman used her gun to stop violent ex who broke into her home and cornered her in her bedroom. This armed woman was able to defend herself against a rapist who came back to rape her for a second time in a week.
This 85 year old armed woman held a young burglar at gunpoint and made him call the police on himself. This armed woman stopped an attacker who tried to ambush her. This armed pregnant woman used a shotgun to scare away two home invaders. This armed female school teacher used a gun to save herself from a convicted felon who broke into her home, while this armed woman saved herself and her family from a pair of armed, kidnappers.
The suspect was arrested after he turned up overnight at Paradise Valley Hospital with a graze wound, San Diego police Sgt. David Jennings said.
He and another suspect, who got away empty handed, banged on the woman's door in the 6400 block of College Grove Drive around 10:20 p.m. Sunday, the sergeant said.
The woman said the men were yelling at her to let them in as she stood on a balcony. When she refused, they began kicking the door, prompting her to get a shotgun, according to Jennings.
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Several people were inside the Northglen Drive home when an armed man burst through the door, 10TV's Kurt Ludlow reported. The incident happened around 7 p.m.
Franklin County Sheriff's Deputies said one of the victims inside retrieved a handgun and fired it, shooting one of the robbers at least twice, deputies said.
Emergency crews arrived to find Ezekiel D. Feagin, 21, dead on the living room floor.
Deputies arrested a second man believed to be involved in the robbery, who was hiding in the bathroom. Read more
The shooting happened on Pinemont near Alabonson in northwest Houston last night.
Investigators say a woman who is eight months pregnant saw a group of men breaking into a neighbor's car and then the crooks turned toward her vehicle.
“She looked out the window. She watched them break in to one car. And then, she watched as the males went over to her car.
That's when she retrieved the gun and fired one shot at them,” said Sgt C.D. Howard with the Houston Police Department. Read more
One suspect is in the hospital after being shot by the couple's son. Two other people are in custody.
It happened on Corriher Grange Road near Highway 152.
The house was first held up Monday night. NewsChannel 36 spoke exclusively with the Deadmon family after the first home invasion. They told us how the robbers forced them to open the safe at gunpoint. They reported the robbery to police, and they believe that's why the suspects returned.
“He told my husband they had come back to kill,” Sherry Deadmon said, speaking for her husband Randy, who has a disability that affects his speech.
It was Randy and his son John-Ross who were home Friday afternoon when two men arrived.
Randy explained how one of the robbers grabbed his son by the collar and lead him into the house. He said both men had guns.
There was a scuffle — pushing, punching, and then shooting. The family had placed several shotguns around the house because of Monday's crime.
When police arrived at the home, they found one man shot in the garage. He was wearing black clothing, a black mask and a bulletproof vest.
John-Ross Deadmon told investigators he believed he had shot that man. He said a second man had run from the scene, while exchanging gunfire with him. Read more
With the H1N1 “swine” flu season moving into full swing, and with AIDS/HIV and other deadly diseases continuing to plague millions of Americans, one might think that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), would have its hands full. After all, the CDC “serves as the national focus for developing and applying disease prevention and control, . . . to improve the health of the people of the United States.”
You might be inclined to think that with all that’s happening here and around the world posing very real and very serious health risks to the American citizenry, the CDC would have sense enough not to squander its resources on matters wholly unrelated to health and infectious diseases. If you made such a presumption, you’d be flat wrong.
The CDC, like many if not all federal bureaucracies, seems always to be searching for new projects and agendas in which to involve itself.
The CDC has tried this before. During the administration of former President Bill Clinton, the agency twisted the English language and impermissibly expanded its already broad jurisdiction over health and disease-related matters, in order to justify spending taxpayer money on the political agenda of gun control. The Congress thankfully slapped CDC’s hands and stopped it from this abuse of taxpayer money and agency jurisdiction.
Well, those loveable bureaucrats at CDC are at it again. Except this time, CDC is being even more clever — disingenuous is a more accurate term — in putting the square gun-control peg into the round disease-control hole.
