NAGR Gun Rights Blog

While staff from the National Association for Gun Rights was in Las Vegas, Nevada for the 2010 SHOT Show, Executive Director Dudley Brown sat down with Robert Johnson, Director of Gun Owners of Nevada, to discuss Nevada’s political landscape.

NAGR Executive Director Dudley Brown and GONV Director Robert Johnson at the 2010 SHOT Show

Dudley Brown (DB): Robert, it’s great to be here in Las Vegas. Gun Owners of Nevada has been going strong for just a few short years. Tell us a little bit about your group.

Robert Johnson (RJ): Thanks Dudley.  It’s great to be able to meet with you here at SHOT Show. Gun Owners of Nevada was founded to be the no-compromise, no-excuses voice for the Second Amendment in Nevada.  GONV was founded on the basic principle that you, as an American citizen, should not have to beg permission from the government to be able to defend yourself and your family.  That’s why we are working to get a Vermont/Alaska style carry law passed.  Simply put, unless you are a convicted felon or otherwise barred from possessing weapons, you do not need a permit to carry a gun for self-defense!

DB: That’s right! Vermont law is true firearms freedom.  What are some of the other legal issues gun owners face in Nevada?

RJ: Many Nevada gun laws are unconstitutional and we are working to repeal them.  These include the Clark County residents’ requirement to “register” every handgun they own, as well as the 72 hour waiting period that is also imposed by Clark County for first-time handgun buyers. GONV is also opposed to the state-run Baby Brady law.  Flaws in the system regularly prohibit law-abiding citizens from purchasing a legal firearm.

DB: I’m glad that the National Association for Gun Rights has a brother in arms in Nevada, fighting for the right to keep and bear arms.  I know we share a similar view on the role of our organizations.  Tell our members what sets Gun Owners of Nevada apart from other “pro-gun” groups in Nevada?

RJ: GONV is not interested in “access” or “relationships” with politicians.  We have no desire to be “making deals.”  We are about one thing and one thing only; the uncompromising representation of Gun Owners in Nevada.  GONV is not authorized to negotiate away anyone’s rights.  When it comes to gun rights, GONV will not compromise.

GONV is also dedicated to holding our lawmakers accountable to the Constitution through grassroots constituent pressure.  Unlike the typical lobby, which hires highly paid lobbyists to schmooze politicians, GONV works to inform and empower its membership to be involved in the legislative process.  GONV enables thousands of individual citizens to be effective lobbyists right from their own homes.

Our long term goal is to remove every unreasonable restriction that our “leaders” have imposed on us.

DB: I’m encouraged every time I meet with state-level groups who share our “no compromise” view of gun rights.  Working with groups like Gun Owners of Nevada and like-minded groups across the country, I’m confident we can build a gun rights army of grassroots activists, dedicated to holding politicians accountable.

Speaking of the compromises of political leadership, let’s talk about U.S. Senate Majority Leader and Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.  He’s consistently been polling well behind his potential Republican opponents.  What’s your view of this race, from the ground here in Nevada?

RJ: I will be very surprised if Senator Reid finds a way to squeak out his reelection in November.  For years Reid has played the typical Washington game.  When he’s home, he talks and acts conservatively, and as soon as he’s back in Washington D.C. all he cares about are the wishes of the liberal special interest groups.

That’s finally caught up with him.  The people of Nevada are tired of Reid telling them one thing when he’s up for reelection, and doing the opposite when he’s voting in D.C.  I have a feeling that Reid is going to be one of many victims of Beltway Fatigue this election cycle.

DB: Different politicians, same problem.  There’s nothing I dislike more than the politician who’s no friend of gun owners, but shows up during election season with a 12 gauge and a camo hat at shooting ranges and pheasant hunts claiming to be a champion of the 2nd Amendment.

RJ: [laughs] Harry Reid pulled that very same stunt over the summer.  He showed up at the ground breaking ceremony for a new gun range in the Las Vegas area, shot some clay pigeons and claimed to be a champion of the rights of gun owners.

Harry Reid has been anything but a friend of gun owners.

DB: Indeed.  Tell me Robert, what can we expect out of the Republican primary race to challenge Reid for that Senate seat?

RJ: That’s a good question.  The leading contenders in the primary are Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian. I firmly believe that one of them is going to be the next Senator from the state of Nevada.

DB: What should Nevada’s gun owners expect from Lowden or Tarkanian?

RJ: Gun owners should be wary of both Lowden and Tarkanian.  Lowden is without a doubt the GOP Establishment candidate.  From our candidate questionnaire (on our website) she seems to support some infringements.  That’s a concern.  She has also had interest in a business that did not allow CCW carry on premise.  This is something we are continuing to look into.

