From: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com (utah-firearms-digest) To: utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: utah-firearms-digest V2 #151 Reply-To: utah-firearms-digest Sender: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk utah-firearms-digest Thursday, August 12 1999 Volume 02 : Number 151 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 03 Aug 99 01:33:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: NEWS - UN urges control on light weapons - ----- Date: Mon, 02 Aug 1999 10:41:10 -0600 From: "Jim Dexter" To: lputah@qsicorp.com Subject: FW: NEWS - UN urges control on light weapons "U.N. panel to urge intl control of light firearms" 7/31/99 Yomiuri Shimbun A U.N. panel of experts studying international controls on light firearms, such as handguns, machine guns and assault rifles, is to propose the establishment of an international agreement controlling such weapons, it was learned Saturday. The panel, chaired by Mitsuro Donowaki, special assistant to the foreign minister, will also call for an embargo on such weapons either in a U.N. Security Council resolution or by some other method, sources close to the panel said. According to the sources, the panel may submit its recommendations in a report as early as Monday to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is hoping to adopt the recommendations at a U.N. General Assembly scheduled for September. The U.N. Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, established under a 1997 General Assembly resolution, has been preparing the report. The panel consists of 23 disarmament experts from 23 countries including Japan, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, Brazil and Egypt. They have held meetings and workshops in a number of places, including New York and Tokyo, to work toward solutions for problems related to small arms. According to the sources, the report proposes holding an international U.N. conference on small arms sometime in the summer of 2001 to seek agreement on the establishment of a legally and politically binding international agreement, such as a treaty, on light firearms control. It also urges the world body to adopt an international plan of action at the conference to reduce the number of light firearms in countries that have accumulated and used a large number of such weapons, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan. By so doing, the international community would raise public awareness about the problem of small arms, the sources said. The panel also suggests that research be conducted into the possibility of limiting the production and trade of light firearms by limiting the number of licenses issued for them in each country. It will also ask the Security Council to take appropriate steps to enforce an effective embargo on small arms, such as a Security Council resolution. In its report, the panel will urge U.N. member states to: - -- Introduce legal and administrative measures to control the production of light firearms. - -- Exercise tight controls on the transfer of light firearms to regions of conflict. - -- Introduce a system whereby the date and location of the production of such weapons are marked on the weapons themselves. Large quantities of light firearms were produced in the Cold War era and have subsequently found their way to regions of conflict around the world, according to the sources. However, there are no international agreements controlling the production and trade of such weapons as there are concerning weapons of mass destruction. As a result, many people have been injured or become refugees due to the proliferation of these weapons, which are also partly to blame for the expansion and prolonged fighting in regions such as Kosovo. In 1995, then U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for controls on small arms, and the 1997 General Assembly adopted a report proposing closer international cooperation among police and customs authorities as well as research into the creation of a database of producers and traders of such arms. - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Aug 99 17:18:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: GOUtah Media Release For Distribution and Posting to all lists - ----- GOUtah! Gun Owners of Utah Utah's Uncompromising, Independent Gun Rights Network. No Compromise. No Retreat. No Surrender. Not Now. Not Ever. Information Release to All Media- 29 July 1999 GOUtah! Suggests Informed Decisions and Economic Alternatives to the Latest Salt Lake City Gun Turn-In and Destruction Program As a broad-based network of responsible firearms owners in Utah, we are concerned that the upcoming Gun Turn-In and Destruction Program to be conducted by Salt Lake City from 3-13 August 1999 may not be in the best interests of either the individual firearm owner or the public at large. First, the firearms to be turned in will likely come from otherwise peaceable citizens, who pose no threat to the safety or security