firearm paddle

After watching the oral arguments yesterday morning at the U.S. Supreme Court in the McDonald v. City of Chicago gun case, I did find some things which should be positive for the cause of reducing gun violence.

On the one hand, it is true that Chicago's virtual ban on handguns appears to be in jeopardy. Yet that particular outcome has long seemed a near certainty, particularly since the five Justices who voted in the majority in the District of Columbia v. Heller case – which found DC's handgun ban unconstitutional — still sit on the Court today.

More important, however, is the argument that the Brady Center made in the “friend of the court” brief we filed in the McDonald case. The Brady Center argued that, regardless of how the Supreme Court decides the “incorporation” issue, the Justices should reaffirm the limitations on gun ownership they set out in the Heller decision and defer to the judgments of elected officials who enact reasonable regulations on gun ownership, short of a broad gun ban, to protect the public from gun violence.

In fact, based on the comments that I (and apparently several others) heard from the bench yesterday, the Justices seemed to express a consensus reinforcing the Court's strong language in Heller that reasonable restrictions on gun ownership are “presumptively lawful.”

As Justice Antonin Scalia — author of the majority opinion in Heller - reminded gun advocate attorney Alan Gura, “we find what the minimum constitutional right is and everything above that is up to the States.”

If the Court's opinion in McDonald bears out this impression, then law enforcement officials and our communities will be safer for it.

In practical terms, such a result would mean that most common sense restrictions on gun ownership would withstand Second Amendment scrutiny, including: Brady criminal background checks on all gun sales including at gun shows; restrictions on civilian access to military-style assault weapons; prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons; limits on bulk purchases of handguns to cut gun trafficking; and prohibitions on guns in bars, airports, public parks, college campuses and churches.

This broad deference to public safety policy decisions of state and local officials has been policy for the last 220 years of American history, and should continue to be so in the future.

In the two years since the Heller decision, courts throughout the country have rejected the arguments of gun criminals and the gun lobby that the Second Amendment enshrines their “any gun, anywhere, any time” agenda. Yesterday the Justices, both conservative and liberal, appeared to agree.

While everything obviously depends on what the Supreme Court actually writes in its final opinion, it appears that a majority of the Justices will say the Second Amendment allows Americans to have nearly all of the strong, common sense gun laws that they want and need to help protect their communities.

Like everyone else, I will be awaiting with great interest the Court's decision in June.

(Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and the Huffington Post.)

RHINEBECK, N.Y. — Police say they're investigating the death of a 44-year-old New York man who died after a sheriff's deputy used a stun gun to subdue him.

Police responded to a domestic dispute and possible drug overdose early Wednesday morning in Rhinebeck, 50 miles south of Albany.

Authorities say they found James Healy Jr. behaving irrationally inside his girlfriend's house. Police say Healy became combative and resisted being removed from the home.

Officials say a deputy used a stun gun on Healy during the struggle. Police say he continued to struggle before officers were able to subdue him.

State police troopers say Healy then had trouble breathing and was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death was pending an autopsy.

___

Information from: Poughkeepsie Journal, http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com

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Gun Holster

Matt York / AP Photo

The Supreme Court heard a new gun-control case yesterday that has Second Amendment activists thinking they’ve won, but Adam Winkler says that despite the hype, nothing is likely to change.

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a landmark Second Amendment case. Two years ago, the court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected the right of individuals to own guns. That case, District of Columbia v. Heller, involved a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., a federal territory. Left unresolved in Heller was whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied to state and local laws. Yesterday’s case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, will answer that question.

Court watchers unanimously predict that gun-rights proponents will win. I was at the oral argument and the justices appeared ready to apply the Second Amendment to the state and local governments. Alarmists on the left have warned that such a victory for gun-rights advocates could spell the end of gun control. Gun-rights groups, like the NRA, hope the alarmists are right. They pray that courts will begin striking down gun-control laws in state after state.

Heller is directly responsible for all those gun-control laws being upheld. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority decision went out of its way to say that the right to bear arms is not infringed by many forms of gun control.

But even if the justices rule that the Second Amendment applies to state and local laws, the results are likely to defy the extremists on both sides. Nearly all state and local gun laws are going to survive.

