Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Submit the best reader photo with a gun and win an AmmOMug!

We love these AmmOMugs so much we are awarding one to the Western Shooting Journal reader who submits the best photo of themselves with their gun for our June issue. The deadline for submitting a photo (or two) is May 1st. These stainless steel mugs are great for hot or cold beverages. I have one and love it (and in fact everyone who sees me with it, wants it). There are at least 28 designs to choose from; the winner gets to choose. So send me your photos now, or go take some more! Email photos to me at ralexander@media-inc.com

  

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Watch Buckley the cat fetch just like a dog!

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

ACLU, GOLDWATER INSTITUTE TEAM UP ON FREE-SPEECH CASE

Unlikely alliance between organizations highlights case's importance to fundamental freedoms


The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the Goldwater Institute's appeal in Korwin v. Cotton, a free-speech challenge to Phoenix's transit advertising standards that were applied to remove 50 "Guns Save Live" advertisements from the city's bus shelters.

"This case has profound implications beyond whether Appellants can post their proposed advertisement on City of Phoenix bus shelters," the ACLU's brief argues. "It involves the scope of the Arizona Constitution's grant to all persons the right to freely speak, write and publish on all subjects."

The City's policy forbids non-commercial advertising on city buses and transit shelters. In 2010, plaintiff Alan Korwin and his company, TrainMeAZ, purchased 50 transit shelter ads designed to drive business to their gun-training website. The ads pictured a large heart with "Guns Save Lives," followed by the group's website.

Even though the ads were commercial in nature, the City removed the ads, despite approving "Jesus Heals," Veterans' Administration, and water-conservation advertisements that did not appear to propose a commercial transaction.

"The City's arbitrary decision-making is exactly the type of censorship the U.S. and Arizona Constitutions forbid," said Clint Bolick, Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, who characterized the City's policy as "we sort-of know it when we see it."

The Maricopa County Superior Court (a lower court) upheld the City's actions in a 2012 decision. The case is now before the Arizona Court of Appeals.

"This odd-couple alliance between the Goldwater Institute and the ACLU highlights the importance of the case to our fundamental freedoms," said Bolick.

The case is expected to be argued in the Court of Appeals later this year.

A copy of the ACLU amicus brief can be found here under "Case Documents": http://goldwaterinstitute.org/article/korwin-v-cotton-bus-shelter-ads-case

To arrange an interview, please contact Lucy Caldwell, Communications Director, at 602-633-8986 or lcaldwell@goldwaterinstitute.org.

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"I am thrilled to see the ACLU get behind this case," said Alan Korwin, the Appellant in the case and an ACLU member for decades, "It is the right thing to do. Phoenix was out of its mind to tear down our bus-stop ads in the middle of the night without notice. http://www.trainmeaz.com/news-room/

I have supported many of ACLU's efforts on free speech, and they figured prominently in my 12th book about things you're not allowed to say, Bomb Jokes at Airports. http://www.gunlaws.com/BJAA.htm

"This case is about free speech, which is central to everything I've been doing as a writer and publisher for nearly three decades," he said. http://www.bloomfieldpress.com "It is particularly gratifying though that the substance here is gun safety, at a time when the national scene is dominated by efforts to restrict gun rights for the public."

TrainMeAZ.com is a non-partisan, statewide, joint educational effort to teach gun safety to everyone, backed by many of the state's firearms-industry leaders. President Obama, in his 7th executive action plan to reduce gun violence, seeks to "Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign." (Source: The White House). At least in this, we find common ground. Take a gun-safety class for the benefit of yourself and your community. http://www.trainmeaz.com







Thursday, April 11, 2013

Arizona's gun laws guy, Alan Korwin, tells us what got him interested in this area and what you need to know about it

My interview with Alan Korwin from the March 2013 issue of Western Shooting Journal.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

I think it's time for a new iPhone case....

I found all of these on eBay, mostly ranging from $4 to $20. How can you decide??? Might as well get several!


Click here to see 18 more cool cases

Empty shelves of ammunition at Walmart

Thanks to Obama and the Democrats gun control efforts, ammunition shelves have looked like this for months.
The sign says 3 boxes per customer per day, as if there are actually 3 boxes available of the kind of ammo you need.....

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Fair Play for Divorced Dads

Despite the fact that 80% of those surveyed would like both parents to have equal time with their children, instead of a preference for the mother, politicians refuse to change parenting laws. The amount of family law litigation caused due to this, and the high costs of family law attorneys, is out of control.

