Dead Canadian Polar Bear Haunts Michigan Hunter

By Bill Singer | Forbes – 11 hrs ago

Don’t get me wrong, I love polar bears. Fact is, I have a Baccarat crystal polar bear on my desk (see photo to the right).

I also like panda bears, brown bears, and grizzlies.

Of course, on occasion, some of those furry fellas forget to stay on their side of the line and stray over onto ours and things don't always end well for the humans. On the other hand, a lot of those inter-species encounters are our fault and, unfortunately, things don't always go well for the bears.

The Trophy

As such, consider this oddball criminal case of 73-year-old Jenison, Michigan, resident Rodger Dale DeVries.

It seems that Mr. DeVries obtained a hunting license from the Nunavut Territory in Canada for the purpose of killing a polar bear from the Foxe Basin in November 2000. Hunter DeVries was apparently successful with his undertaking because he had the polar bear mounted as a trophy and stored in Canada.

Where In The World?: Sadly, I’m a bit geographically challenged. Where the hell is the Nunavut Territory? Ahh, I looked it up and learned that it's this big chunk of land that was separated in 1999 from the Northwest Territories. Hey, I used to watch Sgt. Preston of the Yukon when I was a kid. I remember the Northwest Territories and that wonderful dog King.

Okay, so I digress. (Like what else is new?)

Since May of 2008 when polar bears were listed under under the Endangered Species Act as “threatened", the Marine Mammal Protection Act (“MMPA”) automatically prohibited the importation of polar bear parts or trophies for personal use from any part of Canada. That's good news for polar bears because they like their parts and don't relish the thought of becoming a trophy.

The Secretary of the Interior can make a determination that a given region is capable of maintaining a sustainable population level -- which sounds to me like a green light to hunt down any animals so designated.  Fortunately for polar bears but unfortunately for DeVries, the Secretary never made such a determination for polar bears from the Foxe River Basin.  I guess that you can kill all the polar bears you can find in Canada as long as you don't import them as trophies or transport their parts back into the USA.
All of which may explain why DeVries stored his dead bear in Canada.

On July 3, 2007, DeVries traveled to Canada and picked up his polar bear trophy from a storage unit, and, along with his two minor grandsons, put the polar bear trophy in his own boat and traveled from Ontario, Canada, across the border to Raber Bay, Mich. Shortly after the July 4th holiday, DeVries again moved the bear trophy, this time to his home, and then sold the boat.

Long Paw of the Law

At the time, of all the motor boatin' of the dead bear trophy with the grandkids, DeVries allegedly knew that polar bears from the Foxe Basin could not be imported into the United States and that he was breaking the law.

Another Bill Singer Digression: I dunno about you but I was truly intrigued to read of the illegal boat transportation into the USA by a grandad and his two minor grandchildren of a polar bear trophy taken from a storage unit in Canada. You just don’t read things like that everyday in my rustic hometown of Manhattan Island.

At some point, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement

investigated the comings and goings of DeVries’ polar bear trophy. Unfortunately for DeVries, that investigation prompted the filing of criminal charges by the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environmental Crimes Section.

On Aug. 22, 2011, DeVries pleaded guilty to illegally importing his polar bear trophy and is awaiting sentencing in September 2011. The maximum statutory sentence for this criminal violation is one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000. 

I'm not sure what happens to DeVries' polar bear trophy.  Maybe it gets extradited back to Canada? I do know that I'm keeping my Baccarat crystal polar bear no matter what!

http://news.yahoo.com/dead-canadian-polar-bear-haunts-michigan-hunter-120458583.html

S.A. gun store sues ATF

Shop says agency has exceeded its authority.

jbuch@express-news.net

Updated 10:53 p.m., Thursday, August 25, 2011

 

A San Antonio gun shop is suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, arguing the agency exceeded its authority by ordering licensed dealers to report some rifle sales.

The store, 10-Ring Precision Inc. on Blue Crest Lane on the North Side, is challenging a policy ATF put into place last month requiring firearms sellers in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to report the sale of two or more of certain rifles over a five-day period in an effort to reduce gun smuggling to Mexico, where drug-related violence killed 15,000 last year.

In the lawsuit, 10-Ring states that unlike handgun reporting requirements, which are required by Congress, the requirement to report the sales of semiautomatic rifles with detachable clips and larger than .22-caliber outside the scope of a criminal investigation goes beyond ATF's authority.

The company also claims ATF is violating its customers' privacy by keeping a database of arms sales, which will discourage purchases.

