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Gun Rights An Update From The Front Lines

National Association for Gun Rights

Colorado - -(AmmoLand.com)- While the prospects for Federal gun control continue to grow by the day, state groups across the country are making strides to protect and advance our right to keep and bear arms.

Wyoming
Wyoming Gun Owners (www.WyomingGunOwners.org) made a real splash during Wyoming’s short legislative session. WyGO pushed for two marquee pieces of legislation: a Vermont concealed carry bill (which WyGO dubbed “Constitutional Carry”) and their own version of the Firearms Freedom Act.

While the Vermont Carry bill (i.e. no permit needed) passed the House but not the Senate, the Wyoming Firearms Freedom Act was passed by both chambers and signed into law by the governor. NAGR Operations Director Luke O’Dell testified on behalf of both of WyGO’s bills at the state capital in Cheyenne.

Wyoming’s Firearms Freedom Act was slightly different from the legislation passed in Montana. Wyoming’s bill included criminal penalties and fines for federal agents who try to enforce federal regulations that contradict this new Wyoming law. This legislation has real teeth, and has already created quite a stir in Wyoming as well as Washington. Bravo, Wyoming Gun Owners.

South Dakota
South Dakota Gun Owners (www.SDGO.org) continues to dominate their legislature with a pro-freedom agenda, passing a South Dakota Firearms Freedom Act through both chambers of the legislature, and signed into law by Governor Mike Rounds.

Iowa
Still less than a year old, Iowa Gun Owners (www.IowaGunOwners.org) has been making waves across Iowa.

Though their Vermont Carry bill died, the compromise bill pushed by the institutional gun lobby (which took several steps backward for state law) also failed. Unfortunately, compromise forces just resurrected this backward legislation earlier this week (in a cynical attempt to kill any future attempts at Vermont Carry).

This is frustrating because Iowa is one of the few rural states in America with a “May Issue” concealed carry law. Look for Iowa Gun Owners to change that in 2011.

Virginia
The Virginia General Assembly has seen a slew of pro-gun legislation this sessions. Most notably, Virginia’s 15-year-old ban on concealed carry in restaurants and bars is on the verge of being overturned through the hard work of two groups, Virginia Gun Owners Coalition (www.VGCO.org) and Virginia Citizen’s Defense League (www.vcdl.org). Under the current “criminal safe zone” law, concealed weapon permit holders are forced to disarm themselves before entering a restaurant or bar.

Legislation repealing the ban passed both chambers of the Virginia State legislature and is awaiting the signature of Governor “Gun Ban Bob” McDonnell.

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No More Gun Rights and No More Gun Control
By TheEggman

Letters to the AmmoLand Editor: Got something on your mind? Let us know and you can see it here.

Virginia --(AmmoLand.com)- I am constantly reading on the Net and in the media about so-called “gun rights” and “gun control.”

Some examples;

“The final briefs seeking to shape the Supreme Court’s coming decision on the reach of the Second Amendment’s protection of gun rights suggested Friday that states might be free to violate other parts of the Bill of Rights…”

“The National Association for Gun Rights, often referred to as “NAGR”, was founded to assist the growing movement of pro-Second Amendment organizations, especially state-level gun rights groups.

“The National Rifle Association is the largest gun rights lobbying organization in the United States.”

On one hand, we preach that guns are mere machines, inanimate objects and tools. On the other, we appear to be attempting to give ‘rights’ to these inanimate machines.

I submit to you a request; that we remove the phrase “gun rights” from our vocabulary and replace it with the more human, and more accurate, “gun-owner rights.”

The First Amendment does not guarantee rights to printing presses as machines; it guarantees the rights of people to use printing presses, radios, televisions and the Internet without restriction.

The Second Amendment guarantees no rights to guns themselves, as they are mere machines. However, it does guarantee the right of the people to keep and bear them.

The psychology behind what may appear as a minor ‘grammatical nit’ should be clear.

It is relatively easy for most people to hate an object. You can make up lies about an object, demonize an object and attempt to regulate and control objects. You can do so without fear of insulting the object, hurting its feelings, being sued by the object or facing any repercussions, it’s just a defenseless, soulless object.

When we replace gun rights with gun-owner rights, however, the issue becomes personal. Where many people and politicians [as opposed to people] find it easy and guilt-free to demonize guns as objects, it is far more difficult to for them to demonize a large segment of the population, gun-owners, as people.

Laws can not control inanimate objects, only what law-abiding persons do with those objects. Therefore, it’s technically not gun control, or a war against guns, it’s gun owner control, and a war against gun owners.

So let us end this futile battle for so-called, non-existent gun rights and gun control, and renew the charge in support of the very real and very important rights of the people who own defensive and recreational firearms.

It may seem like a grammatical nit, but impressions are everything.

That’s my opinion, and you’re welcome to it!

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