Law Abiding Citizens
Ronald
I came to this country as a Cuban refugee. I experienced bombs on my way to elementary school, machine guns attacks, illegal searches at home and appropriation of what the illegal searches produced. My parents and I waited from 1959 until 1969 when the number for our family came up. My last glass of milk as a child was when I was 7 years old, because it was rationed and after 7 no child was entitled to have milk. I stood in line for five hours for toilet paper at the age of 8 to find out that all was gone when it was my turn.
I learned firsthand the meaning of freedom of speech when the father of a classmate was shot against a wall for speaking ill of the Cuban government. Yet we waited and entered as law-abiding citizens, and I have never regretted it.
I am sorry about the family that could not come to the United States when expected. I am sorry about families that are still apart. The flight we took to be processed by the FBI upon arrival from Cuba was ordered to turn around or be shot down. My parents thought it was because of me. You see, I was of the age that I had to do forced labor in the cane fields to deserve my exit permission. But the order was not for me. There was another family with two boys, one of them 14. At 14 boys belong to the government to train as soldiers. That family made a split-second decision: The father stayed in Cuba with the older son and the mother left with the other boy.
I will always remember 9/11. I lost some friends and a former student. Why? Because some men went to take flying lessons in Hollywood, Florida, and no one wondered why they did not want to learn how to land a plane properly.
These braces were originally designed to assist disabled veterans who were physically unable to utilize traditional pistols for self-defense or to enjoy recreational firearm activities. The Congressional Research Service estimates that there are approximately 40 million of these devices in circulation.
Millions of people acquired stabilizing braces, relying on ATFs determination, made over a decade ago under the Obama Administration, that these ingenious devices were perfectly legal and did not convert a firearm into a short barrel rifle subject to NFA controls.
Now, anyone who has a stabilizing brace will be committing a crime after May 31, 2023 unless they permanently remove and dispose of the stabilizing brace, turn in their firearm to a local ATF office, destroy the firearm, or try to obtain an NFA registration through a byzantine process that includes marking the firearm so it can be traced.
This rule will effectively turn many lawful gun owners into criminals if they fail to comply, even though Congress did not act to pass any new criminal laws or penalties related to stabilizing braces.
In June of 2021, President Biden directed the Department of Justice to adopt a zero-tolerance policy when inspecting firearms merchants known as Federal Firearms Licenses or FFLs, and to revoke their license for ANY violation no matter how minor or unintentional.
ATF alleges that these records will not be searched electronically despite being digitized, but many Americans are concerned that these records could be easily used to create an unlawful gun registry prohibited by the 1986 Firearms Protection Act.
Unfortunately, the actions taken by the ATF have clearly demonstrated that the agency has changed its focus from those who commit crime to law-abiding Americans who wish to exercise their Constitutional rights.
Gun control is an umbrella term that refers to laws and ordinances that restrict how law-abiding citizens can buy, own, or use firearms. These vary at the federal, state, and local levels.
Federal gun control legislation like the Gun Control Act of 1968and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (1993) created nationwide requirements that make it more difficult to obtain a firearm.
Criminals who go through illegal avenues to obtain firearms aren't going to submit to background checks while doing so. Ultimately, only law-abiding citizens would be impacted by expanded background checks.
Gun control advocates have long promoted the idea that making firearms more accessible would increase crime. But time has told a different story. Gun ownership is up, and violent crime is down overall.
It makes sense that criminals would be far less likely to commit a crime if they believed their victim might be armed. In fact, a major study of 2,000 felons in state and federal prisons across the United States showed that criminals actually fear armed citizens more than they fear the police. [8]
Shooting and murder rates in Chicago surged 50% in 2020, and that city recorded the highest number of gun-related homicides on record. [9] Gun-controlled Chicago became the most murderous city in the country.
The project was an enormous success. Law enforcement took hundreds of illegal guns off the street, and Richmond's homicide rate plummeted. [12] Other cities implemented the program with similar success.
In short, "Project Exile" demonstrated beyond a doubt that focusing on gun criminals, not placing undue burden on law-abiding citizens, is the best way to curb violent crime and make the American people safe.
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Do Federal Courts have an impact on the daily lives of law-abiding citizens? Review the statements below and identify the federal courts' impact. Finish by discussing other ways the federal courts have an impact on your daily life.
Review the statements below about daily activities or events. Identify the federal courts' impact or role on each. The impact can be related to an Amendment, law, regulation, or the type of cases heard in the federal courts. Check the answers by clicking on the Impact tab.
DISCLAIMER: These resources are created by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts for educational purposes only. They may not reflect the current state of the law, and are not intended to provide legal advice, guidance on litigation, or commentary on any pending case or legislation.
We analyzed data from two national random-digit-dial surveys conducted under the auspices of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. Criminal court judges who read the self-reported accounts of the purported self-defense gun use rated a majority as being illegal, even assuming that the respondent had a permit to own and to carry a gun, and that the respondent had described the event honestly from his own perspective.
Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury Control Center, we examined the extent and nature of offensive gun use. We found that firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-defense. All reported cases of criminal gun use, as well as many of the so-called self-defense gun uses, appear to be socially undesirable.
Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey conducted under the direction of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, we investigated how and when guns are used in the home. We found that guns in the home are used more often to frighten intimates than to thwart crime; other weapons are far more commonly used against intruders than are guns.
We analyzed data from a telephone survey of 5,800 California adolescents aged 12-17 years, which asked questions about gun threats against and self-defense gun use by these young people. We found that these young people were far more likely to be threatened with a gun than to use a gun in self-defense, and most of the reported self-defense gun uses were hostile interactions between armed adolescents. Males, smokers, binge drinkers, those who threatened others and whose parents were less likely to know their whereabouts were more likely both to be threatened with a gun and to use a gun in self-defense.
Using data from surveys of detainees in six jails from around the nation, we worked with a prison physician to determine whether criminals seek hospital medical care when they are shot. Criminals almost always go to the hospital when they are shot. To believe fully the claims of millions of self-defense gun uses each year would mean believing that decent law-abiding citizens shot hundreds of thousands of criminals. But the data from emergency departments belie this claim, unless hundreds of thousands of wounded criminals are afraid to seek medical care. But virtually all criminals who have been shot went to the hospital, and can describe in detail what happened there.
Victims use guns in less than 1% of contact crimes, and women never use guns to protect themselves against sexual assault (in more than 300 cases). Victims using a gun were no less likely to be injured after taking protective action than victims using other forms of protective action. Compared to other protective actions, the National Crime Victimization Surveys provide little evidence that self-defense gun use is uniquely beneficial in reducing the likelihood of injury or property loss.
Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, stood on the House floor to defend the rights of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves from criminals. He urged the House to vote against Senate Bill 5444, a measure that would bar law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to carry a weapon in certain public areas.
The legislation passed today by the Assembly will do nothing to prevent tragedies like those in Sandy Hook and Webster. All this legislation does is make it more difficult for decent Americans to invoke their Second Amendment rights. Those law-abiding citizens should not be punished based on the actions of evil men. I am a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, and because of that, I voted against this legislation. I believe in honest citizens deciding whether or not to be armed. They have done nothing wrong, and for government to come in and seek to disarm them or make it more difficult to utilize their Constitutional rights is something I will never condone.
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