Obama, guns and media control

Mar 18, 2011 13:08 EDT

Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
There is fresh thinking, of a peculiar sort, in the perennial debate over gun violence in the United States, world leader in civilian ownership of firearms. Censorship of news reporting on the mass shootings that have long been part of American life will help prevent other mass shootings.

So says the National Rifle Association (NRA) in an open letter responding to President Barack Obama’s suggestion that it is time for all sides in the gun debate to get together and find a “sensible, intelligent way” to make the United States a safer place. The president mentioned common sense and a White House spokesman talked of the need to find common ground.

Common sense has not been in abundant supply in decades of on-again, off-again debate on guns and violence. As to finding common ground between the leading gun lobby and advocates of better controls, the NRA’s Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre, says his group will “absolutely not” take part in the sort of meeting envisaged by Obama. Such a meeting, he said in a series of media interviews, would be with people opposed to the constitutional right to bear arms.

Talking to people of different views is obviously not a concept the politically powerful gun lobby intends to embrace.

In his open letter, LaPierre listed steps the president could take to prevent mass shootings, such as the January 8 rampage in Tucson that killed six people and wounded a member of Congress, Gabrielle Giffords. “One of these (steps) is to call on the national news media to refrain from giving deranged criminals minute-by-minute coverage of their heinous acts, which only serves to encourage copycat behavior.”

It’s an argument that presupposes that there are plenty of deranged Americans who, like the Tucson shooter, are well-armed, passed the background check required to purchase guns, and are primed to spring into action after they see scenes of carnage on television. It’s also an argument fit for a pre-Internet dictatorship where presidents could tell the media how and what to report.

Until he tip-toed into the subject of gun violence on March 13, with an op-ed article in the Arizona Daily Star, Obama had kept silent on the issue, disappointing many of those who had voted him into office after a campaign in which he promised various gun control measures, including a permanent ban on the sale of assault weapons. The disappointment ran so deep that one of the most prominent gun control groups, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, gave him an “F”, a failing grade,  after his first year in office.

The president’s belated entry into the discussion, stirred anew after the Tucson shooting, will not earn him a reputation as an audacious reformer of a system even some gun enthusiasts admit is defective. “No guts on gun reform,” noted a headline over an opinion piece critical of Obama in The Washington Post.

OBAMA MUM ON KEY ISSUES
The president made no mention of assault rifles, no mention of the high-capacity magazines control advocates want banned, no mention of private sales of guns that do not require background checks, no mention of the so-called Tiahrt Amendment which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important information to trace guns, no mention of a proposal that would have required around 8,500 gun shops along the border with Mexico to report multiple sales of two or more assault weapons to the same person.

Thousands of weapons from those gun shops end up in Mexico, where more than 36,000 people have died since 2006 in parallel wars drug traffickers wage against each other – for access to the rich U.S. market – and against the government. President Felipe Calderon has repeatedly called for a re-instatement of the ban on assault weapons the administration of George W. Bush allowed to lapse in 2004.

The Mexican government expressed disappointment when the limited measure – it called for reporting, not prohibiting, bulk sales – died in the House of Representatives in February after energetic lobbying by the NRA. For it, and other gun rights group, tighter regulations are part of a long-standing conspiracy to undo the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

Passed in 1789, the amendment says that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The sinister forces working for infringement, in the eyes of many gun owners, include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the coalition he set up in 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

It has grown from 15 mayors then to 550 now, advocates “common sense legislation for background checks”, and in January dispatched on a tour of 25 U.S. states a truck carrying a billboard with a running tally of Americans killed by guns since the Tucson mass shooting. When the truck left New York, on February 16, that count stood at 1,300. By March 17, it had risen to 2,316. Daily average: 34.

Such figures do not impress the self-appointed guardians of the Second Amendment. Neither does a bigger number: since the September 11, 2001, attack on New York and Washington, more than a quarter million Americans have died by firearms  (murder, suicide, accidents).

In online discussions about guns, without fail someone comes up with the observation that more people die in car accidents than by bullet. So, goes the inevitable question, should there be restrictions on car sales?
http://blogs.reuters.com/bernddebusmann/2011/03/18/obama-guns-and-media-control/

Idaho, Texas Legislatures Move to Loosen Gun Laws

Thursday, 17 Mar 2011 03:59 PM

By Luis F. Perez

 

 

 

Republican lawmakers in Texas and Idaho advanced bills to loosen gun restrictions to allow guns on college campuses to protect against another Virginia Tech-style massacre. Conservative lawmakers are advocating similar laws across the country, including in Oklahoma, Arizona, and Florida.

