"Large numbers of Americans tote guns because they're assertive, self-reliant citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. The Second Amendment is philosophically consistent with the First Amendment…..Both amendments embody the American view that liberty is not the gift of the state, and its defense cannot be outsourced exclusively to the government."
-- Mark Steyn
It’s that time of year again. The Utah State Legislature has begun its annual general session. If you’re new to the political process, please read our tutorial below to learn how you can become highly effective at protecting your right to own and carry firearms.
One of the most important bills this session is HB 49, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray (R-13). GOUtah! strongly supports this bill. HB 49 does two good things. First, it amends the existing legal definition of "disorderly conduct" to make it clear that the lawful possession of a firearm does not in and of itself constitute disorderly conduct unless accompanied by some sort of disorderly behavior.
HB 49 is designed to ensure that state and local authorities in Utah can’t use the pretext of "disorderly conduct" to bust you just because you’re exercising your constitutional right to possess or carry a firearm in a manner that’s completely peaceable and lawful.
Second, HB 49 explicitly prohibits municipalities from enacting policies regulating the possession of firearms unless specifically authorized to do so by the legislature. This prohibition is already in place elsewhere in the Utah Code, but HB 49 adds another layer of reinforcement. In particular, HB 49 specifically prohibits any state or municipal entity from enacting any ordinance or regulation that declares the mere lawful possession of a firearm, in the absence of any other behavior, to be "disorderly conduct".
HB 49 passed the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee and now goes to the floor of the House, where it will be voted on in the near future. Please go to the Action Item at the end of this alert to see what you can do to help pass this bill.
Most voters never bother to write a letter or make a phone call to their elected officials. Thus, your willingness to write a few letters or send a few e-mails or make a few phone calls during the next six weeks will put you in an elite minority of gun owners who are willing to make a significant effort to protect the right to keep and bear arms. And you’ll be able to have a much greater impact on the legislative process than the thousands of gun owners who don’t do anything.
Every time there’s a major new threat to the Second Amendment, millions of Americans start to panic-buy guns and ammunition out of fear that new restrictions will be enacted by the government. However, based on our conversations with many gun owners, we’ve reached the sad conclusion that a lot of folks who are willing to plunk down hundreds or even thousands of dollars on guns and ammo in such situations won’t lift a finger to actually help prevent new anti-gun laws from being passed or to help pass laws to protect the right to keep and bear arms.
It really doesn't take much effort to make a difference. If you plan on setting aside a few minutes each week during the six-week legislative session, you can have an enormous impact.
In our experience in dealing with the Utah Legislature, we’ve often found that a few hundred letters to legislators from gun owners around the state can make the difference between a good outcome and a bad outcome on a given piece of legislation. We hope that you’ll choose to be one of the tiny minority of gun owners in Utah willing to put forth some effort to defend the right to keep and bear arms, rather than being one of the hundreds of thousands who do nothing.
We’ll make it easy for you to act. When there’s an important gun-related bill, we’ll provide you with a pre-written letter that you can copy and send, and we’ll tell you whom to send it to. Feel free to write your own letter, of course. But the number of letters received by an elected official will tend to be what really counts. So if you don’t have the time or inclination to compose your own letter, please use one of our pre-written letters and fill in the blanks and sign it and send it.
To find out who your Utah State Representative and your Utah State Senator are, you can go to the [Legislature] link.
For the names and contact info of all your state and federal elected officials, you can go to GOUtah!’s Legislative Contacts page.
Please contact your Utah State Representative and ask him to vote for HB 49, and to oppose any hostile amendments to the bill.
If you already know the name of your Representative, you can find his contact information by going to GOUtah!’s website.
If you don’t know who your Representative is, you can find out on the official Legislature website.
Feel free to copy the pre-written letter below and fill in the blanks and send it via mail, fax, or e-mail.
Utah House of Representatives
P.O. Box 145030
Salt Lake City, Utah 84114
Phone: (801)538-1029
Fax: (801)326-1544
The state of Florida, like Utah, is a "shall issue" state for CCW permits. However, the state of Florida has an explicit law banning open carry. To some overzealous law enforcement officers in that state this includes an inadvertent exposure of a concealed weapon. Below is one account of such an incident from our friends at Florida Carry. Please note that the passage of HB 49 S1 in the state of Utah would prevent similar travesties here.
When Hueris Mora came to us, we did what we always do when contacted by someone who is facing gun carry charges. We set about researching the charges and circumstances of the incident. Florida Carry only gets involved in these cases when good people face unjust charges because they choose to lawfully carry defensive arms.
