Federal preemption? . . . Rep. Collins says he will carry gun — Is seven bullets enough?
Congressman Collins says he working with SCOPE to repeal the SAFE Act, and put forth federal law that would pre-empt one of Governor Cuomo’s signature pieces of legislation.
“The SAFE Act does not keep lawful citizens safe,” said Collins. “It was just, I would call it again, a progressive, far left piece of legislation that was pandering to the gun control people. Criminals will pay no attention to that law whatsoever.”
But we caught up with Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday and asked her if New Yorkers would be able to defend themselves under the SAFE Act. She told us, “I won’t comment on what the congressman chooses to do, but I don’t think there’s any question now that the SAFE Act is more important now than ever.”
Sigh . . . GOP Goes Quiet on Gun Silencers—for Now, at Least—After Congressional Shooting
In fact, the talk that was permitted after the practice field shooting spree was largely about locking and loading and carrying. Three Harvard Business professors found that after a mass shooting, gun laws are more likely to be loosened than tightened. How’s that for counterintuitive behavior?
How about something NOT happening for a glimmer of hope? Yesterday a bill (the Hearing Protection Act!) that would allow silencers—those things that criminals use in the movies, and which are presently regulated more like machine guns than revolvers—was set for a hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee. It was canceled even before the leadership shut the entire House down for the day.
The most anti-gun state needs federal help to stop people shooting up gun-free zones in its most gun-controlled city. Got it? . . . California needs federal help to restrict use of guns, advocate says
California’s firearms laws, already among the nation’s toughest, have been further stiffened by legislators and voters in the past year with bans on high-capacity gun magazines and the sales of guns with so-called bullet buttons that enable speedy reloading, and a requirement, to take effect in 2019, of background checks for buyers of ammunition.
From lefty anti-gun site thinkprogress.com . . . EXCLUSIVE: In 2016, the FBI allowed 300,000 gun sales before completing a background check
In that wake of the (Charleston church) shooting, then–FBI Director James Comey ordered a review of why the FBI couldn’t complete Roof’s background check within the three-business-day deadline. Speaking to reporters at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., that July, he said that he wanted to find out how, in the future, the agency could complete more background checks on time.
Despite promises to fix the system, however, new data the FBI shared with ThinkProgress shows that there were more than 300,000 default proceeds in 2016. Of all background checks performed that year, 3.24 percent resulted in default proceeds. That figure is up from 3.02 percent in 2015 and 2.76 percent in 2014.
NBC further burnishes its sterling journalism credentials . . . Sandy Hook Families Urge NBC to Drop Megyn Kelly’s Alex Jones Interview
In a letter sent to network executives Thursday, attorneys Josh Koskoff and Katie Mesner-Hage argued that the interview with Jones, who has portrayed the Sandy Hook shooting as a hoax, will have “devastating human consequences.” The Bridgeport, Conn.-based law firm of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder has represented some family members of the 26 victims of the mass shooting at the Newtown elementary school in December 2012.
NBC News has come under fire since announcing its plan to feature Jones on its fledgling newsmagazine “Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly.” Jones, host of the Infowars digital channel, has claimed that the Sandy Hook tragedy was “synthetic, completely fake with actors,” and called it a “manufactured incident” designed to spur gun control legislation. Jones has raised his profile in the media world in the past few years with his extreme positions and assertions about left-wing conspiracies such as the Sandy Hook tragedy.
A new Nuge . . . Ted Nugent announces a kinder, gentler Nuge in the wake of the Alexandria shootings
Nugent has traditionally been almost as big a fan of using gun-related imagery in his various screeds as he is of guns themselves. (Although, to be fair, he’s sometimes restrained himself by calling for his political opponents to merely be hanged, instead.) His behavior was aggressive enough during the Obama administration that the Secret Service was eventually called in to investigate him, although nothing ultimately came of it. (Except Ted Nugent opening his mouth some more, which should be negative consequence enough for anybody.)
No more, though: “I’ve got to get my psyche in tune [so] that I can still hold the ground—and I can be feisty, I can be fiery, I can be passionate,” Nugent said. “But I will avoid anything that can be interpreted as condoning or referencing violence.” And while we might point out that Nugent didn’t feel similarly moved to “civility” by the Sandy Hook shootings, the Pulse nightclub shootings, or any of the hundreds of other mass shootings America has faced over the last several years, in the game of “Ted Nugent Shutting The Fuck Up For Once,” you take the wins that you can get.
Didn’t the homeowner know that keeping a gun in the house only increases the chances of a horrible accident? . . . Hero homeowner holds escaped Georgia inmates at gunpoint until arrests
A Tennessee homeowner held two escaped inmates wanted in the killing of two prison guards at gunpoint Thursday until authorities arrived and made the arrests.
Tennessee Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Bill Miller said late Thursday that the homeowner caught Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose trying to steal his vehicle. …
Miller says something alerted the homeowner that people were outside his home and he saw the men trying to steal his vehicle. The trooper says the homeowner held the two at gunpoint with a neighbor he called until the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department could get there to arrest them.