“The rub for them is that first of all, it's going to cost them time and money to implement this because these forms have to be filled out, they've got to set up systems to keep track of sales of rifles,” said Richard Gardiner, a Virginia lawyer and former counsel for the National Rifle Association. “That's an expense. And then if they don't do it, they're subject to license revocation.”

Two Arizona gun sellers, one of which Gardiner represents, and an Albuquerque, N.M., gun store are challenging ATF's policy as well.

A spokesman for ATF said the bureau has authority under the 1968 Gun Control Act to collect data about firearms sales.

“ATF will vigorously defend its authority to collect information about multiple sales of certain rifles from (licensed dealers) in the four states along the Southwest border,” bureau spokesman Drew Wade wrote in an email.

Alex Hamilton, 10-Ring's president, said the lawsuit speaks for itself, but dinged ATF over the revelation that an investigation by agents in Arizona resulted in guns reaching criminals in Mexico.

“They're punishing dealers for their gun smuggling,” Hamilton said.

The ATF has reported that 70 percent of the 29,284 firearms Mexico submitted to the U.S. for tracing in 2009 and 2010 came from this country.

It's not clear how many more firearms were seized in Mexico during that time period.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/SA-gun-store-sues-ATF-2141623.php#ixzz1W7ovbxqm

Obama's under-the-radar gun controlBy: Chuck Norris August 24, 2011 04:34 AM EDT

Not long ago, the gun control advocates Jim and Sarah Brady visited the White House. President Barack Obama reportedly told them that he was working on new gun control schemes “under the radar.” It’s been said that guns have two enemies – rust and politicians. Rust never sleeps, and neither do those who would seek to restrict our constitutional rights. So let me tell you about a meeting you weren’t invited to, where those people were planning an attack on our rights that’s very much “under the radar.” It happened in July at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at a meeting to draft of what they call the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. An Arms Trade Treaty doesn’t sound bad in concept — isn’t that what the U.N is for? The problem, however, is what U.N. diplomats consider to be “arms.” To you and me, the word means tanks, fighter jets, missiles, that kind of thing. But look no further than the U.N. plaza to see what the silk-stocking set considers “arms.” There you will find a bronze statue of a simple .38 revolver — with its barrel tied into a knot. Remember no other country in the world enjoys America’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is why the vast majority of U.N. diplomats believe that an arms trade treaty must reach into your gun safe and mine. There is little question that this treaty would require additional restrictions on our Second Amendment rights. Consider the comments of a spokesman from “Project Ploughshares,” a Canadian arms control group. “From a humanitarian perspective,” the spokesman told the Canadian Postmedia News “all firearms need to be controlled, and that’s the bottom line.” This attitude has spooked even Canada’s government, which typically embraces a disarmament agenda. During the meeting, Canada put forth a panicky petition for a hunting rifle exemption in the treaty. Mexico immediately objected. For an administration with a secretive itch for gun control, the situation is ideal. They can let the United Nations do the dirty work of drafting onerous new restrictions on civilian firearms, then package them inside a treaty with legitimate measures to control true military armaments. The U.N. has scheduled the treaty to be finished in July of next year — just in time to go to the Obama White House for ratification. That’s “under the radar” for you. But one risk of operating under the radar is that you can’t see the moves of your opponents. This is not the first U.N. gun-control rodeo for my friends at the National Rifle Association. They know treaty ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Thirty-four senators would have to vote no to block the treaty. While the rest of Washington was fixated on the debt ceiling debate, the NRA quietly marshaled opposition to the treaty among pro-gun senators. Fifty-eight senators have now called out the president on his plan. Led by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), 45 Republicans and 13 Democrats have written two strong letters —one from members of each party — to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. All the senators have vowed to oppose any treaty that restricts civilian firearm ownership. What’s ironic is that the United States already has the world’s preeminent system for regulation of true military arms sales. If the rest of the world merely adopted the U.S. regulatory regime, there would be no need for an Arms Trade Treaty. But rather than harmonize other nations’ patchy regulations on arms transfers, the diplomatic crowd would rather force Washington to hew to its utopian vision of global disarmament. If this were only a partisan exercise in bashing Obama and the U.N., one could be forgiven for concluding it has no substance. But 13 Democratic senators clearly think otherwise — a sign that this debate is far from over. Chuck Norris, an actor, martial artist and author, is the honorary chairman of the National Rifle Association’s voter registration program, Trigger the Vote.

