North Colorado secession petition: Gun control split behind secede plans

TOP NEWSJULY 12, 2013BY: BRUCE BAKER

At the center of North Colorado secession plans is the gun control debate and recent laws in the state. Reportedly, Northern residents are petitioning to become the 51st state over a tug-of-war over what is best for people of the state. Simply put, the urban sprawl is at odds with simple, tried and true ways of life for rural residents, citing a July 11 Think Progress report.


At the backbone of rural living in North Colorado is the Second Amendment or right to bear arms. Many believe the recent sweeping gun control laws restrict those inherent rights.

Additionally, there is a strong push across the entire state to produce and use renewable sources of energy. However, anyone living in the state can tell you that the economy in the north depends heavily on oil and gas production.

Weld County Commissioner, Sean Conway, said this about the rising tide in support of secession:

"Northern and Northeastern Colorado and our voices are being ignored in the legislative process this year, and our very way of life is under attack.

"This is not a stunt. This is a very serious deliberative discussion that's going on. There's a real feeling that a lot of folks who come from the urban areas don’t appreciate the contribution that many Coloradans contribute."

Recently, Phillip County officials proposed the idea of getting more representation instead because it is cost-prohibitive for Northern Colorado to truly secede, according to information contained in a Huffington Post report.

While Weld County supports the idea, it requires Supreme Court approval, which many residents are wary of. In other words, there is little trust in such a system based on history, according to officials.

As a result, Weld County Commission chairman, Bill Garcia, would like to move forward with putting the issue to a vote on a ballot later this year.

An Anti-Obama administration movement sparked about 30 states to file petitions to secede from the United States.

However, over time, things morphed into states fighting among themselves, mainly across party lines.

The situation brewing over the North Colorado secession movement centers on a deeply divided state legislature. On the one hand, Democrats want more of a liberal approach to quality of life in their state.

On the other hand, Republicans are bound to more conservative principles of living.

West Virginia was the last state to secede, having done so from Virginia in 1863, incidentally, about 14 years before Colorado was admitted to the Union.

Imagine that?

http://www.examiner.com/article/north-colorado-secession-petition-gun-control-split-behind-secede-plans?

Georgia city spars with national gun control group
By Kate Brumback, Associated Press
Posted July 12, 2013 at 11:22 a.m.

ATLANTA (AP) — A tiny Georgia city and a national gun control group are facing off in a legal battle over a city ordinance requiring gun ownership, with the constitutionality of the law and broader messages about gun rights taking center stage.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in May filed a federal lawsuit against Nelson, a city of roughly 1,300 residents about 50 miles north of Atlanta, saying a recently adopted ordinance requiring heads of household to own a gun and ammunition is unconstitutional.

"We definitely think this law is misguided and unconstitutional in Nelson and anywhere else where it's passed," lawyer Jonathan Lowy of the Washington-based Brady Center said in a recent interview. "But it's also important to send a message to other jurisdictions around the country that might be inclined to pass similar misguided, unconstitutional laws."

The Nelson City Council adopted the Family Protection Ordinance on April 1. The measure requires every head of household to own a gun and ammunition to "provide for the emergency management of the city" and to "provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants." The ordinance exempts convicted felons, those who can't afford a gun and those who suffer from certain physical or mental disabilities, as well as anyone who conscientiously objects to owning guns because of their beliefs or religious doctrine.

City leaders and the police chief, who's the only police officer in town, said during the meeting when the ordinance was passed that they had no intention of enforcing it. It was meant to warn would-be burglars and to send a message to the federal government about gun ownership.

"I don't think there was ever any intention of the city of Nelson to enforce the ordinance," David Archer, a lawyer for the city, said. "I think it was a political statement that they made."

City Manager Brandy Edwards confirmed Friday that no one has been charged under the ordinance.

The law's sponsor, Councilman Duane Cronic, said at the time that he believed the ordinance would make the city safer, likening it to signs warning of alarm systems that people put in their yards.

And at a time when President Barack Obama and some states were pushing for more restrictive gun laws after the Connecticut elementary school massacre in December, Nelson was showing its support for the right to bear arms.

City officials referred all questions on the lawsuit to Archer, who said he was hired by the city's insurance company to defend Nelson against the lawsuit.

GeorgiaCarry.Org, a group that seeks to protect the rights of its members to own guns, has filed court papers seeking to join the legal fight in support of Nelson.