In his case, it was immediately apparent that continuing prosecution by the office of Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Miami-Dade State Attorney, for violation of Florida's Open Carry Ban was unjustified at best. Our consulting attorneys statewide were in unanimous concurrence that prosecution of this case, despite the ambiguous language of Florida Statute 790.053, was completely baseless. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office must have also known that they were in an untenable position because they quickly offered to take the possibility of jail time off the table.
Removing the possibility of imprisonment was not an olive branch offered in the interest of justice, it was in fact a Trojan Horse. This underhanded move was their only way to keep prosecuting the case because it had the calculated effect of taking away Mr. Mora's public defender. Once the Assistant State Attorney prosecuting the case had effectively maneuvered to deprive Mr. Mora of legal counsel, an offer was made. An offer so common in Florida that it is considered the standard plea deal... "You can retake the concealed course to get your license to carry back but kiss your gun goodbye."
Hueris knew he was getting the shaft despite having done nothing wrong, so he did what nobody before in Florida (that we know of) had done. He didn't sign the deal. This was a brave decision made despite having no legal help at that time.
Florida Carry has consulting attorneys who do countless hours of pro bono work behalf of our members. Unfortunately, at that time we did not have a criminal defense attorney in Mr. Mora's area. That's when we reached out to Jesus "Jojo" Rodriguez. He didn't blink. Pro bono defense of a truly worthy young man who needs our help? "Absolutely!" was Jojo's immediate response. Our other attorneys and legal interns rallied together to provide support and Mr. Rodriguez, Florida Carry's newest consulting attorney, drove this case home. The charge of violating Florida's Open Carry Ban was dismissed with prejudice. We finally won this fight that deprived Mr. Mora of his handgun for nearly six months.
Last year, when 2011 SB 234 was debated in the State Legislature, our elected leaders were told about law abiding gun owners being arrested and thrown in jail for even accidental or incidental exposure of lawfully carried firearms. The State Prosecuting Attorneys lobbyist repeatedly said that "Nobody has ever been prosecuted for open carry." The fact is that nobody ever went all the way to trial. Many have been prosecuted; this was a case where a good man fought back. If this doesn't meet some lobbyist definition of prosecution, we recommend a new dictionary.
Judge the case docket for yourself. It sure looks like prosecution to us.
The Florida Sheriff's Association sent multiple lobbyists in uniform who said that law enforcement officers will use their "proper discretionary powers" and would never arrest someone for carrying a handgun if it became innocently unconcealed. Yet there is a 25 year history of some officers using subjective language in firearms laws to unreasonably arrest law-abiding people who choose to exercise their right to bear arms. In one such case, a man lawfully carrying was permanently injured when handcuffs were put on him with such force that nerves in both wrists were severed. All because part of his handgun became unconcealed.
Early last year, Florida's Open Carry Ban was amended to insert the subjective language asked for by the Florida Sheriffs and State Prosecuting Attorneys Lobbyist. This compromised language came with their promise that these incidents would stop. Subsequently Mr. Mora had to spend a night deprived of his freedom in jail and half a year fighting for his rights. Every month we are contacted by other law-abiding people who have been confronted, detained, and threatened with arrest because they were lawfully carrying a firearm in Florida and it "printed" through clothing or became unconcealed.
They have broken their promise and we now call on the Florida Legislature to repeal one of the most anti-gun laws in the country. Despite the Florida Legislature’s clear intent that people who have lawfully carried handguns, which may become innocently unconcealed, face no charges. As long as the general ban on open carry exists, these arrests and prosecutions will continue unabated. Florida Statute 790.053 is Florida's very unusual open carry ban, it was a knee jerk reaction when passed in 1987 and it is long overdue for repeal.
On 18 January 2012 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert about the dangers of the SOPA and PIPA proposals to "protect" parts of the entertainment industies from piracy. Altough the steam has gone out of congresss now to pursue these proposals it is good to be aware of the unintended consequences from such ill-thought-out legislation.
By now, you are no doubt aware that several websites have either gone totally or partially "dark" today in protest of the pernicious internet legislation that will be coming to a vote next week. Wikipedia and Google are just two of the websites which are protesting in this manner.
And while you may have not paid much attention to this story, you need to know that the "muzzle the web" legislation these sites are protesting could also affect your ability to get gun-related information on websites like GOA’s.
The reason is that S. 968 could, in its final form, allow the Brady Campaign to partially shut down our GOA website and our organization (plus many other pro-gun websites) with a series of factually accurate, but legally frivolous complaints.
