"It does not take a majority to prevail. What it takes is an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
-- Samuel Adams
GOUtah! does not endorse political parties or candidates. However, during election years we do two things. First, if a candidate who has not previously held public office wishes to make a statement expressing his views about the right to keep and bear arms, we will reproduce his statement for your information as space permits. Second, if an incumbent candidate has demonstrated a solid commitment to protecting the right to keep and bear arms by way of his recent voting record and his sponsorship of legislation, and that candidate requests assistance from gun owners for his campaign, we will relay that information to you for your consideration. Again, this does not constitute an endorsement from us. But we want to you to be informed about the candidates so that you can make your own decision as to whom to support or lend assistance to.
Thus far this year, we’ve received requests from two candidates to print their statements about the right to keep and bear arms. Neither candidate, as far as we are aware, has held public office before. We reproduce their statements here for your information.
The following statement and contact information were sent to us by Mr. Sam Fidler, who is running for the Utah State Senate in District 5:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." One of the shortest and simplest amendments yet it is all too frequently misunderstood or ignored. The first half is written as a factual statement and the rest restricts government from encroaching upon a preexisting right. I see no room for confusion and the original charters of the National Rifle Association and the Civilian Marksmanship Program – to improve our national defense by training the American population in marksmanship – support this original intent. The Second Amendment says nothing about hunting or any other form of sport shooting. It only says it is "necessary to the security of a free state."
The firearm is the ultimate individual expression of force. It is the great equalizer. It is the one thing that gives Grandma the same power as the criminal. When governments infringe on the individual right to keep and bear arms, they grant a monopoly of force to the state or to criminals. This leaves the citizen with no means of defending their other unalienable rights and both criminal and politician are quick to take advantage of them.
I know the power of the gun and know the peace that comes from preparedness. I have been active on both www.UtahConcealedCarry.com and www.OpenCarry.org and have written a lengthy article on the latter about one of the benefits of open carry. As a State Senator, I will not be satisfied until Utah law fully complies with the statement, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Sam Fidler
for Utah State Senate District 5
www.VoteFidler.com
Sam@VoteFidler.org
(801)916-4272
The following statement was sent to us by Mr. Tim Bridgewater, who is running for the U.S. Senate:
The Second Amendment has been the subject of acrimonious debate for more than a century. Some have held that the right to bear arms was qualified by the "well-regulated militia" clause. I was very gratified when the Supreme Court held that gun ownership is an individual right in the Heller decision two years ago. It is the only reasonable reading.
Another question often raised is whether the amendment applies only to the federal government, or whether it also applies to the states. Over the course of the 20th century, the Supreme Court has systematically applied the Bill of Rights to the states through the "incorporation" doctrine, which held that the 14th Amendment extended the Bill of Rights to the states. Curiously, many on the Left have held that the Second Amendment was somehow exempt from this. No one can really say why.
However, it really doesn’t matter, since the Second Amendment is already broader in its reach. Unlike the First Amendment, which is qualified with "Congress shall make no law…," the Second Amendment simply says that the "right to bear arms shall not be infringed." I read that very literally: Congress can’t infringe, and the States can’t either. There is a case on point before the Supreme Court right now (McDonald vs City of Chicago), and given the questions the Justices asked in oral argument it seems likely that we will soon get another victory for the right to bear arms.
Now, let me talk a bit about what guns to me, personally.
I have always owned guns. My step-father taught me to shoot and gave me my first gun when I was still quite young. As you might imagine, I was a little wary of a new man in the family, and guns provided the perfect tool for bonding. Plinking with a .22, and later going after pheasants and ducks with a shotgun brought us together, and I have used those same weapons with my own boys. The girls shot a little, but they never seemed to take to it as much.
These days, we often end up in Daniels Canyon or Mt. Nebo for deer with my British .303, or in Farmington Bay with the 12-gauge for ducks and the occasional goose. These are terrific opportunities to get away with the boys and friends, relax, and get muddy and gritty.
