Homeless in Arizona

U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is a gun grabber!!!!

Kirkpatrick now more receptive to gun control

Associated Press Thu Jan 10, 2013 10:24 PM

FLAGSTAFF -- U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick was a staunch supporter of gun owners’ rights when she first served in Congress, but the Flagstaff Democrat is not making blanket statements supporting all such rights since the December school shooting in Connecticut.

Kirkpatrick wrote in a recent guest column for the Arizona Daily Star that “everything should be on the table,” including assault-weapon laws.

“The mass shooting in Connecticut has launched our nation to a new level of grief and outrage. It’s all painfully familiar to southern Arizonans. As a former prosecutor and congresswoman — and as a mother — I know we must act. Our children’s safety is at stake,” Kirkpatrick said in the column.

Her mention of southern Arizonans was an apparent reference to the 2011 mass shooting outside Tucson in which several people were killed and then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was gravely wounded.

Kirkpatrick served one term in the U.S. House before losing a re-election bid in 2010 to Republican Paul Gosar. Gosar ran for re-election in a different district in 2012 following redistricting, and Kirkpatrick beat Republican Jonathan Paton in November to return to Congress.

Kirkpatrick represents the largely rural 1st Congressional District, which runs from Flagstaff and the Navajo Nation on the north to the outskirts of Tucson on the south.

Kirkpatrick said in 2010 that she opposed bans on some types of weapons, and she called firearm ownership a fundamental right. [Like most politicians she will say anything to get elected]

“I think people should be able to legally purchase and carry the gun that they want,” she told a caller to a radio show in 2010.

During a public call-in meeting she held in 2010, Kirkpatrick said she opposed bans on some types of firearms, opposed District of Columbia and Chicago laws barring private ownership of some types of guns, and supported allowing guns in national parks.

“It may be more important than ever to protect the right to bear and keep arms, because too many people in Washington right now do not share or understand our values,” she said in a 2010 prepared statement.

Mesa Police Officer Bill Richardson is a gun grabber???

To take the emotions out of the article whenever Bill Richardson asks if you would buy a "gun", change the word to "used car".

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Richardson: Arizona cities shouldn’t be turned into gun supermarkets

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.

Posted: Saturday, January 12, 2013 8:31 am

Guest commentary by Bill Richardson

How would you like to buy a gun [or a used car] that killed an Arizona police officer?

Would you like to be the owner of the gun that delivered a fatal bullet into a police officer and took away a spouse, a father, mother or a someone’s child?

If a cop killer gun isn’t available how would like to buy the military grade rifles that were taken from the scene of a Gilbert mass murder that was carried out by an avowed white supremacist?

Or what about guns [or used cars] that were used to murder two Arizona State University students in Tempe?

The .22 pistol that was used to execute five women and children at a Mesa beauty school might still be available for purchase?

How about the rifle [or used car] that was used to murder nine people at the Wat Promkunaram Buddhist Temple in western Maricopa County? The dead included six monks and an elderly nun.

All of the murder weapons I mentioned and thousands more could end up in a gun store for sale if a new Arizona law that went into effect in August is interpreted in a manner that would force police departments, sheriff’s offices and the Arizona Department of Public Safety to sell all seized firearms used in crimes.

The guns that were used to seriously wound a Phoenix police officer on Monday and a Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputy on Tuesday could soon be in a gun store near you.

Should the guns used to murder three police officers from Chandler and Gilbert be sold to the highest bidder?

The law designed to prevent police agencies from destroying seized guns, Arizona Revised Statutes 12-941, was pushed through the legislature last year on the premise that it could raise money for the communities where the weapons were seized following the commission of a crime.

On Jan. 5, the Arizona Republic reported that the Citizens Defense League told the State Senate Judiciary Committee last year that local agencies were “leaving money on the table” by not selling the weapons. The story went on to say the Citizens Defense League “could provide no estimate of how much the bill could save taxpayers, nor could any law-enforcement agency that currently trades weapons or is preparing to do so.”

Maybe a cop killer’s gun might bring high dollar in a less than scrupulous gun store, weirdo memorabilia auction or on eBay, but most of the guns I’ve seized and seen police in police custody aren’t in the best of shape. Some were even potentially dangerous.

I can see it now: police are forced to sell an unsafe weapon to a gun dealer who in turn sells it to a citizen who has the gun blow-up and who then sues the police agency that was forced by the legislature to sell it.

While our legislature is fixated on taking guns seized by officers and forcing police agencies to sell them, I have yet to hear a peep from the law and order crowd at the state capital on the issue of funding a statewide law enforcement effort to target those who sell weapons to the felons and careers criminals who keep committing new crimes, including murdering police officers and innocent citizens.

Police officers I’ve spoken with have told me Arizona is a wide open supermarket when it comes to illegal guns that flow easily into the hands of criminals.

The legislature’s move to turn cities into gun dealers is a misguided role for state government.

What might work in Show Low could be a far cry from what’s needed in the East Valley and metro Phoenix.

Instead of making local governments gun dealers, creating potential liability for mayors, city councils and police chiefs, the legislature needs to make Arizona streets safer by targeting illegal sellers of guns to career criminals.

Retired Mesa master police officer Bill Richardson lives in the East Valley and can be reached at bill.richardson@cox.net.

Jan Brewer wants to create a jobs program for cops in schools?

Also this is again a case of the government being the cause of the problem, not the solution to the problem.

If our government masters in all 50 states had not passed unconstitutional laws banning guns on schools, criminals would not have schools that are gun free zones where they can kill people knowing that no one has a gun to defend themselves.

Last but not least putting a cop in every classroom is a solution to a non-existent problem.

These shootings are so rare that it is not economically justifiable to put a cop in every class room for a crime that probably won't happen.

It would be much more cost efficient to let the teachers and other school employees carry guns in case one of these rare incidents happens.

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Brewer in favor of officers on AZ campuses over arming educators

Posted: Friday, January 11, 2013 7:41 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Parting ways with some other Republicans, Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday she does not want armed teachers, principals and volunteers in public schools.

In an interview with Capitol Media Services, the governor said she is instead leaning toward the idea of restoring at least some of the state funds that schools used to hire trained police officers.

Cash for these "school resource officers'' has been cut sharply in prior years to help the state balance its budget. But Arizona now is looking at a possible $600 million surplus for the coming fiscal year.

Her stance puts her in the same camp as House Minority Leader Chad Campbell who advanced his own plan for more school resource officers earlier in the week.

"I believe in safe areas,'' she said.

"We need to make sure that our most precious resources are safe,'' the governor continued. "I will do what it is I can do moving forwards in regards to school safety.''

But Brewer said that, given all the demands on state funding, she cannot agree to the $100 million price tag on Campbell's plan for more officers. She called that unrealistic.

Details of her own plan will come Monday when she gives her State of the State address.

Brewer acknowledged that some of her Republican colleagues believe the best way to protect children is to have more people with guns in schools to offer protection.

Attorney General Tom Horne proposed having each school designate a single individual who would have access to weapons that presumably would remain locked up until needed. Horne offered to make his 36 investigators, all of whom are sworn peace officers, available to provide training to those who are designated.

And earlier this week, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said he sees no reason why individual teachers who own guns should not be able to bring them to work.

Brewer said she's not interested in anything like that.

"I guess they're entitled to their opinion,'' she said. "I'm not a supporter of that.''

Brewer also has to make a decision soon on whether the state will expand the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's Medicaid program, to cover everyone up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. That's about $25,400 a year for a family of three.

Arizona currently provides care up to the federal poverty level. But even there, there are exceptions as the state, in a budget-cutting move, stopped enrolling single adults even if their income put them below the federal poverty level.

While the main focus is providing health coverage, with the federal government picking up most of the cost, the governor's decision is also linked to the question of gun safety.

That is because an expanded program would also mean more people who could get mental health coverage. And there is evidence that some people involved in mass shootings, including Jared Loughner in the 2011 Tucson incident that left six dead, had fallen through the cracks and not received treatment that might have precluded their action.

Brewer, though, reiterated her stance that additional restrictions on weapons are not appropriate. And she chastised those who are making such calls.

"You know, some people want to make this such an exaggerated issue,'' she said.

"But the bottom line is that it's part of the Constitution,'' the governor continued. "It's the Second Amendment of the land.''

New York tyrants to pass more gun control laws???

The Second Amendment was created to allow people to kill well armed government tyrants.

In 1776 that meant allowing the people to have swords, flintlock rifles and canons. Now it means allowing the people to have machine guns, rocket launchers, anti-tank guns and all the other weapons the well armed government tyrants have.

Sadly the Second Amendment has been flushed down the toilet and the people are more or less defenseless against the well armed American government which spends more on weapons then all the other countries of the world combined.

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NY poised to be 1st to pass post-massacre gun bill

Associated Press Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:55 PM

Days after calling for an overhaul of gun control in New York following the Connecticut school shooting, Gov. Andrew Cuomo worked out a tough proposal on gun control with legislative leaders who promised to pass the most restrictive gun law in the nation.

The measure passed the Senate 43-18 on the strength of support from Democrats, many of whom previously sponsored the bills that were once blocked by Republicans.

The Democrat-led Assembly gaveled out before midnight and planned to take the issue up at 10 a.m. Tuesday. It is expected to pass easily.

“This is a scourge on society,” Cuomo said Monday night, one month after the Newtown, Conn., shooting that took the lives of 20 first graders and six educators. “At what point do you say, ‘No more innocent loss of life.’”

“It is well-balanced, it protects the Second Amendment,” said Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Long Island. “And there is no confiscation of weapons, which was at one time being considered.

“This is going to go after those who are bringing illegal guns into the state, who are slaughtering people in New York City,” Skelos said. “This is going to put people in jail and keep people in jail who shouldn’t be out on the street in the first place.”

“This will be the toughest gun control package in the nation,” said Sen. Jeffrey Klein, leader of the Independent Democrat Conference that shares majority control with Republican senators. “All in all, it is a comprehensive, balanced approach that will save lives,” Klein said in an interview.

Cuomo said he wanted quick action to avoid a run on assault rifles and ammunition as he tries to address what he estimates is about 1 million assault rifles in New York state. He made it a centerpiece of his progressive agenda in last week’s State of the State address.

Republican Sen. Greg Ball called that political opportunism in a rare criticism of the popular and powerful governor seen by his supporters as a possible candidate for president in 2016.

“We haven’t saved any lives tonight, except one: the political life of a governor who wants to be president,” said Ball who represents part of the Hudson Valley. “We have taken an entire category of firearms that are currently legal that are in the homes of law-abiding, tax paying citizens. … We are now turning those law-abiding citizens into criminals.”

The governor confirmed the proposal, previously worked out in closed session, called for a tougher assault weapons ban and restrictions on ammunition and the sale of guns, as well as a mandatory police registry of assault weapons, grandfathering in assault weapons already in private hands.

It would create a more powerful tool to require the reporting of mentally ill people who say they intend to use a gun illegally and would address the unsafe storage of guns, the governor confirmed.

Under current state law, assault weapons are defined by having two “military rifle” features spelled out in the law. The proposal would reduce that to one feature and include the popular pistol grip.

Private sales of assault weapons to someone other than an immediate family would be subject to a background check through a dealer. Also Internet sales of assault weapons would be banned, and failing to safely store a weapon could be subject to a misdemeanor charge.

Ammunition magazines would be restricted to seven bullets, from the current 10, and current owners of higher-capacity magazines would have a year to sell them out of state. An owner caught at home with eight or more bullets in a magazine could face a misdemeanor charge.

In another provision, a therapist who believes a mental health patient made a credible threat to use a gun illegally would be required to report the incident to a mental health director who would have to report serious threats to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. A patient’s gun could be taken from him or her.

The legislation also increases sentences for gun crimes including the shooting of a first responder that Cuomo called the “Webster provision.” Last month in the western New York town of Webster, two firefighters were killed after responding to a fire set by the shooter, who eventually killed himself.

Legislators wouldn’t comment on the tentative deal or the provisions discussed in closed-door conferences.

“It’s a tough vote,” said Senate Deputy Majority Leader Thomas Libous of Broome County. “This is a very difficult issue depending on where you live in the state. I have had thousands of emails and calls … and I have to respect their wishes.” He said many of constituents worry the bill will conflict with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms while others anguish over shootings like at Newtown, Conn., and Columbine, Colo.

A vote Monday would come exactly one month after a gunman killed 20 children and six educators inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

The closed-door meetings prompted about a dozen gun workers to travel more than two hours to Albany to protest the legislation they say could cost 300 to 700 jobs in the economically hard-hit Mohawk Valley.

“I have three small kids myself,” said Jamie Rudall, a unionized worker who polishes shotgun receivers. “So I know what it means, the tragedy … we need to look at ways to prevent that, rather than eliminate the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

In the gun debate, one concern for New York is its major gun manufacturer upstate.

Remington Arms Co. makes the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle that was used in the Connecticut shootings and again on Christmas Eve when the two firefighters were slain in Webster. The two-century-old Remington factory in Ilion in central New York employs 1,000 workers in a Republican Senate district.

Assemblyman Marc Butler, a Republican who represents the area, decried the closed-door meetings by Senate Republicans and the Democratic majority of the Assembly as “politics at its worst.”

The bill would be the first test of the new coalition in control of the Senate, which has long been run by Republicans opposed to gun control measures. The chamber is now in the hands of Republicans and five breakaway Democrats led by Klein, an arrangement expected to result in more progressive legislation.

Former Republican Sen. Michael Balboni said that for legislators from the more conservative upstate region of New York, gun control “has the intensity of the gay marriage issue.” In 2011, three of four Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote for same-sex marriage ended up losing their jobs because of their votes.

———

AP Writer Michael Virtanen contributed to this report from Albany.

Obama to announce expansive gun-control agenda

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Obama to announce most expansive gun-control agenda in generations

By Philip Rucker, Published: January 15

President Obama on Wednesday will formally announce the most aggressive and expansive national gun-control agenda in generations as he presses Congress to mandate background checks for all firearms buyers and prohibit assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

The announcement will set off a fierce confrontation with Congress over an issue that has riven American society for decades. Obama’s far-reaching firearms agenda has at best tepid support from his party leaders and puts him at loggerheads with Democratic centrists.

Days before his second inauguration, Obama is seeking to drive the gun debate in a way that contrasts with the accommodating approach he often took during his first term. In the weeks ahead, he will attempt to rally popular support to bend the will of lawmakers to vote for what he considers the ideal, not merely the possible.

“Yes, we can reduce gun violence, but it’s something we have to do together,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday. “It’s something that cannot be done by a president alone. It can’t be done by a single community alone or a mayor or a governor or by Congress alone. We all have to work together.”

Obama will begin this effort Wednesday in the presence of children who wrote him letters after last month’s mass shooting at a grade school in Newtown, Conn., and who have been invited to Washington to attend the rollout.

In addition to background checks and restrictions on military-style guns and ammunition magazines, Obama is expected to propose mental health and school safety initiatives such as more federal funding for police officers in schools, according to lawmakers and interest group leaders whom White House officials briefed on the plans.

Bruce Reed, Vice President Biden’s chief of staff, told liberal activists late Tuesday that Obama’s package would also include a federal gun trafficking measure to stop straw-man purchases and crack down on trafficking rings after a number of mayors raised the issue, said a person familiar with the plan.

Obama also is expected to present up to 19 executive actions that his administration will take, the lawmakers and advocates said. These steps include enhanced federal scientific research on gun violence and a modernized federal database system to track guns, criminals and the mentally ill.

Most of these actions are relatively narrow in scope, however, and experts have said that without accompanying legislation they will do little to curb gun violence, at least in the near term.

Asked about the constraints on Obama’s executive powers, Carney said, “It is a simple fact that there are limits on what can be done within existing law.”

After Biden led a month-long task force, Obama decided to push an expansive agenda that in many ways represents his liberal base’s wish list rather than proposals that may be more politically viable to a divided Congress.

Obama’s proposals amount to the most comprehensive federal regulations of the firearms industry since 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson acted in the aftermath of high-profile assassinations.

“My starting point is not to worry about the politics,” Obama said. “My starting point is to focus on what makes sense, what works, what should we be doing to make sure that our children are safe and that we’re reducing the incidents of gun violence.”

Lawmakers, he added, “are going to have to have a debate and examine their own conscience.”

Already, there are warning signs about the hurdles Obama’s agenda may face on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said it would be exceedingly difficult to pass an assault-weapons ban, which appears to be the most polarizing of Obama’s proposals.

“Let’s be realistic,” Reid told a Nevada PBS affiliate last week. “In the Senate, we’re going to do what we think can get through the House, and I’m not going to go through a bunch of these gyrations just to say we’ve done something.”

House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) echoed that calculation on Tuesday by acknowledging the difficulties that gun-control legislation would face in the Republican-led House.

“That’s been the case based on past history,” Hoyer told reporters.

More than half of all Americans say the Newtown shootings have made them more supportive of gun control, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday. An assault-weapons ban has the support of 58 percent of Americans, the poll shows.

In New York on Tuesday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) signed into law what he called the most comprehensive package of state gun measures in the nation. The centerpiece is an expanded ban on assault weapons that would prohibit semiautomatic pistols and rifles as well as ammunition clips holding more than seven rounds.

Congress will take up the federal proposals next week — first in the Democratic-controlled Senate and then the House.

Gun control will be only one point of friction between the White House and the Capitol. Policy fights loom over raising the nation’s debt ceiling as well as overhauling immigration laws.

Obama’s gun control proposals are sure to face stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association, which released a video Tuesday on its Web site calling Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for having the Secret Service protect his daughters at school while voicing skepticism about an NRA effort to place armed guards in all schools.

Even some of the administration’s allies on Capitol Hill, including some rural Democrats, have criticized parts of Obama’s agenda.

“An assault-weapons stand-alone ban on just guns alone, in the political reality we have, will not go anywhere,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Sunday on CNN.

Lawmakers who have been part of Biden’s discussions said the White House is well aware of the political difficulty it faces in advancing this agenda.

“I think there’s a commitment to do the big things,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.). “I also think that they’re realists, and in addition to doing the big things, they want to make sure that they do as many of the effective things that we can find some level of consensus on.”

Consensus appears more possible around universal background checks and a ban on magazines capable of carrying more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) said she has spoken discreetly with several Republican lawmakers who may be open to backing a ban on high-capacity clips. “What I said to them is, ‘Do your own press conference. Come out as a group. There’s power in numbers,’ ” she said.

Some gun-control advocates say universal background checks could do more to stem gun violence than an assault-weapons ban because they would keep more firearms — including handguns used in most shootings — out of the hands of criminals or those with mental illnesses.

Matt Bennett, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist think tank consulted by Biden’s task force, said of the assault-weapons ban: “We support it, but we don’t think it will be easy to do. And we’re not sure that it is worth the expenditure of a tremendous amount of political capital to get.”

The long-dormant debate over gun laws was revived in December after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown.

Obama and his allies plan to pressure Congress from the outside, just as they did in the recent “fiscal cliff” negotiations that resulted in tax increases for the wealthiest Americans.

“The president can play a vital role in rallying the public support that already exists,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “It’s not a question of muscling anything through. It’s a question of changing the political calculus on this issue.”

Ed O’Keefe, Rosalind S. Helderman, Sari Horwitz and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.

Arizona legislators spit in the face of the people they pretend to serve

Court: Ariz. education spending must account for inflation

Our elected officials love to tell us they are "public servants" who work for us.

Sadly in reality they are royal government rulers who could care less about will of the people they pretend to serve.

And of course this article is a perfect example of how our elected officials routinely flush the will of the people down the toilet.

The article pretty much says that the people voted for a school funding initiative that called for annual inflation adjustments to the base education-funding formula. But the elected officials in the Arizona legislator ignored the law when handing out school funds. In the end the courts ruled that was illegal and ordered the legislators to obey the voter initiative.

Last but not least I am against government schools and think they should be ended and we should let the private sector educated our children, not government bureaucrats. So I don't support the money the people voted to give the schools.

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Court: Ariz. education spending must account for inflation

By Mary Jo Pitzl The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Jan 15, 2013 9:12 PM

Arizona schools and voters scored a significant legal victory over the state in a court ruling Tuesday that says the Legislature must fully pay for the base education budget, something that hasn’t happened for three years.

The unanimous decision by the state Court of Appeals amounts to an $80 million annual boon for the schools but could blow a similar-size hole in the upcoming state budget.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel effectively told the Legislature it cannot pick and choose which parts of a voter-approved school-funding initiative it wants to pay for.

Proposition 301, a ballot measure that voters approved in 2000, called for annual inflation adjustments to the base education-funding formula, which covers school operating costs and other education spending such as transportation and extra assistance to state charter schools.

But in the past three budget years, the Legislature paid only for minor elements in the education plan, omitting funding increases to account for inflation. Lawmakers argued “either/or” language in the ballot measure gave them permission to pick and choose which elements to fund, especially in years when the state was trying to erase deep budget deficits.

For this year, that meant the Legislature provided $7.2 million for inflation funding. Full funding with 2percent inflation would have amounted to $81.6 million, leaving a gap of $74.4 million, according to Chuck Essigs, governmental-relations director for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials.

A Maricopa County Superior Court ruling in 2011 agreed with lawmakers’ assertions that the language of the ballot measure gave them room to maneuver, but the Appeals Court used the Legislature’s own words, as well as the history of Prop. 301, to reverse the lower-court decision.

The Appeals Court noted that the Legislature assumed full inflation funding when it calculated the cost of the ballot measure before it went to the voters. And the Legislature’s description of the ballot measure said both the base education level and other education components must be adjusted for inflation.

More money for schools

If the ruling stands, it will be a boon for schools, which have not only dealt with smaller budgets due to the lack of inflation funding but also have taken cuts on top of reduced base funding, Essigs said.

“It’s a victory for schools, for education and a victory for the voters,” said Andrew Morrill, president of the Arizona Education Association, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with school districts.

The schools win because the ruling could mean more than $80 million a year in education funding. And voters win because the funding plan they approved more than 12 years ago has been upheld, Morrill said.

House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, said in a statement late Tuesday that he will ask the attorney general to appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Tuesday’s ruling could further complicate budget negotiations, coming one day after Gov. Jan Brewer asked the Legislature to expand the state’s Medicaid rolls, a move that would cost about $27 million in the coming fiscal 2014 budget.

The state is expecting a surplus of nearly $700 million this year and could draw on that to pay the education costs.

“It’s just another brick on the load,” said Sen. Don Shooter, R-Yuma and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The education groups that sued the state say they are not looking for a restoration of the estimated $250 million lost over the last three years. But they want the Legislature to honor what voters approved as well as any new education spending that Brewer or lawmakers might be contemplating.

In her State of the State address Monday, Brewer signaled she would seek increased funding to help schools meet new academic standards and to help pay for school-resource officers.

Sen. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa and a member of the Senate Education Committee, said he suspects the ruling means the governor’s education plans are “out the window.” But the initiatives Brewer wants could be covered by the money from inflation funding, he said.

Brewer’s office did not respond to a request for comment on how Tuesday’s ruling might affect her education-spending recommendations. She plans to present her fiscal 2014 budget Friday.

Education advocates said it would be unacceptable to expect the return of inflation funding to cancel out any new funding.

“We’re still up against one heck of a funding cliff,” said the AEA’s Morrill. The extra $80 million a year would be helpful, but it pales in comparison with the estimated $1.5 billion cut the K-12 schools have taken over the last five years, he said.

In that time, the Legislature has added new mandates with little funding to accompany them, he said. Those include tighter academic expectations in the Common Core standards, a requirement to have children reading at grade level by third grade.

Voter victory

Schools aren’t the only winners if the Appeals Court ruling stands.

Attorneys Tim Hogan and Don Peters, who represented a coalition of education groups, school districts and education supporters in the lawsuit, said voters also have prevailed in this case. That’s because Prop. 301, which passed with 53.5 percent of the vote, is safeguarded by the Voter Protection Act. That means the Legislature can’t scale back the measure.

“It requires the Legislature to honor the vote of Arizonans when they approved this,” Hogan said.

David Berman, a senior policy analyst at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, called the ruling “a victory for ballot-box budgeting and also for the Voter Protection Act.”

While voter-mandated spending puts the Legislature in a straitjacket and makes budgeting more difficult, Berman said, lawmakers need to heed the will of voters.

“The Legislature has got to start paying attention to what the voters want,” he said. “I know that sounds revolutionary, but the law is quite clear.”

Crandall said the ruling is “probably the right thing” because it reflects voter intent.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said the ruling could consume a lot of the extra money the Legislature thought it had to spend as it begins work on the fiscal 2014 budget.

Chris Thomas, general counsel for the Arizona School Boards Association, said he hopes lawmakers save taxpayer dollars and forgo an appeal. It would be better for lawmakers to focus on funding the pending achievement mandates, he said.

“Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work,” he said.

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Courts vs. Legislature

The Arizona Legislature’s policy decisions have sparked dozens of lawsuits in recent years. In many of the budget-related cases, the Legislature has prevailed more often than it has lost. But in other cases, such as Tuesday’s ruling on K-12 inflation funding, higher courts have rejected legislative moves. Here is a recap of some key cases:

Senate Bill 1070. The lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed challenging Arizona’s immigration law is still pending before a District Court judge. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled three parts of the law were unconstitutional.

ID at the polls. Arizona is appealing a ruling in a lawsuit it filed against U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder over whether the state’s voter-ID law conflicts with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state cannot require proof of citizenship to register to vote using a federal form in Arizona. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case this spring.

Brewer vs. Burns. In 2009, new Gov. Jan Brewer sued the Legislature, demanding they release budget bills for her review. The state Supreme Court ultimately decided that once such bills are approved, they must go to the governor.

First Things First. In July 2009,the state Supreme Court unanimously agreed the Legislature violated two voter-approved ballot measures when it swept $7 million in interest income from an early-childhood-development fund, First Things First, to help balance the budget.

Tucson elections. The Legislature in 2009 passed a law requiring the city hold nonpartisan elections for City Council seats, rather than partisan elections. A Pima County Superior Court upheld the law, but the state Court of Appeals overturned it.

Redistricting commission. The state Senate in 2011 affirmed Brewer’s decision to remove the head of the Independent Redistricting Commission. The Arizona Supreme Court reversed that decision and reinstated the chair.

Transportation aid. After the Legislature in 2010 eliminated a program that funds transportation-assistance programs, a federal court ordered $10 million reinstated. Cutting dollars violated Arizona’s clean-air plans under the federal Clean Air Act.

