Prohibitionists Try to Capitalize on Museum Shooting: Gun-control advocates seized on the Holocaust Museum shooting Wednesday to call on Congress to reverse its drift toward loosening firearms restriction. They said it highlights the need for lawmakers to reconsider efforts to ease the District's tough gun laws and allowing firearms into national parks. D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said the shooting underscored the need for strict gun laws in the nation's capital... Gun-control advocates have experienced a series of setbacks since President Obama took office, including the president backing off plans to reinstate an assault weapons ban. Mr. Obama last month signed into law a bill that lifted the prohibition on carrying loaded firearms in national parks. It was an amendment to a bill that established sweeping restrictions on the credit card industry... (Let me get this straight - DC already has some of the most severe infringements in the nation and they failed to stop this attack?) http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/11/gun-control-groups-see-effect-of-eased-laws-in-dc-/ A gunman entered the lobby of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington on Wednesday and shot a security guard shortly before 1 p.m., according to the U.S. Park Police. A gun-battle followed in which security guards immediately shot the attacker, said Sgt. David Schlosser, a Park Police spokesman. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier said the security guards shot the gunman "immediately upon entering the door." ...Mr. von Brunn has a Web site holywesternempire.org that includes anti-Semitic and racial statements. The site also states Mr. von Brunn has a journalism degree from a mid-Western university and served during WWII as a PT-Boat captain. The site also states he was convicted of a crime in D.C. Superior Court and sentenced by a "Jew judge" to 11 years in prison. He served more than six years, purportedly for attempting to enter the Federal Reserve Board headquarters with a gun, upset over interest rates... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/10/gunman-shoots-2-holocaust-museum/ ...It should be noted that the museum, as well as all of Washington D.C. are "gun free zones" as far as carrying guns by non-government law enforcement personnel is concerned. Which is ironic when you consider the "Personal Histories" headline on the museum's "Resistance" page: "At that time, a gun and a million dollars, the gun was worth more than a million dollars." "Never again" is nothing more than a hollow slogan without the means to protect against it. Disarmament helped make genocide possible. Museum visitors are fortunate that men with guns were immediately present to protect them... http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m6d10-Holocaust-Museum-Shooting-in-DC-gun-free-zone The shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. was a very short event. It was stopped by a man with a gun protecting the rest of the people in the building. In Washington, they have lots of armed guards. In the rest of the country, and especially in schools, there are no armed guards. A crazy can walk into a restaurant or museum anywhere and there are no protectors to stop their mayhem.... http://www.examiner.com/x-2944-Denver-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m6d10-Holocaust-Museum-shooting-shortcircuited-by-a-gun --- Library of Congress Investigators Disarmed: Investigators with the Library of Congress Office of the Inspector General are not happy. Congress has stripped them of funding to "purchase, maintain or carry firearms." The reason given is "separation of powers," but one suspects there is more political gamesmanship at play here than anything else. Still, for those of us who believe in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, there is a bit of "good for the goose" sentiment about this development... Welcome to our world, guys. People live in those neighborhoods - they don't just visit them once in a while, accompanied by armed associates (well, at least the "law-abiding" ones don't). Try being an ordinary citizen and carrying in DC... http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m6d10-Federal-agents-claim-guns-enhance-safety-deter-violence Don't try to swipe a book from the Library of Congress - library investigators might soon be getting their guns back. Investigators with the Library's Office of the Inspector General have raised a string of objections after Congress stripped them of their ability to buy and carry firearms. Though the office has carried firearms in the course of its duties for the past 15 years, and inspector general agents at other federal agencies do the same, lawmakers inserted language into the fiscal year 2009 omnibus spending bill, which was signed into law in March, that prohibited the library's officers from using federal funds to "purchase, maintain or carry" firearms... