Smart Gun Technology

Identilock smart gun lock

This biometric gun lock is one step towards the "smart guns" President Obama is asking for.

Posted by The Verge on Saturday, January 9, 2016

Marco Rubio's Whopper: 700,000 Americans Could be Affected - PolitiFact Is On It

PF

"If these were perfect lists, that would be one thing," he said. "But there are over 700,000 Americans on some watch list or another that would all be captured under this amendment the Democrats offered. And that's the problem."

We wondered if there were really 700,000 Americans who could potentially get caught up on a terrorist watch list and be prevented from buying guns under Democratic legislation.

Rubio’s count is way off. The number of Americans on the consolidated terrorist watch list is likely in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

We reached out to Rubio’s team, but they didn’t get back to us.

By the numbers

The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center maintains what is colloquially known as the terrorist watch list. The Terrorist Screening Database is a consolidated collection of information about people known or reasonably suspected to have some level of involvement in terrorist activities. The no-fly list is a subset of the terrorist watch list.

The terrorist watch list is the one the attorney general would pull from when deciding whether someone should be denied a firearm if there’s reasonable belief that the person would use that firearm for terrorism, under the Democrats’ bill, said Ashley Schapitl, spokeswoman for bill sponsor Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The terrorist watch list pulls information from numerous government agencies in the United States and around the world, so American citizens and legal residents only make up a portion of the list. A pretty small portion, in fact.

A Terrorist Screening Center spokesman declined to comment on the watch list’s current size, but we found an estimate on a 2011 FBI fact-sheet that put it at 420,000 individuals. Of those, only about 8,400 were American citizens or legal residents. The no-fly list subset included about 16,000 names, only 500 of whom were Americans.

The Safety of Modern Firearms

Florida Alert! Bill to Allow Open-Carry to Stop Abuse of CW License Holders

Ammoland

It will prevent CW license holders from being charged with the crime of violating the “Open Carry” law because a concealed firearm, being legally carried, accidentally or inadvertently becomes visible to the sight of another person.

ANYTIME YOU CARRY CONCEALED, YOU ARE IN DANGER OF BEING ARRESTED, CHARGED AND PROSECUTED LIKE A CRIMINAL for violating the ban on open carry of firearms, if your gun is accidentally, unintentionally, briefly exposed to the sight of another person.

Our attorneys tell us that the ONLY WAY to completely stop this abuse is to legally allow license holders to carry openly — then they cannot be charged with violation of the open carry ban no matter how brief the accidental and unintentional exposure.

The Myth of the Concealed Carry Permit Holder - 6 Mass Shootings in 2009

CSGV

The National Rifle Association (NRA) frequently claims that civilians who carry loaded guns in public are the most law-abiding citizens in America. While this is undoubtedly true in some cases, it has become apparent that the screening process in most states does little or nothing to stop dangerous individuals from carrying guns in public spaces.

In 2009, for example, there were six confirmed mass shootings (defined as four or more deaths) by concealed handgun permit holders, including the Fort Hood shooting by Nidal Malik Hasan and the killing of three policemen by neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh.

Approximately 38 states have “Shall-Issue” laws that force law enforcement officials to approve carry permits for any applicant who passes a basic computerized background check through the FBI’s NICS database (which is missing millions of disqualifying records). Individuals with misdemeanor criminal convictions, DUI offenses, past domestic abuse restraining orders, and histories of voluntary commitment to psychiatric institutions can and do obtain permits legally.   Training requirements-if there are any for permit holders-are no more rigorous than a single day-class in instruction.

The NRA has also successfully lobbied for “Constitutional Carry” laws in five additional states (AK, AR, AZ VT, WY). These states allow individuals to carry loaded guns in public with no permit, no screening and no training.

In truth, there is no constitutional “right” to carry a loaded, concealed firearm in public. The Supreme Court was clear on this issue in their decision in the case of  District of Columbia v. Heller. “The Second Amendment right is not unlimited,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia. “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding…laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”

Curtis Reeves, Who Shot Theatergoer for Throwing Popcorn, To Invoke 'stand your ground'

Curtis Reeves

Local news reports

The lawyer for Curtis Reeves, a retired police captain who fatally shot a fellow moviegoer in 2014, is planning to use Florida’s “stand your ground” law to defend his client.

Mr. Reeves was arrested for the fatal shooting of Chad Oulson in January 2014. Police say Mr. Oulson threw his bag of popcorn in Reeves' face after the former captain criticized him for texting. Reeves responded by pulling out his gun and shooting Oulson in the chest, according to law enforcement. A bullet also grazed Oulson's wife, Nicole.

