tagged w/ gun ownership
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Constitution's "right to keep and bear arms" applies nationwide as a restraint on the ability of the federal, state and local governments to substantially limit its reach.
By a 5-4 vote split along familiar ideological lines, the nation's highest court extended its landmark 2008 ruling that individual Americans have a constitutional right to own guns to all the cities and states for the first time.
In doing so, the justices signaled that less severe restrictions could survive legal challenges. The ruling involved a 28-year-old handgun ban in the Chicago area.
The ruling was a victory for four Chicago-area residents, two gun rights groups and the politically powerful National Rifle Association.
It was a defeat for Chicago, which defended its ban as a reasonable exercise of local power to protect public safety. The law and a similar handgun ban in suburban Oak Park, Ill., were the nation's most restrictive gun control measures.
Monday's decision did not explicitly strike down the Chicago area laws, ordering a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling. It left little doubt, however, that they would fall eventually.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment right "applies equally to the federal government and the states."
The Second Amendment and gun ownership rights are finally protected. Now people will be able to have their own equal protection from criminals, who have been the only people who owned guns in some areas.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Constitution's... more
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The National Rifle Association is pushing legislation to ban adoption agencies from asking potential parents if they have guns and ammunition in the home.
NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer said adoption agencies are violating gun-owners' rights by asking about firearms in an adoption form. She said any request about gun ownership from an agency connected with government was tantamount to establishing a gun registry.
"Gun registration is illegal in Florida," Hammer said. "An adoption agency has no right to subvert the privacy rights of gun owners."
The issue flared up in Brevard County where a gun-owning couple took umbrage at a request from the Children's Home Society that they disclose if they had firearms before adopting a child.
The couple complained to a lawyer, who called Hammer. She said it would be easier to change the law rather than sue.
A spokeswoman for the Children's Home Society, Liz Bruner, said the agency asks about guns because it is required to by the Department of Children & Families.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/78378.htmlThe National Rifle Association is pushing legislation to ban adoption agencies from... more
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I recently came across an internet post where gun lovers were seriously complaining that President Obama is a threat to American freedom because he wants to take away people's guns. Without even considering whether this accusation is true or not, I have a bigger question for gunophiles: Where the hell were you guys over the last eight years?
Gunophiles always claim they are the thin voluntary line between tyranny and freedom, the noble defenders of life, liberty and property. Yet the Bush Crime Family stole their (and all of our) savings right out from under us and never once did the modern-day Minutemen rise up. The "well-organized militia" that the Second Amendment promises failed to self-organize in a miraculous display of social emergence.
[...more at link...]I recently came across an internet post where gun lovers were seriously complaining... more
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At least nine people have been killed and dozens injured in a gun attack at a vocational school in southwestern Finland, the country's prime minister has said.
The shooting on Tuesday at the school in Kauhajoki, 300km southwest of the capital Helsinki, was carried out by a 22-year-old male student of the college, Matti Vanhanen said.
"There are nine dead. We have no up-to-date information about the injured or how many there are," Vanhanen said.
Police have said that the assailant was disarmed after the attack while the office of the local mayor said he was wounded after turning the gun on himself.
"He shot himself, but he's not dead. He's injured," Ari Paananen, a spokesman for the city mayor, said.
Lengthy attack
About 200 people are believed to have been inside the school when the attacker entered the school at 11am [0800 GMT].
The subsequent shooting lasted for about 90 minutes, witnesses said.
"Within a short space of time I heard several dozen rounds of shots, in other words it was an automatic pistol," Jukka Forsberg, a school caretaker, told Finnish broadcaster YLE.
"I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning, and one managed to escape out of the back door."
Mia Ylonen, a radio journalist, told Al Jazeera from Helsinki: "According to eyewitnesses there was a man wearing a balaclava carrying a bag [entering] - then there was shooting.
"Police have found suspicious videos posted online [on the YouTube video sharing website] where you can see a man from the city practising shooting."
The attack comes ten months after eight students were killed in a gun attack at a school north of Helsinki.
"That was a shock for the country. In the past, Finland has been known to be a peaceful and this is a huge shock," Ylonen said of Tuesday's attack.
Finland has the third-highest level of gun ownership in the world, behind the US and Yemen, a survey carried out last year by the Small Arms Survey of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva said.
At least nine people have been killed and dozens injured in a gun attack at a... more
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