Bend of the River Conservation Club
Niles, MI
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Did you know: In 2002, the odds of encountering another adult* in Michigan with a lawful concealed pistol permit (CPL) was 1 in 133. In
2005, the odds diminished to 1 in 56. By the close of 2009 the estimated odds should be approximately 1 in 38. -- Based on Michigan census data
and Michigan State Police CPL reports. *adult = 21 yrs or older.
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Did you Know: In the 4 years (1997-2000) prior to Michigan becoming "shall-issue", reported incidents of crime averaged 4,509 per 100,000 people per year. In the 4 years after, (2002-2005), reported incidents of crime in Michigan fell 17% to an average of 3,717.
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Did you know: In 2002, the odds of encountering another adult* in Michigan with a lawful concealed pistol permit (CPL) was 1 in 133. In 2005, the odds diminished to 1 in 56. By the close of 2009 the estimated odds should be approximately 1 in 38. -- Based on Michigan census data and Michigan State Police CPL reports. *adult = 21 yrs or older.
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Safety Inspection for Pistols changes in Michigan take effect January 7th 2009.
The so-called "safety inspection" is eliminated. The seller of a pistol shall immediately record the sale on a 4-part (quadruplicate) form provided by the Department of State Police, which the purchaser shall sign. One copy is kept by the seller. One copy is kept by purchaser. Two copies are sent to the police department or county sheriff within 10 days. The forms can be hand-delivered or sent by first-class or certified mail (I recommend certified and hang onto your receipts.) Failure to comply with this rule is civil infraction punishable by a fine of $250 maximum. Violations will also be reported to the state police and the county gun board.
The police agency will forward one copy to the state police within 48 hours, and keep the other for at least 6 years. The state police will enter the information into the computer data base within 10 days of receiving it. The purchaser has a right to get a copy of the information that is entered to verify the accuracy of the information. The police or sheriff's department can charge a fee of $1.00 maximum for the copy. The purchaser has to keep his/her copy of the form while carrying or using the pistol for the first 30 days after purchase. After that time, the form need not be carried.
This law takes effect January 7th, 2009. Public Acts No. 194, 195, 196 -
Admiration for the Average March 26, 2008
When it comes right down to it, the hero in virtually any great story isn't a superman; he's an everyman. Great writers love to tell the story of the common man who through bad luck or unusual circumstance finds himself in a situation where only heroic measures will get a job done.
Unfortunately, not all those stories have happy, heroic endings.
But the man who has either stood bloodied, unbowed and triumphant or lain down to breathe his last; knowing did all he could do is a heroic figure.
In my personal life, the heroes have always been average guys.
As a newsman, I've met many people who have done something heroic. To an individual, they have been average people who overcame extraordinary circumstances.
Today, I know at least one new heroic figure.
And as expected, he's not the kind of guy you'd notice in a crowd. In fact, he looks average and appears downright uncomfortable in the public eye.
Dick Anthony Heller, a 66-year old security guard from Washington, D.C. may be the gun rights equivalent of Jack the giant-killer. Living in an apartment and working as a security officer, Heller has an un-extraordinary job protecting people and government property - with a firearm if necessary.
But it's Heller's actions off the job that may turn his name into a one-word term for something extraordinary.
When Heller tried to obtain a permit to carry his gun after work, it was denied. Living in the District of Columbia, he faces firearms prohibitions considered the most strict in America.
Dick Heller realized he was expected to use his firearm to protect government property at work, but precluded by law from defending his own life and property the same way. In other words, the District of Columbia didn't consider Dick Anthony Heller, off the job, to be worth defending.
At that point, Dick Heller decided, as heroes do sometimes, to act. He, and a group of like-minded folks, filed suit against the District's gun ban, alleging it was unconstitutional.
For five years, Heller, and Robert Levy, a quiet Libertarian who has never owned a gun, but does possess a rock-solid belief in individual rights, have moved the case through the justice system. It's not been inexpensive in time, money or a personal toll on either.
Surprisingly, a Federal District Court agreed with Dick Heller; declaring the DC gun ban unconstitutional. Not surprisingly, but against the wishes of many anti-gun groups, the District appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, March 18, the Supreme Court heard Arguments from both sides in what will certainly be a landmark case in Constitutional law.
That, as they say, is history or should be by June.
That's when we should know if the Supreme Court agrees with the District Court, making Dick Heller the man who helped bring the right of firearm ownership back to the District of Columbia.
The legal precedent in such a finding would probably open the door to more lawsuits across the country. That would turn Dick Heller into "Heller" a legal decision of groundbreaking significance.
If that doesn't happen, Heller may be regarded by many to be just another guy who fought the establishment, and lost.
Both Heller and Levy told me they wouldn't have done anything differently, whatever the outcome.
"I'm an average guy," Dick Heller told me, "I just saw something I knew was wrong and wanted to see it fixed."
When Heller said this, however, he wasn't standing across a back yard fence sharing a cold drink with a neighbor. He was standing in front of the highest court in the United States as photographers hurried to frame photos of this gray-haired man in an off-white parka who just might have changed the future course of the nation. Despite that importance, Heller looked out of place among the perfectly coiffed and tailored lawyers and media members who clamored for his time.
"A basic issue of our constitutional rights to life and self-defense has been violated," he said at an impromptu press conference on the steps of the United States Supreme Court.
"As a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government offices," he said, "but my life isn't worth protecting at home, in their eyes."
"Their" refers to the District of Columbia's government. By extension, "they" meant DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Police Chief Cathy Lanier, making their way across the Supreme Court steps inside a protection bubble formed of District police officers while Dick Heller talked.