Lamar Kellett, who lives in Nelson and is a member of the Brady Center, spoke against the ordinance at the City Council meeting and said it would have no effect on people like him who didn't own a gun and didn't want one. But several weeks later he went out and spent nearly $700 on a handgun and ammunition, according to the Brady Center's lawsuit.

Kellett said he doesn't qualify for the law's exemptions because he doesn't conscientiously oppose gun ownership — he just doesn't want to own one.

"How does a citizen like myself know that that will be true in the future or even next week?" Kellett said this week of the council's decision not to enforce the law.

Lowy, the Brady Center lawyer, agreed: "There's no guarantee that a law that's on the books will not be enforced," he said.

But that's precisely what has happened for more than three decades in Kennesaw, an Atlanta suburb that passed a law requiring gun ownership in 1982 but has never enforced it. Cronic, sponsor of the Nelson ordinance, said it was inspired by Kennesaw's law, and the wording is identical. The Brady Center has not filed suit against Kennesaw.

"We may or may not sue Kennesaw in the future," Lowy said, citing the timing of Nelson's ordinance as a factor in the decision to sue. He also noted that the town of Nucla, Colo., was inspired by Nelson to pass a similar ordinance in May.

Ultimately, the Brady Center may have the Constitution on its side because the law could be interpreted as a violation of First Amendment free speech rights, said Emory University law professor Michael Perry, a constitutional law expert.

"For the same reason you can't tell the citizens they've got to own and display the American flag, you can't tell American citizens they have to own guns and keep them on the premises," he said.

The government can't require people to do something unless there's some plausible argument that it serves a legitimate government objective, Perry said. While deterring crime could be considered a legitimate objective, it would be hard for the city to prove the ordinance accomplishes that goal, he said.

Both sides are gathering documents and making procedural court filings. Archer said he hopes to reach a settlement.

"I think if it is clarified that it was never intended to be enforced, I'm thinking that might move toward some possible resolution of the case," he said.

Lowy said the Brady Center is open to talking with Nelson about a proper resolution, but he declined to comment on what an acceptable settlement would look like.

Still, in Nelson, where the most common crime is minor property theft and the occasional burglary, the measure remains popular.

"I am still firmly in favor of the law," resident Lawrence Cooper said. "I believe that if everyone had guns crime would disappear."



http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2013/jul/12/georgia-city-spars-national-gun-control-group/?

Another View -- William Saletan: Rethinking gun control

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WILLIAM SALETAN

Background checks are back. Last month, Vice President Joe Biden said that five U.S. senators - enough to change the outcome - have told him they're looking for a way to switch their votes and pass legislation requiring a criminal background check for the purchase of a firearm. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who led the fight for the bill, is firing back at the National Rifle Association with a new TV ad. The White House, emboldened by polls that indicate damage to senators who voted against the bill, is pushing Congress to reconsider it.

The gun control debate is certainly worth reopening. But if we're going to reopen it, let's not just rethink the politics. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the existing research on gun violence and recommend future studies. That report, prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is now complete. Its findings won't entirely please the Obama administration or the NRA, but all of us should consider them. Here's a list of the 10 most salient or surprising takeaways.

1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem. According to the report, "the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries."

2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse. "Overall crime rates have declined in the past decade, and violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past five years," the report notes. "Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent victimizations remained generally stable."

3. We have 300 million firearms, but only 100 million are handguns. According to the report, "In 2007, one estimate placed the total number of firearms in the country at 294 million: '106 million handguns, 105 million rifles, and 83 million shotguns.'" This translates to nearly nine guns for every 10 people, a per capita ownership rate nearly 50 percent higher than the next most armed country. But American gun ownership is concentrated, not universal: In a December 2012 Gallup poll, "43 percent of those surveyed reported having a gun in the home."

4. Handguns are the problem. Despite being outnumbered by long guns, "Handguns are used in more than 87 percent of violent crimes," the report notes. In 2011, "handguns comprised 72.5 percent of the firearms used in murder and non-negligent manslaughter incidents."

5. Mass shootings aren't the problem. "The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths," says the report. "Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which four or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in one day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons."

6. Gun suicide is a bigger killer than gun homicide. From 2000 to 2010, "firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearm-related violence in the United States," says the report.

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. "Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year . in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008," says the report. The 3 million figure is probably high, "based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys." But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, "because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use."

