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What Is the DEA Smoking?

December 22, 2008

The Drug Enforcement Administration is in an optimistic mood. A new DEA report insists that the antidrug campaigns Washington has undertaken with Colombia and Mexico in recent years have dramatically slowed the flow of cocaine into the United States. The DEA’s principal piece of evidence is that average street prices for the drug have soared over the past twenty-one months from $96.61 per gram to $182.73, which suggests “that we are placing significant stress on the drug delivery system.” There’s just one problem with the DEA’s proclamation of success. We’ve heard it all before. Many, many times before.

For example, in November 2005, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy asserted that a 19 percent increase in cocaine prices since February indicated a growing retail shortage, thus validating Washington’s multibillion dollar Plan Colombia, designed to stanch the torrent of drugs coming from the Andean region of South America. “These numbers confirm that the levels of interdiction, the levels of eradication, have reduced the availability of cocaine in the United States,” White House drug czar John P. Walters boasted. “The policy is working.”

And what was the sky-high street price of cocaine that justified such optimism? $170 per gram. Adjusted for inflation, that price was actually higher than the latest price spike to just under $183. Yet clearly that earlier alleged supply-side victory in the drug war was short lived. According to the DEA’s own statistics in the December 2008 report, cocaine prices had declined to a mere $96 per gram by January 2007.

The reality is that street prices for illegal drugs act like the famous observation about prices in the stock market: they will vary. Over the past fifteen years, the retail price of cocaine has moved in a range between roughly $90 and $200 per gram. The latest spike is nothing abnormal, just as the plunge in prices from November 2005 to January 2007 was not unusual. Indeed, if one examines price trends over a longer period, any cause for optimism evaporates. During the early 1980s cocaine sometimes sold for more than $500 per gram. Obviously, that did not herald a lasting victory in the drug war.

Moreover, if the DEA had issued its 2008 report just three months earlier, there would have been even less evidence of supposed progress. For the previous five quarters, the street price had hovered around $120. The agency is simply grasping at straws to “prove” that the nearly four-decades-old effort to shut off the supply of illegal drugs is finally working.

cont.

This article simply points out what I have been saying for years; If you are for the drug war, you are for making thugs into wealthy men.

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Posted in Economics, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, Local Politics Colorado, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on What Is the DEA Smoking?

MICHIGAN MAN FINED $15,000 FOR POACHING MOUNTAIN GOAT

December 22, 2008

Thieves at the public trough again.

SALIDA, Colo. – A Michigan man was fined $15,000 after being convicted of three charges related to killing a Colorado mountain goat without a license.

Burt Vincent, 60, of Jackson, Mich., also faces a potential lifetime suspension of his hunting and fishing privileges in Colorado, Michigan and 28 other states.

Vincent pleaded “no contest” in Chaffee County Court on Dec. 10 to illegal possession of a mountain goat, illegally killing a trophy animal in Colorado and hunting a mountain goat without a license.

Two others, Jack and Susan Derr of Florissant, Colo., also pleaded guilty to multiple misdemeanor charges related to Vincent’s case and other wildlife crimes discovered during the investigation. The Derrs were ordered to pay $10,000 to the Colorado Operation Game Thief Fund.

The convictions marked an end to a two-year investigation into multiple poaching incidents.

“This case demonstrates how effectively law enforcement professionals from multiple agencies work together,” said Shaun Deeney, an area manager with the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) in Colorado Springs

Investigators in Colorado and Michigan began working on the case in 2006 after an informant said that Vincent was in possession of a mountain goat from Colorado. However, there was no record in Colorado showing that Vincent was ever issued a mountain goat hunting license.

Based on the original tip, an undercover officer contacted Vincent at his place of work in Michigan. Vincent told the undercover agent that he had killed a mountain goat, adding that he had also killed a bighorn ram and a bighorn ewe in Colorado over the past several years.

The undercover officer had hoped Vincent would talk about the mountain goat, but didn’t expect to hear about the two bighorn sheep.

“Bighorn sheep and mountain goats are majestic symbols of Colorado’s high country,” said Deeney. “Sheep and goat tags are among the most highly prized hunting licenses in Colorado. Every year, thousands of applicants vie for a just a handful of tags. Vincent and his codefendants literally cheated law-abiding hunters out of a chance for the hunt of a lifetime.”

MOUNTING EVIDENCE

Wildlife investigators followed a trail that led them Vincent’s hunting partner Jack Derr.  DOW records showed that Derr bought a mountain goat license in 2006.  The DOW license database also showed that Jack’s wife, Susan Derr, bought bighorn sheep licenses in 2000 and 2003.  This matched Vincent’s claim that he killed a bighorn ram and ewe.

Armed with several key pieces of information, two DOW officers interviewed the Derrs at their home in Florissant, Colo., and executed a search warrant on the residence. Meanwhile, Vincent was questioned by Conservation Officers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and special investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Michigan.

In tape-recorded interviews, Susan Derr admitted that she let Vincent use her bighorn ram license in 2003 and her bighorn ewe license in 2000.  She stated that she did not kill those animals but that Vincent did.  Jack Derr also admitted that he gave Vincent his 2006 license to tag a mountain goat that Vincent killed.

During the investigation, Vincent admitted that his rifle was used to kill the mountain goat, but claimed Jack Derr did the shooting.  He further claimed that Derr gave him the mountain goat to take back to Michigan because Derr didn’t want it.

“The officers who conducted this investigation should be complimented on their thoroughness,” said Deeney.  “All of the officers involved acted professionally and courteously throughout the entire investigation despite accusations of impropriety by the defendants.”

