S.397 On Senate Floor!--Final Vote Expected This Week! (Gun lawsuits, amendments)

This afternoon, the U.S. Senate invoked cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 397, "The Protection of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act." S. 397 will now be debated on the Senate floor over the next few days.

Now is your final chance to contact your U.S. Senators and urge them to pass S. 397 without any anti-gun amendments!

Some of the possible anti-gun amendments expected to be offered to S. 397 include:

.50 caliber rifle bans
Semi-auto bans
Bans on gun shows
Amendments to gut the provisions of the bill
Please help us finish the job in the U.S. Senate by contacting your U.S. Senators IMMEDIATELY and urging them to support S. 397 without any anti-gun amendments. Be sure to tell your Senators that you consider any votes for any anti-gun amendments as a vote against S. 397 itself.

(For more complete information on S. 397, and to contact your U.S. Senators, please go to http://www.nraila.org/stoprecklesslawsuits.aspx. You may also call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121. Please IMMEDIATELY share this information with everyone you know who supports the Second Amendment!)

Below is the Bush Administration's "Statement of Administration Policy" in support of S. 397 released today:

"The Administration strongly supports Senate passage of S. 397. The Administration urges the Senate to pass a clean bill, in order to ensure enactment of the legislation this year. Any amendment that would delay enactment of the bill beyond this year is unacceptable. The manufacturer or seller of a legal, non-defective product should not be held liable for the criminal or unlawful misuse of that product by others.

"The possibility of imposing liability on an entire industry for harm that is solely caused by others is an abuse of the legal system, erodes public confidence in our Nation's laws, threatens the diminution of a basic constitutional right and civil liberty, sets a poor precedent for other lawful industries, will cause a loss of jobs, and burdens interstate and foreign commerce. S. 397 would help curb frivolous litigation against a lawful American industry and the thousands of workers it employs and would help prevent abuse of the legal system. The bill would also safeguard our national security by preventing frivolous lawsuits against an industry that plays an important role in fulfilling our military's procurement needs. At the same time, the legislation would carefully preserve the right of individuals to have their day in court with civil liability actions. These civil actions are enumerated in the bill and respect the traditional role of the States in the Nation's Federal system with regard to such actions."

The 'bunch' just got this up their site.. Hahah.. Can they say 'NRA' anymore? What's the obsession?

BREAKING NEWS!
Senate Begins Consideration of NRA Bill...

Call Your Senators TODAY!
Stop Gun Industry Immunity!!

How outrageous! Today, Majority Leader Frist (R-TN) moved the Senate off the Defense bill and to the NRA-sponsored gun industry immunity bill (S. 397). Unbelievable!

But now the battle has begun - and our Senate allies, who are fighting right now on the Senate floor to stop this atrocity of justice, need your help.

NRA Board Member Senator Craig (R-ID), with the help of Majority Leader Frist (R-TN) and other NRA-backed Senators, is trying to ram an NRA-sponsored bill (S. 397) through the Senate. Senator Frist stood in the Senate today and said that he will do what it takes to get this bill passed this week. The NRA must be proud of him!

And will he continue to listen to the NRA and demand a vote on the bill with limited debate and no amendments? On a bill that had no Senate hearings?! This is not how our system is supposed to work.

There is BIG trouble afoot in Washington, D.C.. Last year the US Senate introduced a bill that would protect gun makers and sellers from meritless lawsuits. But, the bill turned into an ANTI-GUN monster that had to be stopped. In fact, last year's bill would have been America's largest gun control package EVER! With your efforts, and the efforts of pro-gun groups like GrassRoots across the country, we were able to kill it. Until the very last minute, the NRA supported the bill and promised that, in spite of the terrible anti-gun amendments added to it, they were confident that it could be "cleaned up" when it was sent to the House. At the time we warned you that it would be a FATALstrategy to accept passage of the gun makers protection law IF it included ANY anti-gun language. There was little to gain and an AWFUL LOT to lose!! We felt that was a dangerous approach that had FAILED (like "campaign finance reform") many times in the past. In the end, because of your input, the NRA backed off this DANGEROUS strategy and agreed that the bill had to be killed. But, not before they and others ridiculed our position. In effect, we made the NRA reluctantly pull the plug on their out-of-control Frankenstein of a bill. Well, it's deja-vu all over again! Another bill (S. 397) to protect gun makers is due to be dealt with in the Senate TOMORROW, and sources on Capitol Hill have informed us that the NRA is prepared to ACCEPT anti-gun amendments in the Senate in hopes of having them stripped out in the House, DESPITE recent NRA alerts opposing anti-gun amendments. This has been confirmed by Senator Larry Craig, the sponsor of S. 397 and an NRA board member. According to Jeff Knox's (son of the late Neal Knox) Hard Corps Report: "Craig recently commented that if "poison pill" amendments are attached this year, he will continue to push for passage with a strategy of removing the unpalatable portions during the House/Senate Conference Committee process. While that is not an unreasonable strategy, it is a bit disconcerting that Senator Craig felt compelled to reveal that bit of information prior to the floor debate. Such prior knowledge of this possibility could give some Senators a sense of cover to vote for bad amendments." You can find this whole alert at: http://www.firearmscoalition.org/alerts/msg00008.html 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 expanded Assault Weapons Ban, and many, many others. For more on this please see a recent GOA alert What you can do? 1) Urge Senator Bill Frist to do whatever it takes to keep anti-gun amendments off of the gun makers' protection act. Ask him to use ANY and ALL of the parliamentary maneuvers that he has at his disposal to keep anti-gun zealots from attaching amendments to S. 397. You can call Senator Frist at (202) 224-3344, and/or paste the sample message below into: http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm 2) Please call the NRA-ILA Grassroots Division at (800) 392-8683 and tell them you're GrassRoots and you want S. 397 KILLED if ANY gun control measures are added to it - don't try to fix it, KILL IT!. 3) Then send a message to our two US Senators, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham. Tell to them oppose S. 397 if it has ANY gun control attached to the bill. DeMint, Jim- (R - SC) (202) 224-6121 Graham, Lindsey- (R - SC) (202) 224-5972 For DeMint, paste the sample letter below into: http://demint.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home For Graham, paste the sample letter below into: http://lgraham.senate.gov/index.cfm?mode=contactform Select GUNS or GUN CONTROL as the topic. __________________________________________________________ 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 DeMint/Graham: Though we'd like to protect firearms manufacturers from frivolous lawsuits, it is entirely possible that this legislation is laden down with gun control, much like the same bills offered in 2004. If there is 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. The strategy of relying on a conference committee to remove unconstitutional amendments has been disastrous. Sincerely, _____________________________________________________________________ Once again, we cannot allow this well intentioned bill to become a vehicle for the militant anti-gun forces. We have LITTLE to gain, and A LOT to lose!!

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