— Compiled by Mary Jo Pitzl, Alia Beard Rau and Mary K. Reinhart

Teacher fired for porn work not allowed to return to classroom

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Teacher fired for porn work not allowed to return to classroom

January 15, 2013 | 7:42 pm

An Oxnard middle school teacher’s bid to return to the classroom after she was fired for appearing in pornographic films has been struck down by the state Office of Administrative Hearings.

The Commission on Professional Competence found Stacie Halas, 32, unfit to teach eighth-grade science at Haydock Intermediate School and ordered her dismissal.

In a 47-page report dated Jan. 3, the commission said Halas’ work in the adult film industry hindered her ability to be a role model. The report also repeatedly took issue with her failure to be honest during the investigation.

Although Halas filmed the scenes between 2005 and 2006, before she was employed at the middle school, the ongoing availability of the videos will continue to hamper her ability to be an effective teacher, Judge Julie Cabos-Owen wrote.

Although Halas “failed to establish that she can be trusted as a role model for children or an example of redemption,” the report said, “the circumstances of this case most certainly demonstrate that one’s decisions and conduct, particularly continual deceit, must bring with them certain consequences.”

The Oxnard School District Board of Trustees fired Halas in April after students discovered the pornographic films she appeared in, a district spokesman said. Officials argued at the time that her past would continue to be a problem because students would be more focused on her adult films and not the teaching material.

Halas appealed the decision to the Commission on Professional Competence, which ruled against her after days of hearings in October.

“We were very pleased with the decision,” said Tom DeLapp, a spokesman for the Oxnard School District. “It vindicated and validated the arguments we’ve been making.”

Halas should have disclosed her past when she applied to work at the district, DeLapp said.

“She repeatedly and consciously had a pattern of lies and cover-ups when asked about it by her employers,” DeLapp said. “She would say ‘I didn’t do it’ or would create other lies to try and minimize the damage.”

Richard Schwab, Halas’ attorney, disagreed with the commission’s findings, in particular that his client was dishonest.

“I’m very disappointed,” Schwab said. “We believe Ms. Halas was very honest and forthright, but extremely nervous and embarrassed by her past. She’s obviously very disappointed and hurt.”

Halas presented an opportunity to teach others about redemption and overcoming obstacles, he said. At the time she participated in the adult films, Halas faced financial strains and helped support her family, then went on to be a teacher.

“A lesson can still be learned, but it would be a lesson that if you make a mistake you’re not going to be able to dig yourself out of a hole,” Schwab said.

Halas has not made a decision on whether to appeal the commission’s order, Schwab said, but if she did it would go before the Ventura County Superior Court.

Halas is on administrative leave, but the Oxnard School District Board of Trustees is expected to make a decision on whether to revoke her pay Wednesday, said district Supt. Jeff Chancer.

“She continuously lied to us about just about everything,” Chancer said. “I think educators, police, firefighters and clergy should be held to a higher standard.”

Worlds largest gun show is in Las Vegas

SHOT Gun Show - Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show

Their web site is here: www.nssf.org

You can register for the show here: www.shotshow.org and here

Source

Defiance, discretion at Vegas gun show

Justin Berton

Updated 7:26 am, Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Las Vegas -- A month after the elementary school massacre that threatens to change the American gun industry, a group based where that atrocity took place mixed defiance with discretion Tuesday in opening the doors to the world's largest gun show.

More than 60,000 gun dealers, retailers and apparel makers are in Las Vegas this week for the annual Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show, hosted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation of Newtown, Conn.

The four-day "SHOT Show" is not for the public - it's for those who sell to the public. With the killings of 20 schoolchildren and seven adults in Newtown prompting the Obama administration to move quickly on proposing changes in federal gun laws, the attitude in Las Vegas this week is a combination of aggressiveness, attention to image and adaptation to a new environment.

"You didn't cause the monstrous crime in Newtown and neither did we," Steve Sanetti, president and CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told members in opening-night remarks. A new product

On the floor of the Sands Expo and Convention Center, browsers gripped sleek new AR-15 rifles, such as the latest version of the Bushmaster Predator, which has an automatic option and can fire 30 rounds in a few seconds. Retailers showed off new inventions, including the iPhone case that doubles as a stun gun, a woman's bra that can holster a handgun - and a product from a Florida company designed to protect schoolchildren from a killer with a gun.

Unlike in past years, the SHOT Show isn't going out of its way to attract attention. Foundation officials declined interview requests from non-trade outlets and denied credentials to mainstream media a month before the trade show opened. A spokesman said a large media presence would be a distraction for people trying to do business at the show.

Gun control proponents interpreted the silence as an attempt to limit coverage of the convention, where assault weapons are on display and the latest military-style weaponry is geared up to amaze potential clients. Not 'puffed up' now

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, said industry executives were "puffed up" last year and happy to be interviewed on the convention floor after they reported record sales and estimated the value of the sporting gun industry at $4.1 billion.

"This industry is circling the wagons now," Sugarmann said. "The last thing the industry wants America to see and to think about right now is that these are the very guns the industry is promoting. Most people today would be shocked by what the gun industry has become - primarily marketing military-style weapons because that's the profit center."

Sanetti, the SHOT Show organizer, was among industry leaders who met Thursday with Vice President Joe Biden, who is leading an administration group that will recommend changes in federal gun laws.

On Monday, Sanetti issued a statement saying, "A prerequisite to any dialogue involving our industry and its products is an honest recognition of the legitimacy of what we do and the important part of the national culture we represent. Hunting and the recreational shooting sports are here to stay. And so are we."

The national debate dominated the concerns of conventioneers on the first day of the SHOT Show.

Gregg Thompson, co-owner of Crye Precision of Brooklyn, N.Y., which makes camouflage-pattern apparel including vests and helmets, said foot traffic appeared to be light.

"We are not in a good environment for what we do," said Thompson, whose sales team wore T-shirts that took a dig at the Obama administration: "Freedom Was Awesome 1776-2008."

Thompson added, "We should be looking for the solutions that give us more freedoms, not take them away."

Bad rap for rifle

For others, the trade show was an opportunity to network and try to put a new face on the gun industry.

Chris Cheng, a San Francisco resident and winner of the History Channel's reality marksman competition, "Top Shot," said he hoped to show that competitive shooters come from diverse backgrounds.

Cheng, an Asian American who left a job at Google to pursue his career as a marksman, uses the AR-15 as his primary rifle. It's the same gun that was used by Newtown killer Adam Lanza, which AR-15 fans say has given it a bad rap.

"Not only do thousands of other competitive shooters use the AR-15, but it is also the most popular modern sporting rifle in America," Cheng said. "That's an important piece of information to understand why talk of an 'assault weapons' ban is resonating with many gun owners."

Cheng was mindful of presenting a positive picture of gun owners. He answered questions through e-mail after his responses were vetted by his History Channel sponsors, and he declined to be photographed next to a poster of hunting rifles at the show.

School market

With the gun control debate focusing on the elementary school killings, Mike Hengstebeck was earning a lot of attention at his booth with a new item for schoolteachers called the LAD - Lockdown and Defend.

The $795 device resembles a fire extinguisher when it's not in use. If a teacher hears gunshots, Hengstebeck said, he or she can unfurl a bullet-resistant 2-by-4-foot sheet from LAD. The device also has two doorstops, which can be used to try to bar a gunman from breaking into the classroom.

Hengstebeck said the teacher can also hang the canvas over the window to protect the class or use it as a shield while students huddle behind it.

He said his company, SRT Supply of St. Petersburg, Fla., had just completed the product days before the show started and had already won the attention of local lawmakers.

"Unfortunately, a lot of times the people who get killed in school shootings are in the hallway," Hengstebeck said. "They hear the shots and they go running. With LAD, we're telling them to lock it down and defend themselves to give them a chance."

Justin Berton is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jberton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @justinberton

NRA hits Obama over ‘hypocrisy’ of armed guards for daughters

I suspect most government tyrants don't like guns because they know the Second Amendment was created to allow "The People" to protect themselves against government tyrants.

But it sounds so much better to say they want to take our guns away from us to protect innocent children from violence, rather then to protect themselves from "The People".

Source

NRA hits Obama over ‘hypocrisy’ of armed guards for daughters

By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket

In a sign of how brutal, emotional and deeply personal the coming battle over gun violence is likely to be, the National Rifle Association on Tuesday accused President Barack Obama of hypocrisy for having the Secret Service protect his daughters even as he opposes the NRA's call for armed guards in schools.

The Web video, first obtained by The Blaze, opens with a narrator asking, “Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?”

The 35-second video makes no effort to hide the tension and animosity between the NRA and Obama, even stepping into the recent "fiscal cliff" debate.

The video continues, “Mr. Obama demands that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security” as an altered image of the president peers over a stack of dollar bills, followed by images of “Meet the Press” host David Gregory, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Vice President Joe Biden.

A White House official declined to comment on the video. However, spokesman Jay Carney did announce that Obama would outline his administration’s plan to address gun violence on Wednesday.

Eric Pfeiffer contributed to this report.

Gun grabbing Obama unveils $500 million gun violence package

Obama unveils $500 million gun violence package

By Julie Pace and Erica Werner Associated Press

Wed Jan 16, 2013 10:43 AM

President Barack Obama on Wednesday launched the most sweeping effort to curb U.S. gun violence in nearly two decades, announcing a $500 million package that sets up a fight with Congress over bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines just a month after a shooting in Connecticut killed 20 school children.

Obama also signed 23 executive actions, which require no congressional approval. But the president, speaking at the White House, acknowledged the most sweeping, effective actions must be taken by lawmakers.

“To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act,” Obama said. “And Congress must act soon.” He added, “I’ll put everything that I’ve got into this.”

Obama was joined by children who wrote him letters about gun violence in the weeks following the Connecticut shooting. Families of the children killed in the shooting, as well as survivors, were also in the audience.

The president appealed to the nation’s conscience, but his announcement promises to set up a bitter fight with a powerful pro-gun lobby that has long warned supporters that Obama wanted to take away their guns.

The U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership of any country in the world, and pro-gun groups see any move on gun restrictions as an offense against the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Critics counter that the country’s founding fathers never could have foreseen assault weapons more than two centuries ago, when guns were intended for the common, not individual, defense, guns were often stored in community areas and rifles fired one shot at a time.

“This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and always will be,” Obama said, acknowledging the right to possess and bear firearms. “But we’ve also long realized … that with rights come responsibilities.”

Emotions have been high since the Connecticut shooting, which Obama has called the worst day of his presidency. He largely ignored the issue of gun violence during his first term but appears willing to stake his second term on it now. He’ll have to contend with looming fiscal issues that have threatened to push whatever he proposes aside, at least for a while.

Gun control advocates also worry that opposition from the powerful National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress will be too great to overcome. The NRA released an online video Tuesday that called Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for having armed Secret Service agents protect his daughters at school while not committing to installing armed guards in all schools. The NRA insists that the best way to prevent more mass shootings is to give more “good guys” guns.

The White House called the NRA video “repugnant and cowardly.” [What's cowardly about calling a hypocrite a hypocrite?]

The public appears receptive to stronger federal action on guns, with majorities of Americans favoring a nationwide ban on military-style rapid-fire weapons, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. Three-quarters of Americans said they reacted to the Connecticut shooting with deep anger, while 54 percent said they felt deeply ashamed it could happen in the United States.

The poll also shows 51 percent said they believed laws limiting gun ownership infringe on the public’s right to bear firearms.

White House officials, seeking to avoid setting the president up for failure, have emphasized that no single measure — even an assault weapons ban — would solve the scourge of gun violence. But without such a ban, or other sweeping Congress-approved measures, it’s unclear whether executive actions alone can make any noticeable difference. [It will certainly take the guns away from the good guys. Of course criminals who never do obey the law will continue to have guns!]

The president asked Congress to renew the ban on high-grade, military-style assault weapons that was first signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 but expired in 2004. Obama also called for limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds or fewer, and he proposed a federal statute to stop purchases of guns by buyers who are acting for others.

The president also called for a focus on universal background checks. Some 40 percent of gun sales take place without background checks, including those by private sellers at gun shows or over the Internet, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The president’s framework is based on recommendations from Vice President Joe Biden, who led a wide-ranging task force on gun violence. Beyond the gun control measures, Biden also gave Obama suggestions for improving mental health care and addressing violent images in video games, movies and television.

States and cities have been moving against gun violence as well. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday signed into law the toughest gun control law in the U.S., and the first since the Connecticut shooting. The law includes a tougher assault-weapons ban and provisions to try to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people who make threats.

The NRA criticized the bill, saying in a statement, “These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime.”

In Washington, it’s unclear how much political capital Obama will use in pressing for congressional action.

The White House and Congress will soon be consumed by three looming fiscal deadlines, each of which is expected to be contentious. And the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has warned the White House that it will be at least three months before the chamber considers gun legislation.

Congress, in any case, can move slowly. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday he’ll begin hearings in two weeks on gun safety proposals. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, a gun owner, said he envisions a series of hearings examining violence in popular media and how to keep guns safe, among other topics.

Leahy’s plan could take more time than Obama has urged.

Obama’s long list of executive orders includes the following:

— Ordering tougher penalties for people who lie on background checks and requiring federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

— Ending limits that make it more difficult for the government to research gun violence, such as gathering data on guns that fall into criminal hands.

— Requiring federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

— Giving schools flexibility to use federal grant money to improve school safety, such as by hiring school resource officers. [Wow! Looks like President Obama is going to implement the dumb NRA suggestion of putting a cop in every school - I guess Obama loves jobs programs for cops!!!!]

— Giving communities grants to institute programs to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them.

New NRA ad denounces Obama as a hypocrite

New NRA ad denounces Obama as a hypocrite

By Morgan Little and Melanie Mason This post has been updated. See below for details.

January 16, 2013, 8:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Denouncing President Obama as an “elitist hypocrite,” the National Rifle Assn. released a new video attacking the president for opposing universal armed guards in schools while his own daughters are protected by the Secret Service.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” the ad asks, “Then why is he skeptical of putting armed security in schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards in their school?”

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, during the organization’s controversial response to the shootings in Newtown, Conn., called for armed guards to protect students in schools nationwide, and previewed the organization’s line of attack against the president.

“We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol police officers,” LaPierre said in December. “Yet when it comes to our most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family, our children, we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless. And the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it. That must change now.”

Obama had previously declared his skepticism over the NRA’s idea during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in December.

“I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools, and I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem,” he said.

[Updated, 9:02 a.m. PST Jan. 16: The ad was roundly critiqued Wednesday morning, with former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs calling it “stupid” and “disgusting” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“This reminds me of an ad that somebody made about 2 o'clock in the morning,” he said.

And David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said the ad falls “beyond the pale.”

"Generally speaking, a president’s family should not be subject to political criticism," he said.

The White House swiftly condemned the NRA’s ad.

"Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. "But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly."]

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said that those criticizing the commercial for pulling Sasha and Malia Obama into the political debate are “completely missing the point” and that the ad is about ”keeping our children safe.”

“There is a double standard when the president said that he’s skeptical about having policemen in school yet his family is the beneficiary of multiple armed law enforcement officers,” Arulanandam said.

Arulanandam said the ad is currently running on the Sportsman Channel, as well as on its online site NRAstandandfight.org. He said the ad foreshadows an increased television presence from the NRA as the debate over gun laws moves over to Capitol Hill.

On the other side of the debate, Americans for Responsible Solutions, a group established by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly to counteract the NRA’s well-documented influence in Washington, is looking to comb supporters for possible solutions to the country’s gun violence.

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

melanie.mason@latimes.com

President Obama’s 23 gun grabbing policy

You will have to click here to view the actions, because it's a PDF file and I can't include it here.

Source

President Obama’s actions on gun policy

Pres­id­ent Obama de­clared Wed­nes­day 23 ex­ec­ut­ive ac­tions his ad­min­is­tra­tion would be tak­ing in re­sponse to a series of shoot­ing sprees over the past year. In­cluded in the list are broad­er back­ground checks on gun buy­ers, the nom­in­a­tion of a new ATF dir­ect­or and more.

Sen. Rich Crandall wants a cop in every classroom in Arizona???

Of course if you are a police chief or elected county sheriff it's a great way to expand your empire. Same goes for the police union officials, I bet they love this idea.

But if you are a taxpayer who has to pay for this stupid plan it really sucks.

Do really need several armed police officers in every one of Arizona's 2,042 public schools, to protect us from an event that happens once every 5 or 10 years in the USA???

Source

Ariz. lawmaker, sheriff propose armed officers in schools

By Alia Beard Rau The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Jan 15, 2013 4:23 PM

A Republican state lawmaker and an influential Republican sheriff have jumped on the bandwagon of state political leaders proposing plans to improve school safety in Arizona by hiring more armed officers.

Sen. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu announced at a joint news conference Tuesday a $30 million plan they propose to introduce into the Legislature, which appears to be a melding of some of other recent plans to boost security in schools in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting.

They propose spending $24 million to hire 300 more school resource officers, as well as $4.5 million on mental health services and $1 million for additional training for school counselors.

They said they also will support legislation to allow school districts to arm school staff if the district chooses to do so and if the staff gets sufficient training, but Crandall didn’t go so far as to say he will be the one to sponsor such a bill. Babeu has been a strong supporter of this idea in recent weeks.

Unlike prior plans that either don’t yet have legislative support or are being pushed by the minority Democratic party, Crandall and Babeu said they believe this one actually has a chance of success.

“A lot of ideas have been discussed, but we’re trying to bring something today that has a chance of being funded and moving forward,” Crandall said.

The Crandall/Babeu plan is also unique in that it proposes to find a funding source other than the general fund. They are proposing three possibilities: using excess Clean Elections funds, which would require a 2014 ballot referendum; create a transfer tax for private party auto sales; or increase the tax on alcohol sales.

Crandall said the most likely possibility is using Clean Elections funding. He said he will ask the governor and Legislature to fund the plan for the first two years until they can get it on the ballot.

NRA begins pushback with Web ad criticizing Obama

NRA begins pushback with Web ad criticizing Obama

Associated Press Wed Jan 16, 2013 3:50 PM

WASHINGTON — In a sharp pushback against any new gun regulations, the National Rifle Association posted a Web video that labels President Barack Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for allowing his daughters to be protected by armed Secret Service agents while not embracing armed guards for schools. [Oddly one of Obama's proposals is to fund armed police officers for schools like the NRA suggested. Of course I think that is a really dumb idea.]

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours?” a male narrator asks in the video. “Then why is he skeptical of putting armed security in schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards in their school?” [Again one of Obama's proposals is to fund armed police officers for schools like the NRA suggested]

The spot, posted even before Obama unveiled his gun policy proposals on Wednesday, drew an indignant response from the White House.

“Most Americans agree that a president’s children should not be used as pawns in a political fight,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “But to go so far as to make the safety of the president’s children the subject of an attack ad is repugnant and cowardly.” [What's the problem??? Obama is clearly a hypocrite on this issue. He has armed Secret Service police officers guard his children, while he wants to take away our guns]

The group’s confrontational video bore the hallmarks of a conventional political attack ad. It uses grainy, unflattering visuals of Obama, has a grim-sounding narrator and ominous music. It also invokes a seemingly unrelated issue, Obama’s insistence on a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans, as it argues that Obama is hypocritical because he’s expressed skepticism about putting armed guards in schools in response to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. [For the third time one of Obama's proposals is to fund armed police officers for schools like the NRA suggested]

The ad equates Secret Service protection provided to Obama and his family with a proposal by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre to put armed guards in schools after the Newtown shootings. LaPierre suggested that would have prevented the shootings that ended 26 lives.

“Protection for their kids,” the narrator says, “and gun-free zones for ours.”

The video is part of what’s expected to be an aggressive NRA lobbying push to thwart new gun regulations. The group has been raising money in response to the outcry for new gun laws. The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that a fresh fundraising appeal, circulated this week by LaPierre to the group’s membership, calls the current debate “the fight of the century.”

“I warned you this day was coming and now it’s here,” LaPierre wrote. “This is the fight of the century and I need you on board with NRA now more than ever. My strength, and the strength of our entire NRA organization, comes from you and your strong commitment to our membership. I need you in our corner TODAY.”

The group’s formal response to Obama’s announcement of legislative proposals and executive actions on Wednesday was more muted but still skeptical. “The NRA will continue to focus on keeping our children safe and securing our schools, fixing our broken mental health system, and prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law,” the statement said.

“We look forward to working with Congress on a bipartisan basis to find real solutions to protecting America’s most valuable asset - our children,” it said. “Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation. Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.”

Obama takes on gun extremists

In this editorial the author labels people that believe in the Second Amendment as "gun extremists" in an effort to paint them as nut jobs.

I wonder would he think it was unreasonable to require journalists who want to exercise their First Amendment right of free speech to first buy a $200 First Amendment permit, like people that want to exercise their Second Amendment right of owning a machine gun have to??

Source

Obama takes on gun extremists

This time, the moderate is willing to fight

By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: January 16

President Obama went big in offering a remarkably comprehensive plan to curb gun violence, and good for him. But his announcement Wednesday is only the beginning of a protracted struggle for national sanity on firearms. Extremists have controlled the debate on guns for many years. They will do all they can to preserve a bloody status quo. The irrationality of their approach must be exposed and their power broken.

Far from acting as if his work was now done, the president made clear that he is fully invested in seeing his agenda realized — and fully prepared to lead a national movement to loosen the grip of resignation and cynicism in the face of brutality and carnage. Gun violence is not some “boutique” issue, as it is occasionally called. We are in danger of having mass shootings define us as a nation. As a people, we must rise up against this obscenity.

This fight is especially challenging for many who view themselves as “moderates” or “centrists.” Moderation is a thoroughly honorable disposition, and Obama’s proposals are moderation incarnate. By international standards, they are very cautious. The president did not call for registering all guns or confiscating assault weapons. He strongly endorsed the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. He is operating within a broad consensus about what is possible and what can work.

An assault-weapons ban received 38 Republican votes in the House in 1994 and is backed by 58 percent of Americans, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. Were those Republicans outside the mainstream? And what about that 58 percent of Americans? The poll also found that 65 percent favored a ban on high-capacity magazines, another part of the Obama plan, and 86 percent favored closing the gun-show loophole, part of the effort to make sure there are background checks for all gun purchases.

But the lobbies that purport to speak for gun owners (while actually representing the interests of gun manufacturers) don’t care what the public thinks. They tried to pretend the president’s ideas are radical. And it shows how perverse our national conversation can become when those who speak in the name of civility, reason and bipartisanship give in to timidity.

Too often, moderation has become a synonym for cowardice. Too often, moderates lack the guts to define the sensible middle of the road themselves — as Obama has done on the gun issue — and then to defend it. Instead, they yield to the temptation to calibrate where everyone else stands before deciding what they believe. This allows extremists who lack any shame to drag our discourse off the road entirely, into a ditch of unreason, fear and invective.

After the NRA’s vile new advertisement that uses Secret Service protection for the president’s daughters to make a small-minded political point, can anyone take the organization’s arguments seriously again? Aren’t politicians who continue to bow low before the NRA complicit with a crowd that lacks any sense of decency?

It tells us all we need to know, that the gun lobby is deeply afraid of the facts and the evidence. This is why one of the most important actions the president took was to end the ban on research into gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which the weapons lobby had forced through a compliant Congress.

Yet Obama and Vice President Biden also worked hard to find middle ground in their anti-violence program in drawing on concerns raised since the Sandy Hook tragedy by gun rights advocates. Obama thus addressed not only firearms issues but also the imperative to improve school security and our mental health system, as well as the need to know more about the impact of violent video games.

Most heartening of all was the tone the president took. He did not cast himself as an evenhanded umpire far above the fray, handing down ideas that all people of good will would inevitably accept. He acknowledged that the battle ahead would be difficult. He predicted he would have to fight the lie that his plan constituted “a tyrannical assault on liberty.” And he sought to mobilize a new effort to counteract the entrenched power of those who have dictated submissiveness in the face of bloodshed.

“Enough,” Obama declared, insisting that change would come only “if the American people demand it.”

Will we?

Read more from E.J. Dionne’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

Obama’s far-reaching gun-proposals face uncertain fate in divided Congress

Of course the White House hypocrites had Obama pose with a bunch of children in the photo used for this this article.

Source

Obama’s far-reaching gun-proposals face uncertain fate in divided Congress

By Philip Rucker and Ed O’Keefe, Published: January 16

The gun-control agenda that President Obama unveiled with urgency on Wednesday now faces an uncertain fate in a bitterly divided Congress, where Republican opposition hardened and centrist Democrats remained noncommittal after a month of feverish public debate.

By pursuing an expansive overhaul of the nation’s gun laws, Obama is wagering that public opinion has evolved enough after a string of mass shootings to force passage of politically contentious measures that Congress has long stymied.

Yet there was no indication on Wednesday that the mood on Capitol Hill has changed much. Within hours of Obama’s formal policy rollout at the White House, Republicans who had previously said they were open to a discussion about gun violence condemned his agenda as violating the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

“I’m confident there will be bipartisan opposition to his proposal,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement.

The Senate plans to begin taking up Obama’s proposals next week, with the House waiting to see what the Democrat-controlled Senate passes first, congressional aides said. The Senate is likely to take a piecemeal approach, eventually holding up-or-down votes on the individual elements of Obama’s plan rather than trying to muscle through a single comprehensive bill, aides said.

Obama, in an emotional White House ceremony, outlined four major legislative proposals aimed at curbing what he called “the epidemic of gun violence in this country”: universal background checks for all gun buyers, a crackdown on gun trafficking, a ban on military-style assault weapons and a ban on ammunition magazines holding more than 10 bullets.

Obama also signed paperwork initiating 23 executive actions that include steps to strengthen the existing background-check system, promote research on gun violence and provide training in “active shooter situations.” He also nominated Todd Jones, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to become the agency’s permanent director.

As important as the executive actions are, Obama said, “they are in no way a substitute” for the legislative proposals he sent to Congress.

“We have to examine ourselves in our hearts and ask yourselves: What is important?” Obama said. He added, “If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors, if hunters and sportsmen, if responsible gun owners, if Americans of every background stand up and say, enough, we’ve suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this to continue, then change will — change will come.”

But on Capitol Hill, where two decades of gun-control efforts have landed in the political graveyard, leaders of Obama’s own party do not necessarily share his views.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) stopped short of embracing Obama’s proposals, calling them “thoughtful recommendations” and saying that he would “consider legislation that addresses gun violence and other aspects of violence in our society early this year.”