of the community. GOUtah! suggests that before anyone gives up their firearm without any compensation to the government for destruction, they first take it to a licensed firearms dealer for an appraisal of its current value. Many firearms, even those which are old, have been well used or even inoperable may still have a substantial dollar value to collectors, hunters, target shooters and other legitimate users of firearms. The licensed dealer will be able to give you a value of the firearm, and may even offer to purchase it from you or place it on consignment sale in their place of business. Licensed gun dealers city-wide are listed in the yellow pages of the telephone directory under "Guns." Another legitimate concern is the "No Questions" approach to this gun turn-in program. This may have the effect of allowing a significant piece of evidence to be destroyed without any attempt to identify or apprehend the criminal. Also, under Utah law 76-10-525, all law enforcement agencies in the state are required to determine the true owner of any recovered weapon and promptly return it to them. There is no indication as yet that the Salt Lake City program will obey this law, and thus many innocent individuals who have had their firearms stolen would then also have their property destroyed without compensation by the government, all in order to make a dubious political or social statement. - -end- - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Aug 99 17:18:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: JPFO ALERT: THE ANTI-GUN CULTURE KILLS NINE IN ATLANTA Excellent, except that the word 'socialist' should more properly be rendered 'corporatist' or 'fascist'. - ----- ALERT from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization August 1, 1999 To all JPFO Supporters: THE ANTI-GUN CULTURE KILLS NINE IN ATLANTA The calculating killer in Atlanta (Mark Barton) beat his ex-wife and children to death with a blunt instrument on Tuesday and Wednesday. The next day he entered two separate office buildings and coldly murdered nine more people. None of these victims or their co-workers had taken the simple precaution that Georgia law allows -- none of them was carrying a concealed firearm. Why not? A Georgia state legislator informs us that law-abiding, sane citizens of that state can obtain a concealed carry permit without difficulty under Georgia's "shall issue" concealed carry law. Why weren't any of these people carrying a firearm? The answer is startling simple: the "mainstream culture" discouraged them. Media mouths and "gun control" lobbyists have conditioned people to hate and fear firearms. Governments have promised to protect people from crime and installed "911" systems for response to emergencies. The result has been _de facto_ disarmament of victims. Now try to follow this logic: the "gun control" lobbyists say that gun violence is escalating, and that we need more "gun control" laws to stop the violence. The lobbyists point to the several relatively recent killings in school yards, Post Office facilities and other such places. They say that there is so much shooting going on that the people need to be disarmed. And yet, if an armed attacker is menacing, they tell citizens to dial 911 to get help ... from police officers carrying guns. Connect the dots of the gun phobes and you see this result: WHEN THERE IS AN INCREASE IN VIOLENT ATTACKS, THERE MUST BE AN INCREASE IN ARMED RESPONSE. The gun prohibitionists want the armed response to come only from police, but they still want an armed response. The fact is, however, that the police in the great majority of states owe no legal duty to protect individuals from criminal attack. Also, the police cannot be everywhere all the time. (Well, at least not until the totalitarians take over.) So if the gun prohibitionists are correct about the wave of maniacal murders in offices and schools, then the answer must be to have an armed response even more available than the police. That answer is to encourage peace-loving, nonviolent, sane people to carry concealed firearms for defense. The anti-gun propagandists have taught people to avoid or refuse to arm themselves. They have taught people, as have the socialist propagandists, to rely upon the government to take care of everything. It isn't chic, or cool, or hip, or politically correct to carry a firearm. City-dwellers in office buildings, and teachers and administrators in schools, leave themselves wide open to criminal attackers, because the anti-gun lobby has dictated what's fashionable in defense strategy. The anti-gun propaganda helped assure the deaths of those people killed in the Atlanta brokerage offices. Remember the woman who left her firearm in her car when she and her parents ate at Lubey's cafeteria in Texas? The armed killer who came in that day cut her parents down, right before her eyes, and the woman was unable to protect them ... BECAUSE SHE HAD BEEN AFRAID OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF