New anti-gun measures to be
considered TOMORROW
South Dakota
Gun Owners E-mail Alert
PO Box 3845, Rapid City, SD 57709
(605) 737-5583
LibertyTeeth@sdgo.org
http://www.SDGO.org
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
There is trouble afoot in Washington, D.C..
As we reported late last week, California Senator Diane Feinstein has announced that she is looking to offer anti-gun amendments to the new lawsuit protection bill (S. 397).
Slated for action in the Senate tomorrow, this legislation is designed to slow-down the number of frivolous lawsuits against gun makers. And the anti-gun crowd is lining up with amendments to do everything from reinstate the Clinton/Feinstein Semi-auto Ban to ban .50 caliber firearms (which is just a step toward their goal of banning ALL hunting rounds).
If you've
been getting our alerts for long, you’ll remember that the US Senate introduced
a bill last year that would have protected gun makers and sellers from junk
lawsuits. But the bill turned into an anti-gun nightmare.
In fact, last year's bill would have been America's largest gun control package
EVER. Along with our friends from pro-gun groups across the country, and with
your tireless efforts, we were able to kill it.
Unfortunately, NRA management supported the bill until the very last minute,
promising that the terrible anti-gun amendments could be "cleaned up" when it
was sent to conference committee. This is the SAME FAILED STRATEGY that gave us
the original Clinton Semi-auto Ban. In November of 1993, pro-gun Senators
refused to filibuster the Clinton Ban when Senator Feinstein offered it as an
amendment to the crime bill -- arguing that they would remove the language in
conference! Sound familiar?
Passing gun control in the hopes that someone else will take care of it is a dangerous approach that has resulted in new anti-gun laws in the past. That’s why SDGO and dozens of other no-compromise groups warned against allowing last year’s lawsuit protection bill to come out of the Senate with the gun control package attached.
In the
end, because of your input, the NRA management agreed that the bill had to be
killed. Because of an outcry from thousands of gun owners like you, they
reluctantly pulled the plug on their out-of-control Frankenstein.
Well, it looks like it’s about to happen all over again.
With debate on the lawsuit protection bill (S. 397) beginning tomorrow, Capitol
Hill sources have informed us that some supporters are once again prepared to
accept anti-gun amendments in the Senate in hopes of having them stripped out
later in conference committee.
This has been confirmed by Sen. Larry Craig, the sponsor of S. 397 and an NRA board member. The Washington Post quoted Sen. Craig two weeks ago as saying that the "strategy this time would not be to dump the bill but remove anything objectionable in conference with the House of Representatives."
In other
words, the NRA's plan is to charge ahead, despite the very real possibility that
this bill will be full of anti-gun amendments, including bans on .50 caliber
firearms, a renewed and ever expansive Semi-auto Ban, and many, many others.
For more on this, please see a recent GOA alert:
http://gunowners.org/a072105.htm
Action:
1. If you have not already done so, call and leave a message for Senator Bill Frist. Ask him to do whatever it takes to keep anti-gun amendments off of S. 397. Urge him to use ANY and ALL of the parliamentary maneuvers that he has at his disposal to keep Dianne Feinstein from attaching her gun ban to S. 397.
You can call Senator Frist at (202) 224-3344, or go to http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm to send a message similar to the one below.
Please
note: Even though you do not live in Tennessee, Sen. Frist will probably
appreciate your opinion since he is looking to represent you in the future as
the next President of the United States.
2. Send a message to our two US Senators, Tim Johnson and John Thune.
Tell them to oppose S. 397 if it has gun control amendments attached to the
bill.
Sen.
Johnson’s number is (202) 224-5842. You can also paste the sample letter below
into:
http://johnson.senate.gov/emailform.cfm
You can reach Sen. Thune at (202) 228-5429, and paste the sample letter below
into:
http://thune.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home
----------------------------------------------------
Dear Senator Frist:
I have been informed that anti-gun militants intend to offer gun control
amendments to the gun makers' protection act, S. 397. I want you to know that
the minimal gains this legislation will give us should NOT be accepted in
exchange for any additional gun control.
I have no confidence that gun control language will be taken out of the bill in
a conference committee. Those are the same kinds of failed promises that I have
heard in years past when we got stuck with the Clinton-Feinstein semi-auto ban
in 1994 and the McCain-Feingold free speech restrictions in 2002.
Instead, I would encourage you to use the SAME SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY that you used
last year to keep gun control off of the class action lawsuit bill. I would urge
you to use any and all parliamentary tools at your disposal to prevent this
amendment from being offered to the gun makers' protection act.
Sincerely,
----------------------------------------------------
Dear Senator Johnson/Thune:
I have been informed that anti-gun militants intend to offer gun control
amendments to the gun makers' protection act, S. 397. I want you to know that
the minimal gains this legislation will give us should NOT be accepted in
exchange for any additional gun control.
I have no confidence that gun control language will be taken out of the bill in
a conference committee. Those are the same kinds of failed promises that I have
heard in years past when we got stuck with the Clinton-Feinstein semi-auto ban
in 1994 and the McCain-Feingold free speech restrictions in 2002.
If there is even one gun control amendment added, I urge you to kill this
legislation. It is too dangerous to expect a conference committee to remove
these objectionable items.
Sincerely,
----------------------------------------------------
Once again, we cannot allow
this well intentioned bill to become a vehicle for the militant anti-gun forces.
Stay tuned.