In contrast with his role in the major policy debates during Obama’s first term, Reid is likely to step back on guns, according to Senate Democratic aides. He will leave it to Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) to shepherd the legislation, at least for now.

Reid is concerned about the potential political impact on fellow Democrats representing rural or conservative states, and he believes gun control could become a significant issue for at least 10 of the 23 Democratic Senate seats up for grabs in 2014, aides said.

The four measures Obama presented — which, taken together, rank among the most ambitious legislative projects of his presidency — appear to have varying levels of support in Congress.

The White House and Democratic lawmakers have calculated that the assault-weapons ban — a version of which passed in 1994 but expired a decade later — has the toughest odds, according to gun-control advocates in regular contact with administration officials. Also in jeopardy, they said, is the proposal to prohibit high-capacity magazines.

But a broad consensus seems more likely to build around universal background checks, which senior administration officials said is Obama’s top priority. Schumer said the idea is “at the sweet spot” of what is politically possible.

The gun trafficking proposal, which would impose new penalties on those who buy multiple firearms and hand them off to criminals, also could find majority support.

“If you are left in a position of having to oppose universal background checks and a firearms trafficking statute, that’s tough for responsible Republicans,” said Matt Bennett, a senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist think tank.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) adopted a wait-and-see approach Wednesday. His spokesman, Michael Steel, said House committees will consider Obama’s proposals and “if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that.”

But the statements from many other Republicans at both ends of the Capitol were far tougher. Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.), who has threatened to initiate impeachment proceedings against Obama, condemned what he described as Obama’s “anti-gun sneak attack” and promised a legislative battle to protect “the God-given right to keep and bear arms.”

A potential presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), said: “President Obama is targeting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens instead of seriously addressing the real underlying causes of such violence.”

And Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who last week said he would be open to some form of gun control, said on Wednesday that Obama’s executive actions amounted to a “power grab” to “poke holes in the Second Amendment.”

No Republican lawmakers attended Wednesday’s White House ceremony. The only vestige of bipartisanship came when Obama invoked former president Ronald Reagan. He noted that Reagan, “one of the staunchest defenders of the Second Amendment,” wrote to Congress in 1994 to urge support for the assault-weapons ban.

Obama acknowledged that getting his proposals through Congress “will be difficult,” making a veiled reference to powerful lobbying groups such as the National Rifle Association.

“There will be pundits and politicians and special-interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty — not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves,” Obama predicted. “And behind the scenes, they’ll do everything they can to block any common-sense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever.”

In its official response, the NRA adopted a more muted tone than it has in recent weeks, saying it would work with Congress “on a bipartisan basis” to develop solutions that secure the nation’s schools and fix broken mental health systems. The statement did not specifically address Obama’s proposals, which include a $150 million school-safety initiative to help communities hire 1,000 new school resource officers.

But at a huge annual gun show in Las Vegas, the NRA said its opposition to Obama’s plans was “the fight of the century.”

“I warned you this day was coming, and now it’s here,” NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre wrote in a fundraising letter circulated at the trade show. “It’s not about protecting your children. It’s not about stopping crime. It’s about banning your guns . . . PERIOD!”

Gun-control advocates say their strategy will be to highlight popular support for most of Obama’s proposals and rally voters across the country to press their representatives in Congress to act.

“There’s an extraordinary disconnect between what the American public wants — including gun owners and NRA members — and what our elected officials are doing about it,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “It is going to be up to us, the American public, to close that disconnect.”

Obama vowed Wednesday to “put everything I’ve got into this.” In a moving event one month and two days after a gunman killed 20 small children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Obama was flanked by children who wrote him letters in the days after the massacre, pleading with him to do something to curb gun violence.

The president urged Americans to put pressure on their members of Congress and “get them on record” on whether they support universal background checks on gun buyers and renewal of the bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“And if they say no, ask them why not,” Obama said. “Ask them what’s more important: Doing whatever it takes to get an ‘A’ grade from the gun lobby that funds their campaigns, or giving parents some peace of mind when they drop their child off to first grade?”

Vice President Biden, who headed the task force that developed Wednesday’s proposals, said “we have a moral obligation” to reduce the chances that tragedies such as the one in Newtown could happen again.

“I have no illusions about what we’re up against,” Biden said. But he added: “The world has changed, and it’s demanding action.”

Sari Horwitz in Las Vegas and William Branigin, Scott Wilson and Lyndsey Layton in Washington contributed to this report.

The latest shooting victim - The Bill of Rights

I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too.

I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too.

By JOHN HOWARD

Published: January 16, 2013

SYDNEY, Australia

It is for Americans and their elected representatives to determine the right response to President Obama’s proposals on gun control. I wouldn’t presume to lecture Americans on the subject. I can, however, describe what I, as prime minister of Australia, did to curb gun violence following a horrific massacre 17 years ago in the hope that it will contribute constructively to the debate in the United States.

I was elected prime minister in early 1996, leading a center-right coalition. Virtually every nonurban electoral district in the country — where gun ownership was higher than elsewhere — sent a member of my coalition to Parliament.

Six weeks later, on April 28, 1996, Martin Bryant, a psychologically disturbed man, used a semiautomatic Armalite rifle and a semiautomatic SKS assault weapon to kill 35 people in a murderous rampage in Port Arthur, Tasmania.

After this wanton slaughter, I knew that I had to use the authority of my office to curb the possession and use of the type of weapons that killed 35 innocent people. I also knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Our challenges were different from America’s. Australia is an even more intensely urban society, with close to 60 percent of our people living in large cities. Our gun lobby isn’t as powerful or well-financed as the National Rifle Association in the United States. Australia, correctly in my view, does not have a Bill of Rights, so our legislatures have more say than America’s over many issues of individual rights, and our courts have less control. Also, we have no constitutional right to bear arms. (After all, the British granted us nationhood peacefully; the United States had to fight for it.)

Because Australia is a federation of states, the national government has no control over gun ownership, sale or use, beyond controlling imports. Given our decentralized system of government, I could reduce the number of dangerous firearms only by persuading the states to enact uniform laws totally prohibiting the ownership, possession and sale of all automatic and semiautomatic weapons while the national government banned the importation of such weapons.

To make this plan work, there had to be a federally financed gun buyback scheme. Ultimately, the cost of the buyback was met by a special one-off tax imposed on all Australians. This required new legislation and was widely accepted across the political spectrum. Almost 700,000 guns were bought back and destroyed — the equivalent of 40 million guns in the United States.

City dwellers supported our plan, but there was strong resistance by some in rural Australia. Many farmers resented being told to surrender weapons they had used safely all of their lives. Penalizing decent, law-abiding citizens because of the criminal behavior of others seemed unfair. Many of them had been lifelong supporters of my coalition and felt bewildered and betrayed by these new laws. I understood their misgivings. Yet I felt there was no alternative.

The fundamental problem was the ready availability of high-powered weapons, which enabled people to convert their murderous impulses into mass killing. Certainly, shortcomings in treating mental illness and the harmful influence of violent video games and movies may have played a role. But nothing trumps easy access to a gun. It is easier to kill 10 people with a gun than with a knife.

Passing gun-control laws was a major challenge for my coalition partner: the rural, conservative National Party. All of its members held seats in nonurban areas. It was also very hard for the state government of Queensland, in Australia’s northeast, where the National Party was dominant, and where the majority of the population was rural.

The leaders of the National Party, as well as the premier of Queensland, courageously supported my government’s decision, despite the electoral pain it caused them. Within a year, a new populist and conservative political party, the One Nation Party, emerged and took many votes from our coalition in subsequent state and federal elections; one of its key policies was the reversal of the gun laws.

For a time, it seemed that certain states might refuse to enact the ban. But I made clear that my government was willing to hold a nationwide referendum to alter the Australian Constitution and give the federal government constitutional power over guns. Such a referendum would have been expensive and divisive, but it would have passed. And all state governments knew this.

In the end, we won the battle to change gun laws because there was majority support across Australia for banning certain weapons. And today, there is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate. [He conveniently forgot to say if the gun control laws reduced crime. I read that crime actually increased] The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996. The American Journal of Law and Economics found that our gun buyback scheme cut firearm suicides by 74 percent. In the 18 years before the 1996 reforms, Australia suffered 13 gun massacres — each with more than four victims — causing a total of 102 deaths. There has not been a single massacre in that category since 1996.

Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun control.

John Howard was prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007.

Who Says You Can Kill Americans, Mr. President?

Gun control won't stop Obama from committing more drone murders!!!!

Who Says You Can Kill Americans, Mr. President?

By VICKI DIVOLL

Published: January 16, 2013

WASHINGTON

PRESIDENT OBAMA has refused to tell Congress or the American people why he believes the Constitution gives, or fails to deny, him the authority to secretly target and kill American citizens who he suspects are involved in terrorist activities overseas. So far he has killed three that we know of.

Presidents had never before, to our knowledge, targeted specific Americans for military strikes. There are no court decisions that tell us if he is acting lawfully. Mr. Obama tells us not to worry, though, because his lawyers say it is fine, because experts guide the decisions and because his advisers have set up a careful process to help him decide whom he should kill.

He must think we should be relieved.

The three Americans known to have been killed, in two drone strikes in Yemen in the fall of 2011, are Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was born in New Mexico; Samir Khan, a naturalized American citizen who had lived in New York and North Carolina, and was killed alongside Mr. Awlaki; and, in a strike two weeks later, Mr. Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was born in Colorado.

Most of us think these people were probably terrorists anyway. So the president’s reassurances have been enough to keep criticism at an acceptable level for the White House. Democrats in Congress and in the press have only gingerly questioned the claims by a Democratic president that he is right about the law and careful when he orders drone attacks on our citizens. And Republicans, who favor aggressive national security powers for the executive branch, look forward to the day when one of their own can wield them again.

But a few of our representatives have spoken up — sort of. Several months ago, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, began limply requesting the Department of Justice memorandums that justify the targeted killing program. At a committee hearing, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., reminded of the request, demurred and shared a rueful chuckle with the senator. Mr. Leahy did not want to be rude, it seems — though some of us remember him being harder on former President George W. Bush’s attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, in 2005.

So, even though Congress has the absolute power under the Constitution to receive these documents, the Democratic-controlled Senate has not fought this president to get them. If the senators did, and the president held fast to his refusal, they could go to court and demand them, and I believe they would win. Perhaps even better, they could skip getting the legal memos and go right to the meat of the matter — using oversight and perhaps legislating to control the president’s killing powers. That isn’t happening either.

Thank goodness we have another branch of government to step into the fray. It is the job of the federal courts to interpret the Constitution and laws, and thus to define the boundaries of the powers of the branches of government, including their own.

In reining in the branches, the courts have been toughest on themselves, however. A long line of Supreme Court cases require that judges wait for cases to come to them. They can take cases only from plaintiffs who have a personal stake in the outcome; they cannot decide political questions; they cannot rule on an issue not squarely before them.

Because of these and other limitations, no case has made it far enough in federal court for a judge to rule on the merits of the basic constitutional questions at stake here. A pending case filed in July by the families of the three dead Americans does raise Fourth and Fifth Amendment challenges to the president’s killings of their relatives. We will see if the judge agrees to consider the constitutional questions or dismisses the case, citing limitations on his own power.

In another case, decided two weeks ago, a federal judge in Manhattan, Colleen McMahon, ruled, grudgingly, that the American Civil Liberties Union and two New York Times reporters could not get access, under the Freedom of Information Act, to classified legal memorandums that were relied on to justify the targeted killing program. In her opinion, she expressed serious reservations about the president’s interpretation of the constitutional questions. But the merits of the program were not before her, just access to the Justice Department memos, so her opinion was, in effect, nothing but an interesting read.

So at the moment, the legislature and the courts are flummoxed by, or don’t care about, how or whether to take on this aggressive program. But Mr. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, should know, of all people, what needs to be done. He was highly critical when Mr. Bush applied new constitutional theories to justify warrantless wiretapping and “enhanced interrogation.” In his 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama demanded transparency, and after taking office, he released legal memos that the Bush administration had kept secret. Once the self-serving constitutional analysis that the Bush team had used was revealed, legal scholars from across the spectrum studied and denounced it.

While Mr. Obama has criticized his predecessor, he has also worried about his successors. Last fall, when the election’s outcome was still in doubt, Mr. Obama talked about drone strikes in general and said Congress and the courts should in some manner “rein in” presidents by putting a “legal architecture in place.” His comments seemed to reflect concern that future presidents should perhaps not wield alone such awesome and unchecked power over life and death — of anyone, not just Americans. Oddly, under current law, Congress and the courts are involved when presidents eavesdrop on Americans, detain them or harshly interrogate them — but not when they kill them.

It is not just the most recent president, this one and the next whom we need to worry about when it comes to improper exercise of power. It is every president. Mr. Obama should declassify and release, to Congress, the press and the public, documents that set forth the detailed constitutional and statutory analysis he relies on for targeting and killing American citizens.

Perhaps Mr. Obama still believes that, in a democracy, the people have a right to know the legal theories upon which the president executes his great powers. Certainly, we can hope so. After all, his interpretation might be wrong.

Vicki Divoll is a former general counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and former deputy legal adviser to the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center.

Gun-friendly Arizona may feel bigger impact than other states

If Obama really wants to make America safer he should ban cars, not guns

In 2011 32,367 people died in auto accidents. Almost all of those deaths were accidental and could have been prevented.

In 2010 31,672 people died from guns. I suspect only a few of those deaths were accidental and preventable.

Source

Gun-friendly Arizona may feel bigger impact than other states

By Dennis Wagner The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Jan 17, 2013 7:45 AM

If President Barack Obama’s proposed gun-control measures are enacted by Congress, the impact on firearms access and public safety may be more pronounced in Arizona than almost anywhere else in America, say experts on both sides of the debate.

The Grand Canyon State is among the nation’s worst or best when it comes to firearms regulation, depending on where one stands on the polarizing issue.

Put simply, Arizonans can buy, own and carry guns with few limitations, whether the weapons are concealed or not.

Obama’s 23-point plan outlined Wednesday calls on Congress to adopt measures that already exist in some states — but not in Arizona.

Among the key proposals: mandatory background checks on all firearms purchases, a ban on military-style assault weapons and a limit on high-capacity magazines.

The prospects for passage are uncertain, but reaction in the state made famous by Wyatt Earp’s gunfight at the O.K. Corral was predictably passionate.

Charles Heller, co-founder of the Tucson-based Arizona Citizens Defense League, said Obama is trying to undermine a fundamental right to bear arms.

“The idea of the Second Amendment was so we could shoot the cops and the soldiers ... who are trying to overthrow the U.S. Constitution,” Heller said. “The Founding Fathers wanted the citizens to be armed with the same equipment as the government.”

Mari Bailey, president of the Greater Phoenix Million Mom March, which is affiliated with the national Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Arizona and the nation must reflect on the damage done because of unfettered access to assault-style weapons.

“We’ve already seen that allowing these things isn’t working,” said Bailey, whose 21-year-old son was slain by a gunman in 2004. “I know it will make a difference. ... It will show a decline in mass shootings.”

Arizonans for Gun Safety President Hildy Saizow, who met with Vice President Joe Biden last week to discuss the public-safety plan, said Obama’s proposals are “fabulous.”

“His plan mirrors the recommendations I gave to Vice President Biden,” Saizow added. “He’s taking a very comprehensive approach by looking at not only the mass shootings and what we can do to prevent those, but what we can do to reduce gun violence generally.”

The National Rifle Association does not maintain a ranking list for states, but its website shows Arizona conforming to nearly every NRA barometer for Second Amendment support.

On Wednesday, the nation’s largest gun lobby responded to Obama’s plan with a news release that said: “Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation. Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected, and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.”

Heller, the Tucson gun-rights advocate, said he sees little chance of Obama’s firearms legislation passing congressional muster. He scoffed at the idea of limiting magazines to 10 rounds of ammunition when some can hold three times that number. “Are they saying it’s moral to shoot 10 people but not 30?” he asked.

The California-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave Arizona an F for firearms-safety regulation. “Out of 50 states, Arizona came in 49th behind only South Dakota,” said Lindsay Nichols, an attorney who worked on the report card. “It has some of the weakest gun laws in the country.”

Nichols noted that Arizona does not require background checks for private or gun-show transactions and the state does not limit certain semiautomatic weapons. When asked if a federal law mandating those regulations would affect firearm accessibility and lethality more in Arizona than other states, she said, “Yes, and it might cause a larger reduction in the number of gun deaths.”

An online scorecard issued by the Brady Campaign ranks Arizona last (with Utah and Alaska) for firearms-safety provisions. The state received a “0” score.

Bailey said it seems absurd that Americans need licenses to drive cars and buy prescriptions for drugs, but they can walk into Walmart and purchase an assault-style gun with the groceries. [Wrong!!! To buy a gun at Walmart you need a government issued photo ID, like a driver's license to start the process and then you need to pass a Brady Bill check.]

“We’ve done nothing as a gun-culture nation for long enough,” she added. “Let’s try something.”

Randy Gardner, a Tucson man who was shot in the foot during gunman Jared Loughner’s shooting spree two years ago, said Obama came up with reasonable policies that don’t jeopardize Second Amendment rights.

“Why can’t we make an attempt to have a safer society?” asked Gardner, 62. “It’s all common-sense stuff for those of us who were involved in gunplay here.”

There are more than 10,000 firearms homicides in the United States annually, and Gardner said a reduction of even 10 percent would be significant.

“No one is naive enough to think this will be the end of mass slayings,” he added. “But just one person being killed tears at the fabric of a whole family, and then it goes out to friends. We’re talking millions of people affected.” [If you really want to make America safer make cars illegal!!! In 2011 32,367 people died in auto accidents. In 2010 31,672 people died from guns.]

Arizona’s congressional delegation responded to the president’s plan along predictably partisan lines.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he will consider “common-sense legislation” to keep guns away from criminals, but Obama’s plan “goes too far.”

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said the president launched an “attack on personal gun ownership, the Second Amendment and our God-given rights.”

Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., said Obama came up with a common-sense plan to combat violence, especially in schools. “This is the right thing to do, now more than ever,” he added.

At the Republican-controlled Legislature in Phoenix, Obama’s ideas present a dramatic contrast to gun-rights bills enacted in recent years.

Sen. Don Shooter, R-Yuma, criticized Obama for using executive orders in a quest to increase firearms regulation.

“He’s governing like Caesar Augustus or Adolf Hitler,” Shooter said. “This is just more insanity and tyranny from Washington, when what we need to be doing is taking a real, hard look at our mental-health system.”

House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, said in a news release that Obama has “shown his unwillingness to develop real solutions to ensure the safety of our children and has instead opted to infringe on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens for his own political aggrandizement.”

Democrats in the Legislature, meanwhile, welcomed Obama’s public-safety initiative as a plan that includes mental-health initiatives and school protections along with gun control.

Sen. Robert Meza of Phoenix said he plans state legislation to complement the plan by outlawing the possession of an unregistered firearm.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, who introduced a bill last week with proposals similar to Obama’s, applauded the presidential initiative.

Reporters Alia Beard Rau, Erin Kelly and Mary K. Reinhart contributed to this article.

The Second Amendment is not about killing unarmed children!!!

Dear Editor:

Lets face it the Founders didn't create the Second Amendment to allow people to kill defenseless, unarmed school children.

The Second Amendment was created to allow people to kill well armed government tyrants.

In 1776 that meant allowing the people to have swords, flintlock rifles and canons.

In 2013 it means allowing the people to have machine guns, rocket launchers, anti-tank guns and all the other weapons the well armed government tyrants have.

Mike Ross
Tempe, Arizona

Using kids as props limits the gun debate

Source

Using kids as props limits the gun debate

By Doug MacEachern, columnist The Republic

Thu Jan 17, 2013 8:18 AM

As a former gun owner — my inherited 20-gauge antique shotgun was, ahem, stolen in a burglary — I’m nevertheless sympathetic to the national furor calling for more serious gun control.

Not that I have much hope anything proposed Wednesday by President Barack Obama will accomplish much. I simply respect the fact that there is a growing (and, yes, passionate) national desire to keep weapons out of the wrong people’s grip.

More to the point, though, I’m anxious to take the debate out of the control of the zealots.

I don’t like policy discussions being controlled by unreasonable lots like Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association any more than I like public-education discourse determined by agitprop experts from the National Education Association. Let’s have a real discussion, eh?

That is what was most discouraging about Obama’s event on Wednesday advancing his executive orders on gun control. It was staged agitprop using children as foils — not as a means of engaging in a national-policy debate over effective gun control, but simply for browbeating the other side.

Politicians don’t use children as stage props to talk policy.

They use children to shut up their political opponents. I’m for the children, and you’re not. I find that reprehensible.

Politicians have been using “regular people” as sympathy magnets for exactly 30 years. In the circle of political stage-managers, they are known as “Lenny Skutniks.”

Lenny Skutnik was the heroic regular guy who flung himself into the icy Potomac to save survivors of the crash of Air Florida Flight 90. Reagan wanted to honor him, so he brought him to Congress for his 1982 State of the Union address.

Acknowledging Skutnik was nice, of course, but it begat the habit of presidents and other pols becoming ever more inventive at involving sympathetic non-public figures for ever-more-dubious purposes.

I thought the practice had hit a crescendo when Obama pointlessly surrounded himself with “middle-class taxpayers” at his Republican-baiting press event on New Year’s Eve at the end of the fiscal-cliff crisis. As if his GOP opponents could not have used the same group of people as props to show how Obama’s deal would be hiking their payroll taxes, which it did.

But Wednesday’s shameless use of children was still worse.

You may not like LaPierre’s idea of putting armed guards in schools to protect against the madmen out there. I’m not crazy about it. (Although Obama’s “school-resource officers” seems like a soft-soap, politically correct version of the same thing.)

But can you imagine the Vesuvian uproar if he had proposed it while surrounded by a group of kids backed up by a squad of well-armed toughs?

Same goal as Obama, after all. He wants to protect the kids.

Not all cops are gun grabbers who want to disarm you!!!!!

Sheriffs, state lawmakers push back on gun control

By JEFF BARNARD | Associated Press – 23 mins ago

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — From Oregon to Mississippi, President Barack Obama's proposed ban on new assault weapons and large-capacity magazines struck a nerve among rural lawmen and lawmakers, many of whom vowed to ignore any restrictions — and even try to stop federal officials from enforcing gun policy in their jurisdictions.

"A lot of sheriffs are now standing up and saying, 'Follow the Constitution,'" said Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson, whose territory covers the timbered mountains of southwestern Oregon.

But their actual powers to defy federal law are limited. And much of the impassioned rhetoric amounts to political posturing until — and if — Congress acts.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said recently it's unlikely an assault weapons ban would actually pass the House of Representatives. Absent action by Congress, all that remains are 23 executive orders Obama announced that apply only to the federal government, not local or state law enforcement.

Gun advocates have seen Obama as an enemy despite his expression of support for the interpretation of the Second Amendment as a personal right to have guns. So his call for new measures — including background checks for all gun buyers and Senate confirmation of a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — triggered new vows of defiance.

In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, urged the Legislature to make it illegal to enforce any executive order by the president that violates the Constitution.

"If someone kicks open my door and they're entering my home, I'd like as many bullets as I could to protect my children, and if I only have three, then the ability for me to protect my family is greatly diminished," Bryant said. "And what we're doing now is saying, 'We're standing against the federal government taking away our civil liberties.'"

Tennessee Republican state Rep. Joe Carr wants to make it a state crime for federal agents to enforce any ban on firearms or ammunition. Carr instead called for more armed guards at schools.

"We're tired of political antics, cheap props of using children as bait to gin up emotional attachment for an issue that quite honestly doesn't solve the problem," Carr said.

Legislative proposals to pre-empt new federal gun restrictions also have arisen in Wyoming, Utah and Alaska.

A Wyoming bill specifies that any federal limitation on guns would be unenforceable. It also would make it a state felony for federal agents to try to enforce restrictions.

"I think there are a lot of people who would want to take all of our guns if they could," said co-sponsor Rep. Kendell Kroeker, a Republican. "And they're only restrained by the opposition of the people, and other lawmakers who are concerned about our rights."

Republican state Sen. Larry Hicks credited Wyoming's high rate of gun ownership for a low rate of gun violence.

"Our kids grow up around firearms, and they also grow up hunting, and they know what the consequences are of taking a life," Hicks said. "We're not insulated from the real world in Wyoming."

In Utah, some Republicans are preparing legislation to exempt the state from federal gun laws — and fine any federal agents who try to seize guns. A bill in the Alaska House would make it a misdemeanor for a federal agent to enforce new restrictions on gun ownership.

While such proposals are eye-catching, they likely could never be implemented.

"The legislature can pass anything it wants," said Sam Kamin, a constitutional law professor at the University of Denver. "The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution makes that clearly unconstitutional. Where there's a conflict between state and federal law, the federal government is supreme."

Kamin and other legal experts said such disdain of Obama's proposals is reminiscent of former Confederate states' refusal to comply with federal law extending equal rights for blacks after the Civil War.

The National Sheriff's Association has supported administration efforts to combat gun violence after the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings. President Larry Amerson, sheriff of Calhoun, Ala., said he understands the frustrations of people in rural areas with the federal government. But he feels his oath of office binds him to uphold all laws.

"Any sheriff who knows his duty knows we don't enforce federal law, per se," said Amerson, a longtime firearms instructor and hunter.

Some rural sheriffs view the federal government as an adversary, with gun ownership at the core of that belief.

In Minnesota, Pine County Sheriff Robin Cole sent an open letter to residents saying he did not believe the federal government had the right to tell the states how to regulate firearms. He said he would refuse to enforce any federal mandate he felt violated constitutional rights.

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, based in Fredericksburg, Texas, encourages that point of view. Founder Richard Mack, a former sheriff of Apache County, Ariz., speaks regularly at gatherings of Tea Party groups and gun rights organizations.

"I will tell Mr. Obama and everybody else who wants to impose gun control in America, that whether you like it or not, it is against the law," said Mack. "Now we have good sheriffs who are standing up and defending the law against our own president."

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report: Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Ben Neary in Cheyenne, Wyo., Erik Schelzig in Nashville, Tenn., John O'Connor in Springfield, Ill., Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Miss.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and Mesa Mayor Scott Smith are a gun grabbers???

The Second Amendment was create to allow the PEOPLE to violently overthrow the government should the government become tyrannical. And of course any tyrannical government is going to use a background check as a way of keeping their enemies from having guns.

