At the recent Crossroads Gun Show a new product gave light to my gun collection, literally… it lights up my gun collection.

The product is the Lite Tech LED Safe Light System, by www.litetechauto.com, and it is nothing short then amazing both in function and price.  The system includes two strands of LED lights at 48″, which have already been conveniently affixed with velcro along the back for simple tool and hassle free installation along the lining of your safe.  Also included is a manual on/off switch and a trip swith that can be fixed to the base of your safe for auto on/off function when opening your safe.   Whats that you say, you don’t have the ability to run hard line electricity to your safe, this will not be a issue with the simple 8 AA  Battery power pack it requires to power the high efficiency, low wattage lighting.  If that is not enough, you can also pick the color lighting you want, white, blue, green, red, and amber… all this for the very palatable price of $40.00 a kit.

I had this whole system up and running within 2 minutes of installation and must say that it makes finding both accessories and guns within the safe both easier and more appealing.

Rarely have I felt the need to bring light to new products, whether to the industry or to myself, so at risk of being wrong here it is.

When Governor Brown signed AB 144 into law in October, the bill came to his desk sponsored by the California Police Chiefs Association, among other public safety organizations.

Effective as of Jan. 1, the new law was written by California legislators in 2011 as an effort to stop people from visiting their local coffee shop or shopping mall while packing heat. Known as the “open carry” law, it was vehemently opposed by gun rights advocates and is now the subject of state and federal lawsuits. The president of the group California Right to Carry, Charles Nichols, has filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court as an individual, and associations of people supporting the right to openly carry unloaded handguns are currently mobilizing protests.

Nichols sent an email to the Gazette after we ran a new-bill summary last week, informing that the penalty for openly carrying a handgun after Jan. 1 is up to a year in jail. “An injunction against the ban on Loaded Open Carry will make the ban openly carrying an unloaded handgun irrelevant,” added Nichols. Mike Stollenwerk, co-founder of OpenCarry.org, told the Gazette in an email sent on Dec. 29, “the statutory changes made by AB 144 only apply to unloaded handguns in public places in incorporated territories and in areas of unincorporated territories where the locality has banned all firearms discharge,” stated Stollenwerk “The open carry of both loaded and unloaded handguns remains legal in California, without any permit, in unincorporated territories except in areas where the locality has banned all firearms discharge.”

As AB 144 reads, “existing law, subject to certain exceptions, makes it an offense to carry a loaded firearm on the person or in a vehicle while in any public place or on any public street in an incorporated city or in any public place or on any public street in a prohibited area of unincorporated territory. [AB 144] would, subject to exceptions, make it a misdemeanor to openly carry an unloaded handgun on the person or openly and exposed in a motor vehicle in specified public areas and would make it a misdemeanor with specified penalties to openly carry an exposed handgun in a public place or public street …”  It’s the “subject to exceptions,” that has some calling the law ineffective, as AB 144 continues on to list dozens of exceptions, including the legality of carrying rifles or long-barreled guns. “Gun owners who support California’s open carry are hoping to draw attention to what they see as the Constitutional guarantee to bear arms. Because California law prohibits openly carried guns from being loaded, open carry has come to symbolize the fight for Second Amendment Rights. The Second Amendment gives gun owners the right to defend their homes and property, not to put our public safety officers and families on Main Street in harm’s way,” said AB 144 co-author Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, a democrat based in a Los Angeles suburb city. “The bill was introduced in response to an increasing number of Californians who have been openly carrying unloaded handguns as the only legal means of self-defense in the face of arbitrary and discriminatory denials of concealed carry permits,” said blogger John Pierce of the site Monachus Lex, which focuses on “politics, public policy and pistols,” according to its authors. “Another consequence of AB144 will be to force those citizens who wish to exercise their rights to do so by openly carrying long guns, which are not affected by the handgun ban in the bill. Portantino and those who support AB 144 should expect to see shotguns and rifles carried on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and in Starbucks from San Francisco to San Diego.” As Dave Roberts, a writer for the website CalWatchdog wrote at the end of December, “like a lot of bad legislation, AB 144 passed largely along party lines on the last day of the session when the sausage is cranked out by the barrel-full. It is aimed at the so-called ‘right to carry’ or ‘open carry’ gun rights activists, who have in effect shoved their guns in the face of liberal legislators by showing up in groups at Starbucks and other places while packing heat or at least unloaded heat. Naturally, the Democrats shoved back.”