In Biose, the Idaho House passed a bill Wednesday that would eliminate the right of colleges and universities to regulate firearms on campus, except in student housing, the Times-News in Twin Falls reported Thursday.

Meanwhile, a Texas House committee moved a bill Wednesday that would allow license handguns to be carried on public universities and college campuses, including public junior colleges and public technical schools, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Proponents of the legislation say the laws will make campuses safer and could help prevent another college shooting spree as seen in recent years.

“Gun-free zones don’t work,” state Rep. Erik Simpson, an Idaho Falls Republican, told the Times-News. “Every couple years in this country, this is tragically proven.”

Simpson, who is sponsoring the legislation, said that the law would make it easy for firearms owners to quickly intervene when attacks on campus break out, saying much can happen in the minutes leading up to police arriving.

"This is about personal security, not campus security," said W. Scott Lewis, a 31-year-old handgun licensee and student at Austin Community College. "This is about changing the odds."

Lewis told lawmakers he "just wants the means to defend” himself if a gunman opened fire on his classroom.

© Newsmax. All rights reserved.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/Idaho-Texas-gun-loosen/2011/03/17/id/389848

Obama clueless on how gun sales really work

Wed. March 17, 2011, Tom Knighton, United Liberty

Over the weekend, President Obama ran an op-ed about strengthening background checks, especially after the shooting in Tuscon.  I understand the sentiment, but it’s also clear that President Obama is clueless as to how gun sales really work in this nation.  It’s also obvious that he’s still in unicorn land when it comes to the reality of guns.

For example, he says:

I’m willing to bet that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few – dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example – from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.

If President Obama meant to say that dangerous people shouldn’t be able to get their hands on guns, then most would agree.  However, most would also tell the President that it is impossible to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.  They will get their guns one way or another.  You can not keep a dangerous person from getting their hands on a dangerous instrument.
However, he offers what he thinks are common-sense proposals.  Not all of them are bad either.

First, we should begin by enforcing laws that are already on the books. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System is the filter that’s supposed to stop the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun. Bipartisan legislation four years ago was supposed to strengthen this system, but it hasn’t been properly implemented. It relies on data supplied by states – but that data is often incomplete and inadequate. We must do better.

OK, I can agree with this in principle.  Strengthen the system is definitely the best way to go.  However, it wouldn’t have prevented Jared Loughner from buying his gun, because he met none of the disqualifying criteria.  He was weird, and that was about it.
Not all of them are as easy to digest though:

Second, we should in fact reward the states that provide the best data – and therefore do the most to protect our citizens.

Reward how?  I mean, we’re freaking broke.  Without discussion of what these rewards entail, this is meaningless.

Third, we should make the system faster and nimbler. We should provide an instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent system for background checks to sellers who want to do the right thing, and make sure that criminals can’t escape it.

First, quite acting like there are all these gun dealers who aren’t “doing the right thing”.  They all run the background checks if they don’t want to risk going to jail…provided they have a Federal Firearms License, or FFL.  That makes them a dealer.  Otherwise, they’re just some guy with a bunch of guns who’s no different than a private citizen.

Every single FFL dealer I know follows the law, whether they agree with it or not.  The implication that there’s a significant segment who doesn’t is beyond idiotic.

Second, one of the primary problems with the system is that when someone tries to buy a gun illegally, there’s no enforcement.  These people have committed a crime and, whether you agree with it or not, should be arrested.  They aren’t though, and that’s part of the problem.  It also ties into his first point.

Yes, many conservatives and libertarians will gnash their teeth at the idea of President Obama talking about guns.  I’m not real crazy about it myself, because I don’t trust him not to go beyond his proposals in this particular op-ed.  However, he needs to understand the realities of guns and how they are sold.

http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/7833-obama-clueless-on-how-gun-sales-really-work

EDITORIAL: Guns for us, not for you

Land of fruits and nuts could see pistol-packing politicians

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Washington Times

Some of the most far-out anti-gun laws are found on the left coast, but that could change - for privileged politicians. A California state Senate committee will consider a bill next week that grants legislators permission to carry concealed firearms. The measure highlights the growing rift between the bureaucratic class and taxpayers who don’t have the luxury of exempting themselves from bad laws.

