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Chuck is a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, including serving as the firearm instructor for his department in Horry County, S.C. He chartered the Local Coastal Carolina FOP lodge in 1984 and rose through the FOP ranks to become national president in 2003. Canterbury`s son is following in his footsteps by serving with the Horry County Police Department. They also share a passion for waterfowl hunting in the Myrtle Beach area, where they both live. I was pleased to catch up with Chuck when he visited Washington recently. Cox: "Chuck, it`s great to visit with you. The NRA has been...

Huh. Only five of the 29 Democratic Congresspeople who signed the March 26 letter to the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget list their official position. [Click here to read.] The legislators’ reticence to self-identify or publicize this move is understandable. Their missive is a brazen if backdoor attempt to have the Tiahrt Amendment removed from President Obama’s 2014 budget. That’s the Amendment that specifically prohibits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ National Tracing Center from releasing eTrace data to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a criminal investigation....

Persons within the Department of Justice whose identities are not yet publicly known apparently broke the law by leaking firearms trace data to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which she introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee record in the hearing on Department of Justice oversight earlier this month. “If I may,” Senator Feinstein requested at the beginning of her questioning of Attorney General Eric Holder (see webcast, at the 69:45 mark), I'd like to put in the record the official firearms trace data from the Department of Justice from 12/1/2006 to 2000...excuse me, 9/30/2011...this is guns [unintelligible] Mexico.” Left unchallenged and unsaid...

Mens rea is Latin for “guilty mind.” In legal theory acting to set up a crime before committing it indicates a guilty mind; or guilty intent. In the spring of 2009, just a few months before the Obama Administration instructed the Phoenix ATF office to commence Operation Fast and Furious, Attorney General Eric Holder introduced and secured a curious change to United States gun legislation. The tracing of firearm serial numbers provides information about the manufacture of a weapon, its original retail seller and buyer, the entire known history of the weapon. For years, anti-gun rights zealots had procured these...

Earlier today we sent out an action alert urging all members of industry, sportsmen, gun-owners and firearms enthusiasts to call the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee to urge the committee to vote no on the Schiff (D-CA-29) amendment which would have stripped from an appropriations bill an important law enforcement protection, known as the Tiahrt Amendment, that safeguards law enforcement-only firearms tracing data and the Honda (D-CA-15) amendment, supported by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which would have continued the recently launched regulatory assault on the firearms industry. Your efforts were a tremendous success! We can declare victory...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg knows a lot, and what he knows has helped bring him success on many levels. But when it comes to federal firearm laws and the Second Amendment, Bloomberg is either uninformed or intentionally deceptive. In recent weeks, Bloomberg and his organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, have used victims of the Fort Hood massacre as political tools to seek repeal of a law known as the Tiahrt amendment. This law protects the privacy rights of legal firearm owners and ensures undercover agents and their investigations are not compromised. Bloomberg's inability to overturn the Tiahrt amendment...

It comes as little surprise that liberal political bloggers, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, continue to heap criticism on the Tiahrt amendment ("On gun-privacy rights," Dec. 3 WE Blog excerpts). Now permanent law, the Tiahrt amendment protects the privacy rights of legal firearm owners and ensures that undercover agents and their investigations are not compromised. The latest smear campaign spearheaded by Bloomberg and Mayors Against Illegal Guns brazenly casts blame on the Tiahrt amendment for the Fort Hood massacre. One of their primary solutions to prevent another Fort Hood tragedy is, of course, to repeal the Tiahrt...

WASHINGTON—U.S. Congressman Todd Tiahrt (pronounced TEE-hart), R-Kan., released the following statement in response to heinous accusations from Mayor Bloomberg’s political organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns. On Monday the Bloomberg organization paid for a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post assigning blame for the Fort Hood massacre, in part, to firearm policy authored by Tiahrt and approved by Congress since 2002. “The mayors who politicized the tragic deaths of those whose lives were taken along with the dozens who sustained injuries at Fort Hood should immediately issue a public apology to the victims and their families,” said Tiahrt. “Their use of...

NEW YORK -- New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand are calling for the repeal of federal policy requiring records of gun background checks be destroyed after 24 hours. The Democratic lawmakers say the Tiahrt Amendment restricts police from using gun trace information. They said such information is crucial to cracking down on illegal gun trafficking and reducing gun violence. Schumer and Gillibrand are urging President Barack Obama to reinstate a 90-day retention period. Obama has said he supports the repeal of the amendment.

