NY STATE NEWS

THE HILL has article about Michael Benjamin's run against UpChuck

NAACP Rests Case Against Firearms Industry UPDATE: Defense Rests Case In NAACP Lawsuit Against Firearms Industry

NATIONAL NEWS

Not your old 1994 assault weapons ban

DC Taxi Commissioner Stands Up for Arming Cabbies

Ballistic "Fingerprinting" Study Bill

Ballistic Imaging Shoots a Blank

Hillary and Schumer in Open Civil War

NJ Sen. Lautenberg will lead filibuster against "reckless lawsuit preemption" bill.

The Times Herald-Record adds new faces to Editorial Board

     The Editorial Board consist of the T H-R extreme left owner and editor and some local residents who serve for some time frame. Three people have been added: Mary McPhillips, Orange County's EX-County Executive who is a Democrat; Martin Dlugatz, the only registered Republican and Gary Sable who, as far as I can tell is not even registered to vote.

Judges continue Stewart roadway project injunction
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
from http://www.midhudsonnews.com

     A three-judge panel yesterday continued an injunction on the construction of the new Drury Lane/I-84 entrance into Stewart Airport.
     The project is being challenged in court by the Stewart Park and Reserve Coalition and its co-plaintiffs The Sierra Club and the Orange County Federation of Sportsmen’s Cubs.
      In a teleconferenced hearing yesterday with federal appellate court judges hearing the case in Manhattan and the lawyers for both sides arguing in Albany via teleconferencing facilities, the judges maintained the injunction on construction until they issue a “short order.”
      SPARC President Sandra Kissam said the issues were argued. “The co-plaintiffs’ main issue at the hearing was that a federal statute that says before you placed a highway or other transportation project through lands that have been parklands, you must look at every other alternative to avoid doing this,” she said. “We contend that the agencies did not look at every other alternative at all.”
      Proponents of the project, including the state Thruway Authority, the Department of Transportation, the airport authorities and business community believe that the new entrance will spur economic growth in terms of additional airline service and jobs, while taking traffic off the overtaxed local roadways.
       It is not known when the judges will rule, however, since they called for an expedited hearing yesterday, it is anticipated a ruling with be forthcoming shortly.

THE HILL has article about Michael Benjamin's run against UpChuck
CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE, "Benjamin undeterred by incumbent competition"

     Even thought it includes a misquote, THE HILL has an article about Michael Benjamin who is running against our own Sen. UpChuck Schumer. It is a positive article that gives a good profile of his candidacy.
     Michael Benjamin's e-mail to me included this: "Please note, in referring to my opponent, I called him "extreme" not "insane". I was misquoted. We have contacted the paper for a correction."

UPDATE 5/6/03
Defense Rests Case In NAACP Lawsuit Against Firearms Industry
CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE

     BROOKLYN, NY - Lawyers representing members of the firearm industry sued by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rested their case today after just one week of testimony. Lawyers for the gun makers and distributors called a number of highly esteemed experts who demonstrated to Brooklyn federal court Judge Jack B. Weinstein, and an “advisory” jury, the scientific flaws and other problems with the research and opinions offered earlier in the trial by experts retained by the NAACP. “The intellectual dishonesty of the NAACP’s ‘junk science’ has been exposed. ‘The emperor has no clothes’,” Keane said.
      Highlights from the defense’s case included testimony from Professor Nancy Mathiowetz, PhD, an expert on survey methods; Professor Gary Kleck, PhD, an expert criminologist whose research specializes on guns and crime, and Professor William Wecker, PhD, an expert on statistics.The gun makers, however, are resigned to the fact that Judge Weinstein will likely rule against them no matter the evidence or the law. “While we hope for the best, we know whose courtroom we are in. Suffice it to say the case is being tried for the appeal,” Keane said.
      “The NAACP lawsuit is the poster child for why the Senate needs to pass the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (S. 659),” Keane said. The House of Representatives has already overwhelmingly passed the bill. Additionally, 30 states have already enacted similar common sense legislation.