Ordinary Californians who want a concealed carry permit need to apply to the local sheriff. In practice - outside of conservative, rural counties - only celebrities and the well-connected end up obtaining the coveted document. In a state of nearly 37 million, about 40,000 permits were issued in 2007. The proposal being offered by a pair of pro-gun state Senate Democrats would automatically define as eligible for a permit “any applicant who is a member of Congress, a statewide elected official or a Member of the Legislature.” These could carry a gun “for purposes of protection or self-defense.”

Coddled lawmakers living in gated communities may think they face heightened risk, but it’s unlikely poor residents in sketchy urban neighborhoods have any less of a need.

California’s gun laws are strict and include a ban on high-capacity magazines and scary-looking “assault weapons” - a statute so arbitrary that the state had to create a 96-page picture book to illustrate which items are prohibited. The latest scheme took effect last year requiring guns to imprint their serial number on every shell casing fired. This law was adopted even though such “microstamping”technology isn’t available, and it would be extremely expensive if it were.

The motivation of lawmakers in layering restriction on top of restriction hasn’t been to stop bad guys. Criminals, by definition, don’t abide by the law. Rather, the primary purpose is to harass gun owners who do try to do what’s right. Such laws have proved irrelevant anyway. The gun grabbers predicted the 2004 expiration of the federal assault weapons ban would fill our streets with blood. The latest available FBI crime stats showed a 6.2 percent decrease in violent crimes for the first half of 2010. The number of murders without the ban is now 34 percent lower than when it took effect in 1994.

Practically any bill that respects the right to keep and bear arms in a left-leaning state ought to be supported, no matter how unlikely final passage may seem. Exempting politicians may be the exception. Already the Golden State’s legislative class doesn’t have to worry about high gas prices because taxpayers fill up their tanks. They use a “per diem” scheme to avoid paying their own high taxes on about $40,000 worth of their $140,000 annualcompensation. Forcing legislators to live under the same crazy laws they expect everyone else to follow may help a few to appreciate the need for true reform.

© Copyright 2011 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Obama can't win on gun control

Cullen Linebarger /D.C. Political Buzz Examiner
March 15, 2011

President Barack Obama has given liberals cause for cheer throughout his term in office mostly across the board with health care and financial reform being the biggest victories. But Obama has made one major exception to an otherwise liberal presidency: he has left guns alone.

This may be about to change. Writing in an op-ed Sunday for the Arizona Daily Star, Obama argued that the chilling murders in Tucson over two months ago and other acts of gun violence across America have made reforming America’s gun laws necessary.

As a starting point, the president suggested strengthening the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the filter that is supposed to keep the wrong people from getting their hands on a gun.

Stepping into the gun debate, though, is a potentially hazardous political calculation for Obama. The last time a president made a serious effort to confront the issue of guns was President Bill Clinton in 1994, when he signed a ten-year Assault Weapons Ban into law (the ban expired in 2004). In November of that year, Democrats suffered a bloodbath at the polls, with the Assault Weapons Ban being a primary reason for this.

The Obama administration as a result is treading carefully. It has conducted informal discussions with groups from both gun-control and gun rights groups, seeking common ground in an effort to introduce a set of new firearms policies.  In order for gun reform to take place, Obama understands that he needs to make the NRA a partner unless he has a political death wish. 

The odds of gun rights groups going along with any plan that could limit 2nd Amendment rights, however, are virtually nil. The president then is left with two options: enforce existing laws more stringently or let the states handle gun reform.  The problem with the former is gun rights groups will spring into action if they think Obama has overreached.  Option two leaves him in the clear.

 Democrats have avoided the gun debate for years because it is a political loser no matter how they try to spin it. Does Obama really want to take that chance with 2012 just around the corner?

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-washington-dc/obama-can-t-win-on-gun-control

N.R.A. Declines to Meet With Obama on Gun Policy

By JACKIE CALMES  March 14, 2011

WASHINGTON — More than two months after the Tucson shootings, the administration is calling together both the gun lobby and gun safety groups to find common ground. But President Obama has no plans to take the lead in proposing further gun control legislation, aides say, and the nation’s major gun rights group is snubbing the invitation.