PEACEFULLY CARRYING A CONCEALED FIREARM FOR DEFENSE. How many of the office workers in Atlanta might have brought a firearm to work every day, routinely and peacefully, had they felt that it was their right and duty to help defend against possible criminal attack? Ironically, in Georgia many of those office workers could have carried a concealed firearm to work every day ... lawfully ... but were probably deterred by the negative attitude many Americans have toward firearms and their owners. This negative attitude, this fear of having and using a firearm, this dependence upon government for all protection, is the direct result of "gun control" advocacy and legislation. And so, defenseless people died ... BECAUSE THEY WERE CONVINCED NOT TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. * * * - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Aug 99 14:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: CBS vs RKBA - ----- To: lputah@qsicorp.com Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 16:43:19 -0600 Subject: CBS vs RKBA From: "Jim Dexter" I had lunch with a nonmember friend, a non-gun-owner who is largely apolitical, who asked me if I'd seen the CBS report on the 2nd Amendment last night. I related my cable outage woes and asked him what they reported. He said that CBS had determined that the 2nd refers only to the national guard and that under the constitution, no one has an individual right to RKBA. He then noted that his impression was that it was the most biased report he'd ever seen; that there was absolutely no attempt to seek any contrary opinion. Guess we have to stop watching CBS. Or else fid Dan Rather walking in Central Park and ask him, "What's the caliber, Kenneth?" - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 16:55:52 -0600 From: charles hardy Subject: Fw: Costs of guns but no mention of benefits For your reference, Prof. John Lott, Jr. has estimated that the economic benefit to the economy from the reduction in violent crime that accompanies "shall-issue" concealed carry laws is $6.6 billion, so the benefits of concealed carry exceed the "costs" of gun violence (almost none of which is caused by permittees of course!) by a factor of nearly three. This of course does not take into account the non-economic value of the lives that are saved, and the thousands of other crimes that are prevented, when good citizens carry firearms. Moll This article from today's DesNews details the costs of treating gun related injuries. Conveniently it doesn't make any mention of how many injuries (rapes, muggings, murders) or property crimes (theft, arson, etc) are prevented by ready access to guns. Methinks some letters to the editor are in order. U.S. spent $2.3 billion to treat gun victims in a year CHICAGO (AP) — The cost of treating the nation's gunshot victims in a recent year was $2.3 billion and the government paid half the bill, researchers reported Tuesday. The figure is an estimate of what the nation spent treating gunshot victims in 1994, based on data from hospitals in Maryland and New York that year, from South Carolina emergency rooms in 1997 and other sources. "We have been concerned that a lot of folks don't see gun violence as their problem, they see it as someone else's problem," said one of the researchers, Philip Cook, director of the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University. "The costs are shared by everyone through government payment. In that sense, we all have a stake in reducing gun violence." This has not been lost on many cities and counties — at least 23 are pursuing gunmakers in court to recover money spent treating gunshot victims. The study published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association looked at the costs hospitals incurred treating almost 135,000 gunshot injuries, including fatal ones. The average cost per injury was $17,000. When a victim was hospitalized, the average lifetime cost jumped to $35,000, the researchers estimated. A researcher not involved in the study said it was a solid analysis of the limited data that is available. Mark Cohen, a Vanderbilt University economist who does research in this area, said the breakdown of who bears the costs of gunshot wounds is the study's most valuable component. The government, mostly through Medicaid and Medicare payments, paid $1.1 billion of the total cost, the study found. Private insurers covered 18 percent of the cost, and victims picked up another 19 percent. The researchers speculated that victims' costs are often passed on to other patients because many victims can't afford treatment. ================================================================== Charles C. Hardy ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 04 Aug 99 14:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: Ch 4 Pro-Gun Interviews - ----- To: lputah@qsicorp.com Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 22:40:22 -0600 From: "Jim Dexter" Subject: FW: Ch 4 Pro-Gun Interviews "On