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/09/library-congress-agents-object-congress-takes-away-guns/ --- Feingold Meets with Sotomayor: Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.), who believes that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right, on Wednesday was meeting with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who apparently holds a different view of the 2nd Amendment. As a federal appeals court judge, Sotomayor signed an opinion (in Maloney v. Cuomo) saying that the Second Amendment bars the federal government - but not the states - from infringing on an individual's right to keep and bear arms... "I believe it is an individual right," Feingold said about the 2nd Amendment. Sotomayor "may be technically right that the Supreme Court has not yet incorporated it as one of the protected rights - but it should be. So, this is something that should go to the U.S. Supreme Court... I suspect we'll know about her view at the hearing," he said, but added that she may not be able to comment on it because there is a 2nd Amendment case coming up at the court... (As I recall, Feingold is the guy who teamed up with John McCain to curtail the First Amendment around the times of elections.) http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=49400 --- The Beat Goes On: President Barack Obama is the best friend gun dealers have had in a long time. Thanks to widespread paranoia among Second Amendment fanatics, gun and ammo sales are booming. A story in Monday's Herald reported that local customers are loading up on all sorts of lethal hardware. Firearms and ammunition are flying off the shelves at area gun shops, hunting supply stores and pawn shops. Shooting instruction classes are filling up fast, and some now have waiting lists. The number of area residents getting concealed weapons permits also has risen sharply. The price of ammo has skyrocketed, but so have sales, as gun owners stockpile bullets. Even the York County [SC] Sheriff's Office, which buys ammunition in bulk, is feeling the pinch... http://www.heraldonline.com/opinions/werrell/story/1392970.html --- Chicago RKBA Rally: A gun rights rally in Chicago, of all places? A bit counterintuitive, perhaps, but it's one more sign that the gun rights advocacy movement in Illinois is tired of playing defense--that now, it's the citizen disarmament advocates who are going to have to try to stop us, rather than the other way around... This is actually the second annual Second Amendment Freedom Rally (SAFR), with last year's having occurred on July 11th, 2008. It was kind of a rushed affair, with little time for advance publicity, but attendance was still respectable, given the fact that it was in the hostile environs of downtown Chicago. Last year's keynote speaker was Dr. (and former Texas Representative) Suzanna Gratia Hupp, who watched her parents brutally gunned down in the Luby's Cafeteria massacre in 1991, while her gun, in accordance with Texas law at the time, was left in her car, helping no one. She is a compelling speaker, as can be seen below... http://www.examiner.com/x-2581-St-Louis-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m6d10-Celebrating-gun-rights-in-the-enemys-back-yard ...Mayor Daley and the National Rifle Association are headed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a showdown over Chicago's ban on handguns. There are powerful, compelling arguments on both sides. CBS 2 talked to a shop owner who said that if he had obeyed the city's ban, he'd be dead. "We were actually broken into, you know, during the day," he said. He owns a small business on the South Side. He doesn't want us to reveal his identity. Although it's illegal in Chicago, he often packs a .25 caliber pistol. He claims it saved his life twice, most notably when a robber hit him from behind with a hammer. "As he reached to hit me again, I drew my pistol," he said. "He saw the pistol, and I shot and missed him totally 'cause I was half-knocked. He took off running." Chicago police who responded did what officers often do in the city's toughest neighborhoods. They pretended that the victim had not broken the law by defending himself with an illegal handgun... http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/handgun.ban.carry.2.1039907.html --- Oops, Wrong House: A Hardin County [KY] woman was unharmed Tuesday night after shooting a man who attempted to burglarize her Elizabethtown residence, according to police... Seiner said a 911 call came into the department at 10:17 p.m. in reference to a shooting. Upon investigation, Seiner said in a written release that police believe a white male in his early 20s entered the woman's residence with the intent to burglarize her home. The female was alone in the bedroom at the time of the break-in. She reportedly shot the man with a medium-caliber handgun when he entered the bedroom. "We've not been able to sit down with the suspect and interview him," Seiner said. He "is in stable condition but he was on a ventilator. He hasn't been able to speak to us, yet." ...The woman suffered no injuries, Seiner said. The sheriff said he hoped to have further information within a day. http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2009/06/10/local/29062946.txt --- Oops, Wrong Apartment: A resident shot and wounded one of four men who forced themselves into his apartment Tuesday night, police said. About 10:18 p.m., Joseph Tyler Cox, of 5039 Winster Drive, Apt. 203, responded to a knock on the door, according to Winston-Salem police. Four men dressed in dark clothes with their faces concealed forced themselves inside. One was armed with a knife. Cox retrieved a handgun and began to fire at the suspects, police said. Quenton Alphonzo Taylor, 18, of 5489 Country Side Drive, Apt. F, was struck by several rounds, according to police. Cox also shot himself in the hand and was stabbed several times in the back... (There is no indication as to whether Cox was stabbed before or after he had actually retrieved the handgun.) http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/06/10/article/winston_salem_resident_shoots_armed_intruder -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .