Sunday, May 19, 2013

Beretta USA Responds To Signing Of Maryland Gun Control Legislation

No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money


Beretta USA Responds To Signing Of Maryland Gun Control Legislation

Posted: 17 May 2013 10:31 AM PDT


Beretta USA has been saying for a while now that they would respond to Maryland's new gun control legislation when Gov. Martin O'Malley (D-MD) actually signed it. He signed it yesterday morning and they have responded.

They do not find the new law acceptable and consider it an insult to them and their employees. Beretta USA is evaluating where other than Maryland it plans to expand plant, jobs, and production. They cannot immediately move all operations out of Maryland as they have contracts for M9 pistols to fulfill for the Department of Defense. Moving the production machinery for these pistols out of state would cause unacceptable delays in delivery to the military. A recent interview with Guns.com has more on that here.

The full official Beretta response is below:

This morning, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed into law SB281, a bill that will severely limit the Constitutionally-protected rights of American citizens in the State of Maryland.

Following the signature of the Bill into law, Beretta has issued the following statement, regarding our company's position regarding the law, and our willingness to remain in the State of Maryland.

You may also wish to read this article, outlining our future plans to remain in a state that has chosen to cripple its citizens' Second Amendment rights.

"The firearm companies owned by Beretta Holding in Maryland — Beretta U.S.A. Corp., Benelli U.S.A. Corporation and Stoeger Industries, Inc. — have all been deeply concerned about Governor Martin O’Malley’s effort this year to impose broad new restrictions on the rights of Maryland citizens to buy firearms, as well as on the types of firearms and firearm magazines they can acquire. The Companies have submitted comments before the Maryland legislature and to the press condemning these efforts and stating that the Governor's anti-gun activity is causing them to evaluate whether they want to remain in this State.

Notwithstanding some media reports to the contrary, those efforts have had some beneficial effects.

Through the Companies’ legislative efforts and with assistance led by Delegate Joe Vallario and others provisions were stripped out of the final Bill that would have required an immediate move of certain operations out of Maryland. The parts of the legislation that remained, though - and that were not deleted notwithstanding the Beretta Holding companies efforts to do so -remain offensive not only to our companies as firearm manufacturers, importers and distributors and as investors in jobs, taxes and income within the State of Maryland, but also to those of us who, as Maryland citizens, will now be encumbered with obstacles to our exercise of our Constitutional rights, such as a requirement we now be fingerprinted like a criminal before we can buy a handgun, without providing a commensurate benefit in reducing crime.

The resulting law that passed is not acceptable, even with the improvements we were able to obtain. In short, the law that finally passed went from being atrocious to simply being bad.

The question now facing the Beretta Holding companies in Maryland is this: What effect will the passage of this law--and the efforts of Maryland government officials to support its passage--have on our willingness to remain in this State?

In that respect we are mindful of two objectives: We will not let passage of this legislation prevent us from providing on-time delivery of our products to our U.S. Armed Forces and other important customers. We also will not go forward in a way that compounds the insult made to our Maryland employees by their Governor and by the legislators who supported his efforts.

Prior to introduction of this legislation the three Beretta Holding companies located in Maryland were experiencing growth in revenues and jobs and had begun expansion plans in factory and other operations. The idea now of investing additional funds in Maryland and thus rewarding a Government that has insulted our customers and our products is offensive to us so we will take steps to evaluate such investments in other States. At the same time, we will continue our current necessary operations within Maryland and we are thankful for and welcome the continued support of our employees as we do so."

Lawsuit Filed In Colorado By 54 Sheriffs And Others

Posted: 17 May 2013 02:12 PM PDT


Today, 54 out of the 62 sheriffs in the state of Colorado filed suit in US District Court for the District of Colorado challenging the state's recently enacted gun control laws. Joining the 54 sheriffs were the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Magpul, and a whole number of individuals, gun stores, and organizations.

From the NSSF release on the lawsuit:

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms industry, has joined with 54 county sheriffs, Magpul Industries, the Colorado Outfitters Association, several firearms retailers, disabled individuals and other parties in a federal lawsuit brought today in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado in what is a broad-based challenge to Colorado's recently enacted gun-control laws.