WEDNESDAY, 10:00 pm, August 4th, Channel 4 will have stories of people who carry concealed weapons. A female doctor and another professional (attorney or court officer) will be amoung the live interviews. "It behooves all of us to monitor TV specials of this type. Stay tuned." The female doctor is Sarah Thompson, and the attorney may be (not confirmed) Mitch Vilos, of Utah Gun Owners Legal Defense (U-GOLD). Please watch, and send your feedback to: tsides@4utah.com or 4 Utah KTVX 1760 Fremont Dr. Salt Lake City, Ut. 84104 General Office: (801) 975-4444 General Fax: (801) 975-4442 News Desk: (801) 975-4400 News Tip Line: (801) 975-4401 Programming Fax: (801) 975-4473 - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 07:42:32 -0600 From: "larry larsen" Subject: Re: Ch 4 Pro-Gun Interviews this is real nice to hear about after the fact. da. larry - -----Original Message----- From: SCOTT BERGESON Date: Thursday, August 05, 1999 12:33 AM Subject: FW: Ch 4 Pro-Gun Interviews > >----- >To: lputah@qsicorp.com >Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 22:40:22 -0600 >From: "Jim Dexter" >Subject: FW: Ch 4 Pro-Gun Interviews > >"On WEDNESDAY, 10:00 pm, August 4th, Channel 4 will have stories >of people who carry concealed weapons. A female doctor and another >professional (attorney or court officer) will be amoung the live >interviews. > >"It behooves all of us to monitor TV specials of this type. Stay tuned." > > >The female doctor is Sarah Thompson, and the attorney may be (not confirmed) >Mitch Vilos, of Utah Gun Owners Legal Defense (U-GOLD). Please watch, and >send your feedback to: tsides@4utah.com or > > 4 Utah KTVX > 1760 Fremont Dr. > Salt Lake City, Ut. 84104 > > General Office: (801) 975-4444 > General Fax: (801) 975-4442 > News Desk: (801) 975-4400 > News Tip Line: (801) 975-4401 > Programming Fax: (801) 975-4473 > > > >- > > - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Aug 99 02:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: Message for Gun Owners - ----- Date: Wed, 04 Aug 1999 23:40:03 -0600 From: Ron Amos Subject: Message for Gun Owners Dear Fellow Gun Owners: I'm familiar with the "wasted vote" argument and all of the other excuses that gun owners offer for continuing to support a Republican Party that has proven not only willing, but enthusiastic, about selling out your right to keep and bear arms. I'm not going to come onto this list and ask you to vote for the 2000 Libertarian Party candidate a year from this November -- at least not yet. What I AM going to ask you to do is to take a few steps that will increase the ability of gun owners to affect the electoral process between now and the 2000 presidential election. These steps are easy, simple, and leave you free to cast your vote for George W. Bush or Libby Dole next fall if you insist on pretending to yourself that either of these boobs is "the lesser evil" compared to their brothers and sisters in the other wing of the Victim Disarmament Party. Step 1: Endorse a pro-gun candidate. That doesn't mean you have to vote for him next November. It just means that right now, your voice will be added to the collective voice of gun owners *threatening* to vote for someone who actually views the Bill of Rights as something other than toilet paper. The candidate of choice for excercising this option is L. Neil Smith, and I encourage you to surf over and have a look at or ....where you will be able to sign an online petition endorsing Smith, after establishing to your own satisfaction that he is, indeed, *the* RKBA candidate. Step 2: While you're at that first URL, you'll note that many of us are pushing for L. Neil Smith to receive the nomination of the Libertarian Party next year. Now, like I said, I'm not going to ask you to vote LP next November -- yet. But, given the fact that the two likely GOP candidates, Bush and Dole, have already flatly stated that they don't give a damn about your Second Amendment rights, is there any reason not to vote in the Libertarian *primary*? And to vote for the candidate, L. Neil Smith, who is most firm and strident in his dedication to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms? Think about it. You retain your right to vote for Victim Disarmament Party A or Victim Disarmament Party B in the November election -- but in the primary, you'll be sending a message to their prospective nominees: "I went somewhere else this spring. Perhaps you should get your act together on the gun issue before November, or I may just stay there." A sufficient number of gun owners defecting to the LP in the primary will almost certainly bring forth pledges of undying love for the Second Amendment from the candidates. I'll set aside the fact that these pledges, like every other avowal of devotion to the constitution by GOP candidates since Goldwater, are empty promises predicated on the assumption that you'll forget once they are elected, or at least before they're up for *re-election*, or that you have nowhere else to go. If, having