Recount Confirms Challenger Beat Gabby Giffords' Ex-Aide

Republican Martha McSally has defeated incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, who had worked on the staff of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, after a lengthy official recount in Arizona's 2nd Congressional District. She won the seat by 167 votes, meaning that Republicans captured 13 seats in the midterm elections, the largest House majority for the GOP in several decades. Barber supported Giffords anti-gun agenda and his campaign benefited from more than $2 million spent by Giffords' Americans for Responsible Solutions in that race, more than four times what the group spent in any other House contest.

 

Spending Bill with Ammunition Protection Signed into Law

This week, President Obama signed the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act for FY15 into law. On Saturday, the U.S. Senate voted 56-to-40 to approve it and the U.S. House approved the measure a few days prior. Though not a perfect bill, NSSF supported it because of an important provision that further prevents the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from banning traditional ammunition made with lead components. The measure also gives ATF $22 million dollars in additional resources to provide industry members with more efficient customer service. Funding is also included to help improve the NICS background check system by helping states put more mental health and other disqualifying records into the system. Finally, the bill provides $3 million in grant funding for a firearm safety education and gun lock program like Project ChildSafe.

 

Sandy Hook Families Announce Lawsuit, NSSF Responds

The families of some of those killed and one teacher wounded two years ago at the Sandy Hook Elementary School are suing the manufacturer, distributor and retailer of the legally sold rifle used in the shooting. The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Bridgeport Superior Court and released Monday, asserts that the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle should not have been publicly available because it was designed for military use and is unsuited for hunting or home defense. NSSF responded: "The U.S. Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act in 2005 in order to prevent lawsuits that seek to blame manufacturers for the criminal misuse of products that were lawfully sold. Like all Americans, we have great sympathy for the families represented in this suit. This tragedy was caused by the criminal actions of a mentally unstable individual. The suit lacks factual and legal merit."

 

U.S. Senate Approves Murthy as Surgeon General

The U.S. Senate this week on a nearly party-line vote, approved Dr. Vivek Murthy 51-43 to serve as U.S. surgeon general. NSSF announced this would be their first key vote for the recently-established candidate scorecard. Three Democrats, Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Donnelly (IN) and Joe Manchin (WV) joined all (but one) Republicans in opposing Murthy. The politically active Harvard-educated physician had been opposed by Republicans for his pro-Obamacare activism, relatively short medical experience and for his statements terming guns a public health concern. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brought the nomination forward in the lame duck session when the vote could no longer affect the results in tight Senate races.

 

Secretive Anti-Gun State Legislators Meet in Washington

A small group of state legislators from across the country recently gathered in Washington, D.C. to announce the creation of "American State Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention" or ASLGVP. But it seems more than a little funny that group that would call a press conference will not identify its membership. Shouldn't their constituents know who they are? If a state legislator is too scared to reveal his or her affiliation what does that say about the agenda? Read the NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Keane's blog post.

 

Pennsylvania Background Check System Down for 2 Hours

A mid-day computer malfunction affecting all of the Pennsylvania State Police Internet-based systems took down the Instant Check System used by firearms retailers to authorize purchases for two hours on Wednesday, disrupting the busy holiday sales season. The Tribune Review of Pittsburgh reported the malfunction also caused a statewide outage that affected all state police email and telephone systems. Service was restored by 1 p.m. Pennsylvania is one of a few states that mandate use of its own background check system instead of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

 

Everytown's Georgia School Shootings Numbers Claim Proven false

The Michael Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety recently put the State of Georgia at the top of its state rankings for the number of school shootings since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. But PolitiFact Georgia put that claim to the test and found it mostly false, reporting: "Incidents were classified as school shootings when a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds, as documented by the press or confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement. Incidents in which guns were brought into schools but not fired, or were fired off school grounds after having been possessed in schools, were not included."

 

Help Give the Gift of Safety this Holiday Season

Safe storage is the number one way to help reduce firearms accidents and unauthorized access. Every day, Project ChildSafe receives requests for thousands of gun locks from law enforcement agencies across the country, but we can only fulfill a fraction of those requests with available funding. Your donation, which may be tax deductible, can help Project ChildSafe promote firearms safety education nationwide and help keep guns from falling into the wrong hands.

 

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