NRA cancelled 2007 meeting in Columbus, Ohio
Comments from NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre
Two months ago, I was pleased to announce
that the National Rifle Association chose the great city of Columbus to
host our 136th annual meetings and exhibits in May of 2007.
Today I’m here to announce that the
convention is cancelled. The NRA is not coming to Columbus in 2007.
The convention is canceled because last week your city
council voted unanimously to revoke the constitutional rights of law-abiding
citizens in Columbus by banning perfectly legal firearms.
Councilman Michael Mentel led the gun ban.
He said the NRA “isn’t going to dictate the policies of this
city.” But Michael Mentel certainly wants to dictate the policies
of the U.S. Constitution for the people of Columbus.
Michael Mentel and your city council have
embarrassed this great city in the eyes of the nation. By declaring that
citizens who live inside its city limits have less freedom than people
outside its city limits.
So, thanks to the Columbus City Council,
sixty-five thousand people will not be coming to your wonderful Greater
Columbus Convention Center in 2007.
Hundreds of exhibitors won’t fill
your grand halls with the latest in guns, hunting and outdoor gear.
Even though half the U.S. population lives
within 550 miles of Columbus, they won’t be packing their families
to come spend money with your hotels, motels, restaurants, airlines, cabs,
buses, retailers or attractions.
The only thing the city council can expect
out of their decision is the gratitude of those businesses in the city
we go to instead.
Thanks to your Columbus City Council, at
least twenty million dollars of new tourist revenue will not boost the
economy of Columbus in 2007.
You’d think a city council would do their
homework. You know — find out if their gun-ban scheme worked anywhere
else before they turn good citizens into criminals overnight.
The U.S. Congress already tried this exact
same gun ban. Nationwide. For ten straight years. That’s enough
time to learn if it works, right?
It was such a miserable failure that after
ten years they called it off last September. And since they ended the
gun ban, crime has gone down!
But your city council thinks they’re
smarter than the U.S. Congress, and didn’t learn a thing from that
failure.
Your city council didn’t learn that
semiautomatic guns are not assault weapons. They are not machine guns.
They didn’t learn that semiautomatics
are not high-powered, they can’t spray bullets, and they’re
not used in 99% of all gun crime.
Your city council didn’t learn that
their ban includes guns owned by thousands of honest Columbus hunters
and sportsmen — who won’t react well.
And your city council didn’t learn
how voters react to politicians who abuse their Second Amendment freedoms
— like Al Gore, John Kerry and Tom Daschle.
Finally … this is an unnecessary
loss and embarrassment for the people of Columbus. It’s also proof
for state lawmakers that it’s time to protect lawful gun owners
by making firearm laws uniform across Ohio. So that radical rogue agencies
like this city council can’t create a confusing and dangerous patchwork
of firearms laws.
The NRA is going to work with the people
of Columbus and the Ohio Legislature to pass state preemption legislation
and restore freedom to the people of Columbus.
When the Ohio Legislature enacts preemption,
freedom will be restored to the people of Columbus.
And when freedom comes back to Columbus,
we will come back to Columbus.
Thank you
|
West
Palm Beach, Fla. "Gun Buy-Back Program" pays $75 for $5,000
rare rifle
A "Gun Buy-Back Program" horror
story out of West Palm Beach, Fla. highlights one type of problem that
these programs have. In West Palm Beach, the guy ended up getting back
his rifle but that is only because the press reported the story and the
police department got pressure to return the gun. This is the only time
that I have see that someone got a gun back, no matter how rare or how
much money it was worth.
I have seen stories of police replacing
guns with a high value that they have taken in with junk guns or just
stealing the guns. I have also see stories of police walking down a line
of people waiting to go in and offering to buy the gun for the "Gun
Buy-Back " price and then taking the gun for themselves.
Rare Japanese rifle ends up in buy-back program
By DON JORDAN
Cox News Service
Friday, July 15, 2005
 WEST
PALM BEACH, Fla. — He bought it for two packs of Chesterfield cigarettes.
He sold it for a $75 Target gift card.
But World War II Navy veteran Bruno Filippelli
never knew the Japanese rifle that collected dust in his closet for 60
years was a bona fide wartime treasure.
He turned it over to West Palm Beach police
Saturday during the city's gun buy-back program, and the rare and valuable
firearm — better suited in a polished museum or with a wealthy weapons
collector — now lies alongside 450 other submitted shotguns, handguns
and assault rifles in the department's evidence storage room.