I have wonderful memories of a Duck Mud Machine outing near Houston with Ray Johnson and some other friends, slogging away to a distant duck blind. Hunting burns sights, sounds and smells into you like nothing else: the sliver of sun coming up, bringing some warmth to chilled and cramped fingers; the smell of reeds and mud on the lakeshore, the waxy feel of the 12-gauge shells as you slip them out of a new box of Remingtons, with that stylized "X" on the box; the smell of gunpowder mixed in, and the excitement of the bang and the plop of the ducks in the water.
Hunting is a ritual. Getting out the .410 shotguns, checking the action, packing the four-wheeler in the dark, driving to the camp with the boys snoozing, trotting out the same old jokes, sharing beef jerky, sunflower seeds and stale sandwiches. The hunting itself, following rules and practices that I got from my step-father and that I’m passing on to my boys, so that they can pass them on to theirs. Cleaning the game, eating it, cleaning up the campsite, and the tired trip back. Then the ritual of cleaning the weapons, oiling them, putting them safely in the cases to be ready for the next time.
There is nothing like it.
That’s a small part of what it means to me to be a gun owner. The old joke about gun control meaning a tight pattern at the center of the target has personal meaning to me. As it does to you as well, I know.
Let’s keep up the fight, and in the meantime, maybe I’ll see you up Daniels Canyon this fall.
Sincerely,
Tim
On 25 March our friends at the Second Amendment Foundation posted the following alert:
A report published by MSNBC.com confirms "everything gun rights groups have been saying for years, that more armed citizens does not equate to increased violence, and actually coincides with a reduction in homicides," the Second Amendment Foundation said today.
The on-line news agency this morning released an investigative report that record numbers of American citizens are now legally carrying firearms for personal protection. Yet, the report also reveals that homicide rates have declined dramatically during a period when gun sales have skyrocketed. Further, the report noted that Washington, DC with its extreme gun control has the highest murder rate in the nation, while Utah, with very liberal gun laws, has the lowest rate.
"This is further evidence that everything the gun prohibitionists have been claiming and predicting over the past two decades has been fundamentally fraudulent," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. "They have repeatedly argued that more guns will equate to more crime and more firearms deaths, and MSNBC.com just let the air out of their sails with this exhaustive and well-balanced report."
"This is why," he said, "anti-gun groups have lost their momentum and their credibility. They failed to gain traction even with a Democrat-controlled Congress and an anti-gun White House. They are so desperate for attention that they have now declared war on private businesses just to generate publicity. Their high-profile campaign of hysteria against Starbucks for complying with state laws that allow concealed and open carry in their coffee shops is based on an issue they fabricated just to grab headlines and television face time, and the public knows it.
"Every restrictive gun law, every ban, every gun-free-zone they have advocated and defended have one thing in common," Gottlieb concluded. "They gave us a body count. The MSNBC.com report suggests America has had enough."
On 8 April our friends at the Second Amendment Foundation posted the following alert:
By Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman
Following the dismissal of a second lawsuit against the District of Columbia by Dick Anthony Heller in U.S. District Court (his first lawsuit resulted in the 2008 Heller ruling), the Brady Campaign for the Prevention of Gun Violence was a little too quick on the trigger in its press release applauding Judge Ricardo M. Urbina's decision.
Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke, who has garnered quite a bit of self-created publicity lately in his war against Starbucks Coffee, admitted quite by accident that his organization still believes in banning entire classes of firearms, despite the 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller that such bans would not pass constitutional muster.
But that doesn't matter to the Brady Bunch. Their agenda has always been one of gun prohibition, not control. The kinds of controls they consider "common sense" are so Draconian in nature that they actually discourage firearms ownership, and lower the civil right to keep and bear arms to the level of a highly-regulated privilege.
Helmke admonished politicians and legislatures "at all levels" to "stop using the Second Amendment as an excuse for inaction" against what the anti-gun lobby has cleverly dubbed "gun violence." (After all, what is the difference between "gun violence" and any other kind of criminal violence that results in someone being injured or killed? Is someone any less dead if they are stabbed, strangled, burned or bludgeoned? Helmke's crew has never explained that, but evidently they think there is a difference.)
