More Guns, Less Crime - Look Who's Saying It Now: The oft-cited credo that more guns equal more crime is being tested by facts on the ground this year: Even as gun ownership has surged in the US in the past year, violent crime, including murder and robbery, has dropped steeply. Add to that the fact that many experts had predicted higher crime rates as the US grinds through a difficult recession, and the discrepancy has advocates on both sides of the Second Amendment debate rushing to their ramparts. After several years of crime rates holding relatively steady, the FBI is reporting that violent crimes - including gun crimes - dropped dramatically in the first six months of 2009, with murder down 10 percent across the US as a whole. Concurrently, the FBI reports that gun sales - especially of assault-style rifles and handguns, two main targets of gun-control groups - are up at least 12 percent nationally since the election of President Obama, a dramatic run on guns prompted in part by so-far-unwarranted fears that Democrats in Congress and the White House will curtail gun rights and carve apart the Second Amendment... http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2009/1223/More-guns-equal-more-crime-Not-in-2009-FBI-crime-report-shows. --- Washington Paper Attacks RKBA: First it was Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat suggesting that firearms ownership should be regulated like driving and car ownership, and now the newspaper's editorial page has blamed the "Second Amendment crowd" for "some responsibility" in the shooting of two Pierce County sheriffs' deputies. The editorial also mentions the slaying of four Lakewood police officers, a vicious crime perpetrated by a career thug who got leniency from a governor and at least one Pierce County judge. There is nothing in the Times editorial about how two dead gunmen - David Crable and Maurice Clemmons - were able to skate through the court system when they should have been behind bars. It's easier to demonize the "Second Amendment crowd," because that sort of editorial bigotry is gleefully acceptable by far too many in the Times' reading audience... The Times editorial clings to the now-debunked philosophy that more guns cause more crime, a premise I wrote about here that new data on murder rates and firearms transaction background checks has just blown out of the water. Murder dropped by a remarkable ten percent during the first half of 2009, a period which saw gun sales skyrocket; sales that specifically involved semiautomatic sport-utility rifles and semi-auto pistols... http://www.examiner.com/x-4525-Seattle-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m12d24-Media-drumbeat-for-gun-control-turns-to-outrageous-blame-game --- Alaska Firearms Freedom Act: A Fairbanks lawmaker has proposed the Alaska Firearms Freedom Act, which seeks to stop the federal regulation of guns and ammunition made and sold within Alaska. Republican Rep. Mike Kelly said federal rules should only apply to firearms sold across state borders, where the U.S. government has constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. The bill easily passed the state House of Representatives in April after picking up 11 co-sponsors. It now sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Its chairman, Sen. Hollis French, D-Anchorage, said he will schedule a committee hearing this winter. The bill could place Alaska into a broader national discussion. Similar bills have passed in Montana and Tennessee, and Fairbanks attorney Lynn Levengood said the shift in Congress and the White House to Democratic control has gun-rights advocates following the debate and planning ahead... Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation, said past court rulings could create hurdles as states look to protect intrastate gun trade. But if enough states take action, the momentum could force Congress to rethink the federal government's role in firearm regulation... http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/122409/sta_539293937.shtml --- Nevada Councilman Offers Handgun Training: A unique business is opening in Fernley early next month. Already set up with an office on U.S. Highway 95A near Main Street, the Defensive Pistol Institute is accepting applications for classes in safe gun use. Owner Cal Eilrich, a Fernley city councilman and member of many shooting organizations as well as the owner of a local shooting range, is offering his expertise to teach the art of handling firearms... According to Eilrich, the classes will be both handbook and hands on training. The NRA basic handbook will be used to teach those attending the classes how to care for, clean and safely handle and store firearms. Beyond the basic pistol classes, DPI will offer higher level training for self-defense and action pistol shooting. There will be scenarios where people can learn the ability to defend themselves with a hand gun... There are probably few people who know firearms inside and out better than Eilrich. He has been shooting since he was 15 years old. He was a world champion by 19. His credentials include winning the top Fast Draw Championship in Dallas in 1972. His hobby turned into a second career, and he has managed to make a business out of shooting guns or teaching about them for most of his life. Both Eilrich and his wife, Dinah, are members of the Great Basin GunHawks Club, which is involved in the Western States Cowboy Action Shoot held each May at the Fernley Hills Shooting Range at the Fernley-Reno Raceway. Eilrich is also director of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. Their