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Wash. Post: Senators Near Deal on Background Checks for Most Private Gun Sales

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photo credit: m glasgowA bipartisan group of senators is on the verge of a deal that would expand background checks to all private firearms sales with limited exemptions, but significant disagreements remain on the issue of keeping records of private gun sales, according to aides familiar with the talks.

An agreement would be a bold first step toward consideration of legislation to limit gun violence in the wake of the mass shootings at a Connecticut elementary school in December and comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected this week to begin considering new proposals to limit gun violence.

The talks, led by two Democrats and two Republicans, are expected to earn more GOP support in the coming days and likely enough to move the bill through the Senate, according to senior aides of both parties who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

“These negotiations are challenging, as you’d expect on an issue as complicated as guns,” the chief negotiator, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), said in a statement Saturday. “But all of the senators involved are approaching this in good faith. We are all serious about wanting to get something done, and we are going to keep trying.”

Resolution of whether to keep records of private sales is key to earning the support of one of the Republicans involved in the talks, Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn.

Read more from this story HERE.

Biden: ‘No Law-Abiding Citizen Has Any Fear That Their Constitutional Rights Will be Infringed’

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If you don’t have time to listen to Biden’s whole speech(and who does?), skip ahead to about the 10 minute mark. The statement in question is just past the 11 minute mark.

Enjoy.

Have You Read Evan Todd’s Letter To Obama Yet?

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Photo Credit: RLEVANSEvan Todd is a Columbine survivor. And he wasn’t just AT Columbine on the fateful day where students lost their lives. He was shot and was wounded himself. And he’s got something to say to Obama. BEHOLD:

Mr. President, As a student who was shot and wounded during the Columbine massacre, I have a few thoughts on the current gun debate. In regards to your gun control initiatives:

Universal Background Checks

First, a universal background check will have many devastating effects. It will arguably have the opposite impact of what you propose. If adopted, criminals will know that they can not pass a background check legally, so they will resort to other avenues. With the conditions being set by this initiative, it will create a large black market for weapons and will support more criminal activity and funnel additional money into the hands of thugs, criminals, and people who will do harm to American citizens.

Second, universal background checks will create a huge bureaucracy that will cost an enormous amount of tax payers dollars and will straddle us with more debt. We cannot afford it now, let alone create another function of government that will have a huge monthly bill attached to it.

Third, is a universal background check system possible without universal gun registration? If so, please define it for us. Universal registration can easily be used for universal confiscation. I am not at all implying that you, sir, would try such a measure, but we do need to think about our actions through the lens of time.

It is not impossible to think that a tyrant, to the likes of Mao, Castro, Che, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and others, could possibly rise to power in America. It could be five, ten, twenty, or one hundred years from now — but future generations have the natural right to protect themselves from tyrannical government just as much as we currently do. It is safe to assume that this liberty that our forefathers secured has been a thorn in the side of would-be tyrants ever since the Second Amendment was adopted.

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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.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats Hope To Ride Gun Control, Minimum Wage To 2014 Victory

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Photo Credit: Chuck Burton/APDon’t expect President Obama’s Gun Control plans and calls for a federal Minimum Wage hike to go away anytime soon.

Democrats believe they have a chance to use those both issues to “campaign aggressively” in the 2014 midterms.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent has the details from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:

In an interview today, DCCC chair Steve Israel told me the party’s House candidates will be running aggressively on Obama’s proposals to reduce gun violence and raise the minimum wage. Both will be incorporated into a broader indictment of the GOP as so imprisoned by ideological extremism that the party has been rendered incapable of tackling the major challenges facing the country.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Lethal Weapon’ Star Danny Glover Says US Should ‘Abolish Guns’

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Photo Credit: thedamper.comHollywood actor and political activist Danny Glover, star of the “Lethal Weapon” films with Mel Gibson, told The Daily Caller that Congress should “abolish guns” in the U.S.

“I don’t own a gun and definitely not only Gun Control, we should abolish guns, the personal guns. That’s how far I’m willing to go,” Glover told TheDC at a TransAfrica Forum benefit event on Wednesday night.

