Ron Paul Leads the Fight to Defend and Restore the Second Amendment

by Larry Pratt

- Executive Director

- Gun Owners of America

Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s pro-gun credentials are impeccable and he has been a leading proponent of rolling back the past 40 years of gun control.

Ron Paul has represented areas near Houston, Texas for nearly 20 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has the reputation of the paramount defender of the Constitution and seeks to follow it in casting every one of his votes.

Ron Paul has been a leader in the fight to defend and restore the Second Amendment. He has sponsored legislation to repeal the following:

* the Brady law;

* the requirement to lock up your safety (guns);

* the law permitting the US to be part of the UN (which, among other attacks on American freedoms, seeks to ban privately transfered firearms);

* participation in UNESCO — which has been used to dumb down US education standards;

* the federal prohibition on importation of guns on a sporting basis test;

* federal prohibitions on any pilot wishing to carry a handgun to and in his cockpit; and,

* the so-called “assault weapons” ban (prior to its sunsetting in 2004).

Paul also has sponsored legislation requiring states to treat the concealed carry permit of one state the same as they do that state’s driver’s license.

Paul has viewed his opposition to a national ID card as a protection for gun owners. A national ID card would most likely identify the bearer as a gun owner, among other things of interest to government officials.

Paul acknowledges his underdog status in the 2008 presidential race. He argues that he is offering himself as a pro-Second Amendment alternative to the candidates who have initially led the field, none of whom have a pro-gun record. Paul hopes to use his long experience in raising grassroots support to gain sufficient funding to become the pro-gun alternative to the current leaders of the field.

Ron Paul is a Medical Doctor who for years even as a member of Congress continued practicing as an obstetrician. He is married and has five children, 17 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Arizona Senate Panel would allow guns at colleges

By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
PHOENIX — A Senate panel voted Monday to let students and staff at community colleges and state universities arm themselves for protection, but not their counterparts at public schools.

The 4-3 vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee came after Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa, agreed to limit SB 1214 only to publicly operated colleges and universities.

Johnson said it was not a change she wanted to make. But she conceded there are not enough votes for her original bill to also allow guns into K-12 schools.

"I still feel like our little kindergartners are sitting there as sitting ducks," she said, defenseless if someone with a weapon burst into the classroom.

Approval of Johnson's legislation came as the House gave preliminary approval on voice vote to two separate measures easing restrictions on carrying a concealed weapon.

Current law makes possession of a hidden weapon by someone without a state permit a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail. HB 2630 would reduce that to a petty offense punishable by only a fine.

Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said Arizona law already allows just about anyone to carry a weapon in the open. He said there is no reason to impose criminal penalties on those who might just inadvertently break the law because a holster was hidden by a jacket.

"The worst tragedy that we can impose on folks is to be prosecuted when they have no culpable mental state of being a bad guy," he said.

A second measure approved by the House, HB 2389, allows individuals without a state permit to carry a weapon anywhere in a private vehicle, even hidden, without fear of arrest. Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said this measure, too, will prevent otherwise innocent people from being prosecuted because a gun on the seat got covered up by a jacket.

The legislation came over the objection of Rep. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix. He said the change would protect not only otherwise good citizens but also gang members and others who now would be able to hide weapons within easy reach.

"This is crazy," he said. Gallardo said it will only complicate the job of police officers who already are in fear every time they stop a vehicle.

Johnson introduced her legislation after a series of high-profile shootings on campuses, from the 1999 incident at Columbine High School in Colorado where teens killed 12 students and a teacher to killings a year ago at Virginia Tech where a gunman killed 32 before shooting himself. She said the killings earlier this month at Northern Illinois University only underscored her belief that fewer might have died if there had been someone on campus with a gun who could have killed the attacker.

The legislation limits the right to carry a weapon onto a campus to someone with a state concealed-carry permit. Getting a permit requires a background check, fingerprinting and several hours of training in a state-approved class that explains the laws of when people can use deadly force as well as actually handling and firing the gun.

Only those who are at least 21 can have such permits.

Johnson said she still believes teachers and other adults at public schools should be able to carry weapons to protect students in their care. But she said even this scaled-back version serves a purpose.

She noted that some of the testimony a week earlier in favor of the measure came from students in the state university system who are 21, have permits to carry concealed weapons but are precluded now from doing so. Johnson said that included women who fear for their safety while walking across campus at night.

"If we could just allow them to be able to protect themselves as they see the need, that would be something," Johnson said.

But Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, said even this modified version of the measure is unacceptable.

"I just don't look at schools in any capacity as being a good place to have firearms, whether from someone who is deranged or someone who just happens to be a student or a faculty," he said.

All content copyright © 1999-2008 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star and its wire services

Guns on College Campuses

National Collegiate Empty Holster Protest

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is conducting a nationwide protest aimed at drawing attention to the fact that holders of concealed handgun licenses, despite being legally permitted to carry concealed handguns virtually everywhere else? office buildings, movie theaters, grocery stores, shopping malls, banks, etc. are forced by state laws and school policies to disarm before entering college campuses, leaving these individuals defenseless and leaving campuses open to the type of execution-style murders seen on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech. During the week of October 22-26, student and faculty representatives of SCCC will wear empty holsters on college campuses throughout America, symbolizing the way current laws and policies leave college students, faculty, and guests defenseless against attack. Students for Concealed Carry on Campus hopes that increased awareness of the discrepancy between the rules on college campuses and the rules outside of college campuses will motivate citizens to push state legislators and campus administrators to amend existing laws and policies so that concealed handgun license holders can legally carry their firearms on college campuses, the same way they currently do almost everywhere else.