"In addition to Constitutional infringements and unenforceable requirements regarding magazine capacity, as the sheriffs have pointed out, we believe it will be impossible for citizens to comply with mandated firearms 'transfers' through federally licensed retailers," said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. "Colorado's federally-licensed firearms retailers are being asked to process these transfers as if they were selling from their own inventory and to monitor both seller and buyer through a state-administered check process that can take hours or even days. They will not be able to recoup the actual cost of providing the service, which is capped at $10, but they will be liable for paperwork errors and subject to license revocation. Not surprisingly, we expect few, if any licensed retailers will step forward to provide this service."


"For this reason and the many others detailed in our joint action with our fellow plaintiffs, these laws need to be struck down," Keane said.

 From the Independence Institute's release published in The Outdoor Wire this morning:

Colorado Sheriffs to File Suit This Morning Against Colorado Anti-Gun Laws

Photo, Video, and Interview opportunities with plaintiffs, including Sheriffs, Disabled gun owners, Women gun owners
Legal challenge to Colorado's new anti-gun laws begins in earnest tomorrow morning in Federal Court
Copies of the legal Complaint will be available

Contact Mary MacFarlane, 303-279-6536 x102, mary@i2i.org

Friday morning, May 17, at 10 a.m., Colorado Sheriffs and other plaintiffs will hold a press conference detailing the filing earlier that day of their federal civil rights lawsuit against House Bill 1224 (magazine ban) and 1229 (sales and temporary transfers of firearms).

The press conference will be held at the Independence Institute, 727 East 16th Ave., Denver.

The press conference will have broadcast live on KFKA radio, 1310 AM, Greeley, www.1310kfka.com

A full video will be uploaded to http://www.youtube.com/user/davekopel shortly after the conclusion of the press conference.

Sheriffs are coming from as far away as the Western Slope to participate in the press conference. Also at the press conference will be disabled citizens in wheelchairs, and representatives of Women for Concealed Carry.

After approximately 15 minutes of prepared statements by the Plaintiffs, the Plaintiffs, as well as Sheriffs' attorney David Kopel, will take questions from the media. There will be photo and video opportunities. Plaintiffs will be available for interviews.

The complaint is not yet up on the District Court's Pacer site. I'll post a link when it is available.

Dave Workman has more here as does Michael Bane here.

UPDATE:  The complaint that has been filed US District Court for the District of Colorado can be found here. The case is 54 Sheriffs et al v. John W. Hickenlooper. The list of plaintiffs in the case runs for two pages!

The case is being brought on 2nd and 14 Amendment grounds as well as under the Americans with Disability Act. They are asking for declaratory and injunctive relief.

The press conference video is up on YouTube. I have embedded it below. Bitter at Shall Not Be Questioned has an earlier video of lead attorney Dave Kopel being interviewed about the case.

Nothing Like A Little Blood Dancing On A Friday Afternoon

Posted: 17 May 2013 09:32 AM PDT


You have to hand it to the gun prohibitionists - they do love their blood dancing.

Colorado woman unintentionally kills self using new assault rifle ow.ly/l8AI7
— Violence Policy Cent (@VPCinfo) May 17, 2013


They are linking to a story about a negligent discharge by a woman in Colorado. It involved an intoxicated young woman who slipped and fell while returning to a party to show off her new AK. Unfortunately, the firearm was loaded, a round was chambered, and it seems obvious to me that she had her finger on the trigger. The end result was that she died.

While the Violence Policy Center is keying in on the "new assault rifle" (sic), the story in and of itself is a warning not to handle dangerous objects while intoxicated. It could have just as easily been a kitchen knife or an ice pick. We have all been warned to not run with scissors. This is just an extension of that old warning.

Abandoned Property?

Posted: 17 May 2013 09:13 AM PDT


Privacy is a concern of mine so I found this Wall Street Journal report quite interesting. It is entitled, "How to Stop the FBI From Reading Your Email." The FBI holds that any email that is greater than six months old and is still on a server is abandoned property. As such, they say they don't need to obtain a warrant to read that email. According to report Jonnelle Marte, this stems from a law written in 1986. I wish she had been a bit more specific as to which law treats it as abandoned property.

The reporter suggests two things to prevent the FBI from snooping into your email. First, there is encryption but both the sender and receiver need to have the key. The second is actually much easier - delete older emails or download them from the server to your own harddrive.

For people using Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or something similar for their email, this is a good reminder to clean out your in-box and archives. While I use Gmail for some things, I tend to use my older email account for more sensitive and personal stuff in combination with Mozilla Thunderbird. It downloads directly to my hard drive and doesn't leave anything on their server.







UPDATE: The law in question is the Stored Communications Act of 1986. More on the law here. Thanks to Bill G. for the info.

 

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