Source

2 Valley mayors agree on need for better background checks

By Erin Kelly Republic Washington Bureau Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:27 PM

WASHINGTON -- If Congress wants to find consensus on reducing gun violence, universal background checks on everyone who wants to buy a firearm may be the best place to start, the mayors of Phoenix and Mesa said Thursday.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat, and Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a Republican, disagree on many of President Barack Obama’s proposed gun-control measures but agree on the need for better background checks to keep guns from criminals and the mentally ill.

The two addressed the issue while attending the annual winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors here.

Stanton supports the president’s wide-ranging approach, which includes a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Smith says he believes such bans infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

But both support the idea of ensuring that everyone who buys a gun should undergo a background check. Currently, those checks aren’t done on buyers who purchase firearms at gun shows and other private sales. The president’s plan, unveiled Tuesday, would change that.

Smith said he wants more details about how the background checks would work, but supports the general idea.

“There is wide support among gun owners — of which I am one — to make sure guns don’t end up in the hands of the wrong people,” said Smith, who is vice president of the mayors’ group. “I think most everyone can agree that convicted criminals and people with serious mental illness should not have guns.”

David Keene, president of the National Rifle Association said Thursday on “CBS This Morning” that the organization is “generally supportive” of strong background checks.

Stanton said passing legislation to require universal background checks is the least that Congress can do in the wake of last month’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

“I think America is saying it’s time to take reasonable measures to reduce gun violence,” Stanton said. “If we can deal with the issue of background checks, that’s part of a good consensus approach.”

While the issue of gun violence dominated the news coverage of the first day of the mayors’ three-day meeting, Stanton and Smith said the federal fiscal crisis still tops their list of concerns.

When Congress reached a last-minute deal on New Year’s Day to stop middle-class tax increases from taking effect, lawmakers postponed for two months a decision on what to do about $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts in federal spending on defense and domestic programs.

Arizona stands to lose 50,000 jobs if Congress does not stop the cuts from taking effect on March 1, Stanton said.

“It’s not acceptable that we’re still facing this looming threat,” he said. “We understand that some federal budget cuts are coming, but this is too much. This would throw us back into recession.”

Smith agreed, calling the automatic cuts “a dumb idea.” He said he is especially concerned that some lawmakers are talking about eliminating the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds.

“Those bonds are our lifeblood for financing our local projects,” Smith said.

With gun violence and fiscal issues dominating Washington, Stanton also said he fears that comprehensive immigration reform will once again be pushed aside by Congress.

“Congress should be able to multi-task and address gun violence and immigration at the same time,” Stanton said.

Senator Dennis DeConcini is a gun grabber???

Gun-control debates of past show political risks

By Dan Nowicki The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jan 18, 2013 7:55 AM

One of the driving forces behind the last federal ban on “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines believes President Barack Obama and gun-control allies have a chance at getting an updated version passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Former Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., acknowledged that Second Amendment advocates and the gun lobby are poised to put up fierce opposition, just as they did nearly 20 years ago, when Congress adopted similar curbs after a hard-fought and politically costly battle on Capitol Hill.

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, DeConcini took up the cause against assault weapons in 1989, after one of the guns was used to shoot children during a schoolyard killing spree in Stockton, Calif. Back home in Arizona, critics organized a short-lived recall effort against him.

“The reality is it takes a lot of courage,” said DeConcini, who sat on the joint House-Senate conference committee that considered the 1994 ban. “It wasn’t telling people they can’t own guns. It was just restricting some guns.” [And that is nothing more then double talk saying I was telling people they can't own guns!!!]

However, the legislation banning the manufacturing, transport and possession of certain types of guns, which was included as part of a sweeping anti-crime bill, contained loopholes that allowed gunmakers to sidestep the law by changing some of the physical features of the weapons. The 10-year ban expired without congressional reauthorization in 2004.

DeConcini previously had sponsored assault-weapon legislation that passed the Senate but couldn’t get out of the House. He credits development of the ban to then-Judiciary Committee aide Dennis Burke, the future U.S. attorney for Arizona who years later was at the center of the “Operation Fast and Furious” gun-trafficking scandal.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., took the lead on the issue in 1994 because the three-term DeConcini was preparing to retire. Even though Democrats controlled the House at the time, conservative Democrats such as powerful House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks, D-Texas, were antagonistic toward gun-control legislation. The 10-year sunset clause was included as part of a deal to win support from skeptics such as Brooks, DeConcini said.

“That was the compromise — the only way you could have passed it,” DeConcini told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday, hours after President Barack Obama unveiled his plan.

Brooks, who died Dec. 4, lost his House seat in the 1994 election as part of a backlash to the assault-weapons ban that is believed to have contributed to that year’s “Republican Revolution.”

Other political casualties included one-term Rep. Karan English, D-Ariz., whose vote for the ban likely was a factor in her loss to GOP challenger J.D. Hayworth. English’s district included part of rural Arizona, where many voters cherish gun rights.

Ten years later, there was little political interest in renewing the ban or in pursuing any new gun-control measures in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The 1994 ban’s definition of assault weapons also proved problematic in practice. In addition to targeting specific types of guns such as AK-47s, AR-15s and TEC-9s, the measure extended the definition of “assault weapons” to semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines in conjunction with at least two other features such as a pistol grip, a bayonet mount or a flash suppressor.

Semiautomatic pistols also could be assault weapons if the guns had a certain combination of features. Gun manufacturers started making cosmetic alterations to get around the ban.

It is unclear how new legislation would define assault weapons.

“On one of them, they changed the grip, and it qualified as a different weapon,” DeConcini recalled.

Assault weapons manufactured before 1994 were exempt, which caused some to question the ban’s effectiveness. Pre-ban models remained in circulation and could still be sold. In 1997, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse attracted national criticism for offering one such pre-ban semiautomatic AR-15 rifle as a raffle prize.

“There were loopholes that obviously mitigated some (of the impact) of the ban,” said veteran Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., who voted for the 1994 legislation and would support a 2013 version, although he is pessimistic one could pass.

Although gun control has more momentum than it has had in years, another political expert agreed that a new assault-weapons ban is unlikely to make it out of the Republican-run House.

“It seems to me right now that the politics of this issue are just really, really difficult,” said William Dixon, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona.

Obama's gun grabbing won't prevent crime???

A political fight over gun violence that won’t make much difference

Let’s assume everything President Obama has proposed regarding gun violence were adopted. How much would it reduce the likelihood of future mass killings such as at Newtown?

The only honest answer to that question is: Hardly at all.

This is not an argument that gun control cannot be effective. If the United States adopted Australian-style gun control, in which guns were not only banned but confiscated, the incidence of gun violence in the United States might very well go down.

But the United States is not going to discuss, much less implement, Australian-style gun control. There’s virtually no political support for it and it would require amending the U.S. Constitution.

So, Obama is proposing a prospective ban on the sale of some rapid-fire rifles and high-capacity magazines. The United States had such a ban for ten years, beginning in 1994. The incidence of gun violence generally and mass killings specifically did not subside materially.

A prospective ban leaves an ample supply of such weapons in circulation. And if the ban were left in place for a longer period of time, it would primarily fuel a black market in such weapons. Current owners are unlikely to simply accept the federal government rendering their property worthless in terms of resale.

And even what Obama proposes is politically unlikely. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid says he doesn’t want to force his members to vote on gun control measures that won’t be passed by the House. Republican House Speaker John Boehner says he will be happy to consider gun control measures that pass the Senate. You can read between the lines.

Even the proposal for which there is widest support – universal background checks – is likely to run into political difficulty once people start concentrating on the details.

A large portion of gun sales are between individuals. A hunk of them occur during organized gun shows but a hunk of them are truly private transactions.

There are only two options for implementing a universal background check. Either everyone with Internet access is given the ability to check the eligibility of any other resident of the United States to purchase a gun; or private guns sales have to be essentially outlawed and all gun purchases required to go through federally licensed dealers. Both options will have political problems.

Other than the gun control components, the president’s plan consists of small-scale federal initiatives that won’t make much of a difference. This is best illustrated by the proposal regarding school resource officers and counselors.

Obama proposes that the federal government spend $150 million to put 1,000 cops or counselors in American schools. But there are 100,000 schools in the United States. So, the initiative would reach about 1 percent of all schools.

The Obama plan is stuffed with similar proposals of highly limited reach. The federal government is not only broke, it is dangerously broke – broke in a way that endangers the U.S. economy. This is not a time to be throwing federal money at problems so that politicians can say that they are doing something.

In reality, meaningful initiatives regarding school safety and mental health screening will have to take place at the state and local level. But even there, what is being proposed is more about doing something than about accomplishing something that will actually make a difference.

Mass killings are rare and highly random events. Since 1980, there have been about 20 such incidents a year in the United States, resulting in an average of about 100 deaths each year.

The pace of such incidents has not been increasing, nor has the homicide rate generally. In fact, the homicide rate in the United States today is not materially different than it was in 1900.

What is different is the saturation media coverage mass killings receive. And that changes the political dynamic.

I understand it. The Newtown massacre, and similar slaughters, stun the senses and stir the soul. The desire to do something to stop them is universal. And politicians have to respond.

It’s just sad that we are going to have such a wrenching and emotional political fight over things that aren’t really going to make much of a difference, if any at all.

Kindergartner suspended for bubble GUN remark

Source

Kindergartner suspended for bubble-gun remark

Associated Press Fri Jan 18, 2013 2:49 PM

MOUNT CARMEL, Pa. — A central Pennsylvania family has hired an attorney to fight their 5-year-old daughter’s 10-day suspension from kindergarten for telling another girl she was going to shoot her with a bubble gun.

Attorney Robin Ficker says Mount Carmel Area School District officials labeled the girl a “terrorist threat” for the remark made as both girls stood waiting for a school bus on Jan. 10. The girl was referring to a device that shoots out soap bubbles — which she didn’t even have with her at the time.

Ficker says the girl has never shot a real gun and “is the least terroristic person in Pennsylvania.”

School district solicitor Edward Greco tells pennlive.com that officials are looking into the incident, but says he and school officials aren’t at liberty to discuss disciplinary actions.

Australia's gun control: Success or failure?

Source

Australia's gun control: Success or failure?

Steve Chapman

4:55 p.m. CST, January 18, 2013

After a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted a sweeping package of gun restrictions far more ambitious than anything plausible here -- including a total ban on semiautomatic weapons, a mandatory gun buyback, and strict limits on who could own a firearm. John Howard, who was prime minister at the time, wrote the other day that his country "is safer today as a consequence of gun control."

You would think such dramatic new restrictions were bound to help. But the striking thing is how little effect they had on gun deaths.

It's true the homicide rate fell after the law took effect -- but it had also been falling long before that. A study published by the liberal Brookings Institution noted that the decline didn't accelerate after 1996. Same for lethal accidents. Suicide didn't budge. At most, they conclude "there may" -- may -- "have been a modest effect on homicide rates."

Researchers at the University of Melbourne, however, found no such improvement as a result of the new system. "There is little evidence to suggest that it had any significant effects on firearm homicides or suicides," they wrote.

Howard says the country has had no mass shootings since 1996. But mass shootings are such a tiny share of all homicides that any connection may be purely a matter of chance.

We learned from the 1994 assault weapons ban that modest gun control measures don't work. What Australia suggests is that even if radical ones could be passed, they wouldn't work either.

Alcohol kills 10 times as many people as guns do!!!

The CDC reports for every gun related death, there are ten alcohol related deaths.

On the other hand we already did that and the Prohibition was a dismal failure, just like the insane and unconstitutional "War on Drugs"

Source

Turley-Hansen: Time to get real about the world’s addiction to alcohol

Posted: Friday, January 18, 2013 9:45 am | Updated: 10:43 am, Fri Jan 18, 2013.

Guest Commentary by Linda Turley-Hansen | 11 comments

She’s young, tall-model-slender, beautiful and with a song bird voice. I’ll call her Annie. And, today she sits in jail, serving a lengthy term for her history with drugs. Like so many others, her road to trouble started with alcohol.

So, we all want our children safe, right? Few debates elicit unity in the way child protection issues do. Here in the East Valley we’re a family community and we work hard at providing every opportunity for the next generations. But still many are not willing to provide safety at adult expense. Case in point: the world’s addiction to alcohol.

Did you know Arizona ranks at the top nationally in regards to youth drinking (U.S. Center for Disease Control, June 8, 2012)? Arizona high schools surveyed rank No. 1 “for alcohol use and binge drinking” and No. 2 “for cocaine use and drinking alcohol on school property.”

We yip and carry on about gun dangers, yet right in our own homes are the roots of not only death, some of them slow and torturous, but also the collapse of marriages, endless lost jobs and more sorrows than can be recounted in one little column. Just ask Annie.

It’d be a wonderful world if there were no killing machines, but humans have proven we’ll still find a way to do ourselves and others in. It’s when we lead our kids down destructive paths that we really stand condemned. Yet we remain complacent because we don’t binge and are not addicted — so what’s the big deal, right?

I’ve harped on this before, but when we see news reports about high school students binging, and dying, and involved in alcohol related rapes and other violence, the topic cries to be revisited with the same passion as gun control, infant car seats and fast food.

Experts tell us in today’s culture, teens feel extreme social pressure to drink. Then, as their youth/adult crossroads overflow with confusion they discover alcohol suppresses feelings. Without adults to show them a better way, their choices are predictable.

Still not convinced?

Think about this: Women are the fastest growing segment of the alcohol abusing population. Yet, women’s bodies are less tolerant to alcohol than men. Further, “binge drinking can increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer, heart disease, unintentional pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and auto accidents” (CDC).

Of 23,000 annual deaths attributed to excessive alcohol use among females, binge drinking accounts for more than half (CDC).

One other small fact: The CDC reports for every gun related death, there are ten alcohol related deaths. Yeah. Let’s “get the guns.”

Politics drive this issue; we know that, while one of the biggest killers ever is sitting right in children’s homes, used by their parents, night after night “just to relax,” or as a primary social beverage.

Not your problem? Really? This is one monster failure of society. The affects touch everyone from taxes to spiritual deprivation. Ask Annie and all the others.

Why wait for social norms to change? As just one parent, your example and educated outreach might save a child, or dozens. One of them might just belong to you.

East Valley resident Linda Turley-Hansen (turleyhansen@gmail.com) is a syndicated columnist and former Phoenix veteran TV anchor.

Kyrsten Sinema pretends to be a big fan of the Second Amendment???

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said

“those of us in Arizona, we believe very strongly in the Second Amendment”

Anybody who says they are a "strong supporter of the Second Amendment" followed by the word "BUT" tends to be a gun grabber.

Source

Arizona delegation seeks common ground on gun reform

By Dan Nowicki and Rebekah L. Sanders The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:19 AM

If Arizona’s split delegation is a barometer of Congress on the issue of gun control, there may be a path forward for at least one proposal put forth last week by President Barack Obama: universal background checks.

Echoing many of his lower-chamber colleagues on Friday, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said he likely would have a hard time supporting a new federal ban on “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines but suggested there may be common ground on universal background checks.

“I’ve always said we’ve got to do a better job of keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them,” Flake said. “There have been some technological issues with gun shows, and you want to make sure that people can legally buy guns for protection or recreation or collection without untimely delays. But I think technology has moved so that we can better deal with that issue and have broader background checks.”

He noted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has expressed misgivings about revisiting the assault-weapons ban that was in place from 1994 to 2004.

“That’s a heavy lift in both bodies,” Flake said. “It’s a tough case to make that this would change the dynamic of gun violence very much.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who represents southern Arizona’s 3rd District, said the Senate will be able to find compromise more easily than the House, where Republicans hold a majority and leadership has not indicated an appetite for a debate.

“What is doable and what should we have are two different things,” Grijalva said.

Obama’s executive orders, including ending the freeze on research into gun-related violence, were “low-hanging fruit,” he said. The heavy lifting, on controversial bills such as a renewed assault-weapons ban, will have to be done by Congress.

Grijalva has heard the argument that it would be victory enough for Democrats to drop the assault-weapons ban as a bargaining chip for other measures such as ammunition magazine-size restrictions and universal background checks.

“Is it a step in the right direction? Yes. Is it the comprehensive change that we need? No,” Grijalva said. “Many people would vote for a third of a loaf, instead of no loaf at all. But I think it’s still cowardly to not confront the whole issue.”

One national political expert told The Arizona Republic that he has talked to many lawmakers and staff members about the issue and said a compromise is possible but not necessarily probable.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said a compromise package would include certain gun reforms with some measures sought by the National Rifle Association.

“The consensus is that if anything passes, it would be universal background checks, or at least closing the gun-show loophole, combined with some mental-health reforms and perhaps some money for hiring guards at participating school districts,” Sabato said. “And maybe something about violent movies: It looks like, because of the First Amendment, about the only thing they can do is strengthen warning labels.”

Rodolfo Espino, an associate professor of political science at Arizona State University, said the Congress of 2013 and the Congress of 1994, when lawmakers adopted the now-expired 10-year ban on assault weapons, are much different. Because it has been so long since Congress tackled gun control, it’s unclear whether either side is willing to compromise.

“The last time that gun-control legislation was introduced or talked about at this level ... polarization in Congress was much lower,” Espino said. “It’s much higher now, and that also affects the ability to compromise.”

Unlike in 1994, the House is controlled by Republicans, and “it’s a much more conservative GOP,” he said.

A divisive topic

On other issues in Obama’s gun-control plan, there is far less agreement among the state’s members of Congress.

Some Republican members say they won’t even entertain talk of a law that would touch the Second Amendment. Others say there may be room for compromise on certain issues. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has been out of the country and could not be reached for comment.

Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., told The Republic that he thought Democrats and Republicans might be able to come together on background checks, some mental-health measures and school-safety improvements.

“But I think limiting the number of bullets in a magazine or any type of ban on assault weapons or anything to do with registration will be very difficult,” said Pastor, who supported the 1994 assault-weapons ban. “The NRA and their supporters are not going to go for that.”

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., suggested that any compromise on Second Amendment-related issues might be elusive. He said he was offended that President Barack Obama included children in his news conference to announce the gun proposals.

“The thing that is apparent to me is that the Obama administration’s motto that one should never let any crisis go to waste certainly is in vogue here,” said Franks, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution. “The administration is using one of the most tragic things to ever happen to families here to promote a policy, using them as props, that will not protect them.”

When Obama unveiled his proposals last week, he was joined by children who had written him following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., urging him to take action against gun violence.

Given the potential Second Amendment implications, Franks said his subcommittee may have some jurisdiction on gun issues.

“One of my deepest desires is to protect the lives and the constitutional rights of all Americans,” he said. “I want to search for solutions that really will protect children, rather than use them to posture politically.”

Mental health

Freshman Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said because she has been in Congress only for a couple of weeks, it is somewhat difficult for her to say which proposals have a realistic chance of attracting bipartisan support.

“There is a shared concern about finding a balance that protects the Second Amendment,” Sinema said. “Particularly those of us in Arizona, we believe very strongly in the Second Amendment. We believe that it provides an individual right for people to bear arms and own weapons, but we also are concerned about having folks who are mentally ill or have a violent history getting access to firearms. So, I do think that there is room and there is opportunity to have a discussion to find that right balance.”

Sinema said she is particularly interested in the mental-health aspects of the debate. “That’s a difficult issue to address — it’s very complex — but I think it’s also the most important in this conversation,” she said.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who represents rural northwest Arizona’s 4th District, was traveling and unavailable for comment. In a written statement, he said experience has shown tough gun restrictions have not reduced gun violence.

“When you limit an individual’s ability to lawfully purchase or carry firearms you are allowing only those with the intent to break the law to have weapons,” he said.

However, Gosar agreed with Obama on two points: the need for greater school-safety measures and improved mental-health services.

It’s unclear how much money House Republicans like Gosar, many of whom are focused on cutting the nation’s deficit, are willing to spend to support those objectives.

Background checks

Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., who represents the rural northeast Arizona 1st District, said she is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, as are many in her district.

“But we also have to do something,” she said. “It’s a balancing of those interests, and I’m listening to people in the district about what makes sense to them.”

She plans to talk to police chiefs, sheriffs, mayors and residents from Flagstaff to near Tucson over the next few months to get their input.

But some proposals are no-brainers, she said. Kirkpatrick said she could easily get behind Obama’s request to stiffen penalties for gun traffickers and require universal background checks, which she has heard support for already.

“I hope that we can work across the aisle to find a consensus around this issue,” she said.

Sinema said she also has long supported closing the gun-show loophole that allows firearms to be purchased from private sellers without the background screening that buyers must submit to at a gun store.

“It doesn’t make sense that someone who would fail a background check can easily, knowingly and legally buy a cache of weapons at a gun show when this is a person that we know would not be able to get one otherwise,” she said.

GOP reaction

Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., who represents the East Valley’s conservative 5th Congressional District, was not available for comment. But on his Facebook page, he said he was disappointed in Obama’s response to the Sandy Hook tragedy.

Salmon said the proposals would “limit the Constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” He argued that the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, which occurred when the assault-weapons ban was in place, proved that renewing such a ban would “not stop individuals from committing horrific crimes.”

He told a Maricopa County GOP meeting last weekend, according to a YouTube video: “We have a president that believes that because of some very cataclysmic events over the last few months, it’s time to erode some of our freedom.”

Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., who represents the northeast Valley’s 6th District, was unavailable for comment. But in a fundraising e-mail to campaign supporters Friday, Schweikert called Obama’s moves a “gun grab.”

“They may say otherwise, but we know the truth,” the e-mail said. “The liberal left has never been shy about hiding their real intentions — the elimination of most Americans’ right to own a firearm.”

Hopeful survivor

Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., who represents southern Arizona’s 2nd District and is a survivor of the shooting near Tucson that wounded Gabrielle Giffords, said he thinks three proposals can make it through Congress: improved mental-health services, size limits on ammunition magazines and universal background checks.

Barber recently introduced a bill to provide training to teachers, firefighters and the general public about spotting and helping people with mental illness get treatment.

As for Obama’s executive orders, Barber believes the president did not overstep his authority. The orders put in motion things such as emergency safety plans for schools, reviewing standards for gun locks and gun safes, and launching a national dialogue on mental health.

But on the proposals Obama asked Congress to take up, so far, Barber said he has not heard support from any of his Republican colleagues.

Arizona’s delegation is deeply divided, as well, though Barber wouldn’t talk specifically.

“We’ve had some conversations,” he said. “Hopefully, we will continue to do so until we can find common ground.”

Las Vegas cop murder wife and son

Las Vegas officer, wife and son dead in murder-suicide

You can always trust a cop to be a law abiding honest citizens. Well at least that's what the cops tell us!!!!

Source

Vegas officer, wife and son dead in murder-suicide

By KEN RITTER, Associated Press

Updated 12:17 am, Tuesday, January 22, 2013

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A police lieutenant, his wife and son are dead after an apparent double murder, suicide and arson at their home, authorities said.

Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie and other officials didn't immediately identify the police officer or the family members on Monday. Identifications would probably be made sometime on Tuesday.

"There was an incident today involving one if Metro's lieutenants," a somber Gillespie said in brief statement to reporters. "Several bodies were discovered."

Gillespie, the elected head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said the lieutenant was a 20-year veteran of the force. Gillespie spoke of "untold grief" for family members, friends and co-workers. He took no questions.

The sheriff said the investigation in Boulder City, about 20 miles southeast of Las Vegas, was being handled by police in neighboring Henderson.

Henderson police spokesman Keith Paul said a man called 911 at about 8:20 a.m. Monday and told a dispatcher he killed his wife and child, set his house afire and would shoot anyone who approached.

The home is owned by Hans Walters, according to Clark County assessor records. Many know Walters as a Las Vegas police lieutenant married to a former Las Vegas police officer, Kathryn Walters. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that she left the department in 2005.

Boulder City police arrived to find the homeowner with a handgun in the doorway of the burning house before he retreated inside and apparently killed himself, Paul said.

No shots were fired by police or SWAT officers from Henderson and North Las Vegas who later found the bodies of a 52-year-old man, a 46-year-old woman and a boy inside, Paul said. Officials said the boy was believed to be about 7.

"We're investigating the incident as a murder-suicide at this time," Paul said.

Source

Police: Officer kills wife, son, himself in Boulder City

By Mike Blasky AND Antonio Planas

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

Posted: Jan. 21, 2013 | 10:38 a.m.

Nothing seemed unusual with Lt. Hans Walters on Saturday night.

"He didn't seem out of the ordinary at all," said one Las Vegas police officer, who asked to be anonymous. "Cops are pretty intuitive. They can tell when something's wrong with someone.

"He seemed totally fine."

But two days later, something clearly changed.

Authorities said Walters killed his family, set his Boulder City home ablaze and then killed himself Monday morning.

"You just wonder how and why this could happen," the officer said.

Sheriff Doug Gillespie acknowledged "it's human nature" to speculate but asked the public to reserve judgment.

"I urge you to wait and allow the facts to come forward first," Gillespie said at a brief, morose news conference Monday afternoon.

Boulder City police responded to a call at 8:20 a.m. Monday from a 52-year-old man at 1313 Esther Drive who said he had killed his wife and son and was setting his house on fire. The man also threatened to harm responding officers, Henderson police spokesman Keith Paul said. Henderson police are handling the investigation for the Boulder City department, which lacks resources for such major investigations.

Paul would not confirm that Walters was the man who called police but said the caller was an "off-duty Las Vegas police officer."

The home is owned by Walters and his wife, Kathryn Michelle Walters, 46.

Gillespie confirmed that the incident involved a Las Vegas police lieutenant with more than 20 years of experience. Hans Walters, 52, was hired in 1991.

When officers responded, the man was outside the house carrying what appeared to be a handgun. He ignored officers' commands and returned to the burning house, where he apparently killed himself.

Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy confirmed that three bodies were found in the house but did not release the names of the dead.

Walters supervised patrols in the department's Enterprise Area Command, which serves the southwest valley.

Kathryn Walters also was a Las Vegas police officer. She received a community service award in 1999 and a lifesaving award in 2004. She left the department in 2005.

At the news conference, Gillespie deferred to the Henderson police investigation and refused to take questions out of respect for the victims' families.

"We will stand by your side and move through this unspeakable grief and support you any way we can," he said in remarks intended for the families.

The murder-suicide sent shock waves through the Metropolitan Police Department on Monday morning as rumors began swirling.

"Terrible," one veteran supervisor said.