On Tuesday, officials at the Justice Department will meet with gun control advocates in the first of what will be a series of meetings over the next two weeks with people on different sides of the issue, including law enforcement, retailers and manufacturers, to seek agreement on possible legislative or administrative actions.

The effort follows Mr. Obama’s call, in a column on Sunday in a Tucson newspaper, to put aside “stale policy debates” and begin “a new discussion” on ways to better enforce and strengthen existing laws to keep mentally unstable, violent and criminal people from getting guns.

But the National Rifle Association, for decades the most formidable force against proposals to limit gun sales or ownership, is refusing to join the discussion — possibly dooming it from the start, given the lobby’s clout with both parties in Congress.

Administration officials had indicated they expected that the group would be represented at a meeting, perhaps on Friday.

“Why should I or the N.R.A. go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?” said Wayne LaPierre, the longtime chief executive of the National Rifle Association.

He named Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has almost no role in gun-related policies, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

“It shouldn’t be a dialogue about guns; it really should be a dialogue about dangerous people,” Mr. LaPierre said, adding that his group has supported proposals to prevent gun sales to the mentally ill, strengthen a national system of background checks and spur states to provide needed data.

Despite his opposition to joining the administration’s table, by his comments in an interview Mr. LaPierre sounded at times like the White House.

For example, a White House adviser on Monday said Mr. Obama wanted to redefine the gun debate to “focus on the people, not the guns.” The president, in his column, cited the same policy areas Mr. LaPierre mentioned as fertile ground for consensus.

And Mr. Obama emphasized, “First, we should begin by enforcing laws that are already on the books” — a line long used by the gun lobby.

Mr. Obama’s column in The Arizona Daily Star reflected his continued political caution toward an issue that for decades has polarized the country. In past weeks, aides had suggested he might give a public address expanding on his views about gun safety — an option that has now been put aside.

Mr. Obama spoke at a memorial service in Tucson four days after a gunman on Jan. 8 killed six people and wounded 13, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords. But gun safety advocates, including a group of mayors headed by Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, called on Mr. Obama to do more, including endorsing legislation to ban high-capacity magazines like those used in the Arizona attack.

Several factors have inhibited him. With Republicans now a majority in the House, legislation restricting guns has little chance of passage. And many Democrats, including Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, are opposed to stirring controversy and provoking the N.R.A.’s membership to oppose them.

Also, the White House is focused on its economic message — when it is not consumed by events abroad — and likewise has little interest in distracting from that before the 2012 election season, aides say.

In the op-ed article, Mr. Obama did not recommend particular legislative remedies, including proposals that he had backed as a presidential candidate to reinstate a ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004 and to close a loophole for gun-show sales in the federal law requiring background checks of purchasers.

Instead, he emphasized his belief that the Constitution guarantees individuals’ right to bear arms and boasted that “my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners — it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.”

Mr. Obama is trying on many issues, including deficit reduction, to stake out a middle ground that appeals to independent voters. Aides said polls showed that the gun issue was not a big one for independents, but that they did abhor political fights and favored politicians who compromise. The president played to that sentiment in his op-ed article — and anticipated the rifle association’s rebuff.

“Some will say nothing short of the most sweeping antigun legislation is a capitulation to the gun lobby,” he wrote. “Others will predictably cast any discussion as the opening salvo in a wild-eyed scheme to take away everybody’s guns.”

“But,” he added, “I have more faith in the American people than that.”

Obama Pens Op-Ed Calling for Better Gun Sale Background Checks

Published March 13, 2011 | FoxNews.com

The Second Amendment and court precedent guarantee an individual's right to bear arms, but improved and expanded background checks are needed to prevent gun violence like the shocking attack in Tucson in January, President Obama wrote in an op-ed Sunday.

Writing in the Arizona Daily Star more than two months after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others, six of whom died, Obama said he's "willing to bet" that responsible gun owners would support laws to "keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few -- dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example -- from getting their hands on" guns.

"Most gun owners know that the word 'commonsense' isn't a code word for 'confiscation," he wrote.

"I'm willing to bet they don't think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas -- that we should check someone's criminal record before he can check out at a gun seller; that an unbalanced man shouldn't be able to buy a gun so easily; that there's room for us to have reasonable laws that uphold liberty, ensure citizen safety and are fully compatible with a robust Second Amendment," the president wrote.

