The Year in Review
Major steps to advance gun rights achieved in 2009
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
It was the year that an anti-gun president signed legislation legalizing the carrying of firearms for personal defense in national parks.
Gunowners saw the US Supreme Court accept one of two challenges to the Chicago handgun ban that could lead to incorporation of the Second Amendment to the states.
Despite a spate of high-profile shooting incidents, Congress kept its distance from the gun control issue.
A huge spike in the number of Americans buying guns continued well into the year as the Obama Administration came into office, and the trend included more citizens buying guns for the first time.
Ammunition registration legislation was signed in California by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), while Montana lawmakers passed a Firearms Freedom Act, gun rights leaders led by former NRA President Sandra Froman lined up in opposition to Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, and Administration attempts to link the Mexican drug war to this nation’s gun control movement were stopped cold…for now.
All that and more dot the landscape of memories that is soon to be what remains of 2009, a year that may be remembered most for lines clearly drawn in the sand over gun rights. How close both sides approach those lines will not be determined until 2010 or possibly later, but with the Heller ruling from June 2008 marking the end of “Round 1,” a looming decision on Second Amendment incorporation being “Round 2,” and mid-term elections looming over the horizon, the past 12 months may be a road map to what appears to be an inevitable political confrontation over how far reaching the right to keep and bear arms actually is in the United States.
The year opened with gunowners cheering an announcement by the departing Bush Administration that Interior Department rules had been changed to allow concealed carry in national parks. The ruling was short-lived, however, as anti-gunners—led by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence—challenged the rule in federal court.
It was a tumultuous Winter, with anti-gun Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich arrested in December and slapped with federal corruption charges while the nation wondered just how far the scandal would spread, and whether it might touch then-president-elect Barack Obama, whose political base was in Illinois.
A minor fracas erupted, primarily on the Internet, over the use of a laudatory letter from former FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi—the man who shot Vicki Weaver in northern Idaho—in a product catalog produced by H-S Precision. Gunowners split in their reaction to the company, and the controversy ultimately amounted to little more than a tempest in a teapot.
It was revealed that Delaware State Police had apparently been conducting secret background checks on some gunowners since 2001, which the News Journal of Newcastle said may violate federal law.
The world was still reeling over the Mumbai Massacre in India, which spotlighted the downside of gun control laws that leave people all over the world vulnerable to terrorist attack.
As he left office, George Bush pardoned several individuals, many of whom had indicated in their requests for clemency the fact that they would like to go hunting again and regain their right to keep and bear arms.
Chicago, DC fight
In the legal arena, the gloves came off early, with Chicago fighting challenges to its handgun ban that had been filed by the National Rifle Association and (NRA), in a separate action, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA).
After a district federal judge upheld the ban on Dec. 18, 2008, the cases were both appealed and ultimately consolidated for a short period by the appellate court.
At the same time, the District of Columbia City Council put itself right in the crosshairs of gun rights attorneys in mid-December when it adopted a sweeping new gun ordinance requiring training and registration. On the other side of the country, the Los Angeles City Council had adopted a package of new gun ordinances that banned the sale of .50-caliber ammunition and placed new requirements on buyers and sellers of other ammunition.
The 2009 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in Orlando, FL was a huge success, thanks in no small part to the buying frenzy that had been ignited in November 2008 by the election of Obama to the presidency. Faster than you could say “buyer remorse,” Americans began flocking to gun stores to buy every semi-automatic rifle and handgun they could, along with all the ammunition they could carry. Guns were back-ordered for several months and a national ammunition shortage left many people stunned.
In Washington, DC, it soon became evident that the “change” Obama had promised during the campaign was quickly mired in “politics as usual” on Capitol Hill. Congress became bogged down on the issues of corporate bail-outs and health care “reform,” leaving little time for all but the fanatics to pursue any gun control measures. It was into this environment that Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush introduced HR-45, a licensing and registration scheme that would soon become attached to one of the more annoying Internet “urban myths” unleashed on gunowners in recent memory.