On the Contra Costa Open Carry Facebook page, members trade information on the topic of gun rights and attempt to clarify misreported information on the new bill. The two most recent entries remind members of upcoming gun shows in Sacramento and San Francisco.  For those who missed the debate on the Senate floor over AB 144 on Sept. 8, bill co-author Kevin De Leon argued in favor of passage, stating, “Let’s be very clear, this is not the Wild West. This does not infringe on the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, the right to bear arms. How discomforting can it be if you walk into a restaurant, a Starbucks, to Mickey D’s or wherever it is you may go to, and all of a sudden you see someone walking around with a handgun and you can’t discern whether they are a law enforcement agent or undercover, perhaps maybe they are not. If you’re a law- abiding citizen, you can buy all of the ammunition you’d like. If you’re a law-abiding citizen, you can buy long guns as well as a handgun. All [AB 144] says is it makes it a misdemeanor if you carry an unloaded gun openly. This is 2011. It’s nonsensical that we would walk into any public space; any private space and then you see someone with a holster walking around with guns. It just doesn’t make sense whatsoever. This is not a third world country. This is the eighth largest economy in the world. This is the United States of America.”

San Carlos CA (September 29, 2010) – The City of San Diego will pay $35,000 to gun rights activist Samuel Wolanyk for his improper arrest. The San Diego Police Department also granted Mr. Wolanyk’s petition for a Finding of Factual Innocence, admitting no reasonable cause for his arrest existed.

The lawsuit – financially supported by The Calguns Foundation, Inc., and brought by attorney Jason Davis of Davis & Associates – sought to ensure San Diego properly trains its officers to deal with law-abiding gun owners.

“We do not encourage Unloaded Open Carrying of firearms in urban areas at this time,” said Gene Hoffman, Chairman of The Calguns Foundation. “But we believe the civil rights of gun owners must be defended to the utmost.”

Nearly two years ago, “open carry” activist Wolanyk wound up looking down the barrels of two police handguns when San Diego Police officers Jody Kinsley and Troy White responded to a call of a man wearing a kilt, with a holstered gun, in San Diego’s Mission Beach area. The officers immediately exited their vehicles on arrival at the location, drew their firearms, and ordered Mr. Wolanyk to the ground.

The officers quickly determined the firearm was unloaded, had no magazine in it, with no round in the chamber, and was thus in full compliance with California law. The firearm was unloaded even though Mr. Wolanyk did separately possess loaded magazines carried in an additional pouch attached to his belt (a completely lawful activity).

Until that day, these officers had never heard of the burgeoning Unloaded Open Carry movement, in which persons entitled to possess firearms exercise their right to lawfully carry unloaded, holstered handguns (though some onerous geographic limitations do apply). One other key legal restriction on open carry in California law also exists: people must give up their Fourth Amendment rights and submit to law enforcement examination of the firearm to determine if it’s loaded. In Wolanyk’s case, however, the officers weren’t performing a loaded firearm examination; in the officers’ minds, they were responding to a “man with a gun” call and acting accordingly.

After San Diego Police Sergeant David Kries arrived at the scene, Mr. Wolanyk had hoped the officers’ errors would be competently rectified and he would then be free to go. But Sgt. Kries showed he too didn’t understand California’s complex gun laws, and arrested Mr. Wolanyk for carrying a “loaded” firearm – in direct conflict with both prior case law (People v. Clark) and common sense, which requires ammunition to be in a position from which it can be fired in order for a firearm to be considered loaded. Mr. Wolanyk was taken to San Diego Police headquarters, where it was determined that he violated no law. Two hours later, Wolanyk was back at Mission Beach with Officer Kinsley handing him back his firearm and ammunition. Neither an apology nor an explanation of why the Department hadn’t properly trained their officers was provided.

“If they’d just apologized and said that they would look into training their officers on how to deal with law-abiding gun owners, I would not have felt compelled to file my lawsuit,” said Mr. Wolanyk. “It’s really about public safety for everyone, including those lawfully carrying firearms.”

Now, not only has San Diego paid Mr. Wolanyk for their actions, but they have since supplemented their training as well.

