Bloomberg Is Sued Over City’s Handgun Permit Fee

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

A gun-rights-advocacy group sued Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Tuesday, claiming that the city fee for obtaining a home-handgun permit was so excessive that it impinged on the Second Amendment.

The group, the Second Amendment Foundation, based in Bellevue, Wash., is focusing on New York’s fees because, according to the group, the city is one of the few places in the country that requires people to obtain permits to keep guns in their homes.

The city’s fee is $340, plus a $94.25 charge for a fingerprint check. The fee in most other places in the state is $10, according to the foundation. Mr. Bloomberg has long been a staunch supporter of gun control and has made efforts to reduce the traffic in guns into the city through sting operations, lawsuits against gun dealers and other antigun measures.

The city’s fee for obtaining a home gun permit has long been in place.

The suit, filed in federal court, claims that the city’s fee is so exorbitant that it “impermissibly burdens the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” and the suit argues that because city residents are forced to pay more than others, the fee also violates the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.

Last year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of an individual’s right to bear arms applies to state and local gun-control laws. Two years earlier, it applied Second Amendment protection under federal law.

In an interview, Alan Gottlieb, the executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, said that New York City’s fee had been on the group’s radar for a while, and that the two recent Supreme Court decisions were “cornerstones for future Second Amendment litigation.”

“We needed those decisions to affirm that this right is protected in your own home,” Mr. Gottlieb said. “That’s what made it right to bring this lawsuit. This is an excessive fee being charged to exercise a fundamental right in your own home.”

A spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department said lawyers were reviewing the suit.

The Bloomberg administration announced nearly a year ago that it was moving to speed up and simplify the process for getting a gun permit, and reducing fees for permit renewals.

A spokeswoman for the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, who was also named in the suit, declined to comment.

Fearing Obama Agenda, States Push to Loosen Gun Laws

When President Obama took office, gun rights advocates sounded the alarm, warning that he intended to strip them of their arms and ammunition.

And yet the opposite is happening. Mr. Obama has been largely silent on the issue while states are engaged in a new and largely successful push for expanded gun rights, even passing measures that have been rejected in the past.

In Virginia, the General Assembly approved a bill last week that allows people to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and the House of Delegates voted to repeal a 17-year-old ban on buying more than one handgun a month. The actions came less than three years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives and prompted a major national push for increased gun control.

Arizona and Wyoming lawmakers are considering nearly a half dozen pro-gun measures, including one that would allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. And lawmakers in Montana and Tennessee passed measures last year — the first of their kind — to exempt their states from federal regulation of firearms and ammunition that are made, sold and used in state. Similar bills have been proposed in at least three other states.

In the meantime, gun control advocates say, Mr. Obama has failed to deliver on campaign promises to close a loophole that allows unlicensed dealers at gun shows to sell firearms without background checks; to revive the assault weapons ban; and to push states to release data about guns used in crimes.

He also signed bills last year allowing guns to be carried in national parks and in luggage on Amtrak trains.

“We expected a very different picture at this stage,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that last month issued a report card failing the administration in all seven of the group’s major indicators.

Gun control advocates have had some successes recently, Mr. Helmke said. Proposed bills to allow students to carry guns on college campuses have been blocked in the 20 or so states where they have been proposed since the Virginia Tech shootings. Last year, New Jersey limited gun purchases to one a month, a law similar to the one Virginia may revoke.

But recent setbacks to gun control have been many.

Last month, the Indiana legislature passed bills that block private employers from forbidding workers to keep firearms in their vehicles on company property.

Gun rights supporters also showed their strength last year by blocking legislation to give District of Columbia residents a full vote in Congress by attaching an amendment to repeal Washington’s ban on handguns.

Asked by reporters about the Brady group’s critical report on the Obama administration, a White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, pointed out that the latest F.B.I. statistics showed that violent crime dropped in the first half of 2009 to its lowest levels since the 1960s.

