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Saturday 11/21/09 El Universal (Mexico City) 11/20/09 Tentacles of La Familia Michoacána in US Fifteen members of one of the most powerful Mexican drug cartels, La Familia Michoacána , were arrested today in the Chicago area, accused of distribution of thousands of kilos of cocaine. The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) also reported the seizure of 250 kilos of cocaine and eight million dollars in cash as a result of an investigation of the cartel that began in 2007. Those arrested included Mexican citizens operating under directions from cartel leaders in Mexico. ——————– Guilty plea in Border Patrol Agent’s murder...

Racial attacks like the ones behind the arrest of 32 suspects in Denver are part of a trend spreading across the country, gang experts said Saturday. As part of the trend, black gang members videotape the assaults in trendy tourist districts and sell them on the underground market as entertainment. "They knock a young white guy out with one blow to see if his knees will wobble and surround them and take their money," said the Rev. Leon Kelly, who runs a Denver gang-prevention program. "It's a joke." The gang members crave the notoriety of having their one-punch knockouts recorded...

Tennessee's new law allowing people with handgun permits to be armed in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol is unconstitutionally vague, a judge ruled on Friday. Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman said the law, enacted earlier this year over the veto of Gov. Phil Bredesen, is "fraught with ambiguity." She ruled after an hour of arguments in a lawsuit brought by a group of plaintiffs, many of them restaurant owners. More than 257,000 people have handgun carry permits in Tennessee. Tennessee previously banned handguns in all locations where alcohol was served. The new law made an exception for establishments that serve at...

If you've ever been a victim and had your security stolen then you understand how it leaves many people, especially women, wondering how to fight back. One popular option is pepper spray, but these days more Valley women are packing something much stronger. "I knew right then and there I was robbed," recalls Patricia Fallon. "You feel like you're violated, feel like you've been assaulted." Fallon's sense of security was shattered in September of 2007 when someone broke in and ransacked her home. "You live in fear after that because you're afraid they're gonna come back," Fallon began putting safety...

<p>The former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection called Monday for the U.S. to reinstitute the ban on assault weapons and take other measures to rein in the war between Mexico and its drug cartels, saying the violence has the potential to bring down legitimate rule in that country.</p>

Battling with one of the world's highest murder rates, Venezuela on Wednesday crushed more than 30,000 guns seized from the streets during police raids this year. Policemen used blow-torches to chop up some of shotguns and pistols. They compacted weapons including home-made pistols into a 5 ton block... "This act forms part of the disarmament policies that we have been promoting." With 13,000 murders in 2007... Venezuela's murder rate is about 8 times that of the United States. Crime has risen under President Hugo Chavez...

Group also wants overhaul of Mexican border agencies A binational task force on U.S.-Mexico border issues will call Friday on the Obama administration and Congress to reinstate an expired ban on assault weapons and for Mexico to overhaul its frontier police and customs agencies to mirror the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The recommendations are among a broad set of security, trade, development and environmental proposals that come as President Obama and his Mexicans counterpart, Felipe Calderón, move to deepen engagement on issues including economic recovery, climate change, illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking. Robert C. Bonner, the U.S. co-chairman of...

In states around the country, there’s a growing movement to address and resist two of the most abused parts of the Constitution – the Commerce Clause and the 2nd Amendment. Already being considered in a number of state legislatures, and passed as law in Montana and Tennessee this year, the Firearms Freedom Act (FFA) is a state law that seeks to do just that. The latest to join the FFA movement? Kentucky. Pre-filed for the 2010 legislative session, HB87 seeks to “Create new sections of KRS Chapter 237, relating to firearms, firearm accessories and ammunition that are made in Kentucky,...

Just like an unprincipled, self-interested, tin-eared politician, Mayor Richard Daley decided to use the massacre at Fort Hood to flog his prosaic anti-gun message in Chicago. When asked if Islam had anything at all to do with the Fort Hood massacre and if Muslims might expect some sort of backlash or anti-Islamic movement because of Nidal Hasan's evil act of terror, Daley replied: "Every day in society people are getting killed, unfortunately. America loves guns, we love guns to a point that we see the devastation on a daily basis. You don't blame a group, you don't blame a society......

Virginia --(AmmoLand.com)-We all have various milestones in our lives. I have had a number of them since May 2001 when I came to this country on the employment visa. November 18, 2009 will be another milestone in my life – I am required to take a two hour civics test and English language knowledge test as part of my naturalization process. I got a notice from USCIS in August 2009 that I am now eligible to apply for a U.S. citizenship. I jumped for joy, to say the least. The next thing I did was to ask my lawyer which...

