Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday signed a bill allowing Kansans to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training starting this summer.
The new law will go into effect on July 1, and will make Kansas the sixth “constitutional carry” state, allowing Kansans 21 and older to carry concealed weapons without a permit, the Kansas City Star reported Thursday.
Ohioans could carry concealed firearms without a permit if a bill introduced in the Statehouse Tuesday becomes law.
The state would join Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Vermont and Wyoming with “constitutional carry,” the term used by proponents of nearly unrestricted gun laws.
The proposed law would allow anyone 21 or older to carry any firearm not banned by state or federal law without a permit. The bill would also prohibit law enforcement from searching and detaining otherwise law-abiding citizens based solely on the possession of a firearm.
MADISON —Gov. Scott Walker has thrown his support to a bill that would eliminate Wisconsin’s 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases.
Walker said he wants the state to be a leader on the issue. Walker’s remarks came in an interview last week with the National Rifle Association’s news network, the Wisconsin State Journal reported Tuesday.
A bill before legislators would eliminate Wisconsin’s 40-year-old law that requires the wait between the time a background check is submitted to the Department of Justice and a handgun is acquired.
The waiting period is a hassle, but not that big of a deal. But in the age of almost instant background checks, it is also wholly unnecessary. It makes sense to scrap it.
The law requiring a 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases in Wisconsin would be eliminated under a bill being circulated by Republican lawmakers.
“This basically is a time tax,” said state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine.
Wanggaard said that the so-called “48-hour rule,” first enacted in Wisconsin in 1976, became law before statutory background checks on handgun purchases. And he added that with current technology, background checks can be conducted in about an hour.
Personally, I don’t find the 48-hour rule to be too much of a hassle. Then again, I also don’t think it has ever prevented a crime. And in the age of almost instant background checks, the waiting period if pretty much worthless.
It does put an extra burden on the businesses selling guns. It means that for every purchase, they have to have two transactions and customer contacts instead of just one. It’s not a huge cost, but an unnecessary one nonetheless.
It will be fun to watch the anti-gun folks freak out over this. The entertainment value is reason enough to repeal it.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Nearly 243,000 people in Wisconsin hold a permit to carry a concealed gun.
A report from the state Department of Justice says about 34,000 permits were issued in 2014 — the third full year after the concealed carry law was approved by legislators.
So nearly 5% of Wisconsin’s population can now legally carry a concealed weapon and there haven’t been running gun battles in the street and it’s not the “Old West” on the streets of Eau Claire. It’s almost as if we proponents of concealed carry were completely correct.
School officials have gotten some criticism for sending a letter to parents asking students to bring canned goods to attack would-be intruders.
“We realize at first this may seem odd; however, it is a practice that would catch an intruder off-guard,” the letter reads, according to CNN affiliate WRBL. “The canned food item could stun the intruder or even knock him out until the police arrive. The canned food item will give the students a sense of empowerment to protect themselves and will make them feel secure in case an intruder enters the classroom.”
I get the point that a dozen kids hurling canned beets at an intruder might help, but surely that is WAY down the list of possible responses.
Great Basin National Park workers found the Winchester Model 1873 propped against a tree in the desert in November.
National park staff taped the butt of the Winchester Model 1873 rifle to the gun to keep them together.
Who knows how many years the rifle stood there, after someone left behind the model called “the gun that won the West.” Did they have to depart in a hurry — running from danger?
Or did they not see it, as it stood neatly camouflaged against the arid trunk of the juniper tree?
Wind, snow, desert sun have beaten years of furrows into the Winchester’s grayed stock, and rusted its barrel brown, along with its receiver and signature figure-8 repeating lever.
But its model name remains steadfastly engraved on its tang, along with a serial number. The Great Basin National Park‘s staff checked it against the Cody West Firearms Museum’s records.
Last week, a judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Madison’s ban on carrying weapons on Metro buses, largely because the ban is a “policy” — not a more formal ordinance or resolution — and thus does not run afoul of the state’s three-year-old law allowing people to carry concealed weapons.
I suppose that could mean the floodgates are now open for every anti-gun community in Wisconsin. Don’t worry about violating state law with an anti-gun ordinance; just deploy the anti-gun policy.
More likely is that Madison has been the beneficiary of some sloppily written legislation, with maybe an assist from a judge who during her campaign made it clear she was no fan of the governor who signed the concealed-carry bill into law.
Some teachers and staff in the Harrold, Texas, school district where Thweatt is superintendent carry concealed guns in the school as the last line of defense in the event of a shooting on campus.
[…]
“The critics of our plan will say things like: ‘Guns and kids don’t mix’. They will say things like: ‘It’s a bad decision to put guns in the hands of non-trained people.’ They are people who believe in a police state. They believe that the only people who should be armed are police or military. I think that’s a scary idea at best,” Thweatt says.
The superintendent sees guns as a tool used to defend oneself and loved ones.