"I can't think of a reason for this, where something can get so bad that you'd do this," another officer said.

The incident also rattled Boulder City.

A neighbor who asked not to be identified said, "It's horrific. It's hard to understand what would drive someone to do something like that."

Authorities took down crime tape blocking off Esther Drive shortly after 5 p.m. The smell of smoke lingered on the block of ranch-style homes.

Neighbor after neighbor told the same story: Gunshots weren't heard; the family was reclusive, so much so that several neighbors didn't know a child lived in the house.

Some neighbors said Hans Walters would give them the occasional hello as he went to his mailbox.

"He was normal. He was nice," said Alyssa Gossard, 21. "He would wave to us every now and then."

Much of the roof of the family's house caved in because of the blaze, and the portion of the roof above the garage collapsed. A charred sport utility vehicle sat inside the garage.

Three women, who declined to comment or give their names, placed a vase with yellow and white flowers on the sidewalk in front of the Walters' home. They also placed a red stuffed animal next to the vase.

They said a prayer for the family. "Please let (Kathryn) Michelle hold onto Max in their next journey," a woman said.

Patrick Brewer was getting coffee about 8:45 a.m. when he looked outside and noticed smoke coming from his neighbor's house.

He was startled when he saw that first responders were not firefighters but Boulder City police officers carrying rifles and moving with caution.

SWAT units with Henderson and North Las Vegas police also responded to the burning house.

One neighbor said he heard an officer yell to "put your gun down" two or three times.

Brewer, 44, said he moved his family to the bedroom.

Firefighters arrived soon after the officers and began dousing the flames, even as the officers continued to circle the house with guns drawn.

"The house was definitely not secure, let's put it that way," he said. "I realized I was looking at something that was definitely not normal."

Brewer said he heard a person yell, "I did not do this," as authorities circled the house, but he wasn't sure who spoke.

Karlee Kovacevich, 18, lives four houses away. She said that shortly after 9 a.m. she saw flames 15 feet high shooting from her neighbor's roof. The house was surrounded by police and firefighters.

She said she later saw what appeared to be the body of a child under a white sheet beneath a canopy set up in the street.

In the five years Brewer lived next to the family, he never had a real conversation with them.

He didn't know Walters was a police lieutenant. He also never saw children around the house.

"If I saw him in person, I could say, 'Yeah, that's my neighbor,' but I couldn't even describe him to you right now," Brewer said. "It's a pretty friendly, warm neighborhood, but I've never spoken to him."

David Gossard, Alyssa's father, said that after an officer told him a neighbor might be armed and suicidal, he called his family, prompting some of them to run out of their house without shoes.

Gossard said that despite the tragedy, life goes on. He said Boulder City is no different than anywhere else because murder-suicides happen everywhere.

"You just never know when people are going to snap," Gossard said.

Boulder City Review editor Arnold M. Knightly and Review-Journal staff writer Brian Haynes contributed to this report.

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.

Coroner IDs Vegas officer who killed family, committed suicide

Some how I don't feel any safer with nut jobs like Las Vegas police lieutenant Hans Pieter Walters protecting our children from gun nuts.

Source

Coroner IDs Vegas officer who killed family, committed suicide

By Marisa Gerber

January 22, 2013, 7:57 p.m.

The Las Vegas police lieutenant who killed his wife, son and himself was Hans Pieter Walters, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner said in a statement Tuesday.

Walters told a dispatcher Monday that he had shot his family and threatened to set his home on fire and harm any officers who responded, authorities said. When police arrived, they found the family’s Boulder City, Nev., home partially engulfed in flames and Walters in the doorway with a gun. He ignored police commands and went back into the house, authorities said.

When a SWAT team entered the home, they found Walters, his 46-year-old wife, Kathryn Michelle, and their 5-year-old son, Maximilian, all with fatal gunshot wounds to the head.

Walters joined the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department 21 years ago and was promoted to lieutenant in 2010. His wife worked for the department 13 years before leaving voluntarily in 2004, officials said.

During a brief news conference Monday, Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie -- the elected head of the police department -- spoke of the loss: “Anyone who has been in law enforcement for any amount of time is usually prepared for any scenario. No one, however, can prepare us for something like this.”

Rep. Bob Thorpe thinks kids should be required to take a loyalty oath to the Arizona government.

Source

Laurie Roberts | azcentral opinions

Posted on January 23, 2013 1:33 pm by Laurie Roberts

Should a loyalty oath be part of a high school education?

The Arizona Legislature has been in session for a week, so naturally, kook bills are starting to bubble into public view.

To wit: House Bill 2467, requiring anyone who wants to graduate from an Arizona high school to first swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

Some states look to strengthen science and math requirements to earn a high school diploma. Here, some of our leaders are concerned with cutting down on the number of educated commies among us.

The bill is sponsored by freshman Rep. Bob Thorpe, R-Flagstaff. Thorpe is the Flagstaff Tea Party Chairman who spent a good part of his campaign last year urging war against the federal government, calling on the states to convene a constitutional convention to revoke laws passed by Congress.

Among the other prime sponsors of Thorpe’s bill is Rep. Carl Seel. ‘Nuf said.

The bill, as introduced, would require that a teacher verify in writing that a student has taken a loyalty oath before collecting a diploma.

Apparently, even Thorpe now thinks that’s a silly idea, telling the Arizona Capitol Times this morning that after talking to some of his colleagues he now intends to amend his bill to make the oath optional.

“Certainly, my first approach was well-intentioned, but …as I thought about it more and got feedback from folks, I think making it optional certainly makes more sense,” he told the Cap Times’ Jeremy Duda.

Making the bill disappear makes even more sense.

The good news? Even the Arizona Legislature considered this one a kooky idea.

Fontana school police are armed with semiautomatic rifles

Fontana school police are armed with semiautomatic rifles

By Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times

January 23, 2013, 7:26 p.m.

Police officers in the Fontana Unified School District were armed recently with semiautomatic rifles, drawing sharp criticism and sparking an effort to ban such weapons on school campuses.

The Colt military-style rifles, which cost about $1,000 each, are kept in safes when officers are on campus and will be used only in "extreme emergency cases" like the massacre in Newtown, Conn., Supt. Cali Olsen-Binks said.

The district purchased the rifles in October and received them in December, before the tragedy in Newtown, where a gunman killed 26 people — 20 of them children — at an elementary school. The shooting sparked debate on whether armed school guards could prevent these types of tragedies.

The purchase was not spurred by a specific event, Fontana Unified School District police Chief Billy Green said. The rifles are designed to increase shooting accuracy and provide the 14 officers with more effective power against assailants wearing body armor, Green said, adding that those capabilities are necessary for officers to stop a well-armed gunman.

"If you know of a better way to stop someone on campus that's killing children or staff members with a rifle, I'd like to hear it," he said. "I don't think it's best to send my people in to stop them with just handguns."

"I hope we would never have to use it," Green said. "But if we do, I'd like them to be prepared."

Several other school districts have similar weapons but policies differ on whether they are brought on campus or left in patrol car trunks or administration buildings.

Fontana school police bought the guns for about $14,000, which fell below the threshold that requires school board approval. School board members were not informed until after the purchase.

Board member Leticia Garcia said the police chief and superintendent should have alerted the five-member board and held a public hearing on the issue. She said arming officers with such weapons is a policy matter and should have been decided by the entire school district community, especially in light of the ongoing debate around the country.

Garcia, whose son attends Fontana High School, said she is working with local state legislators to draft a bill that would keep school police departments from taking these types of weapons onto campuses.

"We're turning our schools into a militarized zone," she said.

But the Fontana school superintendent said she believes it's a necessary evil to have the guns on campus to keep the 40,000-plus students and staff members safe. Officers have gone through training for the weapons, Olsen-Binks said.

"It balances providing that community-oriented openness at schools without compromising any kind of security for students and employees," she said.

Although she stopped short of saying the matter should have been put before the board, Olsen-Binks said doing so might have helped ease concerns.

"Having an opportunity for more community discussion is always a good thing," she said.

The rifles are kept either in the trunk of the police officer's vehicle or in a safe on campus.

Still, Garcia worries that bringing such a weapon on campus could lead to it falling into the wrong hands. An officer could be overtaken or someone could gain access to the safe, she said.

"Teenagers can get creative," Garcia said.

Green, however, dismissed that concern as unrealistic.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's police department has issued "patrol rifles" to officers on an as-needed basis, the district said in a statement. The department does not disclose the number of rifles given to officers.

Most San Diego Unified School District police officers have AR-15 rifles, Lt. Joe Florentino said. But the department did not buy the weapons; rather, officers were allowed to purchase their own — which many did, he said.

The rifles are kept in the trunk of the officer's vehicle and are not brought into school buildings. Although there is no policy yet, bringing the rifles into buildings is something the department is looking at, Florentino said.

"From a safety standpoint, we have police officers that want the weapons close by," he said. "If we keep them in the vehicle trunk, they would have to run to the car and grab it if they need it."

stephen.ceasar@latimes.com

Government rulers protect themselves from us serfs!!!

Elgin puts safety — of its City Council — first

Elgin puts safety — of its City Council — first

Bulletproof dais and individual panic buttons part of $75,000 package

By Kate Thayer and John Keilman, Chicago Tribune reporters

9:53 p.m. CST, January 23, 2013

The streets of Elgin are as safe as they've been in 40 years, but government leaders aren't taking any chances when it comes to City Hall.

The City Council voted unanimously late Wednesday to spend nearly $75,000 to bolster security as part of a remodeling of the 45-year-old building. The new features will include a staffed metal detector at the entrance, a bulletproof dais and panic buttons in the council chamber and several new surveillance cameras.

City officials said no specific threat was behind the planned changes. It simply made sense to beef up security during the remodeling, they said, especially because the council chamber also serves as a branch of the Kane County court.

"Most people who walk into a government building, they expect to be on camera somewhere, they expect to be protected," said Councilman John Prigge. "In this world we are surrounded by video cameras. We are a normally high-tech world. In the council chambers, it's fair to say we're not."

Strong security measures have long been in place in courthouses, police headquarters and federal buildings, but city halls and school boards have remained relatively open. Across the country, though, that's starting to change as well-publicized acts of violence convince elected officials that it's time to turn their buildings into hard targets.

They're installing metal detectors, having police officers stand guard during public meetings and, in some cases, adding features to their meeting rooms meant to protect officials from gunfire.

Albuquerque, N.M., is one of numerous cities that have lined their meeting room daises with bulletproof material, providing a chance for City Council members to duck out of harm's way should a shooting break out. The Board of Supervisors of Santa Clara County, Calif., spent $77,000 to create what the local media referred to as a "panic room" behind its meeting chamber. (A county spokeswoman described it as a reinforced conference room, without offering details.)

Officials with Bay District Schools in Panama City, Fla., decided to add a bulletproof dais and an armed sheriff's deputy after a disturbed man showed up at 2010 board meeting with a gun. He fired several times at Superintendent Bill Husfelt and several board members as they dropped behind their plywood dais, missing them, before being shot by the district's security chief and taking his own life.

"I feel safer now than I did before, but I think it's a mental thing we did mainly for our employees," Husfelt said.

Barbara A. Nadel, a New York architect who writes frequently about building security, said new features alone aren't enough to ensure safety in public buildings. She cited a 2003 incident in New York City in which a gunman evaded a metal detector by entering City Hall with a councilman who didn't have to pass through security.

The gunman, a political opponent of the councilman, shot him dead in the council chamber before being killed by a police officer.

"We can put in all kinds of bells and whistles, but if people aren't following policies and procedures, security can be breached," Nadel said.

The security changes at Elgin's City Hall come as the growing suburb — its population is now about 109,000 — is poised to add two seats to its City Council after the April municipal election. The council now has six seats, plus the mayor.

City officials said the expanding council prompted a remodeling plan, budgeted at $374,000, and security quickly became part of the discussion. Mayor David Kaptain said last month's mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn., did not affect the city's plan, which had been under discussion for more than a year.

Although police recently reported that Elgin's crime is at a 40-year low, the city best known for its Grand Victoria Casino has had its share of violence compared with other suburbs. City Council meetings often draw a crowd, and sometimes a heated discussion.

City Hall has kept a metal detector at the entrance to the council chambers, but visitors have only had to pass through it when the room hosts satellite sessions for the Kane County court. It hasn't been used for council meetings, but the city now plans to put it at the building's front entrance so all visitors are screened.

As for bulletproofing, the council chamber's dais already has a single panel that protects the spot where the judge (or mayor) sits. The city's plan calls for outfitting the entire dais with similar material.

City Manager Sean Stegall said Elgin tried to strike a balance between security and open government; that's why no one considered topping the dais with bulletproof glass, he said.

But he added that installing more bulletproof panels is a wise precaution should anyone get past the metal detector with a weapon. Council members would be the likely target in such a scenario, he said.

Other features to be added include panic buttons for each council member that, when pressed, would alert a police dispatcher to trouble. City Hall also will get new security cameras in the council chamber, the lobby and stairwells.

The city also plans to upgrade its audiovisual equipment and audience seating. Stegall said that is meant to make for better viewing of council meetings, whether in person or via the local cable TV access channel.

kthayer@tribune.com jkeilman@tribune.com

Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe and Chandler Mayors are gun grabbers????

Of course they all say they support the Second Amendment and then follow it with a BUT clause which means they are gun grabbers.

Source

Southeast Valley mayors cautiously tuned to debate on guns

By Maria Polletta The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:50 AM

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a former National Rifle Association member and a gun owner for most of his life, took safety classes from the NRA as a youngster and later put his children through the same program.

Chandler Mayor Jay Tibshraeny is not and has never been a member of the NRA.

Though their personal histories with guns differ, all Southeast Valley mayors have adopted a measured approach when it comes to the public gun debate sparked in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting. They say they’re following the federal conversation closely, offering starting-point suggestions in the meantime rather than definitive solutions.

Most have held off on membership in gun-control organizations. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton was the only Valley mayor in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition, for example, until Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell recently joined.

“There’s just a lot of dialogue right now, and it’s hard to bring it all together,” said Gilbert Mayor John Lewis, who is not a member of the NRA.

Lewis said he prefers to wait and weigh in on specific legislation rather than sign on to efforts like the mayors’ initiative or other groups.

Last year, for example, Lewis said he opposed a bill that would have allowed guns on university campuses and used his connections at the state level to voice his opinion.

“I think that’s the approach I’ll take, as the ideas and thoughts are starting to come more on the basis of what the proposals are,” he said.

Smith said he refuses to “jump on the gun-control bandwagon,” lamenting the U.S. tendency to seek knee-jerk solutions after major crises such as 9/11 and recent financial scandals.

“To me, it’s not a sound-bite issue,” he said.

Smith believes that there must be some way to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people and has said he is open to the idea of closing background-check loopholes. He says there should be stern punishments for what he called poor stewardship with guns, such as allowing them to fall into the hands of children.

Smith also said the law has a legitimate role in forbidding the willful sale of guns to criminals and in forbidding “straw buyers” who would channel weapons inappropriately.

But overall, he said, gun violence is “a complex issue that involves a culture of violence, involves society, involves mental health.” In particular, he says that the country is devoting inadequate resources to mental-health issues.

“I believe we should strengthen our gun laws,” Smith said.

But whatever is done must be within the context of the Second Amendment, which the courts have ruled confers the right to individual gun ownership.

“I don’t think someone who is an honest person who owns guns legally should have their rights infringed,” he said.

Tibshraeny said he believes in Second Amendment rights, “but I also believe in making sure our citizens can live a full and productive and safe life.”

“We need a legitimate debate without people being so entrenched that you can’t have any meaningful dialogue,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to be looking for as we move forward.”

Tibshraeny echoed Smith’s mental-health-related concerns, saying, “A lot of these folks that have done this (mass shootings) are seriously mentally disturbed” and mental-health-care funding is “a factor that I look at on this issue.”

“At the state level, better reporting of mental-health records would be good,” he said. “We’ve got folks that are unstable and applying to get guns. A lot of their health history is on record, and it needs to go into a database that is checked as they’re applying.”

Tibshraeny said Chandler has been focusing on doing what it can at the local level, with public-safety officials sitting down to talk safety policies and procedures with Chandler schools.

Mitchell also has experience with local efforts to combat gun violence, an issue thrust into the Tempe spotlight last year when a March shooting at a club during a rap concert injured 16 people.

“First and foremost, for any elected official, the public safety and well-being of our residents is at the forefront,” he said. “Whether it’s working with the police chief and Police Department to make sure they have the necessary resources, it’s important that we work together collaboratively for the public safety of children as well as adults.”

Mitchell, who is not an NRA member, said he considered joining the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition a responsible decision, but he declined to say whether he would support additional gun restrictions, including an assault-weapons ban.

He said he would need to further research a sweeping package of federal gun-control measures proposed by President Barack Obama, as well as similar policies to limit gun violence recently approved in New York, before making a decision.

“That’s something I need to look at,” he said.

Republic reporters Gary Nelson, Parker Leavitt, Dianna Náñez and Erin Kelly contributed to this article.

Miranda rights in Mexico???

Fifth Amendment rights in Mexico???

Of course the cops always tell me I don't have any stinking 5th Amendment rights and make all kinds of nasty evil threats on what will happen to me if I don't answer their questions.

I suspect the Mexican cops will behave the same way.

Believe it or not the Mexican Constitution has it's own version of the 5th Amendment which is Article 20 and allows people charged to remain silent.

Artículo 20

II. No podrá ser compelido a declarar en su contra, por lo cual queda rigurosamente prohibida toda incomunicación o cualquier otro medio que tienda a aquel objeto;

Second Amendment rights in Mexico???

Artículo 10

Los habitantes de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos tienen derecho a poseer armas en su domicilio, para su seguridad y legitima defensa, con excepción de las prohibidas por la ley federal y de las reservadas para el uso exclusivo del Ejército, Armada, Fuerza Aérea y Guardia Nacional. La ley federal determinara los casos, condiciones, requisitos y lugares en que se podrán autorizar a los habitantes la portaron de armas.

Mexican suspects to get Miranda-style warnings

Associated Press Sat Jan 26, 2013 2:02 PM

MEXICO CITY — Reading suspects their rights is something most Mexicans have only seen in American movies.

But authorities say they are starting a program to require police to read suspects their rights or risk letting them go free.

The assistant secretary of the interior says all federal police will have to advise detainees of their right to remain silent and the right to a lawyer.

Eduardo Sanchez says the warning will also advise foreigners they have a right to consular assistance and Indians that they can have translators.

The Interior Department said Friday that suspects could appeal to win their release if they are not read their rights, but that would not necessarily void the charges against them.

The United States has required so-called “Miranda Rights” warnings since the 1960s. [Yea, but the police routinely ignore your Miranda Rights. About the only place you will ever see a cop read somebody their Miranda Rights is on a TV show. As I said at the beginning I always tell the cops I am taking the 5th and refusing to answer their questions. And they have always threaten to harm me if I didn't answer their questions.]

More government money won’t solve school safety problem

Source

Patterson: More government money won’t solve school safety problem

Posted: Saturday, January 26, 2013 10:03 am

Guest Commentary by Tom Patterson

In American political culture, we prove we’re concerned about something by spending money on it. Americans are obviously concerned about protecting schools from more mass shootings after Newtown. But in this case, the best response may not be the most expensive.

It’s not clear why Newtown would be seen as a mandate to devote more resources to crime prevention. Yes, it was an horrific act. Our hearts went out to the young victims and their families.

Yet violent crimes have fallen in America over past years. There has been no uptick in gun violence and the incidence of mass shootings is stable. Still, the debate over guns and school safety has dominated our political discourse for over a month now.

As always, the assumption is that it’s going to take some money. “The responsibility of the Legislature is now clear: fully fund school safety” said one public commentator, evidently speaking for many.

But more government money doesn’t always solve problems. Sure, we went to the moon, we discovered how to treat AIDS and we ameliorated the misery of old age. Yet we spent trillions trying to eradicate poverty and all we have to show for it is a permanent, dependent underclass. We shoveled money by the boatload into dysfunctional schools but achievement levels haven’t budged. We’ve pumped billions into politically popular green energy schemes that seem no closerthan before to supplying real energy needs.

Have we learned from our misspending? State Senate Minority Leader Chad Campbell has stepped up with a plan to spend a lot more on school safety. His $261 million Arizona Safer Schools, Safer Communities Plan would include more money for “school resource officers”, more money for video equipment and security gates and even more money for counselors.

That seems like a lot to prevent school mass shootings, since statistically they don’t exist in our state. A more sensible solution would be to permit each principal to authorize one (or two) school employees with a concealed carry permit to bring firearms to school, a variation on AG Tom Horne’s idea. They would be trained, of course, and anonymous.

It’s at least arguable that this plan would be a more effective deterrent to mass shooters then an identifiable guard. Shooters know that once they have neutralized the guard, they are effectively back in their desired “gun free zone”. But an unidentified, invisible heat packer or two would be harder to account for.

The cost would be modest. Concealed carry permit holders would probably provide this public service for minimal reimbursement, since most of the weapons carriers would never bring out their firearm in the course of a career.

Ironically some of the criticism of Horne’s idea is that it doesn’t cost enough money. “We can’t protect our children on the cheap”, you know.

Others argue that it’s too risky to add more guns to our school environment. But the record of concealed carry holders has been remarkably positive. They tend to be stable individuals with strong feelings about using guns responsibly. They virtually never use their weapons in road rage situations or nonviolent personal disputes. On the contrary, the strong statistical evidence is that crime rates fall when there are more carriers around.

But can armed citizens stop mass shootings? Like most questions around gun-control, both sides claim mounds of statistics support their position. Ed Schultz of MSNBC recently reported that “we’ve never had a civilian stop a mass shooting”.

It’s a little more complicated. His definition of a mass shooting is four or more deaths. But there are scores of incidents where armed citizens have stopped shootings in theaters, restaurants, churches and schools before four people were killed – two in last December alone. The take-home is that our children would be safer with a trained, armed adult on the premises.

Obviously, we want our to be as safe as possible at school, but our efforts to prevent mass shootings should be appropriate and, yes, cost-effective. We’re in a lot of trouble now from our habit of spending public money as if it were limitless. It just doesn’t make sense to spend hundreds of millions so politicians can appear to be doing something.

• East Valley resident Tom Patterson (pattersontomc@cox.net) is a retired physician and former state senator.

Hitler & Mussolini were great guys????

Of course "It CAN happen here" and this article shows there are lots of people that still love Hitler and Mussolini and would love for it to happen here again.

Source

Berlusconi defends backing of Hitler

Associated Press Mon Jan 28, 2013 12:21 AM

ROME - Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi praised Benito Mussolini for “having done good” despite the Fascist dictator’s anti-Jewish laws, immediately provoking outrage as Europe on Sunday held Holocaust remembrances.

Berlusconi also defended Mussolini for allying himself with Hitler, saying he likely reasoned that it would be better to be on the winning side.

The media mogul, whose conservative forces are polling second in voter surveys ahead of next month’s parliamentary election, spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a ceremony in Milan to commemorate the Holocaust. In 1938, before the outbreak of World War II, Mussolini’s regime passed the so-called “racial laws,” barring Jews from Italy’s universities and many professions, among other bans. When Germany’s Nazi regime occupied Italy during the war, thousands from the tiny Italian Jewish community were deported to death camps.

“It is difficult now to put oneself in the shoes of who was making decisions back then,” Berlusconi said of Mussolini’s support for Hitler. “Certainly the (Italian) government then, fearing that German power would turn into a general victory, preferred to be allied with Hitler’s Germany rather than oppose it.”

Berlusconi added that “within this alliance came the imposition of the fight against, and extermination of, the Jews. Thus, the racial laws are the worst fault of Mussolini, who, in so many other aspects, did good.”

More than 7,000 Jews were deported under Mussolini’s regime, and nearly 6,000 were killed.

Outrage, along with a demand that Berlusconi be prosecuted for promoting Fascism, quickly followed his words.

“It is the height of revisionism to try to reinstate an Italian dictator who helped legitimize and prop up Hitler as a ‘reincarnated good guy,’” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide. Berlusconi’s praise of Mussolini constitutes “an insult to the democratic conscience of Italy,” said Rosy Bindi, a center-left leader. “Only Berlusconi’s political cynicism, combined with the worst historic revisionism, could separate the shame of the racist laws from the Fascist dictatorship.”

Ex-cop, federal mole charged with extortion, selling guns to felons

Ex-cop, federal mole charged with extortion, selling guns to felons

By Annie Sweeney Tribune reporter

7:17 p.m. CST, January 28, 2013

A former Chicago police officer whose undercover work led to charges in separate public corruption probes was himself charged Monday with extorting a tow truck operator and selling firearms to a convicted felon.

Ali Haleem becomes the 11th Chicago police officer charged in a tow truck scandal in which officers steered business to drivers for kickbacks, federal prosecutors said

According to court records and sources, Haleem worked undercover after federal authorities confronted him about the extortion in 2008, secretly recording conversations. His cooperation led to charges against a onetime campaign treasurer for former state Sen. Ricky Hendon, and six others on charges they paid kickbacks in the hopes of securing thousands of dollars in federal grants. Hendon was not charged.

Haleem’s undercover work also resulted in charges against two tax analysts for the Cook County Board of Review who allegedly pocketed a $1,500 cash payoff after agreeing to reduce property tax assessments.

Court documents in both those public corruption investigations identified the cooperating witness as a Chicago police officer who had been arrested in July 2008 as part of a probe into public corruption and gun trafficking.

The charges on Monday against Haleem alleged that in addition to extorting the tow truck operator, he also sold three firearms to the driver, who was a convicted felon who could not legally purchase weapons. Haleem resigned last September from the Police Department.

asweeney@tribune.com

After gun crime, weapon history takes time to find

And of course you have to remember, just because something is illegal doesn't meant the police won't break the law and do it. In fact the police routinely commit crimes in the process of tying to find, arrest and convict criminals.

Source

After gun crime, weapon history takes time to find

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL | Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the fictional world of television police dramas, a few quick clicks on a computer lead investigators to the owner of a gun recovered at a bloody crime scene. Before the first commercial, the TV detectives are on the trail of the suspect.

Reality is a world away. There is no national database of guns. Not of who owns them, how many are sold annually or even how many exist.

Federal law bars the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from keeping track of guns. The only time the government can track the history of a gun, including its first buyer and seller, is after it's used in a crime. And though President Barack Obama and numerous Democratic lawmakers have called for new limits on what kinds of guns should be available to the public and urged stronger background checks in gun sales, there is no effort afoot to change the way the government keeps track — or doesn't — of where the country's guns are.

