Gun Rights

You may recently have seen some in the Internet rumor mill feverishly stirring up fear about recent acquisitions of ammunition by the Department of Homeland Security and a number of smaller agencies. The mildest writers have questioned why seemingly mundane agencies would need ammunition at all; more incendiary authors wrongly suggest that these government agencies are preparing for a war with the American people, NRA-ILA comments.

A House committee filed a civil suit Monday seeking to override President Barack Obama’s first invocation of executive privilege and force the Justice Department to turn over documents related to a bungled gun-trafficking operation called Fast and Furious.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has teamed up with state Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco and anti-gun state legislative leaders in Sacramento to ban and confiscate the firearms owned by hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Californians, the NRA-ILA reports.

The attorney for the man who shot and killed unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin said Monday he'll seek to get the case dismissed using a traditional self-defense argument and not the state's 'stand your ground' statute, FoxNews.com reports.

John Lott, writing on this personal blog johnrlott.blogspot.com, commented that there has been a lot of discussion about Australia's gun control laws. He cites a piece at the Huffington Post:

Three basic subassemblies, the barreled action, trigger group and bolt assembly, are involved here. For the sake of simple cleaning, the rifle need only be taken down to these groups. If other problems exist, you'll need to go well beyond the instruction pamphlet provided with the firearm. To disassemble the Mini-14, the first thing that you must do is remove the magazine and set the hammer in the cocked condition. Pull the bolt handle all the way back, cocking the hammer, then release the bolt forward. Push the safety back to place it in the on position. Place the rifle in your padded jaw vise with the trigger guard pointing up. It works best for me if I hold the barrel in the leather-faced jaws of my vise.

Pending legislation in California would make it more difficult for guns to be reloaded with high-capacity magazines. Attorney General Kamala Harris and a Democratic state lawmaker are seeking the change in the wake of this summer's massacre at a Colorado movie theater.

NRA-ILA recently took an in-depth look at Part 1of a joint congressional report on the investigation into the 'Fast & Furious' gun smuggling scandal.

The U.S. Senate began its summer recess without any debate on the magazine ban amendment proposed by Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and others, NRA-ILA reports.

ATF Deputy Director William Hoover resigned days after a congressional report on Operation Fast and Furious sharply criticized him and four other ATF officials for the botched gun-trafficking operation.

Maryland can continue enforcing its gun-permit law requiring residents to show a 'good and substantial reason' to carry handguns until a federal appeals court decides the matter, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond has ruled.

There has been no significant change in public views on the issue of gun control and gun rights following the July 20th shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a Pew Research Center poll released on July 30, shows.