Bring out the Big Guns

The right to bear arms encompasses it all; big, small, whatever. Enjoy what you have.

Looking Ahead for Gun Owners

With 2007 almost over, its that time of year to come up with resolutions, reflect on the year past and speculate about the future.

2008 is going to be a big year in America. Especially for gun lovers and defenders of the 2nd Amendment. With 2008 being an election year and the 2nd Amendment being a major issue, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next year.

The Supreme Court is also scheduled to rule on whether or not the 2nd Amendment is being violated in D.C. The ruling of that trial could set precedence for gun control laws all over the country.

No matter what happens in 2008, GunsAmerica.com will be there supporting America's Second Amendment right to bear arms, and we salute everyone who will be fighting with us.

Happy New Year America.

-GunsAmerica.com

Happy Holidays from GunsAmerica

Just taking this opportunity to wish everyone a very safe and happy holiday season. Hope all of your firearm wishes come true.

-GunsAmerica.com

Pick Our FREE Giveaway at SHOT Show

This coming February at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, GunsAmerica is going to be hosting a poster signing by the Patriot Girls.

Go online now to GunsAmerica.com and vote on which poster we will be giving away, FREE, at the show. Check back often for your chance to vote on other posters that we will be giving away at this years SHOT Show.

Also, don't forget to check out all of the new features on GunsAmerica 3.0 and leave us a comment to let us know.

Don't Kill the Messenger

While the gun control debate rages on, there seems to be advances made on both sides. Don't kill the messenger people, but we feel that it is best to stay informed. This article is much less one sided then some others out there, and gives a quick overview of whats happening.

U.S. Tightens Gun Control Law

December 20, 2007 9:28 a.m. EST

Einnor Mendoza - AHN News Writer

Washington D.C. (AHN) - Putting more teeth to its gun control law, the United States Congress has approved a bill that would exact tighter background checks on those who would like to acquire guns.

The measure is the first major gun control law since 1994, BBC News reported.

The bill will result in "more harm than good," the BBS quoted critics.

The measure was in reaction to a bloody incident in April, when 32 people died at Virginia Tech University after a shooting spree by a mentally ill student who fired two weapons he was able to buy. The gunman also killed himself.

Sen Patrick Leahy, a co-sponsor of the measure, said "A credible...federal database to provide accurate background checks benefits everyone," reported BBC News.

The present law which took effect in 1968 disqualifies from gun purchases drug addicts, persons convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year imprisonment, and those judicially declared to be mentally disabled.

Such disqualifications, however, do not reach the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) because of privacy laws and budget restraints.

The NICS determines whether a potential buyer may be allowed under the law to buy a gun.

Among other improvements in the gun control system, the new law would allow more funds for the improvement of NICS, as well as lays down which mental health information should be relayed. It also allows a $375 million (?187m) budget a year for five years for states and state courts to further develop the processing of information about mental health information, BBC News reported.

Loosening Gun Laws in Parks

Senators and public officials are trying to get the gun laws that restrict legal gun owners from carrying their firearms onto national parks. The main objection is for hunters just passing through, but they are also trying to support gun owners individual right to bear arms. The article is worth a read, and the issue is worth watching.

Baucus, Tester press for loosening gun laws in parks, refuges
By NOELLE STRAUB of the Missoulian D.C. Bureau

WASHINGTON - Montana Democratic Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester are pushing to allow gun owners to carry their firearms into all national parks and wildlife refuges.

The pair signed a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Friday asking him to lift restrictions that prevent citizens from carrying their readily accessible firearms onto lands managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Forty-seven senators signed the letter, including the Montana, Idaho and Wyoming delegations.

The letter noted that Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service rules apply even to citizens with valid concealed weapons permits. “These regulations infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners who wish to transport and carry firearms on or across these lands,” the senators wrote.

Opponents of the change argue that it would lead to more poaching and accidental shootings in the parks.

The letter noted that the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service allow transporting and carrying of firearms on their lands in accordance with the laws of the host state. It added that a similar exception for parks and refuges “would respect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners, while providing a consistent application of state weapon laws across all land ownership boundaries.”

“These inconsistencies in firearms regulations for public lands are confusing, burdensome, and unnecessary,” the letter said.

Baucus spokesman Barrett Kaiser said there's “no reason that law-abiding citizens shouldn't be allowed to carry a firearm on our public lands.”

“Max thinks it's a matter of Second Amendment rights, and it's also the right thing to do for people who simply want to cross through our parks to access prime hunting areas,” he said.

Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy said the effort is about public access as much as about gun rights.

