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Omaha council OKs gun-permit ordinance
Josey1
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Omaha council OKs gun-permit ordinance
Omaha City Council
Despite concerns that the law infringes on the rights of law-abiding immigrants, the Omaha City Council adopted a new ordinance Tuesday setting guidelines for denying and revoking handgun permits.
The approval came after more than six months of rewrites and three versions of the ordinance.
Gun-rights groups and some council members thought the first proposal would have given the police chief too much discretion. Mayor Mike Fahey felt the second version would have allowed too many people with violent backgrounds to legally possess concealable weapons.
The adopted ordinance falls somewhere in the middle. It allows the chief to deny handgun registrations to those convicted of a violent offense - including child abuse, stalking and some misdemeanors - but lacks a catch-all "in the interest of public safety" clause that drew fire from some gun owners.
A state liaison for the National Rifle Association said earlier this month that the NRA did not oppose the latest version.
Although a California law professor and a south Omaha newspaper publisher raised questions this week about the constitutionality of the practice, the ordinance also allows the chief to deny permits to those who are not U.S. citizens - even those who are lawful residents - as has been the city's longtime policy.
Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor, argued in a guest column in Saturday's World-Herald that the practice violates the Nebraska Constitution, which says "all persons" have the right to keep and bear arms for security or self-defense, and the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
Ben Salazar, publisher of the Omaha Spanish-language newspaper Nuestro Mundo, asked the council Tuesday to reconsider that part of the ordinance. He pointed out that federal and state laws do not bar all resident aliens from owning guns. Those restrictions apply only to noncitizens who are in the country illegally, are convicted criminals or have come into the country on nonimmigrant visas (such as tourists).
City Prosecutor Marty Conboy acknowledged that the ordinance doesn't precisely mirror the much more complex federal law on that point.
The council voted 5-1 to pass the ordinance without further amendment. Councilman Marc Kraft voted no. Councilman Frank Brown, whose father died Monday, did not attend the meeting.
After the vote, Salazar said he would raise the issue with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and seek to change the practice.
"It's a very cherished right," he said. "Why do we deny that to people in the Omaha community who are paying taxes, going to school, owning businesses, working toward citizenship, and are even subject to the draft?"
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=36&u_sid=513795
"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
Omaha City Council
Despite concerns that the law infringes on the rights of law-abiding immigrants, the Omaha City Council adopted a new ordinance Tuesday setting guidelines for denying and revoking handgun permits.
The approval came after more than six months of rewrites and three versions of the ordinance.
Gun-rights groups and some council members thought the first proposal would have given the police chief too much discretion. Mayor Mike Fahey felt the second version would have allowed too many people with violent backgrounds to legally possess concealable weapons.
The adopted ordinance falls somewhere in the middle. It allows the chief to deny handgun registrations to those convicted of a violent offense - including child abuse, stalking and some misdemeanors - but lacks a catch-all "in the interest of public safety" clause that drew fire from some gun owners.
A state liaison for the National Rifle Association said earlier this month that the NRA did not oppose the latest version.
Although a California law professor and a south Omaha newspaper publisher raised questions this week about the constitutionality of the practice, the ordinance also allows the chief to deny permits to those who are not U.S. citizens - even those who are lawful residents - as has been the city's longtime policy.
Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor, argued in a guest column in Saturday's World-Herald that the practice violates the Nebraska Constitution, which says "all persons" have the right to keep and bear arms for security or self-defense, and the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
Ben Salazar, publisher of the Omaha Spanish-language newspaper Nuestro Mundo, asked the council Tuesday to reconsider that part of the ordinance. He pointed out that federal and state laws do not bar all resident aliens from owning guns. Those restrictions apply only to noncitizens who are in the country illegally, are convicted criminals or have come into the country on nonimmigrant visas (such as tourists).
City Prosecutor Marty Conboy acknowledged that the ordinance doesn't precisely mirror the much more complex federal law on that point.
The council voted 5-1 to pass the ordinance without further amendment. Councilman Marc Kraft voted no. Councilman Frank Brown, whose father died Monday, did not attend the meeting.
After the vote, Salazar said he would raise the issue with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and seek to change the practice.
"It's a very cherished right," he said. "Why do we deny that to people in the Omaha community who are paying taxes, going to school, owning businesses, working toward citizenship, and are even subject to the draft?"
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=36&u_sid=513795
"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