In his unsuccessful bid for Secretary of State in 2006, Tarkanian was endorsed by the virulently anti-gun Brady Campaign.  What does this ultimately mean for gun owners?

I believe that we may well be replacing one snake with another snake of a different color.

DB: You may very well be right, Robert.  In my twenty years in politics, I have yet to meet an “Establishment” Republican candidate who wasn’t willing to sell out gun owners in order to get elected.

Where can National Association for Gun Rights members learn more about Gun Owners of Nevada?

RJ: They can go to www.GONV.org.

DB: Thanks for taking some time away from SHOT Show and all the cool gear to talk with us.

RJ: Thank you for coming to Nevada!

DB: I would encourage everyone who lives in Nevada or travels there frequently to become a member of Gun Owners of Nevada, today!

The United Nations and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are moving forward with their plan to confiscate your guns.

The United States joined 152 other countries in support of the Arms Trade Treaty Resolution, which establishes the dates for the 2012 UN conference intended to attack American sovereignty by stripping Americans of the right to keep and bear arms.

Working groups of anti-gun countries will begin scripting language for the conference this year, creating a blueprint for other countries when they meet at the full conference.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Former United Nation’s ambassador John Bolton has cautioned gun owners about the Arms Trade Treaty and says the UN “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there’s no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”

Establishing the dates for the Arms Trade Treaty Conference is just the first step toward their plans for total gun confiscation.

The worldwide gun control mob will ensure the passage of an egregious, anti-gun treaty…

. . .and that’s where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton steps in.

Once the UN Gun Ban is passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations it must be ratified by each nation, including the United States.

As an arch enemy of gun owners, Clinton has pledged to push the U.S. Senate to ratify the treaty. She will push for passage of this outrageous treaty designed to register, ban and CONFISCATE firearms owned by private citizens like YOU.

That’s why it’s vital you sign the special petition I’ve made up for your signature that DEMANDS your U.S. Senators vote AGAINST ratification of the UN’s “Small Arms Treaty.”

Continue reading U.S. agrees to timetable for UN Gun Ban

Recently, Washington Post reporter Christian Davenport tried to get a handgun permit from the District of Columbia.  Mr. Davenport’s lengthy article outlines just how little the vaunted Heller decision really did for residents of the District of Columbia.

While the handgun ban was overturned by the Supreme Court, the scope of the decision was extremely narrow.  That lack depth has allowed D.C. to create enough bureaucratic hurdles to make it as difficult as possible to get a handgun permit.

It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.

Oh, and the votes of five Supreme Court justices. They’re the ones who really made it possible for me, as a District resident, to own a handgun, a constitutional right as heavily debated and rigorously parsed as the freedoms of speech and religion.

Just more than a year ago, by a 5-to-4 decision, the court struck down the District’s three-decades-old outright ban on handguns — the most restrictive gun law in the country. In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to bear arms, not just Americans in a “well regulated Militia”; the District’s prohibition was therefore unconstitutional.

Reluctantly, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration set up a process through which about 550 residents — now including yours truly — have acquired a handgun. But as my four trips to the police department attest, D.C. officials haven’t made it easy.

Which was exactly their intent. The day the Heller decision was announced, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) vowed that the city was still “going to have the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows.” Fenty decried the ruling, saying that “more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence.”

Under threat of additional litigation, however, the city has already had to ease some of its initial restrictions by greatly expanding the range of gun models, including semiautomatic handguns, residents are allowed to own.

You can read Mr. Davenport’s whole story below the fold.

Continue reading Washington Post tries to get a D.C. handgun permit

From the UK Daily Mail:

Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade

by James Black
Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year  -  a rise of 89 per cent.

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.

The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place.

Last week, police in London revealed they had begun carrying out armed patrols on some streets.

The move means officers armed with sub-machine guns are engaged in routine policing for the first time.

Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, said last night: ‘In areas dominated by gang culture, we’re now seeing guns used to settle scores between rivals as well as turf wars between rival drug dealers.

‘We need to redouble our efforts to deal with the challenge.’

He added: ‘These figures are all the more alarming given that it is only a week since the Metropolitan Police said it was increasing regular armed patrols in some areas of the capital’.

The gun crime figures, which were obtained by the Tories from official Parliamentary answers, do not include air weapons.

But they provide the first regional breakdown of the increasing use of firearms.

Lancashire suffered the single largest rise in gun crime, with recorded offences increasing from 50 in 1998/99 to 349 in 2007/08, an increase of 598 per cent.