“The president supports and respects the Second Amendment,” Mr. LaBolt said, “and he believes we can take common-sense steps to keep our streets safe and to stem the flow of illegal guns to criminals.”

Still, gun rights groups remain skeptical of the administration.

“The watchword for gun owners is stay ready,” said Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association. “We have had some successes, but we know that the first chance Obama gets, he will pounce on us.”

That Mr. Obama signed legislation allowing guns in national parks and on Amtrak trains should not be seen as respect for the Second Amendment, Mr. LaPierre said. The two measures had been attached as amendments to larger pieces of legislation — a bill cracking down on credit card companies and a transportation appropriations bill, respectively — that the president wanted passed, Mr. LaPierre said.

Regardless of Mr. Obama’s agenda, gun dealers seem to be reaping the benefits of fears surrounding it.

Federal background checks for gun purchases rose to 14 million in 2009, up from 12.7 million in 2008 and 11.2 million in 2007. But from November 2009 to January 2010, the number of background checks fell 12 percent, compared with the same months a year earlier.

In Virginia, the success of new pro-gun laws is partly a result of the Republican Party’s taking the governor’s office after eight years of Democratic control.

A major setback for state gun control advocates was this week’s House vote repealing the one-gun-per-month law, which was passed in 1993 under Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, and has long been upheld as the state’s signature gun control restriction.

Supporters of limiting gun purchases to one a month said the law was important to avoid Virginia’s becoming the East Coast’s top gun-running hub. Opponents dismissed the concern.

“We shouldn’t get rid of our Second Amendment rights because some people in New York City want to abuse theirs,” Robert G. Marshall, a Republican delegate from Manassas who supported repeal of the one-gun-a-month limit, told reporters.

Gun control advocates hoped to win new restrictions after the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007, in which a student, Seung-Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself.

After the shooting, Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, pushed for stronger gun control measures. But last year the legislature rejected a bill requiring background checks for private sales at gun shows and repealed a law that Mr. Kaine had supported to prohibit anyone from carrying concealed weapons into a club or restaurant where alcohol is served.

In previous years, the guns-in-bars bill cleared both chambers but was vetoed by Mr. Kaine. But the new governor, Robert F. McDonnell, has said he supports the measure.

Virginia is also considering a measure adopted in Montana and Tennessee that declares that firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress. The measure is primarily a challenge to Congress’s power to regulate commerce among the states.

The Montana law is being challenged in federal court, and the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has sent a letter to Tennessee and Montana gun dealers stating that federal law supersedes the state measure.

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Police want all officers to have own assault rifles

By STEVEN ELBOW The Capital Times selbow@madison.com | Posted: Sunday, October 4, 2009 8:50 am

Madison police officials have tried for years to get more assault rifles, but the City Council hasn't wanted to cough up the money. Now the Police Department has a solution: Have the officers buy their own.

The department wants to assign an AR-15 assault rifle to each of its roughly 300 operations officers, those that routinely patrol the streets or drive squad cars in the line of duty. But the department is about 100 rifles short. The reason behind the push to buy more is to allow each officer to have a weapon that is adjusted for accuracy based on the officer's size and shooting style.

The City Council is expected to approve the proposal Tuesday, but some are concerned that the officers who own the weapons will be allowed to take them home, potentially increasing the chance that they will be lost or stolen.

"The question that many of us have is: What do you do?" says Ald. Paul Skidmore, a member of the Public Safety Review Committee, which endorsed the measure last month. "If you take it home at night, do you throw it in the back of the car? You throw it in the trunk? What if it gets stolen and somebody uses it? There are a whole number of problems that could happen."

Skidmore offered an amendment that would have required to leave the weapons at work at the end of their shifts, but it was shot down by the committee.

Capt. Vic Wahl says the Police Department approached the mayor's office with the plan, and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz subsequently offered a resolution for the city to buy the weapons, which go for about $1,200 a pop. Officers can then buy the rifles from the city in 52 payroll-deducted payments.

