MN-GOCRA

E-blast from GOCRA

January 13, 2010 in News | 1 comment

Important Message for All Minnesota Carry Permit Holders!

In early December, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher sent a fund raising letter to Ramsey County carry permit holders, using names and addresses that were improperly taken from the Sheriff’s permit to carry database. The letter invited carry permit holders in Ramsey County to a shoot in a private outing at the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office indoor firearms range.

If you received such a letter from Sheriff Fletcher inviting you to shoot at his charity event, your privacy rights have been violated. GOCRA urges you to join in a criminal complaint filed with the St. Paul Police Department. Sheriff Fletcher violated Minnesota Data Privacy Laws by using permit to permit to carry files for activities that were not official business.

The text of the letter is available here: http://www.gocra-mn.org/news/ramsey-county-illegal-invitation/

On the surface, this may look harmless. It might even seem like a “nice” thing to do. However, this is a serious violation and needs to be addressed.

First, using this data for such a purpose is in direct violation of the law!

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bin/getpub.php?type=s&num=624.714

Subd. 14. Records. (a) A sheriff must not maintain records or data collected, made, or held under this section concerning any applicant or permit holder that are not necessary under this section to support a permit that is outstanding or eligible for renewal under subdivision 7

The translation: permit holder data is only to be used for issuing or renewing permits. Any other use is illegal. A Sheriff should know this. Further, this data is specifically classified as private criminal justice data per MN Stat. 13.87, Subd. 2. This is clearly a misuse of the data.

In the late 1980s, Chief Judge Douglas Amdahl of the Court of Appeals did, in essence, the same thing and was disciplined for his use of public position, stationary, stamps, etc. to benefit his favored charity groups. He targeted lawyers who appeared before his court. In essence, that is the same misuse of power that Fletcher is attempting to do.

Second, and equally important, such actions put personal, private data on permit holders out into the public domain – with potential for unchecked abuse.

So, what can we do? What we must do is:

If you are a resident of Ramsey County, GOCRA urges you to join the complaint filed with the St. Paul Police Department. The case number for the complaint against Sheriff Fletcher regarding the misuse of carry permit holder data is CN 09273/732.

The St. Paul Police Department (www.stpaul.gov) is located at:

367 Grove Street

St Paul, MN

55101-2296

(651) 291-1111.

After joining the complaint, forward a copy of it to the Ramsey County Attorney and the Ramsey County Board.

Do it now! Your rights are hanging in the balance.

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Calif. police chiefs oppose microstamping

January 6, 2010 in News | No comments

Thereby showing a solid appreciation of science's limitations. CSI is a TV show, not reality.

http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/Gun_Law_Expert_Praises_California_Police_for_Reversing_Position_on_Microstamping_Law,201030092.aspx

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Firearms hysteria — always consider context.

January 6, 2010 in News | No comments

Placed in Context: More than 900 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 killed somebody in 2007. Should we be scared of young black guys? Of course not. There are roughly 3 million black males in that age group in the United States. It would be horribly unfair to toss around the first statistic without mentioning the second; doing so would be misleading, if not malicious. Now consider this statistic: Concealed handgun permit holders have killed 107 people since 2007 [without considering how many are justified]. That news, from the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., sounds pretty bad – until you put it in context. How many Americans have been issued a permit to carry a concealed weapon? The Violence Policy Center doesn’t say. And it’s probably impossible to pin down a precise number, because records are kept on a state-by-state basis, and reporting criteria differ from state to state. But NRA estimates put the number in the neighborhood of 5 million, as of a couple of years ago. The NRA adds that permit applications have jumped 50 percent since the 2008 elections – which seems borne out at least here in Virginia. At present there are 211,435 active permits in the commonwealth. Just this year, Virginia courts have granted more than 62,000. If that’s true, then the percentage of concealed-carry permit holders who have killed someone with a firearm comes to two one-thousandths of 1 percent. Yet to listen to the VPC’s Kristen Brand – who says “concealed handgun permit holders are killing people over parking spaces, football games, and family arguments” – you’d think the cohort of permit holders was as dangerous as the gang [in a high security prison]…

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/columnists/article/ED-HINKLE0101_20091231-174805/314680/

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New Donation Option

January 6, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

GOCRA is now accepting donations through Gunpal, a Paypal-like service that does not discriminate against gun owners. The donation button can be found on the left side of every page on the GOCRA website.