As Heller ruefully observed, Fenty's moving across the steps and plaza inside the cordon of police would seem to make the mayor's assertion "DC, due to the gun ban and my anti-crime initiative, is safer than ever" ring pretty hollow.
Dick Anthony Heller believes Fenty's apparent double-standard is wrong.
Co-counsel and financial resource Robert Levy agrees.
Together, they have taken that conviction to what should soon be its now-inevitable conclusion.
Sometime before the current Supreme Court session ends in June, we'll find out how many of the Supreme Court Justices agree, and to what extent.
If the majority of the nine Justices agree the DC law is unconstitutional, the gun ban should be overturned.
Then, most pro-Second Amendment supporters will believe Heller is a hero.
Regardless of your position on the ban, it would be hard to argue that Heller would be another extraordinary man who helped change history. Levy will certainly be regarded as the man who used his resources to help that happen.
If the Justices disagree, in part or in whole, no matter how unlikely that may appear after listening to the Arguments, many people will dismiss Dick Anthony Heller as just another guy who fought the system and lost.
To me, Heller's willingness to go toe-to-toe with the system, regardless of the outcome, is heroic. So too, is Robert Levy's decision to accompany him and back that conviction with his own wallet.
Ordinary men.
Extraordinary actions.
Heroes.
--Jim ShepherdThe Shooting Wire is published three times a week. This is a fine example of Jim Shepherd's editorial content. Jim also publishes the Outdoor Wire.
- Suzanne Hupp was a member of the Texas House of Representatives. She did not seek re-election in 2006.
Here are her views on gun control.
- Michigan sees fewer gun deaths -- with more permits
January 6, 2008
By DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold.
But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics.
The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.
More than 155,000 Michiganders -- about one in every 65 -- are now authorized to carry loaded guns as they go about their everyday affairs, according to Michigan State Police records.
About 25,000 people had CCW permits in Michigan before the law changed in 2001.
"I think the general consensus out there from law enforcement is that things were not as bad as we expected," said Woodhaven Police Chief Michael Martin, cochair of the legislative committee for the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police. "There are problems with gun violence. But ... I think we can breathe a sigh of relief that what we anticipated didn't happen."
John Lott, a visiting professor at the University of Maryland who has done extensive research on the role of firearms in American society, said the results in Michigan since the law changed don't surprise him.
Academic studies of concealed weapons laws that generally allow citizens to obtain permits have shown different results, Lott said. About two-thirds of the studies suggest the laws reduce crime; the rest show no net effect, he said.
But no peer-reviewed study has ever shown that crime increases when jurisdictions enact changes like those put in place by the Legislature and then-Gov. John Engler in 2000, Lott said.
In Michigan and elsewhere (liberal permitting is the rule in about 40 states), those who seek CCW permits, get training and pay licensing fees tend to be "the kind of people who don't break laws," Lott said.
Nationally, the rate of CCW permits being revoked is very low, he said. State Police reports in Michigan indicate that 2,178 permits have been revoked or suspended since 2001, slightly more than 1% of those issued.
Another State Police report found that 175 Michigan permit holders were convicted of a crime, most of them nonviolent, requiring revocation or suspension of their permits between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2006.
But even if more armed citizens have not wreaked havoc, some critics of Michigan's law chafe at how it was passed: against stiff opposition in a lame duck legislative session and attached to an appropriation that nullified efforts at repeal by referendum.
Kenneth Levin, a West Bloomfield physician, was one of those critics. In a letter to the Free Press in July 2001, he referred to the "inevitable first victim of road or workplace rage as a result of this law."
Last month, Levin said he suspected "it probably hasn't turned out as bad as I thought. I don't think I was wrong, but my worst fears weren't realized."
But the manner in which the law was enacted was nevertheless "sneaky" and "undemocratic," Levin said.
Other opponents remain convinced that it has contributed to an ongoing epidemic of firearms-related death and destruction.
Shikha Hamilton of Grosse Pointe, president of the Michigan chapter of the anti-gun group Million Moms March, said she believes overall gun violence (including suicide and accidental shootings) is up in Michigan since 2001. Many incidents involving CCW permit holders have not been widely reported, she said.
The most publicized recent case came early in 2007, when a 40-year-old Macomb County woman fired from her vehicle toward the driver of a truck she claimed had cut her off on I-94. Bernadette Headd was convicted of assault and sentenced to two years in prison.
Hamilton said that even if gun violence has ebbed, it remains pervasive, tragic and unnecessary. At the least, a more liberal concealed weapons law means there are more guns in homes and cars and on the street, she said, and more potential for disaster.
Advocates for the law argue that there is nothing equivocal about the experience of the CCW permit holders who have warded off threats and, in a few instances, saved themselves from harm.
In September, a 36-year-old Troy man killed an armed 18-year-old assailant who, with three other suspects, attempted to steal his car outside Detroit Police headquarters.
Michelle Reurink, 40, a consultant in Lansing, got her CCW permit last year, not so much because she felt an imminent threat to her well-being, she said, but because she's a strong believer in the Constitution's Second Amendment -- the right to bear arms.
"The primary reason I got it is because I feel like I have the right to have it," she said.
Still, she doesn't often carry her gun during her daily routine, though she takes it when she and her husband go on their boat, she said.
Having the license and a handgun makes her feel more secure in her home (where no one needs a CCW license to have a gun), she said. She also feels more secure because of the required training, including self-defense lessons, she took as part of the license application.
Mark Cortis of Royal Oak, who conducts concealed weapons license training and sits on the Oakland County gun board, said he believes the benefits of an armed citizenry are evident in small ways almost every day, as permit holders deter trouble and live more confidently.
"The police just can't protect you," Cortis said. "If you have to call 911, it's probably already too late."
Contact DAWSON BELL at 313-222-6604 or dbell@freepress.com.