The Senate bill and its House counterpart have accurately been called "a direct attack on the underpinnings of the web."
True, many of the most serious "gun problems" are in the House counterpart. But the reality is this: We are within a few votes of killing the whole concept next week in the Senate with only 41 Senate votes.
But if we allow the so-called "anti-piracy" bill to go forward on the HOPE that the worst provisions will not make it into the final version -– and we fail to eliminate them -– the bill may be unstoppable.
Here are the "gun problems," as we see them: Section 103(b)(1) of H.R. 3261 allows any "holder of an intellectual property right" to demand that PayPal and other payment and advertising services stop providing services to organizations like ours, thereby shutting off our income.
How would they do this? Perhaps by arguing that we were stealing their intellectual property by quoting their lying misrepresentations in our alerts.
Is this legally frivolous? Sure it is. But the Brady Campaign is the King of Frivolous Complaints:
This "muzzle the web" legislation will throw the doors open to even more frivolous complaints. Could we defend ourselves? Yes, we could. We could file a counter notification under section 103(b)(5) and spend years defending ourselves. But the one thing we did learn during the 36 frivolous lawsuits is that the anti-gun forces in America have very deep pockets.
And the other problem is that, under section 104, our Internet providers would be insulated from liability for shutting us down. But they would receive no comparable insulation from legal liability if they refused to cut us off.
The Senate version, S. 968, has been amended, at the behest of Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and others, to provide many protections which were not in its initial form.
Under section 3, the Attorney General would go to court and would have to claim that, because of a hyperlink to an offending site, we were "primarily" engaged in the theft of intellectual property.
We would feel a lot better about these protections if the Attorney General were not Eric Holder, a ruthless ideologue who has demonstrated that he will go to any lengths to destroy the Second Amendment.
So the bottom line is this: H.R. 3261 and S. 968 would potentially empower the Brady Campaign and Eric Holder to go after our Internet site. To do so, they would have to make the same frivolous arguments and engage in the same lawless activity that they have done so often in the past.
But -– given that we’re within a few votes of snuffing out that risk by killing the bill in the Senate -– we believe it’s the better course of action to do so.
On 20 January 2012 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert about the new regulations on multiple sales of long guns.
First, the good news: Fox News is reporting that due to an amazing outpouring of opposition, the vote on the so-called anti-piracy legislation -- which could muzzle websites like GOA’s -- has been postponed. Thank you all for your activism … and please stay tuned to further updates on this issue.
Now for the bad news: You know what they say about Friday the 13th.
Well, this past Friday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a setback to gun owners. The issue involved a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s illegal multiple sales regulations. [NSSF v. Jones, Acting Director, BATFE.]
Through those regulations, Obama has demanded, by regulatory fiat, that firearms licensees in four southwestern states report multiple sales of certain long guns to the federal government.
In upholding this action, Judge Rosemary Collyer -– a Bush appointee! –- ignored the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s decision in the Heller case, and the clear language of federal law.
Of course, this once again underscores the danger of putting all our eggs in the "court basket." It’s not a bad idea to challenge unconstitutional measures in the courts, but it’s problematic if we look to them as being the ultimate defenders of our gun rights. Clearly, they are not.
Among other things, Judge Collyer ignored the obvious language of the 1986 McClure-Volkmer Act, which prohibits the ATF from demanding any information on gun owners other than information explicitly allowed by statute.
Specifically, the section states: "Such [licensees] shall not be required to submit to the Attorney General reports and information with respect to such records and the contents thereof, except as expressly required by this section." (18 U.S.C. 923(g)(1))
Paragraph (g)(5) allows the Attorney General to demand information by issuing a "demand letter," but participants in the drafting of McClure-Volkmer affirm that this was not intended to trump the paragraph (1) limitation, in order to statutorily mandate reporting requirements.
To interpret paragraph (g)(5), as Obama and Attorney General Holder have interpreted it, is to say that there are NO limits on the information the Attorney General can demand -– up to and including every 4473 in the country.
In opening this door, Collyer cited much narrower decisions in the Fourth and the liberal Ninth Circuit, but expanded them beyond any judicial precedent. Citing a test that looked at whether the ATF’s action constituted a "clear error of judgment" or was "arbitrary or capricious," Collyer gave all of the benefit of the doubt to Obama -– and none to the Second Amendment, which wasn’t even considered in her 21-page opinion.
The decision will presumably be appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals -– a supposedly "conservative" circuit that nevertheless upheld ObamaCare.
