Chris's Blog

NPR’s “On The Media” story about “Bradley Effect”

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2009/07/03/03

This is a story about the "Bradley Effect."  In the 1982 race for California governor between Tom Bradley and George Deukmejian, former LA mayor Bradley, a Black, was supposed to win handily.  In the story the Democratic strategist makes the offhand comment that "there was this gun control initiative" which generated a bunch of votes out of the Central Valley.  For years the "Bradley Effect" has been thought to reveal America as riddled with closet racists.  This story actually throws some cold watner on that allegation, but doesn’t quite acknowledge that the gun issue provided the margin.  Of course, the Republican Deukmejian went on to stick it to the gun owners who elected him, signing a nasty semi-auto ban in his second term.

I’ve long suspected that the "Bradley Effect" was at least encouraged, and possibly even planted, to allow Democrats avoid saying out loud that gun control is a losing issue. 

The Republicans, living up to their title of the "Stupid Party," have so far shown far less understanding of the issue.  Maybe someday.

Special Report

Fish Conviction Overturned!

Harold Fish Conviction Overturned

AZ Legislature Passes Retroactive Self-Defense Law

    The Arizona Court of Appeals has thrown out the conviction of Harold Fish and chastised the judge who tried the case.  Fish was the retired school teacher who shot a man who charged at him swinging his arms and yelling threats.  Fish was convicted of Second Degree Murder in 2006 and has spent the intervening three years in an Arizona State Prison.  The Appeals Court ruled that Fish should have been allowed to introduce evidence of his attacker’s violent past and the vicious histories of the man’s dogs which triggered the tragic event. 

    The Arizona State Legislature passed a law shifting the burden of proof in self-defense cases from the defense to the prosecution, but the judge tried the case under Arizona’s previous law which required the defense to prove that the defendant acted in self-defense.  This week the Arizona Legislature passed another bill clarifying that the new self-defense standard should have been applied to the Fish case.

    News of both the Appeals Court decision and the Legislature’s action broke within 24 hours of each other on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 30 – July 1, 2009.  The news means that at the very least Fish should receive a new trial and could be set free without a trial if the Coconino County Prosecutor’s Office chooses not to retry the case.  It is possible that the State Attorney General’s Office could appeal the Appeals Court decision to the State Supreme Court, but that is not considered likely by most observers.  If the case goes to a new trial, it is likely that it would be tried under the newer proof standards even without the Legislatures new bill, but that is not guaranteed unless the Governor signs the pending bill; something her predecessor, now Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, vetoed in 2007.

    Meanwhile, Harold Fish remains in prison as he waits for the Attorney General and County Prosecutor to decide how they are going to proceed – which they probably won’t do until well after the Independence Day holiday.  Something Fish supporters say is sadly ironic.

Chris's Blog

Joe Bowman: Godspeed

Just got the word from The Shooting Wire that trick shooter, actor, magician, and well-loved icon of the gun industry Joe Bowman has left us.  I was probably ten years old when he pulled a quarter from behind my ear.  I believe it may have been at the Camp Perry matches sometime around 1967.  Joe was hard to miss in his wide-brimmed hat with the Tom Mix crease and his hand-tooled boots.  As a kid I liked to watch him shuffle cards and juggle sixguns, but as I grew older I learned that he was a contemporary and friend of some of the legends of the screen.  I’m glad that Jeff and I got to visit with him at the SHOT Show this year. The world is less colorful without him, but it’s better for his having been here.

 

The Knox Update

Politics

The Knox Update

From the Firearms Coalition

 

Politics is Simply Complicated

 

By Jeff Knox

 

(June 25, 2009) The surprise introduction and passage of a pro-rights amendment attached to a credit card bill this spring could be a hopeful sign of things to come.  In a beautiful bit of political surgery, Dr. Tom Coburn, Republican Senator from Oklahoma put forward an amendment repealing the troubling National Parks firearms ban.  Coburn’s amendment was far superior to the new regulations adopted by the NPS toward the end of last year.  Those minor improvements were short-lived though as they were halted by an activist judge worried about the "environmental impact" of law-abiding park visitors possibly possessing guns.  Under the Coburn Amendment, National Parks and Federal Wildlife Refuges assimilate the firearms laws of their host states just as National Forest and BLM units have done without serious problems for decades.  Once Senator Coburn was able to introduce the amendment, there was little opponents could do to stop it because too many of their colleagues are from districts full of GunVoters and Senators didn’t want to go on record supporting any gun ban.  The bill passed with Senator Coburn’s amendment by a vote of 90 to 5.

