Gun Stories of the Week: Gun Bills Would Help Vets Publicly Challenge FBI Background Checks
TOP STORY
Gun bills would help vets publicly challenge FBI background checks
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on April 19 introduced the Senate companion of the Protecting Gun Rights and Due Process Act, noting it would help nearly 200,000 veterans from potentially losing their right to keep and bear arms.
The VA has reportedly declared 260,381 veterans with fiduciary trustees to the background check system as “mentally defective.” According to the Congressional Research Service, more than 99 percent of all names reported to NICS as “mental defective” are provided by the VA.
Paul’s bill would abolish Obama’s executive action which allows the infringement on the gun rights of 4.2 million citizens enrolled in the SSA and VA and would restore gun rights to veterans, seniors and others who have already had their gun rights revoked.
“I refuse to stand idly by while the Obama administration unilaterally strips away gun rights from our nation’s veterans and seniors. The Protecting Gun Rights and Due Process Act will provide necessary protection for gun-owning Americans, and ultimately ensure that the Second Amendment is not infringed upon,” Paul said in a statement.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) introduced the House version of the bill. His bill is also aimed at making it easier for people who have been denied a gun because they failed a background check to have inaccurate information removed from records.
This could include "mismatched fingerprints and inaccurate criminal history records,” Emmer explained to Tim Devaney of thehill.com.
According to Emmer, the FBI has stopped considering appeals from prospective gun owners who want to remove inaccurate information from their records. His bill would give the FBI 60 days to make a determination on an appeal.
The bill would also require the FBI to report the total number of appeals it receives.
“This president’s executive actions on guns should not deprive law-abiding Americans of their constitutional right to due process,” Emmer said in a statement.
For more, go to:
— Gun bill would help public challenge FBI background checks
— Proposed Gun Rights Protection Act Gains Support
— Emmer Strengthens Rights for Law-Abiding Gun Purchasers
— Protecting Gun Rights and Due Process Act
— Congressman naming names to close gun show loophole
ANNIE’S GOT HER GUN
Millennial women to ideologues: ‘Stay out of my uterus and my gun rack, thanks’
Millennial women between the ages of 18 and 35 value protecting gun rights just as much as they do the issues of abortion access and equal pay, according to a nationwide poll conducted by ABC News and lifestyle website Refinery29 and released on April 19.
The ABC/Refinery29 poll found that only the issues of economic inequality (21 percent) and student debt (21 percent) ranked higher on millennial women’s list of political priorities than gun rights (11), abortion access (11) and equal pay (11) among all of the 566 women polled.
“I think this poll reflects that all Americans — not just young women — all Americans are increasingly looking to their Second Amendment as a way to protect themselves,” NRA spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen explained to Guns.com’s Jared Morgan.
Mortensen told Morgan that women are motivated to take control of their own protection. “It sort of carries on with the feminist tradition of empowerment. It emboldens women to take responsibility for their personal safety,” he said.
And women are increasingly taking matters into their own hands, according to the NRA. Between 2011-2014, it saw an 86 percent increase in women taking the group’s basic pistol course and a 46 percent increase in male participants the same four-year period.
So, it all makes sense.
“Millennial women are ambivalent about feminism, fans of Bernie Sanders, fearful of Donald Trump, and want government out of their uteruses and their gun racks, thanks,” writes Elizabeth Nolan Brown on April 14 in reason.com.
For more, go to:
— Young women value gun rights as much as abortion access, equal pay
— How Millennial Women Actually Feel About The Election
— ABC News/Refinery29 Poll: Millennial Women
— Poll: Millennial Women Put Gun Rights on Par with Equal Pay, Abortion Access
— Young Women Care As Much About Gun Rights As They Do About Abortion
STATE ROUNDUP
Californians brace for 'GunMeggedon'
The California Senate Public Safety Committee on April 19 approved seven proposed gun control bills that are expected to be presented to the Senate for a vote sometime this spring or summer.
If all are adopted, the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) says they present a “GunMeggedon” for legal firearm ownership by law-abiding California residents.
Ten gun control bills were presented to the Public Safety Committee. Among those that received preliminary endorsements:
* SB 880: Immediately bans and forces the registration of millions of semi-automatic weapons in common use.
* SB 894: Mandates lost and stolen reporting within five days and penalizes individuals for reports that are turned in even a day late.
* SB 1006: Allows the University of California to conduct biased gun violence research.
* SB 1037: Extends the statute of limitations on certain non-violent firearms related crimes, mostly having to do with paperwork.
* SB 1446: Bans all “standard” capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
“Not one of the laws that are being pushed today makes Californians safer,” FPC’s Craig DeLuz told KCRA Radio. “All they do is put restrictions — in many cases very unreasonable restrictions — on law-abiding citizens.”
Several of the proposals were vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013.
For more, go to:
— Opponents of California's New Gun Control Measures Are Calling It 'GunMeggedon'
— ‘GunMeggedon’ in California With More Gun, Magazine Bans
— Oklahoma City Thunder joins groups opposing state's proposed gun measures
— OKC Thunder organization opposed to proposed gun laws
— Tennessee Gun-Rights Law Shields Firearms from International Treaties
— Bill to allow guns on Tennessee college campuses heads to Haslam
— Missouri House advances bill to ease concealed gun limits
— NRA praises Magnolia State for firearms law
— Hawaii: Anti-Gun Bill Scheduled for Conference Committee Hearing Tomorrow
— Virginia: Pro-Gun bill restores gun rights for veterans and seniors
— Victories in Gun Wars Mount in Mississippi, Iowa, Florida
—Alaska: ‘Guns on Campus Bill’ Still Up in the Air, Just Like its Costs, Impacts, and Session
GUN CONTROL
Murder spikes in cities with most restrictive gun laws
According to a Brennan Center for Justice study released in April, in 2015 the murder rate rose by more than 13 percent in America’s 25 biggest cities with more than half that spike occurring in three Democrat-dominated, gun control cursed cities — Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
“The common denominator among the three cities … is they’re run by Democrats who impose hefty gun controls on the populace,” writes Cheryl Chumley writes in wnd.com.
Unlike other left-leaning think tanks, however, the Brennan Center did not attribute the increase in criminal gun violence to guns but failures in local economic, social and criminal policies and programs.
“These serious increases seem to be localized, rather than part of a national pandemic, suggesting that community conditions remain the major factor,” Brennan Center surmised in a statement. “Notably, these three cities all seem to have falling populations, higher poverty rates and higher unemployment than the national average. This implies that economic deterioration of these cities could be a contributor to murder increases.”
For more, go to:
— MURDERS SPIKE IN CITIES WITH DEMOCRAT GUN CONTROL
— Study: Murders Spike in 2015 in Democrat-Run, Gun-Controlled Cities
— Baltimore, D.C., Chicago drove rising U.S. murder rate in 2015
— New report says three liberal cities account for half of murder hike