It's similar to how the department issues handguns, which officers purchase on a 26-week payroll-deduction program.

For years, says Wahl, officers have been able to take their sidearms home, and even carry them when they're off duty.

"It hasn't been a problem," he says.

But Skidmore says long rifles pose a different set of problems.

"You carry it on your side," Skidmore says of pistols. "You don't throw it in the back of the car when you drive home."

Wahl says if officers owned the weapons, the department couldn't stop them from taking them home, adding that there are sound reasons for doing so. Since the officers would be responsible for maintaining the weapons, they would likely have to take them home to do that, or they might want to have them on hand to take to the shooting range. At any rate, Wahl anticipates that officers would opt most often to secure their rifles at work. If they did take them home, Wahl says, there would be policies and standards in place to prevent problems.

"Obviously, people can't be armed when they've been consuming alcohol, and certainly there are expectations on how they would be carrying them to and from work," he says, adding that officers will be held to a much higher standard that the general public.

"Joe Citizen can go out and buy a rifle today and throw it in the back of his trunk and go to the grocery store or have a beer, and that's all, in most cases, perfectly legal," he says.

From the department's perspective, the core issue is weapon accuracy, Wahl says. In order for officers to be able to hit what they're aiming at, each one needs their own personalized rifle.

Under the current system, one officer adjusts the sights on all of the roughly 200 assault rifles in the department, which are checked out by officers at the beginning of a shift and secured in their squad cars.

While officers train and must show proficiency with "universally sighted" weapons, Wahl says, "they're never going to be as comfortable or as accurate with a universally sighted one as with an individually sighted one."

A lack of confidence in the accuracy of a weapon can have a profound effect on how an officer handles a life-threatening situation.

"It severely limits when we might use it," Wahl says.

Madison is not exactly forging new ground with the rifle proposal. In fact, like Tasers and other controversial advances in police weaponry, assault rifles are becoming the new norm.

In response to a growing number of incidents around the country in which police have been outgunned, several jurisdictions, including Chicago, Washington, D.C., and the Arizona State University System have recently issued assault rifles to officers, and San Antonio and Dallas allow officers to use their own rifles.

In terms of rifle use, Madison is ahead of the curve.

"We made the decision over a decade ago to make the transition from shotguns to rifles," Wahl says. "A rifle offers a number of advantages over a shotgun in terms of accuracy and distance, less recoil, multiple shot capacity."

They are rarely fired. Wahl can only think of one instance in which a patrol officer actually fired an AR-15 in the line of duty. That was in 2007, when a man called police to say he had a gun. When police arrived he brandished the pistol, which turned out to be a pellet gun, and a Madison officer shot him dead. It was deemed a case of suicide-by-cop.

But rifles are often used as a precaution.

"In terms of them being taken out to be deployed on a high-risk traffic stop or a building search or whatever the case may be, they're used every day," Wahl says. "To the public, there will be no visible effect."

Curt Levey 

 - FOXNews.com

 - October 05, 2009

Guns Are the New Abortion

With an estimated 90 million firearms owners in America and a huge margin of popular support for a right to keep and bear arms, the gun rights community is a potent political force. But until recently, it had little reason to care about judges. That's all changed with the arrival of a new Supreme Court justice and the Obama administration.

Last week, in a case out of Chicago, the Justices agreed to decide whether the Second Amendment gives Americans a constitutional right to keep and bear arms that is enforceable against state and local gun laws. Coming on the heels of the High Court’s landmark gun rights decision last year, and at a time when the retirement of two Supreme Court Justices appears imminent, the Chicago case reminds gun owners that their battlefield has shifted to the courts and hastens the profound change in the politics of judicial confirmations that began this summer.

