"The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory."
-- Jeff Cooper
GOUtah! recently submitted a letter to the editors of Utah’s major newspapers. At least one saw fit to publish it [Ogden Standard Examiner, pinted 9 February]. Here’s the text of our letter:
The Brady Campaign for the Prevention of Gun Violence recently rated each state on a scale of 100 based on "the strength of its gun laws" (apparently not counting federal gun laws, which apply nationwide). The highest score, 79, went to California. Utah, with a score of 4, was tied for next-to-last place. We’re presumably meant to infer that California, with its extensive and complex web of state and local gun restrictions, is a much safer place to live than Utah, where, for example, virtually any law-abiding adult can get a permit to carry a loaded handgun. However, the Brady report says nothing about actual crime rates. According to the 2007 FBI Uniform Crime Reports, California’s violent-crime rate (522 violent crimes per 100,000 population) was more than twice as high as Utah’s (235 per 100,000), and the murder rate in California (6.2 per 100,000) was nearly triple that of the Beehive state (2.2 per 100,000). Furthermore, preliminary figures for 2008 put Utah’s murder rate at about 1.5 per 100,000, which is lower than Canada’s. Ergo, Utahns needn’t necessarily feel distressed about their state’s low Brady score. For that matter, perhaps they should even be proud of it.
Disclaimer: We at GOUtah! are not lawyers. We’re just regular people. We attempt to interpret and analyze existing laws and pending legislation to the best of our ability as interested laymen. However, our writings should not be taken as legal advice. Please consult with an appropriately credentialed attorney if you have questions regarding state or federal laws. Thanks.
HB 13, sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Seelig (House District 23), known as the "Strangulation and Smothering Bill", is a back-door gun-control bill. GOUtah! opposes this bill.
Short version: Skip to the Action Item at the end of this Alert.
Long version, for those who are interested:
Under federal law, you’re permanently prohibited from buying, borrowing, possessing, shooting, or even holding a firearm or ammunition in your hands if you have any sort of felony conviction on your record. In recent years there has been a trend among state legislatures to reclassify all sorts of misdemeanor offenses as felonies. It almost seems as if we’re headed toward a society in which you’ll soon be permanently stripped of your gun rights for jaywalking or spitting on the sidewalk. While GOUtah! doesn’t condone jaywalking or any other form of law-breaking, we believe that minor illegal acts (especially acts that don’t result in serious injury to anyone) should not automatically result in the permanent revocation of a constitutional right. Thus, we tend to strongly oppose legislation that bestows felony status on such acts.
Now, back to HB 13. This bill would make it a felony to use "any means of force to attempt to impede the normal breathing of another person, or to attempt to impede the circulation of another person's blood by applying pressure on the throat or neck of that person", even when no bodily injury results, provided that the act meets any one of the several definitions of simple assault (a misdemeanor) given in section 76-5-102 of the Utah Code. One such definition of simple assault, for example, is "an act, committed with unlawful force or violence, that creates a substantial risk of bodily injury to another." Note that no actual physical injury has to be incurred in order for simple assault to have taken place. String these definitions together, and it becomes clear that a variety of minor acts that don’t result in harm or injury could suddenly become felonies if HB 13 passes.
It’s important to note that, under existing law, if you assault someone and you inflict serious bodily injury on that person, your act is classified as aggravated assault, which is a felony. But HB 13 would modify the existing law so that no physical injury whatsoever would be necessary in order to charge someone with felony aggravated assault if the assault involved any attempt, however brief and harmless, to impede either breathing or blood flow.
An example: A run-of-the-mill fistfight involves "unlawful force or violence" and "creates a substantial risk of bodily injury to another". If Bubba and Billy Bob get into a bar fight on Saturday night, and if no serious bodily injury occurs, they could be charged with a misdemeanor under existing laws. If HB 13 were to pass, things would be different. Suppose that, during the course of the fight, Bubba momentarily gets his hands around Billy Bob’s neck or momentarily uses his arm to get a chokehold on Billy Bob. Even if Billy Bob doesn’t suffer any physical injury in the process, Bubba has now committed a felony under HB 13. Or if Bubba pins Billy Bob to the floor and puts a knee on his chest, it could be a felony under HB 13.