The Supreme Court that heard yesterday’s argument isn’t the same as the one that voted 5-4 to strike down D.C.’s handgun ban. The composition of the court has changed with the addition of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. No one knows how she’ll vote in the case before the court. As a lower-court judge, she voted against applying the Second Amendment to the states. But that tells us less than it might appear. Her court had ruled against extending the Second Amendment to the states in an earlier case and she was bound by that precedent. Supreme Court justices, by contrast, aren’t bound by precedent in the same way—as the decisions of the Roberts Court keep reminding us.

Strong supporters of gun rights assume Justice Sotomayor will vote like her predecessor, Justice David Souter, who dissented in Heller. No matter. They are counting on the same five justices who gave them a majority before to side with them again. If those justices come through—as they seemed prepared to do yesterday—gun-rights advocates will have won the ability to challenge “the 20,000 state and local gun-control laws” the NRA likes to complain about.

Extending the Second Amendment to the states seems like a major expansion of gun rights. On closer examination, the expansion isn’t that great. Most states already protect the right of individuals to own guns. Forty-two of the 50 states have provisions in their own state constitutions guaranteeing the individual right to bear arms. Even the eight states without constitutional guarantees all permit citizens to own firearms and use them for personal self-defense.

The interesting thing about the right to bear arms in state constitutions is what courts do when faced with challenges to gun-control laws: They uphold them. For over a century, state judges have been ruling on the constitutionality of every conceivable type of gun control. Yet very few gun-control laws have been invalidated. In most states, not a single gun-control law has ever been struck down by the courts for violating the right to bear arms. Courts tend to defer to lawmakers and permit them wide leeway to balance public safety and crime control with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against attack.

The Starbucks Coffee Company has become the subject of national media attention because some gun activists have decided to wear their guns openly, with loaded ammunition magazines close by, in Starbucks stores in California.

Starbucks says it doesn't want to be embroiled in the gun laws debate. I don't blame them for wanting to avoid controversy — but they can't be left out of it. By choosing to appease these gun rights demonstrators — demonstrators whose antics make many gun owners in our country blush — they have put the concerns of the rest of their customers aside. By allowing guns in its stores, the company is jeopardizing the safety of its customers and employees.

That's why we have asked concerned citizens to sign a petition urging Starbucks to change its policy. That's why we've posted on our website a sample letter people can sign and give to the manager of their own local Starbucks, asking them to tell the company to change the policy. And we're just getting started spreading the word about this issue. Sorry, Starbucks.

Starbucks says it is simply complying with the law. But it would also be complying with the law if it barred guns from its stores. Peet's Coffee and Tea and California Pizza Kitchen, both of which banned guns after these demonstrations began, also are complying with the law. The law allows Starbucks to set the basic rules for its property. The issue is not the law. The issue is Starbucks' choice to allow guns in its stores.

Ralph Fascitelli of Washington CeaseFire and Heidi Yewman of the Vancouver, Washington Million Mom March Chapter talk to press after a March 3 press conference in Seattle asking Starbucks to prohibit guns in their stores.

Starbucks says it does not want to have to bar customers who are abiding by the law. But when Starbucks bars someone who is not wearing a shirt or shoes from its stores, or ejects someone who is loud and offensive, it is barring a customer who is abiding by the law. It is not against the law to dress differently or to exercise free speech rights, but it may be against company policy.

Retail businesses have the right to set policies that go beyond the minimum requirements of the law in running their businesses. Starbucks has a policy that endangers its customers and employees, particularly since there are virtually no restrictions on who can openly carry guns — no permits, no training, no proficiency requirements and no knowledge of the laws is required. And since law-abiding gun owners can drop, lose or unintentionally misuse guns, allowing openly carried guns in Starbucks is bad policy. (Indeed, just this past September a gun activist at an “open carry” picnic was charged with reckless use of a firearm after his gun went off in a parking lot.) As long as it maintains that policy, we will be critical of that policy.

The gun extremist want an America where there are guns everywhere: not just in coffeehouses, but also in bars, churches, parks, banks and classrooms.

By capitulating to the gun extremists because they want this issue to “go away,” Starbucks has made a hazardous mistake. Having seen what the gun pushers demand when they are given an inch, I again urge the company to reconsider its policy.

Note to readers: This entry, along with past entries, has been co-posted on blog.bradycampaign.org and the Huffington Post.