When police want to trace a gun, it's a decidedly low-tech process.

"It's not CSI and it's not a sophisticated computer system," said Charles J. Houser, who runs the ATF's National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W. Va.

When police trace a gun, the search starts by sending all the information they have about the gun — including the manufacturer and model — to an office worker in a low-slung brick building just off the Appalachian Trial in rural West Virginia, about 90 miles northwest of Washington.

ATF officials first call the manufacturer, who reveals which wholesaler the company used. That may lead to a call to a second distributor before investigators can pinpoint the retail gun dealer who first sold the weapon. Gun dealers are required to keep a copy of federal forms that detail who buys what gun and a log for guns sold. They are required to share that information with the ATF if a gun turns up at a crime scene and authorities want it traced. Often, gun shops fax the paperwork to the ATF.

That's where the paper trail ends.

In about 30 percent of cases, one or all of those folks have gone out of business and ATF tracers are left to sort through potentially thousands of out-of-business records forwarded to the ATF and stored at the office building that more closely resembles a remote call center than a law enforcement operation.

The records are stored as digital pictures that can only be searched one image at a time. Two shifts of contractors spend their days taking staples out of papers, sorting through thousands of pages and scanning or taking pictures of the records.

"Those records come in all different shapes and forms. We have to digitally image them, we literally take a picture of it," Houser said. "We have had rolls of toilet paper or paper towels ... because they (dealers) did not like the requirement to keep records."

The tracing center receives about a million out-of-business records every month and Houser runs the center's sorting and imaging operations from 6 a.m. to midnight, five days a week. The images are stored on old-school microfilm reels or as digital images. But there's no way to search the records, other than to scroll through one picture of a page at a time.

"We are ... prohibited from amassing the records of active dealers," Houser said. "It means that if a dealer is in business he maintains his records."

Last year the center traced about 344,000 guns for 6,000 different law enforcement agencies. Houser has a success rate of about 90 percent, so long as enough information is provided. And he boasts that every successful trace provides at least one lead in a criminal case.

"It's a factory for the production of investigative leads," Houser said of the tracing center.

A 1968 overhaul of federal gun laws required licensed dealers to keep paper records of who buys what guns and gave ATF the authority to track the history of a gun if was used in a crime. But in the intervening decades, the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups lobbied Congress to limit the government's ability to do much with what little information is collected, including keeping track on computers.

"They (lawmakers) feel that the act of amassing those records would in essence go a step toward creating an artificial registration system," Houser said.

What the ATF can do is give trace information to the law enforcement agency that asked for it and in some cases uses the data to help point them in the direction of other crimes.

Houser said the "manually intensive process" can take about five days for a routine trace. In some cases, completing the trace can mean sifting by hand through paperwork that hasn't yet been scanned.

In more urgent situations, including the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting in Connecticut last year, ATF agents run a trace within about 24 hours. Oftentimes, that involves sending agents to the gun dealer that first sold the weapon to quickly find the paperwork listing its original buyer.

Despite having access to millions of records about gun purchases from dealers that have gone out of business, the ATF isn't allowed to create a database of what guns were sold to whom and when.

ATF does keep tabs on how many guns are manufactured and shipped out of the country every year, but only gun makers and dealers know for sure how many are sold. There are also strict limits on what the agency can do with the gun trace information. And that's just the way the gun lobby and Congress want it.

Various laws and spending bills have specifically barred the ATF from creating a national database of guns and gun owners. And due to the efforts of lawmakers, including former Rep. Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, ATF agents who trace the history of a gun can't share that information with anyone but the police agency that asked for it.

As it stands now, local law enforcement doesn't have access to regional data about gun traces. So if the police commissioner in New York City is trying to figure out where the guns are coming into the city from — whether they're going to New Jersey first or upstate New York, for example — that data is not available because of an amendment introduced by Tiahrt, said Mike Bouchard, a former ATF assistant director for Field Operations. ATF can tell police where most crime guns are traced from, by state. But it does not release information on gun shops or purchasers.

If police chiefs want that, they have to reach out to individual chiefs at other departments and ask.

"It's pretty ridiculous when we have an automated system that will do it for the chiefs," Bouchard said.

Tiahrt said he first proposed limiting access to trace data to make sure the information wasn't available under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. It was an issue of keeping undercover police, informants and innocent gun buyers and sellers out of the public eye, Tiahrt said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Knowing who legally buys guns won't prevent gun violence, the former Republican congressman said.

"We're chasing these wisps of smoke that won't solve the problem," Tiahrt said. "Get to the root cause. Put out the fire. Deal with mental illness. Deal with situational awareness."

Houser said he would prefer the tracing center's operations to be expanded and a center built that would use some technologies to help more easily trace a gun. But until the law changes, his staff will continue removing staples, turning pages right-side-up and taking digital pictures of records.

"Our job is to enforce the laws that are passed to us," Houser said. "What they give us is what we are required to work with."

___

Associated Press reporter Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

Papers please!!! This isn't Nazi Germany, but Peoria, Arizona!!!

It is illegal for the police to stop people with out having "probable cause" and force them to prove they are not a criminals.

It is a violation of the 5th Amendment for the police to force someone to give then identification.

And of course this isn't Nazi police thugs rounding up Jews, but rather Peoria, Arizona police thugs rounding up Mexicans.

Of course in this case the Police in Peoria, Arizona said f*ck the law we are going to do this because it makes it easier for us to catch criminals. Government tyrants always use the "public safety" card of "catching criminals" to flush our Constitutional rights down the toilet.

And of course in the case the Peoria Police are the criminals.

Source

Peoria police set up traffic stop, ask for licenses

By Domenico Nicosia The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:11 PM

Peoria police officials constructed a vehicle stop in Peoria on Tuesday evening to check commercial vehicles and ask for licenses and registration for all non-commercial vehicles.

Amanda Jacinto, a public-information officer with Peoria police, said the stop involving multiple agencies was set up near Grand and Peoria avenues. But the purpose of the operation was unclear.

Prominent Latina activist Lydia Guzman, who went to the stop, said that officers were funneling traffic in from side streets. She believed the traffic stop may have been set up to get people driving back to the Valley from Las Vegas, where President Barack Obama spoke about immigration reform that could lead to the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants.

Guzman said many young people attended the speech in Las Vegas.

“This was just a way to antagonize the activist groups,” she said.

Jacinto didn’t specify the reasons. When asked about what officers were going to do with any drivers without licenses, she said that officers are required to contact federal immigration agents.

Kyrsten Sinema - U.S. Representative, Arizona, District 9

If you are a police officer, a fan of the drug war, hate medical marijuana, love taxes, or hate guns you will probably love Kyrsten Sinema.

Kyrsten Sinema - U.S. Representative, Arizona, District 9

Source

Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)

U.S. Representative, Arizona, District 9 (Since 2013)

Kyrsten Sinema was born in Tucson, Ariz., and has lived in Phoenix since 1995. She attended Arizona State University where she earned a master's in social work, a law degree and a doctorate in justice studies. She practices criminal defense law in Phoenix and also is an adjunct professor at ASU's School of Social Work. Sinema served three terms as a representative in the Arizona Legislature and was the assistant leader to the House Democratic Caucus from 2009 to 2010. She was elected to the state Senate in 2010 but resigned in early 2012 to seek a seat in Arizona's newly created 9th Congressional District. Sinema ran unsuccessfully for the state Legislature in 2002 and for the Phoenix City Council in 2001, both times as an independent candidate. She is single.

Birthday: July 12, 1976

Hometown: Tucson, AZ, United States

Alma Mater: JD from Arizona State University; MA from Arizona State University; PhD from Arizona State University

Web site: http://kyrstensinema.com/

Focus on Mental Health Laws to Curb Violence Is Unfair

Politicians railroad the mentally ill to prove they are tough on crime???

I suspect their main goal is to pass ANY law which they can use to tell voters they are tough on crime.

Of course it doesn't matter if the law works or not. All that matters is that they can say the voted for the law and use it to get reelected.

And of course the article points out that the mentally ill folks don't have a strong lobby to protect themselves against bad laws like the NRA protects gun owners against bad laws.

I suspect this is why we have all the insane, irrational and unconstitutional drug laws. Politicians vote for them to prove they are tough on crime, mainly as a line to help them get reelected.

And of course there is there really isn't a "drug users lobby" group to protect people against these insane and unconstitutional drug laws.

Source

Focus on Mental Health Laws to Curb Violence Is Unfair, Some Say

By ERICA GOODE and JACK HEALY

Published: January 31, 2013 35 Comments

In their fervor to take action against gun violence after the shooting in Newtown, Conn., a growing number of state and national politicians are promoting a focus on mental illness as a way to help prevent further killings.

Legislation to revise existing mental health laws is under consideration in at least a half-dozen states, including Colorado, Oregon and Ohio. A New York bill requiring mental health practitioners to warn the authorities about potentially dangerous patients was signed into law on Jan. 15. In Washington, President Obama has ordered “a national dialogue” on mental health, and a variety of bills addressing mental health issues are percolating on Capitol Hill.

But critics say that this focus unfairly singles out people with serious mental illness, who studies indicate are involved in only about 4 percent of violent crimes and are 11 or more times as likely than the general population to be the victims of violent crime.

And many proposals — they include strengthening mental health services, lowering the threshold for involuntary commitment and increasing requirements for reporting worrisome patients to the authorities — are rushed in execution and unlikely to repair a broken mental health system, some experts say.

“Good intentions without thought make for bad laws, and I think we have a risk of that,” said J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has studied rampage killers.

Moreover, the push for additional mental health laws is often driven by political expediency, some critics say. Mental health proposals draw support from both Democrats and Republicans, in part because, unlike bans on semiautomatic weapons or high-capacity magazines — like the one proposed in the Senate last week — they do not involve confrontation with gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.

“The N.R.A. is far more formidable as a political foe than the advocacy groups for the mentally ill,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.

Indeed, the N.R.A. itself, in response to the massacre in Newtown, argued that mental illness, and not the guns themselves, was at the root of recent shooting sprees. The group called for a national registry of people with mental illness — an alternative that legal experts agree would raise at least as many constitutional alarms as the banning of gun ownership.

For mental health groups, the proposals under consideration are tantalizing: By increasing services for those with mental illness, they raise the possibility of restoring some of the billions of dollars cut from mental health programs in recent years as budgets tightened in the financial downturn. The measures also hold out hope for improvement of a mental health system that many experts say is fragmented and drastically inadequate. And some proposals — those to revise commitment laws, for example — have the support of some mental health organizations.

But some mental health and legal experts say that politicians’ efforts might be better spent making the process of involuntary psychiatric commitment — and the criteria for restricting firearms access once someone has been forcibly committed — consistent from state to state. And some proposals have caused concern, raising questions about doctor-patient confidentiality, the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities and the integrity of clinical judgment.

Especially troublesome to some mental health advocates are provisions like New York’s, which expand the duty of practitioners to report worrisome patients — a model likely to be emulated by other states. New York’s law, part of a comprehensive package to address gun violence, requires reporting to the local authorities any patient “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.” Law enforcement officials would then be authorized to confiscate any firearm owned by such a patient.

John Monahan, a psychologist and professor of law at the University of Virginia, said that such laws are often superfluous.

Although many mental health practitioners mistakenly believe that federal laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act forbid them to disclose information about patients, such statutes already include exceptions that permit clinicians to give information to the authorities when a patient presents a threat to others, Dr. Monahan said. National Twitter Logo.

Most states also have laws requiring mental health professionals to notify the authorities and any intended victim when a patient makes a direct threat.

New York’s provision, Dr. Monahan said, differs from virtually every other state’s laws in allowing guns to be taken not only from those committed against their will but also from patients who enter treatment voluntarily.

“The devil is in the details,” he said of New York’s new law. “The two fears are that people will be deterred from seeking treatment that they need or that, once they are in treatment, they will clam up and not talk about violence.”

Most mental health experts agree that the link between mental illness and violence is not imaginary. Studies suggest that people with an untreated severe mental illness are more likely to be violent, especially when drug or alcohol abuse is involved. And many rampage killers have some type of serious mental disorder: James E. Holmes, accused of opening fire in a movie theater in Colorado in July, was seeing a psychiatrist who became alarmed about his behavior; Jared L. Loughner, who killed 6 people and injured 13 others in Arizona, including former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, was severely mentally ill.

But such killings account for only a tiny fraction of gun homicides in the United States, mental health experts point out. Besides the research indicating that little violent crime can be linked to perpetrators who are mentally ill, studies show that those crimes are far more likely to involve battery — punching another person, for example — than weapons, which account for only 2 percent of violent crimes committed by the mentally ill.

Because of this, some criminal justice experts say it makes more sense to pass laws addressing behavior, rather than a diagnosis of mental illness. In Indiana, for example, firearms can be confiscated from people deemed a potential threat, whether or not they have a mental illness.

Proposals in a number of states seek to redefine the threshold for involuntary commitment to psychiatric treatment. But in doing so, they have reignited a longstanding debate about the role of forced treatment.

In Ohio, lawmakers are expected to consider a proposal to increase access to outpatient commitment instead of hospitalization, while also doing away with language requiring people with mental illness to show a “grave and imminent risk to substantial rights” of themselves or others before they can be committed.

In Colorado, where legislators are undertaking a broad overhaul of the state’s mental health system proposed by Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, the proposal also includes changing the criteria for involuntary commitment.

Under the state’s current laws, caregivers can place patients on 72-hour mental health holds only if they are believed to pose an “imminent danger” to themselves or others. The governor’s plan would allow caregivers to commit people if they believe there is a “substantial probability” of harm. Virginia and some other states already have standards based on “substantial probability.”

But some mental health advocates are wary about lowering the threshold. “The evidence that we have tells us that that’s not an appropriate solution, it’s not an effective solution to this problem,” said Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, an advocacy group for people with psychiatric disabilities.

But Cheryl Miller — whose 21-year-old son, Kyle, was shot by the police last June after he pointed a toy gun at them — believes that a revised law might have saved her child.

Two weeks before Kyle was killed she took him to an emergency mental health clinic to get him hospitalized. But the staff refused to commit him.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to take him home; he needs to go to the hospital,’ ” Ms. Miller said. “They didn’t think so. It goes back to, was he an imminent danger to himself? And it was ‘No.’ ”

Italy court convicts 3 Americans in CIA kidnapping

This was also ordered by Obama or perhaps Bush, who is the same Presidents who wants to take our guns away from us and tell us the Second Amendment will never be needed because it is impossible for the American government to become tyrannical enough that it needs to be overthrown by the people???

Source

Italy court convicts 3 Americans in CIA kidnapping

Associated Press Fri Feb 1, 2013 7:53 AM

MILAN — A Milan appeals court has convicted a former CIA station chief and two other Americans in absentia in the 2003 rendition kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric.

The court on Friday sentenced former CIA station chief Jeff Castelli to seven years, and handed sentences of six years each to Americans Betnie Medero and Ralph Russomando.

All three had been acquitted in the first trial due to diplomatic immunity.

Italy’s highest court last year upheld the convictions of 23 more Americans in absentia in the abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect from a Milan street as part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program.

The appeals process for Castelli and the other two was separated for technical reasons.

70 percent of Phoenix's general fund is spent on the police!!!!

"70 percent of the city’s general fund is spent on public safety"

Councilman Michael Nowakowski

I think when you consider the total budget as opposed to the general budget the figure is about 40 percent of it. Most city fire departments grab the next 20 percent of the total budget, with all other departments combined grabbing splitting up the final 40 percent of the budget up.

Now considering that two thirds of the people in prison are there for victimless drug war crimes, you could easily tell the police to stop arresting pot smokers and not affect public safety at all!!!!

And of fire a whole bunch of unneeded cops at the same time and save a whole bunch of money.

Of course the war on drugs is a jobs program for cops and the police union would hate that!!!! Even if those jobs are 100 percent unneeded the police union is not going to let them go without a fight!!!

Repeal the stinking sale tax. We don't need those cops!!!

Source

Food-tax repeal may hit Phoenix hard

By Dustin Gardiner The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Feb 1, 2013 10:38 AM

As political pressure builds to repeal Phoenix’s food tax, city officials have outlined several financial obstacles that could complicate such a move.

City Manager David Cavazos this week sent a memo to the mayor and City Council listing major budget constraints to ending the tax, including concerns that it could affect the city’s perfect credit rating or result in a loss of revenue needed to help support police and fire services. [screw the credit rating, I want lower taxes. and it certainly wouldn't hurt to fire a bunch of cops who mainly arrest people for victimless drug war crimes]

The update comes as some council members have renewed calls to repeal the tax this spring, roughly two years before its 2015 sunset. The 2 percent tax on residents’ grocery bills is shaping up to be a contentious point of spring budget negotiations.

Mayor Greg Stanton, who pledged during his 2011 campaign to repeal the tax by April, has been a focus of much of the debate. He has yet to take a definitive position on the issue and could provide the crucial fifth vote needed to abolish the tax early.

“We still have significant challenges,” Stanton said, describing the city’s murky budget picture. “The economy is not bouncing back as quickly as people had hoped.”

He said Cavazos’ memo points out the “stark circumstances” Phoenix faces as it weighs the food-tax repeal: revenue for the current budget year is less than projected. Stanton said he hopes the city can still eliminate or reduce the tax but that he plans to review detailed spending-cut options before making a decision.

Two of the council’s more fiscally conservative members, Jim Waring and Sal DiCiccio, said the city could immediately repeal the tax without affecting public-safety services. DiCiccio has questioned why the city spent tens of millions of dollars on employee raises and bonuses these past few years, costs that are fixed as part of the city’s contracts with unions.

“Delaying the promised repeal of the food tax is the kind of tactic that hurts the middle class and working families,” DiCiccio said. “If the food tax is to be removed by April 1, the public needs time to consider the details of how that will be done without affecting public safety, as promised.”

Council members created the emergency food tax in February 2010 as Phoenix was facing an unprecedented $277 million general-fund shortfall. The tax was proposed as a way to prevent large layoffs of public-safety personnel and keep libraries and senior centers open. [really the expense of libraries and senior centers is insignificant compare to the cops of paying police officers who account for 70 percent of Phoenix's budget] So far, it has generated about $127 million in additional revenue, or about $50million per year.

Although some council members hoped to remove the tax by April, Cavazos’ proposed time line makes that appear unlikely. He plans to present options for cutting the tax on March 26, along with the rest of his trial budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. The council would have months to make a final decision.

City officials said two primary challenges will be maintaining the city’s AAA bond rating and continuing to provide support for public safety.

Phoenix has relied on money from the food tax to help pay for about $30 million in general-fund expenses per year, most of which goes toward public safety and court expenses. On top of that, $8 million goes to help support specialty police and fire funds that have run a negative balance.

“Because 70 percent of the city’s general fund is spent on public safety, I am concerned about how it would be affected by a possible repeal of the tax,” Councilman Michael Nowakowski said recently. “Phoenix’s leaders must consider that and all other consequences in the process.”

A loss in revenue from the food tax could also hurt how credit-rating agencies evaluate Phoenix, Cavazos said. A lower credit rating would require the city to pay higher interest rates when it borrowed money.

Cavazos and city budget staff will spend the next several weeks outlining the council’s specific options, including a budget with recommended service levels and another with cuts to compensate for the loss of the food tax. He said both options will be shown to residents at numerous public meetings.

“I think it’s pretty clear that we have lots of constraints, ” Cavazos said. “We have to work very carefully with our departments and listen very carefully to the public before we can fully identify what those consequences are.”

Gun Grabbing Phoenix Area Mayors

Most of them pretend to support the Second Amendment, and say "I support the 2nd Amendment but ... " and of course the but is followed by a whole bunch of reasons that show they don't support the Second Amendment.

Remember their names, and when you vote throw these tyrants who want to flush the Second Amendment down the toilet out of office.

Source

Valley mayors weigh in on gun reform

By Maria Polletta The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Feb 2, 2013 11:23 PM

Valley mayors have joined the national chorus of officials saying when it comes to gun violence, something has to give.

But there’s no consensus on what that something is.

The mayors, who range from avid hunters and National Rifle Association members to those who have never owned a firearm, have suggested tentative solutions as diverse as their backgrounds.

Some have hesitated to offer any sort of directive, and most have held off on membership in gun-control organizations. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton for a time was the only Valley representative in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition until Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell recently joined.

“There’s just a lot of dialogue right now, and it’s hard to bring it all together,” said Gilbert Mayor John Lewis.

Lewis said he prefers to wait and weigh in on specific legislation, such as a 2012 guns-on-campus bill he opposed, rather than sign on to more sweeping efforts.

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a former NRA member and a gun owner for most of his life, also worries that acting too quickly on the gun issue would lead to an inadequate or ineffective solution. He said he refuses to “jump on the gun-control bandwagon,” lamenting what he described as the U.S. tendency to seek knee-jerk solutions after major crises.

Still, Smith and other mayors have said they’d support or at least be open to certain measures to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, in effect limiting firearm privileges to responsible citizens.

Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers, a hunter, NRA member and gun-safety instructor, said he supports efforts to curtail the spread of illegal guns, for instance. “If it’s an illegal gun, it’s an illegal gun,” he said. “Why wouldn’t everybody support trying to stop (that)?”

Smith also believes the law has a legitimate role in forbidding the willful sale of guns to criminals and forbidding “straw buyers” who would channel weapons inappropriately.

Other mayors, such as Phoenix’s Stanton, have looked to the types and grades of weapons people are allowed to own. President Barack Obama recently unveiled a broad set of proposed gun-control measures that include bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Stanton has described requiring universal background checks as a “good, commonsense approach.” Checks are not done now on users who purchase firearms at gun shows and through other private sales.

Glendale’s Weiers and Peoria Mayor Bob Barrett have said training is a key component of responsible gun ownership. Weiers argued that gun-safety classes for youngsters make for “better citizens and … less problems.”

Barrett, a gun owner, has opposed legislation to allow guns in schools and city buildings and said training should be required to carry a concealed weapon.

“When you are under stress, when you are under fire … you’re more likely, A, to miss or, B, to hit somebody else,” Barrett said. “The idea of people walking around with concealed weapons and no training is not a good thing.”

Barrett contends that any initiative focused solely on how and which guns are obtained will help little if the country does not start placing a greater emphasis on mental-health care. Changing that, he said, would go further than trying to eliminate extended magazines and military-style weapons.

“What I think we need to do as a society is make mental-health treatment regarded the same way physical-health treatment is,” he said. “There is a sense of shame connected with getting counseling and getting help.”

Chandler Mayor Jay Tibshraeny said that “a lot of these folks that have done this (mass shootings) are seriously mentally disturbed” and mental-health-care funding is a “a factor that I look at on this issue.”

“At the state level, better reporting of mental-health records would be good,” Tibshraeny said. “We’ve got folks that are unstable and applying to get guns. A lot of their health history is on record, and it needs to go into a database that is checked as they’re applying.”

All Valley mayors said they believe a balance between protective measures and Second Amendment rights is vital as the gun-control debate moves forward, especially in Arizona, with the state’s historically pro-gun culture.

“I am a gun owner and a supporter of the Second Amendment,” said Surprise Mayor Sharon Wolcott. “But my right to own and carry a gun does not trump your right to live in a safe and civil society.”

Republic reporters Gary Nelson, Parker Leavitt, Dianna Náñez, Allie Seligman, John Yantis,Jen Kuhney and Paul Giblin contributed to this article.

Mayor's for Knife Control???

How many of these mayors think you should have to pass a Brady Bill test before buying really a sharp steak or cooking knife.

Or perhaps a $200 tax on the purchase of any weapons grade knives which would include steak and cooking knifes.

Or have a two week waiting period before picking up the steak or cooking knife you just purchased.

Or banning minors from using anything but dull table knives.

Source

Stabbed Scottsdale bouncer dies, played ASU football

By By D.S. Woodfill and Paola Boivin Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Sat Feb 2, 2013 10:24 PM

Those who remembered a former Arizona State University football player who died a week after he was stabbed at Scottsdale nightclub described their friend as a gentle giant.

Tyrice Thompson, a former tight end and wide receiver, passed away surrounded by friends and family at about 8:30 a.m. Saturday at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center.

Thompson, a 27-year-old former tight end and receiver for ASU from 2003 to 2007, was working as a bouncer at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale at 1 a.m. on Jan. 27 when a scuffle started between patrons, police said.

Although details of the investigation are still not clear, police said at some point during the scuffle, someone stabbed Thompson 5 times in the back hip and arm.

In a statement released Saturday, Martini Ranch said Thompson had become a member of the family who had a “remarkable ability to connect with people and will always be remembered for his warm smile, sense of humor and positive attitude.”

The business has created a Facebook page to help raise money for his loved ones. That can be found at https://www.facebook.com/remembertyrice

It was sadly ironic way for such a good-natured person to die, said Marques Elliott, a friend of Thompson’s since college.

“He always was a very calm, kind individual,” Elliott said. “He’s always been extremely humble, soft spoken (and) has always had a very clear head on his shoulders. (He was) a very good human being.”

Doug Yazzie, a close friend Thompson who was with his family when he passed away, said Thompson was a kind and positive man.

“He could fill any room with light,” Yazzie said.

Yazzi, who said he is the godfather to Thompson’s 2-year-old son Takai, would likely have forgiven his attacker.

“He didn’t have an angry bone in his body,” he said.

Dennis Erickson, Thompson’s coach during his senior year of school, was heartbroken over the death of his former player.

“He was an unbelievable guy, so coachable,” Erickson said. “Everything we asked, he did. It's so sad.”

Police reported that no one at the bar the night of the attack, including employees, identified who stabbed Thompson and no knife was found at the scene.

Police on Tuesday arrested, but then released pending further investigation, a 26-year-old Tempe resident Ian MacDonald.

“During interviews, Mr. MacDonald admitted to fighting with the bouncers, but denied stabbing Mr. Thompson,” a police statement said.

“Police have questioned all those we believe were witnesses or involved in the incident,” said Sgt. Mark Clark in a statement. “MacDonald remains the sole suspect at this time.”

“We are waiting for lab results to forward charges to the MCAO,” he added.

Thompson, a Laveen resident, played with 13 games his senior year as a Sun Devil, catching 15 passes for 272 yards. He was a key special teams player his final two seasons at Arizona State.

Thompson was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Indianapolis Colts, but did not play an NFL game.