In addition to the mountain goat violation, investigators also discovered a case involving an illegal elk killed by Vincent in 2005 in Archuleta County.  Vincent was found guilty in that case last August.  He was fined $2,800 for that crime.

Deeney expressed his gratitude to the investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and prosecutors from the district attorneys’ offices in Chaffee, Fremont, Teller, Archuleta, and Larimer counties for their help getting the convictions.

Colorado and Michigan are members of an Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, which includes 30 states that offer some of the very best hunting and fishing hunting and fishing opportunities in the country. The compact includes provisions that establish reciprocal license privilege suspension by member states.  Anyone who loses hunting and fishing privileges in one state is also suspended in the others. Colorado was a charter state in 1991 along with Nevada and Oregon.

Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact Member States:  Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

For more information about Division of Wildlife go to: http://wildlife.state.co.us.

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Posted in Hunting Fishing and the Great Outdoors, Law, Men's Issues, News | Comments Off on MICHIGAN MAN FINED $15,000 FOR POACHING MOUNTAIN GOAT

Misandry and the Supreme Court

December 18, 2008

Misandry as expressed by in the various laws passed by people like Patricia Schroeder exhibit the pure hatred that some people have for the Constitution.

One more than significant part of that hatred was the love affair with things like ex post facto law as an inextricable portion of the notorious Lautenberg Domestic Violence Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968.

True to form this abomination of Anglo American Law was passed without a vote by sneaking it into a completely different budget vote without any debate.

This is poor law, it was poorly written, then  re-written by regulatory fiat via the rogue agency BATFE. It uses ex post facto penalties. It takes inalienable rights away for less than felony behaviors. It does so for life.


Finally, the Supreme Court is taking up at least part of this assault on common sense and the Constitution. The question however is not one of law, it is one of whether they will bow to political correctness.

READ HERE

This is a long read, and filled with terminology that only Lawyers could love…

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Posted in Domestic Violence, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Law, Local Politics Colorado, Men's Issues, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 4 Comments »

Africa and Obamas lesson from abroad

December 15, 2008

This piece by Larry Pratt is somewhat dated. However, with all the carnage that has been going on recently across Africa I thought it might be a good thing to remind people just what kind of President we have just elected. I myself am wondering if the United States will be sending troops to Africa in an effort to support some of the nefarious characters that are at the bottom of some of the worst bloodshed that mankind has seen in quite some time.

By Larry Pratt
October 31, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

Thanks to journalist Jerome Corsi, we now know for a fact that Democrat presidential candidate Barak Obama is joined at the hip with Kenya’s Marxist thug Raila Odinga, now the country’s Prime Minister.

Obama campaigned for Odinga in 2006 and had the foreign policy aide in his U.S. Senate office (Mark Lippert) act as intermediary during Odinga’s 2007 campaign for president which he lost last December. The campaign plan that Odinga laid out was developed in cooperation with Obama.

Odinga’s plan contained a specific provision for resorting to class (inter-tribal) warfare in the likely event that he, with his Luo tribal base, would lose to the much more numerous Kikuyus who support Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki. See the document here.

Obama’s father was a Luo, the same as Odinga, suggesting that ethnicity as well as shared philosophy has drawn Obama and Odinga together. Odinga, who was educated in communist East Germany, named his first son Fidel Castro Odinga.

Corsi was able to leave Kenya with campaign correspondence between Obama and Odinga because defectors from Odinga’s campaign turned the documents. They wanted the world to see what a bloodthirsty man had gotten into power.

Corsi is grateful that he got out of Kenya with his documentation. Odinga’s immigration police detained Corsi (with no justification) just before he was to present his evidence (highly damaging to
Odinga) to the Kenyan public at a news conference in Nairobi. After a lot of fancy maneuvering, Corsi was able to leave at the end of the day when it became clear that many international media sources were reporting what Odinga’s thugs had done.

The class warfare provision in Obama and Odinga’s campaign plans was triggered in January and February when machete-wielding mobs of Muslim Luo’s hacked to death over 1000 Kikuyus, most of whom are Christian. Over 800 churches were burned to the ground (in one case with over 30 who had been locked inside) and tens of thousands of Kikuyus had to flee their homes.

The Kikuyus were unable to shoot back because Kenya has strict gun control laws in large measure due to their time as a British colony. Even though far outnumbering the largely Muslim Luo, President Kibaki and his fellow Kikuyus put up the white flag. A new position — that of prime minister — was created for Odinga so he could share power with Kibaki after he won the election with some 250,000 votes.

Having extorted his way into Kibaki’s government, Odinga was given several portfolios, that of immigration among them. That is how Odinga was able to kidnap Corsi, but Corsi was able to text message his predicament to Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily.com before they stole his phone from him. Farah was soon on Fox News, and Corsi’s predicament was also picked up by CNN International. Happily I was able to recently interview Corsi right here in the good old USA (archived here).

Barak Obama is a gun banner. He voted to put a homeowner in jail for having used an unregistered (“illegal”) handgun to shoot a home invader who was threatening his family. Happily Obama’s view did not prevail in the Illinois Senate.

More ominous than just supporting gun control is Obama’s history of discipleship, teaching and funding of the principals and organizations spawned by followers of Saul Alinsky. Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals could have provided the intellectual basis for the Odinga plan to win power by theft, intimidation and violence. It is not surprising that Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

One of Alinsky’s flagship organizations, established during his lifetime, is ACORN. This is the group that has been under investigation for massive vote fraud in the 2008 elections.

