Brady Campaign Says Ensign Amendment Would Endanger Public
The Ensign amendment to the D.C. House Voting Rights Act of 2009, S.160, is a dangerous attempt to repeal D.C. gun laws that would go far beyond authorizing gun possession for self-defense in the home, and instead create serious threats to public safety and homeland security.
While the gun lobby claims this amendment is needed to restore Second Amendment rights in D.C., the District’s laws have already been rewritten to comply with the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decision in D.C. v. Heller. Under current D.C. law, residents have the right to possess semiautomatic handguns and use firearms in self-defense in their homes. D.C. no longer bans handguns in the home, which was struck down in Heller. Yet the Ensign amendment would eliminate many common sense laws that Justice Scalia stated are “presumptively lawful” in his Heller opinion.
This amendment would undermine federal anti-trafficking laws, repeal D.C.’s ban on dangerous military-style weapons, allow teenagers to possess semiautomatic assault rifles, and prohibit D.C. from passing laws that could “discourage” gun possession or use, even by felons, children or other dangerous persons. At a time when terrorists continue to look for ways to attack our nation, this amendment would be reckless and irresponsible. The Senate should reject this amendment.
PROBLEMS WITH ENSIGN AMENDMENT
• Undermines federal anti-trafficking laws - The amendment would
allow D.C. residents to cross state lines to buy handguns in neighboring states, undermining federal anti-trafficking laws (§10). For decades, federal law has barred gun dealers from selling handguns directly to out of state buyers (other than licensed dealers) because of the high risk this creates for interstate gun trafficking (18 U.S.C. § 922(b)(3)).
This means that gun traffickers could more easily obtain large quantities of guns outside D.C. to illegally distribute to criminals in D.C.
• Prohibits D.C. from enacting common sense gun laws - The
amendment would bar D.C. from passing any law that would “prohibit, constructively prohibit, or unduly burden” gun ownership by anyone not barred by already weak federal gun laws (§ 3). It would even bar D.C. from enacting laws or regulations that may “discourage” private gun ownership or use, even by felons, children or other dangerous persons (Id.). This amendment would prohibit even basic safe storage requirements. D.C. could not pass laws requiring shooting proficiency to use a gun, educating parents of the dangers to children of guns in the home, or even restricting teenage gang members without criminal records from possessing assault rifles.
• Repeals D.C.’s ban on dangerous, military-style weapons - The amendment repeals D.C.’s ban on .50 caliber sniper rifles that can pierce armor plating up to a mile away and its ban on dangerous military-style semiautomatic assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines (§ 11).
• Repeals laws that help solve gun crimes - The amendment
repeals D.C.’s requirements, modeled on a California law strongly supported by law enforcement, that semiautomatic pistols manufactured after January 1, 2011, be microstamp-ready. Microstamping is a proven law enforcement tool that helps solve gun crimes by imprinting shell casings with a unique identifier so that they can quickly be matched to the handguns that fired them (§ 11).
• Repeals common sense restrictions on gun possession by dangerous
or unqualified persons - The amendment repeals common sense restrictions on gun possession in D.C. including:
o repealing the prohibition on most persons under age 21 from
possessing firearms (§ 5(b)(1)). It replaces current D.C. law with weaker federal limits that only bar anyone under 18 from possessing handguns (18 U.S.C. §922(x)). Current D.C. law bars the registration of firearms by anyone under 21 without parental consent, but this amendment repeals D.C.’s registration requirement, and by doing so it repeals all age limits for the possession of long guns, including assault rifles.
o repealing the prohibition on gun possession by anyone who has
committed a violent crime or recent drug crime (§ 5(b)(1)). It replaces this current D.C. law with the weaker federal ban that allows gun possession by many persons who have committed violent or drug-related misdemeanor crimes unrelated to domestic violence.
o repealing the prohibition on gun possession by anyone
voluntarily committed to a mental institution in the last 5 years (unless they have a doctor’s certification) (§ 5(b)(1)). It replaces this current D.C. law with the weaker federal ban that allows many persons who are dangerously mentally ill to obtain firearms.
o repealing the prohibition in D.C. law on gun possession by
anyone who does not pass a vision test, including if they are blind (§ 5(b)(1)). D.C. would be barred from having any vision requirement for gun use.
• Repeals registration requirements for firearms - The amendment
would repeal even the most basic gun registration requirements (§ 5).
This means police could no longer easily trace crime guns by tracing them to their registered owner.
• Repeals safe storage laws - D.C. recently passed legislation
allowing guns to be stored unlocked and loaded unless the owner knows a child is likely to access them. The amendment would repeal safe storage requirements and prohibit D.C. from enacting new safe storage laws, even though every major gun maker recommends that guns be kept unloaded and locked (§§ 3, 7). This means that D.C. could not prohibit people from storing loaded firearms near children, posing an extreme danger to the safety of D.C. families.