© 2011 POLITICO LLC

Last Updated: August 21. 2011 10:52PM

Nolan Finley

Londoners die for want of a gun

Defenders of the Second Amendment couldn't have asked for a greater gift than the spectacle of unarmed policemen and defenseless citizens standing by helplessly while rampaging hordes of youths burned London and beat up and murdered innocent residents.

Europhiles endlessly remind us of the superiority, compassion and refinement of the European social democracies.

But the anarchy that raged in England couldn't happen in America. At least not in my neighborhood, where every third house contains a hunter with a gun safe full of pistols, shotguns and rifles.

We've ceded many or our liberties to the government, but so far we've hung on to the right to defend ourselves and protect our families and homes. We pay our cops to do the same.

Not so in England.

Police there are armed with little more than a smile. As demonstrated by the recent riots, they are virtually powerless to counter violence.

Even such nonlethal responses as water cannons and rubber bullets are debated in Parliament.

A shocking column last week in the Wall Street Journal by law professor Joyce Lee Malcolm detailed the ridiculous lengths to which the Brits have gone to level the playing field between criminals and law-abiding citizens.

It's part of the American DNA that if hit, you have the right to hit back.

But in England, crime targets risk prison for killing or injuring an attacker. Homeowners have been charged with murder for killing an intruder.

Burglars who hurt themselves breaking into a house can sue the owner.

Police called to crimes in progress can do little but shrug and wait until the carnage is complete to dust off the victim.

We have our flaws in America. But we have the common sense to recognize the difference between those who obey the law and those who break it.

Although a few places, most notably Washington D.C., have stripped their citizens of the best means of self defense, for the most part responsible gun ownership is still an acknowledged right.

Londoners had little more than cricket bats and frying pans to fend off the marauders. Private gun ownership is limited. It's even illegal to have a knife with a blade longer than three inches.

The gun-phobic in this country blame widespread legal gun ownership for violent crime.
But in England, where only the bad guys have guns, crimes committed with handguns have increased 40 percent since they were banned in 1997.

In the 10 years since Michigan liberalized its concealed carry law, more than a quarter million residents have received weapons permits, without the predicted rise in gun violence.

But there has been an increase in the number of citizens trained and prepared to protect their communities from falling into anarchy.
nfinley@detnews.com
(313) 222-2064
Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of the News. Read his recent columns and blog at detnews.com/finley and watch him at 7:30 p.m. Fridays on “Am I Right?” on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56.


From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110821/OPINION03/108210306/Londoners-die-for-want-of-a-gun#ixzz1VkUgNG4h

In defense of women and guns

Among women, the fastest-growing group of concealed handgun license owners in Texas is African American

By Joshunda Sanders AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 8:43 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011
My first encounter with a gun was when I was 6 years old. It was December 1984, and as my mother and I walked across a bridge from Harlem to the Bronx in New York City, two men came up behind us intending to take the faux mink coat she was wearing, which looked unfortunately real under the dull orange streetlights. One of them put a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if she didn't turn over the coat. I can still remember the quarters clanging on the concrete beneath our feet as they snatched the coat, let me go and took off into the night.

That sense of vulnerability and fear followed me into adulthood, when I found myself, as an African American single woman, working as a reporter in Beaumont in 2001.

In addition to the pressures of learning how to be a reporter, learning Texas and being far from home, I was warned in the newsroom about active clusters of Ku Klux Klan activity. It had only been a few years since James Byrd Jr., a black man, had been beaten by white men and dragged to his death in nearby Jasper.

It wasn't until the recent debates over concealed handgun licenses on campuses and my own curiosity about learning how to shoot that I decided it was time to apply for my own license. After a trip to Ladies' Day at Red's Indoor Range in Pflugerville, I almost reconsidered. Then a LivingSocial coupon for a Gunfighter's Clinic course showed up in my inbox, and I decided to go for it.

It surprised me to discover that I was part of a larger trend in Texas. Applications for concealed carry permits began rising in the state before the 2008 elections, an increase some attributed to concerns that anti-gun politicians would be voted in . Of the total number of licenses granted, women made up 21.9 percent in 2010, up from 17.7 percent in 2001, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. For reasons that are unclear, black women are the fastest-growing group of women being issued licenses for concealed handguns in the state.

Academics, experts and gun safety instructors have disagreed for decades about how popular guns are with women. Part of the ongoing dispute reflects what The Atlantic wisely noted in its September issue as an ongoing and unresolved battle in American culture between gun control and gun rights activists. Nationwide, the National Shooting Sports Foundation reported that in 2009, the number of women buying guns for personal defense was up 83 percent.

