State-by-state gun control developments
Officials talk guns, hold buybacks after shootings
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The national gun debate swelled Tuesday as Arizona and the country commemorated the shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., two years ago that killed six people and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords injured -- an anniversary that came on the heels of the mass killing at a Connecticut elementary school. Here's how some state and local leaders are taking action:
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ARIZONA -- Giffords and her husband on Tuesday launched a political action committee aimed at curbing gun violence, while two politicians on opposite ends of the gun debate held dueling weapons buybacks outside a Tucson police station.
In Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has said he plans to post armed volunteers on school perimeters to protect Phoenix-area students.
His plan, announced last month, came after two other Arizona officials released ideas for boosting school security: Attorney General Tom Horne proposed firearms training for one person in each school, and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu proposed training multiple educators per school to carry guns.
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ILLINOIS -- The state's attorney general on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to review a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on concealed carry in an effort to salvage the only law in the nation that makes the practice entirely illegal.
Last month, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Illinois ban as unconstitutional and gave lawmakers 180 days to write a law legalizing it. Attorney General Lisa Madigan is asking that all 10 judges on the court rehear the case.
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CONNECTICUT - U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal announced Tuesday he plans to introduce federal legislation that would require instant background checks for purchasers of ammunition.
It is now illegal to sell firearms and ammunition to certain groups, including felons and the mentally ill. But background checks, Blumenthal said, are required only for the sale of firearms, not the bullets.
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WASHINGTON -- Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and other city leaders on Tuesday announced a new gun buyback program being sponsored by Amazon.com and other businesses to reduce firearms in the community.
Under the program, people who turn in a handgun can pick up a $100 gift card for the online retailer.
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UTAH -- A Spring City councilman wants all residents in the small town to be armed against possible aggressors.
Councilman Neil Sorensen says he's drafting a measure that would recommend that a gun be in every household in the town of 1,000, about 90 miles south of Salt Lake City. The measure will go before the full council in February.
Sorensen also wants the town to pay for concealed-weapons training for every elementary school teacher.
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COLORADO -- Following last summer's Aurora theater shooting, a vigorous debate on gun control is expected during the 2013 lawmaking session that starts Wednesday.
Democrats now control both chambers of the Legislature so Colorado could see a flurry of measures to curb access to firearms -- including a possible assault-weapons ban.
"I want to find a way to eliminate assault weapons, but I'm still trying to figure out how to do that," said Senate President John Morse, a former police chief.
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VERMONT -- The Burlington City Council is supporting a proposed ban on assault rifles and multiple ammunition clips in the city.
The resolution passed the council on a 10-3 vote Monday night. It would need to go before a committee, eventually be voted on by the public and then be sent to the Legislature before it could be approved.
Elsewhere, organizers of an annual gun show in Barre say they'll allow the showing and sale of assault weapons despite a request by the city's mayor that the weapons not be displayed in the aftermath of the Connecticut shooting. The two-day gun show is set to begin Feb. 9.
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RHODE ISLAND -- Providence Mayor Angel Taveras wants to hold a statewide gun buyback event.
Taveras, a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, also is talking with other mayors in the Ocean State about legislative proposals to strengthen state gun laws.
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NEBRASKA -- A Lincoln city councilman wants police officers assigned to more schools.
School resource officers already are assigned to each public high school. Councilman Gene Carroll wants the city and school district to consider adding them to middle schools.
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CALIFORNIA -- A one-day gun buyback program in Los Angeles brought in 2,037 firearms.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office said the weapons collected Dec. 26 included 901 handguns, 698 rifles, 363 shotguns and 75 assault weapons. The buyback is usually held in May but was moved up in response to the Connecticut shooting.
In San Diego, gun owners traded more than 350 weapons for grocery vouchers Dec. 21 as authorities vowed to step up firearms exchanges.
Officials talk guns, hold buybacks after shootings
Iowa lawmaker calls for retroactive gun ban, confiscation of semi-automatic weapons
Iowa lawmaker calls for retroactive gun ban, confiscation of semi-automatic weapons
4:43 AM 01/09/2013
David Martosko
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In an interview with the Daily Times Herald in Caroll, Iowa, state Rep. Dan Muhlbauer said governments should start confiscating semi-automatic rifles and other firearms.
Muhlbauer, a Democrat from the western Iowa town of Manilla, is a cattleman and farmer. The newspaper reported that he owns a .410 shotgun, a .22 rifle and a .22 pistol.
“We cannot have big guns out here as far as the big guns that are out here, the semi-automatics and all of them,” Muhlbauer told the newspaper during a December 19 audiotaped interview. “We can’t have those running around out here. Those are not hunting weapons.”
“We should ban those in Iowa,” he said, adding that such a ban should be applied retroactively.
