U.N. Beating Guns Drums
Even the Pope got involved in last week's United Nations push to ban "Illicit" firearms trafficking - which they
consider to be anything except carefully regulated sales between governments.
The Vatican's U.N. ambassador was all for the international gun control scheme as were virtually all nations except the U.S. It's
particularly popular in Canada, Japan, and brutal dictatorships.
There was a lot of hype in the foreign press, though not much that I saw in the U.S.
Canada offered to help other nations create a national gun registration system like their own - which is projected to cost over
$1 billion.
Canada's U.N. representatives weren't pleased when Canadian opponents of the system uncovered evidence a few days ago -- and announced at
the meeting -- that a rifle stolen a decade ago, and long entered in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police listing of stolen guns, had been
registered three times since the theft.
When the registered owner tried to sell the gun June 29 the sale was blocked. Advocates said that showed the system worked. Right.
The anti-gun crowd has been putting out press releases and waving
the bloody shirt about the workplace murders in Missouri and Mississippi, and the murders of an assistant school principal's
family.
Surprisingly, the press hasn't said much about those tragedies - perhaps because Democrats are nervous about saying much about gun
control - or the fact that the guns used were all pretty ordinary.
Missouri Gov. Bob Holden and a few others have called for reexamination of state police policy of trading in used guns, like
the .40 Glock used in those killings. But even the head of an anti-gun group which wants discarded police guns - and the rest -
melted down, acknowledges that it wouldn't diminish the availability of guns.
In Mississippi, there have been efforts to crank up the propaganda machine because the Meridian killer carried a .223 semi-auto rifle
- what some call an "assault weapon" - but that gun wasn't fired. He used only an ordinary shotgun.
One piece of good news: A.B. 50, the California bill to ban .50
BMG rifles and ammo, was voted down in committee.
In London and around the globe there are fresh efforts to ban toy
guns - including in the Annapolis, Maryland, city council.
Supposedly this would reduce the terror of having a robber shove a realistic-looking pistol in your face, or prevent a cop from
shooting a kid by mistake. But what it's really about, as banners in Brunei, Borneo acknowledge, is preventing toy guns from
"nurturing the gun culture."
Son Chris just forwarded me a copy of a March 27 letter from
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) to Phoenix City Councilman Dave Siebert (D) joining him in opposing the year-long effort to sell
off all or part of the Ben Avery Shooting Facility.
Gov. Napolitano assured him of "My strong support for protecting the Ben Avery Range in its present location." That was welcome
news.
You would think that would put a stop to selling the range to developers. But the Arizona Game & Fish Commission report of the
committee looking at "development" of the range says at their June meeting they merely set aside a proposal to have yet another
consultant study the range's future.
If Commission Hayes Gilstrap (and wife, who works for apartment developers) aren't trying to move Ben Avery, why wasn't the
proposal for a consultant killed?
The Ben Avery - the Black Canyon Range renamed for my friend who created it - is a treasure for shooters in Phoenix and across the
nation.
Friends in the Senate tell me that with a major push to get
appropriations bills passed before the August recess, and a promise from Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to devote the
final week to energy issues, chances of action on S. 659 are thin.
But it could happen, for the Republican leadership is working to pass it -- which indicates NRA-ILA is busy.
The bill, which has overwhelmingly passed the House, would put a stop to the frivolous, malicious lawsuits intended to bankrupt
the gun industry. It is stuck at 54 co-sponsors, well short of the 60 needed to head off Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.)
promised filibuster.
But commitments to vote for the bill -- or an amendment -- and to end a filibuster are reportedly mighty close.
There's a Senate rule against "legislating on an appropriations bill" but it happens all the time -- when the Senate wants
something.
Washington, D.C. is again the nation's murder capital. The reason was
made clear in a July 6 Washington Times article by 13-year-D.C. Police Detective Stephen McDonald.
Detective McDonald angrily reported how a two-time loser on gun charges did his best to kill Police Detective Anthony McGee,
shooting him three times this spring.
After pleading guilty to attempted murder, Judge Susan Winfield gave the felon such a light sentence that he will serve only two
years in prison - less than the time it will take Detective McGee to fully recover from his wounds.
What a travesty.
Minnesota's anti-gunners - of which there are many - are still in
shock, and incessantly whining about the new shall-issue concealed carry license that friends Joe Olson and David Gross
drafted, then skillfully pushed through the legislature.
Joe, a professor at Hamline University Law School, was treated to the kind of awed article in the July 6 Saint Paul Pioneer Press
that is usually reserved for powerful leftist politicos.
I've known Joe for many years, and served with him on the NRA Board (he and Dave, like most friends of Knox, were evicted by
the current leadership's "Do Not Vote For" list). But I learned much about Joe in that article.
For instance, as a summer job before law school he worked for the Office of Economic Opportunity in North Carolina and "discovered
there were people in bedsheets that wanted to kill me."
Just three years after three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, Joe's co-workers were startled to learn he didn't
have a gun, and loaned him one. He twice caused harassers to back off by showing he had it.
That's when Joe "got into guns." He's now licensed to carry in several states, and guides Academics for the Second Amendment -
which is responsible for many law review pieces and other articles supporting the Right To Keep and Bear Arms.
It would be great to see him - and fellow attorney Dave Gross - back on the NRA Board.
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