SCCC demands to know why individuals who are deemed by state and federal authorities to be competent and trustworthy enough to carry concealed handguns elsewhere are denied this right on college campuses.In most states CHL applicants must be 21 years of age or older, pass state and federal (FBI) fingerprint and background checks (often including investigations intor ecords of mental health and sealed/expunged criminal records), attend a state mandated training course, pass both a written and a practical (shooting) test, and have their fingerprints and photographs on file with both state authorities and the FBI.

Statistically , concealed handgun license holders commit violent crimes at a rate fivetimes lower than non-license holders. CHL holders are not vigilantes hoping for the chance to shoot a "bad guy;" they are concerned citizens, just like you, hoping for the means to extricate themselves from danger, should the unimaginable occur.

For more information on the issue of concealed carry on campus and why it would NOT lead to more violence on college campuses or detract from the educational process,
please visit http://www.concealedcampus.com/.

STUDENTS FOR CONCEALED CARRY ON CAMPUS

National Collegiate Empty Holster Protest -why are we doing this?

- 48 states currently issue Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) permits or Concealed Handgun Licenses.

- Criminals are more afraid of confronting a potential victim with a gun than they are of the police.

*U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985)

- 3/5 of convicted felons say they would not "mess around" with a person they suspectedmight have a gun.

*U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985)

- Concealed Handgun License (CHL) holders are LESS violent than the rest of the population. They are arrested for violent crimes at a rate five times lower than non-license holders (even lower than police officers in many states).

*Florida Department of State, "Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report," 1998

*Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Census Bureau, reported in San Antonio Express-News, September 2000

*FBI, Uniform Crime Reports, 2004 - excludes Hawaii and Rhode Island - small populationsand geographic isolation create other determinants to violent crime.

*John Lott and David Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," Journal of Legal Studies (v.26, no.1, pages 1-68, January 1997)

* William E. Sturdevant, "An Analysis of the Arrest Rate of Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders as Compared to the Arrest Rate of the Entire Texas Population,"
September 1, 2000

*"D.C. Police Paying for Hiring Binge," Washington Post, 8/28/94

*Memorandum by James T. Moore, Commissioner of Florida's Department of Law Enforcement, to the Office of the Governor, dated 3/15/95

- Despite the predictions of those who opposed the passage of state Concealed Carry laws, when such laws were first proposed 15-20 years ago, the presence of concealed handguns has not created an epidemic of everyday arguments turning into shootings.

*Colorado State and all public universities in Utah allow Concealed Handgun License holders to carry their firearms on campus.

*"I lobbied against the law in 1993 and 1995 because I thought it would lead to wholesale armed conflict. That hasn't happened. All the horror stories I thought would come to pass didn't happen. No bogeyman. I think it's worked out well, and that says good things about the citizens who have permits. I'm a convert." -- Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, Dallas Morning News, 12/23/97

*"I ... [felt] that such legislation present[ed] a clear and present danger to law-abiding citizens by placing more handguns on our streets. Boy was I wrong. Our experience in
Harris County, and indeed statewide, has proven my fears absolutely groundless." -- Harris County [Texas] District Attorney John Holmes, Dallas Morning News, 12/23/97

*"Some of the public safety concerns which we imagined or anticipated a couple of years ago, toour pleasant surprise, have been unfounded or mitigated." -- Fairfax County
VA Police Major Bill Brown, Alexandria Journal, 7/9/97

*"I was wrong. But I'm glad to say I was wrong." -- Arlington County VA Police Detective Paul Larson, The Alexandria Journal, 7/9/97

*"The concerns I had - with more guns on the street, folks may be more apt to square off against one another with weapons - we haven't experienced that." -- Charlotte-Mecklenburg NC Police Chief Dennis Nowicki, The News and Observer, 11/24/97

- Concealed Carry Laws reduce mass public shootings.
*Lott, J., Landes, W.; "Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement;"
University of Chicago - covers years 1977 to 1995

- Reducing the number of guns does NOT reduce violent crime.
*Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser, "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence"

- The United States Supreme Court has ruled that police have NO duty to protect the lives of citizens, yet concealed handgun license holders must leave their greatest means of defenses behind when they step onto college campuses.
*"...law enforcement officers have no affirmative duty to provide such protection..." - South v. Maryland, 1856
*"...there is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminalsor madmen." - Bowers v. DeVito, 1982

- Concealed handgun license holders carry for defense of life only. They do not act like the police and actively seek out a shooter.

- Nearly every "shootout" is over in less than 10 seconds.

*The real Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a gunfight involving nine armed participants, lasted only about 30 seconds.

- Most victims of mass shootings are shot at point blank range, by assailants who move slowlyand methodically from victim to victim. It requires neither superhuman reflexes nor deadeye accuracy to defend oneself against such an attack.

- Police forces are trained to expect armed "good guys" and armed "bad guys" in tactical scenarios. CHL holders are state and FBI certified "good guys."

- There are no significant differences between carrying a concealed handgun on a college campus and carrying a concealed handgun in an office building, shopping mall, or movie theater places CHL holders are currently permitted to carry their firearms.

Mike Guzman

SCCC Southwest Regional Director

http://concealedcampus.org/