8. Carrying guns for self-defense is an arms race. The prevalence of firearm violence near "drug markets . could be a consequence of drug dealers carrying guns for self-defense against thieves or other adversaries who are likely to be armed," says the report. In these communities, "individuals not involved in the drug markets have similar incentives for possessing guns." According to a Pew Foundation report, "the vast majority of gun owners say that having a gun makes them feel safer."

9. Denying guns to people under restraining orders saves lives. "Two-thirds of homicides of ex- and current spouses were committed (with) firearms," the report observes. "In locations where individuals under restraining orders to stay away from current or ex-partners are prohibited from access to firearms, female partner homicide is reduced by 7 percent."

10. It isn't true that most gun acquisitions by criminals can be blamed on a few bad dealers. The report concedes that in 1998, "1,020 of 83,272 federally licensed retailers (1.2 percent) accounted for 57.4 percent of all guns traced by the ATF."

However, "Gun sales are also relatively concentrated; approximately 15 percent of retailers request 80 percent of background checks on gun buyers conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System." These conclusions don't line up perfectly with either side's agenda. That's a good reason to take them seriously - and to fund additional data collection and research which have been blocked by Congress over politics. Yes, the facts will surprise you. That's why you should embrace them.

William Saletan covers science, technology and politics for Slate.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20130707/OPINION02/130709571/1004/opinion?

Words fail me. So sad.

Absolutely disgusting.

Guns don't kill people... Bullets do... It's just that the guns make the bullets go really fast.

No.

As American Dad teaches us:

'Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Guns just defend people from other people with smaller guns'.

The thing about that, is the first part is correct. Guns are just a way to kill people. At the end of the day, there are dozens, probably hundreds of ways people could find to kill others.

w.t.f ??

Someone doing something so fantastically fucking stupid as using a gun for a crutch makes me cringe. Now all the anti-gun tools come out going "ban the guns, they're dangerous!" - of course they're dangerous when someone this fucking stupid uses a WEAPON for an alternative application. It's the equivalent of sticking a knife in a power socket.

What is the original purpose of a weapon if not for killing people? :-k

'Anti-gun tools'?

To quote Dylan Moran, "they do have a limited number of household applications". Yes, they're designed to wound and kill and should be used responsibly, they're not for everyday household applications like as a walking cane or crutch #-o

Chris Rock has the right idea about gun control. Charge a shit load of money for the bullets!
[youtube]Db0Y4qIZ4PA[/youtube]

strong spam ratio from JoFFA

Yep no more warning shots. Shoot to kill

If you can AFFORD it!!! :lol:

5 posts out of 16?

#-o #-o

Laws in the gun after Zimmerman verdict
Date
July 15, 2013 - 1:49PM

So far the protests have been largely peaceful. Thousands have turned out in cities across America to lament the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder or manslaughter of Trayvon Martin.

Those on the street cannot accept that a man can shoot a boy on his way home dead and not pay some penalty. Nor do they believe that race was not a factor in Martin's death and Zimmerman's acquittal.

Stand Your Ground gun laws are an extension of a long history of US citizens using violence as self-help.

"Only in America can a dead black boy go on trial for his own murder," tweeted the New York writer Syreeta McFadden, capturing the mood of the nation.

The debate has already fractured America along familiar fault lines, with elements of political left backing the NAACP's call for an investigation into possible civil rights violations, and of the right accusing them of playing the race card. The Justice Department said it was restarting its investigation into the 2012 shooting death of Martin to consider possible separate hate crime charges against Zimmerman.


Tension is high and bleak memories of race riots that have plagued this nation are close.

In this context it is perhaps understandable then that another crucial debate is being drowned out.

People appear to have forgotten that when race first became a factor in this case it was because for six weeks after the shooting Zimmerman was neither arrested nor charged.

In large part this was due to Florida's so-called Stand Your Ground law, introduced in 2005, which made shooting people dead on that state's streets far more likely to be legal than it used to be.

As is so often the case Florida was an early adopter of a law being championed by conservative activists, and in this case drafted by the National Rifle Association. Stand Your Ground laws, known by critics as Shoot First laws, extend the so-called castle-doctrine from the home to the street, making it legal to use lethal force against someone in public if you "reasonably" believe yourself to be at significant risk.


Gun culture runs deep in the US. A group of about twenty demonstrators raise their toy guns at a passing helicopter near the Lincoln Memorial as they march in a 'Toy Gun March' demonstration, organized by a Libertarian website to highlight Second Amendment gun right Photo: Reuters
In doing so they reverse the onus of proof. Where once someone who had killed a person had to prove they acted in self-defence, under Stand Your Ground the prosecution must prove that the accused did not feel that they were at risk.

