WAR OF PERCEPTION

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

"It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

"When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance," Solop said. "It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication."

He said he's never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. "The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation," he said.

Phoenix was Obama's last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado.

Authorities in Montana said they received no reports of anyone carrying firearms during Obama's health care town hall near Bozeman on Friday. About 1,000 people both for and against Obama converged at a protest area near the Gallatin Field Airport hangar where the event took place. One person accused of disorderly conduct was detained and released, according to the Gallatin Airport Authority.

Heather Benjamin of Denver's Mesa County sheriff's department, the lead agency during Obama's visit there, said no one was arrested.

Arizona is an "open-carry" state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. Only someone carrying a concealed weapon is required to have a permit.

Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

"To me, this is craziness," he said. "When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you're just making the situation dangerous for everyone."

He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. "The more guns we see at more events like this, there's more potential for something tragic happening," he said.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president.

"In both cases, the subject was not entering our site or otherwise attempting to," Donovan said. "They were in a designated public viewing area. The main thing to know is that they would not have been allowed inside with a weapon."

Representatives of the National Rifle Association did not return calls for comment.

By AMANDA LEE MYERS and TERRY TANG, Associated Press Writers.

US demand for handguns driving world gun trade

GENEVA – American demand for handguns has fueled a 28 percent jump this decade in world exports of pistols, rifles, shotguns and other small arms, a global report said Thursday.

The 2009 Small Arms Survey reported that the Untied States alone was responsible for about half of the worldwide increase in legal international gun sales between 2000 and 2006. The U.S. now accounts for over half of the world's imports of pistols and revolvers and 45 percent of shotguns, it said.

"No other country imports more than 4 percent of the global total," the 344-page report found.

It illustrated how U.S. purchases of hand guns — which averaged $173 million annually — have driven a sharp rise in exports from a number of countries.

Austria remained the world's largest seller of pistols and revolvers with a 25 percent jump since 2000. Seventy-five percent of its exports go to the United States. Croatian exports soared almost 24 times in value since the start of the decade. The U.S. accounted for 98 percent of its 2006 sales of $27 million.

Gunmakers in Brazil and Italy also have been helped by booming American demand for small arms.

"A country can become a major global player just by developing an export market in the United States," the report said.

The report, published by Geneva's Graduate Institute, uses customs data and other information supplied by 53 nations. It estimated legal trade in firearms at nearly $1.6 billion in 2006, with the actual value of all small arms, light weapons, parts, accessories and ammunition exceeding $4 billion.

"Current data shows that the global trade in small arms and light weapons is robust and even expanding, and handguns are driving it," said Keith Krause, the survey's director. "We don't know whether these weapons are destined for civilians, police or military forces."

The report found that trade in light military weapons has decreased by almost 30 percent over the same period. In that category, the U.S. dominates as the world's major supplier, with $228.5 million in exports. That amounts to 54 percent of the world total.

The study also examined the lasting effects of weapons trade on countries, even after armed conflicts end. It said disarmament, demobilization and reintegration strategies in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Lebanon and elsewhere have met with mixed success.

For some countries, accurate export information was particularly hard to obtain. The report said Switzerland, Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Serbia and the United States were among the more transparent nations. Iran, North Korea, South Africa, Russia, Israel and Taiwan were cited as the least transparent.

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer

First 100 days: Assault weapons ban

WASHINGTON - Campaigning before a church congregation on Chicago’s South Side one Sunday in July 2007, Barack Obama said an epidemic of big city violence was “sickening the soul of this nation.”

Among the potential cures, he said, was permanently reinstating a ban on assault weapons.

One-hundred days into his presidency, President Obama says it remains a goal. But it is one the White House has been forced to abandon.

Voices of agreement
President Obama and Vice-President Biden, “support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent,” the White House website declares. Shortly after taking office, members of the Obama cabinet added their voices of agreement.

At his first news conference as attorney general, Eric Holder said, “there are just a few gun-related changes what we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed the idea during her trip to Mexico in late March. “These assault weapons, these military-style weapons, don’t belong on anyone’s street,” she said.

But the fire has gone out of President Obama’s goal of restricting the availability of firearms. “I don’t know of any plans,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, to seek an assault weapons ban from Congress.