Within months, HR-45 was somehow linked to a long-dead Senate bill from 2000 that called for taxes and registration on firearms. That fearsome e-mail is still making the rounds despite efforts by Gun Week, the NRA and others to quell the hysteria.
Figures obtained by Gun Week showed that while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was touting his city’s gun control laws as a model for the country, the Big Apple homicide rate climbed 5%. Out in Seattle, WA, where anti-gun Mayor Greg Nickels was pushing a gun ban scheme—which would be illegal under state preemption—figures revealed that his city had one of the lowest murder rates for any city of its size in the country, belying the claim that more gun measures were needed to reduce violent crime.
It was also revealed by Gun Week, using data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, that even as more Americans started legally carrying concealed handguns, the number of police officer deaths actually declined.
The Brady Campaign issued a document that asked Obama to “treat handguns like cars,” with training, licensing and registration requirements. This allowed a new round of e-mails about HR-45 and S-2099 to spread across cyberspace.
On a positive note, a joint lawsuit by SAF and the NRA brought a federal injunction against Washington State’s long-standing “alien firearms registration” statute. The NRA and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) also settled a lawsuit against the San Francisco Housing Authority, opening up public housing to low-income gunowners.
A major victory for upland bird hunters in New York came when New York Assemblyman Greg Ball led the fight to prevent closure of the Reynolds Game Farm via budget cuts. Ball, coincidentally, was honored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) as 2008 Legislator of the Year when it was announced that the farm would be spared from the budget axe.
Reciprocity, parks
As noted in the final moments of the blockbuster film Patton, “all glory is fleeting,” and that can certainly be said about the legislative and court arena, at least for gun prohibitionists. No sooner had anti-gunners moved to block the new national parks carry rule in federal court than Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) introduced a national right-to-carry bill that would mandate national reciprocity. A similar bill was filed in the Senate by John Thune (R-SD).
Speaking of Virginia, the State Senate there twice shot down a restrictive gun show measure with NRA leading the opposition charge.
Much to the surprise of anti- and pro-gunners, the Obama Justice Department actually went to court to defend the parks gun rule, which was ultimately set aside by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee to the federal bench. Ironically, an amendment to a credit card bill sponsored by Republican Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn was signed into law in May. The Coburn amendment is much broader than the original parks rule, leaving gun prohibitionists with the uncomfortable realization that had they simply left the original rule alone, it could have later been changed by the Obama Interior Department, and would have only applied to concealed carry. Now it is a federal statute, approved in a bipartisan vote, and it includes open carry and the carrying of long guns.
The campaign to bring concealed carry to Illinois took a major step in late winter when the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association endorsed the proposal.
Michigan gun rights activist and one of the nation’s Gun Rights Examiners on Examiner.com, Skip Coryell, announced plans for a gun rights march in Washington, DC, on April 19, 2010. The Second Amendment March is gaining momentum, and Coryell has indicated to Gun Week that concurrent marches are apparently also being planned at several state capitols.
A Tennessee newspaper, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, drew a firestorm of criticism from gunowners after it published a list of citizens who hold state concealed carry licenses.
Meanwhile, in Washington State, legislation was filed that would have required background checks on private gun sales at gun shows in the state. The sales would have had to be conducted through a licensed dealer. That legislation went nowhere.
In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of an Oklahoma law protecting employees who have legally-owned firearms in their locked vehicles.
And in March, Gun Week reported that Florida was not able to keep pace with the number of requests for concealed carry permits.
On March 2, veteran gun writer and editor Hal Swiggett of Texas passed away at the age of 87. He had been a field editor for North American Hunter, a renowned handgun authority and a winner of the Outstanding American Handgunner Award. He was also an ordained minister.
The Mexican connection
When anti-gun Attorney General Eric Holder told ABC News in March that the Obama Administration planned to revive a ban on semiautomatic sport-utility rifles, all hell broke loose. This may have been a trial balloon, as the same idea was later floated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and it was linked to the violent drug wars waging in northern Mexico.
