On Dec 19, 2:33 am, Too_Many_Tools wrote:
On Dec 19, 1:15 am, wrote:





On Dec 19, 12:53 pm, Dave Hinz wrote: On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:01:43 -0600, Don Foreman wrote:
On 18 Dec 2007 02:37:17 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

Your otherwise decent people - what gives with this gun nuttiness?

You've been told dozens of times. Do you really need to be told yet
again? Bad people may attack us. Until they're kept in jail, don't
deny me the ability to defend my family from them. This isn't
complicated, Andrew.

You sum it up well with few words, Dave.

Yes, its a good summary of your situation. I have no issue with that.
Pity you need to, though. Glad I don't have to be armed and ready to
do the same.

Andrew VK3BFA.

Andrew, what you are hearing are the rants and ravings of the paranoid
in regards to guns in America.

They do not represent the norm in this Country.

The vast majority of Americans never consider carrying a concealed
weapon even while owning them for sport or hunting...it simply is not
needed.

There are those in any society who while owning a gun should never be
allowed to use them...an example would be our Vice President Dick
"Shoot Them In The Face" Cheney.

I personally own many firearms and have never felt the need to carry
concealed.

TMT- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It would seem that we have a new gun law coming....

Your opinion?

TMT

Congress OKs Va Tech-inspired gun bill By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated
Press Writer

Congress on Wednesday passed a long-stalled bill inspired by the
Virginia Tech shootings that would more easily flag prospective gun
buyers who have documented mental health problems. The measure also
would help states with the cost.

Passage by voice votes in the House and Senate came after months of
negotiations between Senate Democrats and the lone Republican, Sen.
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who had objected and delayed passage.

It was not immediately clear whether President Bush intended to sign,
veto or ignore the bill. If Congress does not technically go out of
session, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has threatened,
the bill would become law if Bush does not act within 10 days.

"This bill will make America safer without affecting the rights of a
single law-abiding citizen," said the Senate's chief sponsor, New York
Democrat Chuck Schumer.

One of the House's chief sponsors, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, spoke in the
full House about her husband, who was killed by a gunman on the Long
Island Railroad in New York. "To me, this is the best Christmas
present I could ever receive," said McCarthy, D-N.Y.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., added that the bill will speed up
background checks and reinforce the rights of law abiding gun owners.

Propelling the bill were the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16 and
rare agreement between political foes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent
Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association.

But other interest groups said that in forging compromise with the gun
lobby, the bill's authors unintentionally imposed an unnecessary
burden on government agencies by freeing up thousands of people to buy
guns.

"Rather than focusing on improving the current laws prohibiting people
with certain mental health disabilities from buying guns, the bill is
now nothing more than a gun lobby wish list," said Kristen Rand,
legislative director of the Violence Policy Center. "It will waste
millions of taxpayer dollars restoring the gun privileges of persons
previously determined to present a danger to themselves or others."

The measure would clarify what mental health records should be
reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System,
which help gun dealers determine whether to sell a firearm to a
prospective buyer, and give states financial incentives for
compliance. The attorney general could penalize states if they fail to
meet compliance targets.

Despite the combined superpowers of bill's supporters, Coburn held it
up for months because he worried that millions of dollars in new
spending would not be paid for by cuts in other programs.

His chief concern, he said, was that it did not pay for successful
appeals by veterans or other people who say they are wrongly barred
from buying a gun.

Just before midnight Tuesday, Coburn and the Democratic supporters of
the bill struck a deal: The government would pay for the cost of
appeals by gun owners and prospective buyers who argue successfully in
court that they were wrongly deemed unqualified for mental health
reasons.

The compromise would require that incorrect records -- such as expunged
mental health rulings that once disqualified a prospective gun buyer
but no longer do -- be removed from system within 30 days.

The original bill would require any agency, such as the Veterans
Administration or the Defense Department, to notify a person flagged
as mentally ill and disqualified from buying or possessing a gun. The
new version now also would require the notification when someone has
been cleared of that restriction.

The bill would authorize up to $250 million a year over five years for
the states and as much as $125 million a year over the same period for
state courts to help defray the cost of enacting the policy.

Propelling the long-sought legislation were the April 16 killings at
Virginia Tech. Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and himself
using two guns he had bought despite his documented history of mental
illness.

Cho had been ruled a danger to himself during a court commitment
hearing in 2005. He had been ordered to have outpatient mental health
treatment and should have been barred from buying the two guns he
used. But Virginia never forwarded the information to the national
background check system.