Diane Feinstein proposes Obsolete measures in gun control Legislation

Her plan includes banning the possession of handguns, shotguns and rifles.

FBI deemed Feinstein’s proposals as ineffective in reducing crime.

By EMILY MILLER | WASHINGTON TIMES | JANUARY 24, 2013

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office confirmed that she will be introducing in the Senate Thursday a new version of the so-called assault weapon ban. A spokesman said the full text will be released at a press conference on Thursday.

The California Democrat intends to expand on the ban that expired in 2004, by including handguns and shotguns, in addition to rifles. She would decrease from two to one the number of cosmetic features on a gun to have it be considered an “assault weapon.” This means that if a gun has just one item like a pistol grip or bayonet lug, then it is illegal. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the same ban in New York last week.

Furthermore, instead of grandfathering in current firearms, she would create a national gun registry for the government to track lawful gun owners. Magazines would again be limited to 10 rounds.

The Clinton-era bill was not renewed by Congress after the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement agencies reported that it was ineffective in reducing crime.

President Obama said that a top priority is to get “an assault weapons ban that is meaningful” passed this year.

 

A summary of Mrs. Feinstein’s legislation is below. 

Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of: 120 specifically named firearms; certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one or more military characteristics; and semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds.

Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by: Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test; eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test; and banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans.

Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.

Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by: Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment; exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes; and exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons.

Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include: Background check of owner and any transferee; type and serial number of the firearm; positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint; certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration.

Emily Miller is senior editor of the opinion pages for The Washington Times. Her “Emily Gets Her Gun” series on the District’s gun laws won the 2012 Clark Mollenhoff Award for Investigative Reporting from the Institute on Political Journalism. Click here to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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New York State starts up attack on Second Amendment by approving new gun control legislation

The State’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, and New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, championed a movement to further deteriorate gun ownership ahead of Obama’s speech today

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | JANUARY 16, 2013

New York voted Tuesday afternoon in his House of Representatives (104 in favor, 43 against) for new legislation that imposes the toughest gun control measures in the United States. The laws, which directly violate the Second Amendment, prohibit the sale of ammunition cartridges containing more than seven bullets, expand background checks for gun buyers and outlaw the sale of assault weapons. The State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the legislation immediately after the State Congress approved the new law while everyone else was asleep.

New York’s Senate had passed the law Monday night with a vote of 43 in favor and 18 against, which made it a standard bipartisan initiative, that originated in the wake of Connecticut’s shooting. Last month, a deranged, doped teenager, supposedly acting alone, shot 26 people at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, which prompted a vicious campaign by gun grabbing groups. Yesterday marked one month since the shooting in Newtown where Adam Lanza shot six adults and 20 children.

After presenting his proposal during the speech of the State of the Nation, Governor Cuomo said that gun violence is “a scourge to society.” “There comes a time when we must say ‘no more loss of innocent lives'” he announced. Several schools around the United States have agreed to arm members of their staff in order children and teachers, who up until now worked in what are called gun-free zones.

“The Senate has made a bold statement to agree on a bipartisan bill and work together to face the challenges that await our nation after seeing too many senseless acts of violence carried out with weapons,” Cuomo said after the Senate vote. But it is exactly gun-free zones, and states like New York, where unarmed citizens are victims of the most violent crimes committed by criminals who do not abide by gun control laws.

The Senate Republican leader, Dean Skelos, said “the initiative is well-balanced, protects the Second Amendment [which guarantees the right to civilian gun ownership ” because no confiscation of weapons was included in the bill, which was a point they had mentioned on occasion.” Mr. Skelos forgets that in truth, according to the U.S. Constitution, government cannot pass laws that infringe the Second Amendment, which established a citizen’s right to acquire firearms without legal restriction. Despite already having a strong gun control laws, New York is the first of the lower 48 states to approve even more restrictions on gun ownership, limiting citizen’s purchases to mere hand guns.

Gun control has been at the center of the American political scene since the killing of Connecticut. The assault rifle with which Adam Lanza perpetrated his assault is a version of a military rifle that can hold up to 30 bullets, which has now been prohibited in New York. According to school sources, no one could have entered the school with an assault rifle without it being detected, which has many people thinking that Lanza did not act alone and that someone either handed him the gun once he got inside the school. The shooter also carried hand guns during his attack on the Sandy Hook School which along he allegedly took from his mothers gun cabinet. Those firearms had all been legally acquired.

It is not a surprise that according to two recent polls, most Americans – 52% – support tougher measures to counter violence causing firearms, including a ban on assault weapons and the presence of armed guards on each school. That 52% said that what happened in Connecticut made them take that position. By their own admission, most Americans have become domesticated jelly fish who are unable to admit responsibility for their acts and who prefer servitude instead of liberty.

A Pew Center poll concluded that 85% of citizens are in favor of private transactions in arms and those occurring in gun fairs do a thorough background check of the buyers. The same poll finds that 80% of the population is in favor of laws that prevent people with mental illness to purchase a gun.