Gun Holster

The March 14th Associated Press Exclusive story entitled “Pentagon gun was from Tenn. Police” is a perfect example of our failed gun policies in the United States. Lets review the simple facts. Because there is no national law requiring a criminal background check for all gun sales in the United States, including private sales in 33 States and at thousands of annual gun shows, John Patrick Bedell, with a long history of mental illness, was able to buy his two handguns at a Las Vegas gun show without a background check and then shoot Military Guards at the Pentagon. Incredibly one of the weapons, a 9mm Ruger had been confiscated from a convicted felon by the Memphis Tenn. police at a 2005 traffic stop and then traded to a gun dealer by the Department to raise money for the Memphis Police budget. The weapon then made it's way to a private gun seller at a Nevada gun show and the rest is history.

Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for Police departments to resell their service weapons. In fact, gun dealers will pay a premium for police weapons and then resell them to “private gun dealers” and criminals who perversely covet former police weapons. Many police departments like Boston have stopped this dangerous and short sighted resale practice and hopefully the Pentagon shooting will encourage all police departments across the US to follow their lead.

It's equally common for criminals and terrorists to exploit the same private gun sale loophole that the Pentagon shooter, John Bedell used. At thousands gun shows each year in the US, criminals and terrorists are allowed to purchase firearms from private gun dealers without an ID or background check. Although many dealers at gun shows are federally licensed and therefore legally required to contact the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NCIS) to ensure that a prospective purchaser is not prohibited from possessing firearms, private sellers have no such requirement. This dangerous “gun show loophole” has allowed criminals and terrorists to legally buy and sell guns in the US on a cash-and-carry, no-questions-asked basis for years. The following are just a few proven and frightening examples of how terrorists and criminals have bought guns undetected at US Gun Shows.

A manual titled, “How Can I Train Myself for Jihad” was found among the rubble at a training facility for a radical Pakistan-based Islamic terrorist organization. The manual contains a chapter on “Firearms Training” and singles out the US for its easy availability of firearms and states that al-Qaeda members in the US can “obtain an assault weapon legally, preferably AK-47 or variations”. In Texas, Muhammad Asrar was arrested in an investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. He pleaded guilty to immigration violations and illegal possession of ammunition. The Pakistani store owner said he had bought handguns, rifles and a submachine gun at gun shows since 1994. On September 10, 2001, just one day before the devastating attacks against the United States, Ali Boumelhem was convicted on a variety of weapons violations plus conspiracy to ship weapons to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon. He and his brother Mohamed had purchased an arsenal of shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, flash suppressors and assault weapons parts from Michigan gun shows without undergoing background checks.

On April 20, 1999, in the deadliest High school shooting in United States history in Littleton Colorado, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold procured two shotguns, an assault rifle and a TEC-9 assault pistol and shot 26 students, killing 13 of them before turning the guns on themselves. Subsequent investigation by the ATF found that all four of the weapons had been purchased from private sellers at gun shows. Some of the guns were purchased for the killers by their friend, Robyn Anderson. Later, Ms. Anderson would state publicly that, had she been required to undergo a background check at the gun show, she would not have purchased the guns for the teens.

Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh used Texas gun shows to make large gun purchases. According to an ATF arrest warrant, Koresh and his cult made “regular purchases of weapons and ammunition flea markets and gun shows.” In the end, authorities estimated that Koresh had at least 200 automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles stockpiled, plus thousands of rounds of ammunition. Finally Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was a “Private Seller” at Gun Shows. He along with accomplice Michael Fortier, admitted to stealing $60,000 worth of shotguns, rifles and handguns from an Arkansas gun collector's ranch and then reselling the stolen weapons at gun shows.

It's just common sense that buyers and sellers at gun shows be required to abide by the same reasonable standards that law abiding gun buyers and the majority of Federally Licensed gun dealers comply with. It's not too much to ask that criminals, terrorists and people with a history of mental illness who have been known to exploit the “Gun Show Loophole” undergo criminal background checks and show ID's before they buy guns in the US. The majority of Americans including gun owners like myself support closing this dangerous loophole. It's time for the President and Congress to act.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee produced the Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act (H.R. 257). Section Three in Rep. Lee's proposal would impose ten-year prison sentences upon firearm sellers if they have "reasonable cause to know" that their customers intend criminality. Section Four criminalizes the sale of a firearm without an approved security device. Section Five effectively forbids keeping a loaded firearm for self-defense whenever a child is present, much like H.R. 45. Section Six requires adult chaperones for minors at gun shows. Under Section Six (b)(8), the offending parent can be charged with child abandonment.