There are few things that keep me up at night, but this is one of them. It may be cynicism, but more likely it’s the long sad experience of watching the courts over the years. So when your side finally wins one that should have you celebrating, and yet you walk away with a knot in your gut, it’s probably warranted. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman’s majority opinion in Parker v. District of Columbia was a thing of beauty, affirming armed self-defense as an individual right pre-existing the Constitution. It was almost hard to believe. Maybe that's what’s bugging me....

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. --...

Switzerland did not fall to Hitler or any external invader for the last 500 years. But the latest assault is the most insidious: the attack of nitwittery from Bolshevik Apparatcheks.

After a big flop with Chrysler, Cerberus finally has a winner on its hands. Even better, right-wing gun nuts have another shot at profits. I can’t wait. Baltimore – I live in a neighborhood where guns are common. I like it that way. Last night, the lady of the house and I decided to enjoy what may be one of the last warm evenings of the year on the East Coast by taking a short hike along the river that flows just two miles from our front door. While meandering along the water and dodging groundhog holes, we heard the...

In the brief age of Obama, we have had "truthers," "birthers," tea party activists and town-hall dissenters. Comes now, the "Oath Keepers." And who might they be? Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are "either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia." Formed in March, they are ex-military and police who repledge themselves to defend the Constitution, even if it means disobeying orders. If the U.S. government ordered law enforcement agencies to violate Second Amendment rights by disarming the people, Oath Keepers will not obey. "The whole point of...

Meet Stewart Rhodes. He graduated in 2004 from Yale Law School, where his paper, “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status,” won a prize for the best paper on the Bill of Rights. Before entering the law, he served as a U.S. Army paratrooper. What’s Rhodes up to now? Many military men turned lawyers troop off to large law firms, where the discipline and diligence cultivated in the armed forces help them succeed. Others join the JAG Corps or work for defense contractors. But Rhodes, who was a non-traditional student at YLS, has taken a non-traditional career path since graduating....

As the U.S. Supreme Court makes its stately way into the new term, a case over the horizon promises to hit the 20,000 gun control laws in this country with the impact of a 9mm round. The prep work came last year in District of Columbia vs. Heller. A narrow 5-4 majority struck down the gun control law in the nation's capital, and for the moment settled an argument over just what the Second Amendment to the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, actually means. The Second Amendment reads, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of...

This may be old to most of you, but I just happened on it today. Your 1911 at play Great animation of how 1911-style pistols function. Play around with the check boxes below the pistol and watch the internal workings of a 1911 as it cycles through. Interesting stuff. For me, anyway.

The Illinois Supreme Court has affirmed a decision by the Third District Appellate Court that ruled that the definition of a "case" for transporting a firearm does, indeed, include an automobile's enclosed front seat console. The current law provides for several ways that a firearm can be transported: (4) Carries or possesses in any vehicle or concealed on or about his person except when on his land or in his own abode or fixed place of business any pistol, revolver, stun gun or taser or other firearm, except that this subsection (a) (4) does not apply to or affect transportation...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, has joined the bipartisan Second Amendment Task Force (SATF). Members of this group act as a unified and proactive force to promote legislation that protects the Second Amendment and to fight legislation that poses a threat to citizens’ Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. "Now, more than ever before, it will be necessary to maintain a vigilant eye against real efforts to disarm the American people," said Rehberg, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. "Montanans sent me to Washington, D.C. to represent them. And as their...

As we reported in last week's Grassroots Alert, the U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear the landmark Second Amendment case of McDonald v. Chicago. The case will address the application of the Second Amendment to the states through either the Due Process clause or the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has major implications for the legality of restrictive gun laws not only in Chicago, but also in other cities and the states across the nation. The decision to hear the case gives hope to Second Amendment advocates across America, that this fundamental freedom will be...

Whatever significance is attached to Chicago’s failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics, it is of small importance to the rest of the country. More far-reaching and frightening is the Supreme Court’s decision to take up a case challenging the city’s ban on handgun ownership in the court’s new term, which begins this week. The case is best considered a preview of coming attractions. The gun lobby, if it wins in the Supreme Court, is prepared to challenge every gun control law enacted at any level of government. It will usher in a scary season of assault on the common...

An 18-year-old man suffered life-threatening injuries Tuesday when he tried to rob another man at a midtown carwash and was shot by the victim, Tucson police said. The incident occurred at a self-service carwash on East 22nd Street near South Beverly Avenue just before 4:30 p.m., said Sgt. Diana Lopez, a police spokeswoman. A 50-year-old man was washing his car when he was approached by the 18-year-old man, Lopez said. The younger man pulled out a gun and attempted to rob the older man, she said. The older man pulled out his own gun and shot the 18-year-old. The younger...

