Petition for right to protect one's self and family

A peitition that is the first step to getting the laws changed because we need to be able to protect ourselves and family with out being jailed, when the law enforcement ignores the problem, and waits for someone to be seriously hurt or killed before they act....
Right to protect one's self and family

Target:Rick Boucher, Congressman, US House of Representatives
Sponsor: Christine Schaffner

People should be allowed to do what is reasonable to protect themselves and thier family. Too often, when someone does do such, they face jail time instead of the person who was harming them in the first place.Imagine how you would feel, if you had to go to the furthest part of your peoperty and let the intruder do as they please. Then you are told, that if you raise one hand in self defense against the attacker, then you'd be the one in jail.

Right to protect one's self and family

This country was founded by people who were willing to take a stand and face the issues that interfered with thier ability to protect thier families. Why is it then, now, people are afraid to protect themselves, because too often the criminals get off scott-free, and the victims are painted out to be the criminal.

Petition for right to protect one's self and family

STABBINGS IN NEW YORK: ‘IT’S THE CRIMINALS, STUPID,’ CCRKBA TELLS BLOOMBERG

NEWS RELEASE
STABBINGS IN NEW YORK: ‘IT’S THE CRIMINALS, STUPID,’ CCRKBA TELLS BLOOMBERG
BELLEVUE, WA – Four high-profile stabbings within 24 hours in New York City prompted the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) to predict that rabidly anti-gun Mayor Michael Bloomberg will now start campaigning for knife control laws.

The victims included two women tourists who were together in Times Square, a Texas man who was attacked on a subway, and a local resident who was also stabbed on a subway, according to the Reuters news agency.

“I fully expect the mayor to start ranting about ‘crime knives’ and how the nation needs a law to stop ‘illegal blades’ from being smuggled in from other states with lax cutlery laws,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “I say to Bloomberg, ‘It’s not guns, or knives, it’s the criminals, stupid!’

“While New Yorkers and tourists are bleeding from knife wounds,” he added, “Bloomberg is obsessed about guns. He’s mounted legally-questionable ‘sting’ operations in other states with private investigators and apparently interfered with on-going serious criminal investigations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”

Bloomberg’s focus on guns may be diverting important law enforcement resources away from combating all violent crime, Gottlieb suggested.

“What this demonstrates beyond any doubt is that criminals will harm victims with whatever weapon they have at their disposal,” Gottlieb stressed. “Even if Bloomberg were able to disarm every law abiding gun owner in this country, which seems to be his goal, criminals will still be out there committing violent crimes with knives, clubs, bricks, or guns they take from cops. You don’t stop criminals by disarming their victims.

“If New York had a sensible concealed carry law like those now in effect in some 40 states where average citizens have a right to carry for their personal protection,” Gottlieb insisted, “this kind of thing would not be happening in broad daylight in downtown New York City. Instead of harping about guns, Bloomberg should be campaigning to overturn generations of restrictive, regressive and discriminatory New York gun laws to enable his constituents to fight back. Until he does that, he’s not part of the solution, he’s part of the problem.”


-END-


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


< Please e-mail, distribute, and circulate to friends and family >


Copyright © 2006 Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, All Rights Reserved.

Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
James Madison Building
12500 N.E. Tenth Place
Bellevue, WA 98005 Voice: 425-454-4911
Toll Free: 800-426-4302
FAX: 425-451-3959
email: InformationRequest@ccrkba.org

Where would we be without them???

Body: Mar 18, 2006 5:23 PM
Subject: Between The Monsters And The Weak


We Are All That Stands Between The Monsters And The Weak


The sun beat like a hammer, not a cloud was in the sky.

The mid-day air ran thick with dust, my throat was parched and dry.

With microphone clutched tight in hand and cameraman in tow,

I ducked beneath a fallen roof, surprised to hear, "Stay low."

My eyes blinked several times before in shadow I could see,

The figure stretched across the rubble, steps away from me.

He wore a cloak of burlap strips, all shades of grey and brown,

That hung in tatters till he seemed to melt into the ground.

He never turned his head or took his eye from off the scope,

But pointed through the broken wall and down the rocky slope.

"About eight hundred yards," he said, his whispered words concise,

"Beneath the baggy jacket he is wearing a device."

A chill ran up my spine despite the swelter of the heat,

"You think he's gonna set it off along the crowded street?"

The sniper gave a weary sigh and said, "I wouldn't doubt it,"

"Unless there's something this old gun and I can do about it."