“We need to get them off the streets — illegally — and even if you have them, I think we need to start taking them,” Muhlbauer told the Daily Times Herald. “We can’t have those out there. Because if they’re out there they’re just going to get circulated around to the wrong people. Those guns should not be in the public’s hands. There are just too many guns.”
The newspaper published excerpts from the interview Wednesday morning along with an audio recording of the full 15-minute interview.
“We have to change, and we have to get stricter and tougher with what we do,” Muhlbauer said.
The interview took place in the week immediately following the Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that left 20 children dead.
“With all these shootings going on we have to start making radical changes and radical choices from what we’ve done in the past,” Muhlbauer said.
Republican Rep. Steve King, who represents western Iowa in Congress, is a gun-rights supporter who warned during an October 2102 debate against Democrat Christie Vilsack that the purpose of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “is to guard against tyranny because our Founding Fathers understood that if you did not have an armed populace, a tyrant could take over America.”
“So we have a responsibility not just to defend the Second Amendment in words, but do so in deed by hunting and target practicing and also self-defense,” King said.
One of King’s constituents published a letter from King on Jan. 2 in an online gun-rights forum. In the letter, the congressman said he was “heartbroken” by the Newtown, Conn. shooting but called the tragedy ”the act of an evil, and likely deranged, individual intent on committing horrifying acts of violence.”
In the audio recording, Muhlbauer blamed violent videogames, in part, for a coarsening of American gun culture.
“We’ve got these videogames out here for these little kids,” he said. “Maybe it’s time we start pulling them away, as far as — you know, they’re playing some really nasty games on there that are shoot-em-up and whatever — and evidently our culture is pulling you toward this. We’ve got to come up with ways to find out, you know, what’s triggering this, what has happened, We’ve had too many of these cases go on.”
Read more: Iowa lawmaker calls for retroactive gun bans, confiscations of semi-automatic weapons | The Daily Caller
Blue state governors not waiting on Washington to pass gun laws
Blue state governors not waiting on Washington to pass gun laws
Democratic governors are making a big push for tighter gun laws as the debate over gun control heats up in Washington.
President Barack Obama admitted in a press conference Monday that it's possible some of his desired gun control reforms—limiting the size of ammunition magazines, expanding the comprehensive background check system for gun buyers, and banning some types of semi-automatic rifles—may not pass the divided Congress.
"Will all of them get through this Congress? I don't know," the president said, while calling on lawmakers to rise above politics. "If there is a step we can take that would save even one child from what happened in Newtown, we should take that step."
Blue state governors including those in Maryland, New York and Delaware, however, aren't waiting for Washington to make the first move.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has hammered out a tentative agreement with lawmakers to ban ammunition magazines that carry more than seven bullets and to further expand the state's assault weapons ban, the AP reported Monday. (The governor's office said the deal had not yet been reached.) The governor was seeking a comprehensive bill that would also extend background checks so that all gun buyers must undergo one even if they are buying a weapon from a private seller.
Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is seeking to pass a package of bills that would give the state some of the toughest restrictions on guns in the country, the Washington Post reports. O'Malley is seeking an assault weapons ban, tougher background checks for gun buyers that include providing fingerprints to state police, and a mandatory gun safety course.
Both O'Malley and Cuomo are considered potential Democratic presidential contenders in 2016.
The Democratic governors of Connecticut, Delaware and Colorado have also said they will seek tougher laws. Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber said Monday he would support gun control legislation, including an assault weapons ban, if state lawmakers pass it.
Meanwhile, in red states, politicians are pushing to expand gun rights by allowing school employees to take weapons onto campuses.
Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst has recommended creating a state-funded program to train teachers and administrators on how to use guns to stop an active shooter. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has also said he thinks teachers should be able to be armed in class. (One district in the state already allows it.)
Lawmakers in Tennessee, Virginia and Florida are weighing passing legislation that allows teachers and other school staff to take concealed weapons into school buildings.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/blue-state-governors-not-waiting-washington-pass-gun-180028343.html
Kozachik: No more gun shows at Tucson Convention Center
Kozachik: No more gun shows at Tucson Convention Center
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Benjamin Brayfield, Rapid City J
Ammunition for sale at the Rapid City Rifle Club Gun Show & Sale at the Central States Fairgrounds.
2013-01-16T15:30:00ZKozachik: No more gun shows at Tucson Convention Center
7 hours ago • Darren DaRonco Arizona Daily Star
Gun shows could be a thing of the past at the Tucson Convention Center if Councilman Steve Kozachik gets his way.
Kozachik wants to prohibit gun shows on city-owned property until either the state legislature or the U.S. Congress passes a bill requiring background checks on all gun sales.
“Continuing to allow person-to-person gun sales without the requirement of any background checks is a clear threat to the health and safety of the community. If any place has a right to be sensitive about that, Tucson does,” Kozachik said.