Attorney General Holder admitted as much when asked, during a recent session with reporters, whether he expected any push for a ban this year to curb the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.

His answer could have come straight from the National Rifle Association: “I think what we’re going to do is to try to, obviously, enforce the laws on the books.”

Support evaporated
Congress imposed a ban on what it called assault weapons in 1994, outlawing the sale and importation of 19 military-style weapons, copycat models with similar features, and high-capacity ammunition magazines. In a compromise with Republicans, the Democrats who controlled Congress agreed to let it expire in ten years unless it was renewed. By 2004, with Republicans in charge, support had evaporated.

Democrats again control Congress, and a Democrat is once more in the White House, the same conditions that allowed the ban to be imposed 15 years ago. But the make-up of Congress is different, with little appetite for restricting gun ownership.

The Senate’s majority leader is a westerner, Harry Reid of Nevada, where gun control is political poison. And though the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, comes from the more liberal San Francisco, she has shown no enthusiasm for reviving the assault weapons ban because of opposition among her colleagues.

Sixty-five House Democrats wrote Attorney General Holder in mid-March, saying they “would actively oppose any effort to reinstate the 1994 ban” and predicting “a long and divisive fight” if the administration tried to push for one. Many of them represent rural districts, where gun control is no more popular than in Nevada.

By the time President Obama made his trip to Mexico, he conceded the battle would be futile. “None of us are any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy.”

“What we’re focused on is how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws,” he said.

Straw buyers
Enforcement of the nation’s gun laws is primarily the responsibility of ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Its agents and inspectors check to see that gun dealers obey laws governing sales. They look for evidence of “straw buyers” – people legally entitled to buy guns who then sell them to criminals or others who don’t want any records tying them to a specific gun.

ATF says such buyers are responsible for a large proportion of guns that wind up in the hands of violent drug cartels in Mexico.

“These illegal purchases,” ATF’s William Newell told Congress last month, are “a key source and supply of firearms for drug traffickers.”

The best way to improve enforcement of existing gun laws, said one veteran ATF agent, is to put more badges on the street.

“Give us more people to inspect gun dealers, looking for straw buyers, in the states where the guns smuggled into Mexico are coming from,” he says.

The number of ATF inspectors has remained remarkably flat in the past two decades, while support staffing has grown in other federal agencies, including the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

ATF had 764 inspectors in 1990. It has 771 today.

The number of ATF agents has risen 32% during the same period, but it is a comparatively small agency. ATF has 2,441 agents today, compared to the FBI’s 13,040 and the DEA’s 5,235.

It’s no accident that the size of ATF’s inspections force has remained flat. The NRA has successfully fought efforts to expand inspections, claiming that licensed firearms dealers have been harassed.

“Despite its crime-fighting mission,” a recent report from the Congressional Research Service dryly observed, “ATF’s business relationships with the firearms industry and larger gun-owning community have been a perennial source of tension.”

If new agents are hired, says the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, “You need to make sure they’re directed to go after the bad guys, because owning firearms is a right in the United States, and what you don’t want to do is harass law abiding people.”

The NRA is on a roll. The Supreme Court ruled last year that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right of gun ownership, not merely the right of organized militias to arm themselves.

Unless the mid-term election brings a substantial change in the composition of Congress, an assault weapons ban has little chance of becoming law under Barack Obama, and ATF will not be able to count on a larger force of agents and inspectors.

Gun control, once considered a soccer-mom issue popular in suburban America, is again radioactive.

MSNBC

 

 

Chuck Norris and Glenn Beck tout that ol' militia favorite: Texas secession

A little while back Chuck Norris showed up on Glenn Beck's program and mostly bantered right-wing populist talking points, but they focused especially on the Second Amendment and gun rights, with Beck playing up the possibility of new gun laws under an Obama administration:

NORRIS: Well, yes. The whole thing is that's the Second Amendment — the Second Amendment. The final line in the Second Amendment says, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

That means not by the president, not by Congress. They are not allowed to take our rights away with this because of the Second Amendment, Glenn. And the thing is, I have a 700-acre ranch in Texas. And I have a lot of guns on my ranch.