voted LP in the primary, you decide to back down and go for that "lesser of two evils" in November, that's your choice. A bad one, but yours. Step 3: Forward this message or one like it to your friends. Pretty easy, huh? There are 70 million gun owners in the U.S. Most of them are law-abiding, and most of them are -- or at least are eligible to be -- voters. Let's get in touch with them. If as many as a million of our honest, hard-working, law-abiding, gun-owning fellow citizens display a willingness, however temporary or transient, to vote on principle instead of cowering in fear and grasping at the "best" of two bad alternatives, perhaps we can get somewhere. Sincerely, Thomas L. Knapp tlknapp@free-market.net The Ad Hoc Conspiracy to Draft L. Neil Smith ******************************************************* FREE-MARKET.NET -- YOUR GATEWAY TO LIBERTY ON THE WEB Thomas L. Knapp Senior Editor and Editor of "Freedom Book of the Month" ******************************************************* - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 99 01:10:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: NRA Takes On CBS 1/2 GOUtah! Gun Owners of Utah GOUtah! Alert #25 - 5 August 1999 Today's Thoughts on Liberty: "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants, the creed of slaves." - -- William Pitt If you wish to continue to receive this information under the GOUtah! banner, you need to do nothing. If you wish to be added to or taken off the GOUtah! list, please log onto our website at www.slpsa.org/goutah! or send an e-mail to GOUtah3006@aol.com or send a fax to (801) 944-9937 asking to be added to or removed from the GOUtah! list. If you wish to forward or share this copyrighted information with others, you are welcome to do so, on the condition that you pass along the entire document intact and unmodified, and that GOUtah! is clearly indicated as the original source of the material, unless otherwise noted. NRA/ILA Charges: CBS Commits Fraud Against Americans and Constitution NRA urges citizens to call and give CBS a "Reality Check" on individual right of law-abiding Americans to own firearms. An NRA/ILA News Release -- August 3, 1999 (WASHINGTON) -- Immediately after last night's airing of CBS Evening News' blatantly biased "Reality Check" segment, which ignored recent scholarly research and falsely claimed that the Second Amendment is not an individual right, the National Rifle Association launched a campaign to provide CBS News with its own reality check. "Clearly, the reality of CBS is not in step with the reality of the view of the vast majority of law-abiding Americans, nor in line with the view of most constitutional scholars. The national media elite at CBS wouldn't know reality if it stepped in front of Dan Rather's limousine," said James J. Baker, executive director of NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. "This alleged news network completely ignored a mountain of recent research from constitutional scholars who agree that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right, just as the entire Bill of Rights refers to individual rights." Baker said he was urging NRA members and concerned citizens to call CBS News and local CBS affiliates to express their outrage that last night's so-called "news" report would ignore the bulk of recent scholarly research. "Every American, every journalist, who values truth, accuracy and balanced reporting should call and express their outrage at CBS' effort to disguise their editorial bias as news," Baker said. "It is little wonder that their ratings continue to diminish." Baker noted several key failures on the part of CBS: ** CBS FAILED to cite the 1990 Supreme Court reference to the Second Amendment in U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez that stated, "`the people' protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments ... refers to a class of persons who are part of the national community." Each of these rights are individual. ** CBS FAILED to report this year's federal court ruling from the Northern District of Texas, U.S. v. Emerson, in which the federal judge overturned a federal gun law on Second Amendment grounds and argued, "The rights of the Second Amendment should be as zealously guarded as the other individual liberties enshrined in the bill of rights." ** CBS FAILED to report that, in the last decade, scholars from across the political spectrum have concluded that the Second Amendment, from any method of analysis, protects an individual right, and that this view is now commonly referred to as the "Standard Model" (Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 1995). ** CBS FAILED to note that the nation's leading constitutional scholars such as Lawrence Tribe (Harvard), Akil Reed Amar (Yale), William Van Alstyne (Duke), and Sanford Levinson (Texas) ascribe to the concept of the individual Second Amendment right as the "Standard Model." ** CBS FAILED to report the conclusion of Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, of the University of Tennessee, that scholars adhering to an individual rights interpretation, "... dominate the academic literature on the Second Amendment almost completely," and that this view is "... the mainstream scholarly interpretation." "The bottom line is that CBS failed as a news organization last night," Baker said. "They even completely ignored statements by a Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, in clear and full support the Second Amendment as an individual right and in anticipation of ruling on a future case to that effect." Baker said the NRA, the nation's oldest grassroots civil rights organization, would continue its work to preserve the Second Amendment, and the entire Bill of Rights, for future generations. "The Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment, and the NRA were here long before CBS was founded and, I suspect, will remain long after they're gone," Baker said. "And that bodes well for future generations of freedom-loving Americans." - -End NRA/ILA Release- CBS Contact Information: CBS Television Network CBS News Division 51 West 52nd Street New York, NY 10019 www.cbs.com CBS-Utah Affiliate KUTV Channel 2 ATTN: Station Manager 2185 South 3600 West West Valley City, Utah 84119 (801) 973-3000 www.kutv.com KTVX Channel 4 Airs Positive Utah CCW Story! KTVX Channel 4, the local ABC affiliate aired a segment on Utah CCW permit holders on 4 August 1999. Reporter Paul Murphy interviewed Dr. Sarah Thompson, attorney Mitch Vilos and CCW instructor Steve Beckstead about their decisions to carry a firearm for lawful self defense. All three are active in the gun rights movement in Utah. The overall tone of the segment was objective, balanced and showed the public an accurate picture of the 30,000 reasonable, responsible and prudent individuals carrying firearms under the authority of a Utah CCW permit today. GOUtah! suggests you contact KTVX today and express your appreciation for this well-reported and accurate story. We believe in giving credit where credit is due! KTVX Channel 4 Television ATTN: Tom Sides, News Director 1760 Fremont Drive Salt Lake City, Utah 84104 801-975-4444 www.4utah.com [ Continued In Next Message... ] - - ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 99 01:10:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: NRA Takes On CBS 2/2 [ ...Continued From Previous Message ] Police Shooting Incidents Reach All Time High in Utah The number of police-involved shootings will apparently reach an all time high in the state in 1999. A police shooting by South Ogden officers in Washington Terrace this week put the 1999 figure at 15 for the year to date, exceeding the statewide total for all of 1997 and 1998 combined. Eight of the 15 individuals shot by police this year have been killed. Two of the 1999 shootings have been held to be unreasonable. In one, a Salt Lake City PD officer fired at a fleeing car after a traffic stop, and has been fired from the department and charged with a criminal offense. In the other, a deputy transporting a prisoner shot the fleeing individual in the back, and has been fired from his job but no criminal charges have been filed to date. There are many potential reasons put forth for this dramatic increase in the uses of lethal force by Utah law enforcement officers, including increased willingness of suspects to use force against police, changes in police training methods and other similar factors. Another possible cause was articulated by David Bishop, a retired Captain of the Salt lake County Sheriff's Office. In a recent interview in the Salt Lake Observer, Bishop indicated that current training of law enforcement officers includes a much lower threshold of a 'perception of threat' to the officer's safety than ever before. As such, an officer today may resort to the use of deadly force in a given situation, while some much lower level of force would have been employed in years past. In years past use of deadly force was considered an absolute last resort, while current shooting statistics indicate this level of force appears to be applied much more often. GOUtah! has and will continue to be supportive of legitimate and reasonable law enforcement functions. However, the huge surge in police shooting incidents also gives the public at large a legitimate cause of concern regarding their own safety, particularly for that segment of the public which is lawfully armed under the authority of a Utah CCW permit. GOUtah! suggests that all Utah CCW permit holders continue to act with the greatest restraint and with prudent caution whenever they interact with any law enforcement officer in the course of their official duties. Be aware that an otherwise innocent or normal action, movement or statement might be construed as potentially threatening behavior, and could have tragic results. Utah CCW holders have acted with good judgment and with great restraint in the past, and we should all try to continue this exemplary