But the larger issue is this: Congress can block these regulations by simply cutting off the money to implement them. Last fall, we demanded that the House include such a prohibition in its giant money bill. But congressional leaders ignored the Second Amendment community on this and a variety of other pro-gun issues, including defunding ObamaCare.
It is late in the game. But there is still an opportunity to prohibit funding for the multiple sales regulations on the annual Department of Justice Appropriations bill and the "continuing resolution" which will inevitably follow around September 30.
True, a lot of damage will have been done by that point. But we cannot allow to stand the precedent that the Attorney General can seize any and all gun-related information, simply by saying he wants it.
On 24 January 2012 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert announcing their court victory over unconstitutional GPS tracking of individuals.
The Supreme Court yesterday unanimously sided with Gun Owners of America in finding that the placement of a Global Positioning Device on an automobile constitutes a "search" for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
The majority opinion in U.S. v. Jones was written by Justice Antonin Scalia and follows GOA’s reasoning to throw out the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which has been thought to be the dominant Fourth Amendment standard in recent years.
The Obama Administration argued that because the police could theoretically follow Antoine Jones’ car, he had no "reasonable expectation of privacy," and thus, placing a GPS device on his car was justified. GOA argued, however, that this constituted an "unreasonable search and seizure" which violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
This decision will have dramatic ramifications for gun owners. Indeed, the Court looked to the Founders’ intentions with respect to the Fourth Amendment, which, until the latter part of the 20th Century, was understood to restrict the ability of police to "trespass" upon the persons or property of Americans.
"This is no less than a fundamental transformation of American jurisprudence concerning searches and seizures," according to GOA’s Executive Director Larry Pratt. "And it is a transformation which throws out fake modern jurisprudence and restores the Founders’ intent."
The "reasonable expectation of privacy" test flowed from a Justice Harlan concurring opinion in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). Gun Owners of America had argued that the Supreme Court should jettison that decision by an activist court, and a majority of the justices agreed.
"The 'expectation of privacy' test for searches and seizures arose without support in the text or historical context of the Fourth Amendment, and has proven wholly inadequate to protect the American people from their government," argued GOA.
Four members of the court -- led by Samuel Alito, and joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan -- argued for the continuation of the "reasonable expectation of privacy test," but concluded that planting a GPS device on a car for 28 days constituted a Fourth Amendment "search" under that standard as well.
The Obama administration, which had argued that planting a GPS device on a car was not a "search" under the Harlan standard, was unanimously repudiated by the High Court. And the case is being cited by the mainstream media as a defeat for Obama and his Justice Department, which is led by Attorney General Eric Holder.
Said Pratt: "This is yet another failure by Eric Holder, the most corrupt and incompetent Attorney General in the history of the Republic."
Gun Owners would like to thank its activists for their support. Your contributions helps GOA to assist in future cases like this at the Supreme Court.
On 27 January 2012 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert revisiting the continuing saga of the "Fast and Furious" fiasco.
Attorney General Eric Holder -- recently caught lying under oath concerning his knowledge of his department’s Fast and Furious program -- may be moving a step closer to the inside of a jail cell.
On Thursday, February 2nd, Chairman Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold another hearing on the disastrous Fast and Furious operation.
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, a member of that committee, is also pushing a resolution of "no confidence" in Holder’s management -- or lack of management -- of the Justice Department.
That resolution, H. Res. 490, provides a course of action for the momentum generated by that hearing.
H. Res. 490 finds that, as a result of "Holder’s failure to properly control, monitor, or establish Operation Fast and Furious, it is likely Mexican nationals were killed or wounded by weapons sold through this scheme" -- and that the victims of Holder’s incompetence included U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.
It goes on to resolve that the House has "lost confidence" in Holder, which is, basically, a call for him to resign.
Clearly, the Justice Department believes it can stonewall Issa’s inquiry and bull its way through questions concerning its criminal malfeasance. Adoption of the Gosar resolution would make it much, much more difficult to do so.
According to a news report posted by KRQE TV of Albuquerque, NM , "engineers at Sandia National Laboratories have invented a bullet that guides itself to the target." The report, titled "Sandia Labs' bullet doesn't miss", documents in text and with a video a .50-caliber laser targeted bullet that corrects its flight path to hit the designated target.
Just the thing for varmint hunting.
On 1 February 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune publishe an editorial on HB 49 titled "Guns in the open". As expected, they derided the bill as a "farcical idea" depriving cities and towns the ability to prempt Utah law. They make the interesting claim that it makes more "sense" for Salt Lake City to outlaw open carry than for say, Kamas. They don't explain why this should be the case, they merely assert it.