Millions of Americans understand that the Second Amendment is not "an excuse" for anything. Law-abiding citizens are not "hiding behind" a constitutional guarantee when they oppose the imposition of extremist regulations like those adopted in the District of Columbia, which Helmke finds so reasonable. These regulations include an onerous registration process requiring a ballistics check of the handgun, a written test and proof of good eyesight.
District regulations also ban so-called "assault weapons," the definition of which has become so nebulous over the years that just about any firearm someone does not like could fall within its scope, particularly if it is a semiautomatic. The Brady group is just fine with that; they think it is a grand idea. Helmke says the aforementioned politicians and legislatures "should follow the District's example and pass the strong, common sense gun laws Americans need and demand to protect their communities."
The Brady Campaign has been disingenuous at best over the years. It was on the losing side in the Heller case, but subsequently turned around and claimed that since there is an individual right to keep and bear arms, and the door has been left open to "reasonable regulation," then it is reasonable, in their opinion, to essentially regulate gun ownership into extinction. The right would still exist, but exercising it would become a regulatory nightmare.
The Brady Campaign is not now, nor has it ever been, to "prevent gun violence." Their campaign has always been to prevent gun ownership.
You have probably heard of the Arizona rancher who was allegedly murdered by drug gangs near the US - Mexico border. In an article posted on the National Public Radio website 9 April, "Sheriff To Texas Border Town: 'Arm Yourselves'" by John Burnett, Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West is quoted as advising a meeting of farmers in the border town of Fort Hancock, Texas "You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves." Apparently, the gangs want to empty the Valley of Juarez of farmers to facilitate their extensive use of this area for human and drug trafficking. That seems to include the farmers on the US side of the valley. Arson and murder are the tactics being used to drive out rival traffickers, as well as the general population. As the author says "You know it's bad when people are fleeing for safety to Juarez — the most murderous city in the hemisphere."
As we learned here in Utah the courts do not view state institutions of higher education as being exempt from laws covering the carrying of concealed weapons on it campuses. In a court ruling posted 15 April by the Colorado Daily titled "Colorado Court of Appeals: CU gun ban violates state laws" it appears that the Colorado judiciary agrees with their counterparts in Utah. Colorado passed its Concealed Carry Act in 2003 and, as in Utah, it allows legal CCW in all non-restricted areas of the state. The campus bans were put in place by the CU Board of Regents and were ruled unconstitutional by the Colorado Court of Appeals.
It seems that city bans on firearm ownership is not limited to costal bastions of liberalism. Our friends at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) posted the following alert on 6 May about the situation in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Nebraska Firearms Owners Association (NFOA) today called on the city of Omaha to end its practice of registering firearms, in the wake of a case involving a private citizen who fatally shot an armed robber, and who continues to be denied the ability to register a new firearm by the Omaha Police Department, which took his defensive sidearm used in the shooting into evidence.
NFOA President Andreas Allen said that the hero in this incident, Harry (James) McCullough, now faces gang reprisal because the armed robber man he fatally shot was a documented gang member. Mr. McCullough has "great concern for his personal safety."
"He is living on the road, sleeping at a different house every night and not working," Allen said.
"We arranged for Mr. McCullough to get a new replacement handgun from a federally licensed firearms dealer," he continued. "Mr. McCullough completed the paperwork on his new handgun and took a receipt down to OPD to register the handgun before taking possession of it, to make sure he was in complete compliance with city ordinances. OPD denied his registration because of a past citation for carrying a concealed weapon. After the City Prosecutor publicly stated he did not have grounds to charge Mr. McCullough, he again contacted the police to register his new firearm and was turned away."
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, called this situation "unconscionable." NFOA is a Citizens Committee affiliate.
"Mister McCullough has been cleared of any wrongdoing in this case," Gottlieb observed, "yet the police are retaining his firearm, and will not allow him to register a replacement gun. He intervened in a dangerous situation, at great personal risk, and now he is being put at continued risk by a police department policy that is both arbitrary and capricious."