University of Richmond professor Laura Browder, author of "Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America" says that the visibility of female hunters such as Sarah Palin in popular culture has lifted some of the stigma of gun ownership for most women ­- whether they use those guns for personal defense or for hunting. "Palin has brought women's gun ownership back into the public sphere in a way that it hasn't been," Browder said.

But since the 1980s, professors across the country have argued that the media and gun industry have enlarged the scenario of unmarried women fearing for their safety in urban environments earning their licenses for protection against violent crime. Browder said in her 2006 book that women earning licenses "as a defense against anonymous violence" was in part because the gun industry uses the fear of violence to scare women into buying guns.

But my fear is grounded not just in my personal history, but in a collective one.
Adam Winkler, author of the forthcoming book, "Gunfight: The Battle Over The Right to Bear Arms in America," traced the birth of the modern gun rights movement to the Black Panthers in the September issue of The Atlantic. In it was a fact of history that I'd never heard: "Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied," Winkler wrote. "But from then on, armed supporters guarded his home."

Closer to my demographic was the historian Danielle McGuire's book, "At the Dark End of the Street," which fills out commonly told stories about Rosa Parks and other women of the civil rights movement who were subjected not just to racial intimidation but also sexual violence. Among the most jarring stories of black women attacked in the South, sometimes by police officers, was the story of Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old mother and sharecropper who in 1944, as she walked home after attending church at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Ala., was snatched from the street by seven white men armed with knives and shotguns. They raped her and left her for dead. It was Rosa Parks, the president of the local NAACP branch office, who was sent to investigate Taylor's case.

Sure, both the robbery from my childhood and the rape of Taylor were decades ago. But as a homeowner who lives in the South and aspires to travel unfettered to places where I might be viewed more as a target than a benevolent visitor, earning a concealed handgun license seemed the best way to quell my personal fear.

And in order to get that license, I needed to spend at least 10 hours with Mathew Williams, an instructor with Austin-based Gunfighter's Clinic, and pass a state background check.

Part of Williams' class is a 200-slide presentation explaining Texas gun-ownership laws. There were four other women in the class. Among them was a thin blond woman named Chris, who asked me not to use her last name. She said she came to the class with her husband, Bruce, and their adult daughter mainly out of curiosity, after Bruce's pastor took the Boston native out hunting and got him thinking about applying for his concealed handgun license.

Chris and her daughter decided to join Bruce for the class.

"I'm not a very big woman myself," Chris said. "And so, if something happens to Bruce, I want to be able to protect my home. And because I'm not very big, a man could do whatever he wanted with me. A gun seems like it would level the playing field."

Williams, who seemed to regard less lethal methods of self-defense with a lot of skepticism, said that he had a 30 percent increase in the number of women showing up in his classes, which meet the state's public safety requirements for concealed handgun licensing. Generally, the courses cost upward of $100, and the application for the concealed handgun course is about $140, not including fingerprinting fees and the cost of passport photos. Williams' class, which is combined with a legal response program that includes information about what to do if you have to shoot someone, costs about $400, though it was $198 with the coupon.

Williams, a gunsmith, insomniac and father of two teaches the 10-hour training course four times a week, he said.

"Chivalry is dead," he said. "Male criminals think nothing nowadays of shooting a woman." At home, his two daughters are well-versed in marksmanship - the 7-year-old has a rifle and a handgun and his 5-year-old will soon have her own rifle, he said. It was the first time I had heard anyone mention children owning guns, but he says in the class that the best way to prevent children's injury with firearms is to educate them about how to use them. (And to keep them in locked cases.)

There are other things to consider. The personal injury rates for firearms in homicide and suicide in this country are higher than they are in any other industrialized nation. And violent crimes in America dropped significantly in 2010, to what appears to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years.

While Chris and I, her daughter and Bruce braved the 106-degree heat with our other classmates in Hays County, a man starting to shoot his required 50 rounds cut his hand on one of the gun slides, and blood started dripping down his hand.

My heart racing, and sweat trickling into my eyes, I stood in a line behind a blue barrel and tried to focus when it came time for me to take the test. If I end up earning my license, I can only hope the shots fired there will be the last ones I ever shoot under that kind of pressure ­- or worse.
jsanders@statesman.com; 445-3630

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http://www.statesman.com/life/in-defense-of-women-and-guns-1768375.html

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