A thunderclap, a tongue of flame, the still abruptly shattered;

While citizens that walked the street were just as quickly scattered.

Till only one remained, a body crumpled on the ground,

The threat to oh, so many ended by a single round.

And yet the sniper had no cheer, no hint of any gloat,

Instead he pulled a logbook out and quietly he wrote.

"Hey, I could put you on TV, that shot was quite a story!"

But he surprised me once again -- "I got no wish for glory."

"Are you for real?" I asked in awe, "You don't want fame or credit?"

He looked at me with saddened eyes and said, "You just don't get it.

You see that shot-up length of wall, the one without a door?

Before a mortar hit, it used to be a grocery store.

"But don't go thinking that to bomb a store is all that cruel,

The rubble just across the street -- it used to be a school.

The little kids played soccer in the field out by the road."

His head hung low, "They never thought a car would just explode.

"As bad as all this is though, it could be a whole lot worse."

He swallowed hard, the words came from his mouth just like a curse.

"Today the fight's on foreign land, on streets that aren't my own,"

"I'm here today 'cause if I fail, the next fight's back at home."

"And I won't let my Safeway burn, my neighbors dead inside,

Don't wanna get a call from school that says my daughter died;

I pray that not a one of them will know the things I see,

Nor have the work of terrorists etched in their memory."

"So you can keep your trophies and your fleeting bit of fame,

I don't care if I make the news, or if they speak my name."

He glanced toward the camera and his brow began to knot,

"If you're looking for a story, why not give this one a shot."

"Just tell the truth of what you see, without the slant or spin;

That most of us are OK and we're coming home again.

And why not tell our folks back home about the good we've done,

How when they see Americans, the kids come at a run."

"You tell 'em what it means to folks here just to speak their mind,

Without the fear that tyranny is just a step behind;

Describe the desert miles they walk in their first chance to vote,

Or ask a soldier if he's proud, I'm sure you'll get a quote."

He turned and slid the rifle in a drag bag thickly padded,

Then looked again with eyes of steel as quietly he added;

"And maybe just remind the few, if ill of us they speak,

That we are all that stands between the monsters and the weak."

Michael Marks

Somewhere in Iraq

January 25, 2006

recent court decisions

A Summary Of Recent State & Federal Appellate & Trial Court Decisions
by: Daniel Siegel

REPORTING DECISIONS THROUGH FEBRUARY 3, 2006

PENNSYLVANIA STATE COURT DECISIONS

1. CAUSES OF ACTION

1.1. Civil Remedies For Violations of State Constitutional Rights

► Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
♦ Jones v. City of Philadelphia
No. 795 C.D. 2004 (January 25, 2006)

Holding: A city or other local government is not liable for monetary damages under Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution for a claim of excessive force. Of note is the en banc Court’s finding that the plaintiff failed to show that his rights against governmental use of excessive force were not sufficiently protected by the Fourth Amendment. Judge Smith-Ribner filed a dissenting opinion, in which she was joined by Judge Friedman.

1.2. Motor Vehicles Claims – Uninsured Motorist Actions

► Superior Court of Pennsylvania

♦ Pantelis v. Erie Insurance Exchange
2006 PA Super 1 (January 4, 2006)

Holding: An automobile insurer’s acknowledgement of “reasonable proof” that a party is entitled to first party benefits does not preclude the insurer from later disputing whether the insured is “legally entitled to recovery” of third party benefits in an uninsured motorist claim pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 1731(b). The Court notes that the payment of medical bills under Section 1716 can be “triggered by something as simple as submission of a bill from a medical provider,” whereas the “legal entitlement to recovery of uninsured motorist benefits … is based on the wrongful conduct of a third party.”

2. CIVIL PROCEDURE

2.1. Pre-Trial Procedure

► Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania

♦ Wheeler v. Red Rose Transit Authority
No. 874 C.D. 2005 (January 27, 2006)

Holding: A petition to reinstate a case dismissed under Pa. R.Civ.P. 230.2, filed more than 30 days after the termination order, will be granted only if there is a “reasonable explanation or a legitimate excuse” for the failure to file (1) the statement of intention and (2) the petition to reinstate within 30 days of its termination.