Another example: If you’re playing water polo (a pretty aggressive sport) and you have a scuffle with a player from the other team and you briefly dunk him, under the terms of HB 13 you could conceivably be charged with a felony (not to mention that the referee would call a foul).
One of the problems with making such minor acts into felonies is that a policeman loses his power of discretion. In the case of a misdemeanor or infraction, a policeman may use his own judgment as to whether to make an arrest or issue a citation. In the case of a felony, a policeman is required by law to make an arrest.
HB 13 is a well-intentioned bill, and it’s aimed at wife-beaters and other men who commit domestic violence. There have been cases in which a man gets a chokehold on his wife or live-in girlfriend or tries to briefly smother her with a pillow in order to psychologically terrorize her without actually causing injury. While we have no sympathy for such men, the problem with HB 13 is that it could extend far beyond such domestic-violence scenarios. A zealous prosecutor could use HB 13 to bring felony charges in all sorts of situations, as illustrated above.
Again, we’re not lawyers. We’re just looking at this bill with a very skeptical layman’s eye.
Existing laws provide ample prosecutorial tools to go after men who use a chokehold on their wives or girlfriends. As mentioned above, any type of assault, including chokeholds or smothering, that results in serious bodily injury is already a felony under Utah law. If the assault does not result in serious bodily injury, or even if it results in no injury, it can be prosecuted as a domestic-violence misdemeanor and can result in jail time. Furthermore, under the federal Lautenberg Law that has been in effect since 1996, if you are convicted of or plead guilty to a domestic violence misdemeanor (such as getting a chokehold on your spouse without causing injury), you’re automatically and permanently prohibited from possessing a firearm or ammunition in all 50 states. And, under the U.S. Justice Department’s "Operation Safe Neighborhoods", which has been in force for about six years now, if a local cop catches you in possession of a firearm (even if you merely keep the shotgun that your grandpa bequeathed to you, or if you’re target-shooting using your friend’s rifle or if you’re duck-hunting with a borrowed gun) he will turn you over to the U.S. Attorney’s office and you’ll almost certainly be charged with a major federal felony. The same will happen if you merely attempt to purchase a gun. Hundreds of Utahns have, in fact, been sent to federal prison in recent years for the crime of owning or borrowing or attempting to purchase a firearm while having a domestic-violence misdemeanor on their record.
GOUtah! disapproves of the federal Lautenberg Law and we believe it should be repealed. We also disapprove of "Operation Safe Neighborhoods", which, though aimed originally at gang members, has turned into a "zero tolerance" policy and is now frequently used to send ordinary people to federal prison because they got caught with a firearm in, say, 2004 and the police found that they had slapped their spouse in 1965. We’re pointing out these laws and programs not to endorse them, but to illustrate that existing policies already enable courts to impose heavy penalties on people who physically abuse their spouses, including those who use chokeholds.
GOUtah! does not want to see run-of-the-mill bar fights, roughhousing in a swimming pool, etc., get turned into felonies that would permanently strip a person of his gun rights. HB 13 would have that effect.
Every once in a blue moon, the New York Times publishes something interesting. Here’s a recent guest editorial about a new form of terrorism that’s starting to become popular in certain circles. John Arquillla, an instructor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, wrote the editorial.
Mr. Arquilla cites the recent attack on Bombay, India (in which five pairs of young Muslim males equipped with small arms managed to kill and maim hundreds of residents by simply walking around the city and shooting them) as an example of "swarm terrorism. One aspect of this type of terrorism is that by the time the police are able to track down and engage the perpetrators, a lot of decent people have already been killed. Hence our decision to choose the particular quote from the late Col. Jeff Cooper as today’s Maxim of Liberty at the top of this alert.
Please take a moment to contact your Utah State Representative and encourage him to vote against HB 13, the "Strangulation and Smothering Bill". A pre-written letter is provided below for your convenience.
If you send e-mail, please make sure you put the main point of your message in the "subject" header, such as "Please vote against HB 13." Legislators get hundreds of e-mails per day during the session and often take time only to scan the subject lines.
If you wish to phone your rep at home, please do so before 9:00 p.m. and please be polite and brief. You may simply wish to state that a felony conviction permanently revokes a person’s right to own a gun, and that you’re concerned that HB 13 could be used to bring felony charges for minor acts that don’t happen in a domestic violence context and that don’t result in permanent harm to anyone.
