Compiled by Donald H. Harrison
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Florida) were among a group of congressional Democrats who joined representatives of the Newtown Action Alliance at a Capitol Hill news conference Feb. 5 to propose a Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) and Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-Connecticut) are the principal authors of the bill which bans the importation, sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession of magazines that hold more than ten rounds of ammunition and are designed for shooting en masse.
“There is no place in our communities for ammunition magazines designed for military-style shootouts, which have been used inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Aurora, in Fort Hood, and in Tucson – and it is well-past time for Congress to listen to the American people and put this high-capacity magazine ban back in place,” saidMenendez.
“Plain and simple: this bill would save lives by depriving mass murderers of a key means of massacre,” Blumenthal said. “Mass shooters know that high-capacity magazines allow them to take more lives, more rapidly. That is why Adam Lanza left his regular-sized magazines behind and relied on high-capacity magazines when he entered Sandy Hook Elementary School. And that is also why high-capacity magazines have been used in half of all mass shootings over the past 30 years. Children escaped the slaughter when Adam Lanza changed magazines. More magazine changes might have helped save more lives. Even if we cannot stop all killers, we can make them less lethal.”
“That the last Congress failed to pass even the most basic gun safety legislation, like the ban on high capacity ammunition magazines that we are reintroducing today, is shameful,” said Rep. Deutch. “The Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act of 2015 meets the test established by the Supreme Court in DC v. Heller, in which even Justice Scalia acknowledged that regulations on dangerous weapons pose no threat to the Second Amendment.”
U.S. Senate
VACCINATIONS– U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (both D-California) have announced new legislation – titled “A Head Start on Vaccinations Act” – that would protect children in Head Start programs from preventable diseases by requiring that all children in Head Start programs nationwide be fully vaccinated unless they have been exempted for medical reasons. The legislation will be introduced this upcoming week. “More than a million of our children attend Head Start programs all over the country, and we must protect every single one of these kids from preventable diseases like measles,” Boxer said. “This simple bill is an important step toward strengthening our vaccination policies at all levels of government to prevent the spread of deadly diseases.”
California Legislature
INTERNATIONAL VISITORS — State Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) on Thursday, Feb. 5, welcomed to the State Senate chambers members of the U.S. State Department’s International Visitors Leadership Program, which includes leaders representing 22 countries from around the world. A video of that brief ceremony follows:
Interest Groups
AIPAC CONFERENCE — The America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has listed some of the confirmed speakers for its March 1-3 policy conference in Washington, D.C. They include current and former heads of state, Israeli and American officials, and past and former members of Congress. Here is a link to the current list: http://www.policyconference.org/article/confirmedSpeakers.asp
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Good Reads
DYLAN — Music critic George Varga of U-T San Diego wrote up the speech Bob Dylan gave at the Musicares salute to him. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/07/bob-dylan-shines-at-all-star-musicares-concert/?#article-copy
And Scalia is as wrong as he could be—“Shall not be infringed,” is a total restriction on government from regulating the keeping and bearing of arms–itself a NATURAL and PRE-EXISTING right. According to the Pre-amble to the Bill of Rights (BOR), its very purpose is to restrict government. The BOR does not grant ANY rights; it restricts government from infringing on natural, pre-existing rights.
Yay! Inalienable!
Magazines holding more than ten rounds are issued to police. The authors of the bill claim that the magazines are designed for shooting people en masse. If shooting people en masse is not a job of police, then the authors of the bill are liars.
Logic: There are already millions of magazines in circulation. You could ban the manufacture and preliminary sale of certain types of magazines, but it would create a huge grey market among those who already posess them, making them a valuable commodity overnight. Sell one “pre-ban” magazine, buy 10 more “legal capacity” guns. This is what happened with the 1994 “ban”. People were paying ridiculous amounts of money for “pre-ban” stuff. Supply and demand.
Now, If complete posession were banned, well then it would be like the “war on drugs”. Huge black market, billions of dollars wasted attempting to enforce the law, lives ruined, mass encarceration, lives lost….. In other words: Tyranny.
*sigh*
Why can’t they just shut up and go away?
I mean, over 60% of Americans don’t want this stuff, and even if the ratio were reversed, popular opinion can’t overcome fundamental rights.
I guess the concepts behind the necessary tools to ensure that “never again” really is “never again” have been lost to many people.
Maybe as a start we could eliminate those asinine “Gun Free Zone” signs which insure a target rich environment for killers. Then armed guards, such as the gun grabbing big shots have present at the schools they send their children to. Gun bans, Magazine bans, and background checks have never prevented anything. Take a look at Washington DC, Detroit, Chicago, NYC, etc for definite proof of the ineffectiveness of gun control. Fact is, it is not about crime control, it is about citizen control. BTW a 30 round magazine is not large capacity but standard issue and represent a threat to no one.
Are you saying that By banning the tools of self defense, you create a target rich environment? I agree, If we really want “Never Again” then arm teachers, do away with “gun free zones” (aka “no resistance zones”), and be ready to fight back. We are ok with having our money guarded by guns, but not our children. Which is more important: our money or our children?
How many times have we heard something like this: “We don’t need people with guns in our communities, we need more police in our communities.” Hmmm, Police are people with guns…. We rely on them because they have guns. The safest place for a gun is on the hip of a responsible person.
And Again we see elected nitwits proposing legislation that cannot be enforced, accomplishes nothing and has been tried in the past and failed. These two clowns are as goofy as the people who elected them to public office.