I’m not really a fan, figuring it’s a states’ rights issue. But David Hardy has the text of the Thune-Nelson national reciprocity bill. I don’t like the means but am not hostile to the ends.

Update: More on the bill here.

Paul Helmke’s (president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Ownership) record:

But in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the crime rates didn’t look as good as national rates. As writer Howard Nemerov points out in his recent column, “Fuzzy Math,” during Helmke’s last five years in office -from 1995 to 2000-the national drop in violent crime outpaced Fort Wayne’s drop in crime by nearly 10 percent. Murder, rape and aggravated assaults … all of those crimes were worse in Fort Wayne than the national average.

But in the five years after Helmke left office, just the opposite happened. Fort Wayne’s crime rate was 11 percent LOWER than the national average.

This time, at the Denver Post:

The legislation, House Bill 1011, sponsored by Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, would expand the current home-intruder law to include people who feel threatened by another person while in their cars and businesses. It creates the “presumption” that the person in the house or car or business “has a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily injury” to themselves or others.

Current law places the onus on home occupants to prove they were in fear of their lives. Gardner’s bill places the burden on police and prosecutors to prove they weren’t. That’s preposterous.

And, precisely, why is it preposterous:

We’re satisfied that Colorado already has ample law to immunize potential victims of, say, carjackings and business intrusions from prosecution. Moreover, HB 1011 has the potential to expand gun violence. Colorado law allows people to carry concealed weapons in their homes, cars and businesses. It seems to us that this measure will have the unintended consequence of providing cover to criminals, including gang members, who decide to shoot from their cars.

Well, when you make shit up, it is preposterous. What the bill actually does, as stated in the article, is create the presumption of innocence. A gang banger shooting from a car should be fairly easy to prove that it’s not a self-defense situation.