Read the Gun Owners of America's support of the Ensign amendment, "Support of Ensign Bill is Vital to Ending D.C. Gun Ban"
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When it's convenient for the brady group, or any gun control group for that matter, they have no problem with the federal government preempting a state's laws.
I guess it's OK for the federal government to implement bans that override state and district laws, but not laws that implement 'un-bans' that override state and district laws.
This line of thinking is shown in gun control group opposition to state level preemption which generally forbids cities from passing laws different from state law regarding firearms. BUT, they only oppose those kinds of laws when state law is less stringent than the proposed city laws. When the state is banning certain types of firearms or certain persons from possesing them, thus overriding city laws, the groups are all for it.
In the end, the gun control groups are in favor of whichever level of preemption suits their goals, but only so long as suits those goals.
So Shoe, meet the other foot. Whatever the feds can taketh away, they can giveth back.
Gun control laws do not reduce gun crimes. Many people find this surprising simply because they run with the simple correlation of "less guns = less crime". This, however, is a false paradigm, as gun control laws do not reduce existing criminal ownership of firearms; criminals by their very nature do not obey laws. Furthermore, what lobbying organizations such as the Brady Campaign fail to inform the public of is that the very areas that have the most stringent gun control are usually the same areas that suffer from the highest levels of violent crime. Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, etc. etc. Gun control laws have the opposite effect of their stated intention of reducing violence simply because the only people they have an effect on are those who obey the law, leaving them easy targets for criminals. Think about that for a second...If you were going to rob/murder/rape a person, would this be easier in a state where you know citizen's are restricted from owning/carrying a firearm, or state where there is a good possibility your intended victim has a gun?
There is much evidence showing that less gun control equates to less violent crime found in that violent crime rates of states that have a policy of "shall issue" concealed carry permits (you meet the qualifications and apply, and the state must issue, as opposed to "may issue", where either the state or law enforcement has the ability to decline your application for whatever reason) have all dropped significantly across the board. The gun controllers' arguments of "it's going to result in a return to the Wild West" simply have not come true, not that the Wild West was really that wild outside of Hollywood anyway.
So what can America do about it's "gun problem"? Short of government-approved house-to-house sweeps collecting every single firearm in the nation (which would violate both our 2nd AND 4th Amendment rights), no act of gun control will reduce the amount of violence in our society. Even if total prohibition of firearms were enacted, has prohibition ever stopped black markets from forming in America? The history of the alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition tell us no. Lawful, civilian ownership of firearms in our nation is not the problem, yet like all other prohibitions, only the lawful are actually effected. What has been proven to reduce crime is an increase in civilian ownership and carrying of firearms. Before someone mentions the police, I would like to remind you that police officers:
1) are not very portable.
2) take longer to respond to your phone call than it takes for you to properly defend yourself with a firearm.
3) are not legally obligated to protect you ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v . _Gonzales).
I would like to add one more note of my personal observations and experiences as a member of the US's gun culture. The vast majority of law abiding gun owners have some form of training in firearms use and safety, whether this be through family traditions such as hunting and target shooting, or formal firearms training classes. Many, including myself, have both. Sadly, there exist a small minority of legal firearms owners who have no such educational experiences, and from this category you see many of the tragedies we all hear about in the news (this isn't to say that training makes an individual perfect, but it most certainly helps).
The real tragedy that I find in the Anti-Gun lobby is that with as much money as they spend trying to restrict law-abiding gun owners, they could easily afford to provide very adequate basic firearms instruction to every single "new" gun owner in the nation. For example, I have taken the class required by the state of Oklahoma for a concealed carry license. This course is about 12-16 hours long, usually either in a single day or split over a weekend depending on where you take it, and included classroom study of the legal aspect of owning, carrying, and using a firearm, basic demonstration of use, and live fire training. All of that for $75. Since 1990, the Gun Control lobby has spent almost $1.8 million in campaign contributions to politicians. God knows what money they've spent on advertising and everything else, but that nearly $1.8 million is enough money to put about 24,000 people through the course I took. Combined with funding from groups such as the NRA (who already does much to help educate the public about firearms safety), industry partners such as firearms and ammunition manufacturers, state and local law enforcement, and local business such as firing ranges and gun shops, I see a strong possibility that there is enough manpower and funding to put every single lawful US gun owner, of the approximately 90 million of us, through such a course, and maybe even add training in how to properly clean a gun.
