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Dianne Feinstein, Ted Cruz Trade Barbs Over Gun Ban (+video)

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a hugely controversial ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, but the measure faces nearly certain defeat on the Senate floor.

The proposal, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), bans 157 different models of assault weapons, as well as magazines containing more than 10 bullets. The vote was 10 to 8, with all Democrats supporting it and all Republicans opposed.

The Senate now faces a floor fight in coming weeks over Democrats’ push to dramatically alter U.S. gun laws for the first time in two decades. While the Feinstein assault weapons ban is unlikely to overcome GOP opposition and get a vote — as well as concerns from red state Democrats up for reelection in 2014 — Democrats and the White House will continue their drive to enact universal background checks on all gun sales.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that the assault weapons ban will have a hard time overcoming opposition.

“It’s pretty clear the other side is locked in opposition [to assault weapons ban.] — [I] don’t see us getting 60 votes,” Whitehouse said, referring to the necessary bar to pass the Senate.

Watch video here:

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Desperate Times: Marines Told To ‘Save Every Round’

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marines

Photo Credit: CNN

United States Marines are being told to preserve ammunition and gasoline as a deal softening the impact of automatic spending cuts continues to elude leaders in Washington.

Marine Corps Commandant James Amos urged personnel in a video posted online Friday to “save every round, every gallon of gas,” and to “take every single aspect or opportunity in training to get the most bang for the buck,” a reminder of the cuts’ immediate effect on the U.S. military.

The Marine Corps and other branches are being forced to cut billions from their budgets as the result of the spending cuts, which were triggered March 1 when Congress and the White House failed to strike a deal reducing the federal debt. In a letter to all Marines dated March 2, Amos said his branch would cut $1.4 billion in 2013 and $2 billion in every ensuing year for nearly a decade.

State-by-state reports produced by the White House indicated the military slashes would be seen in delayed maintenance for military equipment and canceled air shows, along with furloughs for civilian defense personnel. Salaries for enlisted personnel are exempt from the budget cuts.

“This is no time to do business as usual,” Amos said in the video. “Things have changed. The landscape’s changed. We need you to be conservative in the way you do business, I need you to think about conserving our assets, and I need you to become part of the solution as it relates to sacrifice.”

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Florida Bill Would Require Anger Management Courses For Bullet Buyers

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Photo Credit: Reuters

A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence.

The bill filed Saturday by state Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, would require a three-day waiting period for the sale of any firearm and the sale of ammunition to anyone who has not completed anger management courses. The proposal would require ammo buyers to take the anger management courses every 10 years.

“This is not about guns,” Gibson said. “This is about ammunition and not only for the safety of the general community, but also for the safety of law enforcement.”

Gibson said she’s concerned with citizens stockpiling ammunition, potentially creating dangerous situations should those individuals ever come in contact with law enforcement agencies or criminals.

“It’s about getting people to think, really, about how much ammunition they need,” Gibson said. “It’s a step, I think, in a safer direction. It’s about getting people to think before they buy.”

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DHS Buying Armored Vehicles

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Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteySecurity: In addition to stockpiling over a billion bullets and thousands of semiautomatic weapons the feds would deny U.S. citizens, the vehicle of choice for fighting the counterinsurgency war in Iraq is appearing on U.S. streets.

The sequestration question du jour is why the Department of Homeland Security, busy releasing hundreds, if not thousands, of deportable and detained illegal aliens due to budget constraints, is buying several thousand Mine Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles?

And just who are they intended to be used against? This acquisition comes on top of the recent news of the stockpiling by DHS of more than 1.6 billion (with a ‘b’) bullets of various calibers, enough by one calculation to fight the equivalent of a 24-year Iraq War, and the ordering of some 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” (PDW) — also known as “assault weapons” when owned by civilians.

Additionally, DHS is asking for 30 round magazines that “have a capacity to hold thirty (30) 5.56x45mm NATO rounds.”
The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these MRAP vehicles for service on the streets of the U.S. They were formerly used for counterinsurgency in Iraq.

These vehicles are specifically designed to resist mines and ambush attacks. They use bulletproof windows and are designed to withstand small-arms fire, including smaller-caliber rifles such as a .223 Remington. Does DHS expect a counterinsurgency here?

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Palin: Washington Buying Bullets For Us

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Photo Credit: WNDImagine the worst-case scenario if the sequester goes through. The market nosedives. The economy implodes. Empty shelves. Riots. The feds hit the streets in force to restore order in a “national emergency.”

Sounds like something in a Third World country or Greece. It could never happen here, right? Think again, says Sarah Palin.

The former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee believes the federal government is “stockpiling bullets in case of civil unrest.” Palin says the feds are afraid of what might happen if the sequester goes into effect.

She writes on her Facebook page: “If we are going to wet our proverbial pants over 0.3% in annual spending cuts when we’re running up trillion dollar annual deficits, then we’re done. Put a fork in us. We’re finished. We’re going to default eventually and that’s why the feds are stockpiling bullets in case of civil unrest.”

The sequester will trigger $85 billion in immediate cuts to federal funding and $1.2 over 10 years unless lawmakers reach a deal by Friday.

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Ammo Prices Have Doubled Since December At ‘America’s Largest Gun Shop’

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photo credit: KOMUnewsThe price of his store’s ammunition has more than doubled since mid-December, says Larry Hyatt, owner of Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte, N.C., which bills itself “America’s Largest Gun Shop.”

