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After 2 restaurant murders of disarmed victims in a single weekend, a permit-holder shoots perp.

Grass Roots North Carolina for Firearms Education

North Carolina --(Ammoland.com)- Could Senate Republicans have prevented the murder of Danielle Watson?

Danielle was a manager at the Flying Biscuit Café. Last weekend, while closing the restaurant, she was murdered by an ex-con recently released after doing time for armed robbery.

In a classic application of “Dial 911 & Die!” Charlotte police botched their response to her fiancés 911 call, and never even discovered her body, stabbed and left behind a dumpster, until the next day. It was the second Charlotte restaurant murder in a single weekend, highlighting the need to pass House Bill 111, “Handgun Permit Valid in Parks & Restaurants.”

Right now, concealed handgun permit-holders are prohibited from protecting their families anywhere alcohol is “sold and consumed,” which includes many restaurants. This includes not only restaurant patrons, but also restaurant workers, since the only people exempt from the ban are restaurant “owners and lessees.” For full details, see GRNC president Paul Valone’s article at: http://exm.nr/StopRestaurantHomicide

How it should end
Now contrast this with another restaurant crime, only one week later. Just across the South Carolina border, in Spartanburg, Dante Lamont Williams and another man entered the Waffle House on Chesnee Highway, both armed with handguns. But when they held customers at gunpoint, a patron who was a concealed handgun permit holder shot Williams, killing him. The other robber fled, and innocent lives were saved.

Republicans do nothing
Despite passing in the House, however, the bill is languishing in the Senate Judiciary I Committee, where Republican Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (Guilford, Rockingham) has so far refused the bill a hearing on the premise that the topic doesn’t “poll well.” Meanwhile, as Republicans dither and fret about polls, restaurant workers are dying.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED:
Immediately email AND call

Republican leadership:

• Sen. Phil Berger, Senate President Pro Tem, at Phil.Berger@ncleg.net and (919) 733-5708
• Sen. Tom Apodaca, Senate Rules Chairman, at Tom.Apodaca@ncleg.net, and (919) 733-5745
• Sen. Buck Newton, Senate Judiciary Chairman, at Buck.Newton@ncleg.net, and (919) 715-3030

Deliver This Message

(use subject line: STOP RESTAURANT HOMICIDE)

Dear Senator:

While House Bill 111, “Handgun Permit Valid in Parks & Restaurants,” languishes in the Senate Judiciary I Committee, restaurant workers are dying. In a single weekend, recently, Charlotte experienced two such murders, including that of 25-year-old Danielle Watson, a manager who was closing the Flying Biscuit Café when she was murdered by Mark Cox, an ex-con just released after doing time for armed robbery.

Police botched the 911 response, only finding her body behind a dumpster the next day, but it is your chamber that is preventing restaurant workers like Danielle from defending themselves: The Flying Biscuit has an on-premise alcohol consumption permit, where everyone but the “owner or lessee” is prohibited from protecting themselves with firearms.

Now contrast this with another restaurant crime, only one week later. Just across the South Carolina border, in Spartanburg, Dante Lamont Williams and another man entered the Waffle House on Chesnee Highway. Both men were armed with handguns. But when they held customers at gunpoint, a patron who was a concealed handgun permit holder shot Williams, killing him. The other robber fled, and innocent lives were saved.

Despite what newspaper editorials claim, nobody is advocating “drunks with guns.” As you well know, under HB 111, concealed handgun permit-holders will still be prohibited from imbibing alcohol.

Stop being a slave to polls, and start leading. Pass HB 111 to STOP RESTAURANT HOMICIDE. I will be monitoring your actions via Grass Roots North Carolina legislative alerts.

Respectfully,

About:
Grass Roots North Carolina/Forum for Firearms Education is a non-profit, all volunteer organization devoted to educating the public about trends which abridge the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and engaging in grass roots activism to preserve those freedoms. Formed in 1994 to conduct a highly successful rally for the Second Amendment, GRNC has gone on to conduct projects like “Remember in November: A Gun Owner’s Guide to Voting,” bringing concealed carry to North Carolina. Visit:www.grnc.org

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National Rifle Association

FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- NRA will appeal yesterday’s decision by a federal court in Texas, which held that the Second Amendment doesn’t protect any right to keep or bear arms outside the home.

The decision, handed down by U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings of the Northern District of Texas, came in the case of Jennings v. McCraw, in which a group of law-abiding 18- to 20-year old adults challenged the state law prohibiting issuance of concealed handgun licenses to persons under 21, who are treated as adults for virtually every other purpose under the law.

(NRA is also a party on behalf of its members in this age group.) Judge Cummings ruled that it was unnecessary to address the state’s discrimination against young adults because “the right to carry a handgun outside of the home … seems to be beyond the scope of the core Second Amendment concern articulated in Heller [v. District of Columbia].”

Unfortunately, this is only the most recent of several court decisions that have misread Heller in that way. Heller, of course, only directly addressed gun possession in the home, for a very simple reason: The plaintiffs in that case only challenged Washington, D.C.’s limits on possession in the home, rather than its restrictions on carrying firearms outside the home.

More importantly, the Supreme Court in Heller never said the Second Amendment doesn’t apply outside the home. Rather, it said that the home is the place “where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute”—implying that there are other places where the need may be less acute, but still exists.

Likewise, the Court suggested that it would uphold bans on carrying guns in “sensitive places”—which implies that carrying in places that are not “sensitive” would be protected under the Second Amendment.

The NRA will appeal the Jennings decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and to the Supreme Court if necessary. Although the Supreme Court recently declined to hear two cases addressing the right to bear arms outside the home, several others are working their way through the courts. These include the NRA-supported cases of Peruta v. County of San Diego, which challenges discriminatory permit issuance under California law and Shepard v. Madigan, challenging Illinois’ complete denial of any lawful way to carry firearms for self-defense outside one’s home or place of business. Peruta is pending in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and Shepard is awaiting action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

For the latest news on these and other NRA-supported cases and to subscribe to our online Legal Update newsletter, go to www.nraila.org/legalupdate.

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

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