“If you live in Cooke City and you go hunting near Bozeman, there's a pretty good chance you're going to transport a gun through a national park,” he said. “Jon believes law-abiding Montanans have a constitutional right to haul firearms through parks without having to break them down.”

Interior spokesman Chris Paolino said the letter had been received.

“We are reviewing it and we'll take the senators' views into consideration,” Paolino said.

Current regulations state that weapons must be rendered inaccessible, said Jerry Case, chief for regulations and special park uses for the National Park Service. That means they do not have to be disassembled, but instead simply must be put somewhere not readily accessible, such as in a car trunk.

“They don't have to be broken down,” he said. “Preferably they're in your trunk and unloaded. Our regulations do allow people to transport weapons through a park as long as it's not accessible.”

Case said the Interior Department regulations were first promulgated in the 1980s and were primarily meant to ensure public safety and to provide maximum protection for wildlife.

“One of our major concerns is that folks who have ready access to them infrequently - more than we like to see, though - use them on park wildlife,” he said.

He also noted that some parks have many people in campsites, and “if you have people start plinking around with weapons, then you have accidents,” he said.

National parks have the lowest crime rate when compared to similarly sized communities outside parks, he added.

Laura Loomis, senior director of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association, said that group supports the current regulations.

“There's no reason to need a gun in a national park and it would possibly lead to unfortunate accidents and other problems, so we'd rather not see them in the parks,” she said.

New Site Attracting New Users

Hey everyone,

Since GunsAmerica 3.0 launched last week, we have been attracting all new users, and getting back some users who have switched.

The new features like easier search capabilities, and being able to login once and few pictures without logging in again are clear favorites. But people are alos enjoying the easier layout, 'New Today' function and the beefed up Non Gun listings.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Also, show your continued support of the Second Amendment by taking the image below and spreading it in forums, chats, posts, blogs, or just in your office.

Happy Hunting,

-GunsAmerica.com

The Truth About Semi-Auto Firearms

Another older video, first uploaded to YouTube in January 2007, but worth reposting. In this video, Officer Leroy explains the different types of firearms, demonstrates use of them (with all appropriate precautions), and explains (using clips) some of the misunderstandings about firearms.

If you have not seen this video, please take a close look. If you have seen the video, then it is worth viewing again and sharing.

GunsAmerica 3.0

Hello Everyone,

GunsAmerica 3.0 has launched today! The new system comes with a lot of new upgrades and video tutorials detailing how the new system works.

Overall you will find GunsAmerica much easier to use, and there will be lots more to do as we unroll the new features.

Thanks as always for your patronage of GunsAmerica. We genuinely value your business and you should be very pleased with GunsAmerica 3.0

Visit us at http://www.gunsamerica.com and check us out.

-GA Management

Four Rules for Safe Gun Handling

There are 4 rules for safely and properly handling a firearm. These rules are believed to have originated with Jeff Cooper, a well known gun enthusiast.

1. Treat all guns as if they are loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle of a gun point at anything you do not want to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to fire.
4. Be absolutely sure of your target and what is around and beyond your target.

If you are already a gun owner and do not know these, or are interested in owning a gun in the future. Study them. These unofficial laws will save your life and the lives of others. Gun owners will refer to them often, and rely on them always.

Happy Hunting,

-GunsAmerica.com

Two new images today. Both images are for the 2nd Amendment, but target toward two different set of preferences.

American Gun Culture

Great article the addresses gun myths and the strict gun control laws in Europe. It is a long article, but if you are a supporter of the 2nd Amendment, then it is worth the read!

The original article was published on Spiked-Online.com

Kevin Yuill argues that the connection between gun ownership and homicide is a myth - but gun control is a serious restriction on our freedom.

European Union legislators recently took another step towards transforming the entire continent into a low-security prison when they voted overwhelmingly for tough new gun-control legislation. Each member state will be obliged to set up registers that contain the model, calibre, serial number and the names and addresses of both sellers and buyers of guns. Added to the estimated 10.7m CCTV cameras tracking the movements of Europeans (the UK proudly leads the field in semi-official voyeurs – 4.2m cameras and counting!), the EU will no doubt soon confiscate anything with which Europeans might possibly harm themselves or others.

Gisela Kallenbach, the German MEP who helped draft the legislation, justified the new rules with the sort of logic typical of the European Greens: ‘All European cows are registered Europe-wide, so why not guns, if it can save lives?’ Why registering guns or cows would save lives is never answered.

This is because the real target of the European anti-gun crusaders is the American ‘gun culture’, usually coupled with a sneering and crude anti-Americanism. Prime Minister Gordon Brown jumped on the bandwagon earlier this year: ‘Guns in America are accepted but we don’t want that for Britain.’ Kallenbach noted sniffily: ‘We in Europe have a different culture than in the United States and we do not consider the freedom to buy weapons a human right.’