The main thing is that representatives need to get a lot of messages from voters simply asking them to oppose HB 13.
You can send a letter, Fax, or e-mail to your representative at the State Capitol, or you can leave a brief phone message at the House switchboard, or you can contact your rep at home at a reasonable hour (note that representatives from distant districts usually only go home on weekends during the session).
Utah State House of Representatives
P.O. Box 145030
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
Phone: (801)538-1029
Fax: (801)326-1544
For your representative’s e-mail, home phone number, etc., [representative’s e-mail, home phone number, etc. click here.]
As you are aware, Eric Holder was confirmed by the US Senate to be the United States Attorney General. On 4 February 2009 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert to remind us of who our friends, and enemies, in congress are.
Please take note of how Senators McCain (R-AZ), Bennett (R-UT) and Hatch (R-UT) voted. (It would appear that being a Western state Republican does not equate to being a pro-Second Amdmendment supporter.)
GOA wants to thank all of you for your hard work in opposing the extremely anti-gun Eric Holder for Attorney General.
While we lost the battle on Monday (by a vote of 75-21), you guys registered your opposition loud and clear.
There is no doubt that your activism truly made gun rights THE issue in this nomination battle. Every Senator who spoke against Holder mentioned Second Amendment fears. And even among many of the Senators who voted for him, there was tremendous concern regarding Holder's stance on gun rights.
As stated by The Washington Post yesterday, "Holder overcame concerns by a small but vocal group of GOP lawmakers about his position on national security and GUN RIGHTS, as well as his recommendations in two controversial clemency decisions by President Bill Clinton."
This was truly a battle worth fighting. In fact, the man who was being deified two weeks ago is now the very same President who is widely seen as not being able to shoot straight in selecting cabinet members and is already starting to lose public support. The battle over Holder was certainly central to taking the bloom off this rose.
So thank you for helping magnify our voice on Capitol Hill. GOA spent many hours lobbying against Holder, as we were the only gun rights group in Washington to tell Senators we would be rating this vote in our end-of-session grade report.
With Holder in office, you can expect to see renewed efforts to drive gun dealers and manufacturers out of business -- similar to the efforts he supported while in the Clinton administration.
Expect also to see attempts to classify more guns as "not suitable" for sporting purposes. And don't be surprised to see attempts to use the No Fly List to disqualify gun owners from exercising their Second Amendment rights. (Bureaucrats can add innocent Americans to the No Fly List -- and have done so -- without any due process of law being followed.)
With Eric Holder at the helm, the list could easily become a No Gun List, as there are already discussions in Washington about doing this.
All the above horror scenarios are policies that could conceivably occur without ANY legislation being passed in Congress. That is what makes Holder's confirmation as Attorney General so dangerous. Through the use of Executive Orders or by prosecuting gun owners, Holder can inflict much damage upon the Second Amendment -- even apart from lending his support for legislation, such as renewing the semi-auto ban.
So what can we do now? Is the battle over Holder finished?
No, not yet. There's one more action item that needs to be taken. There are 75 Senators who ignored your pleas to vote against Holder. They need to hear from you and know that you're upset.
They need to be reminded again and again that voting for gun control is what cost Bill Clinton's party the control of Congress in 1994... and Al Gore his election in 2000... and John Kerry the presidency in 2004.
And don't forget, there are the 21 Senators who voted right. They need to be thanked. So please don't file this alert until you've taken the action item below
ACTION: Please use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Senators a pre-written e-mail message. You will be prompted to input your zip code, which will then bring up the correct letter for your Senators.
The pre-written letter will differ according to whether your Senator voted in favor or against Eric Holder. (Three Senators missed the vote entirely. GOA is treating their absence as an anti-gun action.)
NOTE: GOA's pre-written letters are usually editable by the sender. In this instance, they are not for the sake of avoiding confusion, so that Senators who voted wrong are not thanked (and vice versa).
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Burris (D-IL)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Johanns (R-NE)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
Begich (D-AK)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Martinez (R-FL)
Again from our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) we learn about a hidden anti-gun agenda in the vaunted "bail-out" package in a 10 February email alert. It seems that access to public lands by law-abiding firearms owners might be restricted by the new anti-gun administration.
Lost in all the news of the massive bailout bill that just passed the Senate is another enormous bill, one that increases federal control of public and private land.