Gun Holster

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Matt York / AP Photo

The Supreme Court heard a new gun-control case yesterday that has Second Amendment activists thinking they’ve won, but Adam Winkler says that despite the hype, nothing is likely to change.

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in a landmark Second Amendment case. Two years ago, the court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protected the right of individuals to own guns. That case, District of Columbia v. Heller, involved a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., a federal territory. Left unresolved in Heller was whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms applied to state and local laws. Yesterday’s case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, will answer that question.

Court watchers unanimously predict that gun-rights proponents will win. I was at the oral argument and the justices appeared ready to apply the Second Amendment to the state and local governments. Alarmists on the left have warned that such a victory for gun-rights advocates could spell the end of gun control. Gun-rights groups, like the NRA, hope the alarmists are right. They pray that courts will begin striking down gun-control laws in state after state.

Heller is directly responsible for all those gun-control laws being upheld. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority decision went out of its way to say that the right to bear arms is not infringed by many forms of gun control.

But even if the justices rule that the Second Amendment applies to state and local laws, the results are likely to defy the extremists on both sides. Nearly all state and local gun laws are going to survive.

The Supreme Court that heard yesterday’s argument isn’t the same as the one that voted 5-4 to strike down D.C.’s handgun ban. The composition of the court has changed with the addition of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. No one knows how she’ll vote in the case before the court. As a lower-court judge, she voted against applying the Second Amendment to the states. But that tells us less than it might appear. Her court had ruled against extending the Second Amendment to the states in an earlier case and she was bound by that precedent. Supreme Court justices, by contrast, aren’t bound by precedent in the same way—as the decisions of the Roberts Court keep reminding us.

Strong supporters of gun rights assume Justice Sotomayor will vote like her predecessor, Justice David Souter, who dissented in Heller. No matter. They are counting on the same five justices who gave them a majority before to side with them again. If those justices come through—as they seemed prepared to do yesterday—gun-rights advocates will have won the ability to challenge “the 20,000 state and local gun-control laws” the NRA likes to complain about.

Extending the Second Amendment to the states seems like a major expansion of gun rights. On closer examination, the expansion isn’t that great. Most states already protect the right of individuals to own guns. Forty-two of the 50 states have provisions in their own state constitutions guaranteeing the individual right to bear arms. Even the eight states without constitutional guarantees all permit citizens to own firearms and use them for personal self-defense.

The interesting thing about the right to bear arms in state constitutions is what courts do when faced with challenges to gun-control laws: They uphold them. For over a century, state judges have been ruling on the constitutionality of every conceivable type of gun control. Yet very few gun-control laws have been invalidated. In most states, not a single gun-control law has ever been struck down by the courts for violating the right to bear arms. Courts tend to defer to lawmakers and permit them wide leeway to balance public safety and crime control with the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves against attack.

Ankle HolsterThe benefits of having decent citizens carry concealed guns outweigh the one-in-ten-million chance that one of those citizens will turn not-so-decent and shoot you. Law-abiding Americans brandish handguns in 2.5 million defensive incidents a year — once every 12½ seconds. In most cases, a gun's mere appearance settles a brewing conflict. The National Center for Policy Analysis found that major crime plunges when law-abiding citizens carry concealed handguns . The same NCPA study, covering every American county, found that murders dropped by 8.5 percent, while rapes and serious assaults fell up to 7 percent in states with licensed concealed carry. Furthermore, if states without licensed concealed carry would institute it, then 1570 murders, 4180 rapes, and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would not happen each year.

When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982, it was part of a trend. Washington, D.C. had done it in 1976, and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years. They all expected to reduce the number of guns and thus curtail bloodshed.

District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer told The Washington Post in 2007, “It's a pretty common-sense idea that the more guns there are around, the more gun violence you'll have.” Nadine Winters, a member of the Washington city council in 1976, said she assumed at the time that the policy “would spread to other places.”