The term ‘gun culture’ first emerged in an article by historian Richard Hofstadter in 1970 bemoaning what he saw as America’s love of the gun (1). It has since come to be embraced by both sides; gun-control enthusiasts attack the ‘gun culture’ just as those defending constitutional rights celebrate it. The difficulty with the term is that it fetishises the gun. The notion of ‘gun culture’ bestows magical powers on guns to either transform people into killers or to pacify an entire nation. In truth, there is a great deal of mythology on both sides of the debate. Ordinary Europeans kept firearms just as Americans did and the American West was tamed more by prosperity than by gunslingers.

It is worth removing the mystique from guns in order to stop the irrational and emotive discussion about them. How dangerous are they? It may sound shocking to note that in 2004 there were 11,624 gun-related homicides in the United States. However, the overall US homicide rate (0.043 deaths per 1000 people per year) is lower than many other countries, including EU members Poland (0.056) and Bulgaria (0.045). And if we compare other statistics in this large country, a clearer picture emerges. There were twice as many unintentional poisonings in 2004 as gun homicides and there were more deaths by falling, too. Why not launch a campaign against oysters or ladders? Statistically, adding a swimming pool to your house is far more dangerous than keeping a gun there. The chances of children being shot at school are less than being struck by lightning at school. As Gary Kleck has pointed out, instead of metal detectors in schools, it would make more sense to equip children with lightning rods (2).

Nor do guns turn people into killers with their magic powers. A survey of state prisoners shows that approximately 50 percent of ‘intimate’ crimes are committed under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol. Half of those had been drinking for at least six hours. In a study of the victims of near-fatal domestic shootings and stabbings, 78 per cent of the victims volunteered a history of hard-drug use, and 16 per cent admitted using heroin the day of the incident. These were not ordinary people arguing about what television programme to watch (3).

Significantly, fewer than one gun owner in 3,000 commits homicide; and that one killer is far from a typical gun owner. Studies have found two-thirds to four-fifths of homicide offenders have prior arrest records, frequently for violent felonies. A study by the pro-control Police Foundation of domestic homicides in Kansas City in 1977 revealed that in 85 per cent of homicides among family members, the police had been called in before to break up violence. In half the cases, the police had been called in five or more times. State prisoners serving time for ‘intimate’ violence, two-thirds had a prior conviction history. Forty per cent of convicted violent offenders had a ‘criminal justice status’ while committing the crime (eg, on bail or parole).

Besides the myth that guns turn ordinary people into homicidal maniacs, there is the myth that making firearms available to more people raises the homicide rate. By using historical and international comparisons, this myth is easily dispatched. In the first 30 years of the twentieth century, US per capita handgun ownership remained stable, but the homicide rate rose tenfold. Subsequently, between 1937 and 1963, handgun ownership rose by 250 per cent, but the homicide rate fell by 35.7 per cent. Canada and Norway, both with a high percentage of gun ownership, have a lower homicide rate per 100,000 than does the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom had far lower homicide rates in Victorian times – when any man, woman, or child could walk into a shop and buy a gun legally – than in the period since 1920, when it was no longer deemed a right to own a firearm (4).

Another oft-repeated myth is that the sole purpose of a gun is to kill people. This is simply not true. There are between 100 million and 140 million guns in the United States, a third of them handguns. The ratio of people who commit handgun crimes each year to handguns is 1:400 (keep in mind that a handgun crime can involve accidentally walking into an airport with a gun); the ratio of handgun homicides to handguns is 1:3,600. Turning the statistics around, in the United States, well over 99 per cent of guns have never been used in any crime (5).

Also, if the sole purpose of a handgun is to kill people, why don’t gun-control enthusiasts target the guns of the police in order to prevent gun deaths? Are they really used simply to kill people or, as a last resort, to keep order? This discussion, in truth, is not about guns at all but about whose hand is on the trigger.

Rather than ‘gun culture’, we should speak about gun-control culture, a far more insidious and threatening disease, especially as there are signs of it breaking out even in the last bastion of democratic rights, the United States. First, it is historically more accurate. Much as there were frequent attempts to take weapons away, the right of individuals to bear arms was not seriously breached in Britain until 1920, when the threat of Bolshevism alarmed the elite and made owning a gun a privilege rather than a right. In the United States, the right to own firearms was hard fought by African-Americans, who had been denied them. Within living memory, they have been used against tyranny. The Deacons for Defense and Justice, a civil rights group, desegregated schools and prevented Ku Klux Klan cross-burnings more effectively than pacifistic strategies in various communities in Louisiana in the mid-1960s (6).

