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TOP STORY
**Despite court ruling, 72 percent of Americans believe people are responsible for their own actions
**
It’s always reassuring when rank-and-file Americans instinctively see through the nonsense of anything-but-common-sense court rulings that make no sense outside the courtroom.
Take, for example, the April 14 Connecticut court ruling that allows a 2014 lawsuit to proceed against the maker the Bushmaster AR-15, the weapon used to slaughter 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012.
Judge Barbara Bellis’s ruling could, potentially, make gun-makers liable for crimes by, potentially, weakening the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which protects manufacturers from being sued when a lunatic does something horrible with one of their products.
But, good news: Unlike Bellis, rank-and-file folk know this type of baloney doesn’t cut the proverbial mustard. According to the results of a poll released April 25 by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), 72 percent of those surveyed do not think victims of crimes involving firearms should be able to sue gun manufacturers or stores because of what happened to them.
The poll, conduced by Harper Polling in mid-April, surveyed 1,000 registered voters from across political parties and geographic regions, the NSSF said in a press release.
According to the NSSF, “Some 72 percent of those surveyed agree that the PLCAA ‘should be kept and we should punish the criminals who commit these acts not the law-abiding manufacturers and retailers of lawful products which get misused’ while 26 percent agreed that the PLCAA “should be repealed because the current protection enables manufacturers and retailers to sell guns to people who shouldn’t have them, because they know they cannot be sued and don’t face any consequences.”
“Why is it even a question?” asks Newsmax Insider Dr. Michael Hurd in an April 26 blog. “How could 26 percent of Americans actually think it’s valid for people to sue gun manufacturers for deaths of people due to guns? It all boils down to this: Are killers responsible for the deaths of people they murder? Or are weapons manufacturers?”
Apparently, a Connecticut judge believes Americans are not responsible for their actions. Fortunately, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe otherwise.
For more, go to:
— Voters Do Not Support Lawsuits Against Firearms Manufacturers, Retailers for Gun Crime, Poll Finds
— Survey: Majority of Americans Oppose Lawsuits Against Gun Makers, Dealers
— 5 Reasons Suing Gun Manufacturers Is Dumb
— The Gun Issue Could Be a Winner for Republicans
— Poll: 72% of Americans do not support lawsuits against gun manufacturers
**JUST SAY NO TO UNLAWFUL LAWS
‘Several hundred’ sheriffs pledge not to enforce unconstitutional gun control laws**
A law enforcement advocacy group called the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association is encouraging police and deputies nationwide not to enforce gun control laws they know to be unconstitutional.
In an interview with Julia Harte of the Center for Public Integrity, CSPOA founder and president retired Graham County, Ariz., Sheriff Richard Mack said he has secured pledges from “several hundred” of the more than 3,000 sheriffs nationwide not to enforce federal, state and local laws that infringe on the Second Amendment.
Mack told Harte that at the association’s 2014 convention, “dozens of sheriffs signed a declaration that they would not tolerate any federal agent who attempted to register firearms, arrest someone or seize property in their counties without their consent.”
Mack said many law enforcement officers are “troubled by the overreach of the federal government in matters concerning guns, taxes and land management.” In fact, Mack added, many local police officers and sheriff’s deputies view federal law enforcement agencies — the federal government itself — as “the greatest threat we face today.”
Harte writes that as Graham County Sheriff in the 1990s, Mack and a sheriff from Montana successfully challenged the Brady Bill’s requirement that local law enforcement agencies perform background checks on gun buyers before the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was in this ruling that Justice Antonin Scalia affirmed states’ sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, writing that the federal government does not have the right to demand that “the local police in 50 states to do its bidding.”
Of course, the decision and Scalia’s opinion was circumvented by the Feds in 1998 when they created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), enabling gun dealers to run the checks themselves, thus removing local law enforcement from the process.
The FBI has since processed more than 225 million background checks through the NICS.