On 1 February 2012 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert updating the continuing questioning of Attorney General Eric Holder.
Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tomorrow morning to answer for his failed leadership in regard to Operation Fast and Furious.
This operation, which was shepherded by Obama’s Justice Department, has led to thousands of guns being smuggled into Mexico -- and to the deaths of two federal agents. Holder has already been caught in several lies and appears to be digging in his feet even further.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa will be grilling Holder once again and has threatened the Attorney General with contempt charges if he continues stonewalling.
Issa warned that if the Attorney General continues to obstruct his investigation, "this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress."
GOA staff has been working closely with House committee members, and we will be attending the hearings and reporting to you on developments -- both public and behind-the-scenes.
On 2 February 2012 our friends at Gun Owners of America (GOA) posted the following alert following Attorney General Eric Holder's testimony to congress. It seems, that in his opinion, the DOJ had no idea of what its agency, the BATFE, was doing in Arizona.
Appropriately, it’s Groundhog Day.
Because Attorney General Eric Holder has just testified that he spent another year hiding in a hole, oblivious to what was going on in his department or even what was in his inbox.
In testimony before Darrell Issa’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Holder’s defense was -- in the words of one DEMOCRAT -- the "Sergeant Schultz defense": "I know nooothing!"
This, notwithstanding the fact that there were no fewer than seven memoranda sent to Holder (as early as July, 2010) briefing him on the Fast and Furious Operation, and the fact that his department was intentionally allowing guns to go across the border to Mexican drug cartels.
Those guns have already resulted in the deaths of over 300 Mexican nationals, in addition to U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry.
Yet, Holder smugly asserted that he didn’t have time to read memoranda forwarded to him by his subordinates detailing criminal conduct by his department under his watch. (Never mind Holder’s assertion today that his management style was one that is "hands on.")
Which leads to this question: Could a hedge fund manager escape culpability by arguing that he didn’t read letters from his subordinates or attorneys warning him of criminal misconduct?
And another thing: What was Eric Holder doing that was so important that the deaths of 300 people didn’t warrant any of his "precious" time?
Let Holder explain to the families of the dead that their lives were trivial because he was so busy promulgating illegal regulations governing multiple gun sales reporting, unlawfully banning shotgun importation, and unconstitutionally justifying non-recess recess appointments.
Holder protested that questioners were "disrespecting" his office. But Holder has dragged his office and his department into the cesspool. The proper response to him is: "Disrespect? What about 300 murdered Mexicans?" It is time for him to go.
"As a normal, everyday citizen and a senior at Bingham High School, I am sick of tuning to the daily news and hearing case after case of violence and death, especially of innocent lives and the people who protect us, our police. As I look at the cause of such violent deaths, I come to one conclusion: guns.
Here’s some food for thought: England has some of the world’s strictest gun laws, and it has one-quarter of the homicides (per 100,000 people) that the United States has, and only 10 percent of England’s fewer homicides are caused by a firearm. In the United States, 65 percent of our homicides are by shooting.
Under federal law, a purchaser of a firearm from a licensed dealer has to undergo a background check. But if a person buys a gun from a private seller, as is the case in 40 percent of sales, no background or criminal check is required. This allows a criminal or a person with mental illness access to firearms.
We need to prevent easy access to guns."
-- Aaron Rees, in a letter printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 15 January 2012.
"The mythical times of the Old West, where cowboys strode the streets with six-guns strapped to their belts, are dead, ...
Utahns can rest easier knowing that those who are carrying guns legally at least have had some training and are not criminals.
However, HB49 would take away the ability of local authorities to outlaw the open display of a firearm as disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct. Some other threatening behavior, other than openly carrying a gun, would have to present for a town to outlaw it."
-- Editorial [excerpted], re. HB 49, printed in The Salt Lake Tribune, 1 February 2012.
Please create a copy for your Utah State Senator.
Date:
From:
To:
Dear Representative :
As one of your constituents, I encourage you to vote for HB 49 Substitute, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray. This bill clarifies that the mere lawful possession of a firearm, absent any other behavior, cannot in and of itself be defined as disorderly conduct.
It makes no sense for local authorities to be empowered to arrest or cite a person for peaceably exercising his right to possess a firearm in a perfectly legal manner without engaging in threatening or disorderly behavior. HB 49 Substitute would prevent state and local government entities from enacting ordinances of this type while leaving them ample authority to prohibit actual disorderly conduct.
Please get back to me and let me know how you voted on HB 49 Substitute. Thanks for taking time to consider my views on this matter.
Sincerely,
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #349 for 2 February, 2012. 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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