Obama has represented Alinsky’s ACORN, given them millions from foundations on whose boards he has served with an unrepentant terrorist, and given them $800,000 (to a subsidiary) from his presidential campaign this year.

The one hopeful difference between Obama and Odinga is that Odinga was able to foment violence and destruction in a country of unarmed victims. For Obama to pursue that part of Odinga’s plan in the event of an Obama loss in the U.S. would likely result in a very different outcome. After all, unlike Kenya, Americans are well armed ­ to the chagrin of the Ivy League elites who trained Obama.

© 2008 Larry Pratt – All Rights Reserved

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Larry Pratt has been Executive Director of Gun Owners of America for 27 years. GOA is a national membership organization of 300,000 Americans dedicated to promoting their second amendment freedom to keep and bear arms.

He published a book, Armed People Victorious, in 1990 and was editor of a book, Safeguarding Liberty: The Constitution & Militias, 1995. His latest book, On the Firing Line: Essays in the Defense of Liberty was published in 2001.

The GOA web site is:  gunowners.org. Pratt’s weekly talk show Live Fire is archived there at: www.gunowners.org/radio.htm

E-Mail: ldpratt@gunowners.org

Either Pratt or another GOA spokesman is available for press interviews.

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Law, Men's Issues, Military Science, News, Politics, War, Warfare, Wordpress Political Blogs | Comments Off on Africa and Obamas lesson from abroad

Obama’s message of ‘change’ may include gun rights

December 14, 2008

The Obamanites, and “change? We shall see…

Obama’s message of ‘change’ may include gun rights
 By Forrest Fisher

The regular New York State big game firearm season ended last Sunday (Dec. 7) and the next day, the short nine-day late archery and regular muzzleloader seasons started so there is still time for hunters to take a whitetail. Every deer is a trophy, regardless of size.

There is nothing quite like the incredible challenge and joy of hunting deer in the woods to develop new savvy and skills. Sportsmen readily express moments of treasure during the Western New York deer hunting adventure of the last three short weeks. Hunting time is priceless and hard to come by for many sportsmen, especially with the holiday season upon us. Plus, recent studies show that 42 percent of Americans work longer hours now than just five years ago and many of the working class spend more than 50 hours a week at their job. So, for all of these folks, hunting season brings more than simple relief.

However, our rights to enjoy the outdoor hunting experience may be changing, friends. With the final coat of post-season gun oil on all metal parts and firearms returned to secured safe places and storage cabinets, there appears to be clamoring discussion in many corners of these United States about the very freedoms of the season in change. Hunting with a firearm of our choice may be about to take new meaning.

Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Association have provided early warning information. NRA is tabulating the opening appointments from new president elect, Barack Obama, and the effects it may have on American hunting traditions as we know them. LaPierre figures as Obama selects key personnel for premium cabinet posts, he sends a message about his policy as upcoming president. According to the NRA study, it goes like this.

Obama first appointed to the White House chief of staff Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel who has been known as the “point man on gun control.” According to LaPierre’s message, “He will wield enormous power in the battle for the future of our firearm freedoms.” Not good if you have grown up in the tradition of safe firearm use allowed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Then, of course, Hillary Clinton was selected as Obama’s secretary of State. If she is confirmed, word inside the NRA is that she will try to remove the second amendment right because as the nation’s top diplomat, she would have the power to determine whether the United Nations will pass (and Obama will sign) that global gun ban treaty that it has wanted for some time now.

Obama also nominated ex-Senator and former Majority Leader Tom Daschle, known as a confirmed adversary of the NRA, to be secretary of Health and Human Services. If Daschle is confirmed by Congress, which is now overwhelmingly controlled by the democratic party, he could also hold ultimate power to declare guns a “public health menace” and regulate away essential American firearm liberties long taken for granted, especially by sportsmen too lazy to write a letter, make a phone call or express their position.

Then, Obama is nominating Eric Holder to be attorney general. As former assistant attorney general, Holder was a key architect and vocal advocate for the sweeping gun ban agenda of the Brady campaign and the Clinton era. He was the power-drive behind national handgun licensing, mandatory trigger locks that make home defense difficult and ending gun shows. More recently, Holder opposed the Supreme Court’s Heller decision in the District of Columbia that, of course, declared the second amendment an individual right.

According to the NRA, there is a chilling notice to job applicant gun owners that they are not welcome to serve in his administration. The NRA states, “In case you trusted what Obama said about maintaining your second amendment rights during his presidential campaign, in the job application for the Obama Administration, he made it clear that gun owners are not his campaign cabinet choice and essentially told 80 million gun owners not to even bother applying for a job.”

Also according to the NRA, “If all of that wasn’t bad enough, the Brady Campaign just issued a completely bogus poll claiming that two-thirds of Americans, including 60 percent of all gun owners, favor gun registration, licensing of firearm owners and other sweeping restrictions on our firearm freedoms!” Where does the Brady group get this stuff? Skewed data reporting defies common sense since the data tells a different story. Interpretation of data is a science, but use of statistical terms is more a mystical science that can mislead readers.

What can sportsmen do? I don’t agree with everything that the NRA supports, but their objective is to preserve the second amendment. In this light, they represent the most viable voice for firearm rights. So, joining the NRA should be an option. Also in response, Americans have increased their firearm purchase rate by 300 percent following the election.

Sportsmen should prepare to adapt to a new environment of firearm change with hunting and target shooting freedoms requiring a bit more energy to be sustained. There is a new and unsure season ahead for sportsmen. Some sportsmen could seemingly care less to understand firearm ownership and second amendment issues. Learn more about your rights. Advance and be recognized!