Highlights of some high-profile cases that the Supreme Court will take up in its term that begins Monday (10/5/09): _Guns: The Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms has never been held to apply to state and local laws restricting guns. The court is taking up a challenge to a handgun ban in Chicago to decide whether this right, like many others in the Bill of Rights, acts to restrict state and local laws or only federal statutes. If the court sides with gun rights supporters, lawsuits to overturn all manner of gun control laws are likely. _Animal cruelty...

Focusing on guns, politics, and news of interest, here is today's Second Amendment News Roundup...

From Ex-Soldier commenting on Claude Cartaginese's One Scared Elderly Man is About to Make the Country Safer: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state; the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Speaking as a veteran (20 years) social studies teacher in a public high school and as a former social studies Teacher of the Year (for my school), AND as a former US Army Officer, let me address this one: “Well REGULATED MILITIA” A lot of folks seem to think this is referring to some sort of...

From marineseabee on Claude Cartaginese's post from yesterday: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” To me, this means that ANY law telling us what firearm we can and cannot buy, own, use for self defense, use for hunting, and use in target practice, is one law too many. Having said that, if a law abiding citizen can buy a semi automatic rifle, he/she should be able to buy, own, and shoot a fully automatic weapon. I realize that cetain people in the country (convicted felons and the mentally unstable) should not be...

Does the Second Amendment give one the right to keep and bear arms (even allowing one to invoke that right against the government itself), or is it a freedom only as it concerns the federal government? As Amy Goodman reported on her Democracy Now! program, that question will now be taken up by the United States Supreme Court, and the Court’s decision could have nationwide ramifications. Said Goodman yesterday: The Supreme Court has decided to rule on whether state and local handgun laws violate the Second Amendment right to gun ownership, which it recognized last year, when the Court struck...

Gun Control: The Supreme Court agrees to decide if the Second Amendment applies to all of us, or just Washington, D.C. Why would the Founders put in the Bill of Rights something applying only to a federal enclave? In a 5-4 decision last year written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court overturned a draconian District of Columbia gun ban enacted 32 years ago that barred private ownership of handguns at all. Scalia wrote that an individual's right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted. The court ruled that...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Constitution puts limits on state gun regulations, the second phase of the justices' re-examination of weapons rights in the 21st century. Last year, the court ruled that the Second Amendment includes an individual right to self-defense, and struck down a Washington, D.C., ordinance that effectively banned possession of handguns within the capital city.

Fairfax, Va. -- The National Rifle Association applauds the Supreme Court's decision, announced today, to hear the landmark Second Amendment case of McDonald v. Chicago. The case will address the application of the Second Amendment to the states through either the Due Process clause or the Privileges or Immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case has major implications for the legality of restrictive gun laws not only in Chicago, but also in other cities across the United States. The decision to hear the case, which will be argued later this year or early next year, gives Second Amendment advocates...

Following the Heller decision, folks in municipalities all over the country began to challenge local restrictions on gun rights. One of the most prominent bans in the country is right here in Chicago. That is about to get a full hearing in front of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether strict local and state gun control laws violate the Second Amendment, ensuring another high-profile battle over the rights of gun owners. The court said it will review a lower court ruling that upheld a handgun ban in Chicago. Gun rights supporters challenged gun laws in...

Breaking on WLS Talk Radio. SCOTUS has agreed to hear the NRA case against the Chicago handgun ban.

This week on Uncommon Knowledge, the man who saved the Second Amendment. In 2007, Judge Laurence Silberman, senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, wrote a decision overturning the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. The following year, the Supreme Court agreed with him.

I have no idea if I am doing this correctly but I got this and thought it was important. Now all Guns' must be listed on your next (2010) tax return! As if we didn't have enough to get upset about! If you have a gun, I hope it isn't registered! Senate Bill SB-2099 will require us to put on our 2009 1040 federal tax form all guns that you have or own. It will require fingerprints and a tax of $50 per gun. This bill was introduced on Feb.. 24, 2009, by the Obama staff. BUT . ...this bill...

Video Presentation Use the comment section on each of the videos if you have an opinion. THE SECOND - The Legislation. Under STORIES. Propaganda piece for the Brady bunch and CCAGV. Note reference to upcoming legislation. On the DATA page you may have to Right Click to open.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday will confront America's next big gun rights question: Whether or not the Second Amendment prevents state governments from enacting anti-gun laws. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in a case that's likely to decide whether the Bill of Rights' guarantee of a right to "keep and bear arms" restricts only the federal government and the District of Columbia -- the current state of affairs -- or whether it can be invoked to strike down intrusive state and local laws too. In an earlier ruling in April,...