“I think we have a pretty solid stand your ground case,” Richard Escobar, Reeves’ attorney, told the Tampa Bay Times. Escobar plans to utilize a video taken at the scene to prove Reeves acted lawfully under Florida’s self-defense law and ultimately have the criminal charges dismissed. A five-day hearing is scheduled to begin on Jan. 25.

Most Mass Shootings are Domestic not Random

Huffington Post

The untold story of mass shootings in America is one of domestic violence. It is one of men (yes, mostly men) targeting and killing their wives or ex-girlfriends or families. The victims are intimately familiar to the shooters, not random strangers. This kind of violence is not indiscriminate -- though friends, neighbors and bystanders are often killed alongside the intended targets.

The Huffington Post analyzed five years of mass shooting data compiled by Everytown For Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization backed by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. We looked at shootings in which at least four people were killed with a gun (the common definition of mass shootings, though there is debate over the best way to define them).

We found that in 57 percent of mass shootings, the shooter targeted either a family member or an intimate partner. According to HuffPost's analysis, 64 percent of mass shooting victims were women and children. That's startling, since women typically make up only 15 percent of total gun violence homicide victims, and children only 7 percent. 

Charley Vacca's Kids Launch a Petition to Ask for the Obvious

 Charlie Vacca’s children: Tyler, 15, Christopher, 12, Ellie, 16, and Ashley, 20.

Guns dot com

One year ago an Arizona firearms instructor was killed when a 9-year-old girl lost control of a fully automatic uzi she was firing and on the anniversary of the incident, the instructor’s kids are asking for a law to prevent children from shooting such weapons.

Charlie Vacca’s children — Christopher, 12, Tyler, 15, Ellie, 16, and Ashley, 20 — launched the online petition “Kids and Machine Guns Don’t Mix.”

“We’re the children of Charlie Vacca. Last year, a nine-year-old lost control of an Uzi on an Arizona shooting range and our dad lost his life. It’s time for a change,” reads the petition.

The 39-year-old Vacca was assisting a the young girl at an Arizona shooting range when the young girl lost control of an uzi on Aug. 25, 2014.

Video of the incident, which was caught on a cell phone camera by the girl’s parents, shows machine gun drift up as the girl shoots. The muzzle points up and at that point Vacca, who is standing beside her, is shot in the head.

Mass Shootings Rise Steadily Since the 1970s

fas dot org

With data provided by criminologist Grant Duwe, CRS also compiled a 44-year (1970-2013) dataset of firearms-related mass murders that could arguably be characterized as “mass public shootings.” These data show that there were on average:

•

one (1.1) incident per year during the 1970s (5.5 victims murdered, 2.0 wounded

per incident),

•

nearly three (2.7) incidents per year during the 1980s (6.1 victims murdered, 5.3

wounded per incident),

•

four (4.0) incidents per year during the 1990s (5.6 victims murdered, 5.5

wounded per incident),

•

four (4.1) incidents per year during the 2000s (6.4 victims murdered, 4.0

wounded per incident), and

•

four (4.5) incidents per year from 2010 through 2013 (7.4 victims murdered, 6.3

wounded per incident). 

These decade-long averages suggest that the prevalence, if not the deadliness, of “mass public shootings” increased in the 1970s and 1980s, and continued to increase, but not as steeply, during the 1990s, 2000s, and first four years of the 2010s.

Allen B. West: Navy Commander to Be Charged for Returning Fire Against Chattanooga Gunman

Western Journalism

On 1 August 2015, the oft-unreliable web site of conservative commentator Allen B. West published a blog post with the clickbaiting headline “What’s happening to this heroic Navy officer from the Chattanooga shooting will make your blood BOIL.” That post claimed that Navy Lt. Cmdr Timothy White, who is believed to have used a personal weapon to return fire against the shooter who killed four Marines and one sailor during a 16 July 2015 attack at Chattanooga-area military facilities, was going to be brought up on charges of illegally discharging a firearm on federal property by the Navy:

That post was largely cribbed from a thinly-sourced Western Journal article that in turn referenced a Navy Times article that discussed the Navy’s investigation into the shooting but made no mention of White’s being brought up on charges:

However, as of 2 August 2015, U.S. Navy representatives responding to Facebook inquiries about the matter have been stating that the incident is still under review and no charges have yet been brought against any Navy personnel:

Stories of Navy personnel being charged with an offense are not true. There is still a long way to go in reviewing the facts of this tragic incident, but at this time we can confirm no service member has been charged with an offense.

Every Mass Shooting Shares One Thing In Common and It’s NOT Weapons

Ammoland

Nearly every mass shooting incident in the last twenty years, and multiple other instances of suicide and isolated shootings all share one thing in common, and its not the weapons used.

The overwhelming evidence points to the signal largest common factor in all of these incidents is the fact that all of the perpetrators were either actively taking powerful psychotropic drugs or had been at some point in the immediate past before they committed their crimes.