Armed: Officers engaged in routine policing are carrying sub-machine guns for the first time

Only four police forces - Cleveland-Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex - recorded falls in gun crime.

The number of people injured or killed by guns, excluding air weapons, has increased from 864 in 1998/99 to a provisional figure of 1,760 in 2008/09, an increase of 104 per cent .

The figures follow a warning by Mr Grayling that U.S.-style gang culture has reached some parts of the UK.

In August, he made a controversial speech warning that a collapse of ‘civilised life’ had allowed a brutal drug and gun crime culture - like that of the U.S. TV show The Wire - to flourish in Britain.

The hit TV series tracks the nightmare of gangs and organized crime in inner city West Baltimore and the futile efforts of police to deal with them.

The Met’s decision to employ armed officers on the streets has attracted criticism.

But the force, which has already begun the scheme, insists that the unprecedented tactic is a proportionate and temporary response to prevent armed gangs from controlling estates.

Trident poster campaign warning of dangers of young women and girls storing and transporting guns for others

Last month, police warned that teenage girls were now being dragged into the gun culture by hiding weapons for their boyfriends.

Police are targeting girls between 15 and 19 with an advertising blitz warning them that they can expect a five-year prison sentence if they are caught.

The number of women charged with firearms offenses in London has increased six-fold in the past year  -  12 have been charged since January.

Seven of them were teenagers, including a 16-year-old arrested after a 9mm Browning self-loading pistol was found in her bedroom.

I found this story recently and thought you might enjoy it.  While we’re slugging it out on a national level, it’s nice to see that a few government lawyers understand what the Second Amendment to the Constitution really means.

From the D.C. Gun Rights Examiner:

DA says Pittsburgh airport gun ban not enforceable

Alaska resident David Ross’ flight into Pittsburgh Airport for a short visit to the Keystone State last July 1st was uneventful - until, that is, he was arrested for retrieving his sidearm from checked baggage and holstering up on the way out of the airport.

Mr. Ross told the Examiner.com that he tried to explain to Magistrate Judge Anthony Saveikis that Allegheny County’s ordinance banning gun carry at the airport was “preempted by Section 6120 of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act,” but Saveikis found him guilty anyway.  Ross then hired Pennsylvania attorney J. Michael McCormick to appeal his conviction to the court of common pleas.

After Mr. McCormick filed this briefing with the court, the District Attorney’s office for Allegheny County conceded that the County’s ordinance was not legally enforceable.  As a result, Judge Robert C. Gallo entered a judgment of “not guilty” in the case according to court records.

John Pierce, co-founder of OpenCarry.org maintains a map of state by state airport gun carry laws and says that Pennsylvania is “just like most states” which allow gun carry in the non-sterile areas of airports just like they do in shopping malls, parks, and most other public venues.  But what irks gun rights organizers the most about this case is that public officials should already know that state law preempts local gun bans because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court settled that issue a decade ago in Ortiz v. Commonwealth.

“This should never have been an issue to begin with,” said Rich Banks, founder of PAOpenCarry.org, a Pennsylvania gun rights group, referring to open carry at the airport which requires no license in Pennsylvania and most states.  Banks contends that Pennsylvania public officials too often “treat guns like they are an ‘exception’ to the rule of law” and that the Allegheny County Council should now move quickly to repeal what Banks said is “an illegal gun ban ordinance.”

From the Washington Times:

Gun-toting Amtrak passengers are one giant step closer to being allowed to travel with firearms in their checked luggage, as lawmakers included a measure to lift a railroad gun ban in a catch-all spending bill for fiscal 2010.

The omnibus spending bill, which combines six annual appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, is considered must-pass legislation, and that makes the new Amtrak gun rule as close to a sure bet as there is on Capitol Hill.

Travelers with firearms have long faced disparate treatment on trains and airplanes. Airline passengers can transport firearms in checked baggage, but Amtrak currently prohibits guns anywhere on its trains.

This is an important victory for sportsmen and gun owners across the country, and it affirms congressional support of the Second Amendment, said Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, whose earlier efforts to lift the Amtrak gun ban paved the way for the measure’s inclusion in the year-end spending bill.

Airline passengers in our country are allowed to transport firearms in secure, checked baggage when declared during the check-in process,” Mr. Wicker said. “Law-abiding gun owners who choose to travel on Americas taxpayer-subsidized rail line should be given the same right.

Under the new law, firearms on trains would be treated similarly to those stored on airplanes.

Passengers would have to declare to Amtrak within 24 hours of departure that the unloaded firearm will be placed in luggage to be stored in the baggage car. The firearm must be carried in a locked, hard-sided container for which only the passenger has the combination or the key.