record in the future. GOUtah! also suggests that law enforcement training and policy include a prudent and respectful level of restraint and tolerance by law enforcement when dealing with CCW holders, and that elected civilian oversight boards evaluate police use of force issues, department policy, training doctrine and all use of force incidents in law enforcement jurisdictions throughout the state. Let's all be careful out there...officers and civilians alike. SLC Gun Turn-in Program Has Impressive First Day The SLC Gun Turn-in and Destruction Program has shown impressive results, according to our contacts in the media who are closely watching the effort. As of the afternoon of Day 1, the entire take apparently consists of one broken BB gun turned in by an elderly widow, who reportedly was house cleaning and discovered the relic which had belonged to her late husband. This major anti-gun crime-fighting initiative comes on the heels of two brutal murders in the Salt Lake City during the previous 24 hours. Two unarmed women were stabbed in their home, one fatally, by an armed intruder during a home invasion robbery. The female victim was on the phone with 911 when she was murdered. Another unarmed man was shot in his own home, in front of his family, by several gun-wielding intruders. No arrests in either case have been made at this point. However, the SLC Gun Turn-in and Destruction Program continues, helping to make our community safer... but for whom? GOUtah! Gun Rights (and Wrongs) Quote Watch "Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians." -- Geoffery Boothroyd, as quoted in the UR&PA Newsletter, June-July 1999 issue. If you have a gun rights quote you'd like to share, please send it, along with a verifiable original source reference to GOUtah! Correction: The GOUtah Alert # 24 contained a minor text error. The last paragraph of the SLC Gun turn-in news release as published in the Alert was actually an artifact left over from an earlier edition of the Alert series, and was not part of the release text sent to the media. We hope this error did not cause undue confusion in the field. Oops! This concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #25 - 5 August 1999. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending your firearms rights. Remember that getting this information is meaningless unless YOU ACT ON IT TODAY. If you just read it and dump it in the trash, your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal! Copyright 1999 by GOUtah! All rights reserved. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 13:58:15 -0600 From: "S. Thompson" Subject: ALERT: Zelman & Mermelstein interviewed in Jerusalem Post ALERT from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership America's Aggressive Civil Rights Organization Thursday, August 12, 1999 US Jewish gun advocates call for self-defense By MARILYN HENRY NEW YORK (August 12) - Aaron Zelman isn't calling for gun control after the Tuesday shooting at a Los Angeles Jewish center that wounded five people, including four children. Quite the reverse: He is aggressively pushing Jewish self-defense. "The Jewish community is blind," said Zelman, the chairman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. "We must be able to defend ourselves against evil-doers." Zelman's sentiment runs counter to mainstream Jewish organizations. They were quick to condemn the shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, California, and are expected to reissue calls for gun control. "It is galling that innocents continue to be shot down in cold blood, as gun apologists insist that whoever wants guns should be able to obtain them without restriction," said Phil Baum, executive director of the American Jewish Congress. A Marine Corps veteran, Zelman has contempt for the Jewish communal leadership and says that Israelis could teach these leaders a thing or two about self-defense. American Jewish leaders "have always believed in victim disarmament. They don't believe in defending themselves, and they think that by not punishing criminals but by punishing law-abiding citizens, things will be peachy-keen," he said. His organization was formed 10 years ago to give "a Jewish perspective on self-defense and firearms ownership and to speak out against the Jewish leadership who, for the most part, blindly and foolishly support gun control," Zelman said in a phone interview from his home in Hartford, Wisconsin, about 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee. "I chose to move out of the city of Milwaukee and take my children out of a Jewish day school because the people who run these Jewish day schools don't give a damn about security. What they call security doesn't amount to a $25 system from K-Mart," said Zelman, the father of two. "I am not going to subject my children to being sitting ducks because of what I call Jewish stupidity. They are not going to be victims like these kids today," he said, referring to the Los Angeles shooting. According