But the idea fell on a surprising set of deaf ears belonging to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a longtime gun control advocate. Pelosi evidently feared a backlash from gunowners at the polls reminiscent of the Congressional sea change in 1994, and clearly that was what happened.
Gun rights organizations and activists across the nation pulled off the proverbial gloves.
About the same time as the Second Amendment Foundation sued the District of Columbia over its new restrictive pistol regulations, gunowners were pounding Capitol Hill with mail and phone calls furiously opposing Holder’s remarks. Even the American Hunters and Shooters Association, an arch enemy of the NRA, opposed the idea.
Perhaps the most important opposition came in a letter to Holder from 65 House Democrats, telling him bluntly to back off. It had a chilling effect on talk about renewing the ban because without those Democrats, a lot more was at stake than gun rights. Many of those Democrats might also vote against other Obama measures, a prospect not lost on the White House.
The Supreme Court upheld a statute that bars people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from owning or possessing firearms. As if turnabout is fair play, the high court also ruled against New York City and Washington, DC, rejecting lawsuits in both cities against Beretta and other gunmakers under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 (PLCAA).
Another anti-gun move by the Obama Administration was short-lived, when the Department of Defense quickly reversed itself on an order that surplus cartridge brass be shredded, rather than sold for use in remanufacturing ammunition for non-military purposes. Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both Democrats, led the charge to quickly derail the plan after shooters and ammunition manufacturers beefed the idea to Congress.
As Spring arrived, the Illinois Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against gun manufacturers thanks to the PLCAA.
Well into Spring, the battle over alleged gun trafficking to Mexican criminals intensified, and Gun Week took the unusual step of running a guest commentary from Ray Exum of the Chattanoogan newspaper at the top of Page 1 that blasted proponents of new gun laws while revealing how difficult it is for Mexican citizens to legally arm themselves. That same issue revealed that public support for gun control was at an all time low according to a Gallup poll, and reported how the public was being misled on Mexican gun trace reports. Administration officials had been claiming that 90% of the guns recovered by law enforcement in Mexico had been traced to the United States, when, in reality, far fewer guns were actually being traced.
North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven (R) signed into law a measure that allows people to carry concealed firearms in state parks if they have a carry permit.
In Washington State a group of armed citizens organized for common defense in a high-crime area of south King County. The loose-knit group had been brought together by local open carry activist James Beal, and their gathering got some favorable publicity from local television news agencies.
Under fire
The Missouri Highway patrol came under intense criticism for the release of a report that suggested militia members supported certain political candidates. It linked the militia movement to former presidential candidates Bob Barr and Ron Paul. What followed was a firestorm that led to the replacement of the patrol’s intelligence center, because the document had enraged conservatives with such advice to law enforcement that police should watch out for individuals with “radical” ideologies based on Christian views, opposition to illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes and gun control.
This controversy was followed almost immediately by a fury over a report from the Department of Homeland Security about “rightwing extremism” that singled out returning military veterans and gunowners. An earlier report about “leftwing extremism” had gotten far less attention. The report landed newly-confirmed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, an anti-gunner formerly serving as Arizona governor, in political hot water. At first, Napolitano stood by the report but then did an about face and apologized to military veterans.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sent a shock wave through the anti-gun community when it ruled in May that the Second Amendment applies to the states through incorporation. So volatile was the ruling that a judge in that court requested a re-hearing before an 11-judge panel, but by that time the wheels were already in motion for a Supreme Court hearing on the Chicago handgun ban challenge. The 9th Circuit’s ruling put it at odds with rulings from other courts that held the Second Amendment does not apply to state or local governments, a situation that often leads to Supreme Court review.
Also coming under fire was the mainstream press. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told Gun Week in a telephone interview that the media has dropped all pretenses about fairness in its campaign to support restrictions on gun rights. He said the press is out of touch with mainstream Americans, and had definitely taken sides against the Second Amendment in the national gun debate.
