Tennessee Gun Owners - 2nd Amendment Issues http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/ This is the place to discuss issues specifically regarding the Right To Keep and Bear Arms (RTKBA), only. en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 04:47:31 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/images/misc/rss.png Tennessee Gun Owners - 2nd Amendment Issues http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/ You may carry ay Y12 Credit Union! http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/45638-you-may-carry-ay-y12-credit-union.html Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:08:25 GMT I talked to one of the board of directors of Y12 bank yesterday, and ask him if they intended to post a no guns sign, he told me:

"Y12 has no intention of taking away any of it's members rights"
:)

Note: Y12 bank is open to the public and not just Y12 employees.

My personal recommendation would be, that if you were going to carry in a bank, that you carry concealed.

www.y12fcu.org ]]> 2nd Amendment Issues tngw1500se http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/45638-you-may-carry-ay-y12-credit-union.html LEAD BAN THWARTED. http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/45338-lead-ban-thwarted.html Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:02:51 GMT Late Friday, 27August10, the EPA issued a statement saying the proposed ban on lead in ammunition and fishing equipment was not going to happen.... Late Friday, 27August10, the EPA issued a statement saying the proposed ban on lead in ammunition and fishing equipment was not going to happen.
Apparently due to the fact that Congress had specifically excluded these from the ban previously.
So, looks like we dodged yet another attempt on our 2A rights. We all know this isnt the end of it. The anti-gunners are constantly trying to conjur up ways to impede our 2A rights, now that its an "established" right....like it wasnt for 230+ years already...they try to figure up ways to make it more expensive, more difficult to exercise, just a general pain in the ass.
I must say I take GREAT satisfaction every time they are defeated. The loooong faces and hand wringing and talk of "going back to the Wild West" are freakin hilarious to me.
Even though they cant point out a single instance to back up that claim, theyll spout it every time.
Anyway, good news for us today at least!:) ]]> 2nd Amendment Issues Straight Shooter http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/45338-lead-ban-thwarted.html EPA wants to ban lead ammo! http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/45155-epa-wants-ban-lead-ammo.html Wed, 25 Aug 2010 20:40:12 GMT New report out today: NSSF (http://www.nssfblog.com/epa-considering-ban-on-traditional-ammunition-take-action-now/) ---Quote--- *EPA... New report out today:

NSSF

Quote:
EPA Considering Ban on Traditional Ammunition — Take Action Now

August 25, 2010 By Larry Keane

All Gun Owners, Hunters and Shooters:
With the fall hunting season fast approaching, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – a leading anti-hunting organization – to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.
Today, the EPA has opened to public comment the CBD petition. The comment period ends on October 31, 2010.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry — urges you to submit comment to the EPA opposing any ban on traditional ammunition. Remember, your right to choose the ammunition you hunt and shoot with is at stake.
The EPA has published the petition and relevant supplemental information as Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPPT-2010-0681. If you would like to read the original petition and see the contents of this docket folder, please click here. In order to go directly to the ‘submit a comment’ page for this docket number, please click here.
NSSF urges you to stress the following in your opposition:
* There is no scientific evidence that the use of traditional ammunition is having an adverse impact on wildlife populations.
* Wildlife management is the proper jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 50 state wildlife agencies.
* A 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on blood lead levels of North Dakota hunters confirmed that consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition does not pose a human health risk.
* A ban on traditional ammunition would have a negative impact on wildlife conservation. The federal excise tax that manufacturers pay on the sale of the ammunition (11 percent) is a primary source of wildlife conservation funding. The bald eagle’s recovery, considered to be a great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition – the very ammunition organizations like the CBD are now demonizing.
* Recent statistics from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service show that from 1981 to 2006 the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in the United States increased 724 percent. And much like the bald eagle, raptor populations throughout the United States are soaring.
Steps to take:
1. Submit comment online to the EPA.
2. Contact Lisa Jackson directly to voice your opposition to the ban:
Lisa P. Jackson
Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 564-4700
Fax: (202) 501-1450
Email: jackson.lisa@epa.gov
3. Contact your congressman and senators and urge them to stop the EPA from banning ammunition. To view a sample letter, click here.
]]> 2nd Amendment Issues ttocswob http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/45155-epa-wants-ban-lead-ammo.html Police Link Article Reprint http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/44399-police-link-article-reprint.html Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:28:26 GMT *Cops and Armed Citizens* 624 Views 10 Comments... Cops and Armed Citizens

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Featured Author:

Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith

Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith is a 29-year veteran of a large Chicago suburban police department and has held positions in patrol, investigations, narcotics, juvenile, crime prevention, hostage negotiation and field training. As a sergeant, she supervised her department’s K-9 Unit, served as a field training sergeant, recruitment team sergeant, bike patrol coordinator, and supervisor of the Community Education/Crime Prevention Unit. As a patrol sergeant, Betsy served on the Elderly Services Team, the Crisis Intervention Team, and as a supervisory member of the Honor Guard.
Betsy served as a host and content expert for the Law Enforcement Television Network (LETN) from 1999 – 2003. A graduate of the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety’s School of Staff and Command, Betsy writes for numerous law enforcement and government publications and has been an instructor for the Calibre Press “Street Survival” seminar since 2003. She also manages and instructs for Dave Smith & Associates, a law enforcement training and consulting company based in Illinois and is featured in the Biography channel’s new reality show “Female Forces.” Together with her husband, Dave “JD Buck Savage” Smith, she trains law enforcement personnel throughout the United States and Canada.


Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith

I grew up around guns. My dad, a farmer by trade, was also an auxiliary deputy with the local sheriff’s department so he owned a pistol or two. My cousins were hunters, and we always had a shotgun in the house that my father could get to if he needed to eliminate an errant raccoon in the garden or a family of moles tearing up our front yard. I was neither fascinated nor frightened by firearms, they were just a part of our lives in the rural Midwest.
When I graduated from the police academy in 1981, I was pretty excited about my “right to bear arms” both on and off duty. Although I was a patrol officer, I invested in a couple of concealed holsters for my big Smith & Wesson model 59 (completely the wrong handgun for a girl with the hands of an 8 year old, but that’s another article). I pretty much carried my gun everywhere. Young, single, and new to the “big city,” I spent lots of time in and around the Chicago area, enjoying the museums, the sports teams, the shopping, and of course, the nightlife. I never gave my safety much thought because (a) I was armed, and (b) I was usually in the company of other (armed) off duty cops. Life was good.
I’ve always enjoyed lively political discussions so I was happy to enter into debates about the Second Amendment and whether or not ordinary citizens really had a “right to keep and bear arms” as I continued to gain some patrol experience. At the time, I really didn’t understand what the big deal was. I was fine with people who were hunters, or enjoyed shooting sports, and even wanted to keep a “home protection” gun in their bedroom, but as a young cop, I was pretty sure I didn’t want ordinary, untrained people walking around “my” streets carrying concealed handguns. I mean, if everyone had a gun, how could we tell the good guys from the bad? If everyone was armed, wouldn’t people be shooting each other over parking spaces and other petty issues? Besides, I secretly (and selfishly) enjoyed the feeling of superiority in knowing that I was one of the few people allowed by Illinois law to carry around a loaded gun. Boy, did I have a lot to learn.
In 1989 I was invited to travel with the University of Illinois’ “Fighting Illini” men’s basketball team to the Final Four in Seattle, Washington. My uncle was the head coach so my dad and I were going to fly on the team plane. What a blast! Unfortunately, this was about the same time that serial killer Ted Bundy was all over the news, the “Green River Killer” investigation was in full swing, and I was obsessed with reading Seattle-based author Ann Rule’s true crime books. Not exactly a great time for me to be heading for Washington State. But hey, I was cop! I got to take my gun to Seattle, carry it everywhere, and feel safe and secure. Great for me, but it got me thinking about all those young female murder victims; many of them close to my age. What if one of them had been armed? Could she have saved herself and ultimately, many others? And back in Illinois we had our own famous serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, still in the news. He killed 33 young men and boys before he was arrested. Hadn’t they deserved the legal right to able to try and protect themselves to the best of their ability?
Two and a half years later, on October 16, 1991, the infamous Luby’s Cafeteria shooting occurred in Killeen, Texas. In what we would now call an “active shooter” situation, George Hennard drove his pick up truck through the front of the restaurant and was able to stalk, shoot, and terrorize the 80 lunchtime patrons, killing 23 and wounding another 20 before police cornered him and he turned a gun on himself. He’d been able to reload several times before police could arrive, and there were no armed citizens to challenge him. I was now a patrol sergeant and really starting to really re-evaluate my stance on citizen carry, and frankly, the Luby’s incident scared the heck out of me. After all, just like my state, the law in Texas at the time forbade citizens from carrying handguns. The Texas “serious crime” rate was 38 % above the nation average. After the post-Luby’s passage of the CCW law, serious crime in Texas has dropped 50% faster than the United States as a whole. Illinois, however, continued to prohibit CCW.
The whole citizen carry issue, often mixed in with the broader debate over “gun control” in general, has been terribly politicized and the debate rages on to this day. Yes, the United States is the leader in “per capita gun deaths among industrial nations,” a statistic that gun control advocates love to throw around. However, as most cops will tell you, the issue is a whole lot more complicated. One of the best resources out there is John Lott’srecently updated book “More Guns, Less Crime.” Basically, Lott concluded in an 18 year study that states who allowed citizens to carry concealed weapons saw violent crime goes down. Pretty logical stuff; the more law abiding citizens who train and arm themselves, the less victims we have. He has continued to study this issue objectively but passionately; every crimefighter should read his work.
My adopted home town, the city of Chicago, is a perfect example of Lott’s conclusions. We’re averaging 20 – 40 shootings a weekend, three Chicago cops have been killed this year, off duty, since May, and yet Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation! Who’s got the guns? The cops and the bad guys; and frankly, the cops tend to be out-numbered and often out-gunned. All the gun laws in the world aren’t going to keep thugs from owning, carrying and using firearms, so all the City of Chicago is doing is keeping law abiding citizens from legally obtaining personal protection firearms.
I’m retired now, but as I travel throughout the United States, training with and filming law enforcement personnel, I take advantage of HR 218; I am always armed, and I’m grateful for the privilege. I am now a firm advocate of well-trained, well-armed civilians, and this is an issue that police officers must get more involved in. With layoffs, cutbacks, workplace violence and the raging “war on cops” in the United States, we may have to depend on our citizens to step up, jump in, and help out in an armed encounter. After all, you don’t have to have a badge to wear a white hat and be one of the good guys. Stay safe! ]]> 2nd Amendment Issues barewoolf http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/2nd-amendment-issues/44399-police-link-article-reprint.html