NAACP Rests Case Against Firearms Industry, 4/28/03
CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE

     BROOKLYN, NY - Having utterly failed to prove the baseless allegation that the firearm industry knowingly and willingly sells guns to criminals, the NAACP has rested its case after four weeks of testimony.
     " The NAACP has not proven its baseless and highly offensive allegation against a law abiding industry. The case was, as Shakespeare wrote in Macbeth, 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'," said Lawrence G. Keane, vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). The NSSF is the firearm industry's trade association.
     Despite the stunningly poor case the NAACP offered, Keane remained pessimistic about the trial's outcome. "We are not under any delusions. Due to Ms. Barnes and the NAACP's blatant judge shopping, the verdict is almost certainly preordained. The NAACP is offering the same evidence from the same expert witnesses in front of the same judge as the 1999 Hamilton trial. The NAACP case is Judge Weinstein's mulligan," Keane said. Weinstein's Hamilton decision was reversed on appeal." Judge Weinstein, not the "advisory" jury will decide this case," Keane added. NAACP general counsel Dennis Hayes opened the case by comparing the defendants to segregationists and baby killers. His comments were so outrageous that Judge Weinstein admonished Mr. Hayes and had to remind the "advisory" jury that the case was not about segregation or discrimination. Hayes openly admitted the NAACP was pursuing its lawsuit because legislators had not enacted its anti-gun agenda
     The NAACP's witnesses included NAACP employee Mildred Roxborough, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, and the self-described "bombshell witness," Robert Ricker. Additionally, in an attempt to substitute "junk" science for actual evidence, the NAACP called several "experts" whose opinions have already been rejected by New York courts.
     Ms. Roxborough testified the NAACP has absolutely no knowledge of any wrongdoing by any defendant that caused any harm to the NAACP or enabled a criminal to obtain a firearm, or was a factor in any firearm related injury or death.
     The defense will now call acknowledged experts to refute the plaintiff's scientifically and methodologically flawed, intellectually dishonest, agenda-driven conclusions. "We welcome the opportunity to show the advisory jurors, and hopefully Judge Weinstein, how baseless, frivolous and hollow the NAACP's case is," Keane said.

Not your old 1994 assault weapons ban
CLICK BELOW TO SEE THE FOLLOWING PRESS RELEASES
Schumer Moves to Renew Federal Ban on Assault Weapons
Sen. Feinstein, Schumer, Chafee, Boxer, Durbin Introduce Legislation to Reauthorize the Assault Weapons Ban

     With the 1994 AWB set to expire on September 13, 2004, the anti-gunners are really getting geared up to try to get a new ban passed but this time with some additional changes to "close a loophole in the law." The first "loophole" is to make the ban perminate. Other changes would be to ban all guns made to comply with the 1994 law, ban all semi-auto shotguns and

DC Taxi Commissioner Stands Up for Arming Cabbies
by Larry Pratt, Gun Owners Of America