The NRA gathered in April in Phoenix, AZ, for a record turnout that saw its leadership warn members that Barack Obama has “the slickest and most anti-gun White House in US history.” Outgoing NRA President John Sigler told an audience at the annual members’ meeting, “We are at a moment in history when freedom depends on us.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) received harsh criticism from the Inspector General when an audit found that the agency had lost firearms and computers.
Fire of a different sort was publicly directed at Washington State’s King County Council for budget cuts to the sheriff’s department that threaten to leave residents in the unincorporated areas of the county without ample police protection. Sheriff Sue Rahr conducted several community meetings and told audience that, faced with the prospect of less law enforcement, “I’d have a gun.” In a Gun Week interview, Rahr said matter-of-factly, “When somebody crosses the threshold of my house my first priority is to stop them and then we can sort it out later…If somebody kicks in my front door and is coming at me, I’m not going to take the time to interview them…”
Rahr was squarely at odds on gun rights from Milwaukee, WI, Police Chief Ed Flynn, an ardent anti-gunner who told his officers in May to essentially ignore an opinion from the state’s attorney general that open carry is legal. Flynn issued a directive to officers that they “take down” armed citizens who are peaceably open carrying and “put them on the ground, take the gun away and then decide whether you have a right to carry it.” Wisconsin has no concealed carry statute, but Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen has issued an opinion that open carry is legal under the state constitution.
Another loss to the firearms community came with the May 24 death of screen writer C. Jack Lewis, founder of Gun World magazine.
More legal action
SAF and the Calguns Foundation filed back-to-back lawsuits in California, one challenging the state’s approved handgun roster and the other challenging the alleged “arbitrary manner” in which county sheriffs issue concealed carry permits.
The lawsuits were filed about the same time that a CNN poll found growing opposition to new gun control measures. With 46% saying the country does not need new gun laws, and 15% suggesting that gun laws ought to be relaxed.
In Massachusetts, anti-gun Gov. Deval Patrick (D) filed a bill that would put a ration on gun purchases to one per month.
In Tennessee, a late-May Gov. Phil Bredesen vetoed legislation that would have allowed persons with a concealed carry license to carry firearms into restaurants where alcohol is served, provided they didn’t drink. Anti-gunners celebrated, but their cheer was short-lived as the legislature quickly overrode that veto, and on July 14, the new statute became effective.
New York Gov. David Paterson (D) unveiled his gun control agenda the following day, asserting that adoption of his proposals would ensure that “only law-abiding individuals are able to obtain and retain firearms licenses.” However, Paterson’s glory was short lived when the New York State Senate erupted in chaos with what appeared to be a coup as described in a Gun Week headline story in the July 1 issue.
All of this happened at about the same time that 23 state attorneys general sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder opposing renewal of the ban on semi-autos.
Voter anger erupted in the Keystone State when Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter switched parties for the second time in his career in order to survive a primary challenge. That left his constituents demanding that he refund their campaign contributions when he was in the Republican Party.
One-time vice presidential candidate and former pro-gun Congressman Jack Kemp died at age 73 from cancer. His May death brought an end to a career that included his success as a National Football League quarterback with the San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills.
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation celebrated its silver anniversary, and the Washington State Fish & Wildlife Commission adopted a regulation to allow bowhunters and muzzleloaders to carry handguns for personal protection.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) signed “stand-your-ground” legislation and also inked a bill that exempts Montana-made guns that do not leave the state from federal regulation.
In June, the District of Columbia reported a 5% drop in violent crime since the Heller ruling was handed down by the Supreme Court, suggesting that the thought of encountering an armed citizen had discouraged some criminals.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) vetoed legislation that would have allowed the legislature to essentially raid the state’s concealed carry licensing trust fund for $6 million.
As Summer unfolded, the Sotomayor nomination began raising alarms among gunowners when her history as a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York gained attention. Sotomayor had twice participated in rulings that rejected the Second Amendment as an individual right or that it applied to the states.
After a federal appeals court in Illinois ruled against their separate, but consolidated lawsuits against the Chicago handgun ban, SAF and the NRA appealed separately to the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, the court accepted the SAF case on its own for review and argument, essentially putting the NRA’s challenge on hold. Thirty-four state attorneys general had filed a petition urging the high court to take the case.