world-wide competition is held in Fallon each year... (It's been a long time since I saw someone teach shooting with a finger on the front of the trigger guard.) http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20091224/NEWS/912249982/1055&ParentProfile=1045 --- NBA Investigates Player for Firearm Possession: The NBA and Washington Wizards are investigating Gilbert Arenas for storing firearms in his locker, which would be a violation of the league's gun policy. After CBSSports.com first reported the incident Thursday, the Wizards released a statement saying that Arenas stored unloaded firearms in a locked container in his locker. The guns were not accompanied by ammunition, the team said. But under league guidelines collectively bargained between the players and owners, players are not permitted to carry firearms on league property or during league business. Arenas, who was previously suspended one game in 2004-05 for violating the NBA's weapons policy, could face league discipline regardless of whether the guns in his locker were loaded. NBA policy does not differentiate between loaded and unloaded guns, according to a person familiar with the guidelines... Arenas told the Washington Times that the incident occurred around December 10, when he moved the weapons from his home to his lock box at Verizon Center after his daughter was born. "I decided I didn't want the guns in my house and around the kids anymore, so I took them to my lock box at Verizon Center," Arenas told the newspaper. "Then like a week later, I turned them over to team security and told them to hand them over to the police, because I don't want them anymore. I wouldn't have brought them to D.C. had I known the rules. After my daughter was born, I was just like, 'I don't need these anymore.'" ... (He not only didn't know the NBA rules, he also apparently did not know D.C. law.) http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/19138766 --- Oops, Wrong Passenger: Several thugs tried to drag a woman off a Queens subway train Thursday night, but she fought back and fatally stabbed one of her tormenters before fleeing on another train, police said... The struggle continued as the group pulled her off the train and dragged her up the stairs to the mezzanine level. At one point, the woman stabbed one of her attackers - identified by family as Thomas Winston, 29 - multiple times in the chest. The woman then sprinted back down to the platform - with the thugs in hot pursuit, said witness Ricardo Josephs, 41. "Seven or eight of them were chasing the woman," said Josephs, an MTA employee. "They all jumped over the turnstiles after her," he continued. "She got on the Queens [-bound F] train. They tried to grab her; they tried to hold the train - but she got away." ... The woman was still in the wind Thursday night, police said. One police source said investigators suspect the woman was acting in self-defense... (The woman is "still in the wind" because, in New York City, she will likely be prosecuted for illegal possession of a weapon if she is found.) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/12/24/2009-12-24_woman_fatally_knifes_thug_in_subway_attack.html --- Race Clouds Self-Defense Finding: Questions about race, an antagonistic relationship with police and an ongoing dispute compelled the family of a Farmville [NC] man killed Nov. 15 to press for charges against a shooter who authorities say acted in self-defense. Ellis Hunter III, 26, died a week after a fight with William Payton, 23, of Greenville. An investigation by Farmville police concluded Payton shot Hunter after Hunter attacked Payton with a knife, District Attorney Clark Everett told Hunter's family at a meeting last week. Everett told Hunter family members and Pitt County NAACP president Calvin Henderson during the Dec. 15 meeting that evidence collected at the scene supported the conclusion. Testimony from several reported witnesses, including at least one who passed a polygraph test, also bolstered the case, Everett said... http://www.reflector.com/news/farmville-family-seeks-charges-in-self-defense-case-1034852.html --- Don't Move!: Nearly one in five undercover officers in the New York Police Department said they had been in confrontations in which they were mistaken for suspects by fellow officers - and found themselves suddenly staring down the barrel of a loaded weapon. In those situations, an overwhelming number of those officers said that the key to surviving was to remember a basic training lesson that can easily be forgotten in the heat of the moment: do not move a muscle... Tom McKenna, a former detective who retired in 2000, said that officers once pulled guns on him while he was trying to arrest a suspect. He said he was off duty at the time and wearing street clothes. "I heard the sirens of the police car so I knew they were coming," Detective McKenna said, recalling the incident, which he said took place on the Upper East Side in 1996. "I didn't move. Why would I move? Who the heck moves when a cop has a gun pointed at you?" ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/nyregion/01undercover.html --- Escaping from Illegal Restraints: Kidnappers may use zip ties to restrain their victims. These video clips show that it is relatively easy to defeat them http://www.itstactical.com/2009/09/26/how-to-escape-from-zip-ties/ --- Merry Christmas! -- Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. The tactics and skills to use a firearm in self-defense don't come naturally with the right to keep and bear arms. http://www.spw-duf.info .