Hunting season each year reminds us that the second amendment stands for more than simple words in our constitution. While time has shown that our forefathers exhibited uncanny wisdom in developing the winning road map in the United States, Obama is sending a message that we have entered a time of ‘change.’ Second amendment change? Only time will tell.

SOURCE

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Posted in Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Law, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 5 Comments »

Keep your powder dry..?

December 14, 2008

Political double speak is the rule of the day for those that hate inalienable rights as set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Those people know that “Gun Control” is an issue that will get them bounced from their positions of power in a heartbeat. So then, what’s a gun grabbing neo -communist to do?Oh my, oh my! After all the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does in fact address an individual right possessed by the people and not the state! Then, heaven forbid a Federal Court struck down the ex post facto portion of the Domestic violence act! Never fear legal double speak is here!  Some bright young hypocrite lawyer figured out a way to by pass that troublesome language in the Constitution, and, he will not even have to try and get a Constitutional Convention seated to do it!


All gun owners are familiar with the 17th century maxim, “Keep your powder dry.” But if we expect to be gun owners in the 21st century, we have to update that to read, “Keep your powder—and all the rest of your ammunition—at all.” That’s because politicians who want to ban guns, but who don’t have the votes in Congress and state legislatures, are trying to achieve the same effect by banning the manufacture, importation, sale and possession of as much ammunition as possible, and severely restricting the rest.

In the last year, so-called “encoded” or “serialized” ammunition bills have been introduced in 13 states—Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Washington. Their goal: Destroy our Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

All of these bills would prohibit the manufacture and sale of ammunition, unless the bullets and cartridge cases are marked with a code and registered to the owners in a computerized database. Most would also require gun owners to forfeit any non-coded ammunition they possess. For example, Arizonas bill says, “Beginning January 1, 2011, a private citizen or a retail vendor shall dispose of all noncoded ammunition that is owned or held by the citizen or vendor.” Tennessee’s says, “All non-coded ammunition . . . shall be disposed.” And in Pennsylvania, “An owner of ammunition . . . not encoded by the manufacturer . . . shall dispose of the ammunition.”

These bills include no compensation for the loss of millions of rounds of privately owned ammunition. But that’s not the point. Nor is the fact that ammunition encoding hasn’t been tested, let alone proven. Nor is the fact that criminals would easily figure out the numerous, obvious ways to beat ammunition registration.

The point of these bills is to prevent gun owners from having ammunition for defense, practice, sport and hunting. The fact that these bills are not gun bans is a mere technicality because, in practical terms, ammo bans are gun bans.

That isn’t the end of the anti-gunners’ attacks on ammunition in the current Congress and state legislative sessions. Ammunition bans are taking almost as many legislative and regulatory forms as there are types of ammunition to outlaw.

In October, the California legislature banned center-fire ammunition containing more than trace amounts of lead, when hunting big game and coyotes in the area inhabited by the California condor. And within two months, the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife adopted a regulation going further, banning any sort of lead ammunition when hunting any game or non-game animal in the condor’s area. Now a lead bullet ban is being pushed in Arizona, too, even though there is still no solid evidence that condors anywhere are dying because they have ingested fragments of traditional hunting bullets.

In Congress, a handful of members of the House (all rated “F” by the NRA Political Victory Fund) have introduced an “armor-piercing ammunition” bill to ban any handgun that can fire a bullet that, if fired from any rifle or handgun, could penetrate a protective vest. Given the number of rifle calibers that use the same diameter bullets as handguns, and the number of handguns that use rifle ammunition, all or virtually all handguns would be banned if this bill became law. Another bill proposes to reinstate the former Clinton Gun Ban’s prohibition on the manufacture and possession of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

Anti-gunners’ current focus on ammunition is unmistakable, but going after guns by going after ammunition is not a new idea. As far back as the 1930s, during the debate over national gun owner licensing and handgun registration, it was proposed to implant a small tape bearing a serial number in every bullet, and require people to register ammunition purchases with their names and fingerprints.

This bullet coding idea lay dormant until 1969, when President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence recommended a law that would require manufacturers “to implant an identifying capsule with a distinctive number in each bullet and require firearms dealers who sell the ammunition to maintain records of the persons who buy all such numbered ammunition.”

Today, ammunition registration is back on the front burner because a company that claims to have the technology to turn the 80-year-old concept into reality is eager for profits at the expense of our rights. Calling itself “Ammunition Accountability,” the company is trying to market ammo registration by portraying itself as a “group of gun crime victims, industry representatives, law enforcement, public officials, public policy experts, and more.”

Meanwhile, another of the LBJ-era commission’s recommendations, “a system of giving each gun a number and the development of some device to imprint this number on each bullet fired from the gun”—known today as “micro-stamping”—was mandated in California at the end of 2007, to take effect in 2010, and has been proposed in several other states.

California’s law had been urged by Washington’s undisputed gun control crusader for more than 30 years, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. And on February 7, only a week after endorsing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president, Kennedy introduced a bill in Congress to mandate micro-stamping nationwide. Kennedy claimed that his bill “provides law enforcement with a much-needed resource in solving crimes.” But even if micro-stamping worked, it would be relevant only to new guns acquired from retail dealers, while 88 percent of guns used in crime are acquired through unregulated channels.