Stan Ogwel mentored Thompson, who was a sophomore at South Mountain High School in Phoenix, as part of public service work he performed with his ASU fraternity.

Ogwel said Thompson was alert before he died, but unable to talk because he was on a respirator.

“I held his hands and prayed with him,” he said. “ I was able to at least spend about 10 minutes with him in the room.”

ASU Associate Athletic Director Mark Brand released a statement that said “the Thompson family is in the thoughts of everyone in the Sun Devil Athletics family.”

“The words of his teammates, our fans and media who came in contact with him are true measures of how much his smile was appreciated,” the statement said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Obama loves HIS guns????

Like Obama, most government rulers love guns. They love guns, because guns allow them to stay in power. Ask Hitler, Stalin and Mao if they loved guns and they will all say yes.

The only people that rulers like Obama, Hitler, Stalin and Mao don't want to have guns are the serfs they rule over.

Source

White House photo shows Obama firing shotgun

By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Howard Schneider, Published: February 2

On his 51st birthday last August, President Obama hit the links with a group of buddies and then flew by helicopter to Camp David. There, he changed into jeans and picked up a shotgun. And then, before it got too dark, he started a round of clay target shooting.

You’d be forgiven if you didn’t think this was headline-worthy news. But on Saturday morning, the White House released and promoted a photograph of Obama shooting skeet at the presidential retreat in Maryland.

White House aides were trying to end a growing distraction just as the president plans to make a fresh push to rally public support behind his ambitious agenda to tighten gun laws, traveling to Minnesota on Monday.

The photo, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza, depicts a sunglasses-wearing Obama firing what appears to be a Browning Citori 725, the shotgun wedged against his left shoulder, a pillow of white smoke emerging from the barrel.

The photo was published a week after Obama claimed in an interview with the New Republic that he routinely shoots skeet at Camp David. The surprising assertion — Obama’s golfing and basketball hobbies are far better known — instantly stirred the political zeitgeist.

Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, was asked for evidence in the White House briefing room. “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart poked fun at the president’s apparent hobby. Gun-rights activists dismissed it, and some were skeptical that Obama was a routine skeet shooter.

A Republican congresswoman even challenged the president to a shooting contest.

“I’m sure they released the photo because there were folks raising questions about his answer, and those questions are a silly distraction in the midst of a serious debate,” David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to Obama, said in an e-mail.

“I know him pretty well. He doesn’t embellish,” Axelrod added. “If he says he’s done some shooting up there on occasion, I’m sure he has. He’s not a hunter or marksman and doesn’t pretend to be.”

The White House did not say how often Obama has gone shooting.

In the interview with the New Republic, Obama was asked if he had ever shot a gun.

“Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” he said.

Asked if his whole family goes shooting, Obama replied: “Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake.”

But while the White House made clear Saturday that the president has shot skeet at least once, the release of the photo seemed more likely to inflame passions around the issue than douse them.

Current and former advisers to Obama compared skeptics of Obama’s skeet-shooting prowess to a group of conservatives, known as birthers, who cast doubt on whether Obama was born in the United States and kept exerting pressure until the president released a long-form birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii.

“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!” David Plouffe, Obama’s senior adviser until last week, wrote on Twitter early Saturday. Later in the day, he wrote, “Day made. The skeet birthers are out in full force in response to POTUS pic. Makes for most excellent, delusional reading.”

Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s senior adviser, coined a term for those who didn’t believe Obama had gone shooting: “skeeters.”

On the other side, Obama’s critics in the gun-rights community were not impressed by the photo.

“One picture does not erase a lifetime of supporting every gun ban and every gun-control scheme imaginable,” said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, regarded the whole episode as a sideshow.

“If that’s something the president enjoys doing, God bless him,” he said. “I’m no more offended by this photo than by one showing him throwing a Frisbee.”

The White House would not confirm what firearm Obama used. But gun dealers and enthusiasts said that from the picture, it appeared to be a Browning Citori, a model popular among those involved in the sport.

The “over and under” design features two barrels, one on top of the other, allowing the gun to hold and fire two shotgun shells.

The smoke in the photo is emanating from air vents in the barrel, a feature known as “porting” that reduces recoil shock and allows for steadier aim.

Gun dealers said the shotgun appeared to be a stock model of the Browning, which retails for $2,000 to $3,000. According to the Browning Web site, some of the Citori models are made in a left-handed version, with a slight bend near the butt — though it was not apparent from the photo whether the left-handed president was using one of those.

“It looked like he was shooting regular American skeet,” said Michael Hampton Jr., head of the National Sporting Clays Association. “It’s a gun that is used for this discipline — a good middle-of-the-road gun, very functional and very standard.”

The sport originated early in the 20th century when hunters were looking for ways to practice and improve their marksmanship.

Over time, the activity developed as a sport of its own. There are several variations, all involving a shooter attempting to down a roughly three-ounce clay disk that has been launched from a spring-loaded machine.

In skeet shooting — the activity the White House said Obama was pursuing at Camp David — the clay targets are launched at different heights and travel across the shooter’s field of vision.

Hampton said that even novices can get quick satisfaction. In a 100-target session, he said even beginners will hit 25 or 30 targets and quickly develop 50-50 proficiency.

Supreme Court to hear fight over taking DNA from arrested people

The Fifth Amendment says:

nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Sadly I suspect the same thing will happen with DNA tests.

Source

Supreme Court to hear fight over taking DNA from arrested people

Supreme Court to hear DNA challenge

By David G. Savage, Washington Bureau

February 2, 2013, 10:12 p.m.

WASHINGTON — On a cold February night three years ago, police in suburban Arlington, Va., received a frantic call. A young woman said her roommate had been abducted at gunpoint by a short, clean-shaven man who sped away in a silver SUV.

At dawn, a motorist spotted the victim in a snowy field near a highway, raped and strangled, but alive. An alert officer, hearing the lookout report, recalled that he'd jotted down the license tag of a silver Dodge Durango whose driver lurked near bars at midnight, leading to the quick arrest of a short, clean-shaven Marine named Jorge Torrez.

Ten years ago, Virginia became the first state to require, upon arrest for a serious crime, a mouth swab for DNA. The sample from Torrez, sent to a state crime lab and entered into the FBI's DNA database, confirmed he was the rapist. A few weeks later a DNA match also led to charges against him in the rape and murder of two girls, ages 8 and 9, in Zion, Ill., where Torrez had gone to high school. Jerry Hobbs, the father of one of the girls, had been in prison for the crimes.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up a privacy rights challenge to taking DNA from people who are arrested. The case could either end the practice or make it the norm nationwide.

Arlington County Deputy Police Chief Daniel Murray says the Torrez case shows the value of taking DNA when someone is arrested for a serious crime. "It's extremely important to quickly identify someone who would be a danger to society if he were on the loose," he said. And in this instance, he said, the DNA match freed an innocent man.

Nationwide, DNA samples are taken from people who are convicted of violent crimes.

Going further, the federal government and 28 states, including California, Illinois and Florida, now take DNA samples from some or all who are arrested but not yet convicted of serious crimes. Besides taking fingerprints, the standard jail booking now often includes taking a DNA swab, which prosecutors say is as simple and painless as brushing your teeth.

Last month, President Obama signed into law the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act, which will help pay the start-up costs for other states to begin testing people who are arrested.

"The whole purpose of this is to find serial rapists and murderers and to get them early to save innocent lives," said Jayann Sepich, a New Mexico mother whose daughter Katie was raped and murdered. Her attacker was arrested several times, but he was not identified until he was convicted of another crime and his DNA was taken.

California prosecutors say arrests for nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses, credit card fraud and burglary, have led them to rapists and murderers, thanks to DNA tests.

But the constitutionality of taking DNA upon arrest remains in doubt, particularly when it is not needed to identify the suspect. For example, police do not need DNA to identify someone who is caught with drugs or breaking into a house.

A state appeals court in San Francisco and a federal judge in Sacramento ruled it was unconstitutional to require a DNA sample from someone who had been arrested but not convicted. The California Supreme Court and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have put the issue on hold pending a ruling from U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices will hear the case of Maryland vs. King to decide whether requiring DNA from someone taken into custody but not convicted is an "unreasonable search" forbidden by the 4th Amendment.

In 2009, Alonzo King from Salisbury, Md., was arrested for waving a shotgun in a threatening manner. That was a felony charge, calling for a DNA test. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge for which no DNA test was required. But the DNA sample taken upon arrest pointed to him as the man who had broken into a house and raped a woman six years earlier. King was convicted and given a life term.

But Maryland's high court threw out his conviction and ruled police may not take DNA without a search warrant and some reason to believe the suspect had committed another offense. "DNA samples contain a massive amount of deeply personal information," far more than a fingerprint, the state judges said.

Civil liberties advocates have urged the court to hold the line and to bar DNA searches until someone has been convicted.

"This could be an unprecedented expansion of search power. The rule has been the government has to have a specific suspicion before they search," said Erin Murphy, a DNA law expert at New York University. "If you are arrested for a drug crime, that doesn't mean the police can walk into your house looking for evidence of other crimes."

But victims rights groups, the Obama administration and the top state attorneys from California and 48 other states have urged the court to rule that routine DNA testing upon arrest is reasonable and constitutional. They say the mouth swab is a minor invasion of privacy at most and that it has an extraordinary potential for solving heinous crimes.

david.savage@latimes.com

Christopher Broughton at Bike Saviors????

Chris Broughton the guy with the AR-15 at the Obama event

Christopher Broughton is the guy who had the AR-15 when Obama came to Phoenix. He works there.

I told him I thought it was a pretty good public stunt.

British police used dead children's IDs

Report: British police used dead children's IDs

By RAPHAEL SATTER | Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — The Guardian newspaper says that London's Metropolitan Police Service stole the identities of dozens of dead children to use as aliases for undercover officers, mining those children's personal histories to build covers and even issuing fake passports in their names.

The allegation is another potential embarrassment for Scotland Yard's undercover program, which has previously been rocked by revelations that police spies had sex with their targets and fathered children with activists under surveillance.

It wasn't exactly clear how long or often the police used the dead children's identities. The Guardian said it had seen a document suggesting that around 80 officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994, but said that one case may be as recent as 2003.

Police said in a statement Monday that they had received a formal complaint about the practice and "appreciate the concerns." The practice "is not something that would currently be authorized," they said.

Stealing the identities of dead people is a classic piece of spycraft and features prominently in Frederick Forsythe's famed 1971 thriller "The Day of the Jackal."

But lawmakers and law enforcement officials were left wondering Monday whether taking on the identity of a dead child was an appropriate technique for British police. Opposition lawmaker Keith Vaz told Sky News television "that the parents of those involved should be informed immediately."

The Guardian, which has run a series of stories exposing the seamy side of Scotland Yard's undercover work, based its story on detailed accounts provided by two undercover officers — neither of whom it identified by name — and an ex-girlfriend of a third one, who was identified with a pseudonym.

The newspaper said all three men were members of Scotland Yard's Special Demonstration Squad, which was disbanded in 2008.

One of them, the newspaper said, assumed the identity of an eight-year-old boy who died of leukemia in 1968 — going so far as to assume the boy's hometown and even his parents' names when he infiltrated an anti-capitalist group in the 1980s. The officer was found out when he left his girlfriend — part of the group he was spying on — and she pulled up his vital records in an effort to track him down.

The newspaper described her horror when she realized that the person her boyfriend was pretending to be had died 25 years ago.

Former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald said that the latest revelation, coupled with past reporting about undercover officers fathering children with their targets, suggested a police force gone wrong.

"How are you supposed to maintain a level of fair and objective evidence-gathering if you are having sex with the person you are targeting, fathering a baby and then abandoning it, using a dead child's identity?" he said in an interview with BBC radio.

"These are all examples of areas in which the police have completely lost their moral compass and have completely failed to understand the boundaries," he said. "We don't know quite how these units were operating in days gone by. It looks as though they've effectively gone rogue."

Nude photos of Tucson cop Lt. Diana Lopez

I wonder when these cops ever have time to hunt down real criminals.

Now I said real criminals, and I meant real criminals, not busting harmless pot smokers and other victimless drug war criminals which account for two thirds of the people the police send to prison.

I don't have a problem if Tucson cop Lt. Diana Lopez wants to shoot naked photos of her self and send them to her co-workers, but maybe she should limit these activities to her off time and not do it at work.

And the same for here boyfriend cop. I don't have a problem if he and his buddies look at naked pictures of Lt. Diana Lopez, but they shouldn't be doing it at work.

Source

Tucson policewoman demoted after explicit videos

Associated Press Mon Feb 4, 2013 7:47 PM

TUCSON — A Tucson police lieutenant has been demoted after allegedly taking sexually explicit photos and videos of herself wearing her police uniform.

Police said Monday that Lt. Diana Lopez used her personal cellphone to send videos and photos to a subordinate officer with whom she was in a relationship. They say Lopez was reduced to the rank of sergeant following an investigation that began last August.

The Arizona Daily Star (http://bit.ly/WMXjxM ) says anonymous letters sent to the police department about Lopez prompted the probe.

A police report says Lopez’s boyfriend apparently showed the videos and photos to other officers from May 2011 through August 2011.

Police say Lopez violated several department regulations, code of ethics and professional standards. They say a recommendation was made to reduce her in rank.

Source

Tucson policewoman demoted over sexually explicit photos, video

Carmen Duarte Arizona Daily Star

A Tucson police lieutenant was demoted after officials said she took sexually explicit videos and sexually provocative photos of herself wearing her police uniform and sent them to a subordinate officer with whom she was in a relationship, department officials said Monday.

Lt. Diana Lopez, a former public information officer for the department, was reduced to the rank of sergeant following an investigation that began in August 2012. Anonymous letters sent to the department about Lopez prompted the probe, according to a report that was released Monday.

The department did find that Lopez took sexually explicit videos and at least one provocative photo where she was wearing a Tucson police uniform shirt. She sent those images and videos using her personal cell phone to the subordinate officer.

That officer then apparently showed the videos and photos to other TPD officers, the report said. This happened between May 2011 through August 2011, the report said.

Lopez violated several department regulations, code of ethics and professional standards and a recommendation was made to reduce her in rank from lieutenant to sergeant, the report said.

"Justice Dept justifies killing Americans if they pose ‘imminent threat

Of course you have to remember that MSNBC reports the news as objectively and unbiased as the FOX network reports it so you have to take that with a grain of salt.

Here is a link to the 16 page document is titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaeda or An Associated Force.” which was released by NBC. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Source

Justice Dept. document justifies killing Americans overseas if they pose ‘imminent threat’

By Karen DeYoung, Published: February 4

The United States can lawfully kill a U.S. citizen overseas if it determines the target is a “senior, operational leader” of al-Qaeda or an associated group and poses an imminent threat to the United States, according to a Justice Department document published late Monday by NBC News. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

The document defines “imminent threat” expansively, saying it does not have to be based on intelligence about a specific attack since such actions are being “continually” planned by al-Qaeda. “In this context,” it says, “imminence must incorporate considerations of the relevant window of opportunity” as well as possible collateral damage to civilians.

Guiding the evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies: White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is compiling a “playbook” that will lay out the administration’s evolving procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

The memos outline the case for the targeted killing of U.S. citizens in counterterror operations overseas.

It says that such determinations can be made by an “informed, high-level official of the U.S. government.”

NBC said the document was provided by the Obama administration last summer to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees as a summary of a classified memo on targeted killings of U.S. citizens prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo was written months prior to a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric accused of helping al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate plan attacks against the United States. Three other Americans, including Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, have also been killed in U.S. strikes in Yemen.

The Obama administration, in decisions upheld in federal court rulings, has repeatedly denied demands by lawmakers, civil rights groups and the media to release the memo and other information on targeted killings — or even to acknowledge their existence. Senators are expected to closely question John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, on drone strikes, the memo and the Awlaki killing during Brennan’s confirmation hearing Thursday on his nomination to become Obama’s new CIA director.

Justice officials could not be reached for comment on the document, which NBC posted on its Web site. The 16-page document is titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaeda or An Associated Force.”

In announcing Awlaki’s death, Obama described him as the leader of “external affairs” of Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday night called the document a “profoundly disturbing” summary of “a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact.”

The ACLU sought the original Justice Department memo as part of a case dismissed last month by a federal judge in New York. Last Friday, the ACLU filed a notice of appeal in that case.

“Needless to say, the white paper is not a substitute for the legal memo. But it’s a pretty remarkable document,” ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Source

Justice Department memo: Drone strikes on U.S. citizens can be legal

By Cheryl K. Chumley

The Washington Times

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The U.S. Justice Department finds it legal to target American citizens with drone strikes under certain circumstances, according to a memo that just surfaced.

The undated memo, titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operation Leader of al Qaeda or An Associated Force,” was obtained by NBC News. The memo defines as legal drone attacks on U.S. citizens who were involved in violent attacks, according to United Press International. [ The memo can be viewed here http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Specifically, the memo states: “The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” according to UPI. Citizens who present such “imminent threats” were defined as those who participated in violent acts — and maintained the views that led to their violent acts, according to UPI.

In those instances, a fatal drone attack would be considered a “legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban,” according to the memo.

The memo was distributed to various members of Senate and House intelligence committees.

Source

Drone strikes on Americans on U.S. soil are LEGAL, says confidential Justice Department memo

By Damian Ghigliotty

PUBLISHED: 23:58 EST, 4 February 2013

The U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be ‘senior operational leaders’ of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda or ‘an associated force,’ according to a confidential Justice Department memo leaked on Monday.

The U.S. government can do so even if there is no clear evidence that the American targeted is engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

The news was first reported by NBC’s Open Channel, which obtained a copy of the 16-page document and released it to the public.

The undated memo, which is not an official legal document, sheds new light on the reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against Al Qaeda suspects in recent years -- including those aimed at American citizens -- under the Obama administration.

The memo, ‘Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force,’ was reportedly provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees in June by unnamed administration officials.

It was provided on the condition that authorities keep the memo confidential and not discuss its contents publicly, according to NBC.

‘The condition that an operational leader present an “imminent” threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,’ the memo states.

Insight: The document sheds new light on the legal reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against al-Qaida suspects in recent years, including those aimed at American citizens

Insight: The document sheds new light on the legal reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against al-Qaida suspects in recent years, including those aimed at American citizens

The Justice Department told MailOnline that it would not comment on the news.

The Obama administration has remained relatively hush about reports of increased drone strikes carried out since 2008.

The Long War Journal reports that the U.S. has been conducting a covert program to target and kill Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan's northwest region.

‘The US ramped up the number of strikes in July 2008, and has continued to regularly hit at Taliban and Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan,’ the non-profit news outlet writes.

‘There have been 332 strikes total since the program began in 2004; 322 of those strikes have taken place since January 2008.’

The New York Times reported in November that the Obama administration had been mapping out a strategy weeks before the presidential election to develop definitive rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by drones, so that a new president would ‘inherit clear standards and procedures’ if Obama was not re-elected.

The secrecy surrounding such strikes may soon be unraveled, as indicated by the release of the 16-page Justice Department memo.

Proponent: John Brennan, Obama's pick for CIA director, has called drone strikes 'consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense'

John Brennan, a White House counter-terrorism adviser, one of the leading architects behind the government’s drone policy and Obama’s pick to become the country’s new CIA director, is expected to face tough questions about his involvement in Obama’s drone program during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Brennan was the first administration official to formally acknowledge drone strikes in a speech he gave at the Woodrow Wilson Center in April 2012, calling drone strikes ‘consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense.’

A bipartisan group of 11 senators wrote a letter to Obama on Monday asking his administration to provide its legal justification for its use of drone strikes over the past four years.

‘We ask that you direct the Justice Department to provide Congress, specifically the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, with any and all legal opinions that lay out the executive branch's official understanding of the President's authority to deliberately kill American citizens,’ the senators lead by Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote in their letter.

Political blogger Marcy Wheeler, who says she has closely tracked the group’s repeated requests, writes that it was at least the 12th time Congress had asked for those documents.

Among the overseas attacks that have killed U.S. citizens with terrorist ties on Obama's watch, a September 2011 missile strike in Yemen took out alleged Al Qaeda members Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan.

Both men were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government or charged with any specific crimes.

Read the full Justice Department white paper released on Monday night here. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Gun-licensing mandate an affront to our rights

Gun-licensing mandate an affront to our rights

Mon Feb 11, 2013 1:14 AM

Comparing guns to cars is a common and seductive but subtle error of logic.

If it makes sense to license drivers and register cars, then it would make sense to license pilots and register airplanes. And we do. That’s parallel logic.

However, if it makes sense to license gun owners and register guns, then it would make sense to license writers and register printing presses. That would be parallel logic, too. But we don’t do that, because that doesn’t make sense. That’s because those are rights, and government has no legitimate power to license your rights.

So, why would an honest writer object to having a license? Most reporters I know can’t answer that question, which explains why so many support “universal registration” — they understand the issue very poorly. I’ll answer it for you.

If you must pass a government test, pay a tax called a “fee,” get fingerprinted, photographed, listed in the criminal database and carry around your card with an expiration date to publish an article, or else go to prison, that’s flat out wrong. Licensing and registering freedom is tyrannical, assaults the innocent and serves no legitimate purpose in America. That’s why.

—Alan Korwin, Scottsdale

The writer is author of “The Arizona Gun Owner’s Guide.”

Cops over react to trivial comments as they always do.

Police take precautions for trivial Dobson HS bomb threat

But don't think of it as a waste of our tax dollars. I am sure the cops who do this view it as a jobs program to justify the high pay they receive.

And of course H. L. Mencken had it nailed perfectly with his comment:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Incidents like Dobson HS bomb threat force schools, police to take extra precautions

Posted: Saturday, February 9, 2013 8:12 am

By Michelle Reese, Tribune

Just one day after schools in Tempe were put into lockdown, Mesa’s Dobson High School was partially evacuated Friday following a bomb threat.

School and police officials said they collaborate to determine when to ask school principals and teachers to lock their doors and keep students away from potential harm.

“We work together with the schools to try to determine, for the safety of the students and staff, when it would be best to lockdown a school, depending on the situation,” said Mesa Police’s Det. Steve Berry.

Friday’s lockdown of Dobson High was prompted after a student made a comment about a bomb during class, Berry said. It was heard by students and his teacher, who contacted the school resource officer — a licensed Mesa Police officer — who was on campus.

“The boy was detained. The wheels were set in motion to make sure this was not a credible threat,” Berry said. “Once he realized he was going to be taken serious, that this was not a joke, he tried to recant. That’s not going to stop us from moving forward to assure everything is safe.”

After students were evacuated from parts of the school — and other parts were put on lockdown — police determined it was safe to return to class.

Since December’s tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., East Valley school officials say they are fielding more calls and questions from parents about safety.

“Since December, many people are on heightened alert mode,” Tempe Elementary School District spokesperson Monica Allread said. “Parents want to know anything that happens at the school that’s out of the ordinary. We’re working hard to make sure they know that.”

Mesa Unified School District spokesperson Helen Hollands said there are a few reasons for lockdowns in a school.

“There are lockdowns that happen because of an external incident. That would be if police are dealing with a suspect in an area. Those are always called by the law enforcement agency,” she said. “The other would be if we go into a lockdown for a campus related or internal reason. Most of the time, it’s a collaboration between the school district and the police or law enforcement agency to decide if it’s appropriate to go into lockdown.”

A school principal may also put a school in lockdown if there is an active situation, she said.

“If the event is active and there is an immediate threat or danger, the site administrator would call the lockdown immediately and then notify police,” she said.

After the Sandy Hook shooting, the Mesa school district decided to move up plans to do a campus-by-campus safety analysis. The Mesa school district governing board will hear that report Tuesday during a work study session that begins after an executive session at 5 p.m.

“That will look at what we need to do to make our sites physically more safe for students and staff,” Hollands said.

The district is also looking at the policies, procedures, practices and protocol that are used on campuses.

“That’s underway right now. That will be a report that could change protocol. Sometimes it’s helping to close a gap between practice and protocol,” she said.

Tempe’s Allread said during the last two school years, she sent out three letters each year notifying parents that a lockdown took place. This year, including Thursday’s incident, she has already sent out five.

A handful of schools in Tempe were put on lockdown while police searched an area for a suspect from a road rage incident.

Mesa didn’t have a count of the number of lockdowns used so far this school year as of press time.

Allread said the Tempe Elementary School District looked at its safety and security measures last summer.

“But we’re always looking a safety and security and certainly after what happened in December, we took a look at what they had in place and tried to learn any lessons we could,” she said.

The 16-year-old student detained by police could face charges, Mesa Police’s Berry said. The student could also face punishment from the district, from a short suspension to expulsion, depending on the circumstances, Hollands said.

“At this point, without having any due process evaluation, I couldn’t say where within this guideline it would fall. It has a range, because you need to take into account all the mitigating circumstances,” she said.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6549 or mreese@evtrib.com

Cop pulls gun in washing machine dispute

I guess this is one good reason the police should NOT be allowed to be the only people allow to have guns. Although I don't think in the case the cop was legally allowed to have the gun she pulled.

Us serfs need weapons to fight against government tyranny!!!!

Source

Cops: Washing machine dispute lands deputy in hot water

By Melissa Jenco Tribune reporter

6:59 p.m. CST, February 10, 2013

A Cook County corrections officer is facing felony charges after authorities say she displayed a weapon during a dispute over a washing machine, according to court records.

Sonjia L. Dennis-Brown, 36, of Dolton, got into an argument with another woman over a washing machine in the 1100 block of East Sibley Boulevard, Dolton, about 4:34 p.m. Feb. 8, according to a police report.

During the argument, she removed a 9 millimeter semi-automatic handgun from her purse and said, "This is all the protection I need," the report says. Dennis-Brown denied to police she displayed the weapon.

She was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a firearm without firearm owner identification. She appeared in court Sunday where Cook County Judge Israel Desierto set her bail at $25,000.

The Sheriff's Office of Professional Review is investigating the charges, said Sheriff's Spokesman Frank Bilecki. The officer is currently on maternity leave and until the investigation is complete she has been dedeputized, Bilecki said.

mjenco@tribune.com

Dorner manhunt: Officers opened fire on mother, daughter

Look I will trust the teachers with a gun any day of the year, but I wouldn't let these trigger happy cops get anywhere near the school campus

Source

Dorner manhunt: Officers opened fire on mother, daughter

February 9, 2013 | 7:47 am

In their pursuit of a fugitive ex-cop, at least seven officers opened fire on what turned out to be a mother and daughter delivering newspapers on a quiet residential street, law enforcement sources told The Times.