While new anti-Second Amendment bills are approved and prepared all over the United States, law enforcement has not publicly determined if Adam Lanza acted alone, or if he was helped during his shooting spree. What is clear is that due to one mentally ill person’s actions, the rest of law abiding citizens, who do not use their firearms to go out and kill anyone, will have to surrender another portion of their Second Amendment right.

As we reported yesterday, President Barack Obama, will shield himself with children during his anti-Second Amendment speech, where he and his Vice President, Joe Biden will present a list of proposals that will allegedly address the ‘gun problem’. The President will appear with a list of 19 measures that could be implemented by executive order, that is, without congressional approval.

The new measures would enact stricter penalties against people who lie about their background in selling weapons, eliminate limits on federal research on the use of weapons, order stricter penalties against people who conduct arms trafficking and give schools flexibility to use their resources to improve safety. Ironically, the very same Obama administration allowed the circulation of heavy caliber rifles — including the same ones it intends to ban — to drug cartels in Mexico. Those firearms ended up killing innocent Mexicans and even American border patrol agents. The question is how will the new legislation — if passed — will address the U.S. government involvement in arms trafficking?

The White House confirmed today that the president will make every effort to pass a law banning assault weapons, high-capacity chargers and end technicalities that allow bypass background checks on prospective gun owners.

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New York State now leading crusade against Second Amendment

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | JANUARY 10, 2013

The U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, met Wednesday at the White House in Washington with victims and groups demanding more restrictive legislation on weapons. While in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo, took advantage of the discourse on state of the State to announce an agenda to ban assault weapons almost a month after the Newtown, Connecticut incident, where a mentally ill teenager shot 27 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary school.

Biden’s meeting was the first of several that he will have with different groups in response to the shooting of Newtown. The vice president will not limit his contact to individuals and organizations that align themselves with the vision that the White House has on gun control, but is unlikely that the result of the meetings will include a recommendation to allow people to freely exercise their second amendment right.

On Thursday, Biden met with members of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), as well as with executives of the largest chain stores in the country, Wal-Mart, that declined the offer of the White House to hold conversations at first, but that reconsidered and accepted the invitation yesterday. Wal-Mart sells weapons at over 1,800 of its 4,000 stores, including semiautomatic assault rifles like the one that has been making the news on the main stream corporate media as the example of the type of firearms that people should not possess.

“We are here to deal with a problem that requires immediate action, urgent action,” Biden told reporters, as trying to emphasize the kind of measures that will be taken. “The president is going to act,” Biden progressed. “There are executive orders, executive actions that can be performed,” the vice president said. His statement clears the notion about whether the president will continue acting as a dictator, making up laws and regulations that he has no power to enact.

As things stand today, the Obama administration will simply use executive privilege to pass any rules he and his minions in government want. Obama and those who support erasing the second amendment have said that if Congress does not pass legislation to ban the possession of firearms, the U.S. president will have to act unilaterally in order to ‘save us all’ from ourselves. Amazingly, neither Obama nor the main stream media attempt to pitch a ban on deadly pharmaceutical drugs which are the real triggers of most of the shootings seen in the last year or so.

In Albany, Cuomo sketched an outline of his legislative agenda this year and called for a ban on assault weapons. New York is one of seven states that already has some sort of ban on these weapons but believes  current legislation is inefficient, so more of the same is needed.

Cuomo seeks to expand the number of models and chargers that are now covered by the law to make it harder for companies to circumvent regulations, Cuomo added. As all lousy power grabbers, Cuomo does not publicly recognize that criminals do not respect laws and that they will always find a way to get the best firearms.

As a Democrat on Capitol Hill in New York since 2010, Cuomo raised the ire and fear of gun owners by a statement made after the slaughter of Newtown in which he said that the confiscation of such weapons was an option in future legislation.

The regulations in force in New York against assault weapons were enacted after another mass shooting, the one in Columbine in 1999, where two students took the lives of 12 students and a teacher. More violent shootings have happened after Columbine; a fact which demonstrates two things: bans on firearms do not end shootings anywhere, and government cannot protect a disarmed population.

In the quest for higher gun control that does not allow the indiscriminate sale of, for example, semi-automatic weapons that can shoot 20 to 100 rounds per second former congressman from Arizona, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, joined astronaut Mark Kelly in the push to end the second amendment.

Gun control pushers used the second anniversary of the attack in Tucson, which killed six people, to begin a new campaign that calls for the ban of the second amendment. Giffords and the six people who were killed that day were surrounded by a tight ring of security, which was not able to prevent the shooting, but for some reason anti-Second Amendment people believe that an even more disarmed population will be able to cope better gun violence. Giffords and his pals announced the formation of a political group to fight the powerful NRA.

People like Giffords and the rest of the pro disarmament movement call themselves defenders of the Second Amendment and are said to be firearms owners, but in practice they belong to a larger, more powerful lobby led by Democrats and so called liberals, who seek to disarm the population so that the State continues to hold the monopoly of violence.

“We can not keep making statements,” said Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, after hearing about the shooting of Connecticut. “We have to try and help change things.” The group founded by former Congressman and her husband called Americans for Responsible Solutions and will be based in Washington.

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