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UK crime increase — These aren’t your typical gun former owner.

January 4, 2010 in News | No comments

[snip]Shooting incidents in London have almost doubled compared with
the same period last year, prompting grave concerns that gun crime in
some areas is out of control.

Scotland Yard has admitted a 17% rise in overall firearms offences,
although the Metropolitan police chief, Sir Paul Stephenson, has put
that down to a blip.

They reveal that the number of actual shootings has almost doubled
from 123 to 236 in the last six months compared with the same period
last year, a rise of 91.8%. Serious firearms offences have risen by
47% across the capital.

Those discharging the firearms and those being shot at are young
teenagers involved in “respect shootings” to settle petty disputes
with little thought of the consequences, say police and community
leaders. [snip]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/03/london-gun-crime-shootings-rise

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Call Rep. Oberstar NOW. Do it today!!

December 13, 2009 in Uncategorized | No comments

Amendment Would Protect Ammo Supply:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has notified members that, as demand for ammunition continues to outpace supply, “it is critically important that an amendment authored by Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) to a seemingly obscure hazardous material bill (HR 4016) be attached to the legislation during consideration on the House floor.”

The NSSF notes that the amendment being pushed by Graves will help protect the shipment of materials necessary for the manufacturing of ammunition, and warns that without the Graves Amendment, the rate of production will slip, perhaps precipitously.

In turn, decreased production of ammunition will lead to decreased availability. This will lead to an increase in ammunition prices directly affecting consumers.

Floor action on the bill is anticipated within the next three weeks. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, intends to bring HR 4016 to the floor prior to the end of the session.

NSSF is encouraging all hunters and sportsmen to contact Rep. Oberstar and urge him to support the Graves Amendment. He can be reached at 202-225-6211.

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/7018

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Social Media

November 30, 2009 in Uncategorized | No comments

GOCRA is on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/#/pages/Minnesota-Gun-Owners-Civil-Rights-Alliance/222381137541?ref=mf

Twitter here: http://twitter.com/mn_gocra

RSS updates are available here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Mn-gocra

Email news updates are available here: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=Mn-gocra&loc=en_US

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From the 38 state’s AG’s Brief signed by Lori Swanson

November 30, 2009 in News | No comments

Accordingly, the States have
an interest in ensuring that citizens who must travel
in the course of their personal or professional lives
remain free from unconstitutional arrest and
prosecution for engaging in their right to self-defense

by carrying properly-licensed weapons." p. 2

The common thread in these transformative events
in our Nation’s history was the fundamental
importance of the right to keep and bear arms as the
ultimate guarantor of all the other liberties enjoyed by

Americans. The source of the threat to liberty shifted
from the British Crown during the Founding to
oppressive local governments in the post-Civil War era,
but the cure remained the same: recognition and
enforcement of an individual right to keep and bear

arms, as an essential component of the natural right of
self-preservation and the right of “resistance . . . to the
violence of oppression.” p. 5-6

For the vast majority of Americans who do not live
in a federal enclave, the stakes involved in this case
could not be higher. If Chicago’s ban is upheld, it will
confirm that local governments, unrestrained by the

Second Amendment, may deny American citizens what
they could not be denied by the federal government:
the right to possess “the most preferred firearm in the
nation to ‘keep’ and use for the protection of one’s home

and family.” … For untold numbers of Americans, including
the millions of residents of Chicago, such a result will
render the Second Amendment—aptly described as the
“the palladium of the liberties of the republic,” …