Mr. McCullough has a right to protect himself, and his rights are being denied right now, Allen said.
When NFOA asked the Chief of Police to assist with this issue, he responded: "This is Omaha, and we ask you to respect the challenges of our city."
"The city’s handgun registration ordinance has been nothing more than a tool used against average citizens to prevent gun ownership," Allen said. "The Omaha Police Department has blatantly ignored state law over the past year, even as we tried to work with the police and prosecutor’s office to correct this violation. After conversations with both offices they refused to adjust their policies. They continue to make excuses even after a deputy chief was chastised by the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, and even after the State Attorney General released an opinion that they are in violation of the law."
"This is very disappointing," he said. "I thought it was the job of the police department to enforce the laws, not ignore them."
Allen said there are many other cases of individuals being denied registration unfairly. The Omaha Police claim registration is a tool to track guns, he added, but he asserted that that this tool is used more often to prevent gun ownership than to track down stolen guns.
"I think it is time the City of Omaha take a step back and reevaluate this whole handgun registration issue. It is time the city council eliminate this ordinance," he said.
From our friends at the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) we received the following alert on 11 May.
They opposed a landmark court ruling that struck down the handgun ban in District of Columbia, a city with a predominantly black population.
They later opposed legislation that would grant the District full voting rights in Congress, because the measure contained a provision expanding gun rights for those same citizens.
They filed a court brief opposing a lawsuit filed against the City of Chicago’s handgun ban by Otis McDonald, an African-American whose life story would make inspiring material for a movie.
"They" are the leaders of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and one is left to wonder how this bunch would have reacted to the plight of Robert Hicks, a black man who rose to civil rights prominence in the mid-1960s. The 81-year-old Mr. Hicks passed away April 13, and is remembered for being, among other things, the last known surviving member of the Deacons for Defense and Justice.
Hicks was a worker in a paper mill, and his home in Bogalusa, LA was targeted by racist thugs for a bombing because he had the audacity to house two white civil rights workers. On Feb. 1, 1965, Hicks was warned that the Ku Klux Klan was coming, and the local police essentially stood aside, claiming there was nothing they could do, according to an account in the New York Times.
So Mr. Hicks and his wife sent their children to the homes of friends and neighbors, and did something that would no doubt cause the Brady Camp to erupt in shrieks. They called other friends for protection and, the Times noted, "Soon, armed black men materialized. Nothing happened."
Mr. Hicks was to become a leader in the Deacons group, which was organized in Jonesboro, LA in 1964 and lasted for about four years. The traditionally anti-gun New York Times described the Deacons as a "secretive paramilitary organization of blacks." They might just as accurately have been described as a "black militia." The Brady Campaign has argued that the right to keep and bear arms applied only to the organized militia, but we have yet to see a Brady endorsement for the Deacons. Hicks also rose to be a leader in the local N.A.A.C.P. and also was once the head of the Bogalusa Civic and Voters League.
The Brady Campaign and their soul mates at the Violence Policy Center have consistently avoided discussing the racist underpinnings of gun control because they know it is a political minefield. Historian Clayton Cramer noted in his essay on the racist roots of gun control that, "The historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws — and not in any subtle way. Throughout much of American history, governments openly stated that gun control laws were useful for keeping blacks and Hispanics 'in their place' and for quieting the racial fears of whites."
How much longer can the Brady Bunch and its allies conceal the ugly true nature of gun control laws? These laws were the cornerstone of the Black Codes in the Reconstruction South, designed to keep free blacks defenseless against the night riders who would eventually become the Klan.
Failure to address the racist roots of gun control makes every other argument professed by the Brady Campaign to be little more than a subterfuge. Municipal gun bans disproportionately affect inner city minorities, yet nobody in the gun prohibition movement dares to broach the subject, because once the lid is off of that Pandora’s Box, it is not going to close again, and anti-gunners know it.
