Sleep Is For The Weak

Dear Senator Gard / Representative Richardson,

I previously wrote you regarding the Herald Times in Bloomington, IN and their publishing of the License To Carry a Handgun database on their website.  I expressed how this issue causes serious privacy concerns for law-abiding citizens.  This provides an avenue for criminals looking for streets that are easy targets, either with a low number of known gun owners or a high likelihood of finding firearms in the home they can steal, making our streets far less safe.  Allowing the list of people who are licensed to carry a handgun to be public is no different than publishing a database that says fourteen African Americans live on Brookschool Road or seventeen Jews live on 126th street.  Would making such a list serve the Public’s interest at all?  It would certainly make it easier for those who wish to commit hate crimes against others easier.

This database is required to be made available to the public under Indiana Code 5-14-3.  I humbly request that you author or support legislation to change this code to make private the database for use by Law Enforcement Officers only in relationship to a case under investigation.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to a concerned citizen in your district.  I look forward to your thoughts on this issue.

Sincerely,

Dear Congressman:

As a voter in your district and as one of the nearly 700,000 licensees across the nation, I ask for your support of H.R. 2160, the “Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Enhancement Act of 2009.”

H.R. 2160 instructs the Secretary of Homeland Security to undertake a study, and report its findings to Congress within 180 days, on the uses and capabilities of Amateur Radio communications in emergencies and disaster relief. This study should:

• Include recommendations for enhancements in the voluntary deployment of Amateur Radio licensees in disaster and emergency communications and disaster relief efforts;

• Include recommendations for improved integration of Amateur Radio operators in planning and in furtherance of the Department of Homeland Security initiatives;

• Identify unreasonable or unnecessary impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio communications, such as the effects of private land use regulations on residential antenna installations, and make recommendations regarding such impediments;

• Include an evaluation of section 207 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-104, 110 Stat. 56 (1996); and recommend whether section 207 should be modified to prevent unreasonable private land use restrictions that impair the ability of amateurs to conduct, or prepare to conduct, emergency communications.

Amateur Radio operators across the US repeatedly demonstrate our commitment to public service and emergency communications. Through our work with Homeland Security activities, state and local Emergency Management offices, and with numerous private agencies, Amateur Radio operators make a difference. We need your support to help address the challenges facing us as we seek to improve our capabilities to serve.

Please consider becoming a cosponsor for H.R. 2160 and please support the bill as it works its way through committee and the House of Representatives.

Sincerely,

http://www.commonwealthconversations.com/?q=node/97

VCDL Fights to Extend 2nd Amendment Rights on Federal Lands

Author: Dave Yates
Executive Member, Virginia Citizens Defense League
Election Issue 2008 Vol1 Issue6

In the near future the National Park Service (NPS) will be amending its regulations to decriminalize self defense. It’s about time.

In 2003, members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) began lobbying members of Congress to help get the NPS regulation changed. The NPS rule on firearms is a total practical ban on the possession or carrying of a firearm unless secured in a vehicle trunk.

Most people do not realize that NPS makes it a crime to have a gun, even for off-duty state and local law enforcement officers, licensed citizens or permit holders on federal park lands. NPS is careful not to post this publicly at their park entrance. However, this ban is now in question following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling that Washington D.C.’s firearms ban was a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. At first, NPS steadfastly insisted their ban was constitutional and enhanced public safety. They were wrong on both counts.

According to NPS, it administers 79 million acres with another 5.5 million acres not under federal control. Using the former figure, the combined NPS land would make it the fifth largest state in the country with an area of 123,437.5 square miles, placing it just ahead of New Mexico but behind Montana. NPS likes to throw out crime figures that purport to show how safe our national parks are. But these figures ignore the reality that there are few full time NPS “residents” and no “inner city” issues to contend with. In fact, considering the sparse population of NPS land, its crime rate is significantly higher than most states.

In February 2005, VCDL submitted a petition to the Department of the Interior (DOI) to revise the NPS regulations with more than four dozen co-petitioning organizations to “assimilate” the state law where a national park was located. NPS repeatedly stalled, obfuscated and ignored inquiries. The petitioners presented supporting justification for the regulation change to DOI with NPS Morning Reports and newspaper articles detailing hundreds of pages worth of crimes in national parks over a two year period. It was not until December 2006, when under pressure from congressional offices, that DOI reluctantly agreed to consider the VCDL petition. It was then summarily denied in January 2007.

After a nine month FOIA battle with NPS, it finally conceded that it had no evidence to support the claims made in its denial of the VCDL petition. The petitioners submitted a second revised petition in February 2008 that accounted for previous NPS assertions. Finally, in April 2008, DOI published a proposed rule that would allow approximately 25 percent of national park visitors to protect themselves without fear of criminal prosecution.

The DOI proposed rule was obtusely worded so that a person could protect themselves with a firearm in a national park only if the state permitted such protection in its own state parks or analogous lands. The public comments overwhelmingly supported amending the rule using the petitioner’s requested language, not the confusing DOI version. Therefore, in early July, DOI arbitrarily reopened the comment period on the revised NPS regulation. Even then, public comments still favored changing the regulation, but changing it so that all federal lands had the same rule: assimilating the state law.

It is unclear if DOI will assimilate the state law as the petitioners requested, or go off the reservation with its own regulation, which would open up NPS to multiple court challenges. What this saga makes clear, however, is that the National Park Service is a dysfunctional government agency in need of a vast overhaul.

This arduous battle is a fine example of what one motivated and determined group of citizens can do. The Virginia Citizens Defense League stepped up to lead an effort to overturn a federal rule that obliterated the citizens right to self defense on NPS lands. Soon, citizens will at least have the choice to protect themselves in our national parks.

Could this Election Cycle be any longer? We’re about to vote for the next President of the United States. This voting will take place on November 4th. I fully expect that the campaigning for Election 2010 to start on November 10th, 2008.

If I were in charge candidates would be given $250,000 to campaign with and they wouldn’t be allowed to start before July of the year of the election. Four months of this crap I could deal with.

Today as I arrived home from work, I noticed on my doorknob a plastic bag with some paper folded inside. It turns out that Joe Weingarten, who is running for state representative in district 29, stopped through our neighborhood with the intent to meet as many constituents as he could before the election. “To listen to what’s bothering me, and let me know he would be working for me if elected.” He enclosed a flyer that covered a few key points, and a link to his Website & E-mail address.

I went to his website and read what he had to say there, came up with a few questions of my own, and formulated the following e-mail which I sent to him this evening. I’ll be sure to post any reply I get from him as well.

Dear Mr. Weingarten,

I would first like to thank you for leaving a two page note on my door today introducing yourself and explaining in a nutshell what some of your political views are. At face value you are a candidate I could see myself supporting. I would like to ask a few questions.

First what is your overall view on public safety? You suggest on your website that it is wrong to threaten the loss of public safety as related to property taxes, but you do not go into detail on what, if any, public safety policies you would propose at the state level.

Do you believe in Hoosiers’ right to keep and bear arms? Does that right extend outside one’s home or place of business? To what extent do you support or deny a Hoosier his or her right to provide for his or her own defense?

What is your take on punishing Malum Prohibitum crimes? Should tax payers be paying to incarcerate people who have committed these types of crimes? What is your view on “Truth in Sentencing” legislation? How do you propose we solve the jail overcrowding? How do you plan to fund your proposals?

Your website focuses on District 29. What views do you have for the rest of the state and the problems that affect all Hoosiers? Such as eminent domain laws at the state level, environmental lobbyists, (specifically the BP refinery issue.) Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.