Historically, gun controls have been aimed at any group considered a threat to elite rule. The 1968 Gun Control Act was very much helped in its passage by fears of the Black Panther Party, the members of which exercised their constitutional right to form a militia. If there is any symbolic meaning to guns, it is as a symbol of power because an armed citizenry has a strong association with democracy, freedom, and equality. It is the literal meaning of ‘empowerment’, that term so meaninglessly repeated in a thousand European quangos. It is the medium through which the powerless become the equal to the powerful throughout history. As the American proverb went: ‘God made men. Sam Colt made them equal.’

Gun-control culture wants to disempower ordinary people, trusting in the authorities rather than in people themselves. This fits in with the European Union’s contempt for democracy and disdain for its own citizens. Gun-control culture, with its fear and loathing for the ordinary citizen, has more in common with those shooters in Finland, Germany and America than with ordinary gun owners. An apposite metaphor for gun controls – I say this advisedly because of the risk of launching a thousand sociology papers and suggesting policy for the European Greens – is castration because some people have the ‘wrong sort’ of children.

The most disturbing trend of gun-control culture is that people step into this low-security prison voluntarily. They do not even trust themselves with freedom anymore. They have given up any responsibility for the world and for politics, they embrace and even celebrate powerlessness. They leave their freedom at the door in order to have some security, a growing crowd of pathetic, trembling, obsequious eunuchs too feeble for liberty. As John Stuart Mill noted: ‘A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.’

For the sake of the world, Americans must resist this gun-control culture eating away at rights, liberties and at the very concept of an active, self-creating subject. Hopefully it will encourage Europeans to once again aspire to something better.

Kevin Yuill is lecturer in American studies at the University of Sunderland. He is the author of Richard Nixon and the Rise of Affirmative Action, published by Rowman & Littlefield. Buy this book from Amazon(UK) or Amazon(USA).

Responses, keeping

Here is a well thought out response to a one sided opinion. The original story is linked at the bottom, this article came from courant.com.

Frank Harris III [Other Opinion, Nov. 30, "Do Guns Belong On Holiday List?"] suggested that firearms are not an appropriate Christmas present, especially for young people. It is clear to me that Mr. Harris was not raised in an environment where the shooting sports were part of his life, as is indicated by his somewhat glib approach to this very serious subject.

When you grow up around guns and the shooting sports, you learn at a very early age the importance of gun safety and of the tremendous responsibility associated with handling and shooting a firearm. When you are young, the guns belong to Mom or Dad, but there comes a point when you have demonstrated the maturity and discipline to have your own gun. The implicit statement from your parents that you can be trusted with this immense responsibility is, I think, a significant reason why these kids are not the ones we read about in the police blotter.

I suggest that Mr. Harris visit Wallingford some Saturday morning and observe the young men and women of the Blue Trail Range Junior Rifle Club as they practice. Club members can be as young as 9, and they exhibit a decorum and maturity that are beyond their years by today's standards — but necessary and appropriate for the sport they have chosen.

The discipline required for the shooting sports is carried into the everyday lives of these young men and women and will serve them well in the future. Many of these kids may well get a new target rifle for Christmas, and I would suggest that it will be a far more appropriate gift that the latest version of the video game Halo.

William J. Stanley Jr.

Cheshire Frank Harris III did a great, politically correct job of getting attention for himself. However, what is the real issue here?

We sell and advertise firearms to responsible adults, just like the liquor, tobacco, gaming and any other "politically incorrect" industries do with their products. So I would ask Mr. Harris: Should we then ban the advertising of CDs, DVDs, video games, action figures, posters, board games, etc. that contain sexual and violent content and inappropriate language, and are specifically aimed at our youths?

If we did that, then the only thing left under the tree would be candy. No, I forgot; sugar promotes hyperactivity and tooth decay.

The real issue is accountability. Parents need to take the responsibility for allowing or not allowing their children access to games and music that perpetuate disrespect and lack of values.

Not all advertising is aimed at children, nor should it be.

Paul Lachine's illustration that ran with Mr. Harris' column suggests guns are playground equipment. I find that offensive and misleading. Now who's giving children the wrong idea?

Mr. Harris took a lot of time to articulate his point.

Too bad he missed the target.

Scott Hoffman

Hoffman's Gun Center Newington

The original story can be read here.

Exercise Your Guns!

Want to keep yourself healthy and alive?

Who doesn't. Keep in goof health... Exercise Your Guns!!!.