—effectively meaningless. p. 9-10

To begin with, the federalism concerns expressed
below are based on the mistaken premise that the
Second Amendment protects state militias against
federal interference. Id. at 859. Heller expressly
rejected the argument that the Second Amendment

addressed any concern about federal control over state
militias. p. 21

To be sure, amici States agree that “[i]t is one
of the happy incidents of the federal system” that each
State may “serve as a laboratory; and try novel social
and economic experiments without risk to the rest of

the country.” New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S.
262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (cited in Nat’l
Rifle Assoc., 567 F.3d at 860). But the discretion of
state and local governments to explore legislative and

regulatory initiatives does not include “the power to
experiment with the fundamental liberties of citizens
safeguarded by the Bill of Rights.” Pointer, 380 U.S. at
413 (Goldberg, J., concurring). As the Court stated in

Heller, “[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out of
the hands of government . . . the power to decide on a
case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth
insisting upon.” 128 S. Ct. at 2821. Just as local

governments cannot constitutionally act as
“laboratories” for initiatives to abrogate their citizens’
right to free speech or their freedom from unreasonable
searches and seizures, nor can they nullify the
fundamental right to keep and bear arms secured by

the Second Amendment. p. 22-23

Many firearms regulations
would plainly survive Second Amendment scrutiny,
such as “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of
firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws
forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places

such as schools and government buildings, or laws
imposing conditions and qualifications on the
commercial sale of arms.” p. 23

Indeed, Heller made clear that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right to keep and bear any
weapons that are “in common use” by Americans—that
is, the “sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at

home,” and that they could therefore bring with them
if called to militia duty. p. 25

In short, Chicago fails to recognize that Americans’ right to
possess lawful weapons in common use has remained
implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, even when
those weapons could not be “useful against modern-day

bombers and tanks” and therefore would be of limited
efficacy in modern militia service. p. 27

As the submission of this brief further
demonstrates, Chicago’s position that the right to arms
is of little importance, and may be abrogated at will by
local government, is directly contrary to the view of the

majority of the States. p. 29

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Gun show myth debunked and stand your ground defended.

November 30, 2009 in News | No comments

In a recently reported five-year study by the FBI some interesting facts came to light regarding firearm-armed criminals who assault police officers. Just a brief synopsis:

The study involved a pool of more than 800 incidents from which researchers selected 40, involving 43 offenders (13 of them admitted gang bangers/drug traffickers) and 50 police officers.

What researchers found was that while handguns were used predominantly in the assaults, all but one were obtained illegally. In contrast to media myth, not one of the firearms in the study was obtained from gun shows. Furthermore, the overriding factor in weapon choice is "what is available." Only one offender hand-picked a particular gun “because he felt it would do the most damage to a human being.” Several of the offenders reported that they started carry weapons as early as 9 to 12 years old. The average age was 17-years. Gang members especially started young.

The offenders were of a different mind-set than the normal people they confronted, and researchers got to see just how cold-blooded the younger generation of offenders is. The 50 officers in the study had all experienced situations where they had the legal authority to use deadly force but chose not to shoo. The offenders studied, on the other hand, had been exposed to killing after killing and fully expected to be murdered. They don’t hesitate to shoot anybody and were not the least concerned about innocent bystanders. They typically displayed no moral or ethical restraints in using firearms. In fact, the criminal street-combat veterans survived by developing a shoot-first mentality.

The study concluded that police officers can never be assured that a criminal is unarmed until they have thoroughly searched the person and his/her surroundings themselves. Nor, in the interest of personal safety, can officers let their guards down in any type of law enforcement situation.

Note: none of the criminals studied was hindered by any law, federal, state or local, established to prevent or hinder gun ownership.

In conclusion, police officers [and armed civilians] who hesitate while he/she decides to shoot or don’t shoot when faced with an armed criminal will likely find himself/herself a potentially deadly split second or more behind the criminal who has no hesitation whatsoever about pulling the trigger.

http://www.forcescience.org/fsinews/2006/12/new-findings-from-fbi-about-cop-attackers-their-weapons/

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Newer entries »

E-blast from GOCRA

Calif. police chiefs oppose microstamping

Firearms hysteria — always consider context.

New Donation Option

UK crime increase — These aren’t your typical gun former owner.

Call Rep. Oberstar NOW. Do it today!!

Social Media

From the 38 state’s AG’s Brief signed by Lori Swanson

Gun show myth debunked and stand your ground defended.

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