Spurred on by the courts’ new role in gun rights and by Sonia Sotomayor’s narrow view of the Second Amendment, gun owners – from the grassroots to the National Rifle Association – jumped into a Supreme Court confirmation contest for the first time in history this summer. With an estimated 90 million firearms owners in America and a huge margin of popular support for a right to keep and bear arms, the gun rights community is a potent political force. But until recently, it had little reason to care about judges. Its battles took place almost entirely in the legislative arena, where it built a long record of success.

Then came District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision recognizing the Second Amendment as an individual right. By empowering Americans to protect that right in court, the Justices transferred the theater of war from legislatures to the judiciary.
However, Heller left two huge questions unaddressed – the all-important standard for evaluating the constitutionality of gun regulations, and the Second Amendment’s application to state and local laws. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s 5-4 split means that if President Obama replaces one of the five center-right Justices, Heller itself could be gutted or even overturned.

As with other ideologically charged issues in the hands of the courts, the future of gun rights depends as much on the composition of the federal bench as on the strength of the legal arguments. That’s why I and others predicted that gun owners – their fate tied to the selection of judges in the wake of Heller – would emerge as a potent part of the coalition advocating against liberal judicial activism and for judges who strictly interpret the Constitution.

Those predictions seemed prescient when President Obama chose a Supreme Court nominee with – in the words of former NRA president Sandy Froman – “an extreme anti-gun philosophy” and record. Word about her record spread quickly among gun owners, generating calls to senators and leading gun rights groups. Despite some initial hesitation about jumping into the unchartered waters of judicial nominations, the groups listened to their members and began to speak out against Sotomayor’s confirmation.

Some criticize the NRA for joining the bandwagon late, but it deserves much of the credit for making gun rights the most prominent issue in the final month of the confirmation fight. Nearly every senator criticized, defended, or tried to counterbalance Sotomayor’s Second Amendment record in explaining their vote on confirmation.

The last time a controversial Democratic Supreme Court nominee came before the Senate, only 3 Republicans voted against Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The conventional wisdom was that Republicans might be able to muster 20 votes against Sotomayor. But in the end, 31 of 40 Republican senators voted nay, and the Second Amendment issue explains much of the increase over history and expectations. Similarly, predictions that several of the four GOP senators in the heavily Hispanic states of Texas and Arizona would vote for the first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee fell flat, largely because those states also have large gun-owning populations.

Across the aisle, Democratic senators from gun-heavy red and purple states waited until almost the last minute to announce their support for Sotomayor. Several of them would likely have voted nay had the NRA gotten involved earlier or “worked” the vote, or had the Democratic leadership failed to squeeze the vote in before those senators went home to gun country for August recess. In any case, if Sotomayor votes against gun rights while on the Supreme Court, the red and purple state Democrats who supported her will likely pay a price at the polls.

The political dynamics of nominating and confirming judges has been forever altered. Abortion rears its head in virtually every Supreme Court or hotly contested lower court confirmation contest. Gun rights will now do the same, especially as the explosion of Second Amendment litigation guarantees that more and more judicial nominees will have relevant rulings, briefs, articles, and speeches to scrutinize and debate.

Abortion opponents have been the most influential part of the coalition opposing liberal judges and judicial activism. But the new, gun-owning gorilla in the room matches the pro-life movement in numbers and surpasses it in ability to influence moderate Republican and Democratic senators. And there’s no comparable countervailing force on the other side.

This summer, the Second Amendment community got its feet wet. Next time around, gun owners – from the NRA down to the grassroots – will be more focused on the importance of judicial nominations, more educated about the politics of the confirmation process, more sophisticated about influencing the outcome, quicker to the draw, and more aggressive. Even red and purple state Democratic senators will have to seriously consider voting against judicial nominees who appear less than sympathetic to the Second Amendment. And, should Heller or a victory in the Chicago case be imperiled by the retirement of one of the five center-right Justices, all bets are off.