Politically savvy gun owners have long distrusted President Barack Obama, and for perfectly fair reasons—even (or perhaps especially) after he went out of his way to tell them that lawful gun owners have nothing to fear from his administration. Perhaps, Obama seemed to be gently suggesting, they could cool it with the spike in gun purchases since he won the election. December showed a 24 percent rise in FBI instant background checks for gun purchases from the previous December, and there was a 49 percent such hike the week of his election. Obama’s famous gaffe about “bitter” people who “cling”...

Now Obama Debuts Pledge to Make Guns 'Childproof' Surprising very few of us, we see that once in office, Obama is more open about his gun control efforts at WhiteHouse.gov: Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children...

1. Repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment, 2. Ban scary looking guns, 3. Ban private gun sales, 4. And of course make guns childproof. How about make government idiot proof?

FAYETTEVILLE - On his website President-Elect Barack Obama discusses four different measures on guns: Repealing the Tiahrt Amendment, making the assault weapons ban permanent, making U.S. guns childproof, and closing the gun show loophole. Clint Cornett, owner of C&S Gun and Pawn Shop Inc. in Springdale says it's the assault weapons ban that has sales soaring. "We saw about a thirty percent increase in anything with a long clip like the AR-15, the A-K 47. Another hot issue is closing the gun show loophole, meaning individuals would no longer be able to sell or trade their guns at show without...

A Democratic senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez, introduced a bill late last night that would strike the Tiahrt amendment, a piece of gun legislation staunchly opposed by Mayor Bloomberg's anti-gun coalition. The introduction of the bill, called the Firearms Information Use Act of 2008, is prompting lobbyists for the gun industry to once again fight to protect the amendment. "Of course the NRA opposes the bill. We feel like the Tiahrt amendment is there for a reason and Congress intended that trace information be available for law enforcement in bonafide criminal investigations," a spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association,...

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took a rare, veiled swipe at his predecessor yesterday, challenging Rudolph W. Giuliani’s assertion that a lawsuit Mr. Giuliani filed as mayor against gun manufacturers had changed so much that he may no longer support it. Saying that the case had “not changed at all” since its inception, Mr. Bloomberg told reporters at a news conference at City Hall, “We believe that it’s a good case, and we hope to win it.” Last week, Mr. Giuliani, a Republican candidate for president, told the National Rifle Association that the suit had “taken several turns and several twists...

Copyright 2007 Hearst News Service House expected to renew law that makes it harder to trace firearms used in crimes WASHINGTON — Gun control advocates cheered when Democrats took over the House and the Senate this year, sure that the change in leadership meant a more friendly environment for new restrictions on the sale and ownership of firearms. But supporters of tighter controls are on the verge of losing the first big battle of the year over gun policy. The House is expected to pass legislation this week renewing a 4-year-old law that makes it harder for police to track...

The House Appropriations Committee has just passed an amendment -- the Tiahrt Amendment -- that forbids the sharing of information police need to find the source of guns used in crimes. This amendment is opposed by a broad coalition of police chiefs and mayors, who are desperate to stop the flow of guns into the cities. Why vote to cripple police efforts? Because the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, demands it. The gun lobby opposes sharing the information on where the guns used in crimes come from because it fears that information would be used to enforce...

Leadership of Congress has shifted to the Democrats, but the National Rifle Association’s power to block sensible steps to curb gun violence endures. Last week, a bipartisan majority of the House Appropriations Committee bowed to the N.R.A.’s warped agenda and rebuffed two attempts to repeal a four-year-old measure that denies police and local governments broad access to federal data needed to effectively combat illegal gun trafficking. The outcome was a defeat for public safety and for the efforts of Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and more than 30 national and state police organizations to repeal the so-called Tiahrt provision....

WASHINGTON — In his fight to repeal a federal gun law, Mayor Bloomberg has flown across the country, spent millions in televised campaign-style ads, raised his national profile, and sparked interest in a possible presidential run. But in Congress, he's hardly changed anyone's mind. If anything, support in the powerful House Appropriations Committee for the so-called Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts access to gun trace data, has grown since it passed by a one-vote margin when it was first added to a spending bill in 2003. The committee last week rejected on a voice vote an attempt to repeal it entirely,...

"It is another resounding defeat for Mayor Bloomberg," a vice president at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Lawrence Keane, said. The foundation is a trade association for the firearms industry. "Now, Speaker Pelosi will have to decide whether she wants a gun fight on the floor or not," he said. A spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, said the speaker was against the Tiahrt Amendment but had no further comment yesterday."