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Giveaway Winners for November 16 2014
Second Amendment Giveaway A brief film highlighting the winners for our November 16 2014 giveaway. Prizes won during this giveaway: A Call of Duty "Advanced Warfare" Atlas Professional Edition...
By: Second Amendment Giveaways
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Giveaway Winners for November 16 2014 - Video
On Monday, the long-running debate over gun laws is moving to center stage, out in San Francisco.
A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments concerning whether an unusual gun law passed by voters in Sunnyvale, Calif., late last year is constitutional.
A coalition of gun-rights groups, including the National Rifle Association, claims the law, which bans anyone from owning gun magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
Sunnyvale, on the other hand, claims the law does not impinge on Sunnyvale residents Second Amendment rights to own a firearm within the home for self-defense because such large-capacity magazines are neither necessary nor even useful for self-defense because defenders seldom fire more than two shots. Restricting such magazines makes sense, Sunnyvale argues, because theyre frequently used in mass shootings, including the massacre at Newtown, Conn., at the end of 2012.
So who is right?
A U.S. District Judge in San Jose, Calif., in March upheld the law, finding that while the Sunnyvale law implicated the Second Amendment, the burden placed by the law on a Sunnyvale residents Second Amendment rights is relatively light.
Wrote Judge Ronald M. Whyte:
The Sunnyvale law passes intermediate scrutiny, as the courtwithout making a determination as to the laws likely efficacycredits Sunnyvales voluminous evidence that the ordinance is substantially tailored to the compelling government interest of public safety.
Still, the caselaw concerning firearm restrictions has been developing for a relatively short period of time. In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark case called District of Columbia v. Heller, ruled that the Second Amendment protects ones right to own a firearm in ones own home.
But the court left for another day (and, until then, lower courts) a variety of issues, including whether and to what degree firearms can be carried outside the home, and the degree to which semi-automatic weapons can be regulated as well. The law on these issues is not well settled, meaning the judges of the Ninth Circuit have leeway in the Sunnyvale case to chart their own path.
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California Towns Unusual Gun Law to Get Federal Appeals Court Ruling
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat and a professional geologist, sat down with energy giant Halliburton two years ago and famously guzzled down a glass of fracking fluid to demonstrate the oil and gas industry is safely creating energy and jobs in his state.
Leaving aside his friendliness to fracking, Hickenlooper is a conventional liberal Democrat on other matters, yet survived a tough reelection during the red Republican wave that washed over the nation earlier this month. Mark Udall, Colorados Democratic U.S. Senator, faced the same voters yet wasnt so fortunate. Like Michigan, Colorado is a purple state, fiercely competitive between Democrats and Republicans, and the outcomes of these two statewide races provide important lessons for both parties regarding the electoral damage culture wars can cause.
Gov. Hickenlooper had been considered among the nations most endangered incumbent Democratic governors, in large measure because last year he signed a highly controversial gun control bill banning certain types of ammunition magazines. The law was so hostile to Colorado gun owners that two Democratic state senators were successfully recalled and replaced by Republicans after voting for it, and a third resigned so as to avoid facing a removal vote.
Hickenlooper carved out a three percentage point reelection victory this month over Republican challenger Bob Beauprez. One lesson for Democrats: Had Hickenlooper not created a rational, pro-growth reputation regarding energy production, its likely Colorados jobs-focused independent voters would have fired him. Another: Had he not waged a culture war on Colorados firearms owners, its likely he would have been re-elected in a landslide.
Colorado Republicans learned a similar lesson in the 2010 U.S. Senate race and applied it in 2014. Republican Ken Buck was supposed to win Colorados other U.S. Senate seat as part of the big GOP victories across the nation in 2010. But despite leading in the polls, Buck ended up losing by less than one percent on Election Day.
A former prosecutor, Buck built his reputation on leading raids against undocumented workers. In a state where one of ten voters is Hispanic, and where nearly two-thirds of them report personally knowing an undocumented immigrant, Bucks prosecutorial excess cost him dearly. Just 19 percent of Colorados Latino voters supported Buck, a critical failing in a close race.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner went a different way this year, even going so far as to say he supports creating a path to legal residency for currently illegal immigrants. As a result, exit polling shows the Republican won about half of Colorados Hispanic vote, on his way to soundly defeating Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall.
When he first won the seat back in 2008, Udall took 63 percent of the Latino vote.
But where Colorado Republicans had learned to cool down the culture war rhetoric regarding immigration, Democrats decided to turn up the temperature when talking about the War on Women. Thinking it the path to racking up big margins in the womens vote, Udall adopted such an obsessive focus on reproductive issues that a Denver newspaper columnist called him Mark Uterus.
It failed. Udall snagged a meager 52 percent majority of the female vote, at the cost of ceding 61 percent of the men to Gardner. Thats a certain formula for a landslide.
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Ken Braun: Colorado's failed culture wars provide Election Day lessons for both parties
Russia Plans Alternative Version of #39;Wikipedia #39;
The Russian Presidential Library said on Friday, Russia plans to create its own "Wikipedia" to ensure its citizens have access to more "detailed and reliable" information about their country....
By: WochitGeneralNews
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Russia Plans Alternative Version of 'Wikipedia' - Video
VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA - NOVEMBER 13: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting on shipbuilding on November 13, 2014 in Vladivostok, Russia. Putin is on a two-day trip on the way to the G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images) | Sasha Mordovets via Getty Images
Citing Western threats, the Kremlin has asserted more control over the Internet this year in what critics call moves to censor the web, and has introduced more pro-Kremlin content similar to closely controlled state media such as television.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia assembled and written by Internet users around the world, has pages dedicated to nearly every region or major city within Russia's 11 time zones, but the Kremlin library said this was not good enough.
"Analysis of this resource showed that it is not capable of providing information about the region and life of the country in a detailed or sufficient way," the state news agency RIA quoted a statement from the presidential library as saying.
"The creation of an alternative Wikipedia has begun." It was not known whether the project might affect Russians' access to the existing Wikipedia in any way.
President Vladimir Putin has branded the Internet a "CIA special project", and the Kremlin has said it must protect its online realm from threats from the West, as ties between the Cold War-era foes have hit a new bottom over the Ukraine crisis.
Since August, bloggers in Russia with more than 3,000 followers must register with the Moscow's mass media regulatory agency and conform to rules applied to larger media outlets.
And since February, state authorities have been able to block websites without a court order. The webpages of two leading Kremlin critics were among the first to be barred.
The presidential library statement said that 50,000 books and archive documents from 27 libraries around Russia had already been handed over for the process of establishing the "alternative Wikipedia".
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Russia To Create Its Own Wikipedia Because Current One Isn ...