Long, Hot Summer
A pivotal moment in gun rights history came when the hearings on confirmation of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court were held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The right to keep and bear arms became a centerpiece of the confirmation process, with members of the committee trying to pin Sotomayor down on her circuit court rulings.
Coincidentally, at the time this was going on, the gun rights community was already ginned up because of an attempt by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to change the definition of a switchblade knife to include all assisted-opening knives. SAF, CCRKBA, NRA and other groups had jumped into that fray, and SAF even helped knife rights activists form their own Knife Rights group.
While the knife proposal would eventually be derailed, the Sotomayor nomination would not. Yet, if there were ever a moment when gun rights leaders needed to take a stand, knowing full well the outcome would probably not be to their liking, this was it.
More than two dozen gun rights leaders, led by former NRA President Froman, CCRKBA’s Alan Gottlieb, SAF President Joseph Tartaro and former Congressman Bob Barr signed a letter to the committee stating their opposition to Sotomayor. Froman appeared before the committee to testify.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the American Hunters and Shooters Association had endorsed Sotomayor’s nomination, further widening the gap between that organization and the gun rights community.
Days before sending the letter, Froman had authored an opinion piece blasting Sotomayor and rallying gunowners. Although the battle was lost, it became clear that Sotomayor will be under intense scrutiny as the high court is tackling one major gun rights case—the Chicago challenge—and others could be headed in the court’s direction.
A report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that data on Mexican gun traces was being misinterpreted, and that only a fraction of the guns seized in Mexico have been traced back to the United States, while thousands of other guns have apparently come from other sources.
Anti-gun Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced legislation that would give the attorney general the authority to stop gun sales to people whose names appear on the government’s secret terrorist watch list.
As news spread across the country about budget cuts at the local level in many communities that would cause reduced police service, the public continued buying guns at a fast pace, though the spree had leveled off from earlier in the year.
Knight Rifles, one of the more prominent in-line muzzleloading firms, closed its doors at the end of June, citing an industry downturn. That slump applied to black powder rifles, of course, as the demand for firearms was specifically focused on semiautomatic rifles and pistols.
The SAF and NRA lawsuits against the District of Columbia handgun regulations prompted changes in those rules. However, SAF turned around and sued the District over its continued refusal to issue gun carry licenses to residents and non-residents of the city.
The Senate rejected legislation sponsored by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) that would have provided for national concealed carry reciprocity by a thin margin that was helped by the votes of two anti-gun Republicans, Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio. But several pundits recognized that a few Democrats took advantage of the deflection to cast a favorable vote that would possibly get them a higher rating from the NRA.
Anti-gun New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine perhaps sealed his political fate on Aug. 6 when he signed legislation limiting Garden State residents to one handgun purchase per month. He would be turned out of office three months later in a revolt over high taxes that saw gun rights voters support his opponent.
In Arizona, Harold Fish, the retired teacher who had been convicted in the trailhead shooting of a man in May 2004, won a major victory in his battle when a state appeals court reversed his conviction and ordered a new trial. The prosecutor in that case declined to re-file, but Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard filed a petition for review before the state Supreme Court.
The ATF mounted a major enforcement effort in the Houston, TX, area to combat what it claimed was a high degree of suspected gun trafficking to Mexico from that city. However, the effort drew heavy criticism from gun rights activists.
Gun rights conference
A record crowd turned out in St. Louis, MO, for the 24th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, which saw NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre return after a two-year hiatus from the gatherings to deliver a rousing special address attacking the Obama administrations’ attempts to blame American gun rights for Mexico’s gun problems.
It was a standing-room-only crowd when LaPierre took the podium for an abbreviated visit, after which he had to immediately depart for another engagement several states away. But he brought video evidence that the Mexican gun trafficking hysteria was largely based on false information.