Also the laws expressly remove the requirement that once existed in the use of self-defence that a person retreat if given the opportunity. That is, under Stand Your Ground, killing someone in a fight need not be the last option.

And given that the only witnesses to these incidents are often the accused and the person they have just killed, Stand Your Ground is proving quite a handy defence.

For example, says Matt Mangino, a defence lawyer and former prosecutor, under Stand Your Ground it could well be legal to get into a dispute with a neighbour, allow the quarrel to descend into scuffle, and if he was bigger than you and you feared significant harm, to shoot him dead.

In a case soon to be tried in the Florida town of Port St. Joe, a white man named Walt Butler is using Stand Your Ground in his defence for shooting his black neighbour Everett Gant, who had confronted him over using a racial slur against a child in their apartment complex.

Butler shot Gant between the eyes with a .22 calibre rifle, called the police and then finished making his dinner, reported a local paper, The Star. A deputy said he found Butler eating supper and acting "inconvenienced" with his arrest because he "had only shot a (racial slur)," The Star reported.

Maningo says he is coming across cases in which drug dealers use Stand Your Ground as a defence after shootings.

Since Florida introduced the law 30 other states — nearly all of them conservative — have followed suit. Many of them simply knocked off the Florida legislation or used draft laws provided by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that seeds laws among the states.

Zimmerman, in the end, did not resort to the Stand Your Ground argument in court, instead relying on straight self-defence. Nonetheless, the ease with which self-defence invoked in murder cases is clearly on the minds of Floridians.

Florida Senate's Democratic leader, Fort Lauderdale's Chris Smith, called for a reexamination of all self-defence laws in a statement released less than half an hour after the Zimmerman verdict was handed down.

"The fact that a child is dead and an armed man can now walk free without so much as a backward glance sends the wrong message to Florida and its citizens," he said.

"If someone makes the claim of self defence and the only other witness to the confrontation is dead, there needs to be a higher standard for proving that the use of deadly force was justified," he said.

There is little chance of any real debate in Florida, where the state legislature remains in Tea Party hands.

Stand Your Ground laws are perfectly suited to a current conservative worldview, says the Columbia University law professor Jeffrey Fagan. They speak of mistrust of government and its agencies, they privatise public space they promote individualism at its most rugged.

He notes that they are an extension of a long history of US citizens using violence as self-help.

"Lynchings, riots, civil disobedience, and vigilantism are all expressions of individual or collective action that reject both legal norms and the authority of state actors," he has written.

Homicide rates have not increased in Florida since Stand Your Ground laws were introduced, and supporters see this as evidence that they are working safely and as intended.

One man who has studied them more broadly, Texas A&M University economist Mark Hoekstra, disagrees. "These laws lower the cost of using lethal force," he told National Public Radio in January. "Our study finds that, that homicides go up by seven to nine percent in states that pass the laws, relative to states that didn't pass the laws over the same time period."

Although, Zimmerman's case hinged on self-defence, Stand Your Ground language still found its way into the court case, with instructions given to the jury declaring, "If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

As long as force meets deadly force, and as long as citizens are relieved of the "duty to retreat", Professor Fagan expects more to die as Trayvon Martin did.

Meanwhile it has been confirmed that Zimmerman is eligible to have his handgun returned to him.

with New York Times



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/laws-in-the-gun-after-zimmerman-verdict-20130715-2pzh2.html#ixzz2Z6hMpZUn

Edited by Joffa: 15/7/2013 08:05:35 PM

That's a bit rich coming from you. At least Joffa doesn't have a thread with page after page of his spam :lol:

So many shotguns :shock:

-PB

Interesting how the focus is on automatic weapons, yet......

"violent crimes" is an incredibly broad term. You have to also remember that concealed weapons used for self defence, along with open carry licences, etc. are all included under the umbrella that they're talking about.

The focus is on automatic weapons because they're the ones used in mass shootings.

The focus is on automatic weapons because there is no legitimate reason to own one...

Zombie apocalypse aside.

Watching "Hardcore Pawn: Combat" at the moment because...welp...I like guns, so what? So far I've watched two guys with conspicuous PTSD buy guns (and I'm talking big ass hand cannon Desert Eagles), and one salesman demonstrating a gun point it at a customer. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE CUNTS?!

:-s