To say the least, Obama didn’t get Kennedy’s support only because he made the keynote speech at the Democratic Party’s 2004 national convention in Massachusetts. When it comes to ammunition and guns, Kennedy, Obama and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.—whom the 2004 Democratic convention nominated for president, and who has also endorsed Obama this year—are cut from the same cloth.

Longtime NRA members will remember that in the 1990s, Kerry sponsored legislation to prohibit mail order sales of ammunition, require a criminal background check to purchase ammunition and ban conventional ammunition as “armor piercing.”

At the time, Obama was a state senator in Illinois, where he supported increasing federal excise taxes on guns and ammunition by 500 percent, banning compact handguns, limiting the frequency of gun purchases, banning the sale of guns (except antiques) at gun shows, charging a person with a felony offense if his gun were stolen and used in a crime, prohibiting people under age 21 from possessing guns, increasing the gun dealer licensing fee, prohibiting dealers from conducting business at gun shows or within five miles of a school or park, and banning police agencies from selling old service firearms to generate funds to buy new firearms for their officers.

From 1998 to 2001, Obama was also a director of the Joyce Foundation, the largest provider of tax-free funds to anti-gun groups and causes in this country—$19 million, including $1.5 million to the ultra-radical Violence Policy Center during Joyce’s Obama years. Obama even considered becoming Joyce’s president, according to the Boston Globe.

To be fair, I should mention that Obama’s chief rival for the 2008 Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has a serious anti-gun record, as well. When she was First Lady, Clinton endorsed a 25 percent tax on handguns, an increase in the federal gun dealer license fee to $2,500, registration and licensing of handguns and their owners, and registration and licensing for all new owners of rifles and shotguns.

We’re hearing the word “change” a lot in this year’s presidential campaign. But the longer I’m part of the fight for the right to arms, the more I realize that even though the details of anti-gun bills may change, their underlying concepts remain the same.

Back in 1974, Kennedy knew that banning ammunition would have the same practical effect as banning guns. On the floor of the Senate, Kennedy said that the “manufacture and sale of handguns should be terminated” and that “existing handguns should be acquired by states.” And toward that end, he urged passage of his amendment to “require the registration of every civilian-owned handgun in America,” to “establish and maintain a nationwide system to license every American who owns a handgun,” and “to reduce the number of handguns in civilian ownership, by outlawing . . . all handguns except those intended for sporting purposes.”

But, Kennedy added, “if [banning handguns] is not feasible we may be obliged to place strict bans on the production and distribution of ammunition. No bullets, no shooting.”

Since then, Kennedy and others in Congress have introduced bills to ban or impose outrageous taxes on .25, .32, 9mm, 5.7x28mm, and .50 caliber ammunition; cartridge cases less than 1.3″ in length; hollow-point bullets; ammunition that “serves no substantial sporting purpose and serves primarily to kill human beings”; and (via the Consumer Product Safety Commission) “defective” ammunition. And who can forget the outrages feigned by media-hungry politicians over “Black Rhino,” Rhino, Black Talon, Blammo Ammo and other dubious threats?

I wish I could report otherwise, but I’m certain we can expect more bills and rhetoric of that sort after the November elections. In addition to federal and state-level gun bans of various stripes, there will also be a concerted effort to prevent the use of firearms for self-defense, target shooting and hunting, by prohibiting the ammunition you need for all those activities.

Whether these proposed bans become law will depend on how many NRA members and other gun owners turn out to vote. I’ll be in the voting booth on Election Day 2008, and I hope you will be, too. Our ammo and our guns depend on it.

SOURCE

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Posted in Domestic Violence, Editorial, Opinion, Education, Gun Control, Hunting Fishing and the Great Outdoors, Law, Men's Issues, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs | 5 Comments »

Pardon Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean

December 12, 2008

In what was nothing less than a travesty of justice two Americans were sent to prison based upon misguided, if not criminal prosecution by those sworn to uphold the Constitution . These men sit in prison while President Bush pardons others. Get off your ass Mister President, and do what is just and correct!

Pardon Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) already has filed not one, but two friend
of the court briefs for Ignacio Ramos and Jose Antonio Compean. In
those briefs, GOF has pointed out to the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals that the 10-year conviction of the two agents is for a crime
which doesn’t exist.

The two agents were convicted of the “Discharge of a Firearm in
Relation to a Crime of Violence” — something which is not an
offense, rather it is a sentencing enhancement after the government
has established illegal gun possession, use or carrying.

Of course, if the Feds had gone for that kind of charge, they would
have run into the problem that the agents were required to possess,
use and carry guns on them while on duty. That is why the US
Attorney, Johnny Sutton, went for, and succeeded, in making up an
offense that would not force him to explain away that the agents are
required to be armed.

One of the reasons the Border Patrol requires agents to be armed is
so they can use their guns against armed drug smugglers such as
Osvaldo Aldrete.

Even if the Supreme Court reverses this injustice done to Ramos and
Compean, they could expect to sit in jail for upwards of another two
years — for a crime that was impossible for them to commit.

GOF was a friend of the court in a similar case before the Supreme
Court. Our position was upheld nine-to-nothing. It involved a drug
dealer who took a gun in payment for a bag of dope. The Feds gave
him many extra years because he supposedly had “used” a gun in a
crime. The Supreme Court agreed that such a view was ridiculous and
clearly not the intent of the law. The Fifth Circuit has simply
overlooked these fatal flaws in the government’s case.

George Bush is thinking about his legacy. We have a chance to
convince him that his legacy is on the verge of staining his
reputation with the miscarriage of justice perpetrated by the federal
prosecutor, Johnny Sutton. Keep in mind that Sutton lied to the
trial court and to the appeals court about Aldrete’s connections with
the drug trade. He also concealed from the jury that he was paying
Aldrete for his testimony against the agents.

