Armed Citizen

A CRIME SPREE WAS IN PROGRESS. Two people were already in the hospital with serious head injuries. Police say the suspects in that crime, 1 30-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy, chose a disabled man and his wife as their next victims. The suspects broke into the home with a pellet gun and baseball bat. Despite the homeowner’s spinal affliction, he proved no easy victim. He drew a handgun, causing the older intruder to flee. The younger intruder waited for authorities. “I’m a Life member of the NRA and I personally love homeowners being able to defend themselves and their families,” said Pulaski County, MO., Sheriff J.B. King.

Waynesville Daily Guide, Waynesville, Mo., 11/17/07

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SANDRA HULSEY DIDN’T expect her life to change in a hardware store parking lot. “… The guy just came up and pushed me real hard with a force, like it was a car that hit me. And he was just yanking my purse…” The suspected purse snatcher probably did not notice Hulsey’s husband, Norman, loading wood into their pickup truck. Norman grabbed his shotgun from the truck and fired a single shot, causing the suspect to run. “The sound of the shotgun and that dude burning off -it was funny,” said a witness. The suspect flagged down a police officer. “The suspect runs up to the police car saying, ‘Let me in. They are shooting at me,” said the responding deputy. Nobody was injured.

ABC – KTRK, Houston, Texas, 11/02/07

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JUAN AMEZAGA AND STEPHEN SOTO were enjoying the fall weather outside Soto’s apartment. The mood was shattered when two strangers walked by two or three times as if casing the neighborhood. Then the strangers approached. “What time is it?” one asked. Soto looked down at his watch, but as he raised his head the stranger said, “Hey, run them,” and drew a gun. But Amezaga and Soto are concealed-carry permit holders. Soto pulled a 9 mm pistol just as the stranger shot. The bullet grazed Soto’s shin, breaking the skin. Police say Soto fired two or three times, and the robbers fled. One robber stopped and again began shooting. Soto and Amezaga both returned fire and the robber fled. “It could have been real bad last night if it wasn’t for the quick thinking and our concealed-carry permits,” Soto said. “We might not even be here.”

Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, Fla., 11/07/08

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AFTER SOMEONE SHOT through Steven Troy Stewart’s living room window, the frightened Stewart began keeping a shotgun nearby. A month later, the precaution proved a lifesaver. Stewart heard glass breaking. He leapt from bed, grabbed his shotgun and walked toward the front of the house. There stood a man with a gun and a gasoline bomb. Stewart shot several times, wounding the intruder. The intruder fled with accoplices and later died. Three suspects were arrested in connection with the crime and suspicion of gang activity. In a jailhouse interview, one suspect told a local TV station they planned to kill Stewart, but he didn’t know why.

The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, Ca., 11/08/07

 

Good News For Gun Owners

THE NATIONAL INSTANT CHECK SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT ACT was passed by the U.S. House and Senate and sent foward for the President’s signature.

Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute of Legislative Actiion siad, “These changes make good bill {H.R. 2640} even better. The end product is a win for American gun owers.”

NICS Improvement Act has the following benefits:

• Permanently prohibits the FBI from charging a “user fee” for NICS checks.
• Requires all federal agencies that impose mental health adjudications or commitments to provide for “relief from disabilities.” Extreme anti-gun groups’ concerns over this aspect of the bill for gun ownership rights.
• Requires removal of expired, incorrect or otherwise irrelevant records. Todays, totally innocent people [e.g. individuals with arrest records, who were never convicted of the crime charged] are sometimes subject to delayed or denied firearm purchases because of incomplete records in the system.
• Provides a process of error correction if a person is inappropriately committed or declared incompetent by a federal agency. The individual would have an opportuity to correct the error –either through the agency or in court.
• Prevents use of federal “adjudications” that consist only of medical diagnoses without findings that the people involved are dangerous or metnally incompetent. This would ensure that purley medical records are never used in NICS. Gun ownership rights would only be lost as a result of a finding that the person is a danger to themselves or others, or lacks the capacity to manage his own affairs.
• Improves the accuracy and completeness of NICS by requiring federal agencies and participating states to provide relevant records to the FBI. For instance, it would give states an incentive to report those who were adjudicated by a court to be “metntally defective,” a danger to himself, a danger to others or suicidal.
• Requires a Government Accountability Office audit of past NICS improvement spending.
• Requires incorrect or outdated records to be purged from the system within 30 days after the attorney general learns of the need for correction.
• Requires agencies to create “relief from disabilities” programs within 120 days, to prevent bureaucratic foot dragging.
• Provides that if a person applies for relief from disabilities and the agency fails to act on the  application within a year -for any reason, including lack of funds -the aplicaant can seek immediate review of his application in federal court.
• Allows awards of attorney’s fees to applicants who successfully challenge a federal agency’s denial of relief in court.
• Requires that federal agencies notify all people being subjected to a mental health “adjudication” or commitment process about the consquences to their firearm ownership rights, and the availability of future relief.
• Earmarks 3 percent to 10 percent of federal implementation grants for use in operating state “relief from disabilities” programs.
• Eliminates all references to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulations defining adjudications, commitments, or determinations related to Americans’ mental health. Instead, the bill uses terms previously adopted by the Congress.

This is no wander why “The Violence Policy Cetner, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence” and other gun-ban groups were opposed to the passage of the bill because of the many PRO-GUN improvements it contained.