In the end, the payoff for gun rights advocates may be found as much in the selection of judges as in the confirmation process. By all reports, the White House was unpleasantly surprised by how big an issue Sotomayor’s Second Amendment record turned out to be. Expect Obama and his Democratic successors to borrow a page from Republican presidents, who have shied away from nominating outspoken opponents of abortion for the past two decades.

In the war for the soul of the judiciary, the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor will be narrowly viewed as a setback for conservatives. But viewed with an eye on future battles and interest group dynamics, her confirmation contest was an important turning point. It’s like 1917, when the teetering Allies gained a powerful new partner in the Great War. In time, it made all the difference in the world.

Curt Levey is Executive Director of the Committee For Justice, which promotes constitutionalist judicial nominees and the rule of law.

By AMANDA LEE MYERS (AP) – 13 hours ago

PHOENIX — Bartender Randy Shields was serving British brews and Arizona ambers as usual at Shady's bar in east Phoenix when he saw a customer walk in with a hunting knife strapped to his hip.

A disturbing image flashed through his mind — "that knife sliding between my ribs."

The customer willingly turned over the knife while he was in the bar, but Shields still worries about a new Arizona law that goes into effect Wednesday that will allow guns into Arizona bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Under the law, backed by the National Rifle Association, the 138,350 people with concealed-weapons permits in Arizona will be allowed to bring their guns into bars and restaurants that haven't posted signs banning them.

Those carrying the weapons aren't allowed to drink alcohol.

The new law has Shields and other bar owners and workers wondering: What's going to happen when guns are allowed in an atmosphere filled with booze and people with impaired judgment?

"Somebody can pull the trigger, then a bullet comes out, and people get hurt and killed," said Brad Henrich, owner of Shady's, a popular neighborhood bar that sees occasional minor scuffles. "The idea of anyone coming in with guns in a place that serves alcohol just seems ludicrous."

An 8 1/2-by-11-inch sign that says "No Firearms Allowed" and shows a red slash over a gun now hangs next to Henrich's liquor license. If a bar owner does not post such a state-approved sign, people with concealed weapons are allowed in with their guns.

There is no way to track how many of Arizona's 5,800 bars and restaurants that serve alcohol have posted such signs. The Arizona Department of Liquor Licensing and Control has signs available for download on its Web site and doesn't track that figure.

The department has provided 1,300 signs to bar and restaurant owners who went to the department in person or asked to have signs mailed to them.

A similar law took effect in July in Tennessee, with the same reaction from many bar owners who posted signs banning firearms. The NRA says 41 states now allow guns in businesses that serve alcohol.

"I hate to have to put them up," Mark DeSimone, owner of the Hidden House Cocktail Lounge in central Phoenix, said of the signs. "It looks scary. It looks to somebody like, should I go in this place because they obviously have a problem with people bringing weapons in."

DeSimone has signs banning guns next to his liquor license and outside the bar.

He said every bar owner should be concerned about the possible consequences of allowing anyone into a bar with a gun.

"You don't want people to even have a stick," he said. "When I take steak knives out (for customers), I look for the ones that don't have pointy ends."

Taking a gun into a bar banning the weapons would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.

But the law includes a partial legal defense. A person would be exempt if the sign banning guns had fallen down, the person wasn't an Arizona resident, or the notice was first posted less than a month earlier.

J.P. Nelson, director of the NRA's western region, said people with concealed-weapons permits have the right to protect themselves by bringing guns into bars and restaurants.

"Bad things happen in bars and restaurants," Nelson said. "People want to carry a gun and if the facility owner doesn't have a problem with it, there shouldn't be a problem. If a person starts drinking and gets in a shootout and kills someone, of course they're subject to criminal prosecution."

Marc Peagler, owner of the Silver Spur Saloon Restaurant in Cave Creek outside Phoenix, said he will allow people with concealed weapons permits to carry in his business, and Silver Spur will be safer because of it.

"It's a deterrent," he said. "In the criminal element, there is some logic that says when people look at a place that they might want to rob, the ones that have big signs up that say 'We do not permit firearms' would be the first target.