But the fad never really caught fire — even before last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. law and cast doubt on the others, including the Chicago ordinance before the court Tuesday. The Second Amendment may kill such restrictions, but in most places, it wasn't needed to keep them from hatching in the first place.

Maybe that's because there were so many flaws in the basic idea. Or maybe it was because strict gun control makes even less sense at the municipal level than it does on a broader scale. At any rate, the policy turned out to be a comprehensive dud.

In the years following its ban, Washington did not generate a decline in gun murders. In fact, the number of killings rose by 156 percent — at a time when murders nationally increased by just 32 percent. For a while, the city vied regularly for the title of murder capital of America.

Chicago followed a similar course. In the decade after it outlawed handguns, murders jumped by 41 percent, compared to an 18 percent rise in the entire United States.

One problem is that the bans didn't actually have any discernible effect on the availability of guns to people with felonious intent. As with drugs and hookers, when there is a demand for guns, there will always be a supply.

Who places the highest value on owning a firearm? Criminals. Who is least likely to fear being prosecuted for violating the law? Criminals. Who is most likely to have access to illicit dealers? You guessed it.

If we were starting out in a country with zero guns, it might be possible to keep such weapons away from bad guys. But that's not this country, which has more than 200 million firearms in private hands and a large perpetual supply of legal handguns.
Continued…

Gun holster

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When I watched Contessa Brewer on MSNBC raise the question whether or not a protest was racist in which she showed a man have his gun around his chest and his holster. MSNBC did an entire discussion on are these protests, these gun-wielding freaks, are they racist. Does everybody here know what happened with that photo where they cut the head off? That was an African-American gentleman. That my friends is not media bias. That is contempt for the American people.

In order to create the perception that the minority is the majority and the majority is not just the minority, but a bad, racist, homophobic, all those buzzwords that they learned in the freshman orientation class at Wesleyan, are used as weapons to try to destroy you and intimidate you to not speak up and to speak your mind. And your days of doing this are over. It's not your business model that sucks, it's you that sucks.

According to Jim Hoft, Breitbart finished his address with one further threat to the media: "If you don't start reporting the truth I will organize a protest in New York City on Madison Avenue and you won't be able to escape to the Hamptons for the weekend."

Bravo!

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.

Gun holster

Currently, visitors to national parks are allowed to possess guns only if they're stored out of reach and unloaded. All this will change on February 22, 2010, when park visitors will be able to possess firearms in national park areas consistent with the laws of the state in which the area is located.

The change is the result of an amendment sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) added to the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009 signed into law by President Obama last May.

To mark this National Rifle Association-backed change, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR) issued a release this week offering examples of what visitors may soon be experiencing in our national parks. According to the CNPSR:

• Yellowstone National Park (WY, MT, ID): In the world's first national park, Yellowstone, while watching Old Faithful erupt you could be in the company of other park visitors wearing holsters and handguns. In the evening campfire circle, you may sit next to someone who can legally carry a shotgun or rifle to that special place. Anyone hiking in the backcountry can openly carry guns, increasing the risk to other hikers and park wildlife.
• Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts (VA): Virginia's gun laws are very permissive. The grounds of Wolf Trap, including the “lawn seating area,” will be open to people carrying firearms.
• Grand Canyon National Park (AZ): Arizona's gun laws are very permissive and while standing on Mather Point, enjoying the breathtaking view of the canyon, you could see another visitor with an assault rifle slung on his shoulder. At your campsite in the park's campground, you could see guns prominently displayed in the campsite next to you.
• Mesa Verde National Park (CO): Colorado law is very permissive about open carry of firearms except in some cities. During your visit to Cliff Palace, you could be listening to the ranger's interpretive discussion while standing next to someone with a handgun and holster prominently displayed.
• Gettysburg National Military Battlefield (PA): Pennsylvania is also a very permissive state relative to gun laws. During your tour of the battlefield, you could encounter other visitors legally carrying rifles–and not the historic kind.
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park (NM): At the evening bat flight program and even on the cave tours, you could be joined by others openly carrying firearms. As you wander through the park's restaurant and gift store, looking for a bite to eat or a souvenir to buy, other visitors might be seen legally carrying firearms.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park (TN and NC): This park is an example of one of the problems visitors will face with the new law. In North Carolina, there are few gun restrictions and visitors could be seen openly carrying guns. However, if you happen to be a gun-carrying visitor, you will need a “carry permit” when you cross into the part of the park located in Tennessee.
• Mount Rainier National Park (WA): While hiking the famous “Wonderland Trail” you could encounter other hikers openly carrying handguns, rifles or shotguns.
• Denali National Park and Preserve (AK): While riding on an NPS-licensed bus operated by the park concessioner on a day-long trip on the “park road” (the only way to get into the heart of the park other than to hike) you could be sitting next to someone with a handgun in a holster.