The House is expected to take up the spending bill as soon as this week, with Senate action soon to follow.

The story says it all.

From the Times-Picayune:

Federal gun regulator accused of damaging Metairie hotel room
By Drew Broach, The Times-Picayune

An employee of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was arrested on charges of disabling the fire alarm system and damaging property in his Metairie hotel room, according to a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrest report.

Russell Vanderwerf, 44, of Houston was booked Dec. 1 with simple criminal damage valued at $500 to $5,000 and interfering with fire prevention after staffers at the Residence Inn, 3 Galleria Blvd., began investigating a malfunctioning fire alarm system, the arrest report said.

A technician who was summoned Nov. 30 tracked the alarm problem to the second-floor room registered to Vanderwerf, the arrest report said. Inside, staffers found the smoke detectors in the bedroom and kitchen-den had been removed and the horn that blares alarms was hanging out of the wall.

But the staffers and a deputy sheriff also discovered that someone had removed the bedroom door from its hinges and replaced it with a 5-by-4-foot piece of plywood affixed to the frame and the drywall with hinges and screws, the arrest report said. The door had two locks attached from the bedroom side and a circular hole padded with duct tape. The deputy noted in the arrest report that the hole appeared to be used “in some sort of sexual act.”

A front-desk staffer told authorities that she’d received a complaint from a hotel guest who said the door to that room had been propped open on the night of Nov. 30 and that she noticed several “young men” entering and exiting. The guest also complained of hearing “sex noises” coming from the room, the arrest report said.

Vanderwerf was taken into custody at ATF’s New Orleans area field office, located at 1 Galleria Blvd. across the street from the hotel, the report said.

When questioned about the damage, Vanderwerf admitted to disabling the smoke detectors because he said they were repeatedly triggered by steam from his shower, the report said. He also admitted to putting up the plywood door but would give not other details.

The arrest report said hotel staffers found paint and caulk in the room, suggesting he might have intended to fix the damage himself.

The Sheriff’s Office would not comment on the case Tuesday. Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the agency, said the matter remained under investigation.

Vanderwerf was released from the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center on Dec. 2 on a $4,000 bond. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

He serves as the director of industry operations for ATF’s Houston field office. The industry operations division is the regulatory arm of the agency, responsible for overseeing the inspection of all federal gun and explosives licensees, said ATF spokesman Drew Wade. He confirmed that Vanderwerf was in the New Orleans area on official business.

“We are aware of the arrest by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office,” said Wade, who added that he could not discuss anything that could be connected to a continuing investigation.

He’s at it again.

Arch-senatorial gun-hater Frank Lautenberg is back on the war path against our gun rights.

Lautenberg, who has already introduced a number of anti-gun measures this years, has just unveiled his latest assault on our rights.

S.2820, the Gun Owner Tracking Act of 2009, would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to keep all National Instant Check System (NICS) data for every firearm purchased through a federally licensed firearms dealer for up to ten years.

What does this mean for gun owners?  It means that a record of every firearm purchased through a dealer, along with the personal data of the purchaser will be maintained by the federal government.

The serial number, make and model of every gun you purchase as well as your personal contact information will be available to the FBI and the notoriously anti-gun Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE).

Put simply, if passed this legislation would lay the ground work for a national gun registry.   If a federal ban on certain types of firearms were enacted, federal law enforcement agencies would be able to use this gun owner tracking system to begin firearms confiscation.

Sound far fetched?  Remember that tyrants throughout history, from Hitler to Stalin to Mao, have used gun owner tracking schemes as a first step toward total citizen disarmament.

Of course Senator Lautenberg has masked this legislative abomination in the terms of “homeland security.”   He claims this gun owner tracking database will help Big Brother Government protect us from terrorist.   But as you know, the Obama Administration and the Department of Homeland Security already think gun owners — like you and me — are “domestic terrorists.”

The Brady Registration Act of 1993, created the NICS system to verify the legality of firearms sales by licenced dealers.  The law currently requires that all the information pertaining to the purchase, including the firearm serial number, and the purchasers contact information be destroyed after 24 hours.

Let me be clear; the National Association for Gun Rights supports the repeal of the Brady Registration Act.  Any attempt to further strengthen this unconstitutional intrusion in the lives and actions of law abiding gun owners, must not be tolerated.

Click here to contact your Senators and tell them to oppose S.2820, the Gun Owner Tracking Act of 2009.

Additionally, contact Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — who faces a tough re-election in pro-gun Nevada — demand that he block S.2820 from coming up for a vote.   Click here to e-mail Majority Leader Reid.