Link only, cannot be posted due to copyright issues: http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m8d16-ACORN-conspiracy-against-gun-owners-discovered

That’s right. In one month alone Americans made themselves and this nation safer (from enemies foreign and domestic) by choosing to exercise one our most precious rights–the right to own a firearm. I think Thomas Jefferson would be especially pleased with this news when we consider a letter he sent to one of his nephews: “A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the Body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind . . . Let your gun therefore be the constant...

Here is a fascinating video report from tonight's Lou Dobbs Show, where Bill Tucker examined the "Montana Firearms Freedom Act," which will take effect in October. The state law says any firearm made in Montana and owned in Montana, and made by a non-Federally-licensed gunmaker, is not subject to Federal regulation. The ATF is already saying they will not recognize the law, and a court challenge is inevitable. A writer of the law said the ATF reaction was anticipated, and he freely admits the law is intended as a "finger in the eye of the Federal Government." . . ....

Chapter titled "Guns, God and More" - pp. 219-222. Sunstein states his view that the 2nd Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Rachel Maddow, gun lover? Well, sort of - and with some strings attached, of course. The MSNBC host of the "The Rachel Maddow Show" appeared on Jimmy Fallon's Aug. 31 NBC show and told the host about her first date - at a shooting range. "My first date with my girlfriend Susan was at a shooting range," Maddow said. "That was awesome. It was ladies' day on the range. Her sister is a lifetime NRA member and she was organizing ladies' day on the range at her gun club. So we did it. We shot AR-15s and we threw tomahawks...

So is this guy a terrifying threat to democracy? Or just a civic-minded citizen? If you think that his position on healthcare changes the likelihood that he will discharge that weapon, is this a rational belief? I think carrying guns to protests is entirely counterproductive. Indeed, I'm not sold on the general virtues of protesting, which worked for Gandhi and the civil rights marcher, but has a dismal track record on other concerns. But I think people have a perfect right to do it, including with guns, though I also think the secret service is within its rights to ensure...

Fear stalks Merced, California – fear of the government. The mass media never told Americans what really happened in Merced. But the tale of the Merced Pitchfork Murders will not die. Through talk radio; through the Internet; by word of mouth, the story gathers momentum with each passing year. Like the tale of the Boston Massacre in 1770, passed from patriot to patriot over tankards of ale, the Merced Pitchfork Murders live and burn in the hearts of millions of Americans.

The N.C. Supreme Court says a 2004 law that bars convicted felons from having a gun, even in their own home or business, is unconstitutional. The state's high court ruled Friday in the case of Barney Britt of Wake County that the General Assembly went too far five years ago when it toughened restrictions on felons owning guns as part of a broad anti-domestic-violence bill. Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson said in a dissenting opinion that the decision could encourage challenges against state bans on felons and the insane owning guns. Britt was convicted of felony drug possession in 1979. He completed...

MSNBC, the network of Carlos Watson who declared “socialism is becoming the new N-Word,” went to new race-baiting lengths to make opposition to Barack Obama something only angry white people do. Correspondette Contessa Brewer made the nonstop MSNBC topic of armed people at political gatherings a racial issue in the crudest possible terms while talking with morning host Dylan Ratigan and “pop culture analyst” Toure. BREWER: “People are talking…there are questions about whether this has racial overtone, I mean , here you have a man of color in the Presidency and white people showing up with guns.” Of course, she...

"I will not personally travel in a state where civilians carry loaded weapons onto the sidewalks and as a means of political protest," travel guide legend Arthur Frommer told his loyal readers earlier this week. And that means, he wrote, that he won't be going to Arizona anytime soon and may suggest that others join him in an "open boycott." He added that: I would feel as I do regardless of the political identity of the speaker whom these thugs attempted to intimidate. The continued tolerance of extremists carrying guns is a frightening development which strikes at the heart of...

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire recently, a man carried a handgun a few blocks away from the site where President Obama was scheduled to hold a town hall a couple of hours later. Was it a danger or not? The man carrying the gun, William Kostric, even had permission to have the gun on private church property while he was protesting Obama's appearance. Everybody from the New York Times to USA Today to CBS News expressed their outrage, interpreting it as a hot head threatening the president and linking it to militias and conservative talk radio. A prominent liberal radio talk...

(AP) An appeals court in Chicago has ruled that the federal, state or local government can require all citizens to register their firearms under penalty of law. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said that, even after the Supreme Court's high-profile gun rights decision last year, the Second Amendment is no obstacle to mandatory gun registration. The case arose out of the Chicago-area town of Cicero's mandatory registration requirement for firearms. A local man named John Justice was raided by the Cicero police on suspicion of violating business ordinances including improper storage of chemicals; the...