For more, go to:
— National sheriffs’ group, opposed to federal laws on guns and taxes, calls for defiance
— The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association
— Sheriffs’ Group Calls Officers to Refuse to Enforce Gun Control
— Constitutional Sheriffs: The Cops Who Think the Government Is Our ‘Greatest Threat’
— Anti-government activist building an ‘army’ of sheriffs who are like Kim Davis — ‘but with guns’
**STATE ROUNDUP
Rhode Island ponders risking innocent lives with ‘gun-free’ easy-kill zones**
As school districts around the nation recognize the lethal lunacy of “gun-free zones,” especially on campuses, the Rhode Island State Legislature is pondering putting its school children at risk with a proposal that would ban any of the state’s 3,600 responsible citizens with legal concealed carry gun permits from carrying on school grounds.
According to the Associated Press, the bill provides that only “peace officers,” including local and state police and various campus security officers, can bring a firearm on school grounds. All other state residents who lawfully carry guns with a concealed carry permit would not be allowed to do so, effectively creating a “gun-free zone.”
During a Senate Judiciary Committee, sane and sober people argued that if someone entered a school with intent to harm, children are safer if someone who lawfully carries a gun is on campus.
The bill, foolishly supported by Moms Demand Action, faces stiff opposition from people who think, including two influential Democratic senators. Sen. Frank Lombardi (D-Cranston) and Sen. Stephen Archambault (D-Smithfield) agreed that — yes! — children would be safer if there happened to be someone else already on school grounds with a gun who could provide a defense before the police arrive.
“Personally,” Archambault said, “if we’re going to issue law-abiding concealed carry permits to people, I’d rather know there’s a chance someone (with a legally carried firearm) can put down a lunatic.”
**For more, go to:
**
— R.I. bill would create gun-free zone around schools
— Bridgeport officials push to clarify Connecticut’s open carry gun law
— NJ Democrats vow to stop Christie’s gun law reforms
— Gun-control bills DOA but still spark debate
— James Gill: Gun control plans in New Orleans a misfire
— Pennsylvania: Gun bill would require trigger locks, safes for firearms to protect kids
— Georgia: Local protestors call on governor to veto campus carry gun bill
— The Case Against Oklahoma’s Gun Bill
— Nevada: DA Wolfson endorses initiative to mandate background checks on gun sales
— 9 Investigates: Loophole in Florida law banning backyard gun ranges
— Giffords gun control group focuses on NH in launching push to close ‘terror gap’
— ILLINOIS BILLS WOULD LIMIT MENTALLY ILL FROM OWNING GUNS
— Top California Dems at odds over who will lead fight for more gun control
** LETHAL FANTASY**
Hollywood: Gun control works on TV, which makes it real
Hollywood is fantasyland and gun control is a fantasy. So, why is it surprising that actors who live in fantasyland fantasies are very influential in spearheading gun control campaigns?
After all, they’re so very, very smart — especially when they are beautiful! — have a gritty understand of Real Life and everything they say and do is important.
According to Variety magazine, Hollywood-heads are becoming increasingly involved in pushing gun control through “script messaging” in television programming, tweets by very, very smart celebrities — especially if beautiful! — and star-plugged PSAs supporting gun control.
Take, for example, the most recent season of Netflix’s House of Cards series, Variety notes, in which First Lady Claire Underwood heroically lobbies for gun control on behalf of a group called Families for Gun Reform.
Variety discloses while the group’s name is fictitious, it was created by anti-gun zealot Michael Bloomberg’s front group, Everytown for Gun Safety. On the TV fantasy, the fictitious group has a website —familiesforgunreform.com. Those who try to look it up go to Everytown’s website — https://act.everytown.org/call/families-for-gun-reform/ — which prominently features a petition to asking Congress to pass more gun control for law-abiding citizens.
This isn’t life imitating art, or even art imitating life. It is fantasy perpetuating fantasy, which might make sense in Hollywood, but is lethally nonsensical in the real world — you know, that place where we who are not very, very smart and important because we’re beautiful live.
For more, go to:
— Variety: Hollywood Increasingly Involved with Gun Control Lobby
— Amy Schumer Gets Candid About Gun Violence
— Brad Pitt to Co-Chair Brady Campaign Gun Control Awards in Los Angeles