2.2. Professional Negligence Actions

► Superior Court of Pennsylvania

♦ Varner v. Classic Communities Corp.
2006 PA Super 2 (January 6, 2006)

Holding: A Certificate of Merit is required for professional liability actions, including those against architects. Although a Complaint may attempt to characterize a claim as sounding in ordinary negligence or negligence per se, because the claim is against a licensed professional, the plaintiff must file a Certificate of Merit. When a plaintiff fails to file the requisite Certificate of Merit, a judgment of non pros is warranted under Pa. R.Civ.P. 1042.1-1042.8.

2.3. Trial Practice (Voir Dire)

► Superior Court of Pennsylvania

♦ Capoferri v. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
2006 PA Super 16 (January 31, 2006)

Holding: A trial court commits reversible error by denying counsel’s request to ask prospective jurors certain questions during voir dire about their knowledge of or perspective about the alleged medical malpractice crisis, and the alleged flight of physicians from Philadelphia, in particular. The Court notes that its Opinion does not endorse any of the questions proposed by the plaintiffs and, instead, states that the trial court should have asked prospective jurors appropriate preliminary questions designed to detect whether any of the prospective jurors had been exposed to tort reform and/or medical negligence propaganda.

3. UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION

3.1. Willful Misconduct

► Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania

♦ ATM Corp. of America v. Unemployment Compensation Board of Review
No. 1560 C.D. 2005 (January 23, 2006)
Holding: An accounting department employee, who processes checks in and out of an employer’s multimillion dollar account and who refuses to authorize a background check, is properly terminated for willful misconduct and is not entitled to unemployment compensation benefits.

4. WORKERS’ COMPENSATION (ALL COMMONWEALTH COURT CASES)

4.1. Calculation of Self-Employment Income

♦ Acme Markets, Inc. v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Brown)
No. 1174 C.D. 2005 (January 3, 2006)

Holding: In determining a claimant’s earning power, a Workers’ Compensation Judge may consider a claimant’s net income from self-employment, and is not required to rely solely upon the claimant’s gross income. The ultimate determination must be based upon all evidence, including claimant’s testimony and other sources.

4.2. Medical Expenses – Replacement of Orthopedic Appliances and Similar Items

♦ Zuback v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Paradise Valley Enterprise Lumber Co.)
No. 1173 C.D. 2005 (January 9, 2006)

Holding: Although the Workers’ Compensation Act requires an employer to provide home modifications at the employer’s expense, such modifications are limited to a one-time expenditure. The replacement of an orthopedic device, including a stair glide, is not an additional modification, however, and an employer is obligated to pay for such costs, which are the result of “wear and tear.”

4.3. Retirement/Voluntary Withdrawal from the Workforce

♦ Hepler v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Penn Champ/Bissel, Inc.)
No. 1727 C.D. 2005 (January 11, 2006)

Holding: Disability benefits should be suspended when a claimant leaves the workforce. For disability compensation to continue following retirement, a claimant must show that he or she is seeking employment after retirement or that he or she was forced into retirement because of the work-related injury. When a claimant is forced into retirement because of a work-related injury, the claimant must show that he or she was forced out of not only the pre-injury job, but the entire labor market, or that the claimant continues to actively seek employment.

♦ Blong v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Fluid Containment)
No. 1569 C.D. 2005 (January 19, 2006)

Holding: A claimant who moves permanently to New Zealand has removed himself from the workforce, and an employer is entitled to a suspension of benefits.

4.4. Supersedeas Fund Reimbursement

♦ ConocoPhilips v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (Logan)
No. 515 C.D. 2005 (January 19, 2006)

Holding: An employer is not entitled to Supersedeas Fund reimbursement for a “deemed denial” of a request for supersedeas. Once a claimant receives an award of a lump sum payment for retroactive compensation or specific loss benefits and that award is later reversed or modified, the claimant is not required to repay that money. Instead, an employer must resort to repayment from the Fund, provided supersedeas was denied prior to disbursement of the funds to the claimant.

FEDERAL COURT DECISIONS OF INTEREST

5. JURISDICTION

5.1. Diversity Jurisdiction – Banks

► U.S. Supreme Court

♦ Wachovia Bank v. Schmidt
No. 04-1186 (January 17, 2006)

Holding: Although “All national banking associations shall … be deemed citizens of the States in which they are respectively located,” pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1348, for purposes of determining citizenship for diversity purposes under 28 U. S. C. 1332, a national bank is a citizen of the state in which its main office is located, as set forth in its articles of association.

