Paul Michael Murphy, a former U.S. Army Ranger who is now a teacher, is filing a $5-million lawsuit in federal court against the CNMI government over the confiscation of his firearms and ammunition in 2007. <\/p>\n
In a pro se complaint or without a lawyer, Murphy also asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to repeal the CNMI Weapons Control Act and all associated legislation, licensing, taxation, recording, administration, and processing.<\/p>\n
Murphy said the Department of Public Safety withheld all his firearms and ammunition until the issuance of a firearms, ammunition, and explosive identification card on Sept. 20, 2007.<\/p>\n
He said his two firearms were sent to Guam Police Department armory for holding while the ammunition is still being held by CNMI DPS Firearms Section.<\/p>\n
Murphy said DPS had denied his repeated request to carry and possess his rifle and pistol. <\/p>\n
Sen. Pete Ryes (Ind-Saipan) has filed a bill that will regulate handguns in the Commonwealth in anticipation of the U.S. District Court possibly shooting down the Commonwealth Weapons Control Act.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 18-69 is a measure \u201cto provide for the possession and management of firearms in the Commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Commonwealth Weapons Control Act has been challenged in the courts and Reyes said the CNMI is now faced with a difficult decision\u2014whether to fight a costly legal battle with little or no prospect of success or move forward in conformance with the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n
Last September, David J. Radich, a U.S. Navy Gulf War veteran, and his wife filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of the CNMI Weapons Control Act that prohibits all residents from obtaining handguns for self-defense purposes. Radich\u2019s wife suffered serious injuries during a home invasion on Saipan in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Michael Murphy, a former U.S. Army Ranger who is now a teacher, is filing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":188355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[26,93,215,1411],"class_list":["post-188354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-district-court","tag-public-safety","tag-senate-bill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}