Of particular concern to gun owners is that the bill, S. 22, will greatly expand the amount of land controlled by the National Park Service. NPS land is currently subject to a gun ban.
While President Bush took steps in the waning days of his presidency to reverse the ban, the new regulations apply to persons who carry a concealed firearm with a permit. Non-permit holders and open carry are not explicitly addressed.
Another eyebrow-raising aspect of this bill is that it is actually a compilation of over 150 separate pieces of legislation that never passed out of Congress on their own merits.
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully held up over 100 of these bills, until anti-gun Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rolled all of the bills into one so-called Coburn Omnibus and forced it through the Senate in January on a vote of 73-21.
As the House prepares to take up the bill, the Democrat leadership has taken procedural steps to ensure that the measure cannot be amended or altered in any way. That means that if it passes the House, it goes right to President Obama's desk, where it will be signed into law.
Here are a few of the more troubling aspects of the bill:
* It authorizes the federal government to buy private land adjacent to national parks and trails. Such land would be controlled by the NPS, and thus be subject to the gun ban.
* The bill federalizes the Washington-Rochambeau Route, a 650 mile trail that stretches from Rhode Island to Virginia and includes sections of major thoroughfares such as Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 1, and passes through cities like Boston and Philadelphia. The entire trail would fall under the NPS and the gun ban.
* The National Landscape Conservation System groups together millions of acres of federal land and places it under one new umbrella agency. The NLCS was created during the Clinton administration and run administratively since then. S. 22 will codify the system, which raises concerns for hunters and sportsmen. Much of this land is consolidated from the BLM and the Forest Service, which have always allowed hunting and recreational shooting. It is unclear what rules will be promulgated by the new agency and if gun owners' rights will be protected.
* S. 22 strips out small concessions won by pro-gunners in the House last year that would allow state and local law to govern firearms possession and hunting on certain land.
* S.22 allows for NO amendments. Pro-gun members who want to offer an amendment to fully repeal the NPS gun ban are prevented from doing so by the anti-gun leadership.
The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the bill this Wednesday or Thursday.
Unless the NPS gun ban is repealed and the rights of gun owners are protected, Gun Owners of America opposes the bill in its entirety.
Again, from our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted on 11 February comes this warning about some of the hidden consequenses of the "bail-out". It seems that all legislators, Utah or national, are enamored with creating data-bases of "people they don't approve of." Whether it is liqour or guns they must have our names.
"HR 1 is about more than just pork. Millions of gun owners stand to lose their gun rights without any due process." -- Larry Pratt, GOA Executive Director
The Obama administration is putting a lot of pressure on Congress to slam through the most recent $800+ billion bailout package before anyone has an opportunity to read it.
The Obama administration intones that the details are unimportant. The only thing that matters is the "bigness." And, by shipping a bill of nearly $900 billion (plus interest) to our children and grandchildren, the package is really, really big -- bigger, in fact, than the budget of our entire government for the first 170 years of our country's existence.
But now that some of the details are finally starting to leak out of Washington, Gun Owners -- and a lot of other analysts -- are beginning to look at the fine print. And some of it is particularly scary.
Of particular concern to gun owners are sections 13101 through 13434 of HR 1, which would set up the infrastructure to computerize the medical records of ALL AMERICANS in a government-coordinated database.
True, the bill doesn't mandate that the data will be in a giant computer under the Oval Office. But it does mandate that your medical records be reduced to a computerized form which is available to it in a second.
This it would do by establishing a National Coordinator for Health Information Technology -- tasked with, among other things, "providing information to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care."
It should be scary enough that a government bureaucrat is directed by statute to try to influence your doctor's decisions with respect to your medical care.
But of even greater concern to gun owners is the fact that a government-coordinated database (which government can freely access) will now contain all records of government-provided and private psychiatric treatment -- including, in particular, the drugs which were prescribed.
Remember last year's "NICS Improvement Act" -- otherwise known as the Veterans Disarmament Act? This law codified ATF's attempts to make you a prohibited person on the basis of a government psychiatrist's finding that you are a "danger" -- without a finding by any court. Well, roughly 150,000 battle-scarred veterans have already been unfairly stripped of their gun rights by the government.