Hopefully, President Bush does not want to be known as one who stood
by while innocent men — and the wives and children — suffered
because of a blatant injustice.

All gun owners should be alarmed at what the government has done to
these two agents. If they will do this to police officers, we cannot
assume they will treat the rest of the population any better. The
two GOF briefs are at:

http://www.gunowners.com/amicus10.pdf
http://www.gunowners.com/amicus14.pdf

ACTION: Please use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at
http://gunowners.org/activism.htm to send an e-mail (see sample
below) to President Bush to ask him to pardon these two men whose
only crime was to uphold the law.

—– Pre-written letter —–

Dear President Bush:

I am shocked that Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean are still in
jail. Their conviction on the ten-year count was fraudulent. There
is no such crime as “firing a gun in a federal crime.” That is only
an enhancement for other felony charges — for example, reckless
endangerment.

Essentially, Ramos and Compean — to get this sentencing enhancement
— would have had to illegally possess their firearms and recklessly
endanger the drug smuggler they shot. But isn’t the possession of
firearms part of their job description?

Please pardon these men in time for Christmas.

Sincerely,

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So? Just what is new in Illinois…

December 10, 2008

Illinois has a long history of corruption. Indeed, there are people that imply that New Orleans became corrupt only after Chicago carpetbaggers arrived there immediately after the War of Northern Agression. From the Daley dynasty in Chicago to the Governors mansion the state appears to have one big “for sale” sign on it. It’s no wonder to me why my father left Springfield and joined the Marine Corps, and that was more than fifty years ago. What follows serves to fill in just a few of the blanks having to do with this tradition…

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — Rod Blagojevich has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors: He became the fourth of the past seven governors elected in Illinois to be arrested. Residents blame the sad tradition on a culture of patronage.

“Government in Illinois isn’t about political ideology or helping people,” said Christopher Mooney, who teaches political science at the University of Illinois-Springfield. “It’s about which idiot brother-in-law are you going to get a job on a road crew because he helped you get into office.”

The governor, a Democrat, was charged yesterday with trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat, according to a criminal complaint filed by prosecutors. Three previous governors were jailed: Otto Kerner, governor from 1961 to 1968; Dan Walker, who held the job from 1973 to 1977; and George Ryan, who served from 1999 to 2003.

Blagojevich, 51, and his chief of staff, John Harris, 46, threatened to withhold state assistance to now-bankrupt Tribune Co. in connection with the sale of the Wrigley Field ballpark, according to federal prosecutors. No pleas were entered and neither defendant made any statements during the hearing.

The men also allegedly sought to force the firing of members on the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board who were critical of the governor. Tribune Co. owns the newspaper and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which plays at Wrigley.

State politicians being carted off to jail reflects a local indifference to wrongdoing that needs to be changed, said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former city alderman.

“We have a culture of machine politics and it lends itself to corruption,” said Simpson. “We are the capital of corruption in the U.S.”

History of Corruption

Political corruption has a bipartisan history in the state. Kerner, a Democrat convicted in 1973, was jailed after the manager of two horse-racing tracks admitted to bribing the then- governor; charges were filed after Kerner left office. Walker, a Democrat convicted in 1987, a decade after leaving office, served less than two years of a seven-year sentence for receiving improper loans.

Ryan, a Republican charged with accepting trips and gifts in exchange for political favors, was sentenced to more than six years in 2006.

Robert Sorich, who led Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and three other men were found guilty by a Chicago federal court jury in 2006 for illegal hiring. Daley, first elected in 1989 and the son of the city’s longest-serving mayor, wasn’t accused of wrongdoing.

“They must have a cell reserved somewhere for aldermen and governors,” said Tommy FitzGibbon, executive vice president at MB Financial Bank in Chicago, who wants Blagojevich to resign. “It’s an embarrassment.”

‘What an Idiot’

The region’s reputation was in the national spotlight during this year’s presidential election. Republican presidential nominee John McCain ran political ads claiming that Democratic rival Barack Obama is part of a “corrupt Chicago political machine.”

The Blagojevich arrest has brought more notoriety to the region. Clients in Germany and Ireland were aware of the arrest and brought it up in morning telephone calls with Caimin Flannery, a partner in Caimin Flannery & Associates in Naperville, Illinois, about 35 miles west of Chicago. The international business-development firm advises companies on mergers of $10 million to “several hundred” million dollars.

“Most people I’ve talked to today feel: ‘What an idiot,’” said Flannery, who was born in Ireland and speaks nine languages. “It’s just the greed factor.”

‘A New Low’

The governor was charged with conspiring to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for official actions, including the replacement of Obama. Court-approved wiretaps intercepted Blagojevich last month conspiring to sell the Senate seat, said U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. At various times, Blagojevich sought in return a cabinet post, an ambassadorship or a seat on a corporate board for his wife, Fitzgerald said.

“This is a sad day for government and it’s a very sad day for Illinois government,” Fitzgerald said. “Governor Blagojevich has taken us to a new low.”

The governor’s office has become the heart of a corruption culture in the fifth-largest U.S. state, said Tamara Holder, a Chicago defense attorney.

“It’s definitely ingrained,” Holder said.

Blagojevich, in his second term, has been buffeted by scandals in the state government and budget shortfalls. A Chicago Tribune poll in October put his approval rating at 13 percent, the lowest ever recorded by the newspaper’s surveys.