Not surprisingly, the Coburn Amendment was opposed by every major parks organization, including in addition to CNPSR, the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police and the National Parks Conservation Association.

But they're only the stewards and defenders of our national parks. Apparently it's the National Rifle Association that owns them.

When I watched Contessa Brewer on MSNBC raise the question whether or not a protest was racist in which she showed a man have his gun around his chest and his holster. MSNBC did an entire discussion on are these protests, these gun-wielding freaks, are they racist. Does everybody here know what happened with that photo where they cut the head off? That was an African-American gentleman. That my friends is not media bias. That is contempt for the American people.

In order to create the perception that the minority is the majority and the majority is not just the minority, but a bad, racist, homophobic, all those buzzwords that they learned in the freshman orientation class at Wesleyan, are used as weapons to try to destroy you and intimidate you to not speak up and to speak your mind. And your days of doing this are over. It's not your business model that sucks, it's you that sucks.

According to Jim Hoft, Breitbart finished his address with one further threat to the media: "If you don't start reporting the truth I will organize a protest in New York City on Madison Avenue and you won't be able to escape to the Hamptons for the weekend."

Bravo!

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.

Gun holster

Currently, visitors to national parks are allowed to possess guns only if they're stored out of reach and unloaded. All this will change on February 22, 2010, when park visitors will be able to possess firearms in national park areas consistent with the laws of the state in which the area is located.

The change is the result of an amendment sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) added to the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009 signed into law by President Obama last May.

To mark this National Rifle Association-backed change, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR) issued a release this week offering examples of what visitors may soon be experiencing in our national parks. According to the CNPSR:

• Yellowstone National Park (WY, MT, ID): In the world's first national park, Yellowstone, while watching Old Faithful erupt you could be in the company of other park visitors wearing holsters and handguns. In the evening campfire circle, you may sit next to someone who can legally carry a shotgun or rifle to that special place. Anyone hiking in the backcountry can openly carry guns, increasing the risk to other hikers and park wildlife.
• Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts (VA): Virginia's gun laws are very permissive. The grounds of Wolf Trap, including the “lawn seating area,” will be open to people carrying firearms.
• Grand Canyon National Park (AZ): Arizona's gun laws are very permissive and while standing on Mather Point, enjoying the breathtaking view of the canyon, you could see another visitor with an assault rifle slung on his shoulder. At your campsite in the park's campground, you could see guns prominently displayed in the campsite next to you.
• Mesa Verde National Park (CO): Colorado law is very permissive about open carry of firearms except in some cities. During your visit to Cliff Palace, you could be listening to the ranger's interpretive discussion while standing next to someone with a handgun and holster prominently displayed.
• Gettysburg National Military Battlefield (PA): Pennsylvania is also a very permissive state relative to gun laws. During your tour of the battlefield, you could encounter other visitors legally carrying rifles–and not the historic kind.
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park (NM): At the evening bat flight program and even on the cave tours, you could be joined by others openly carrying firearms. As you wander through the park's restaurant and gift store, looking for a bite to eat or a souvenir to buy, other visitors might be seen legally carrying firearms.
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park (TN and NC): This park is an example of one of the problems visitors will face with the new law. In North Carolina, there are few gun restrictions and visitors could be seen openly carrying guns. However, if you happen to be a gun-carrying visitor, you will need a “carry permit” when you cross into the part of the park located in Tennessee.
• Mount Rainier National Park (WA): While hiking the famous “Wonderland Trail” you could encounter other hikers openly carrying handguns, rifles or shotguns.
• Denali National Park and Preserve (AK): While riding on an NPS-licensed bus operated by the park concessioner on a day-long trip on the “park road” (the only way to get into the heart of the park other than to hike) you could be sitting next to someone with a handgun in a holster.