I don't use them for hunting. I'm not a hunter. But the thing is, it's for protection. And the Second Amendment was designed for tyranny against the government. If the government decides to become a tyrannical government, our guns are to protect us against that. And that's really what the Second Amendment is all about, Glenn.

BECK: So you know, here is the thing, Chuck. You know, the government doesn't want us to have weapons and yet, they have weapons. I think the biggest weapon they have is the IRS. Nobody even understands. I just — I read a letter from ...

NORRIS: You're hitting a real sore point with me right there.

BECK: They can use taxes as a weapon, and the IRS code that that you can't even figure out — am I wrong on that?

The combined tax-bashing and gun paranoia is classic "Patriot" movement chatter, though neither started spinning off into far-right governmental theories and talk about secession.

No, they saved that for last Tuesday, when Norris went on Beck's radio show:

GLENN: Chuck, you live in Texas.

NORRIS: Yes, I do.

GLENN: Somebody asked me this morning, they said, you really believe that there's going to be trouble in the future. And I said, if this country starts to spiral out of control and, you know, and Mexico melts down or whatever, if it really starts to spiral out of control, before America allows a country to become a totalitarian country, which it would have under I think the Republicans as well in this situation; they were taking us to the same place, just slower.

NORRIS: It was slower, yeah.

GLENN: Americans will, they just, they won't stand for it. There will be parts of the country that will rise up. And they said, where's that going to come from? And I said Texas, it's going to come from Texas. Do you agree with that, Chuck, or not?

NORRIS: Oh, yeah. You know, Texas is a republic, you know. We could actually --

GLENN: It was a country before it was a state.

NORRIS: Yeah, we could break off from the union if we wanted to.

GLENN: You do, you call me.

NORRIS: Oh, yeah.

Yesterday, Norris published a piece at the Patriot-friendly WorldNetDaily, which took it even farther, openly calling for Texans to prepare themselves for secession:

On Glenn Beck's radio show last week, I quipped in response to our wayward federal government, "I may run for president of Texas."

That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.

From the East Coast to the "Left Coast," America seems to be moving further and further from its founders' vision and government. ...

... When I appeared on Glenn Beck's radio show, he told me that someone had asked him, "Do you really believe that there is going to be trouble in the future?" And he answered, "If this country starts to spiral out of control and Mexico melts down or whatever, if it really starts to spiral out of control, before America allows a country to become a totalitarian country (which it would have under I think the Republicans as well in this situation; they were taking us to the same place, just slower), Americans won't stand for it. There will be parts of the country that will rise up." Then Glenn asked me and his listening audience, "And where's that going to come from?" He answered his own question, "Texas, it's going to come from Texas. Do you agree with that Chuck?" I replied, "Oh yeah!" Definitely.

It was these types of thoughts that led me to utter the tongue-n-cheek frustration on Glenn Beck's radio show, "I may run for president of Texas!"

I'm not saying that other states won't muster the gumption to stand and secede, but Texas has the history to prove it. As most know, Texas was its own country before it joined the Union as its 28th state. From 1836 to 1846, Texas was its own Republic. Washington-on-the-Brazos (river) served as our Philadelphia, Pa. It was there, on March 2, 1836, where a band of patriots forged the Texas Declaration of Independence. (We just celebrated these dates last week.)

... For those losing hope, and others wanting to rekindle the patriotic fires of early America, I encourage you to join Fox News' Glenn Beck, me and millions of people across the country in the live telecast, "We Surround Them," on Friday afternoon (March 13 at 5 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. CT and 2 p.m. PST). Thousands of cell groups will be united around the country in solidarity over the concerns for our nation. You can host or attend a viewing party by going to Glenn's website. My wife Gena and I will be hosting one from our Texas ranch, in which we've invited many family members, friends and law enforcement to join us. It's our way of saying "We're united, we're tired of the corruption, and we're not going to take it anymore!"