No one among more than a dozen residents interviewed said they were caught off-guard by the arrests.

“You’ve been getting report after report of something negative going on,” said Hector Galvan, a trading consultant for RJO Futures, the private client division of R.J. O’Brien & Associates LLC in Chicago.

While Blagojevich is the latest Illinois governor in court, Galvan said the state has also produced admirable politicians.

“The President-elect is from here,” Galvan said. “You can’t let a few spoil it for everyone else.”

SOURCE

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GOA Members Win Key Battles in 2008

December 10, 2008

GOA Members Win Key Battles in 2008
— While gun rights advanced this year, the prospects for next year
look very tough

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm

———————————————-
“The best Second Amendment defense organization in the country is Gun
Owners of America.” — Joseph Farrah, founder and CEO of
WorldNetDaily.com, September 2008
———————————————-

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Change.

That’s what the next four years are going to bring. More government
regulations… more government spending… and more battles over gun
control.

Once Barack Obama takes his oath of office in January, he will
become, without a doubt, the most anti-gun President this nation has
ever seen.

How are gun owners responding to the oncoming Obama presidency? By
the tens of thousands, they are pouring into gun stores all across
the country and stocking up on guns and ammo, fearing the worst.
Many buyers include first-time gun owners.

And while that is not a bad idea, it’s a short term solution to a
long-term problem that does nothing to defend our Second Amendment
rights from being eliminated by a Congress controlled by people like
Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Carolyn McCarthy and other notorious gun
grabbers.

That’s why we need you to stand with Gun Owners of America next year.
If you have never become a GOA member — or you’ve let your
membership lapse — we need you on board so that we have the
ammunition necessary to fight every gun control bill that comes our
way.

It takes less than five minutes to go to
http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm and sign up. By doing so,
you will be joining — in the words of WorldNetDaily’s founder — the
“best Second Amendment defense organization in the country.”

We need you now more than ever, as we are surely in for the fight of
our lives!

Even so, despite all the hurdles that we see ahead, one should not
forget that 2008 was a real improvement for gun rights in many
respects. Gun Owners of America experienced victories in the
courts… in the Congress… over federal bureaucracies… and in the
states.

The following victories are just a few of the accomplishments that
GOA was able to achieve this year with YOUR HELP. So let’s take a
look at our work together, month by month.

January – February

* As the new year dawns, President Bush signs the Veterans
Disarmament Act (a.k.a. the NICS Improvement Amendments Act). This
legislation codifies illegitimate procedures that, over the past
decade, had already resulted in almost 150,000 veterans being denied
the right to buy guns because battle-related stress has supposedly
rendered them unable to manage their own financial affairs.

GOA was able to win some significant concession in the bill, even as
we were trying to kill it outright. Unfortunately, the bill passed
both houses of Congress last year without a vote. Republican Senator
Jim DeMint of South Carolina later complained that the Democrat
controlled Senate had passed 94 percent of its bills this year
without a recorded vote.

* An Associate Director in the U.S. Interior Department defends the
National Park Service ban claiming that “parks are safe places” and
that right to carry laws “do not reduce crime” or protect people
against dangerous wildlife. GOA responds by generating thousands
upon thousands of postcards into the Oval Office, asking President
Bush to put the squeeze on Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to get
the NPS ban reversed — a reversal that will come about in May.

* The U.S. Solicitor General files a brief with the U.S. Supreme
Court in the D.C. v. Heller case arguing that categorical gun bans of
virtually all self-defense firearms are constitutional if a court
determines they are “reasonable” — the lowest standard of
constitutional review. This view could justify a national ban on all
firearms, including a ban on all hunting rifles.

GOA works with Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) and helps him to quickly get
57 additional congressmen to oppose the Solicitor General’s opinion.

* Because of generous contributions from its members, GOA is able to
submit a very unique amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in
defense of Dick Anthony Heller, who was denied the right to own a gun
in the nation’s capital as a result of the draconian gun ban which
exists there.

In this hard-hitting brief, GOA takes aim at the weak arguments put
forth by both the DC government and the Bush Administration. But
more than that, GOA examines the favorable text and context of the
Second Amendment in great detail, while also documenting the pro-gun
history that formed the backdrop of its inclusion into the Bill of
Rights.

March – May

* After looking at all the briefs which have been submitted in the
Heller case, the editors at USA Today decide to use GOA for the
opposing voice on March 19. The paper’s editors tell our attorneys
that GOA had an argument that was clearly distinctive, as we were the
only ones to argue that the words “shall not be infringed”
invalidated all federal gun control laws.

* In the states, GOA helped Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming to pass
Emergency Protection bills throughout the country. These bills
repeal laws that allow police to confiscate firearms during a
declared emergency, such as what occurred in New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina decimated the city in 2005.

The sponsor of the Utah legislation, Senator Mark Madsen (R), thanked
GOA in March for the help we offered in helping pass the legislation
in his state.

“GOA supplied me with video that documented the plight of decent gun
owners in New Orleans who had their guns stolen by police after
Hurricane Katrina,” Madsen said. “The DVD was very helpful in
educating other members of the Utah legislature, and my bill to
protect Utah gun owners from gun confiscation, SB 157, passed by
overwhelming margins.”

Sen. Madsen’s new law is one of the best in the country. If someone
were to have his gun illegitimately confiscated, that person could
not only sue for damages, but could hold the offending officer and
his superior personally liable.

* GOA’s attorneys uncover a proposal in April to keep gun owners from
shipping replica or inert munitions through the mail. GOA
immediately submitted a blistering critique to the U.S. Post Office
and contacted thousands of grassroots activists so they could submit
their own comments as well. To date, the agency has backed off of
its original gun control proposal.