Not surprisingly, the Coburn Amendment was opposed by every major parks organization, including in addition to CNPSR, the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police and the National Parks Conservation Association.

But they're only the stewards and defenders of our national parks. Apparently it's the National Rifle Association that owns them.

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Gun holster

When I watched Contessa Brewer on MSNBC raise the question whether or not a protest was racist in which she showed a man have his gun around his chest and his holster. MSNBC did an entire discussion on are these protests, these gun-wielding freaks, are they racist. Does everybody here know what happened with that photo where they cut the head off? That was an African-American gentleman. That my friends is not media bias. That is contempt for the American people.

In order to create the perception that the minority is the majority and the majority is not just the minority, but a bad, racist, homophobic, all those buzzwords that they learned in the freshman orientation class at Wesleyan, are used as weapons to try to destroy you and intimidate you to not speak up and to speak your mind. And your days of doing this are over. It's not your business model that sucks, it's you that sucks.

According to Jim Hoft, Breitbart finished his address with one further threat to the media: "If you don't start reporting the truth I will organize a protest in New York City on Madison Avenue and you won't be able to escape to the Hamptons for the weekend."

Bravo!

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.

It was a rainy kind of morning, you know the way they get sometimes in the big city. You look out the window and you're pretty sure it's pouring down on the street below, but you can't really tell until you look down and see the forest of cheap black umbrellas going by. I'd just had my 16th cup of coffee, and cleaned my gun for the sixth time since last Wednesday. All things being equal, maintaining an overly clean sidearm is one of the more minor sins of law enforcement, unless you're like my colleague, McGinty, whose snub-nosed .38 was so well-lubricated (not unlike its owner) that it slipped out of its holster, hit the ground and blew his ear off. That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, though. You gotta think it was, anyway.

Anyhow, I was just about ready to fall face first into my oatmeal when the Twitter alarm went off. It's a recent addition to our office. We put it right next to the scanner that monitors all incoming calls from officers in the field. We're not the only department with the new hardware. Just this week, police in England arrested some perpetrator who expressed the intention of blowing up Robin Hood airport, wherever the heck that is, if they didn't clear their snow-bound runways in time for his departure for Ireland. Guy thought he was kidding. Big joke. The Twitter bobbies confiscated his IPhone, laptop and computer, and he's banned for life from that airport. He's out on bail now, awaiting trial. I guess they'll throw the book at him. You can't be too careful. Guy says he was only kidding, but how can you tell in a Twitter? You can't. Tone of voice is very hard to establish.

Keeping an eye on these kinds of things are what guys like me are all about. New times create new criminals and new police officers to meet the new challenge. We're here to keep you safe from the wrong kind of Twitters and the Twitterers who Twitter them. Knowledge is power, you know, even an itty-bitty amount of it.

Not all of us Twitter policemen have the same outlook and duties, of course. Every place has its own idea of what should not be Twittered. In Guatemala, for instance, some individual decided to undermine the credibility of his local bank, which he said was corrupt. “First concrete action should be take cash out of Banrural and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt,” he Twittered. They arrested him. Searched his home. Kept him in a maximum-security prison with bigtime skells for a day and a half before letting him out on bail. That will teach him to impugn the honesty of Guatemalan banking officials.

And just a couple of months ago, at that big economic conference in Pittsburgh, the FBI managed to nab some guy who thought he could help those anarchists avoid arrest by Twittering police locations. Raided his house in Queens. Got the goods on him. This particular individual seems to be a social worker of some kind who belongs to several suspicious groups that advise protesters on their rights during confrontational actions. Just the idea of a person like that being on the street makes us Twitter police very nervous.

Twitters are dangerous, see. The messages are brief, but so are most of the subversive messages that have been sent and received by trouble-makers over the years. Think about it. “Give me liberty or give me death,” for instance. That did a world of damage. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” That Mao fellow got pretty far with that one. How about “Who moved my cheese?” That sold a lot of books for no reason I can ascertain. When it comes to riling people up, size doesn't matter is my point. Your punchy Twitter is worth a bunch of screeds.