The conference also saw attorney Alan Gura, who will be arguing the Chicago gun ban case before the high court, provide a detailed rundown of all the cases now in various courts that have come as a result of the 2008 Heller ruling. Gura has risen to hero status among gun rights activists for his work on Heller and the pending Chicago litigation.
Leaders in the gun rights movement from across the map gathered for the event, which outlined legal and political challenges facing gun owners at the federal and state levels.
While the conference was in progress, the Hartford, CT, gun club celebrated its 125th anniversary.
And two days after the conference wrapped up, the Supreme Court announced it would hear the Chicago case filed by SAF, which is represented by Gura.
Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was back in the “sting” business, this time singling out gun shows with undercover “investigators” who were allegedly buying guns from private sellers, even after advising them that they probably would not pass a background check.
The Illinois Supreme Court ordered a new trial in a case that could have significant implications for gunowners in the Prairie State. The court defined a vehicle’s console as meeting the requirements of a state law that requires a gun to be transported in a case.
As several speakers at the Gun Rights Conference had predicted, the United States switched its position on an arms trade treaty that could have a significant impact on American gun rights. International anti-gunners, emboldened by the election of Barack Obama, pushed their treaty anew, and have found a receptive audience in the Obama White House and Department of State.
Seattle ban
While a poll conducted by Zogby International and The O’Leary Report found that 83% of Americans favor right-to-carry laws, anti-gun Seattle, WA, Mayor Greg Nickels continued pushing the envelope to curtail that right in his city, despite a state preemption law and attorney general opinion that such a ban would be illegal.
Gun rights activists had been watching the situation in Seattle for months, as a ban would certainly result in a lawsuit, and the outcome of that case could have nationwide implications on the effectiveness of state preemption statutes. In the meantime, an 11-member panel of the 9th Circuit Court re-heard the Nordyke v. King appeal, but then quickly tabled the case while waiting for the Supreme Court to hear and rule on the Chicago gun ban challenge.
Washington is an open carry state, where citizens may legally openly carry loaded sidearms peaceably without fear of arrest. Executive editor Joe Tartaro did a front page story on the open carry movement on the front page following two high-profile incidents in which armed citizens appeared at gatherings near places where President Obama was scheduled to speak. The country, and particularly the White House press corps, was stunned when Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs said that just because the president came to town, it did not mean that constitutional rights were suspended. The Secret Service also assured people that they were not going to interfere with anyone legally carrying a firearm, though it was clear that none of these incidents occurred in close proximity to the president.
Gun Week reported that nearly 11,000 people had been wrongly denied a gun purchase on a background check in 2008, and the anti-gun mayor of Milwaukee, WI, was beaten in an attack near the state fairgrounds.
Perhaps to indicate their displeasure with the way he has been handling city affairs, Seattle voters turned Nickels out of office in the city’s late-summer mayoral primary, putting him in third place behind two political newcomers. It may have been that defeat which compelled Nickels to finally cross the line and announce a ban on firearms in the city’s 500-plus parks and recreation facilities.
The Nickels ban was imposed about the same time that a federal district court in New Mexico issued a ruling that could have a significant impact on police contacts with open carry practitioners. The case involved an Alamogordo man who was detained by local police for openly carrying a pistol at a theater in June 2008. Judge Bruce D. Black noted in his ruling that police “had no basis for believing that (the plaintiff’s) use of the weapon was likely to become criminal, cause a public disturbance or pose a threat to safety. Nor did anyone seem particularly alarmed by (the plaintiff’s) weapon.”
The ruling appears to have opened the way for citizens to sue police for damages stemming from any detention related to open carry.
A report written by Garen Wintemute, MD with the UC Davis School of Medicine’s Department of Emergency Medicine was released that claimed gun shows are a serious source of crime guns, even though it acknowledged that less than 2% of felons incarcerated for gun-related crimes actually acquired the guns themselves. The report asserts that there are go-betweens who buy guns at gun shows for criminals.
Nickels, a founding member of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has pushed for restrictive gun show legislation.
It was with no small amount of irony that when the report became public, several gun rights groups were busy putting the final touches on a lawsuit against Nickels and the city over the parks gun ban.