"I feel like an idiot," said
Filippelli, 79, four days after selling the rifle and just a few hours
after discovering its worth.
And police say they're not giving it back.
In fact, the gun could soon be melted down and destroyed with the others.
The controversy over the rare gun erupted
when a picture of Filippelli turning over the rifle appeared in the Sunday
edition of The Palm Beach Post. A Palm Beach police officer recognized
the rare rifle, researched the gun and then delivered the bad news to
Filippelli Wednesday.
"He told me, 'If I was you, I never
would have turned it in,' " Filippelli said.
The gun, an Arisaka Type 99 pressure test
rifle, is one of less than 100 ever produced. There are as few as 50 left,
including about 20 in the United States, according to gun experts and
dealers. The type of rifle was never used in the field. It was designed
to test the chamber pressure and bullet velocity for the Type 99 rifle,
which Imperial Japanese forces widely used throughout World War II.
Although the gun is not listed in most
price guides, a piece in good shape could be valued by as much as $5,000,
said Bob Adams, a rare-gun collector and firearms dealer in Albuquerque,
N.M.
Adams, who sells Japanese rifles through
mail orders and the Internet, said destroying the gun "would be a
crime." He said West Palm Beach police should have identified the
gun as a pressure test rifle that would not be used in violent crimes
and should have never accepted it.
"That was a grave disservice to the
guy that owned it and the whole collecting fraternity," Adams said.
"That gun is history, and destroying history does not help the street
crime problem."
The ultimate fate of the rifle is still
up in the air, police officials said Thursday.
Police still need to determine if it is
authentic, and then donate it to an interested museum or destroy it with
the others in the near future, said West Palm Beach police Lt. Chuck Reed,
adding that a museum has contacted the department in reference to the
gun.
Either way, police will not return the
gun to Filippelli, said Reed, adding that returning it would defeat the
purpose of the program, which was to get guns off the street.
"No matter the value of any of the
guns, we're not going to resell any of them," he said.
Fred Honeycutt has catalogued the gun,
along with many others, in his book, "Military Rifles of Japan,"
now in its fifth edition. The retired engineer spent two weeks researching
the book in Japan, where he met the gun's designers.
The Japanese produced the pressure test
rifles in small amounts, and it is not known how many were assembled,
said Honeycutt, whose wife spotted the picture of the gun in the newspaper.
"I didn't want it destroyed,"
he said. "It belongs in a museum."
Honeycutt contacted the police, and when
they told him to find an interested museum, he contacted the National
Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Va., he said.
"[The police department's] mission
is noble and they do have a purpose, but this gun doesn't really belong
in that effort," Honeycutt said.
Doug Wicklund, a senior curator at the
National Firearms Museum, said the museum has two of that particular rifle,
and he knows of a couple more at other museums around the country, but
that's about it.
"You could probably count on fingers
and toes how many you have left in the U.S.," said Wicklund, adding
that he wouldn't try to appraise the gun because he's never heard of one
being sold before. "They were not something the average soldier would
have in his tent with him."
Filippelli, originally from Brooklyn, N.Y.,
said he spent nearly two years at war, including six months on a light
cruiser patrolling the waters around the Japanese islands. The cruiser
often faced attacks from Japanese kamikaze pilots, but "knocked out
a few airplanes," in that time, he said.
Just days after the Japanese surrendered
on board the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay in September 1945, Filippelli
purchased the gun and a Japanese saber at a small shop in Tokyo.
He said the rifle "struck him"
because of its strange shape and how heavy it was. It was marked with
an insignia and the serial No. 47.
"You could buy anything for a couple
packs of cigarettes," he said.
On Thursday, Filippelli visited the West
Palm Beach police department and met with a police officer, but had no
luck retrieving the weapon.
The officer showed the World War II veteran
his gun, and Filippelli showed the officer his initials — BJF —
engraved on the bottom of its barrel, he said.
The ordeal has been disappointing, but
Filippelli said he hopes the rifle's final battle will be won, and it
will escape the melting pot and be exhibited in a museum.
"I'd feel really good about that,"
he said. "I'd hope I'd get some connective recognition with it for
bringing it over from Japan.
"That's all I'm asking for."
WPB police return rare rifle
By Don Jordan, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 15, 2005
UPDATED: 6:36 p.m. July 15, 2005
Sixty years after he helped the United States
defeat Japan in World War II, Navy veteran Bruno Filippellicq won a small
battle of his own Friday.