to Zelman, the organization has some 5,000 members, most of them in the US. "The JPFO is not a bunch of redneck, paranoid Jewish gun nuts," according to Rabbi Reuven Mermelstein, director of the group's editorial board and the author of its "Ask the Rabbi" series. "We keep trying to win over more Jewish minds, especially my personal campaign to convert Orthodox Jews to our thinking," Mermelstein wrote in one of his columns. "It says in our Torah, 'And you must surely guard your life.' I understand this injunction to mean stay out of inclement weather, eat wisely, and be armed." http://www.jpost.com/News/Article-8.html (c) Copyright 1995-1999, The Jerusalem Post - All rights reserved - ---------------------------------------------------------------- Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership PO Box 270143 Hartford, Wisconsin 53027 Phone: 414-673-9745 Fax: 414-673-9746 http://www.jpfo.org/ To subscribe to JPFO Alerts: send a blank e-mail to: jpfo_alerts-subscribe@topica.com To Un-subscribe to JPFO Alerts: send a blank e-mail to: jpfo_alerts-unsubscribe@topica.com In either case, respond to the confirmation message you will get back. - ---------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________________ Start an Email List For Free at Topica. http://www.topica.com/register - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 22:35:12 -0600 From: "S. Thompson" Subject: UT: A Campaign To Replace Hatch Save the Second Amendment and the Constitution: Replace US Senator Orrin G. Hatch Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund (A Project of Gun Owners of America) E-Mail/FAX Alert 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151 Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408 http://www.gunowners.org Thursday, August 12, 1999 Utah Senator Orrin G. Hatch no longer represents his gun-owning, freedom loving, and Constitution-minded constituents. In recent years, his voting record on firearms issues has moved in the direction of his close personal friend and colleague, the ultra-liberal Ted Kennedy! Most recently Senator Hatch enlisted the assistance of Senators Kennedy, Schumer, and others to obtain Senate passage of his S. 254 (the "Juvenile Crime bill"). This legislation contains several provisions attacking gun owners, including provisions that would: * Restrict or ban safe and lawful firearms use by young persons and imprison their parents for clerical violations; * Ban importation of personal defense ammunition magazines greater than 10 rounds; * Require all gun show attendees to present photo identification for permanent registration in a BATF log book; * Enable future legislation requiring all firearms to be locked up, preventing their use for self-defense; and, * Threaten gun show operators with jail if even one person buys a gun without the instant background/registration check. This could make gun shows a thing of the past. If You Help, Senator Hatch Can Be Replaced Senator Hatch must win in next year's elections to continue "representing" Utah's gun owners. His greatest vulnerability will occur on Monday, March 27, at 7 PM. On this evening delegates for the County and State Conventions will be elected at neighborhood caucus meetings throughout the state. These delegates will determine the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, and almost certainly Utah's next Senator. If approximately 2200 pro-Constitution delegates are elected to the State Convention, Utah will no longer be shamed by the anti-gun advocacy of Orrin Hatch. What You Must Do Now! 1. Contact one of GOA's volunteer coordinators to identify yourself as a supporter of the gun owner campaign to replace Orrin Hatch. Please contact either Arnold Gaunt or Sarah Thompson, preferably via e-mail, as follows: Arnold Gaunt PO Box 1096 Clearfield, UT 84089-1096 (801) 621-3122 ajgaunt@xmission.com Dr. Sarah Thompson PO Box 1185 Sandy, UT 84091-1185 (801) 566-1067 righter@therighter.com 2. Commit to attend the neighborhood caucus meetings at 7:00 PM on March 27, 2000, and gain the commitments of family, friends, and associates to do the same. ************** Not paid for by any candidate or candidate's committee. Authorized and paid for by Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund. ************** Cheaper Than Dirt donates a percentage of your total order to GOA if you use http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/goa.htm to enter their online store. ************** Did someone else forward this to you? To be certain of getting up to date information, please consider subscribing to the GOA E-Mail Alert Network directly. There is no cost or obligation, and the volume of mail is quite low. To subscribe, simply send a message to goamail@gunowners.org and include the state in which you live, in either the subject or the body. To unsubscribe, reply to any alert and ask to be removed. - - ------------------------------ End of utah-firearms-digest V2 #151 ***********************************