“There are many people in this country who do not have guns, who don’t own guns and are still under the same, are still susceptible to being burglarized or anything, but that doesn’t mean that we should willingly accept the fact that we need guns. We have to find some sort of way in which we live together, some sort of way in which we move on, for the human species to move on without guns.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Comcast Bans Gun Ads as Cable Giant Takes Control at NBC

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Photo Credit: simonovComcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, no longer accepts advertisements from businesses selling guns.

The policy change was quietly instituted on Feb. 8 after Comcast acquired a controlling interest in NBC Universal, which already had a policy of not accepting ads relating to firearms.

The ban came to light when John Kupiec, president of the advertising agency Canadian American Corp., attempted to purchase an ad for Michigan-based gun store Williams Gun Sight Inc. but was denied, according to CBS News’ Detroit affiliate.

“Comcast Spotlight has decided it will not accept new advertising for firearms or weapons moving forward,” the cable provider said in a statement to CBS. “This policy aligns us with the guidelines in place at many media organizations.”

Executives at Williams Gun Sight called the policy anti-constitutional.

“We’re a perfectly legal company selling a perfectly legal product and they have chosen us out of all the industries out there to make a stand on what’s right or wrong,” Williams’ Chief Operating Officer Dan Compeau told CBS.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Prosecutors to Pursue Felony Charges Against Ex-Soldier for Possessing High-Capacity Magazine

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New York prosecutors will pursue felony criminal charges against retired special forces soldier Nathan Haddad, who was arrested in LeRay, New York in January for allegedly possessing five 30-round AR-15 magazines, according to conservative law blog Legal Insurrection.

Prosecutors had reportedly offered Haddad a plea bargain that would spare him jail time if he admitted to five misdemeanors, according to Legal Insurrection. But Haddad’s attorney told the blog that Haddad, who currently works at the Department of Defense, will not accept the deal.

It is unclear how Haddad was arrested or discovered with the magazines.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sheriff Warning Of 2nd American Revolution

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Photo Credit: Visit Hillsborough Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke is calling proposals to seize firearms unconstitutional and warns of dire consequences if such plans are enacted.

“This is about attacking the Second Amendment, it’s about going after the wrong crowd,” the sheriff told listeners to the Alex Jones show. Clarke blasted gun-control proposals triggered by presidential executive orders and said he would not enforce unconstitutional laws.

“First of all, to me that would be an act of tyranny,” he told Jones. ‘So the people in Milwaukee County do not have to worry about me enforcing some sort of order that goes out and collects everybody’s handgun, or rifles, or any kind of firearm and makes them turn them in.

“The reason is I don’t want to get shot, because I believe that if somebody tried to enforce something of that magnitude, you would see the second coming of an American Revolution, the likes of which would make the first revolution pale by comparison.”

Clark said attacks on assault rifles miss the target, too.

“This has nothing to do with violence reduction because the type of violence that we’re talking about, that I see on the streets in the Milwaukee area on a daily basis, is not even committed using the weapons that the left is trying to ban.

Hear Jones’ interview with the sheriff:

Read more from this story HERE.

Company With Ties To The Federal Gov’t Designs Unsettling Targets For Law Enforcement Community

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Photo Credit: Law Enforcement Targets, INC.“What if I told you police in your town could desensitize themselves to the idea of shooting a (armed) child, pregnant woman, or young mother, for just a couple of bucks?” Reason’s Mike Riggs asks.

Sadly, Riggs isn’t simply being perverse. He’s being 100 percent serious:

For less than 99 cents per target, police officers can now shoot at real-life images “designed to give [them] the experience of dealing with deadly force shooting scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training,” according to Law Enforcement Targets, Inc.’s website.

The company calls it the “No More Hesitation” series:

“Law Enforcement Targets, Inc. provides training targets and supplies for military branches, government agencies, law enforcement agencies, training organizations, private ranges, gun clubs, and shooting enthusiasts in the United States,” a Bloomberg profile on the group reads.

Read more from this story HERE.