The CDC says it is not funding research on ”guns” or “gun control.” Instead, a CDC spokesman says – whether with a straight face or not I don’t know, since the communication was delivered by e-mail in response to a Republican congressional inquiry – the agency is studying “the web of circumstances” (whatever that is) that surrounds gun violence. Thus, according to this nonsensical gobbledygook, it is proper in the CDC’s eyes for it to study how alcohol sales impact gun violence or the effects of injuries sustained by teenagers as a result of gun possession.
In other words, because some people who drink alcohol also might cause an injury or death to themselves or others by misusing firearms, and since alcoholism is a “disease,” it is appropriate for the CDC to study gun control. This subterfuge makes a mockery of the process whereby federal monies are appropriated in a way that reflects at least a colorable relationship with the agencies’ defined missions. Read more
Should Martha Stewart be prohibited from owning guns? Why?
On Wednesday, we talked about a person prohibited from owning guns. Yesterday, we looked at the legally-defined classifications of “prohibited persons”.
Many self-described “law and order conservatives” who support the prohibition, but who also profess to believe in the Second Amendment, would do well to realize that running afoul of a “gun law” can result in felon status, particularly in locales that prohibit bearing arms–even if a threat exists. Do they really want to be “judged by 12” for that, or are they just certain they will never have that decision forced upon them?
I have some questions for discussion:
If someone is enough of a danger to himself and others to be institutionalized, why would that person be released if they remain a danger?
As for “illegal immigrants,” why is it some of the same government actors who hate private ownership of firearms insist on fighting deportation of violent gang members?
It's been my long-standing contention that anyone who can't be trusted with a gun can't be trusted without a custodian. Simply put, if you have proven too dangerous to yourself and others to possess a gun, or box cutters, or fertilizer or matches, you're too dangerous to be allowed unrestricted access to the rest of us.
And if you're not dangerous, then what purpose does the gun prohibition serve? Read more
The lawsuit, filed by the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Washington Arms Collectors and five individual citizens, was filed in King County Superior Court.
Washington’s preemption statute is solid and there is not a lot of wiggle room for misunderstanding its intent. The statute, RCW 9.41.290 reads, in part: “The state of Washington hereby fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation within the boundaries of the state, including the registration, licensing, possession, purchase, sale, acquisition, transfer, discharge, and transportation of firearms, or any other element relating to firearms or parts thereof, including ammunition and reloader components. Cities, towns, and counties or other municipalities may enact only those laws and ordinances relating to firearms that are specifically authorized by state law…
”Nickels has said that a municipal-property owner such as Seattle may impose limits on firearms as a condition of entry or use of particular facilities, particularly those where children and other young people are likely to be. State Attorney General Rob McKenna, however, has disagreed, saying his office issued an opinion in 2008 which found that state law pre-empts local authority to adopt firearms regulations, unless specifically authorized by law. — Seattle Times
Stepping in to defend Nickels and the city in this confrontation at no charge is the Northwest office of an international law firm, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe.
This firm, according to its website, has 21 offices in Asia, Europe and North America. It has a history of providing pro bono legal representation to various causes. Plaintiffs are represented by Seattle attorney Steve Fogg with the Seattle law firm of Corr, Cronin, Michelson, Baumgardner & Preece LLC.
According to their website, the firm has been recognized for its litigation abilities. So how does this case have possible national implications? If Seattle’s creative approach as a private property owner simply regulating conduct on its park properties is allowed to stand (that strategy failed in Ohio, where a parks ban imposed by the City of Clyde was struck down by that state’s Supreme Court), it is conceivable that other cities in other states, or even in the Evergreen State, will start pushing the envelope.
I wrote about the Clyde case in this column. Judging from public comments in both the Seattle Times and the on-line Seattle Post-Intelligencer about this case, sentiment remains high against the out-going Nickels and his gun ban.
The legal issues will be hashed out in the courts. The city is arguing that its “most important public duty is to protect its citizens from harm, especially when they are visiting City facilities.” Here's a novel idea: How about simply leaving it possible for the citizens to protect themselves? Read more
According to an SCI press release, “Despite the best efforts of the state's Fish and Game Council, New Jersey's Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection has refused to approve a new comprehensive black bear management policy (Black Bear Policy) that includes hunting as a management strategy.
