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Inmates Use Newspaper’s Gun Map to Threaten Guards

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The entirely predictable consequences of the Journal News’ decision to publish a map of gun-owners marches on…

“Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco, who spoke at a news conference flanked by other county officials, said the Journal News’ decision to post an online map of names and addresses of handgun owners Dec. 23 has put law enforcement officers in danger.

“They have inmates coming up to them and telling them exactly where they live. That’s not acceptable to me,” Falco said, according to Newsday.

Robert Riley, an officer with the White Plains Police Department and president of its Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, agreed.

“You have guys who work in New York City who live up here. Now their names and addresses are out there, too,” he said adding that there are 8,000 active and retired NYPD officers currently living in Rockland County.”

Read more from this story HERE.

DC Double Standard: David Gregory Gets Pass on Ammo Law but Vet Got Jail Time

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The Washington Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) inquiry into whether NBC’s David Gregory possession on national TV of an illegal 30-round “high-capacity” magazine has been ongoing for three weeks. Meanwhile, U.S. Army veteran James Brinkley is still grappling with the fallout from his arrest last year on the same charge.

Mr. Brinkley’s story is just one example of at least 105 individuals who, unlike Mr. Gregory, were arrested in 2012 for having a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds.

On Sept. 8, Mr. Brinkley says he intended to drop his wife and young children at the White House for a tour and then head to a shooting range to practice for the U.S. Marshals Service test. Just like Mr. Gregory, Mr. Brinkley called MPD in advance for guidance on how he could do this legally. Mr. Brinkley was told that the gun had to be unloaded and locked in the trunk, and he couldn’t park the car and walk around.

Unlike Mr. Gregory, Mr. Brinkley followed the police orders by placing his Glock 22 in a box with a big padlock in the trunk of his Dodge Charger. The two ordinary, 15-round magazines were not in the gun, and he did not have any ammunition with him.

As he was dropping off his family at 11 a.m. on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, Mr. Brinkley stopped to ask a Secret Service officer whether his wife could take the baby’s car seat into the White House. The officer saw Mr. Brinkley had an empty holster, which kicked off a traffic stop that ended in a search of the Charger’s trunk. Mr. Brinkley was booked on two counts of “high capacity” magazine possession (these are ordinary magazines nearly everywhere else in the country) and one count of possessing an unregistered gun.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Coulter Tears Into Liberal Gun Hypocrisy, Suggests Publishing List Of Women Who Get Abortions

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Sean Hannity continued his pushback against gun control advocates with Ann Coulter tonight. They focused on how strongly liberals work in the wake of every mass shooting to crack down on guns. Coulter suspected many of them would rather forget the Second Amendment, while continuing to explain her issues with the NRA’s armed guards proposal.

Hannity first brought up the newspaper that published the names of all local gun owners, pointing out the list inadvertently alerts all criminals to which houses do not have guns. Coulter claimed that home invasions are more common in England than in the United States because of their strong gun laws. She asked why gun owners can be publicly identified but criminal records cannot be released in a similar fashion.

Read more from this story HERE.

FBI: More People Killed with Hammers, Clubs Each Year Than Rifles

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According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats’ feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

Read more from this story HERE.

Irony: Newspaper That Published Gun-Owners Names Now Hires Armed Guards

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Guns are good for the goose but NOT for the gander.

A Clarkstown police report issued on December 28, 2012, confirmed that The Journal News has hired armed security guards from New City-based RGA Investigations and that they are manning the newspaper’s Rockland County headquarters at 1 Crosfield Ave., West Nyack, through at least tomorrow, Wednesday, January 2, 2013.

According to police reports on public record, Journal News Rockland Editor Caryn A. McBride was alarmed by the volume of “negative correspondence,” namely an avalanche of phone calls and emails to the Journal News office, following the newspaper’s publishing of a map of all pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester.

Due to apparent safety concerns, the newspaper then decided to hire RGA Investigations to provide armed personnel to man the location.

Private investigator Richard Ayoob is the administrator of RGA. He told the Clarkstown Police on Friday, December 28 that there had been no problems on site at the Journal News headquarters despite the massive influx of phone calls and emails.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Vows to Make Gun Control Priority, Put ‘Full Weight’ Behind Efforts

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President Obama on Sunday said he would make gun control a priority in his new term, pledging to put his “full weight” behind passing new restrictions on firearms in 2013.