"They know there's not going to be anybody in there that can stop them," he said.

Arizonans are also allowed to openly carry guns — on a belt or holster, for example. Those people still won't be allowed in bars or restaurants serving alcohol under the new law if they're armed.

• Arizona Legislature: http://www.azleg.state.az.us/
• National Rifle Association: http://www.nra.org/

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Surprise winner of Obama stimulus spending: gun industry

Police departments are using some of the stimulus money to arm up, helping to make Obama 'gun salesman of the century.'

from the September 11, 2009 edition

Atlanta - Many gun-loving Americans are convinved that President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are bent on ripping rifles from their "cold, dead hands," as actor Charlton Heston once declared at a National Rifle Association meeting.

But from the perspective of police departments – not to mention gunmakers – the Obama administration may go down as one of the most gun-friendly in history. Across America, police departments are using the taxpayer-funded stimulus bill to boost their arsenals with shotguns, handguns, and assault rifles.

Among the general public, a record 1 million guns were sold across the United States in August alone, rebuffing expectations that, after 10 months, the post-Obama election gun-buying spree would abate. US gunmaker Smith & Wesson on Wednesday reported a 30 percent rise in sales in the first quarter, leading to unexpected profits and a rising stock price.

But as police departments order new firearms using stimulus funds, there's more than a little irony in the fact that a president whom the gun industry looked upon with suspicion has put forward a federal program from which gunmakers are benefiting.

"Gun culture magazines in the '90s named [President] Clinton 'gun salesman of the year,' but I think Obama, without even trying, has become gun salesman of the century," says Brian Anse Patrick, a gun culture expert at the University of Toledo, and author of the forthcoming book "Rise of the Anti-Media."

"One of the largest concerns has been that consumer firearms demand might slow dramatically from Obama-led frenzy levels," Eric Wold, a Merriman Curhan Ford analyst, told the Associated Press this week. "However, not only did consumer sales increase 29 percent, but law-enforcement and international sales jumped 32 percent and 12 percent, respectively."

Take the city of Jeffersonville, Ind. Police there are spending $63,000 of their stimulus bill money to buy 74 new assault rifles for their police cruisers.

The Barre, Vt., police department used stimulus money to buy six new handguns, 21 Taser guns, and five new shotguns, including one nonlethal version that shoots bean bags.

As part of its request for stimulus funds, Arlington, Texas, included $56,000 for military-grade carbines.

And in a neat twist, Smyrna, Ga.-based gunmaker Glock recently received $960 in stimulus funds to equip three federal Recovery Act antifraud officers in Washington with new sidearms. They might come in handy, as Washington is increasingly worried about scams and fraud involving stimulus bill dispersals.

Of course, the biggest chunk of the $4 billion in stimulus money intended for law enforcement is to hold onto officers and hire an estimated 5,600 new officers across the US. Most extra funds are being used not for guns but for other equipment – including cruisers and computers.

But Andy Molchan, director of the Professional Gun Retailers Association in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., says part of the growing profit statements from gunmakers such as Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and Sig come courtesy of the American taxpayer by way of some of America's 14,000 police jurisdictions.

"If there's money there, an agency is going to try to spend it," says Mr. Molchan. "They like to upgrade when they can."

But the interests of the gun industry aren't always the same as those of civil libertarians, many of whom are gun owners, says Mr. Patrick. The issue of police militarization is of particular concern, he says. "There's been a sort of creeping sociological phenomenon out there, where people are wondering, 'How many guns do the police need?' "

The fact that the stimulus package is helping to prop up gunmakers is proof to some even within the gun industry that fears about major gun-control legislation in the US are, at least for now, unfounded.

"The gun industry is always worried, but it's basically kind of a collection of worry warts as far as firearms legislation goes," says Mr. Molchar. "I think the Democrats have realized that for a long time they were the victims of their own [antigun] propaganda."