Weaponsystems

Josh Welch is a normal eight-year-old boy. One day in school he bit a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun. “It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t … All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn’t look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda.”

A state Assembly panel advanced broad and controversial gun control legislation today, less than two weeks after it stalled in another committee amid Democratic infighting.

A number of bills from a pretty lengthy list did pass that alter how Texans can be licensed to carry and where they can carry, so if your CHL is about to expire, some of these might apply:

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is asking the U.S. Supreme Court for more time to decide whether to appeal a lower court’s order saying citizens should be allowed to publicly carry concealed guns.
Madigan already got one extension — until June 24 — to challenge the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that said a ban on concealed firearms is unconstitutional. Now she wants until July 24.

The White House says President Obama is close to completing a series of executive actions to address gun violence, but they are not a substitute for congressional legislation.

The House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution Friday that expresses the sense of Congress that active duty military living or stationed in the District of Columbia should have the right to carry a gun.

Representative Mike Kelly (R PA) introduced an amendment last night to H.R. 1960, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (NDAA), to prohibit federal funding for the implementation of the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) for one year. The amendment was adopted unanimously by voice vote and included in the final passage of the NDAA, which Rep. Kelly voted to support.

Connecticut gun manufacturers will welcome not one red state governor early next week, but two — as Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s tour Monday is followed by a visit from South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard later Monday and Tuesday.

The California Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water on Tuesday passed on a 7-1 vote Assembly Bill 711.

In so doing, California is one step closer to becoming the first state to completely ban the use of traditional lead ammunition for hunting. The bill will now go the Senate floor for a vote. It has already passed in the lower chamber.

States were measured on gun rights/friendliness to gun owners by the following criteria:

•CCW/Open Carry: Only states that don’t require a permit for concealed or open carry scored a perfect 10 in this category. Everybody else was judged accordingly.

•MSRs: States with no restrictions on the kind, type or number of modern sporting rifles (ARs, AKs, etc.) that can be owned or purchased scored a 10 in this category.

•Class 3/NFA: The majority of states allow their citizens to own Class 3/NFA-type firearms (machine guns, suppressors, short-barreled rifles, etc.), provided they follow the federal licensing standard, but not every state is yea or nay.

•Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground: States’ scores were determined based on how strong your the law is regarding self-defense in and out of the home, and whether in the right you’re immune from civil prosecution.

•Miscellaneous: How pro-gun the state culture is has a lot to do with scoring in this category. Scores are based on the percentage of gun owners in the state, if there are any restrictions on gun or ammunition purchases or magazine capacity, pending pro- or anti-gun legislation, CCW reciprocity, and any restrictions on guns that not covered in the other categories.

A bill that seeks to overturn a 96 year old Maine requirement that people must have a permit to carry a concealed weapon failed to win initial support in the Maine House by one vote.

It is well known that places such as New Hampshire, with less restrictive gun laws, have far lower gun homicide rates than places like New York City or Washington, D.C., which have very restrictive gun laws. It never seems to have occurred to Bloomberg or his fans that the difference in gun homicide rates is largely a product of culture (including gang activity), not gun control. But it is a lot easier to call for more gun control than to do the much harder work of dealing with cultural decay and mental illness.

Yesterday marked a victory for Second Amendment rights and a defeat for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in Nevada as Governor Brian Sandoval vetoed SB 221, an aggressive New York-style expanded background check bill which would impose unreasonable burdens and fees on law-abiding citizens while failing miserably to protect Nevada communities and putting violent criminals behind bars. In an extraordinary grassroots effort, thousands of concerned Nevadans called their representatives and Governor Sandoval’s office in Carson City to oppose this legislation and remind those lawmakers that their duty is to protect our rights. The NRA and our members in Nevada thank Governor Sandoval for standing on principle and vetoing this extreme anti-gun bill.

A measure adding more places to where people can carry or store concealed firearms in North Carolina and repealing a requirement to get a license to buy a handgun passed the North Carolina Senate Thursday.