And then, finally, the lawsuit was served. Joining SAF and the NRA were the Citizens Committee and the Washington Arms Collectors, along with five individual plaintiffs. The lawsuit named Nickels and his parks director, and the city as defendants.
Incredibly, the morning that the lawsuit was served, Seattle’s Gun Violence Prevention Coordinator was visiting the SAF offices in Bellevue, WA, for the first and possibly only time. The sudden commotion as SAF staffers released a prepared announcement caused coordinator Mark Pursley to ask “what’s going on?” At that point, he was advised, “We just sued your boss.”
Pressure on
As SAF and NRA attorneys worked feverishly on the Seattle lawsuit, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that requires fingerprinting for anyone purchasing ammunition in the state. Dealers will be required to retain information andd thumbprint of the ammunition buyer indefinitely. The NRA immediately went to work seeking a repeal of the law.
It was also revealed in November that the US government has quietly resumed the study of gun safety. This research, halted several years ago when Congress cut off funding for such activities by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was resumed when it was revealed that the National Institutes of Health has been quietly funding research masked as a study of something else.
Down in Florida, a brouhaha erupted over a child adoption agency questionnaire that asked whether the prospective parents had firearms in the home. Former NRA President Marion Hammer, who is executive director of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, took issue with that. She backed a bill that prohibits adoption agencies from asking such a question.
On Nov. 5, the nation was shaken when Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was arrested for allegedly opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, TX, killing 13 and wounding 30, including a police officer who shot him.
Outrage spread when anti-gun Chicago Mayor Richard Daley suggested that guns were responsible for the massacre, rather than Hasan’s emerging profile as a self-styled jihadist and confidant of radical Muslim cleric Imam Anwar al-Awlaki. While press agencies seemed somewhat tepid about reporting Hasan’s Muslim connection, there was more talk about the gun he allegedly used, an FN Herstal “Five-seveN” pistol.
“Daley has an agenda,” noted SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb, “that he shares with other anti-gun extremists. They will exploit any tragedy to pursue their goal of public disarmament and destruction of the Second Amendment.”
The cold-blooded slaying of a Seattle police officer on Halloween night opened the door for anti-gun groups to exploit the crime. They were quick to assert that Officer Timothy Brenton was murdered with an “assault rifle,” but it turned out he was killed by someone using a Kel-Tec rifle, instead. It has a black synthetic stock and it’s a semi-auto, and it fires a .223 Remington cartridge, but it is hardly an “assault rifle.”
Bar-Sto, the prominent gunmaker headquartered in California, announced that it is leaving the Golden State for much more friendly environs in Sturgis, SD.
As the year came to a close, SAF attorney Alan Gura filed his briefs in the much-anticipated case of McDonald v. Chicago, the challenge to that city’s handgun ban by SAF and the Illinois State Rifle Association. The case is named for Otis McDonald, one of four individual plaintiffs in the case.
The case is garnering the interest of other civil rights groups because of the potential for incorporation of not only the Second Amendment but the entire Bill of Rights through the 14th Amendment.
Several other gun rights and civil rights organizations filed amicus briefs in the case, including the National Rifle Association, which has a similar lawsuit against Chicago and neighboring Oak Park.
In a bizarre coincidence, in mid-November Michael Scott, president of the Chicago Board of Education, shot himself fatally on the banks of the Chicago River. It was not immediately known whether the gun he used was properly registered in the city.
Ominous Obama switch
There is no holiday cheer among gun rights activists concerned that a switch in US position regarding an international arms trade treaty by the Obama administration poses a serious threat to American gun rights.
Seven countries are leading the charge—Great Britain, Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, Finland, Japan and Kenya—and other nations are lining up to push negotiations on a binding Arms Trade treaty.
Gun Week will keep an eye on this story as it unfolds, and bring readers late-breaking perspective on this and other issues as we move toward the mid-term Congressional elections.
Meanwhile, our best wishes for the holidays, and our sincere hopes that 2010 will be a better year for all of us.
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