Since the underlying credit card legislation was being strongly supported by the White House, the anti-rights leadership in the House couldn’t just bottle it up.  The die-hard anti-rights members who wanted to vote for the credit card legislation convinced Pelosi and company to offer the amended bill up in two separate votes, one for the main bill and one for the amendment.  That was probably a mistake because the amendment passed by a vote of 279 to 147 so now many of those 147 are going to have some explaining to do to GunVoters back home.

Continue reading Politics →

The Knox Update

The ATF Software Company?

The ATF Software Company?

By Jeff Knox

 (June 17, 2009) About a year ago, James LaMonte, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Coloseum software, was ready to release an innovative software package.  He had a client in Idaho, Red’s Trading Post, who wanted to install the software to reduce the number of minor errors on 4473’s and other federally mandated records.  But ATF rejected the variance request and asked for more information about the software.  They issued conflicting opinions, and generally held up the process for several months before finally requesting a meeting with LaMonte.  

If ATF wouldn’t approve dealers to use the software, Coloseum’s run would be a short one so LaMonte agreed to the meeting.  When they met, ATF assured LaMonte that they were not working with any other software developers and that any information he shared about his program would be held in the strictest confidence.  They said they needed more detailed information before they could grant the requested waiver to Red’s or any other dealer wishing to use Coloseum’s products. 

An ATF employee was assigned as liaison between ATF and Coloseum, studying Coloseum’s software, asking lots of questions, and implying that open cooperation would lead to ATF support for Coloseum’s products.  After several weeks of this, ATF called another meeting with Coloseum to discuss the release of the software.  At that meeting, LaMonte learned that ATF wasn’t working with other companies, they were developing their own software for filling out 4473’s and the ATF employee who had been studying Coloseum’s software was the head of ATF’s development team.

Continue reading The ATF Software Company? →

The Knox Update

Third-World DC

Third-World Policing in Nation’s Capital

By Jeff Knox

             (June 11, 2009) News reports were somewhat conflicted, but information suggests that officers of the federal Park Police, members of a special, FBI managed, "Safe Streets" taskforce, responded to a report of a "man with a gun," in the Trinidad neighborhood of the District of Columbia at about 8:30 on a recent Monday evening.  Witnesses say that the suspect ran into an alley where the plain clothes officers caught him, but a moment later he broke free and tried to run, at which point the officers opened fire, mortally wounding the fleeing suspect in the back.  A gun was found at the scene.

            This is the same neighborhood in DC where Metro Police have been setting up roadblocks requiring people to prove residency or a "valid reason" before entering the neighborhood.

            It seems that local and federal authorities think they’re operating in a third-world country rather than the nation’s capital.  

Continue reading Third-World DC →

The Knox Update

The Gun Rights War

Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War

A new book from the Knoxes

        July 4, 2009 marks the 25th anniversary of The Firearms Coalition and our bi-monthly newsletter The Hard Corps Report.  It also marks the release of a long overdue book, Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.  Dad always wanted to write a history of the gun rights movement and it turns out that he had already done so in his columns and articles while the history was being made.  Now, thanks to a lot of hard work by my brother Chris, it is finally about to be released. (See the cover copy here)

As we prepare for the book’s July 4 debut, we thought it appropriate to reprint the story of Neal Knox’s personal rights epiphany.  Chris chose this story as the prologue to the book and we offer it now to remind us all just what we’re fighting for.

 

The Belgian Corporal

by Neal Knox

In the summer of 1955, I was a young Texas National Guard sergeant on active duty at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.   A corporal in my squad was a Belgian-American named Charles DeNaer.  An old man as far as most of us were concerned, being well over thirty, Charley commanded a certain amount of our respect, for not only was he older than the rest of us, he had lived in Belgium when the Germans rolled across the low countries by-passing the Maginot Line on their way into France.   He had seen war.  