The rise of the Unloaded Open Carry movement in San Diego and Wolanyk’s arrest caught the attention of California Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña, whose proposed “fix” to police training deficiencies was instead to draft a bill taking away the ability to “UOC”. Saldaña’s proposed “Open Carry” ban failed passage this legislative term, but is nearly certain to reemerge this next term.

As long as Unloaded Open Carry activities are lawful, San Diego Police Officers and other law enforcement agencies will have to respect the civil rights of these law-abiding citizens.

Written By: Gene Hoffman

Article Supplied by Calguns.netGene Hoffman

For the second year in a row, a record-low 44% of Americans say laws governing the sale of firearms should be made more strict, while 42% say gun laws should be kept as they are now. Twelve percent say gun laws should be made less strict.

Americans’ support for stricter gun control laws has gradually declined over the last two decades, from 78% when this question was first asked in 1990 to 49% in 2008, and 44% in 2009 and again this year. As support for stricter gun laws has decreased, support for keeping gun laws as they are now has increased, from 17% in 1990 to 42% now. The percentage of Americans favoring less strict gun control laws has remained relatively stable over the last 20 years, and is now at 12%.

These results are based on Gallup’s annual Crime Poll, conducted Oct. 7-10 this year.

Americans are also less likely to say there should be a law banning the possession of handguns except by the police and other authorized persons. The current 29% who favor such a law is within one percentage point of the low of 28% recorded last year, down from 60% when Gallup first asked this question in 1959 — the only time when a majority favored such a ban. Support has been below 40% every year since 1993.

Democrats, Liberals Most in Favor of Stricter Gun Laws

The most significant differences in support for stricter gun laws are along political lines. More than 6 in 10 Democrats and liberals favor stricter gun laws — compared with 31% and 26% among conservatives and Republicans, respectively.

Other groups expressing greater-than-average support for stricter gun laws include women, those living in the East, nonwhites, those with postgraduate educations, and those living in households without guns.

Implications

Americans are holding firm to their record-low level of support for making gun laws stricter, with virtually no change from last year. Additionally, less than a third of Americans support a law banning possession of handguns for individuals beyond police and other authorized persons — similar to the record-low levels of support for this type of law found over the past three years.

Gallup research last year showed that more than 4 in 10 Americans believed President Obama was planning to ban the sale of guns in the U.S. While this perception may be part of the explanation for the increased support among Americans for keeping gun laws as they are, the trend away from support for increased gun control was evident long before Obama appeared on the political scene.

The drop in support for stricter gun laws does not appear to be related to perceptions of the crime situation in the U.S. Americans’ views that crime was increasing did abate in Gallup’s 1990 through 2002 research, even as Americans became less likely to support stricter gun control laws. But that pattern reversed itself thereafter, reaching a recent high of 74% in 2008 — while support for stricter gun laws fell to its record low point.

Only 1% of Americans mention gun control as America’s most important problem at this time, and even fewer mention crime. Thus, although there is majority support for stricter gun laws among both Democrats and liberals, it appears that there will not be pressure to make this a high-priority issue for the leaders of these political groups in the months ahead. The political agenda is instead likely to focus mainly on the economy and jobs, the issues that Americans overwhelmingly perceive as the top problems facing the country.

Here at ‘I Love My Gun’ we are working hard to build this community of gun owners and enthusiasts.  From the dawn of man weapons have been a vital accessory to every family, whether to hunt or to protect this right and this tool has been an integral part of who we are today.

These days we have two kind of people in regards to guns, those who love them and those who hate them.  Not much to say for people in between… This is where we come in, with our mantra of Education Through Vigilance, this idea playing off of the old adage of “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.”  For too long has guns and gun ownership been taboo, slighted so often by the media, always the stories of tragedy but never of the heroism.  Never the story of the man who protected his family, the women who stood off certain danger, never stories elating the society of gun owners.

In sight, will keep that which is seen in ones mind, keeping those who see it more often more aware and growing more comfortable and supportive.  Obvious social studies can be seen in demographic areas of higher gun ownership and acceptance.  Now we aren’t saying to walk around town with guns drawn, nor are we saying we are here to provide the guns to you, but we are here to support each other, and through our store, provide an arsenal of products to support our mission of ‘Education Through Vigilance.’

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