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"Michigan Democrats embrace gun rights."
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
They'll Second That Amendment
Michigan Democrats embrace gun rights.
BY THOMAS J. BRAY
Tuesday, July 30, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
The antigun set went bonkers in Michigan a year ago when the courts stymied their efforts to gut a new law expanding gun rights. The Michigan Supreme Court threw out the gun-control advocates' ballot initiative, saying the issue couldn't be challenged with a referendum. Having failed there, the antigunners took aim with the only weapon left in their arsenal: inflated rhetoric. Relaxing gun restrictions, they warned, would bring Wild West-style shootouts, blood in the streets and a severe political backlash against Republicans and conservative judges.
Dial forward to the present. The law is now in effect and Michigan has not become "Dodge City," as one gun control advocate warned at the time. As for the political backlash, that's something we should ask of the three Democrats competing in the Aug. 6 primary for governor. In a recent debate, not one of them called for repeal of the "shall issue" law, which requires counties to issue a permit to any adult applicant who has no felony convictions or history of mental illness.
"Let the [new law] work," advised Rep. David Bonior. Former governor James Blanchard, trying for another stint in Lansing, said the new law should stand and then went one step further: "I am backing a constitutional amendment to protect hunting and fishing." The favorite, Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, said she's taking a "wait and see" attitude. But even that is a move in the direction of supporting gun rights, since s he was on the steering committee that unsuccessfully fought to keep the old system, under which only people with a demonstrated "need" could carry concealed firearms.
In other words, nothing so concentrates the liberal mind as the prospect of an election. As of early March, the number of concealed-weapons permits in Michigan was up 39%, to 81,000 from 58,280 a year earlier. And a Detroit News poll showed that 58% of state residents favor the new law, while only 38% oppose it, mirroring national polls on the subject. Oakland County, home of the proverbially soft-hearted soccer mom, is the location of the biggest increase in applications for concealed-weapons permits.
Gun controls are on the defensive nationally as well. Gun-rights advocates are suing the District of Columbia, arguing that its strict antigun laws, which forbid even ownership of handguns, are unconstitutional. Efforts to sue gun makers on public-health grounds haven't gotten very far. In October the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a Texas case that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to privately keep and bear arms "regardless of whether the particular individual is then actually a member of a militia."
Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a recent memo to federal prosecutors, agreed with that view. The House voted to force the Transportation Department to allow commercial airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit. The votes are there to pass similar legislation in the Senate, if it can only reach the floor. And in England, which toughened its gun laws in 1997 following the "Dunblane massacre," violent crime has actually increased.
Sept. 11 may be part of the reason for the increasing popularity of gun rights. Gun sales spiked upward in the wake of the terrorist attack. But the shift in sentiment had begun earlier. Even on the left, there is a new wariness about antigun initiatives, thanks in part to the suspicion that Al Gore may have lost the election due to his aggressive advocacy of various gun-control schemes.
The intellectual climate no longer is so favorable to antigun advocates. John Lott won considerable attention with his book "More Guns, Less Crime," which put statistical heft to the argument that states with the least restrictive gun laws also have less crime and those states that repeal restrictive gun laws see violent crime decline.
Then there is the case of Michael Bellesiles, whose book "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" claimed that gun ownership had actually been quite rare in colonial and frontier days. The antigun crowd championed Mr. Bellesiles's conclusion that widespread gun ownership therefore couldn't have been the basis or the intent of the Second Amendment.
No sooner had Mr. Bellesiles won the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history than other historians began pointing out that his thesis didn't hold up. No one else could reproduce his findings from probate records he claims to have used, or even find some of the records he cites. Mr. Bellesiles hasn't turned over his own research, citing the dog-at-my-homework excuse that his records were lost in a flood.
None of that is likely to discourage the diehards, of course. Just because people aren't dropping like flies at the hands of citizens armed with their newly minted permits and concealed weapons doesn't mean Dodge City won't materialize soon, they assert. "Any day now," opined a Detroit Free Press columnist six months after Michigan's new law went into effect, "one of two things is going to happen: Either some new permit-holder is going to blow away a home invader, or the permit-holder's 6-year-old son is going to blow away his baby sister in the backseat of the family SUV."
It's not clear why it would be a bad thing for a few "home invaders" to get blown away, but in any case another six months have gone by without any such mayhem. The deafening silence you hear from Michigan's Democratic candidates for governor on the issue is proof that the nightmares of liberal imagination often can be made to vanish with experience. And that the folks who wrote the Second Amendment may have understood that adults can usually be trusted to act like adults. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=110002056
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Michigan Democrats embrace gun rights.
