[Joe Brower]

Looks like the St. Pete Times has given up writing it's own columns and has simply farmed out the work to the anti-freedom gun-grabber lobby. Let's see, let's check the buzzwords: "poster-boy", "extreme", "gun lobby", "outrageous", "far outside the American mainstream"... A-yep, looks like they have the whole VPC/Brady Bunch playbook memorized.

My favorite here is the line "Ashcroft has been only too willing to trample on the rights of many Americans to achieve his often narrow agenda.". Good God! Are these leftist shills masters of the art of projection or what!? These leftmedia creatures are completely without shame, or honor. But they certainly have an agenda...

[Joe Brower]

[2banana]

Attorney General John Ashcroft's views are so extreme on gun control laws

His views are a somwhat near the Founding Father's views. But the Founding Fathers had an extreme view of freedom of the press also - I think it is time we start restricting it - for the children

[Puppage]

But, it's for the children. (/sarsacm)

[RoughDobermann]

The NRA poster boy

Sorry, couldn't resist! :-)

[glock rocks]

[billhilly]

It would be interesting to see how this Florida newspaper editorialized about the former attorney general, Janet Reno, when she sent the tanks in to kill the children of the Branch Davidians in order to save them, or when she had Ilian Gonzales removed at gunpoint and returned to Cuba.

[epow]

Unless something has changed in the years since I left FL, the St Pete Times is right up there with the NYT and the Washington Post as one of the most ultra-liberal, anti-gun mullet wrappers in the USA. I remember the mid-1980's when it's editors were screaming that if the FL CCW law was passed there would be rivers of blood running in the gutters of every FL street. Every fender-bender would be an excuse for gun-slinging killers to pull out guns and start shooting kids and old ladies. Old Dodge City would be tame compared to any FL town if that horrible law passed.

After it passed and the FL murder rate went down by 27% in the next 5 years, somehow the editors never got around to admitting they were totally wrong and that they had deliberately lied about the bill.

[bruoz]

"Looks like the St. Pete Times has given up writing it's own columns and has simply farmed out the work to the anti-freedom gun-grabber lobby."

The St. Pete Pravda as it is known in these parts has a long tradition of being against private gun ownership. They do not allow ads for handguns or "weapons for war" in their classified section. No self respecting gun owner that I know subscribes to this socialist rag. At least the Tampa Tribune will allow you to advertise your AR15 for sale.

[Badray]

"In arguing a gun case in May before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ashcroft's Justice Department revealed that it would change decades of federal policy. . . "

Completely ignoring that before the 'decades' of the previous policy was 150 years of the correct understanding of "HANDS OFF MY GUNS".

[kali_player]

"30,000 Americans a year are killed by guns"

More people die from Medical Malpractice than guns, Hmmm

[TC Rider]

The law allows those records to be retained for 90 days, after which they must be destroyed. Ashcroft wants the records purged after a single day.

Yeah yeah, a day is not enough, but I doubt that 90 days will be enough either. Why not a year? Why not forever?

/sarcasm

Didn't some group manage to get a CD of gun buyers from Reno under a FIA request?

[TC Rider]

The NRA poster boy

Uh, does anybody know where I can get one of those posters?

[in the Arena]

Those 90 days are important to law enforcement officials, who often discover after the fact that a gun was illegally purchased. They can then use NICS records to find the buyer and retrieve the gun. In fact, of the 235 illegal gun sales in a recent six-month period, all but 7 took longer than a day to be noticed, according to a new study by the General Accounting Office.

What exactly is NInstantCS doing if it's not instantly detecting the eligibility of a prospective firearm purchaser ?

If NICS is allowing "illegal" firearms purchases what's the point ?

[bruoz]

The law allows those records to be retained for 90 days, after which they must be destroyed. Ashcroft wants the records purged after a single day.

Wrong. The law says if the buyer is not prohibited than the personal information on the buyer is to be destroyed imediately.

Those 90 days are important to law enforcement officials, who often discover after the fact that a gun was illegally purchased. They can then use NICS records to find the buyer and retrieve the gun. In fact, of the 235 illegal gun sales in a recent six-month period, all but 7 took longer than a day to be noticed, according to a new study by the General Accounting Office.

Wrong. The FBI has three working days to determine if the buyer is a prohibited person. If three working days pass and there has been no determination of the person's status then the firearm can be transfered. They keep checking. I do these checks all the time and have never transfered a firearm until the NICS system has approved the transfer no matter how long it takes. In any case, under the law, the FBI records the time, date and FFL number of the NICS request and keeps it forever and the buyer info is on the required Form 4473 "yellow form" which must be retained by the dealer for twenty years.