      In late November of 1999, according to the Washington Times (11/23/99), Washington DC Mayor Anthony Williams hosted a town hall meeting at a local high school with city cab drivers and residents. The topic was the safety of District of Columbia cabbies. At this get-together, Mayor Williams told more than 500 taxi drivers: "You have a right to earn a living and to be safe on your job." To supposedly make cabbies safer, he suggested, among other things, that taxi cabs install safety shields between cabbie and passenger and that they be equipped with an electronic tracking system.
      But -- God bless her -- Sandra Seegars, a courageous, outspoken and knowledgeable member of the DC Taxicab Commission (DCTC), has a better idea that would really make cabbies safer: allow them to keep and bear arms for self-defense. There are 8,000 licensed taxi drivers in the District of Columbia; 6,000 are actually driving..
      In a statement at a recent meeting of the DCTC, Seegars urged that " the self-employed driver be permitted to carry a firearm, instead of having a commissioned special officer ride along with him or her during duty hours." Making her case, she said the DC gun ban has " failed" and criminals who are armed "have the city at bay, whereas, the law-abiding citizens and business persons are under siege.".
      Seegars said cab drivers need to have guns for self-defense because, among other reasons, the law makes it mandatory that cabbies must pick up anyone who hails them, and take them to any part of Washington DC, "regardless of the high crime rate" of the area..
      Noting that "every business person should be afforded the opportunity to protect his or her business, taxicab drivers included," Seegars, citing a 1981 DC Court Of Appeals ruling, said another reason for allowing cab drivers to be armed is because "the government has no obligation to protect either those who live or do business under its jurisdiction." Thus, taxi drivers "have a right to resort to their own means and devices to protect themselves" without being "classified as criminals and [being] treated as such.".
      Seegars also says: "Generally speaking, the police department does not treat taxicab drivers with respect. Oftentimes, when a taxicab driver calls for police assistance, and if one shows up, they opt to write tickets on the taxicab for minor taxicab violations, or harass the driver, instead of focusing on the crime that the driver called them about. With the lack of police protection for the taxicab drivers, this is a prime business to be armed.".
      In an interview, Seegars says she decided to advocate the right of cabbies to keep and bear arms for self-defense a few months ago when a taxi driver was robbed, his car hit a tree, and the robber ran away, leaving his gun in the cab. She says witnesses saw the robber go into a house but police refused to knock on the door..
      "So," says Seegars, "if the police are not going to protect taxi drivers, these drivers are going to have to protect themselves. Besides, when cab drivers are the victims of crime, and do call the police, and if they show up, they usually harass the cab drivers! They say things like: 'Where's your manifest? You don't have the proper this or that. You don't have your seat belt on.' They give the driver a couple of tickets while he bleeds to death.".
      Needless to say -- and I'll have more to say about this in my next column -- the anti-Second Amendment, anti-self-defense, gun grabbers are foaming at the mouth over Sandra Seegar's proposal that cab drivers ought to be allowed to arm themselves. But, regardless of whether Seegars ultimately succeeds or not, she's already a winner. This lady has already proven that she is a true profile in courage by standing up for the Second Amendment in a city whose laws blatantly violate this part of our Constitution.

      Following the sniper attacks that plagued the Beltway in the early fall of 2002, gun control advocates intensified their demands that the federal government develop a "ballistic fingerprint" database, one that would capture and store a digital photograph of the markings and striations on bullets and cartridge cases after they have been fired.
      This system sounds good in theory, however the best evidence is that such a system would be unreliable and expensive, solve few crimes and divert scarce crime-fighting resources, say researchers David B. Kopel and H. Sterling Burnett.
      Ballistic imaging has obvious limitations that become more significant when considering image databases containing all guns, or all new guns, rather than only criminal guns. Even when limited to new guns, the usefulness of an immense database as a crime fighting tool is questionable for a number of reasons, say the researchers:

• Over time, wear caused by the friction of bullets traveling down a gun's barrel will change the barrel's "signature," producing different ballistic images for bullets fired when the gun was new and those fired later.
• A gun's ballistic image can be altered repeatedly after crimes are committed by filing, shooting ammunition with dirt or even putting toothpaste on a cartridge before firing.
• As the number of firearms in the database is increased, the results worsen considerably.
• A ballistic imaging database of all guns, or of all new handguns, would cost hundreds of millions of dollars and require an enormous number of personnel.

     Ballistic imaging technology cannot come remotely close to fulfilling the promises that gun control advocates make. Ballistic mandates for non-crime guns would only hinder effective law enforcement, explain the researchers.

Hillary and Schumer in Open Civil War
by Carl Limbacher, April 29, 2003 on http://www.newsmax.com
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE

     The long-rumored cold war between Sen. Hillary Clinton and her Democrat New York colleague, Chuck Schumer, has erupted into a full-blown civil war, NewsMax has learned.
      The feud between the pair has been long standing, though quietly talked about among New York political and media insiders.
      But now the civil war between the Hillary and Schumer camps has erupted.
      The public war between the two senators was sparked this past week when Steven Brill, author of the 9/11 tome “After,” claimed that Hillary tried to elbow Schumer out of the limelight for his efforts to help New York families in the aftermath of 9/11.“Schumer’s staff are ugly about Hillary. They have nothing nice to say about her,” the source said.
      The insider said Schumer’s staff regularly refer to Hillary in the most unflattering of terms and believe she has wrongly taken credit for constituent work Schumer accomplished – and she has consistently sought to upstage him at public events.
      Hillary and her staff share similar animus toward Schumer. Brill revealed to NewsMax that in off-the-record conversations he had with Hillary and her key aides, they openly “denigrated” Schumer.