6. MOTOR VEHICLE INSURANCE

6.1. Bad Faith Claims

► U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania

♦ Harris v. Lumberman’s Mutual Casualty Co.
No. 05-CV-5228 (January 23, 2006)

Holding: Pennsylvania’s bad faith statute, 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 8371, conflicts with the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law as to the remedies available under 75 Pa. C.S.A. §§ 1716 and 1797. Because the MVFRL is the more specific statute, it preempts the bad faith statute. In particular, the special provision, section 1797, preempts the bad faith statute, and a claim for statutory bad faith arising from the denial of first party medical benefits will be dismissed. Because section 1716 and the bad faith statute impose different remedies for different degrees of culpable conduct, i.e., unreasonable conduct under section 1716 and bad faith conduct under section 8371, the statutes are reconcilable. Accordingly, section 1716 does not preempt the bad faith statute and a claim for statutory bad faith arising from a carrier’s denial of a claim for lost wages benefits will not be dismissed.

Remember, visit Pennsylvania Legal Research Links, and make www.palegallinks.com your home page for Pennsylvania research.

About The Author


Daniel J. Siegel, an attorney in Havertown, Pennsylvania, has authored this newsletter since 1988. To subscribe, or contact Dan Siegel, go to http://www.danieljsiegel.com or send an email to subscribe@danieljsiegel.com with the subject "Subscribe." Dan Siegel also has offices in Philadelphia.

carepackages for troops

How to Send Care Packages to Troops Overseas
by: Dylan Miles

Care packages for troops on duty overseas are not only needed, but are still the best way to 'thank you'. While most basic needs of troops are already provided for, there are always certain items that are in short supply.

For example, prepaid phone cards are the best and most useful things to send troops overseas, according to the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, whose phone campaign is called Help Our Troops Call Home. Prepaid phone cards can be sent to individual troops or to any troop via a service such as the American Red Cross. As well as phone cards, send a batch of blank greeting cards, so that troops can remember loved ones back home.

Food and beverage items that remind troops of the tastes and smells of home are always cherished. Small individually packaged items such as instant coffee, hot chocolate packets, and sugar packets, are always needed. Instant food items such as breakfast foods, instant soup mixes, and ready-to-eat meals and salad kits, are ideal. Also, individual packs of snacks, such as chips, peanuts, pretzels, cereal and granola bars, brownies, cakes, candy and gum. Chocolate items are a bad idea, because chocolate melts.

Personal items, such as T-shirts, hats and gloves, flip flops or shower shoes, and shoe polish are great.

Other items such as sunscreen and lotion and wrap around sunglasses are vitally important as many troops are stationed in very hot areas. Other hygiene items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo, Band-Aids.

Entertainment is a luxury that troops need. Send items such as movies DVDs and music CDs, magazines, handheld electronic games, and playing cards.

But most of all, send cash. In this post-911 world some items may have difficulty getting through and the military's supply system is already overloaded. Sending cash, while less personal, is often quicker and more practical. A quick Internet search will bring up websites with lots of information on how to send cash or packages to troops overseas.

About The Author


Dylan Miles, journalist, and website builder, lives in Texas. He is the owner and co-editor of http://www.militarylife.info on which you will find a longer, more detailed version of this article.

Liberty's Outpost

Liberty's Outpost

The Firearms Owners' Protection Act

Pub.L. 99-308, sec. 1(b), quoted at 18 U.S.C. § 921 Historical and Statutory Notes.

The Firearms Owners' Protection Act (1986)

Sec. 1(b). The Congress finds that -- (1) the rights of citizens (A) to keep and bear arms under the second amendment to the United States Constitution; (B) to security against illegal and unreasonable searches and seizures under the fourth amendment; (C) against uncompensated taking of property, double jeopardy, and assurance of due process of law under the fifth amendment; and (D) against unconstitutional exercise of authority under the ninth and tenth amendments; require additional legislation to correct existing firearms statutes and enforcement policies.

Citizens' Self-Defense Act of 2001

Search for "Citizens' Self-Defense Act of 2001" at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html.


107th CONGRESS


1st Session


H. R. 31


To protect the right to obtain firearms for security, and to use firearms in defense of self, family, or home, and to provide for the enforcement of such right.


IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


January 3, 2001


Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland (for himself, Mr. STEARNS, Mr. BRADY of Texas, Mr. HALL of Texas, Mr. SCHAFFER, Mr. HILLEARY, Mr. CALLAHAN, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mrs. EMERSON, Mr. NETHERCUTT, Mr. BARCIA, Mr. STUMP, and Mr. SIMPSON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary








A BILL


To protect the right to obtain firearms for security, and to use firearms in defense of self, family, or home, and to provide for the enforcement of such right.


Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,


SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.


This Act may be cited as the `Citizens' Self-Defense Act of 2001'.


SEC. 2. FINDINGS.


The Congress finds the following:


(1) Police cannot protect, and are not legally liable for failing to protect, individual citizens, as evidenced by the following:


(A) The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals, only the public in general. For example, in Warren v. District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981), the court stated: `[C]ourts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community.'.


(B) Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities.


(C) The United States Department of Justice found that, in 1989, there were 168,881 crimes of violence for which police had not responded within 1 hour.


(D) Currently, there are about 150,000 police officers on duty at any one time.


(2) Citizens frequently must use firearms to defend themselves, as evidenced by the following:


(A) Every year, more than 2,400,000 people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals--or more than 6,500 people a day. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.


(B) Of the 2,400,000 self-defense cases, more than 192,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.


(C) Of the 2,400,000 times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, 92 percent merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8 percent of the time, does a citizen kill or wound his or her attacker.


(3) Law-abiding citizens, seeking only to provide for their families' defense, are routinely prosecuted for brandishing or using a firearm in self- defense. For example:


(A) In 1986, Don Bennett of Oak Park, Illinois, was shot at by 2 men who had just stolen $1,200 in cash and jewelry from his suburban Chicago service station. The police arrested Bennett for violating Oak Park's handgun ban. The police never caught the actual criminals.


(B) Ronald Biggs, a resident of Goldsboro, North Carolina, was arrested for shooting an intruder in 1990. Four men broke into Biggs' residence one night, ransacked the home and then assaulted him with a baseball bat. When Biggs attempted to escape through the back door, the group chased him and Biggs turned and shot one of the assailants in the stomach. Biggs was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon--a felony. His assailants were charged with misdemeanors.


(C) Don Campbell of Port Huron, Michigan, was arrested, jailed, and criminally charged after he shot a criminal assailant in 1991. The thief had broken into Campbell's store and attacked him. The prosecutor plea-bargained with the assailant and planned to use him to testify against Campbell for felonious use of a firearm. Only after intense community pressure did the prosecutor finally drop the charges.


(4) The courts have granted immunity from prosecution to police officers who use firearms in the line of duty. Similarly, law-abiding citizens who use firearms to protect themselves, their families, and their homes against violent felons should not be subject to lawsuits by the violent felons who sought to victimize them.


SEC. 3. RIGHT TO OBTAIN FIREARMS FOR SECURITY, AND TO USE FIREARMS IN DEFENSE OF SELF, FAMILY, OR HOME; ENFORCEMENT.


(a) REAFFIRMATION OF RIGHT- A person not prohibited from receiving a firearm by Section 922(g) of title 18, United States Code, shall have the right to obtain firearms for security, and to use firearms--


(1) in defense of self or family against a reasonably perceived threat of imminent and unlawful infliction of serious bodily injury;


(2) in defense of self or family in the course of the commission by another person of a violent felony against the person or a member of the person's family; and


(3) in defense of the person's home in the course of the commission of a felony by another person.


(b) FIREARM DEFINED- As used in subsection (a), the term `firearm' means--


(1) a shotgun (as defined in section 921(a)(5) of title 18, United States Code);


(2) a rifle (as defined in section 921(a)(7) of title 18, United States Code); or


(3) a handgun (as defined in section 10 of Public Law 99-408).


(c) ENFORCEMENT OF RIGHT-


(1) IN GENERAL- A person whose right under subsection (a) is violated in any manner may bring an action in any United States district court against the United States, any State, or any person for damages, injunctive relief, and such other relief as the court deems appropriate.


(2) AUTHORITY TO AWARD A REASONABLE ATTORNEY'S FEE- In an action brought under paragraph (1), the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing plaintiff a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs.


(3) STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS- An action may not be brought under paragraph (1) after the 5-year period that begins with the date the violation described in paragraph (1) is discovered.


END





Letter to Send Calling for Support of these Bills


You can use our Legislative Action Center to send this letter to your Representatives, and here is one possible letter you can send:


Dear Representative,


I am writing to you to express my full support of and appreciation for two bills before you this session:


The Firearms Heritage Protection Act of 2001


and


The Citizens' Self Defense Act of 2001.


Please vote for each of these bills when they come your way. Us lawful, peaceable people who choose to protect ourselves against the criminal element in our society appreciate your support of these two measures.


Thank you.