by Barbara Kay

Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has commissioned a report aimed at overhauling Canada’s family-law system. Its recommendations, which will be officially released later this month, reportedly include strategies for streamlining the legal process, encouraging mediation and reducing litigation.
The report will note that the number of self-representing litigants in family-law cases has climbed to above 70%, largely due to the exorbitant cost of lawyers. That statistic suggests the economic hardship that fractious breakups impose, but not the heartbreaking human costs imposed on parents — especially fathers, who often find the deck stacked against them in court.
Efficiency, reduced costs and diminished litigation are worthy goals in a system notorious for being out of control in all these areas. But a more fundamental reform also is needed: The establishment of equal shared parenting as the default in custody after marriage breakdown.
In most contested cases, mothers are awarded sole — or effectively sole — custody over children, with fathers relegated to the role of visitors, an unsatisfactory situation for them and for their children. Even unlitigated cases are settled “in the shadow of the law” — meaning that fathers often are advised by their lawyers to settle for whatever they can get, as they know the deck would be stacked against them in court.
Equal shared parenting — a minimum of 40% of time spent with children by each parent — has been federal Conservative party policy in theory since 2002, following an exhaustively researched landmark federal study in 1998, “For the Sake of the Children,” which recommended equal parenting as the presumptive custodial arrangement in the absence of abuse.
But in spite of its own avowed, reiterated position — and polls showing 80% of Canadians support a strong role for both divorced parents in the lives of their children — Stephen Harper’s government has failed to enable MP Maurice Vellacott’s repeated motions to that end. As a result, fathers often continue to be unjustly marginalized in family court.
We know much more about the effects of enforced separation from fathers on children than we did even a decade ago. Yet anti-father myths persist, such as: that infants and toddlers have only one primary “attachment figure”; that overnighting away from mothers causes anxiety or maladjustment in all infants and toddlers; that children prefer living with only one parent, and shared parenting isn’t worth the hassle; that shared parenting works only in the case of harmonious divorces; and that the quality of children’s relationships with their fathers is not related to how much time they spend together.
Dr. Linda Nielsen, professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, debunks such myths in a recent feature article published in The Nebraska Lawyer, “Parenting Time and Shared Residential Custody: Ten Common Myths.”
In her study, a meta-review of 64 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, Neilsen concludes that “infants form strong attachments to both parents at roughly the same time. Whatever preferences infants might have for one parent disappears by 18 months of age.” She found seven studies that have assessed overnighting of preschoolers, and “none of them found statistically significant differences in instability or other measures of maladjustment.” Also: “The vast majority [of children] who have lived in shared residential parenting families say the inconvenience of living in two homes was worth it,” and “most children in shared residential custody and those who see their father frequently are better off on measures of well-being even when their parents have ongoing conflict.”
Most importantly, she concluded that “fathering time, especially time that is not limited mainly to weekends or to other small parcels of time, is closely associated with the quality and endurance of the father-children relationship. This kind of fathering time is highly correlated with positive outcomes for children of divorce.”
Justice McLachlin’s goal of encouraging mediation and settlement is a noble ideal. But unless the unlevel playing field of family-law litigation is corrected, her proposals will prove merely cosmetic — both for Canadian fathers and for the children who desperately need to spend time with them.
This article originally appeared in The National Post (Canada)

Phoenix gun buyback money could be put to better use

by Alan Korwin

A publicity stunt, designed to give the impression that Phoenix officials are "doing something" about psychopathic murderers, will spend $100,000 buying mostly junk and rusted, inoperable guns (if past performance is any gauge), from savvy residents interested in getting $100 grocery cards for the trash in May.

"We've seen this before in cities nationwide and here in our own state," said Charles Heller, spokesperson for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, the state's most active firearms civil-rights group, who was not asked to comment on The Arizona Republic's front-page publicity for the event.

"At least the paper admitted this time that the stunt will have little if any effect on crime," he said. "Criminals won't turn in $700 guns for a cheap grocery card. Only idiots would stage such a stunt and imagine it's crime control."   The program is falsely called a gun "buyback," but obviously, you can't buy back something you never owned.   Read the rest of Alan's article on AZCentral

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

I wil be on the Austin Hill Show Wednesday morning to discuss the latest draconian gun control efforts

If you're up early Wednesday morning, I'm going to be talking to Austin Hill about Connecticut's new drastic and comprehensive gun control legislation.  It would turn power over to the state to choose who can buy guns and ammunition, basically requiring an "ammunition eligibility certificate." More than 100 guns will be banned. We'll also discuss California's bills to regulate and tax ammunition, and an attempt by Congressional Democrats to impose a $10,000 fine on gun owners who don't have insurance. If there's time, we'll discuss a new law passed by a city in Georgia which requires the head of each household to own a gun. Finally, we'll look at the new United Nations treaty being voted on that would effectively ban guns in the U.S. Listen to my interview as editor of Western Shooting Journal on Austin Hill's Idaho show. 7:05am PST (10:05am EST) ......click here to listen to NewsRadio KINF 99.1 FM live. Click here to check out Western Shooting Journal and subscribe (only $1.89/mth online). Use the discount code "Editor" and get 25% off a hard copy subscription.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Magpul considering relocating to Arizona due to new Colorado gun control legislation

Duane Liptak, Director of Product Management and Marketing for Magpul, told Gateway Pundit, “We’ve talked to some states, visited some, and we’ve got a lot more to get to. Some of the initial round of states that we’re looking at are Wyoming, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Montana, Idaho and Arizona but there are others in consideration.”

Read the full article here