One soft Oklahoma afternoon, sitting on a bunk in the half-light of an old wooden barracks, he told me his story.

Continue reading The Gun Rights War →

Alerts List

Important Court Cases

The Second Amendment in the Courts

There have been three important Appeals Court decisions on the Second Amendment since the beginning of the year and together they set the stage for another major decision from the Supreme Court.

When the Court decided Heller last June, they did not address the issue of "incorporation," the application of the amendment to state and local governments.  While most of us think it’s just common sense that the rights expressed in the Bill of Rights are fundamental and universal, legal doctrine says otherwise.  Basically, a constitutional right is only recognized by the federal government until it is specifically "incorporated" by the Supreme Court.  In the three Second Amendment cases decided this year by Appeals courts, two rejected incorporation of the amendment while one supported incorporation.  This means that the Federal Appeals Court Circuits are split on this issue and that makes it much more likely that the Supreme Court will agree to review one or more of these cases and make a ruling as to whether the Second Amendment protects your rights from state and local laws and regulations.

Getting this question in front of the Supreme Court was the objective of the many lawsuits filed around the country by NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation in the wake of the Heller decision.  In Heller, the Justices commented on incorporation and the precedents which restrict the Second Amendment’s effect to only the federal government.  Some read those comments as an invitation to the lower courts to send up a case that the Court can use to incorporate the Second Amendment.  Let’s hope that’s really what the Court was saying.

The NRA has already filed a request for Supreme Court review of their Chicago case.  It is expected that the Court will announce their decision on whether to hear the case by early fall and a decision could come down by this time next year.

The Knox Update

National Training Week

Attention Ranges and Clubs:

A Call to Arms!

 

(May 20, 2009) On Independence Day 2009 we will celebrate several things in addition to celebration of the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we at The Firearms Coalition will be celebrating our 25th anniversary as an organization.  We’ll mark the occasion with the release of the new book The Gun Rights War, a compilation by my brother Chris of highlights from Neal Knox’s extensive writings stretching from 1966 to 2000.

July 4 also marks the inauguration of a new event, National Training Week.  National Training Week is an opportunity for experienced shooters and gunowners to share their knowledge with newcomers.  During the week between July 4 and July 11, ranges and gun clubs all over the country will host events and offer special deals geared to new shooters. 

Continue reading National Training Week →

Chris's Blog

Neal Knox Compilation

Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War

Now Accepting Orders!

The long-awaited compilation of the best of Neal Knox’s writing is on its way.  The scheduled release date is July 4.  It’s been a long haul, but I have to say I’m pleased with the result.  I’m looking forward to telling you more about it.  Here’s the cover copy:

  GRWSmall.jpg

“Neal Knox  A hero—no, the hero—of the Second Amendment.”
–Tanya Metaksa
former Executive Director, NRA-ILA

    For forty years, Neal Knox reported on every significant event in the Gun Rights War.  He himself became the story more than once, as he published news that powerful people wanted left alone.  Assembled here at last in one volume are the inside stories:

On Politics

  •  The Democrats are a danger to the Second Amendment—but so are the Republicans.

On the NRA

  •  How Neal Knox became the architect of the modern NRA—and why the NRA now pretends he never existed.

On how to be the Gun Lobby

  • How to talk to a politician—it starts with you listening.

        Often controversial, always principled, Neal Knox was the man Gun Week called, “the conscience of the gun-rights movement.”  Here at last, in one volume is the core of the writing that made his reputation—and helped save the Second Amendment.

    “Neal played a pivotal role in the gun-rights movement. Simultaneously loved and hated, he made a difference in defense of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.”
–Alan Korwin, Author, Gun Laws of America

Mail orders may be placed by sending a check for $24.95 to:

The Gun Rights War

PO Box 3313

Manassas, VA 20108

 

The On-Line order site is still in development but should be functioning any minute now – We Hope!

To visit the on-line order site, click here

or go to http://www.TheGunRightsWar.com

 

Ammunition for the grassroots gun rights movement