Anyhow, that's what me and McGinty and Spitz and Mazilewski are here for. We're the Twitter police. We sit around most of the day doing nothing, eating doughnuts, making sure our pieces are well-oiled. But every now and then, like right now, that little alarm goes off and we hit the street. You can thank us of you like. Ignore us at your peril. And watch those little jokes, ladies and gentlemen. We don't have a very good sense of humor when the safety of the State is at stake. And we're coming to a town right near you.

Gun holster

I'm down blogging today at the Hard Bean Coffee & Booksellers Cafe in Annapolis, Maryland on what is a beautiful day to think about Martin Luther King, Jr. My hunch is that if the great reverend were around on his own day, I think he'd be tearing down other walls of discrimination, particularly Don't Ask Don't Tell prohibiting military service by “out” gay men and women.

But driving out here from Washington, I was impressed with the quality of roads and “the look” of Highway 50. I have a couple of places I hide in Maryland — one in Chestertown, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore and another way at the tip of the opposite end of the state in McHenry, Maryland near Deep Creek Lake.

These hideaways are on completely different ends of this state, but the roads are fantastic, and the greenery is well tended between those two ends. I bet there are folks reading this who know pot holes or bad roads that frustrate them — but sorry, Maryland really does a great job taking care of its infrastructure compared to many other states I have visited.

Maryland's public schools have also been ranked this last week by Education Week as the best in the nation — highlighting Maryland's ongoing commitment to fully funding education and raising teacher salaries despite the severe economic conditions today.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley deserves a great deal of credit for this. I razz him sometimes — but he's one of the few governors I know who works hard at public policy and thinks things through.

One of the recent areas of action by O'Malley that has won him praise from most quarters is taking action to restore the oyster beds in Chesapeake Bay. I heard about this from none other than Obama National Security Adviser General Jim Jones and his wife Diane who clearly prefer their time at their home on the Chesapeake Bay to the Washington scene. They are thrilled that O'Malley is working to get the oyster beds back in shape — and I am too.

Healthy environments, healthy communities, healthy schools, healthy people — I think that's how it goes.

I've been privileged to sit in on one of the Governor's policy salon dinners that asked tough questions about how to make Maryland a bigger player in climate change policy — and how to deal with the business community in a fair, square way in reaching those goals. Those around the table were as eclectic as the challenge — and the Governor and his wife were really into the discussion. So was former presidential candidate and Colorado US Senator Gary Hart for whom O'Malley was once an advance man.

I have no idea if anything lurks in Martin O'Malley's past that would preempt a run for the White House. We seem to want a purity of spirit and behavior in our elected officials that seems completely unrealistic to me — but that said, what I can say is that O'Malley is of the policy caliber and demonstrates a rare management excellence over a large and effective state bureaucracy that makes him a very credible candidate for the US presidency.

Blue T-shirt wearing gun freedom advocates, of Maryland Shall Issue, who want to deter crime by everyone carrying around a pistol in a visible holster have descended on the Annapolis State House today — and some are in the coffee shop now. They seem like nice folks other than that I think they are a bit off on gun proliferation — but O'Malley seems to manage the competing factions on handguns, environmental regulation, gay rights, education, and health care very well without selling his soul.

President Obama should spend some time in Annapolis checking in with Martin O'Malley and his operation here.

O'Malley should have the President to a policy discussion in the Governor's Mansion (and invite me). With all due respect to President Obama who is working these issues hard, I think he might learn some things about how both to achieve policy results while keeping a base of reasonable centrists and progressives on board.

– Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note. Clemons can be followed on Twitter @SCClemons

When I watched Contessa Brewer on MSNBC raise the question whether or not a protest was racist in which she showed a man have his gun around his chest and his holster. MSNBC did an entire discussion on are these protests, these gun-wielding freaks, are they racist. Does everybody here know what happened with that photo where they cut the head off? That was an African-American gentleman. That my friends is not media bias. That is contempt for the American people.

In order to create the perception that the minority is the majority and the majority is not just the minority, but a bad, racist, homophobic, all those buzzwords that they learned in the freshman orientation class at Wesleyan, are used as weapons to try to destroy you and intimidate you to not speak up and to speak your mind. And your days of doing this are over. It's not your business model that sucks, it's you that sucks.

According to Jim Hoft, Breitbart finished his address with one further threat to the media: "If you don't start reporting the truth I will organize a protest in New York City on Madison Avenue and you won't be able to escape to the Hamptons for the weekend."

Bravo!

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.