BY THOMAS J. BRAY
Tuesday, July 30, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
The antigun set went bonkers in Michigan a year ago when the courts stymied their efforts to gut a new law expanding gun rights. The Michigan Supreme Court threw out the gun-control advocates' ballot initiative, saying the issue couldn't be challenged with a referendum. Having failed there, the antigunners took aim with the only weapon left in their arsenal: inflated rhetoric. Relaxing gun restrictions, they warned, would bring Wild West-style shootouts, blood in the streets and a severe political backlash against Republicans and conservative judges.
Dial forward to the present. The law is now in effect and Michigan has not become "Dodge City," as one gun control advocate warned at the time. As for the political backlash, that's something we should ask of the three Democrats competing in the Aug. 6 primary for governor. In a recent debate, not one of them called for repeal of the "shall issue" law, which requires counties to issue a permit to any adult applicant who has no felony convictions or history of mental illness.
"Let the [new law] work," advised Rep. David Bonior. Former governor James Blanchard, trying for another stint in Lansing, said the new law should stand and then went one step further: "I am backing a constitutional amendment to protect hunting and fishing." The favorite, Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, said she's taking a "wait and see" attitude. But even that is a move in the direction of supporting gun rights, since s he was on the steering committee that unsuccessfully fought to keep the old system, under which only people with a demonstrated "need" could carry concealed firearms.
In other words, nothing so concentrates the liberal mind as the prospect of an election. As of early March, the number of concealed-weapons permits in Michigan was up 39%, to 81,000 from 58,280 a year earlier. And a Detroit News poll showed that 58% of state residents favor the new law, while only 38% oppose it, mirroring national polls on the subject. Oakland County, home of the proverbially soft-hearted soccer mom, is the location of the biggest increase in applications for concealed-weapons permits.
Gun controls are on the defensive nationally as well. Gun-rights advocates are suing the District of Columbia, arguing that its strict antigun laws, which forbid even ownership of handguns, are unconstitutional. Efforts to sue gun makers on public-health grounds haven't gotten very far. In October the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a Texas case that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to privately keep and bear arms "regardless of whether the particular individual is then actually a member of a militia."
Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a recent memo to federal prosecutors, agreed with that view. The House voted to force the Transportation Department to allow commercial airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit. The votes are there to pass similar legislation in the Senate, if it can only reach the floor. And in England, which toughened its gun laws in 1997 following the "Dunblane massacre," violent crime has actually increased.
Sept. 11 may be part of the reason for the increasing popularity of gun rights. Gun sales spiked upward in the wake of the terrorist attack. But the shift in sentiment had begun earlier. Even on the left, there is a new wariness about antigun initiatives, thanks in part to the suspicion that Al Gore may have lost the election due to his aggressive advocacy of various gun-control schemes.
The intellectual climate no longer is so favorable to antigun advocates. John Lott won considerable attention with his book "More Guns, Less Crime," which put statistical heft to the argument that states with the least restrictive gun laws also have less crime and those states that repeal restrictive gun laws see violent crime decline.
Then there is the case of Michael Bellesiles, whose book "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" claimed that gun ownership had actually been quite rare in colonial and frontier days. The antigun crowd championed Mr. Bellesiles's conclusion that widespread gun ownership therefore couldn't have been the basis or the intent of the Second Amendment.
No sooner had Mr. Bellesiles won the prestigious Bancroft Prize for history than other historians began pointing out that his thesis didn't hold up. No one else could reproduce his findings from probate records he claims to have used, or even find some of the records he cites. Mr. Bellesiles hasn't turned over his own research, citing the dog-at-my-homework excuse that his records were lost in a flood.
None of that is likely to discourage the diehards, of course. Just because people aren't dropping like flies at the hands of citizens armed with their newly minted permits and concealed weapons doesn't mean Dodge City won't materialize soon, they assert. "Any day now," opined a Detroit Free Press columnist six months after Michigan's new law went into effect, "one of two things is going to happen: Either some new permit-holder is going to blow away a home invader, or the permit-holder's 6-year-old son is going to blow away his baby sister in the backseat of the family SUV."
It's not clear why it would be a bad thing for a few "home invaders" to get blown away, but in any case another six months have gone by without any such mayhem. The deafening silence you hear from Michigan's Democratic candidates for governor on the issue is proof that the nightmares of liberal imagination often can be made to vanish with experience. And that the folks who wrote the Second Amendment may have understood that adults can usually be trusted to act like adults. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=110002056
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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By Margie Hyslop
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
A National Rifle Association spokesman says Maryland state Sen. Timothy Ferguson is misleading constituents with claims that he led the fight against landmark gun-control legislation. Top Stories
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The NRA's Greg Costa, an association lobbyist, said he had lined up enough votes to mount a filibuster against one of the most restrictive gun-control measures in the nation when Mr. Ferguson, a Republican who represents Carroll and Frederick counties, announced - minutes before the critical vote - that he had cut a deal with Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and other Democrats not to delay the vote.