“It’s my belief, and I’m hearing it daily now, that we should take a leadership position in saying “no” to gun shows on public property until the state or the feds fix the clear gap in the law that allows people to buy weapons without the seller having any knowledge of who they are or what their background is.”
Federal law mandates that only licensed firearm dealers must conduct a background check. Private sales, regardless of where the transaction occurs, are unregulated.
Kozachik will introduce the item at the next council meeting, Feb. 5. If approved, he hopes the prohibition will take effect immediately and prevent city staff from issuing permits to gun shows to lease the TCC.
The move will affect a lone company, the Phoenix-based McMann Roadrunner Gun Show, which holds about three shows a year at the convention center.
Owner Lori McMann said she doesn’t understand why the city would want to keep her out of the TCC.
“They don’t have any basis to not rent to us. We’ve had no rule violations or any law violations,” McMann said. “I don’t know why they would be proposing this since it has already been defeated once.”
“A city cannot make a law that supercedes state or federal law,” she said.
The legal challenge McMann referenced was a lawsuit filed years ago by her parents, Pat and Joan McMann, over a city ordinance that required instant background checks on all firearm purchases at gun shows held at the TCC.
Although an appeals court ruled in favor of the city in 2002, City Attorney Mike Rankin said the state Legislature has amended state law to work around the ruling.
Though the city can’t require instant background checks on vendors, Rankin said the city still retains the right over who can lease city property.
“Those changes don’t override our charter authority, which comes from the Constitution and not from the Legislature,” Rankin wrote in an email. “Under McMann, as a charter city, we can still decide how to operate our convention center, including deciding how the property will be used, and specifically whether it will be used for gun shows.”
Contact reporter Darren DaRonco at 573-4243 or ddaronco@azstarnet.com.
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/kozachik-no-more-gun-shows-at-tucson-convention-center/article_e8cf46e2-602a-11e2-a589-001a4bcf887a.html
CA. legislators support bill to arm teachers
CA. legislators support bill to arm teachers
January 30th, 2013, 1:43 pm
posted by BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento Correspondent
In the wake of the Newtown, Conn. school shooting, three Orange County Assembly members are co-authoring legislation to secretly arm California teachers, janitors and other schools officials with concealed weapons.
Orange County Assembly members Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills; Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point; and Don Wagner, R-Irvine, have signed onto a proposal introduced this week by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, a former minuteman known as much for his outspoken opposition of illegal immigration as for the time he tried to bring a loaded gun onto a plane.
Donnelly’s proposal, Assembly Bill 202, is in the same vein as the NRA’s post-Newtown plan to install armed guards in schools. To protect children from crazed gunmen, AB 202 would allow “school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools” to use “general purpose funds” to train any school employee who is qualified and willing to carry a concealed gun on campus.
These volunteers, to be known as “school marshals,” would be anonymous under the bill. AB 202, which Donnelly is calling the “California School Marshal Plan,” would exempt the disclosure of school marshal volunteers from the state’s public records act.
“In light of the devastating tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary,” Donnelly said in a press release about the bill, “we must develop a plan that will provide both true, immediate protection to our children and teachers, and a deterrent to future predators.”
Donnelly says the bill would “simply allow school districts to fund the necessary training to faculty and staff who are already legally allowed to protect their school.”
“We have a moral imperative to protect the children in our schools. We must do so without abandoning our oath and duty to safeguard the Constitutional rights of every Californian,” said Donnelly, who is looking at running for governor in 2014.
http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2013/01/30/o-c-legislators-support-bill-to-arm-teachers/90423/
Maryland on its way to becoming one of toughest gun-control states
Maryland on its way to becoming one of toughest gun-control states
By David Hill
The Washington Times
Thursday, February 28, 2013
The Maryland Senate voted Thursday to approve Gov. Martin O'Malley’s gun-control legislation, clearing the bill’s biggest hurdle and sending it to the House where its passage would make Maryland’s gun laws among the strictest in the nation.
The Senate voted 28-19 in favor of the Democratic governor’s proposal, which would ban assault weapons, require residents to obtain a license before buying handguns and strengthen protections against purchases by the mentally ill. A pair of House committees were scheduled to take up their version of the bill Friday after three days of debate in the Senate.
“Violence is a cancer in our schools, in our homes and in our communities that doesn’t just ravage the families and the victims, but the rest of us,” state Sen. Roger Manno, Montgomery Democrat, said before Thursday’s vote. “It erodes our society, and doing something about it is a choice that we have.”
Maryland is now poised to become one of the first states to pass stricter gun laws in the wake of last year’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., and it may not be the last. Democratic lawmakers in a number of states are proposing legislation to limit high-powered guns and keep handguns away from illegal straw purchasers and the mentally ill. They have taken the lead of President Obama, who called on Congress to pass tighter national gun laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, only to see efforts stalled by Republican resistance and fights over sequestration and Cabinet appointments.
