10 gun-related bills filed on first day of new Congress

[jpak]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/01/04/new-gun-bills-in-congress/1810001/

WASHINGTON — Ten bills dealing with gun control were among the first introduced in the 113th Congress, according to a review of documents filed on the first day of the session.

All but two of the measures introduced by House lawmakers on Thursday advocated for more restrictions on firearms and were introduced by Democrats.

Freshman Republican Reps. Steve Stockman of Texas and Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced bills to implement plans closer to that of the National Rifle Association, calling for the removal of "gun-free school zones."

MORE: Big push in new Congress for gun control

Gun-regulation opponents have argued that trained armed staff or security personnel could prevent future school shootings like the one that killed 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

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[Thinkingabout]

1. Interesting the GOP are proposing bills to greatly increase spending.

Rush and Hannity keep shouting how Democrats spend all the time. Does any of these bills require the NRA or weapon manufacturers to bear the cost of placing armed guards in schools, doubt that for one second. Turn this around and give the education dept the same money to run better schools cost tax payers money the repubs claim is too much.

[gejohnston]

2. IIRC,

it would be using the funding from the Clinton program
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/16/news/mn-20323
My kids went to schools with resource officers. They serve not only as security, but also as informal counselors and other community policing. Not that different than a neighborhood police box in Japan.
NYC and Houston have entire divisions devoted to it.

[Historic NY]

4. If your talking about the old grants its long gone...

Secure Our Schools (approximately $13 million). Secure Our Schools (SOS) funding supports collaborative efforts by law enforcement agencies and schools to purchase crime prevention equipment and to provide safety training to staff and students to improve security at schools and on school grounds. The SOS solicitation is open to all state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, and all applicants were required to demonstrate a comprehensive approach to preventing school violence.

The biggest obstacle to any of these programs is money police depts are funds up to 125k per officer thats covers benefits and pension contributions...etc its only good for 3 yrs and its only for 75% of the costs.....lots of hoops and most are gone in three yrs.

Ultimately, the COPS Office received applications from 1,411 law enforcement agencies requesting 3,780 officer positions, for $526,340,412 million in federal funding. It only had 111 million to work with. It helped preserve or rehire laid off 800 cops.

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/2012AwardDocs/CHP/CHP-Selection-Methodology-Attachment.pdf

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/2012AwardDocs/CHP/2012-CHP-Post-Award-Fact-Sheet.pdf

[ileus]

3. We've come too far to back up now.

Now isn't the time to stop being progressive on the 2A.

[Clames]

5. They are getting desperate.

Quick overview of the proposed bills (8 out of over 150 introduced so far) seems to be nothing more than the usual annual failures (high cap magazine ban, banning online ammo sales, "gun show loophole&quot that have been split up into several bills in the hopes they might squeak through. A few are new and are actually approaching reasonable but until the texts are published it has yet to be seen if they pass the common sense test.