GOA/SDGO Members Shoot Down Late

GOA/SDGO Members Shoot Down Latest Effort to Extend Semi-auto Ban

South Dakota Gun Owners E-mail Alert
PO Box 3845, Rapid City, SD 57709
(605) 737-5583
LibertyTeeth@sdgo.org http://www.SDGO.org

An alert from Gun Owners of America - http://www.gunowners.org

(Tuesday, July 13, 2004) - Congratulations!

Through your efforts, you have succeeded in killing the best opportunity that anti-gunners had to extend the ban on roughly two hundred semiautomatic firearms.

Liberals had intended to offer the semi-auto ban as a "killer amendment" to class action reform legislation which was considered by the Senate last week. At first, there was every indication that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was going to allow anti-gunners like Sen. Feinstein to offer the gun ban amendment.

But after you bombarded Frist's office with demands that he prevent the semi-auto amendment, Frist -- in a parliamentary move that GOA suggested -- took steps to procedurally block all "killer amendments," including the semi-auto ban.

Liberal anti-gunners whined and screamed on the Senate floor, and threatened to kill the class action bill in retaliation. But we appear to have won the battle for now, as the class action bill has been pulled from the floor.

This victory is huge. Compared to the ill-fated strategy used on the gun makers' protection act (S. 1805) earlier in the year, the outcome on the class action bill was as good as could be expected in the poisoned environment on the Hill. Consider the following:

   * The best chance for reenacting the semi-auto ban prior to its September 13 expiration is now dead;

   * Unlike the gun liability bill -- defeated 8-to-90 in March after it was loaded down with "killer amendments" -- pro-business Senators can still bring the class action bill back up at some later point during this session;

   * Unlike with the gun liability bill, the class action bill did not offer anti-gun Democrats a week of Senate floor time to promote their agenda; and

   * Those anti-gunners who cynically pretended to support the class action bill were forced to make a choice between politically powerful constituencies -- between the pro-business community and the trial lawyers.

We will be certain to let you quickly know any news on this issue when it comes up.

In the meantime, ask every candidate for office their position on this crucial issue, and how they will vote.

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