Similar efforts are ongoing in states such as New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Colorado, where the state Senate is weighing a House-approved proposal to require broader background checks and tighter limits on magazine capacity.
Such proposals have been heavily criticized by Republicans and some conservative and rural Democrats who say they will inconvenience law-abiding gun owners while doing little to deter criminals.
“My constituents think this bill will adversely affect them a lot more than it will the criminals,” Maryland state Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire, Anne Arundel Republican, told The Associated Press.
Maryland’s gun control laws are already considered among the nation’s toughest.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence ranked Maryland’s gun laws in 2011 as the seventh strictest, behind California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Hawaii.
“It’s going to be stronger than the laws were before in Maryland,” said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Policy and Research, who has spoken in favor of stricter gun laws. “But still, if you are someone who want to purchase a handgun as a law-abiding adult, there’s not a lot of hurdles placed before you.”
The House Judiciary and Health and Government Operations committees will hold a joint hearing Friday on the House version of the bill.
The legislation is expected to receive less opposition in the House than in the Senate, where its most vocal and influential opponent was Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.
Mr. Miller, Prince George’s Democrat, voted for the bill after expressing concerns that its $100 license-to-purchase fee was too burdensome and that its required fingerprinting for purchasers could violate the Second Amendment.
A Senate committee lowered the licensing fee to $50 and lowered 10-year renewal fees to $20 but chose to keep the fingerprinting requirement.
Mr. Miller voted in favor of a failed amendment to eliminate the provision but ultimately supported the bill.
In the House, Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, has said he expects to have at least the necessary 71 votes to pass the bill.
Todd Eberly, coordinator of public policy studies at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, said he expects the bill to pass, even though Democrats from conservative and rural areas could receive pressure to vote against it.
“Between the two chambers, the House has been the more progressive of the two,” he said. “Getting out of the Senate was a tremendous victory for O'Malley.”
Maryland on its way to becoming one of toughest gun-control states - Washington Times
NYC mayor announces $12 MILLION gun control ad buy targeting senators before debate
NYC mayor announces $12M gun control ad buy targeting senators before legislation debate
By Associated Press,
Updated: Saturday, March 23, 7:35 PM
NEW YORK — A new $12 million television ad campaign from Mayors Against Illegal Guns will push senators in key states to back gun control efforts, including comprehensive background checks.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the ad buy Saturday — just days after Senate Democrats touted stronger background checks while acknowledging insufficient support to restore a ban on assault-style weapons to federal gun control legislation.
“These ads bring the voices of Americans — who overwhelmingly support comprehensive and enforceable background checks — into the discussion to move senators to immediately take action to prevent gun violence,” Bloomberg said in a statement issued by the group he co-founded in 2006.
The two ads posted on the group’s website, called “Responsible” and “Family,” show a gun owner holding a rifle while sitting on the back of a pickup truck.
In one ad, the man says he’ll defend the Second Amendment but adds “with rights come responsibilities.” The ad then urges viewers to tell Congress to support background checks.
In the other ad, the man, a hunter, says “background checks have nothing to do with taking guns away from anyone.” The man then says closing loopholes will stop criminals and the mentally ill from obtaining weapons.
The Senate is scheduled to debate federal gun control legislation next month. On March 28, the group plans for more than 100 events nationwide in support of passing gun control legislation that includes background checks.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns and other gun-control advocates frequently cite a mid-1990s study that suggests about 40 percent of U.S. gun transfers were conducted by private sellers not subject to federal background checks. Based on 2011 FBI data, the group estimates 6.6 million firearms transfers are made without a background check for the receiver.
A spokesman for Bloomberg could not immediately say if the $12 million was coming from Bloomberg or the mayor’s political action committee, Independence USA. The New York Times, which first reported the ad campaign Saturday night, said Bloomberg was bankrolling the ad buy.
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association blasted Bloomberg and the new ads, saying NRA members and supporters would be calling senators directly and urging them to vote against proposed gun control legislation.
“What Michael Bloomberg is trying to do is ... intimidate senators into not listening to constituents and instead pledge their allegiance to him and his money,” said spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.
Bloomberg has long supported efforts to curb gun violence, including sending New York City undercover investigators into other states to conduct straw purchases from dealers. Last month, Bloomberg’s PAC poured more than $2 million into ads supporting Illinois state Rep. Robin Kelly, who won a special primary and ran partly on a platform of supporting tougher gun restrictions.
The new ads will air in 13 states the group believes are divided on gun control: Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
NYC mayor announces $12M gun control ad buy targeting senators before legislation debate - The Washington Post