“Harrold, Texas, is the kind of place where you depend on yourself first and, if need be on your neighbors,” says Thweatt, “We can’t say, ‘Hey, there’s a rattlesnake in my backyard, get the animal control to come get it.’ We go out and we shoot it, we take care of business. That’s the way we do with the human vermin, as well.”
(CNN) — The busiest shopping day of the year also saw a major boom for gun sales, with the federal background check system expected to set a record of more than 144,000 background checks Friday, according to the FBI.
The staggering number of checks — an average of almost three per second, nearly three times the daily average — falls on the shoulders of 600 FBI and contract call center employees who will endure 17-hour workdays in an attempt to complete the background reviews in three business days, as required by law, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said.
“America is a country founded on guns. It’s in our DNA. It’s very strange but I feel better having a gun. I really do. I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel the house is completely safe, if I don’t have one hidden somewhere. That’s my thinking, right or wrong,” Pitt told the Daily Mail in 2012.
Michelle Iracheta, Houston Chronicle | October 4, 2014 | Updated: October 5, 2014 11:21am
Two men were fatally shot by a customer after they attempted to rob a north Harris County bar early Saturday — the latest in a flurry of shootings in Houston this week.
Jenny O’Donnell, owner of EJ’s Place, said four armed men came to her bar in the 16400 block of Kuykendall at Colwell, around 2:30 a.m.
O’Donnell, who was not there at the time of the incident, said a head bartender and waitress were closing up for the night when two men walked into the bar and demanded everyone get down on the floor. Two other men “lingered at the bar door,” she said.
That’s when a customer at the bar pulled his own gun and started shooting at the men, she said. The attempted robbers fired at least three rounds inside the bar, said O’Donnell.
“That man was a hero,” said O’Donnell. “We could have had some bodies.”
The men then turned around and ran out the door, O’Donnell said. One of the men died right outside the front door, while the other man died at the end of the bar’s parking lot, she said.
The other two men and the unidentified customer with the gun fled the scene. Authorities are searching for them.
More than likely the unidentified customer fled because he was drinking while carrying his gun, which is completely wrong. Still, what could have been a truly tragic crime resulted in two dead bad guys because one of the good guys was prepared. That’s a good result.
The majority of Illinois’ 73,714 active concealed carry licenses — 90 percent — have been issued to white people, demographic data shows. Only eight percent of African-Americans have secured licenses, according to the FOIA information.
Within Cook County, the top five concealed carry ZIP codes per capita are all predominately white, middle class and are in areas that have low crime rates. However, the most violent neighborhoods within the county — all of which are on the South Side of Chicago — are predominately black, where residents earn less than $48,000 annually and hold the fewest concealed carry licenses as a percentage of the population.
According to a criminal complaint charging a 17-year-old junior, the dean of students searched the boy’s car and found a rifle, a bayonet, five knives and nearly 400 rounds of ammunition. That quickly brought out Village of Pewaukee police.
“It’s taken very seriously. We can’t have weapons, guns and knives in a school zone,” Village of Pewaukee police Detective Craig Drummy said.
[…]
Pewaukee police said while they don’t believe he intended to harm anyone, he’s still facing two criminal charges.
Village of Pewaukee police said they believe everyone is safe at the school. The boy is suspended and could be expelled.
After WISN 12 News inquired Wednesday afternoon, the Pewaukee school superintendent emailed all parents, saying in part, “This incident did not and does not pose any threat or risk to the safety and security of our campus.”
It makes sense for the vice principal to call the police to investigate. Having a rifle and hundreds of round of ammunition (meaning: a few boxes and perfectly normal for spending a little time at the range) on campus should be evaluated. But after speaking with the kid, it appears that neither the school officials nor the police thought that the kid was planning anything untoward. The school made a point of telling parents that it “did not and does not pose any threat or risk to the safety and security of our campus.”
So why the pending criminal charges and expulsion from school? The other kids are safe and were never in danger. The kid made a mistake bringing his weapon – unloaded and in his vehicle – to the school parking lot. If the goal is to deter him from doing it again, wouldn’t a simple ticket and/or detention – not to mention the hours of police questioning already endured – do the trick? Why waste thousands of dollars and hours prosecuting him? Why yank him out of school and damage his education when nobody was ever in danger?
Hopefully both the Pewaukee school officials and district attorney come to their senses and drop the severe measures. The odds are that this kid won’t make the same mistake again. There’s no need to damage his education and saddle him with a criminal record for something that didn’t harm another soul.
Usman Seth was minding his family’s convenience store on Scranton Street in southeast Houston when a man barged in just after 10 p.m. Friday.
He had a shotgun in hand, and demanded money.
Seth said the gunman first threatened his older sister at the cash register.
[…]
Seth shot the would-be robber in the leg, but the man, dressed in black and wearing a mask, fired back at them.
“He kept threatening us,” Seth said.
He said he kept shooting at the man, who by then had moved to the back of the store beside a Dr Pepper cooler, wounding him again and eventually killing him.
I would also note that it took several shots to finally stop the crook. For those who gripe about how many shots were fired in a self-defense situation or complain that “he could have just wounded him,” look at what it took to finally stop the threat.
