Arizona

FreedomSight reports on the BATFE's eTrace program, which can supposedly track the ownership history of guns used in crimes.  He wonders where they get their data.  Good question.  Unfortunately, he probably won't like the answer, even leaving aside the fact that it comes from a Brady Campaign webpage:

Do state police perform a background check in addition to federal NICS check? Yes

Arizona: State law requires gun buyers to go through a state-based criminal background check in addition to the federal NICS check. 

A state check can retain the data as long as state law allows.  I would not be at all surprised if the BATFE could turn that into a mandate to maintain their own records, maybe by having Arizona provide a copy of the state record after the NICS check.  Then it's not a NICS record.  It's an "Arizona State record".

UPDATE: Commenters at SaysUncle think it's just an internet portal to the old trace system.  They may be right.  But I wouldn't be surprised if the BATFE is pulling the trick I described above anyway.

Before I took office as a state lawmaker representing Northeastern Arizona, I was promised by the Democrat leadership at the Legislature that I would be part of an "inclusive" party in a "big tent" of fellow Democrats. After four years at the Legislature, I've learned that entering the big tent requires paying a big price; namely, adopting the narrow ideology of the Democrat leadership, which includes: Outright hostility to family values and support for a radical redefinition of the family Opposition to reasonable restrictions on abortion, making it easier for a 12 year old girl to get an abortion than an Aspirin at school An insatiable thirst for gambling dollars that exploits thousands of families across Arizona.

Thirty- four volunteers including two new recruits from California spent the weekend patrolling the Cochise County border with Mexico over the past weekend. Civil Homeland Defense concluded its most productive - yet most terrifying weekend to date with forty-three illegal invaders peacefully and humanely turned over to Border Patrol. Another approximately 80 border intruders who ran and pelted members with rocks were not so peaceful or humane in their attempt to escape capture by Border Patrol agents. All intruders were located and reported to Border Patrol, all eighty were apprehended and returned to Mexico. The community of Palominas experienced what was virtually an all out invasion over the weekend. Friday night the roads were bustling with Border Patrol vehicles driving everywhere in an attempt to keep up with the hundreds that were moving up the San Pedro river basin; the trend continued for three straight days and nights. All weekend helicopters were buzzing in the air-locating group after group of illegal intruders.

Good news for gun manufacturers and sellers: The Arizona Supreme Court says they can't be held liable when their products are used to kill someone. Without comment, the court upheld the Court of Appeals decision throwing out the claims of families of three employees of a Tucson Pizza Hut who were shot to death in a 1999 robbery. That court rejected the contention by the survivors that the defendants had a duty to have procedures designed to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them or foreseeably might commit a crime.

Here we have an idiot, writing for what appears to be his school paper. Someone with absolutely no experience in the world, but willing to put his opinion on paper in favor of propaganda against firearms. Predictably, his opinion is worthless.

So what harm could a small pistol in the purse of a so-called ?law abiding? citizen (at least by the NRA?s definition) on campus do? Plenty, says Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

So, we learn that he's contacted the Brady Bunch to support his little campaign. I wonder whether this student of journalism has learned to contact both sides of an issue before writing about it? In any case, no one should be surprised at what the Brady Bunch has to say on this issue.

?Any time a weapon is introduced into a situation, the chance that the situation can turn deadly is dramatically increased,? he explained. ?Anything from an argument to a burglary, which would otherwise not be deadly, can quickly escalate when a firearm is involved.?

Any time a weapon is introduced into a situation, chances are that situation was already well on the way towards violence. Women carrying guns legally generally don't introduce them in situations where they do not feel threatened. When they are threatened, it's generally not their fault (and certainly not the fault of the gun they were carrying)! And you're not going to get the criminals to leave their guns behind; it's already illegal for a criminal to possess a gun.

Plus, regardless of how many one-day seminars the NRA holds, most average citizens don?t have the same training as law enforcement officials in using firearms and how to handle them.

True; most law enforcement officers get more firearms training than the average citizen. But the "average" citizen doesn't carry a concealed firearm. Those that do generally treat firearms as a hobby as well as a self-defense measure, so they will voluntarily improve their competence and training with the weapon. More importantly, though, the average citizen doesn't need as much training; unlike police officers they do not have to intervene in threatening situations daily. All they have to do is defend themselves. When you're being attacked, it's fairly easy to know what to do.