"I was dumbfounded," Mr. Costa said. "I said 'You're bringing us nothing and giving up the fight.'"
Among other things, the law mandates state-regulated training for anyone who purchases a gun and ballistics markings for all handguns sold in Maryland.
As of next year, it requires built-in locks on all new handguns sold in Maryland.
As a point man for Republicans and gun-rights supporters during negotiations over the bill, Mr. Ferguson succeeded in adding a few more restrictive provisions to the bill, including one that put two engineers on a review panel that must approve a handgun before it may be sold legally in Maryland.
Mr. Miller said Mr. Ferguson offered to work against a filibuster if his amendments were added.
"His proposals made the bill more palatable to some [and] his support put a huge dent in the opposition," said Mr. Miller.
The dispute could hurt Mr. Ferguson, who is facing two challengers in the Republican primary - including Delegate David Brinkley, a respected member of the House from Frederick County who has compiled a record as a gun-rights supporter and garnered NRA support.
Mr. Costa said the NRA seldom endorses candidates in primary races and that it has not decided what to do in this contest.
When the gun bill cleared the Senate, Mr. Ferguson said the engineers would ensure that no citizen would be left relying on a faulty gun that wouldn't work in a life-threatening situation.
Mr. Costa said the provision has done nothing "but require one more vote to get a gun approved."
Mr. Ferguson defended his role in shaping the Gun Safety Act of 2000 in a campaign letter to gun-rights supporters. In it, he tells them he has been the target of "innuendo" that accuses pro-gun legislators of not standing up against the bill.
"The best we could do was ensuring the deletion of the 'Smart Gun' provisions and we did," Mr. Ferguson said in the campaign letter.
Mr. Ferguson did speak out against the Smart Gun mandate across the state, spreading the word, along with gun manufacturers, that the technology was still very limited and unreliable. But the Smart Gun provisions had been cut out of the bill before Mr. Ferguson made his offer, Mr. Miller said.
Mr. Costa agrees that some kind of new gun-control measure was going to be approved in the Democrat-dominated legislature.
But Mr. Costa said that, without a filibuster, gun-rights supporters did not get a chance to see "what the battlefield looked like" or whether the other side might "panic and give us something."
"I don't consider it a compromise when we give up a fight and get nothing in return," he said.
James Purtilo, publisher of the gun-rights newsletter Tripwire - whom Mr. Ferguson named in his campaign letter as one who had unfairly maligned him - said he believes Mr. Ferguson capitulated because "he just wanted to go home."
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20020730-836893.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
July 26, 2002
BY ERIK LORDS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A proposed city ordinance that would require Detroit public buildings, including recreation centers and libraries, to bar concealed weapons was tabled by the City Council Thursday.
The move led at least one member, Sharon McPhail, to question whether child safety is a high priority with the city.
McPhail tried to get the proposal approved at council's session Thursday, even though the city's Law Department hasn't approved the wording.
Councilwomen Kay Everett and Sheila Cockrel said they needed more time to consider it because some of the language had been changed.
The issue was tabled until next Wednesday, and because no action was taken, a final vote can't occur before September, when the council returns from its August recess.
"It was clear to me that several members were going to vote against it," McPhail said. Council members "had the ordinance for 40 days and the city's Law Department had it for 40 days. Clearly, they had no reason to vote against it. This is an ordinance that protects children and should have been introduced."
Everett disagreed. "What is the purpose of putting this out there if there is no legal mechanism for enforcement?" she asked. "The Police Department has to be apprised. Their input is very important, and they have not signed off on this at all."
Said Cockrel: "It was indicated that there had been some changes in the language, and I wanted to weigh and evaluate it, and have the legal people on my staff weigh and evaluate it."
The state's concealed weapons law makes it illegal to bring a gun into schools, but notpublic libraries.
Last year, Ferndale's City Council adopted an ordinance similar to the one proposed for Detroit. It was challenged in Oakland County Circuit Court by the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners,a lobbying group based in Lansing. The court upheld the ordinance in June. That ruling was appealed but stands unless a higher court reverses it.
"For now, Ferndale's kids get protected, ours don't. It's that simple," McPhail said. "There's absolutely no reason I can think of that anyone would not want to make the city's public buildings safer."
Everett said there is more to the issue of gun safety.
"The overriding issue is getting the guns out of hands of children in their homes, not in public places," she said. "I'm concerned about kids who are in their beds getting killed."
Contact ERIK LORDS at 313-222-6513 or lords@freepress.com.
http://www.freep.com/news/locway/wguns26_20020726.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878