Obama wrote in Sunday's op-ed that his administration has not curbed gun rights but, in fact, has expanded them, by letting people carry guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

But, he said, with more than 27,000 deaths from guns each year -- a number down from its height of more than 39,000 in 1993, more needs to be done to prevent assailants like Tucson suspect Jared Loughner from getting a hold of weapons.

"A man our Army rejected as unfit for service; a man one of our colleges deemed too unstable for studies; a man apparently bent on violence, was able to walk into a store and buy a gun," he lamented.

The president went on that "almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible ... and that's something that gun-safety advocates need to accept."

"Likewise," he added, "advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere, whether on the streets of Chicago or at a supermarket in Tucson.

Obama suggested three areas for reform: enforcement of gun control laws already on the books through better implementation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System; rewards for states that keep the best data -- "and therefore do the most to protect our citizens"; and a faster and nimbler network that provides "an instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent system for background checks to sellers who want to do the right thing."

And while the president acknowledged that some gun owners will never support his call, he argued that weak background checks are bad for police officers, law-abiding citizens and gun sellers.

"If we're serious about keeping guns away from someone who's made up his mind to kill, then we can't allow a situation where a responsible seller denies him a weapon at one store, but he effortlessly buys the same gun someplace else," he wrote, in reference to the "gun show loophole" that gun control advocates say enables people to avoid background checks.

Click here to read the president's editorial on gun laws in the Arizona Daily Star.

By Herb Meeker

Mattoon Journal-Gazette and (Charleston) Times-Courier

Posted Mar 13, 2011 @ 06:49 AM

 

MATTOON —

A collision over the religious beliefs of the Amish and their gun ownership rights is brewing over an apparent reversal of Illinois state policy on Firearm Owner's Identification (FOID) requirements.

Illinois Amish have been allowed to forego placing their photographs on FOID cards and other mandatory IDs. On Feb. 14, Illinois State Police Director Jonathon Monken, now the head of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, decided that policy should be changed, meaning Amish gun owners face photographic identification requirements like other FOID holders in the state.

Last week, Amish residents of Central Illinois met with four state lawmakers and law enforcement officers in an effort to rescind the proposal that they believe infringes on their religious beliefs against intrusions on their privacy. This change in state policy could end their right to legally hunt in Illinois, they say.

"A lot of the Amish hunt and they usually use squirrel or rabbit rifles to bring some food back home. Their big concern is this means they won't be able to purchase guns or ammo. They have a religious edict against photographs," said Douglas County Sheriff Charlie McGrew, who attended last week's meeting with state Sens. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, and Kyle McCarter, R-Decatur, and state Reps. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, and Adam Brown, R-Decatur, in an Arthur restaurant. Illinois State Police officials also attended to hear the concerns and consider possible solutions.

Rose said he learned of this issue as he and other state lawmakers were immersed in the controversy over the potential release of FOID information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Last week, the Illinois Attorney General's office stated FOID data, except for phone numbers and addresses, is open to FOIA access despite long-standing opposition by state police, which administers firearm owner registration and criminal background checks before issuing FOID cards.

ISP has asked for a judicial ruling on Attorney General Lisa Madigan's decision on an Associated Press FOIA request that was rejected last year by state police.

"These are two completely unrelated things that happened. But both issues deal with basic constitutional rights," Rose said. "With one, you're telling gun owners to give up their right to privacy. And with the Amish this would tell them to violate their religious rights."

McGrew, and many Illinois sheriffs, opposes the idea of releasing FOID holder information, but added that issue adds to the concerns for Amish gun owners in his county.

"The Amish have said they don't want the outside community involved in their personal business. With this they will be required have their photographs released, and that information could be released to the general public," McGrew said.

Rose said the timing of Monken's decision was wrong because it came on his last day as ISP director. He resigned in February and has taken another state position.

"It was unfair for him to do this on the same day he was leaving," Rose said.

A spokesman for ISP in Springfield could not be reached for comment Thursday. A copy of Monken's policy on the Amish and FOID rules was not available for review.
All parties involved in last week's meeting agreed to share information for helping correct the issue of identification card standards for the Amish, Rose said.