?When you carry a concealed weapon, you decide when to use deadly force and how deadly that force will be,? says Wilcox. So, depending on the individual?s judgment, someone could be shot and killed for stealing a CD player.

In most states, shooting someone over a non-violent theft where no threat was posed would be legally questionable at best. But if there is someone present on the scene to shoot the thief, what certainty do we have that it is the theft of a CD player and not a rape or even a murder? When a criminal invades your home, you can't dither about whether it's a threat or just a property crime. Even so, in the vast majority of self-defense cases where a firearm is involved, the firearm was not fired -- merely displaying the firearm is enough to end the threat.

Talking about people getting shot over CD players is misleading, because it just doesn't happen among legal gun owners.

I can see the headline already: ?Student shoots and kills roommate after argument about leaving the light on at night.? Sadly, otherwise law-abiding citizens use the deadly force they carry around with them for even more petty reasons.

If it happens, you can cite instances, right? Right?

As predictable as President Bush?s butchering of words is the response from the gun lobby to weapons-free zones: ?If someone isn?t afraid of breaking the law to commit a violent crime, what?s to stop them from violating the weapons-free zone law??

The answer requires more than a well-polished sound byte. To begin with, weapons-free zones simply cannot eliminate the threat of violent crimes altogether. However, they reduce the threat with a multi-pronged approach.

In other words, despite the weasal words, he admits that criminals will ignore the law.

Wilcox points out that weapons-free zones help law enforcement officers do their jobs. ?Weapons-free zones make it easier for police to identify a potential threat,? he said. ?If everyone is allowed to carry guns, it?s more difficult to tell who is a threat and who isn?t.?

Not really. The person shooting at other people is a threat. Everyone else isn't -- whether they are carrying a gun at the moment or not. Most importantly, if no one is shooting at anyone else, there is no threat -- guns or no guns.

In addition, most concealed carry laws are written such that if the firearm is not concealed, it's an offence. The police are thus easily justified in asking someone carrying a legally-concealed firearm to make sure it actually remains concealed.

They reduce accidental firings, which account for nearly 15,000 deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Weapons-free zones also reduce the chance of a situation involving law-abiding citizens escalating to the point that it becomes deadly.

"Accidental firings" come mostly from hunting, not concealed-carry incidents. And if law-abiding citizens carrying legally concealed firearms routinely shoot each other in "escalation", surely there is evidence of this in the news? Right? Right?

Another reason the Arizona Board of Regents allowed our state?s universities to adopt weapons-free zone policies is to protect academic freedom. While this may sound like something only a few paranoid students would complain about, imagine a heated discussion in a class with one of the participants sporting a handgun on his belt. Who knows how many concealed weapons could be in the room. I for one would not enßgage in any discussion I thought would persuade him or her to use that weapon.

What do you think you could say that would incite someone to murder? Are you naturally that offensive? Or do you feel your own inner rage would drive you to commit murder yourself, if you had a gun, and are simply projecting that upon others?

Our campus is not crime-free, and will probably never be without bike thefts and, regrettably, a few crimes that are more serious. Victims of serious crimes on campus would probably not be comforted to know that our campus is safer because of the weapons-free zone that encompasses it. Nevertheless, we must strive to make our university a place where everyone can work, learn, study and feel safe.

In other words, this idiot would rather feel safe than allow people to actually be safe.

A new law forces workers to have a higher percentage of state taxes withheld from their paychecks, even though many of those workers already overpay and get refunds.

Don't panic; no one's taxes were raised. The total you owe at the end of the year will be the same, but the amount you pay on each paycheck could change.

The change is aimed at keeping cash flowing into state coffers after federal taxes were cut. If lawmakers didn't bump up the state rates, which are based on federal ones, Arizona would have lost an estimated $14 million in cash flow in 2003, although that would have meant more money in your pocket in the short term.

So, in other words, because the state can't manage it's cash flow properly without continuous cash infusions from your taxed paychecks, they are going to force additional withholding from that paycheck -- money that they have no right to in the first place! -- merely to ease their cash flow problems.

Only a government has the option to do this with force. What would you say if some individual came up to you and demanded part of your paycheck each month, even though he admitted that you did not owe him the money? What if he promised he would pay it all back come next tax refund day -- would that make you feel any better about it?

But the state of Arizona can do it, and no one is supposed to complain. Because it's the government.