But people who, as kids, were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder... or seniors with Alzheimer's... or police with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder... or people who are now theoretically covered by the new law... these people have, generally, not suffered the consequences of its sanctions -- YET. And the chief reason is that their records are not easily available to the government in a central, easily retrievable, computerized form.
The bailout bill would change all of that. It would push increasingly hard to force your private psychiatrist or government-sanctioned psychiatrist to turn over your psychiatric records to a massive database. This would be mandated immediately if your doctor does business with the government.
This would supposedly save Medicare money in connection with medical treatment. And, the sponsors insist, they would work very hard to protect your privacy.
But this turns the concept of "privacy" on its head. The privacy which is MOST important is privacy from the prying eyes of government -- not privacy of government data against the prying eyes of others. After all, many government data bases have been hacked in recent years, with mountains of information stolen.
So, once the government has access to these computerized psychiatric records, the stage will be set for using that database to take away the gun rights of those with Alzheimer's, those with ADD, and those with PTSD.
"Eric Holder, the newly appointed "head shyster," is a favorite of Sen. Orrin Hatch. The FALN terrorists Holder went to bat for and the Mark Rich pardon
were typical of Holder's work..
I used to admire Sen. Hatch and always voted for him. I would vote for him
again, but only if he ran for local dog catcher."
-- Ron Russell, in a letter printed in the Deseret News, 5 February 2009.
"Senate President Michael Waddoups wanted to collect data by scanning
patrons' driver licenses whenever they order an alcoholic beverage and then having this information fed into a central database ("ID scanners in eateries, too?" Tribune , Feb. 3). This information would be used if the patron left the restaurant and went to a bar. The database would inform the bartender that the customer may have already been drinking and should be "watched more closely."
Too bad the Legislature would never consider expanding this monitoring system to guns and ammo and sporting goods stores. Whenever someone purchases ammunition or a gun, their driver license or concealed carry permit would be scanned and fed to the central database. If this person later went to a gun show or to another gun retailer, the customer could be watched more closely, since he or she may already be 'loaded.'"
-- A. Joe Veltri, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 7 February 2009.
"The price of guns has gone up a lot since six months ago. People are buying more and more guns because there is a rumor that President Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress will take our gun rights away.
I believe in the U.S. Constitution, which grants most people the right to
own a gun and to defend themselves, their property and their country."
-- Adam Dunn, in a letter printed in the Deseret News, 8 February 2009.
Date:
From:
To:
Dear Representative :
I encourage you to oppose HB 13, Rep. Jennifer Seelig’s "strangulation and smothering bill". HB 13 is, oddly but truly, a back-door gun-control bill.
This bill, though well intentioned, could have substantial unintended consequences. HB 13 could make it a felony to get any type of momentary chokehold on someone without injuring the victim, or to dunk someone underwater in a swimming pool for a couple of seconds, or to put one’s knee on someone else’s chest without causing harm, among other possible scenarios. Although the bill is aimed at abusive men who use chokeholds to terrify and intimidate their wives without causing bodily injury, HB 13 could be used by zealous prosecutors to extend far beyond domestic-violence situations. Collegiate water-polo players dunking each other during a scuffle could be charged with a felony, as could young men engaging in a run-of-the-mill fist fight in which no serious injury is done but one gets a brief chokehold on the other.
Under federal law, any felony conviction results in the automatic and permanent revocation of the convicted person’s right to possess a firearm, no matter how minor his criminal act might have been. Thus, HB 13 can serve as a back-door form of gun control against people who aren’t spouse-abusers and who don’t seriously injure anyone.
With regard to domestic violence, please note that federal law already permanently prohibits gun ownership for anyone convicted of misdemeanor-level domestic violence, including any form of attempted choking or smothering, and that anyone with a domestic-violence misdemeanor record who possesses a firearm can be charged with a serious federal felony under the 1996 Lautenberg Law. Also, note that a chokehold that results in serious bodily injury to the victim is already treated as a felony under Utah law. I recommend that we make full use of these existing prosecutorial tools rather than turning more and more misdemeanors into felonies.
Thanks for taking time to consider my point of view. Please contact me and let me know how you vote on HB 13.
Sincerely,
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #312 for 16 February 2009. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending your firearms rights.
Remember that getting this information is meaningless unless You Act On It Today. If you just read it and dump it in the trash, your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal!
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