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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United States East Coast kneels before Sandy

Large portions of the most important cities woke up to darkness on second day of storm.

By JENNIFER PELTZ | AP | OCTOBER 30, 2012

Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city’s historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people.

The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way of the superstorm Sandy as it zeroed in on the nation’s largest city.

Residents spent much of the day trying to salvage normal routines, jogging and snapping pictures of the water while officials warned the worst of the storm had not hit.

By evening, a record 13-foot storm surge was threatening Manhattan’s southern tip, howling winds had left a crane hanging from a high-rise and utilities deliberately darkened part of downtown Manhattan to avoid storm damage.

“It’s really a complete ghost town now,” said Stephen Weisbrot, from a powerless 10th-floor apartment in lower Manhattan.

Water lapped over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooding rail yards, subway tracks, tunnels and roads. Rescue workers floated bright orange rafts down flooded downtown streets, while police officers rolled slowly down the street with loudspeakers telling people to go home.

“Now it’s really turning into something,” said Brian Damianakes, taking shelter in an ATM vestibule and watching a trash can blow down the street in Battery Park before the storm surge.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the surge was expected to recede by midnight, after exceeding an original expectation of 11 feet.

“We knew that this was going to be a very dangerous storm, and the storm has met our expectations,” he said. “This is a once-in-a-long-time storm.”

About 670,000 customers were without power late Monday in the city and suburban Westchester County.

“This will be one for the record books,” said John Miksad, senior vice president for electric operations at ConEdison. “This will be the largest storm-related outage in our history.”

Because a customer is defined as an individual meter, the actual number of people affected is probably much higher.

It could be several days to a week before all residents who lost power during the storm get their lights back, Miksad said.

Shortly after the massive storm made landfall in southern New Jersey, Consolidated Edison cut power deliberately to about 6,500 customers in downtown Manhattan to avert further damage. Soon, huge swaths of the city went dark.

After a backup generator failed, New York University’s Tisch Hospital began evacuating more than 200 patients to other facilities, including 20 babies from neonatal intensive care, some of them on respirators operating on battery power.

Without power, the hospital had no elevator service, meaning patients had to be carefully carried down staircases and outside into the weather. Gusts of wind blew their blankets as nurses held IVs and other equipment.

Late Monday, an explosion at a substation at 14th Street and FDR Drive contributed to the outages. No one was injured, and ConEd did not know whether the explosion was caused by flooding or by flying debris.

The underground power lines that deliver electricity to much of New York City are much less vulnerable to outages than overhead lines because they aren’t exposed to wind and falling trees or branches. But when damaged, they are harder to repair because the equipment is more difficult to access.

If substations are flooded while in operation, the equipment will fail and need to be replaced. If they are shut down in advance, workers can more quickly power up the machinery and restore service after floodwaters have receded.

Earlier Monday, another 1 million customers lost power in New York City, the northern suburbs and coastal Long Island, where floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water.

The storm had only killed one New York City resident by Monday night, a man who died when a tree fell on his home in the Flushing section of Queens.

The rains and howling winds, some believed to reach more than 95 mph, left a crane hanging off a luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan, causing the evacuation of hundreds from a posh hotel and other buildings. Inspectors were climbing 74 flights of stairs to examine the crane hanging from the $1.5 billion building.

The facade of a four-story Manhattan building in the Chelsea neighborhood crumbled and collapsed suddenly, leaving the lights, couches, cabinets and desks inside visible from the street. No one was hurt, although some of the falling debris hit a car.

On coastal Long Island, floodwaters swamped cars, downed trees and put neighborhoods under water as beachfronts and fishing villages bore the brunt of the storm. A police car was lost rescuing 14 people from the popular resort Fire Island.

The city shut all three of its airports, its subways, schools, stock exchanges, Broadway theaters and closed several bridges and tunnels throughout the day as the weather worsened.

On Tuesday, the New York Stock Exchange was to be closed again – the first time it’s been closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city.

Earlier, some New Yorkers defiantly soldiered on, trying to salvage normal routines and refusing to evacuate, as the mayor ordered 375,000 in low-lying areas to do.

Tanja Stewart and her 7-year-old son, Finn, came from their home in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood to admire the white caps on the Hudson, Finn wearing a pair of binoculars around his neck. “I really wanted to see some big waves,” he said.

Keith Reilly posed in an Irish soccer jersey for a picture above the rising waters of New York Harbor with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

“This is not so bad right now,” said the 25-year-old Reilly.

On Long Island, floodwaters had begun to deluge some low-lying towns. Cars floated along the streets of Long Beach and flooding consumed several blocks south of the bay, residents said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, holding a news conference on Long Island where the lights flickered and his mike went in and out, said most of the National Guards deployed to the New York City area would go to Long Island.

Anoush Vargas drove with her husband, Michael to the famed Jones Beach Monday morning, only to find it covered by water.

“We have no more beach. It’s gone,” she said, shaking her head as she watched the waves go under the boardwalk.

—

Associated Press writers Karen Matthews, Colleen Long and Deepti Hajela in New York, Larry Neumeister, Frank Eltman and Meghan Barr on Long Island, and Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Md., contributed to this report.

9/11: The Controlled Demolition of America

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

While remembering those who lost their lives on 9/11, their families and anyone who directly suffered from the terrible events of that day, I realized that the attacks went far beyond demolishing 3 buildings. They demolished a whole country.

It takes time to find the truth when the world is governed by lies. It takes time to heal when the truth is hidden from the public and people are too afraid of what truth may reveal, so they choose to avoid it or discount it.

The worst tragedy of 9/11 is that more than a decade after the terror attacks that killed thousands of people in New York, Washington, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places around the world, there are those who still refuse to accept reality for what it is.

Finding and understanding truth is easier if the facts are explained through tangible, real and countable means.

When deception — from government or anywhere else — is rampant, Science is one of the best instruments to combat it. Science is the worst enemy of those who seek to hide the truth or to deceive the people.

May science and the hard work of thousands of people who dedicate their lives to uncover government lies and deception help those who still can’t see.

Support the dedicated work of Architect, Richard Gage, AIA, and 1,600 Architects and Engineers. — Show the DVD to your friends and family so they know the pretext for 2 wars is based on a LIE!