I spoke to Mr. Hyatt today about the increase in the price of ammunition since mid-December (when the gun control debate began to heat up). Hyatt said that the ammo market is “very volatile” and that he “doesn’t know when the next shipment will be.”

His best seller right now is .22LR caliber. Gun owners like to shoot this caliber because it is typically a cheaper round and also optimal for target shooting, known as “plinking”

A box containing 500 rounds of .22LR was selling for approximately $20/box back in December. Today, Mr. Hyatt tells me he is selling the same box for $49. This represents a 145 percent increase in price.

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Gun Dealers Report Shortages Of Ammunition

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Photo Credit: John Rawlston, AP Gun shops are running low on ammunition from a run by customers fearful of potential gun-control legislation, according to gun retailers and customers.

Prices have more than doubled over past year in some shops, retailers are putting limits on the amount a customer can buy, and some common types of ammunition, such as .22-caliber long rifle shells, are hard to get.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents ammunition makers, retailers, hunters and sport shooters, attributes what it calls “spot shortages” around the country to rising popularity of sport-shooting and hunting, and to people who are “keeping firearms for personal and home defense.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December reported recently that hunting license sales were up 9% from 2006 to 2011, reversing a 25-year decline. Michael Hampton, Jr., executive director of the National Skeet Shooting Association and the National Sporting Clays Association, says participation in those sports, which includes up to 4 million participants in each sport, is growing 3-5% annually.

But retailers say much of the demand is from gun owners who are stockpiling in case certain weapons are banned, who believe that economic chaos may be coming, or who are driven by rumors of inevitable background checks or rising taxes on ammunition. Gun sellers and owners say a run on ammunition began shortly after President Obama was re-elected, and has intensified in the gun-violence debate since the December mass killing of 20 children and six adults at a school in Newtown, Conn.

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Department of Homeland Security Ammo Acquisition Grows to 1.4 Billion Rounds (+video)

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According to American Thinker, the Department of Homeland Security’s ammunition acquisition has now soared to 1.4 billion rounds over the last six months.

Until now, Restoring Liberty has avoided posting articles regarding the various federal agencies’ ammunition procurements as earlier numbers seemed to be within the parameters of what could be expected for routine practice and training. However, at 1.4 billion, every employee of DHS (not just those with federal law enforcement authority) would have hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition each.

It’s also disturbing that hundreds of millions of these rounds are hollow-points, prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

Here’s how the American Thinker describes the volume of DHS’s ammunition purchase:

Let’s put these DHS numbers in perspective. An Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer displaces (weighs) 9,300 tons. 1.4 billion rounds weigh around 28,000 tons, three destroyers’ worth, so to speak. It takes over 1,200 18-wheel trucks to move that much ammunition. That’s the equivalent to a line of single trailer trucks, parked end to end, almost 14 miles long.

There are 314 million Americans, men, women and children living in the United States this morning. This year alone, DHS has purchased four rounds for each and every American. We don’t know how much more ammo the DHS may have accumulated during the preceding 36 months of the Obama Administration. This enormous DHS stockpile supplements the ammunition already held by the US Armed Forces, the National Guard, hundreds of local and state police departments, plus other Federal law enforcement agencies such as the ATF, Secret Service, FBI, TSA and the US Marshals Service.

Why did DHS purchase 28,000 tons of ammunition? Why did DHS purchase almost half a billion rounds of hollow point ammunition, banned by the Hague Convention of 1899 for use in international warfare, that is carefully designed to kill it intended targets? Americans have no good answers to these questions since the DHS is now refusing to respond to media inquires on the subject. Pull back the curtain of silence by asking your Congressmen and Senators these questions.

These huge inventories are extremely troubling from the standpoint of a free society. DHS and other Federal governmental agencies will be much less inclined to ever use this ammunition as long as Americans citizens stand firm in supporting our Second Amendment rights to bear arms. We must never forget that tyrants throughout modern history (Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Mao) always disarmed their opponents before rounding them up and sending them to the killing fields.

Here’s a video that was put together by a concerned citizen that asks the question that Restoring Liberty would like answered: Why?

After Aurora, Obama now considering banning ammo sales online

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Photo credit: kcdsTM

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that President Obama will “evaluate” a new bill that would ban online ammunition sales in the wake of the shooting massacre in Aurora, Colo. That left 12 dead and dozens more injured.

During the daily press briefing, Mr. Earnest was asked whether Mr. Obama supports the measure, which aims to end sales of unlimited amounts of ammunition on the Internet and other mail orders. The bill also would force ammunition dealers to report large sales of bullets and other munitions to law enforcement authorities

At first Mr. Earnest said he didn’t know if Mr. Obama was aware of a bill sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Democrat from New Jersey, and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a Democrat from New York. He later amended this remarks to say the White House would evaluate the measure.

“The president’s view that have been relayed quite frequently over the last few days, you know, is that he believes in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, in the right to bear arms but he also believes that we should take robust steps within existing law to ensure that guns don’t fall in the hands of criminals or others [who] shouldn’t have them,” he said, referring to gun-control comments Mr. Obama made during at speech at the National Urban League.

The reporter followed up by asking whether the president’s push for enforcing existing law would prevent him from supporting the bill banning online munition sales.

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