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Measure to Expand Gun Rights Falls Short in Senate
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/us/politics/23guns.html?_r=1&hp

The Senate on Wednesday turned aside the latest attempt by gun advocates to expand the rights of gun owners, narrowly voting down a provision that would have allowed gun owners with valid permits from one state to carry concealed weapons in other states.
A group comprising mostly Republicans, along with some influential Democrats, had tried to attach the gun amendment to the annual defense authorization bill, a must-pass piece of legislation. But the provision got only 58 votes, two short of the 6o votes needed for passage under Senate rules.

So today, the Senate voted against allowing people, who are licensed and permitted in their state to carry a pistol concealed, from doing so in other states. The irony is that many states have reciprocity or honor the permit of another state; this legislation would simply make it a US law, so all states would have to allow reciprocity.

But why was this voted down?

Contrary to what you may think, this wasn’t voted down because people were concerned about states’ rights and their right to refuse reciprocity; it was voted down because some of the senators used fearmongering lies to use the guise of ‘safety’.

“Lives have been saved with the defeat of this amendment. The passage of this amendment would have done more to threaten the safety of New Yorkers than anything since the repeal of the assault weapons ban.” - Senator Charles E. Schumer

“The Thune amendment would invite chaos in our cities,” - Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat of New York, generally a supporter of gun rights)

But, there was a voice of reason in the madness today….

“Specific state laws must be followed by the visiting individual. At the end of the day, this is really again a fundamental debate in terms of what is the problem in terms of violent crime. Is the problem law-abiding citizens who follow the law and take all the time and all the trouble needed to get conceal-and-carry permits? Or, is the problem criminals who violate all laws to obtain weapons? – Senator David Vitter

Well said Mr. Vitter. A quick scan of FBI crime statistics will show you that those with concealed weapons aren’t the ones committing the crime, it’s ILLEGALLY ACQUIRED WEAPONS.

In 2007, the FBI reports 14,831 murders. Of that, 10,086 were committed with a firearm of some sort.(1)
In a recent study that covered May 2007 to April 2009, 51 people were killed in 31 incidents. Of course, this study is by a gun-control advocacy group (VPC.org), so it’s not stated how many of these were in self-defense; they give the impression that these are all illegal homicide/murder.(2)
2008 stats aren’t available yet, but if we assume the stats are similar to 2007, we have about 22,000 murders with firearms and in the 2 years reported from VPC, 0.23% of US murders were by concealed permit holders.

Clearly this is not an issue of safety; this is gun control advocates, trying to take away the rights of the law-abiding, licensed Americans that are some of the safest, most consciencious people in the nation. Now, I believe states should be the ones to decide which states they accept permits/licenses for, but shame on the gun-hating senators (mainly Democrats) that voted against this under a false guise.

(1) Murder by State, Type of Weapon, 2007
(2) Law Enforcement and Private Citizens Killed by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders

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