The 79-year-old
Delray Beach man retrieved the rare Japanese rifle he turned in to West
Palm Beach police Saturday for a $75 Target gift card, as part of the department's
gun buy-back program.
Filippelli didn't
realize his rifle could be worth as much as $5,000, according to one rare
gun collector.
The Arisaka Type 99 pressure
test rifle was set to be melted down and destroyed, along with about 450
other firearms collected by the police last weekend.
"I feel like a kid again," said Filippelli, on his way into the
department to pick up his rifle. "It's like Christmas in July."
The week-long debacle began when a picture
of Filippelli and the rifle appeared in Sunday's edition of The Palm Beach
Post. The picture prompted local collectors and gun aficionados to contact
police and request that the gun be spared from destruction.
The rifle is one of less than 100 ever produced. Gun experts and dealers
say as few as 50 left, including about 20 in the United States.
On Thursday, officials from the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Va.,
called the West Palm Beach police department and asked about acquiring the
rifle, West Palm Beach police Lt. Chuck Reed said.
The final decision came down to Chief Delsa R. Bush, who eventually decided
to make "a rare exception to the rule" and return the gun with
Mayor Lois Frankel's blessing.
Bush said
police had to verify that the gun was Filippelli's, but were convinced once
they examined the man's initials - BJF - engraved on the underside of the
rifle's barrel. Filippelli was not asked to return the gift card, Bush said.
"He can keep it," she said. "Tell
him it's a gift from the city for being a veteran."
As of Friday, Filippelli said he hadn't used the gift card.
He said a secretary in the mayor's office informed him of the good news,
but asked him to "keep it cool" when dealing with the press. City
spokesman Elliot Cohen said he talked with the secretary, who said she didn't
tell Filippelli to try to avoid media coverage.
Filippelli served in the Navy for 22 months during World War II, including
six months on patrol in the waters around Japan. He purchased the rifle
in a Tokyo store for two packs of Chesterfield cigarettes, just days after
the war ended.
Filippelli said he kept
the gun in his closet for 60 years, unaware of its rarity. When he heard
that West Palm Beach was conducting a buy-back program to curb violence,
Filippelli wanted to get involved, he said.
But Friday morning, the teary-eyed veteran walked into the lobby of the
West Palm Beach police station, filled out a form and left with the weapon
he once brought from across the Pacific.
He said he felt sorry for troubling the police, but was happy to have his
rifle back. He has a new appreciation for the gun, which will eventually
be given to a museum, Filippelli said.
"It reminds me of what I went through in the war, and the people who
died over there," he said. "I'm going to hold on to it and hug
it for a while." |
Why I am glad the Supreme Court never took up CA's Assault Weapons ban.
In Kelo
v. City of New London, our Supreme Court held that, "The city’s
proposed disposition of petitioners’ property qualifies as a “public
use” within the meaning of the Takings Clause." Private Property
as we know it has now ended and many states, cities, towns, and counties
will be taking advantage of this new power.
On December 1st, 2003 the Supreme Court Refuses
to Hear Second Amendment Case, Silveira
v. Lockyer, that asked the court to rule on whether or not the Second
Amendment applies to the States and whether or not it is an individual
right. California's ban on certain semi-automatic rifles was also challenged.
Now I am very, very glad that they did not take up the case. If the Supreme
Court can rule in such a crazy way in Kelo v. City of New London, one
can only imagine how they would have ruled on the Siveira case. (CLICK
HERE TO SEE KEEP AND BEAR ARMS PRESS RELEASE.)
I can not put it better than Justice Thomas in
his dissenting opinion, (on
page 58 of the PDF file,):
The
Court relies almost exclusively on this Court’s prior cases
to derive today’s far-reaching, and dangerous, result. See
ante, at 8–12. But the principles this Court should employ
to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use Clause itself,
not in Justice Peckham’s high opinion of reclamation laws,
see supra, at 11. When faced with a clash of constitutional principle
and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history,
and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to
resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution’s original
meaning. |
One can imagine this dissenting opinion
being at the end of a ruling finding that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
is only a state right except with "Right to Keep and Bear Arms: instead
of "Public Use Clause"
and the reference to some other Justices "high Opinion" of gun
laws listed and deriving their finding on "Prior cases" that
are in error. |
If anyone wants to send her a card send it to:
