Thanks to your hard work

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Gun control is on the back burner in Congress... and that is good news.

But, as has often been said, in order to fully understand the good news, it helps to understand the bad news first. The "bad news" was this: in early September, gun control was on the "fast track" in the House.

Pressure was mounting to help protect gun makers against frivolous lawsuits, but the prevailing attitude was that they should be helped at any cost... even if it meant swallowing new gun control regulations for the average gun owner.

While the Senate passed S. 397 with two gun control provisions, the House bill (H.R. 800) remained free and clear of any gun control. Unfortunately, more than 100 Representatives -- many of them pro-gun -- were led to believe that the Senate bill would be acceptable. So they signed a pre-written letter to the House leadership, asking them to bring up the anti-gun Senate version!

Adding just one gun control amendment allows gun haters to snatch an undue victory from the hands of gun owners, who are expending a lot of time and resources to get this bill passed.

To make matters worse, Capitol Hill insiders were expecting the bill and its gun control amendments to sail through final passage sometime in September.

So SDGO and other no-compromise groups all across the nation alerted gun owners to this threat. THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of you took action, and the results have been very rewarding. The word now from the House is that the bill is not expected to come up until next year.

Getting this extra time is huge. It allows us to keep on petitioning each Representative and continue banging on the House leadership, asking them to drop the gun control from the bill.

SDGO MEMBERS HAVE MADE A HUGE DIFFERENCE THIS YEAR

Your hard work has managed to influence Congress in many ways during the fight to pass legislation which moves us in the direction of helping gun makers.

Earlier this year -- when we found out that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wanted to add her semi-auto ban renewal as an amendment to the Senate bill -- we asked Majority Leader Bill Frist to use parliamentary procedures to block her amendment.

At first, Sen. Frist was reluctant. He didn't want to be seen as "obstructionist." He dragged his feet. His staff even claimed "it couldn't be done."

But after the Senator received several thousand emails, faxes and phone calls from gun owners like you, Frist CHANGED HIS MIND. He used the parliamentary procedure that SDGO and GOA had recommended -- a strategy known as "treeing the bill" -- to block Sen. Feinstein from offering her semi-auto gun ban to S. 397 in July.

It was a TREMENDOUS VICTORY. Thanks to your hard work and encouragement, Sen. Frist had accomplished a great pro-gun feat. But then he blinked. Rather than blocking ALL gun control amendments, he decided to allow some amendments to be voted on. Some amendments failed. Others passed.

And that's how S. 397 got burdened with two gun control amendments -- a trigger lock amendment and an ammo ban study. [You can read more about the two gun control provisions that were stuck into S. 397 here]

CLEAN LEGISLATION DESPERATELY NEEDED

SDGO is committed to passing a clean bill that will take a step toward protecting gun makers against the abusive lawsuits that have been launched against the gun industry.

Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away appeals from 12 different states which were requesting that Washington, DC be prevented from suing gun makers. The High Court's decision allows gun haters to bring lawsuits against the gun industry under the "Assault Weapons Manufacturing Strict Liability Act of 1990." Any murder committed in the nation's capital that involves a weapon which can fire more than 12 shots without reloading will subject the maker of that gun to strict liability, regardless of where the gun maker is located.

Washington, DC has one of the nation's strictest gun bans, and yet the city consistently ranks among the nation's leaders in murder. Good legislation is definitely needed. Let's continue working together to put a muzzle on the gun grabbers, without muzzling gun owners in the process.