“I’m going to be putting forward a package and I’m going to be putting my full weight behind it,” Obama said in an interview aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’m going to be making an argument to the American people about why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen again.”

In the wake of the Dec. 14 mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., school, the president has launched a White House task force led by Vice President Biden to present proposals in January to help stem gun violence. Obama has said that he would seek a broad approach to the problem addressing the role of violence in entertainment and measures to improve mental healthcare.

But he has also called on Congress to move quickly to reinstate the federal assault weapons ban and a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines.

Obama on Sunday repeated those calls and said he would meet with lawmakers on both sides of the aisles to see action.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bulletproof Clothing Designer Launches New Line of Kids’ Ballistic Vests

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A Colombian company that makes stylish bulletproof clothing has launched a new line of child-sized vests and backpacks in the wake of the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

Miguel Caballero says his firm will begin making bulletproof clothing for children in the next two weeks. The garments are lightweight and look like normal clothing, but they are capable of stopping a bullet from a pistol or submachine gun.

Twenty first graders were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14 – leaving some parents to search for answers about how to make their children safer at school. Some groups have advocated arming teachers and principals. Others, including the National Rifle Association, have said armed guards need to be placed at every school in the nation.

The Bogota businessman, who is famous for shooting his employees at close range to demonstrate the effectiveness of his products, hopes to capitalize on the new-found fear some students and parents have about their safety at schools.

Read more from this story HERE.

Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control

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Americans are determined that massacres such as happened in Newtown, Conn., never happen again. But how? Many advocate more effective treatment of mentally-ill people or armed protection in so-called gun-free zones. Many others demand stricter control of firearms.

We aren’t alone in facing this problem. Great Britain and Australia, for example, suffered mass shootings in the 1980s and 1990s. Both countries had very stringent gun laws when they occurred. Nevertheless, both decided that even stricter control of guns was the answer. Their experiences can be instructive.

In 1987, Michael Ryan went on a shooting spree in his small town of Hungerford, England, killing 16 people (including his mother) and wounding another 14 before shooting himself. Since the public was unarmed—as were the police—Ryan wandered the streets for eight hours with two semiautomatic rifles and a handgun before anyone with a firearm was able to come to the rescue.

Nine years later, in March 1996, Thomas Hamilton, a man known to be mentally unstable, walked into a primary school in the Scottish town of Dunblane and shot 16 young children and their teacher. He wounded 10 other children and three other teachers before taking his own life.

Since 1920, anyone in Britain wanting a handgun had to obtain a certificate from his local police stating he was fit to own a weapon and had good reason to have one. Over the years, the definition of “good reason” gradually narrowed. By 1969, self-defense was never a good reason for a permit.

Read more from this story HERE.

NY Paper to Publish Additional Gun Owners’ Names, Addresses

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The New York newspaper that drew criticism for publishing the names and addresses of hundreds of legal gun permit holders is doubling down by publishing the personal information of even more law-abiding gun owners.

To great criticism, the Journal News published an interactive map showing the names and addresses of the legal gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties just before Christmas.

Now the paper has announced it will next publish the names and addresses of permit-holders in Putnam County with an eye toward eventually politicizing the names and addresses of every gun owner in the state.

The Journal News has defended its controversial violation of the privacy of New York’s legal gun owners by claiming that since the records are open to the public to find in government archives, they should be allowed to publish all the names and addresses.

New York State Senator Greg Ball slammed the Journal News, saying that the paper is treating law-abiding citizens like “sex offenders.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Utah Teachers Get Free Gun Training in Response to Newtown Shooting

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photo credit: guardian elite

(Reuters) – Kasey Hansen, a special education teacher from Salt Lake City, Utah, says she would take a bullet for any of her students, but if faced with a gunman threatening her class, she would rather be able to shoot back.

On Thursday, she was one of 200 Utah teachers who flocked to an indoor sports arena for free instruction in the handling of firearms by gun activists who say armed educators might have a chance at thwarting deadly shooting rampages in their schools.

The event was organized by the Utah Shooting Sports Council in response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, this month that killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The council said it has typically attracted about 16 teachers each year to its concealed carry training courses. But Thursday’s event near Salt Lake City, organized especially for educators in the aftermath of Newtown, drew interest from hundreds, and the class was capped at 200 for space limitations.

“I feel like I would take a bullet for any student in the school district,” Hansen, a special education teacher in a Salt Lake City school district, told Reuters after the training session.

Read more from this story HERE.