Again from our friends at the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) we received the following alert on 19 May.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "relaxation" of gun regulations to make them more streamlined in the city is "a lot of flash and very little substance," the Second Amendment Foundation said today, after carefully studying the new guidelines.
"It is clear to us," said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, "that Mayor Bloomberg is trying to make it appear that his gun regulations are more user-friendly to deflect a potential lawsuit once the Supreme Court rules on our legal action to overturn the handgun ban in Chicago. This tells us that Bloomberg and his legal advisors are convinced the high court will hand down a favorable ruling in the McDonald case, striking down Chicago's ban and incorporating the Second Amendment to the states via the 14th Amendment.'
Under Bloomberg's program, licensing requirements will be allegedly streamlined, renewal fees will go down and the application process will be speedier.
"This sounds good on the surface," Gottlieb observed, "but a little digging reveals that there is only one handgun licensing office in the entire city, in Manhattan. There is only one office for registering and licensing rifles and shotguns in the entire city, and that office is in Queens. The handgun application fee is $340, and there is a $94.25 fingerprinting fee on top of that. This fee structure screams 'for elites only' because those fees are outrageously expensive for average citizens."
"Adding insult to injury," he continued, "this is only to keep a handgun in your home or business. To get a carry permit, you still have to prove a need. Mayor Bloomberg, it's not the Bill of Needs, it's the Bill of Rights."
Even Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told the New York Times that Bloomberg is relaxing the rules because the current regulations will not be defensible under an affirmative ruling in the McDonald case, Gottlieb noted.
"Mayor Bloomberg is right to think he needs to relax gun regulations in New York City," Gottlieb said. "He is also right to think that SAF just might come knocking with a lawsuit after our case against Chicago is decided. But he is wrong to think these sham rules are going to mollify gun owners, or fool us into giving him a pass."
"As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you."
-- Arvin West, Hudspeth County Sheriff, in an article poster on the NPR website, 9 April, 2010.
"It seems really odd to me that a college campus is the only place where a rapist, or a criminal, has a government guarantee that none of his potential victims will be armed."
-- Gregory Carlson, chairman of the College Republicans on CU's Boulder campus, in an article poster on the Colorado Daily website, 15 April, 2010.
"I am ex-military, with more than 50 years of weapons experience. It is
interesting and appropriate that several states, including Nevada and now
New Mexico, refuse to recognize Utah's permits to carry a concealed weapon.
The class I recently took to obtain my carry permit is one indication why
this is happening.
My class lasted about three-and-a-half hours, including fingerprinting and
filling out the form. The two instructors were good, if a bit full of themselves. About a dozen people attended. One man had never fired a pistol before. A mother and a daughter, around 70 and 50 years old, did not understand gun calibers. The elderly lady said she was afraid she did not have the strength to hold a pistol. Another man persisted in asking which ammo was best for blowing somebody in two. At the end, we all paid our money and got our permits.
At a minimum, to receive a permit to carry a concealed weapon, a person
should have to demonstrate proficiency with a weapon, and if not able to do so, they should have to take formal instruction until they can. Common sense? Not in Utah."
-- Jack McLellan, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 6 May 2010.
"The Supreme Court's decision on the Second Amendment establishing the right of people to bear arms should halt any fears of government confiscation of guns. We should now proceed to produce intelligent gun laws that save lives.
Assault weapons, like machine guns, should require rigorous government
regulation to protect both police and citizens. All gun sales should go through a licensed dealer with a background check to keep guns from felons, suspected terrorists and the mentally deranged. Plus, registering handguns would assist the police in tracing guns used in committing a crime. Gun trafficking could be reduced by limiting gun purchases to one per month, and the same gun-safety training and license required for hunters should be required of every gun owner. Using mind-altering drugs, including excessive use of alcohol, should halt the gun owner's right to bear arms.
These are simple and hardly egregious laws. Responsible gun laws make
responsible gun owners responsible citizens."
-- Ron Molen, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 May 2010.
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #333 for 16 June, 2010. 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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