Charleston Church Massacre Happened In Gun-Free Zone

The Charleston, S.C., church massacre is already drawing comparisons to the tragedies at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. because it happened in a gun-free zone.

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Nine people were were fatally shot at a historically black church Wednesday night.

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Although South Carolina is one of several states around the country that issue concealed carry licenses on a “shall issue” basis, legal gun owners are not permitted to carry their firearms into places of worship.

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States that issue such permits grants gun licenses to residents without the “arbitrary bias and discretion, compelling the issuing authority to award the permit,” Buckeye Firearms notes.

According to South Carolina law, civilians may not carry their legal fire arms “on school premises (including day care and preschool facilities), in law enforcement offices or facilities, in court facilities, at polling places on election days, in churches or other religious sanctuaries, or in hospitals or medical facilities. (S.C. Code Ann.§ 23-31-215.)”

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The penalties for carrying a firearm in such places include a fine of at least $1,000, up to one year in jail, or both.

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The alleged gunman, who was captured in Shelby, N.C., Thursday, is 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof, a white male from Lexington, S.C. Reuters reported Thursday that Roof’s father gave him a .45 caliber pistol for his 21st birthday in April.

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That’s also the day when he became eligible to apply for a concealed carry permit. It is unknown if he is a South Carolina permit holder.

Via: Daily Caller

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MENTAL HEALTH LAWS ARE TROUBLE FOR DEMOCRATS

Instead of always taking incoming fire, how about Republicans start sending some back? It’s great that they stopped HillaryCare, but if they had actually fixed health care by forcing health insurance plans to be sold in a competitive free market, there would have been no opportunity for shyster Democrats to foist Obamacare on us.

It’s fantastic that we caught the Boston Marathon bombers, but why don’t Republicans fix an immigration system that brings foreign terrorists and mass murderers to our country? Let the Democrats explain why we couldn’t make room for a Danish surgeon because we needed another Chechnyan terrorist.

And it’s terrific that Republicans have managed to block sweeping gun bans after every mass shooting over the past few years — opposition to new gun restrictions has more than doubled since Newtown — but how about they actually do something to stop the next mass murder?

All these shootings are united by one clear thread: They all were committed by visibly crazy people, known to be nuts but not institutionalized.

Mental illness was blindingly clear in the cases of Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech), Maj. Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood), Jared Loughner (Arizona shopping mall), James Holmes (Colorado movie theater), and a dozen other mass shootings in the past few decades.

But in every instance, Democrats’ response was: Let’s ban high-capacity magazines! Let’s limit private gun sales! Let’s publish the names of everyone who owns a registered gun!

Via: Human Events

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Obama Weekly Address: Marking the One-Year Anniversary of the Tragic Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Saturday December 14, 2013

In his weekly address, President Obama honors the memory of the 26 innocent children and educators who were taken from us a year ago in Newton, Connecticut.

Via: WhiteHouse.gov

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Jay Carney on Navy Yard, other shootings: 'This is why we should take action' on gun control

White House press secretary Jay Carney reiterated President Obama's desire to pass gun control legislation, though he sounded cautious about appearing to use the Navy Yard shooting to political advantage.

"[I]t is far too early to say anything about who did this and the broader meaning of it," Carney told reporters, per a live transcription. "When it comes to common sense legislation to reduce gun violence, the president has been very clear," Carney added, recalling Obama's frustration with congressional leaders who voted down a gun proposal in March.

The comments came under repeated questioning from American Urban Radio's April Ryan.

"That was a shame and we will continue to work to take action to improve gun safety, to reduce gun violence in this country through executive action and, hopefully, Congress will work to reduce gun violence as well," he said.

Ryan pressed him about gun control in a follow-up. "Jay, you say it's far too early, and I understand that, but we do know for a fact that these were shooting deaths, and going down that seven: Fort Hood, Binghamton, Tuscon, Aurora, Oak Creek, Newtown, and the Navy Yard now."

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"And countless other deaths, as you know April, countless other deaths, and this is why we should take action to reduce gun violence, we should take common sense action supported by Americans from every part of the country," Carney replied.

Via: Washington Examiner

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NBC/WSJ poll: NRA more popular than entertainment industry

As Washington prepares for a political battle over the Obama White House's proposals to curb gun violence after the Newtown, Conn., shootings, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the National Rifle Association is more popular than the entertainment industry.

Forty-one percent of adults see the NRA -- the nation's top gun lobby -- in a positive light, while 34 percent view it in a negative light.

By comparison, just 24 percent have positive feelings about the entertainment industry, and 39 percent have negative ones.

The NRA's fav/unfav score is virtually unchanged from its 41 percent-to-29 percent rating in the Jan. 2011 NBC/WSJ poll, nearly two years before the Newtown shootings.

"That seems to me to be a pretty remarkably stable figure," says GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

But it's a substantial improvement from the 1990s, when the NRA's negative ratings outweighed its positive ones in the NBC/WSJ survey.

The current poll also shows a sharp divide between attitudes among gun owners and non-gun owners.

Among those who own a gun, 62 percent view the NRA favorably. But that percentage drops to just 25 percent among those who don't.

The full poll -- which was conducted Jan. 12-15 of 1,000 adults (including 300 cell phone-only respondents), and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points -- will be released at 6:30 pm ET.

Via: First Read

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New York newspaper to list more gun permit holders after uproar

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A suburban New York newspaper that sparked an uproar among gun enthusiasts by publishing names and addresses of residents holding pistol permits is now planning to publish even more identities of permit-toting locals.

Further names and addresses will be added as they become available to a map originally published on December 24 in the White Plains, New York-based Journal News, the newspaper said.

The original map listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City.

Along with an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," the map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.

The next batch of names will be permit holders in suburban Putnam County, New York, where the county clerk told the newspaper it is still compiling information.

Some 44,000 people are licensed to own pistols in the three counties, the newspaper said. Owners of rifles and shotguns do not need permits, the newspaper said.

The publication prompted outrage, particularly on social media sites, among gun owners.

"Do you fools realize that you also made a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have no guns in them to protect themselves?" Rob Seubert of Silver Spring, Maryland, posted on the newspaper's web site. "What a bunch of liberal boobs you all are."

Republican state Senator Greg Ball of Patterson, New York, said he planned to introduce legislation to keep permit information private except to prosecutors and police.

A similar bill that he introduced earlier as an Assemblyman failed in the state Assembly.

"The asinine editors at the Journal News have once again gone out of their way to place a virtual scarlet letter on law abiding firearm owners throughout the region," Ball wrote on his Senate web site.

The newspaper's editor and vice president of news, CynDee Royle, earlier in the week defended the decision to list the permit holders.

Via: Yahoo News

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