It was "a tragic misinterpretation" by officers working under "incredible tension," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Friday in an interview with The Times. Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were the victims.

Early Thursday morning, Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, allegedly shot three police officers, one fatally. And, in an online posting authorities attributed to him, Dorner threatened to kill more police and seemed to take responsibility for the slaying over the weekend of the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance.

Then around 5 a.m. Thursday in Torrance, police from nearby El Segundo saw a pickup truck exit a freeway and head in the general direction of the Redbeam Avenue residence of a high-ranking Los Angeles police official, which was being guarded by a group of LAPD officers.

A radio call indicated that the truck matched the description of Dorner's gray Nissan Titan. As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the back of the truck. When the shooting stopped, they quickly realized their mistake. The truck was not a Nissan Titan, but a Toyota Tacoma. The color wasn't gray, but aqua blue. And it wasn't Dorner inside the truck, but Carranza and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.

Beck and others stressed that the investigation into the shooting was in its infancy. They declined to say how many officers were involved, what kind of weapons they used, how many bullets were fired and, perhaps most important, what kind of verbal warnings — if any — were given to the women before the shooting began.

"How do you mistake two Hispanic women, one who is 71, for a large, black male?" said Richard Goo, 62, who counted five bullet holes in the entryway to his house.

Glen T. Jonas, the attorney representing the women, said the police officers gave "no commands, no instructions and no opportunity to surrender" before opening fire. He described a terrifying encounter in which the pair were in the early part of their delivery route through several South Bay communities. Hernandez was in the back seat handing papers to her daughter, who was driving. Carranza would briefly slow the truck to throw papers on driveways and front walks.

As bullets tore through the cabin, the two women "covered their faces and huddled down," Jonas said. "They felt like it was going on forever."

Hernandez was shot twice in her back and is expected to recover. Her daughter escaped with only minor wounds from broken glass.

Beck said he had not yet received a detailed briefing, which typically occurs a few days after officer-involved shootings to give investigators time to collect evidence and put together the basic summary of what happened. But he did say that the gunfire occurred in two bursts: The first came from an officer positioned down the block from the LAPD official's residence, and the second when Carranza accelerated away from the gunfire and toward other officers.

After the investigation is completed, Beck and an oversight board will decide if officers were justified in the shooting or made mistakes that warrant either punishment or training.

Arizona AG Tom Horne wants his hit and run case tossed

Source

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne wants traffic case tossed

Associated Press Wed Feb 13, 2013 5:10 PM

PHOENIX — Lawyers for Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss a misdemeanor hit-and-run case against him, arguing he’s being singled out for prosecution and FBI agents who witnessed the incident while tailing him are refusing to answer questions.

A court filing obtained by The Associated Press accused the FBI’s top agent in Arizona of personally calling Phoenix Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia and asking him to investigate after FBI agents tailing Horne saw him back into another vehicle and leave. Horne’s lawyer, Michael D. Kimerer, wrote in his court filing that police did so even though it violated their own written policy of not investigating cases involving less than $5,000 in private property damage.

Kimerer wrote that singling out Horne for prosecution violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. The only logical explanation for doing so when others are not investigated or prosecuted for similar crimes is that Horne is an elected official.

Horne is accused in Phoenix city court of not stopping or leaving a note after he backed a borrowed car he was driving into another vehicle. FBI reports released by Phoenix police in October say he left the scene because he was having an affair with a female employee who was in the car and he didn’t want their relationship to be reported.

Horne has declined comment on allegations of an affair and repeatedly said he didn’t know he had caused any damage. He declined comment Wednesday, referring instead to the court filing.

The agents who were following Horne in March 2012 had apparently been doing so during the course of a campaign finance investigation, although agents interviewed by Kimerer refused to say that was the case.

The FBI waited seven months before notifying Phoenix police, until after the Maricopa County attorney’s office filed civil charges in the campaign finance case.

“It just shows animus the way they pursued this,” Kimerer said in an interview. “They were just rabid to get him.”

In the campaign finance case, Horne and employee Kathleen Winn are accused of illegally coordinating with an independent expenditure committee during the 2010 election. Horne is appealing Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s findings that Horne illegally coordinated his 2010 campaign with a group that was supposed to be operating independently. The group aired television advertising critical of Horne’s general election opponent.

Montgomery is demanding that Horne’s 2010 campaign and the other group, Business Leaders for Arizona, return up to $513,000 of contributions. There also could be large civil fines.

Because of the alleged coordination, the contributions made to a group headed by a Horne ally who now works in his office actually were contributions that exceeded campaign finance limits on money given to candidates, Montgomery said. Candidates aren’t allowed to discuss strategy or other matters with so-called independent expenditure committees, but there’s evidence that Horne was involved in both raising money and deciding how to spend it on advertising by Business Leaders for Arizona, Montgomery said in October.

Horne, a lawyer who is the top-elected law enforcement official for the state, denied any coordination. He had been considering running for governor but now says he’ll seek re-election in 2014.

Sassing a cop is constitutionally protected free speech!!!

Sassing a cop may be unwise, but it’s constitutionally protected

Talking back to a police officer while you’re under arrest is usually not the smartest move, a bit like tugging on Superman’s cape, or spitting into the wind. But it’s legal, according to a federal appeals court — and if the officer retaliates in some way, like hauling you off to jail instead of giving you a ticket and letting you go, you might be entitled to damages.

“Police officers may not use their authority to punish an individual for exercising his First Amendment rights,” the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 ruling Feb. 8 that reinstated a lawsuit against the city of Yakima, Wash., and two of its policemen.

Eddie Ford, an African American who grew up in the central Washington community, was driving to his night-shift job at a bottling company in July 2007 when a police car came up from behind and stopped him, apparently for playing his stereo too loud. As Officer Ryan Urlacher approached, Ford got out of the car shouting that the stop was racially motivated. Urlacher told him to get back in the car, then said he would arrest Ford for violating a city noise ordinance, and commented, according to the court, that “he might only get a ticket if he cooperates.”

Ford kept talking for awhile after Urlacher handcuffed him, put him in the patrol car and threatened to jail him unless he shut up. He quieted down, but the officer drove him away and booked him at the suggestion of a superior officer, telling Ford that “your mouth and your attitude talked you into jail.” Urlacher later testified that he jailed Ford because of “his rageful … behavior towards the law enforcement,” which, the officer said, put public safety at risk.

Ford went to trial on the noise-violation charge, was found not guilty, and then sued for damages. A judge dismissed the suit, ruling that Urlacher had acted reasonably and had not punished Ford for freedom of speech, but the appeals court said a jury might conclude otherwise.

The Constitution protects “a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers,” the court said, quoting a 1987 Supreme Court ruling. Even if police had reason to arrest Ford in the first place, they were not entitled to jail him in retaliation for speaking his mind, said the court majority, Judges Procter Hug and Dorothy Nelson.

Dissenting Judge Connie Callahan looked at the case through the other end of the telescope, the viewpoint of the officers. Once someone is under arrest, she said, that person’s free-speech rights are reduced, and police are entitled to jail someone like Ford based on what he says, which might indicate he posed a danger to himself or others. In this case, Callahan said, Urlacher may have simply been trying to give Ford “an opportunity to change his attitude,” and the court oversteps its bounds when it tries to “impose such etiquette upon peace officers.”

Robert Christie, a lawyer for the city and its police, said they agreed with Callahan and were considering whether to ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. Ford’s lawyer, William Pickett, said the court had reaffirmed a basic constitutional principle.

“Citizens have an absolute right to be critical of law enforcement, and they can vocalize that criticism without any fear of being retaliated against,” Pickett said.

The ruling can be viewed here.

Let the police decide which rights we have???

Vanessa Goldberg thinks the police should decide which rights we are allowed to have

And of course the police are the arm of government that tyrants use to force their will on us.

So if we let the "police" pick and choose which "rights" we get to keep, we will soon have no rights.

Source

Listen to police, not NRA

Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:08 PM

Listen to the police on the weapons issue!

Who would know the weapons issue better than the police, who are on the front lines of combating gun-related crimes and dealing with the horrific aftermaths? Should we not therefore listen to what they have to say about the question of gun control?

Should we not be made thoughtful by the fact that the International Association of Chiefs of Police has historically backed gun-control measures?

Their IACP website recently stated: “Our membership was, and remains, a leading proponent of universal background checks for gun purchases, the ban on military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and ensuring that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (and Explosives) has both a permanent director and sufficient resources to enforce our nation’s gun laws.”

I ask my fellow readers: Should we listen to police chiefs or to the NRA?

— Vanessa Goldberg

Scottsdale

Drones will be coming to the "drug war" in Arizona???

Of course later on in the article it says there will be exceptions for cops in the "drug war".

When you consider that two thirds of the people in American prisons are their for victimless drug war crimes, that means the police will be allowed to use drones in two thirds of police work they do which is about drug war crimes.

I am a little bit more negative on this issue, and my question is when will the police begin using drones to murder suspected "drug war" criminals, like the American government uses drones to murder suspected "terrorists" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries throughout the world.

Source

Arizona seeks to be a key player in drone work

By Alia Beard Rau The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:35 PM

Arizona lawmakers are bidding to make the state a center for aerial-drone research, but they also want to make sure local police don’t use the unmanned surveillance aircraft to spy on Americans.

As the sophisticated eye-in-the-sky technology deployed by the military in the war on terror in Afghanistan and against drug cartels on the Mexican border becomes a Pentagon fixture, state lawmakers have introduced several bills this session to ensure that the state is part of the high-tech revolution, without turning Arizona into a “police state.”

The U.S. military has used drones around the world for more than a decade, patrolling hot spots, gathering evidence and launching airstrikes. The unmanned craft are nothing new to Arizona, either.

The federal government has used them within the state to help fight forest fires and patrol the border. The Fort Huachuca Army base in southern Arizona houses the largest unmanned-aircraft-system training center in the world, according to the Army, employing hundreds of private contractors and civilian instructors and training more than 1,300 students a year.

Arizona-based defense contractors are cashing in on what has become a $4 billion-a-year investment for the military alone, not to mention the growing private and foreign government uses.

And local universities are pushing to develop the necessary workforce. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University offer programs related to drones.

Arizona lawmakers are doing their part via legislation to prepare for greater growth.

House Concurrent Resolution 2009, sponsored by Rep. Tom Forese, R-Chandler, reinforces Arizona’s push to be selected by the Federal Aviation Administration as one of six national drone- testing sites.

The National Defense Authorization Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2011, authorized the establishment of sites where officials could test drones in civil airspace near commercial air traffic. The sites were scheduled to be chosen in December, but the FAA delayed a decision indefinitely, saying it needed to address safety and privacy concerns.

Arizona officials said they are hopeful the state will still be chosen. HCR 2009 has passed the House Public Safety, Military and Regulatory Affairs Committee with unanimous bipartisan support. It now awaits a vote of the full House.

Officials are also preparing for what they fear could be a worst-case scenario in the future of drone technology.

House Bill 2574, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Dial, R-Chandler, makes it illegal for state or local law-enforcement officials to use a drone to collect information unless they have a search warrant.

It also makes it illegal to monitor individuals inside their homes or places of worship. It has exceptions for law-enforcement officials investigating human trafficking or drug smuggling as long as they are doing so on public property or with permission on private property.

Dial said he is working on the bill and expects to make some changes. It has been assigned to the House public-safety committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing.

Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix, also introduced a bill that would forbid the state and local governments from assisting in any way with enforcing portions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that allows the military to detain a U.S. citizen. But Seel said he is putting his support behind Dial’s bill.

The bills come amid controversy surrounding a White House legal argument justifying drone-missile strikes against U.S. citizens who are part of terrorist groups overseas.

“We need to protect something called the Fourth Amendment,” Seel said, adding that he has heard “unverified” reports of drones being used to survey citizens in Arizona. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches.

He said the bills restricting drones are not intended to limit the federal government’s use of drones to protect the border.

Dial said his bill is intended to be pre-emptive.

“What I want to do is protect citizens’ rights,” he said. “We don’t want to live in a police state. We don’t want to have drones everywhere in society.”

Dial also supports the resolution seeking to make Arizona a test site and efforts to promote drone research and business opportunities in the state. “I want the jobs here, and there are definitely uses for drones,” he said. “But I don’t want civil liberties and privacy invaded.”

He said the two bills address separate issues and can work together.

“The problem isn’t technology,” Dial said. “It’s how humans use the technology.”

Assistant House Minority Leader Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, a former Marine who serves on the House public-safety committee, said he wants to see the final details of Dial’s bill but supports the effort in general.

“Technology is always advancing, and we have to put safeguards in place to protect people’s civil liberties while still allowing drones to be used as a law-enforcement tool,” he said. “As long as we can find that balance, I don’t have any problem with the bill.”

Legal Loophole Could Hold Up $1M Christopher Dorner Reward

Legal Loophole Could Hold Up $1M Dorner Reward

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN | ABC News

A legal loophole could prevent good Samaritans, instrumental in ending the manhunt for a fugitive ex-cop accused of killing four people, from claiming more than $1 million in reward money because Christopher Dorner died and was not captured.

Last weekend, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged $1 million, sourced from private individuals, companies and unions, "for information that will lead to Mr. Dorner's capture."

The L.A. City Council followed up with its own promise of a $100,000 reward, for information "leading to the identification, apprehension and conviction of Christopher Dorner."

But Dorner, accused of killing four people and threatening the lives of several dozen more, was never captured, apprehended or convicted. Instead, he died following a standoff with police near Big Bear, Calif., when the cabin in which he was barricaded burned down with him inside.

The mayor's office has not yet determined if the reward could still be paid out given Dorner died.

"At this time, no decision has been made on the reward," Villaraigosa's spokesman Peter Sanders told ABC News.com in an email.

So far, none of the privately sourced "funds have been deposited into the City's 'Special Reward Trust Fund,'" according to the Frank T. Mateljan, spokesman for the city attorney.

That still leaves an additional $100,000 that the city council could pay with municipal money, but there legal questions there, as well.

"The reward is definitely still on the table," said Jessica Tarman, spokeswoman for Councilman Daniel Zine.

But there are still plenty of questions.

The council ultimately decides how and to whom the reward will get paid. If its members are feeling generous, they could interpret the language of the original offer to make sure a worthy recipient gets paid.

"Arguably, city law is broad enough to allow payment to persons who assisted in the "identification, apprehension OR arrest and conviction" of a suspect," Metaljan said in an email [emphasis his].

If the city decides to honor the reward, there are still multiple steps before a claimant can be paid.

Anyone who thinks they are worthy must apply in writing. That claim would then be reviewed by the LAPD robbery and homicide division, and a recommendation would be made to the police commissioner. The commissioner would tell the council to consider the claim, and the council would vote on it.

So far, no one has come forward to ask for the reward. More than 1,000 leads were called to a city hotline

One couple seems most deserving, if they decide to seek the reward. Jim and Karen Reynolds, a couple in whose Big Bear, Calif., home Dorner is believed to have hidden for days, called in the tip Tuesday that ultimately put police on the trail to Dorner's final location.

On Tuesday, the couple found Dorner at their home. He briefly held them captive, but they managed to escape and call in their tip.

California program to seize illegal guns gaining notice

California has the nation's only program to confiscate guns from people who bought them legally but later became disqualified.

The job requires a mixture of force and finesse. The agents show up in heavily armed teams, wearing black jumpsuits bulked up by bulletproof vests. But they don't have warrants and, unless their subject is on probation, they need permission to enter homes to search for guns.

Source

California program to seize illegal guns gaining notice

California has the nation's only program to confiscate firearms from people who bought them legally but are now barred from having them.

By Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times

February 18, 2013, 6:56 p.m.

By law, Alexander Hernandez should have surrendered his gun to the state of California three years ago after a judge issued a restraining order against him for alleged domestic violence.

He didn't.

So one night recently , when the 26-year-old was at home in Whittier with his toddler, eight armed agents from the California Department of Justice banged on his door and took it from him.

Agents found the loaded .45-caliber handgun in a safe by his bed. Hernandez, who told the agents he had forgotten that he was supposed to turn in the weapon, was arrested on suspicion of illegally possessing a handgun, records show.

After assuring that the child had a baby-sitter, the agents drove off into the night in search of more illegal guns. Their quest took them across the San Gabriel Valley, from a retirement home to a gated community to a small house with rosebushes in front. In the living room of that house, a mother wept as agents arrested her son. A conviction for misdemeanor battery made it illegal for him to continue possessing his four guns.

California has the nation's only program to confiscate guns from people who bought them legally but later became disqualified. During twice-weekly sweeps over the last five years, agents have collected more than 10,000 guns.

But there are still more than 19,700 people on the state's Armed Prohibited Persons database. Collectively, they own about 39,000 guns. About 3,000 people are added to the list each year.

Clearing the backlog would cost $40 million to $50 million, according to Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris. She estimated that once the backlog is cleared, fielding teams large enough to keep up with people added to the list would cost about $14 million a year.

"This is about prevention," Harris said. "This is about taking guns out of the hands of people who are prohibited from owning them, and are known to be potentially some of the most dangerous people walking around.... It's just common sense."

As gun control has moved to the forefront of national debate, California's program is being studied as a potential model.

The list of prohibited owners is compiled by analysts who track gun sales back to 1996 and match them against databases listing criminal convictions, restraining orders and mental health detentions.

Sometimes the guns are used in killings before the state can retrieve them, according to state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who last month introduced legislation that would provide funding for more agents to conduct sweeps.

For example, Roy Perez had been on the list for three years before he shot and killed his mother, his neighbor and his neighbor's 4-year-old in Baldwin Park in 2008, officials said.

Until recently, the gun apprehension teams had received little attention in the five years they have been sweeping through neighborhoods. But they suddenly have become a topic of intense interest — so much so that when agents rolled through Southern California earlier this month , their big, unmarked trucks were joined by two agents in a rented minivan large enough to carry journalists and camera crews.

The job requires a mixture of force and finesse. The agents show up in heavily armed teams, wearing black jumpsuits bulked up by bulletproof vests. But they don't have warrants and, unless their subject is on probation, they need permission to enter homes to search for guns. Obtaining a search warrant typically requires a reasonable suspicion that the gun would be on the premises, a difficult standard to meet based solely on information from a database, officials said.

Instead, they must talk their way in and coax gun owners into turning over their weapons.

Often, they come away empty-handed.

As the sun was setting, they arrived at the home of a man who had a domestic violence restraining order and was living in a Whittier neighborhood of small ranch homes and backyard stables. As agents walked to the door, neighbors came by on horseback, staring.

The man told the agents he didn't have the gun anymore; it was at his brother's house.

The agents went on their way — in the absence of the gun, they had no proof of a crime, and thus no cause for arrest.

"They'll keep going until they find that gun," Special Agent Supervisor John Marsh said. "You exhaust every lead."

On one occasion, he said, the team tracked a gun owned by mentally ill person to a remote cabin in the mountains in Northern California, where it had been sealed into a wall.

Sometimes the addresses they have are wrong, as was the case that same night when armed teams strode into a retirement community in Whittier, startling residents.

Other times, they don't find the gun they are seeking, but come across others that are possessed illegally. In Oakland last fall, Marsh said, his team entered a house and found a stash of assault weapons with the serial numbers ground off.

Marsh said he once felt a little twinge when taking a gun. The man had been disqualified from ownership because of mental illness. Agents found him living in compound without electricity in a rural area near Crescent City. He was using his guns to shoot game to feed himself.

A more common scenario played out at the Whittier home of Gerardo Naranjo, the young man who had been convicted of misdemeanor battery.

As Naranjo's mother wept, agents recovered the two guns they knew about and two more, including a semiautomatic rifle.

"I know I've saved lives," Marsh said as he cracked open an energy drink and drove the minivan to the next location. "We're taking guns from people that shouldn't have guns."

jessica.garrison@latimes.com

Mandatory Gun Insurance??? A round about way to disarm Americans???

I suspect this so called "mandatory gun insurance" is designed to do the same thing.

Requiring people who own guns to purchase insurance which will be made unaffordable to prevent people from legally buying and owning guns by making the insurance too expensive.

And of course after the government passes a law requiring mandatory gun insurance, the next step would be to pass laws that make it impossible for insurance companies to sell the mandatory gun insurance, effectively making guns illegal.

This isn't a new trick by our government rulers. They did the same thing when they made drugs illegal.

The "1914 Harrison Narcotic Tax Act" and the "1937 Marihuana Tax Act" effectively made drugs illegal by slapping a tax on them, while at the same time the government stopped issuing the tax licenses.

Source

Latest Front in the Gun Debate Is Mandatory Insurance

By MICHAEL COOPER and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Published: February 21, 2013 609 Comments

In a nation sharply divided over efforts to curb violence and the right to bear arms, both sides of the gun debate seem to agree on at least one thing: a bigger role for the insurance industry in a heavily armed society.

David P. Linsky is a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who wants to require gun owners to buy insurance.

But just what that role should be, and whether insurers will choose to accept it, are very much in dispute.

Lawmakers in at least half a dozen states, including California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, have proposed legislation this year that would require gun owners to buy liability insurance — much as car owners are required to buy auto insurance. Doing so would give a financial incentive for safe behavior, they hope, as people with less dangerous weapons or safety locks could qualify for lower rates.

“I believe that if we get the private sector and insurance companies involved in gun safety, we can help prevent a number of gun tragedies every year,” said David P. Linsky, a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who wants to require gun owners to buy insurance. He believes it will encourage more responsible behavior and therefore reduce accidental shootings. “Insurance companies are very good at evaluating risk factors and setting their premiums appropriately,” he added.

Groups representing gun owners oppose efforts to make insurance mandatory, arguing that law-abiding people should not be forced to buy insurance to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms. But some groups, including the National Rifle Association, endorse voluntary liability policies for their members. And as several states pass laws making it easier for people to carry concealed weapons and use them for self-defense, some gun groups are now selling policies to cover some of the legal costs stemming from self-defense shootings.

The United States Concealed Carry Association recently began selling what it calls Self-Defense Shield. “If you’re forced to justifiably use your gun in self-defense,” its Web site says, “Self-Defense Shield will help pay for your expert pro-2nd Amendment lawyer by reimbursing your legal-defense expenses following your acquittal — an ingenious system critical to the arsenal of any responsibly armed citizen.”

Premiums for such insurance range from around $200 to $300 per year; in general, the coverage is narrowly written and excludes cases where a gun is used to commit a crime.

Some specialized underwriters are reviewing what their policies cover when it comes to shootings, and weighing whether they should offer new types of coverage for gun owners. And as more states pass laws allowing people to bring guns to public venues — including restaurants, bars, churches and the parking lots of their workplaces — some business groups have expressed concerns that they could be held liable for shootings on their properties, which could drive up their insurance costs.

On Thursday, when Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut outlined his proposals to reduce gun violence — which included universal background checks, a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines and a stronger assault weapons ban — he called for officials to study “whether owners of firearms should be required to carry additional insurance.”

The insurance industry is wary of some of the proposals to require gun owners to buy liability coverage — and particularly of bills, like one that was filed in New York that would require coverage for damages resulting not only from negligence but also from “willful acts.”

Robert P. Hartwig, the president of the Insurance Information Institute, said that insurance generally covered accidents and unintentional acts — not intentional or illegal ones. “Insurance will cover you if your home burns down in an electrical fire, but it will not cover you if you burn down your own house, and you cannot insure yourself for arson,” he said.

Some claims stemming from shootings have been covered by homeowners’ insurance — even by policies that said they did not cover illegal acts.

The families of the two students responsible for the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Colorado were able to use money from their homeowners’ policies to settle a lawsuit brought by families of most of the victims. In 2001, a California court ordered an insurance company to defend a policyholder whose 16-year-old son shot and killed a friend with a Beretta handgun that he had found in his mother’s coat. But the year before, a North Carolina court ruled that an insurance company did not have to cover the expenses of a policyholder who had shot and wounded a prowler on his property.

Christopher J. Monge, an insurance agent and gun owner in Verona, Wis., recently wrote a book, “The Gun Owner’s Guide to Insurance for Concealed Carry and Self-Defense,” which he sells at gun shows. Mr. Monge said that the problem with most liability insurance is that it promises coverage only in cases of a gun owner’s negligence, or an accidental shooting — and not if the gun owner shoots someone intentionally in self-defense. “A negligent act is covered by your liability policy, but if you intentionally shoot somebody, it could be excluded,” he said.

So as more states pass self-defense laws, Mr. Monge said that he found several insurance companies that would specifically offer liability coverage in cases of self-defense, usually in the form of an “umbrella” policy that added a higher level of coverage than the routine coverage for negligence in a homeowners’ policy. An umbrella policy adds coverage for unusual, but potentially expensive, incidents.

But he opposes proposals to make liability insurance mandatory. “They’re barking up the wrong tree, if you ask me,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of gun owners are going to be safe and not go crazy.”

States have been considering mandatory gun insurance bills for years, but no state has passed one yet, said Jon Griffin, a policy associate at the National Conference of State Legislatures. When Illinois considered a bill in 2009, the National Rifle Association wrote that it would “put firearms ownership out of reach for many law-abiding Illinoisans.” The N.R.A. endorses a policy that offers excess liability coverage — “because accidents do happen no matter how careful you are” — and another that offers “self-defense insurance.”

The recent trend of allowing guns in more public places has alarmed some business groups. When Ohio enacted a law allowing guns in bars in 2011, the Ohio Restaurant Association opposed it, writing officials that restaurant owners “expect that this law would be perceived by insurance companies as increasing the risk of injury in establishments that sell alcohol, which of course would result in increased liability insurance costs.” Owners have not reported higher premiums because of the new law, said a spokesman for the association, Jarrod A. Clabaugh, but some worry that a shooting could drive up their insurance costs.

The current debate over mandatory liability laws is being watched with interest by Nelson Lund, the Patrick Henry professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment at George Mason University School of Law. Professor Lund proposed the idea of mandatory insurance in a 1987 article in the Alabama Law Review, seeing it as a form of gun control that could be consistent with the constitutional right to bear arms. But he said that he had not studied any of the current proposals, and noted that it made a great deal of difference how they are written.

“If this were done, the private insurance market would quickly and efficiently make it prohibitively expensive for people with a record of irresponsible ownership of guns to possess them legally,” he wrote in the 1987 article, “but would not impose unreasonable burdens on those who have the self-discipline to exercise their liberty in a responsible fashion.”

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