1) "Under current D.C. law, residents have the right to possess semiautomatic handguns"
DC laws still classify semi-automatic (for those who are not gun savvy, that's any weapon that automatically loads the next round after firing the gun, but still only fires one shot per trigger pull) as machine guns, and machine guns are still banned outright from the district.
2) "This amendment would undermine federal anti-trafficking laws, repeal D.C.’s ban on dangerous military-style weapons, allow teenagers to possess semiautomatic assault rifles"
There is no such thing as a semi-automatic assault rifle. All assault rifles, by definition, are select fire (has a switch that allows the gun to fire in either semi-automatic mode, or full-automatic mode). Furthermore, by federal law, one must be 18 years of age to purchase any firearm in the first place. While some people consider people age 18-19 to be a "teenager", in the eyes of the law, such a person is a legal adult.
3) "Microstamping is a proven law enforcement tool that helps solve gun crimes by imprinting shell casings with a unique identifier so that they can quickly be matched to the handguns that fired them"
Microstamping has been implemented in only one state so far (California) and has yet to actually take effect (it will be effective beginning 01 January 2010). Furthermore, independent research, including research performed by University of California, Davis, has shown some serious problems with the use of microstamping, such as ease of modifying firing pins, general wear of firing pins, and failure to stamp. Also not mentioned is the possibility of a criminal "salting" a crime scene with used, microstamped cases collected from locations such as gun ranges, which would make a criminal investigator's job much more difficult. Also not mentioned is that pioneered ammunition microstamping and coding is now one of the major lobbying groups for government-mandated implementation of the technology after the firearms and ammunition industries declined to take up their technology.
More info on microstamping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_microstamping
More info on "ammo accountability" fiasco
http://www.ammunitionaccountability.com /
http://www.ammocoding.com /
http://www.thehighroad.us/archive/index.php /t-404556.html
4) "D.C. could not pass laws.....restricting teenage gang members without criminal records from possessing assault rifles."
Please see lie #2
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrqT9SIkQw - John Stossel 20/20
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyoLuTjguJA - Canada's failed gun control
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGVAQOUi6ec - England's failed gun control|
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkS8mdbml0A&NR=1 – Ask Ryan Lee Bergner what she thinks of the idea of disarming the law abiding citizen.
- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4069761537893819675&p - Ask Suzanna Gratia-Hupp what she thinks of the idiotic gun bans as well.
The bottom line is nothing the Brady bunch has done has deterred crime or criminally intent individuals. When you look at their track record with no emotion but logic, you see they are a failure. I can't wait till these Liberal loons are no longer an influence on honest law abiding citizens lives.
"but this amendment repeals D.C.’s registration requirement, and by doing so it repeals all age limits for the possession of long guns, including assault rifles." You do NOT need registration to enforce minimum age requirement. We don't have registration in the state where I live and we have minimum age of 21 for handguns. Here a government issued purchase permit is required for all handgun purchases. This provides for age checks, background checks, etc.
Brady Campaign claims that strict gun laws prevent crime. I plotted their ratings against FBI violent crime statistics. It shows NO relationship between gun laws and crime. You can view the plotted data at my web site: http://rideronthestorm-armed.angelfire.com /
Brady Campaign is honesty challenged. Modern assault weapons are ALREADY BANNED! No country in the world has an assault weapon without full auto fire. That feature is very illegal for us to own. We are only allowed castrated copies of the real thing, that is self-loading only. Many of the features banned by the old/new Assault Weapon Ban are needed for use by women. Many women today are buying firearms for home self protection and empowering themselves to not be victims. A so-called assault weapon is women friendly because: 1) they are light weight 2) have an adjustable stock to fit the user 3) have a removable magazine making loading and unloading safe and quick 4) can take a muzzle brake instead of flash hider, which reduces recoil 5) fire smaller bullets that have limited penetration of walls 6) are much less restricted than handguns 7) are too big for most criminal use, minimum length is 26 inches 8) are self loading, meaning a woman just has to pull the trigger a 2nd time to fire, giving her another chance if she missed or fired a warning shot 9) do not require a lot of physical strength to operate, unlike most handguns. A classic example is an AR15, very women friendly.
Just reading this poorly written, as far as the truth is concerned, article points out the deceitful way in which "control" advocates will go while trying to promote, (force), thier believes on the law abiding citizens of this country. Their arguments always seem to deal with emotions and feelings. as was written in the article their ultimate goal is to discourage, ultimately ban, firearms ownership because this makes them feel safer, maybe the attorney general was right when he called this a nation of cowards. The second amendment is very clear, unless of course you don,t believe in individual responsibility and instead want "the goverment" to "take" care of what should be your own responsibility.
the_car_man
I am firmly convinced that if any member of the brady bunch ever accidentally told the truth on any gun related issue they would immediately shrivel up and die on the spot. Sheesh...