* The Bush administration, after more than seven years, has finally
issued regulations permitting the carrying of firearms in national
parks! Beginning in 2009, gun owners will be able to carry firearms
according to the laws of the state in which the park is located.

* GOA learns about Pastor Phillip Miles of South Carolina, who was
sentenced to three years in a Russian prison for carrying a single
box of hunting ammo in his luggage, intended as a gift. GOA urges
President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to intervene on
Miles’ behalf, as the sentence definitely did not fit the “crime.”
Russian authorities succumb to the outcry shortly thereafter… Miles
is released in June and returns to the United States.

June – August

* The Supreme Court strikes down the DC gun ban! While not perfect,
the Court’s decision recognizes that the Second Amendment protects an
“individual right” and states that the decades-old ban in the
nation’s capital is unconstitutional.

GOA’s brief had countered both the DC government and the Bush
Administration — as the latter had asked the Court to use the DC
case as a justification for all sorts of gun control. GOA is pleased
that the Justices heeded our admonition to limit the Court’s holding
to the case before it, thus shooting down both the DC government and
the Bush Administration in their quest to validate other firearms
restrictions.

* GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt escorts David Olofson to a
federal prison in Minnesota. Olofson was convicted in federal court
of transferring a malfunctioning semi-automatic firearm which the ATF
claimed was machine gun — a determination that should concern every
gun owner who owns a semi-auto.

Gun Owners of America becomes the lead gun organization fighting
against the ATF’s persecution of Olofson. In taking on this case,
GOA is also defending the rights of gun owners who could be
prosecuted for owning a malfunctioning firearm. For the ATF, a gun
that misfires is an excellent opportunity to rack up an easy
conviction on an illegal machine gun charge.

In Olofson’s defense, GOA submits an appeal challenging his
conviction at the district court level, and sets up a relief fund to
help pay for his family’s mortgage and car payments.

September – November

* David Olofson’s wife, Candy, thanks GOA and its members for helping
their family. Candy tells GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt that
because of the financial help that GOA members have given, she has
not had to get a second job, so she is able to spend time being a
Mom.

* GOA’s Larry Pratt travels to the Big Easy to award a brand new
handgun to Patricia Konie — the New Orleans resident who was tackled
and disarmed by police in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Konie was
forced to evacuate her home in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
and until recently, had remained disarmed. To this day, she has
never gotten back her stolen gun.

* GOA tells its email activists how the ATF was trying to prevent the
distribution of an electronic 4473 Form. This software has been
developed by a private firm, Coloseum Software Corporation, and is
intended to protect dealers against the “mistakes” that have
allowed
the ATF to prosecute or harass them into giving up their licenses.

GOA issued a grassroots alert in mid-October explaining how the ATF
had been dragging its collective feet for months — keeping Coloseum
from distributing its software, even while the ATF was developing its
own competing software (and possibly, violating the copyright which
belonged to Coloseum).

After GOA asked gun owners to contact the Bush Administration, the
owner of Coloseum contacted us shortly thereafter to tell us that our
alert had been a tremendous success: “After the GOA alert put the
spotlight on criminal activity by the BATFE, they quickly provided us
[Coloseum Software Corp] with the required documentation for the new
Form 4473 which we had been asking for months.”

Sign up with GOA… the battle lines are now drawn!

GOA is on the front lines, fighting to defend your rights. Even if
you have already renewed your membership in GOA, we hope you will
consider making an additional contribution.

With your extra support in 2009, we will fight off every new attack
on our gun rights. And we will remind the Democratic Congress what
happened to their majority the last time they followed an anti-gun
President down this path.

This next year is going to be our most difficult year in a long, long
time. Already, President-elect Obama is surrounding himself with
virulent anti-gunners:

* His pick for Attorney General went to a committed gun grabber in
Eric Holder. Holder signed on to an amicus brief in the Heller case
which SUPPORTED the DC ban on handguns and the ban on using any
firearm for self-defense in a person’s home. Holder’s brief also
argued that the Second Amendment protects a “collective” right, not
an individual right (as the Supreme Court eventually ruled).

* And based on his pick for Chief of Staff, you can be sure that the
Obama administration will use any “crisis” it can to push its gun
control agenda. Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, told the Wall
Street Journal recently that, “You never want a serious crisis to go
to waste…. [A] crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things
that you could not do before.”

Get it? Every time a crackpot goes on a shooting spree, the Obama
administration is going to use that “crisis” to come after
your guns!

So please make the decision to stay with us in the upcoming year, as
it will be critical for America’s gun rights. Whether you can help
us out with your gift of $35 or $3500, your contribution will be put
immediately into the fight to preserve and restore all of our gun
rights.

Please go to http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm and stay with
us in 2009!

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Ill. governor arrested…

December 9, 2008

Illinois Governor Blagojevich is corrupt. So says the FBI at least. Now, it would be all too easy to say “I told you so.”

But then, that would be picking on someone that has hit bottom. It would be all to easy to post comments along the lines of “bottom feeding gun grabber” and such…

Let’s all wait for the FBI to put up or shut up, and allow the legal system to work. No comments about how the law is bought and sold across that state. Nor will I speculate about the power of pardon and the President Elect. Or about said soon to be Presidents political cronies.

Nor should we speak in terms of elitism and justice. After all, people like politicians and sports hero’s are above that which we mortals must endure.

story here

In the mean time, I can daydream…

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