Under New Jersey law, without a policy in place, the State cannot hold a black bear hunt. The Commissioner's inaction has lead to a drastic increase in bear incidents state-wide since the last bear hunt in 2005.”
Said SCI President Larry Rudolph, “A well regulated hunt is essential for the sound and responsible management of black bear in New Jersey and for the safety of the general public. The goal of our lawsuit is simply to put legal pressure on the Commissioner and the Council to take the necessary action to adopt a Black Bear Policy.
Forcing action on a policy will allow the Council˜the people entrusted under New Jersey law to manage wildlife˜to decide whether a hunt is both the appropriate means of managing the state's bear population and a valued recreational experience.”
During a six-day season in December 2005, New Jersey hunters took 298 black bears.
Managing Deputy Attorney General Tom Smith said state officials just completed a written agreement with North Dakota to recognize West Virginia concealed weapons permits, and paperwork is in the mail to finalize an agreement with Delaware. “It should be back any day now,” Smith said Wednesday.
The new agreements will bring to 20 the number of states with which West Virginia has concealed weapons reciprocity. The reciprocity agreements mean those states recognize valid West Virginia concealed weapons permits, and West Virginia recognizes theirs.
Once the deal with Delaware is final, West Virginians with valid concealed weapons permits will be able to legally carry a hidden gun in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia under written agreements between West Virginia and those states.
Smith said Indiana, Montana and Vermont automatically recognize West Virginia concealed weapons permits without the need for a written reciprocity agreement, and Idaho and Kansas appear to recognize West Virginia's permits. “If you're going to Idaho or Kansas, call them to get a local answer,” he said. Read more
John Cole broke into an amputee's home and was met with hot lead from a .357 mag. He was later arrested.
FERNDALE, Mich. — Ferndale police said a 72-year-old man with an amputated leg shot at an intruder who was in his house early Thursday morning.
Police said the victim hear was woken up by noise inside his home at about 3:40 a.m.
The victim grabbed a .357 revolver and shot at the intruder when he came to his bedroom door, police said.Police said the victim missed the man, who he identified as a man from the neighborhood.
John Robert Cole, 56, was arrested at a nearby 7-Eleven store, and officers found the victim's wallet in his pocket.
Police said Cole has been arrested several times in the last year and convicted of various misdemeanors. Read more
Officer Timothy Brenton killing thought to be assassination.
Investigators on Sunday fielded tips, interviewed potential witnesses and scoured through video tapes for evidence that would lead them to the assailant or assailants. They have not yet identified a suspect or the suspect's vehicle, nor have they determined what kind of weapon was used.
Killed in the Saturday night shooting was field training officer Timothy Brenton, 39. Rookie officer Britt Sweeney, 33, suffered a minor injury.
The two were discussing a routine traffic stop while parked in downtown Seattle when their police cruiser was suddenly struck several times by gunfire shortly after 10 p.m., officials said.
Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel said Brenton died instantly. Sweeney ducked, and a bullet grazed her back. She then called for help and returned fire, Pugel said.
“This is an assassination, and every resource is being used to bring it to a conclusion,” Pugel said.
Brenton became the city's first officer killed in the line of duty since 2006, and Saturday's shooting was the first intentional homicide of an officer since 1994, police officials said.
Pugel said there had been no threats against Brenton and no indication the assailants were looking for him.
Sweeney was taken to the hospital but was later released and is at home. She joined the force about six months ago, and had graduated from the academy just weeks ago.
Brenton is survived by his wife and two children, ages 11 and 8, officials said. His father and uncle are retired Seattle police officers.
“Everybody loved him,” the officer's uncle, Jon Brenton of Kingston, Wash., told The Seattle Times. “I don't think there was any reason anybody would come after him.”
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels described the shooting as “cold-blooded.” Read more
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At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than factories could make them.
