US Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) has filed the Knife Owners Protection Act (KOPA), HR 419, in the 2015 session of Congress. KOPA would extend to knives the protections afforded to firearm owners in the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986. If a person may legally own a knife where he started and ended his travel, he would be protected in possessing it at points in between. The bill corrects some of the oversights in the FOPA legislation by explicitly protecting overnight stays, stops for fuel and food, and for any stop reasonably connected with the travel. It also allows for civil action against officials who ignore the law and arrest or prosecute individuals who are following the law, under provisions similar to 18 USC.
US Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Jim Risch (R-ID) have again introduced legislation to make firearm regulations consistent across federal (your) lands by allowing law-abiding citizens to carry firearms on US Army Corps of Engineers property. Under current law, a person may carry a concealed weapon in a National Park or Refuge as long as individuals comply with the firearm laws of the state in which the park exists, but the same rights are unconstitutionally denied to Americans on land managed by the Corps. Specifically, the legislation would clarify that federal regulations should not forbid the possession of firearms on Army Corps projects and lands, as long as the firearm possession complies with state laws. Additionally, it would ensure that Corps policy is consistent with the policy already in effect at National Parks or Refuges.
This legislation has been introduced for the last three sessions of Congress but has been stymied by Harry Reid in the Senate and the Obama administration, and now the Corps is faced with a court decision citing Peruta in the Ninth Circuit, that declares that carry outside of the home is a constitutional right. On 10 January, 2014, Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, issued a preliminary injunction against the Corps to prevent enforcement of the Corps’ rules banning guns on the properties that it manages. (Some 11.7 million acres, 460 lakes and almost 500 recreational areas, that all belong to YOU.)
http://ia800902.us.archive.org/4/items/gov.uscourts.idd.32180/gov.uscourts.idd.32180.42.0.pdf
Freshman US Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) has proposed an amendment to the Keystone XL pipeline bill that would ban Environmental Protection Agency Criminal Investigation Division officers from carrying firearms, saying “When the EPA initially was stood up, it didn’t have employees who were armed.” The senator is framing his amendment as a first step toward reducing the scope of the federal government, and specifically mentioned the US Department of Education’s SWAT Team as another example.
Washington, D.C.
The Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department has granted its first concealed carry permits, effectively ending the longstanding ban on carrying handguns in public that was finally deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge last year.
Eight CCW permits have been granted and 11 denied since the department started accepting permit applications in late October. Since then, 66 people have completed permit applications; about half each by residents and nonresidents.
Baby steps….
