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Paskalos

Shooter Targets Christians In Gun Free Zone

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Umpqua sheriff

In another Gun Free Zone shooting a gunman killed as many as 10 people at the Umpqua Community College in Oregon on Thursday, he has been identified as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer, police told CBS News. The shooter was killed in a firefight with Douglas County sheriff’s deputies, according to Sheriff John Hanlin.

 

 

Mercer reportedly demanded to know victims’ religions before killing them, according to witnesses and authorities.

First there was this account from student Kortney Moore printed by The News-Review:

Kortney Moore, 18, from Rogue River, was in her Writing 115 class in Snyder Hall when one shot came through a window. She saw her teacher get shot in the head. The shooter was inside at that point, and he told people to get on the ground. The shooter was asking people to stand up and state their religion and then started firing away, Moore said. Moore was lying there with people who had been shot.

The New York Post followed up with a report of its own on an account someone tweeted out:

“The shooter was lining people up and asking if they were Christian,” she wrote. “If they said yes, then they were shot in the head. If they said no, or didn’t answer, they were shot in the legs. My grandma just got to my house, and she was in the room. She wasn’t shot, but she is very upset.”

Some media outlets are reporting that the campus was not a gun free zone and Oregon is an open carry state. Unfortunately for the college students attending the school the student hand book states otherwise.

UCC student handbook

 

In addition to the written policy of the community college, the university’s president, Rita Cavin, stated in a press conference that the university is a gun-free campus and there are “no plans” to change security policy.

Paskalos

Judge Rules “Open Carry” Law Trumps School-District Policies

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In Clio, Michigan a judge has ruled that a Clio-area father can legally open carry his pistol inside of his daughter’s elementary school despite a legal challenge from the school district.

Genesee Circuit Judge Archie Hayman on Monday, Aug. 10, ruled in favor of Kenneth Herman, who filed the lawsuit March 5 in Genesee County Circuit Court against the Clio Area School District after he was denied access to Edgerton Elementary multiple times while attempting to pick up his daughter because he was open-carrying a pistol.

Herman said after Hayman’s decision. “The ruling today does not come as a surprise, the law is the law, Now that Clio Area Schools have heard the ruling, read the laws and the Court of Appeals case law has been explained to them, I they stop burning through tax dollars fighting the law and common sense.”

DFWFZHerman sued the district after it declared all of its properties weapon-free zones and banned him from openly carrying his firearm in its buildings.

State law prevents people from carrying concealed firearms on school property. However, the law allows individuals with concealed pistol licenses to openly carry their firearms in schools. Herman is a CPL holder.

The district in July filed a motion asking Hayman to dismiss the entire case because it claims it is based on a “fundamental misunderstanding of Michigan Law.”

Much of Herman’s lawsuit focused on a 2012 Michigan Court of Appeals decision stemming from a case that involved Michigan Open Carry. The decision stopped a Lansing library group from banning the open-carrying of firearms on its properties.

But the district argued Herman and Michigan Open Carry are incorrectly interpreting the appeals court decision, saying the ruling does not apply to school districts.

The district argued that state law allows districts to enact policies to safeguard students and, therefore, allows them to institute firearm bans.

But, Hayman sided with Herman and Michigan Open Carry’s argument that the ability to create local weapon policies is beyond the legal authority of the school district and its attempt to do so intrudes upon the lawmaking authority of the state, which has created laws to allow open carry of firearms on school grounds for some people.

Herman said he hopes Clio school officials do not violate Hayman’s order and he looks forward to carrying his firearm in the future.

The Ann Arbor school district is also named in a similar, separate lawsuit filed after the district banned guns on school property.

Paskalos

Citizens Band Together, And Get Governor to Overturn illegal ‘Gun Free Zone’

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A story featured at the Alabama news outlet Yellowhammer exemplifies the American ideal that government is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln so famously said during his Gettysburg Address. And for the citizens of Alabama, they have reason to celebrate that foundational American truth — though slipping quickly away — for this brief moment in time.

Writer Cliff Sims penned the article “Indisputable proof Alabamians have the power to demand the government they deserve” after witnessing a relatively unknown law that made public rest areas “gun free zones” become abolished in less than a week.

In great detail, Sims gives a play-by-play of what exactly went down — and it all started with one person’s e-mail. (Redacted version below)

On Sunday, July 19, an Alabamian named Jayson wrote to Sims asking him to investigate the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) overstepping its authority in turning the state’s rest areas into “gun free zones.” By Monday, Sims’s editor and a fellow journalist began the investigation and found that signs declaring “no weapons beyond this point” were indeed present at the rest stops. Yellowhammer began reporting on the story during the week asking about the legality of the ban. ALDOT didn’t initially responded to comment requests.

On Sims’s radio program Tuesday, he urged listeners to “politely” call ALDOT and express their complaints with the department’s decision. Though ALDOT fielded many complaints, they deferred to the state attorney general’s office without much other response.

An ALDOT spokesperson finally told Sims on Wednesday that the attorney general was “reviewing the matter” and said:

“We don’t want this to be a distraction for us. You can probably imagine we have a lot of issues we deal with day in and day out.”

Thursday, Sims rallied his radio listeners to contact the attorney general’s office, again “politely,” and relay their concerns there. And this is where it gets good!

By Friday — less than a week since one person stood up against the government —  Sims received an e-mail from Republican Alabama Governor Robert Bentley’s administration saying that the governor himself reviewed the rule and took action. Governor Bentley later tweeted, “I have ordered the Alabama Department of Transportation to remove signs banning weapons at all Alabama rest stops to comply with state law.”