Just to jog people's memories, the most recent organized effort to declare Texas an independent republic was the "Republic of Texas" outfit that built itself around Patriot conspiracy theories and engaged law enforcement in a week-long armed standoff:

The movement split into three factions in 1996, one led by McLaren, one by David Johnson and Jesse Enloe, and the third by Archie Lowe and Daniel Miller. In 1997, McLaren and his followers kidnapped Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe, held them hostage at the Fort Davis Resort, and demanded the release of two movement members in exchange for the Rowes. McLaren's wife, Evelyn, convinced him to surrender peacefully after a week-long standoff with police and Texas Rangers. The McLarens and four other Republic of Texas members were sent to prison. This effectively destroyed the McLaren faction, and the Johnson-Enloe faction was discredited after two of its members, Jack Abbot Grebe Jr. and Johnie Wise, were convicted in 1998 of threatening to assassinate several government officials, including President Bill Clinton.

Rick Ross has a complete library of articles about the RoT, which remains active in a mildly mutated form to this day. Also, Slate's Franklin Foer wrote a pretty comprehensive piece about them in 1997.

We've been saying for awhile that right-wing populism tends, in America at least, to lead down the path of far-right extremism. Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris seem to be taking off at a brisk jog.

"Domestic Violence Abusers" Could Get Gun Rights

The Supreme Court will decide whether people convicted of misdemeanor assault against their spouses or partners should have their Second Amendment rights restored because of a flaw in federal law.

    Washington - Thousands convicted of a misdemeanor for threatening or assaulting a spouse or girlfriend could once again own guns because of a flaw in the federal law.

    That prospect grew more likely Monday after the Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing to a government lawyer who argued that a crime of domestic violence should result in a loss of gun rights.

    Neither families nor police officers should face "the powder keg situation of a domestic offender with a gun," said Nicole Saharsky, a Justice Department lawyer.

    But she ran into sharp questioning from justices who said the law was badly written.

    Congress in 1996 sought to strengthen the laws against domestic violence. Before, only persons convicted of violent felonies in such situations lost their rights to own a gun. Going a step further, lawmakers adopted an amendment to take away gun rights for those who had a "misdemeanor crime of domestic violence" on their records.

    Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the amendment's sponsor, said he was closing a loophole. In domestic violence cases, local prosecutors often agree to have defendants plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault or battery, which usually calls for less than a year in jail, he said.

    "There is no reason for someone who beats their wives or abuses their children to own a gun. When you combine wife beaters and guns, the end result is more death," Lautenberg said in the Senate before the amendment was enacted.

    But last year, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia cast doubt on the law's reach. Its judges decided the federal gun ban did not cover misdemeanor convictions involving assault or battery at home. Instead, it said the federal ban applied only to those convicted under a state's domestic violence law.

    That would make the federal gun law "a dead letter in two-thirds of the states," according to the government's lawyer. Saharsky said most states do not have misdemeanor laws specifically targeting domestic violence.

    Justice Antonin Scalia was unswayed by that argument. "People are governed by the law that is passed, not by the law that Congress intended to pass," he said. He and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the law as written appeared to apply only to domestic violence measures, not the more common laws against assault and battery.

    Scalia wrote the 5-4 opinion in June which held for the first time that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual's right to have a gun. He said then that the decision did not shield criminals who committed serious crimes with a gun.

    But during Monday's argument, Scalia said possessing a gun was "lawful conduct," and a wife-beating charge lodged against a West Virginia man was "not that serious an offense."

    The government lawyer shot back that the defendant "hit his wife all around the face until it swelled out, kicked her all around her body, kicked her in the ribs...."

    "Then he should have been charged with a felony," Scalia interjected, "but he wasn't."

    The defendant, Randy Hayes, pleaded guilty in 1994 to misdemeanor battery of his then-wife. Ten years later, police responded to a domestic violence call from his home and learned he had owned or sold several guns. He was convicted of illegal gun possession under the 1996 amendment.

    The case of U.S. vs. Hayes does not turn on the 2nd Amendment, but instead on how the justices read the words of the 1996 law.

    "This statute is a mess," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy commented at one point.

    Roberts noted that California, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio have misdemeanor domestic violence laws. People convicted under those measures would not benefit from a ruling that limited the reach of the federal law, he said.

    The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said a ruling for Hayes "could re-arm thousands of convicted domestic violence abusers." About 14% "of all police officer deaths occur during a response to domestic violence calls," the group said.

    On the other side, the Second Amendment Foundation said the "fundamental right" to own a gun should not be taken away over a misdemeanor.

By David G. Savage,  Los Angeles Times staff writer.