Posted on 04/24/2007 7:46:30 PM PDT by neverdem
www.gunowners.org
Apr 2007
ACTION: Now that Congress is moving to restrict YOUR rights in response to the VA Tech shootings, please make sure to take the following three actions after you read this alert:
1. Urge your Representative to OPPOSE HR 297, the Dingell-McCarthy legislation that is designed to take the Brady Law to new heights, turning it into a law on steroids which could one day keep even YOU from buying a gun. (Contact information and a draft letter to your Representative are provided below.)
2. Gin up the e-mail alert systems in your state and forward this e-mail to as many gun owners as you can.
3. Please stand with Gun Owners of America -- at http://www.gunowners.org/ordergoamem.htm -- and help us to continue this fight, as right now, we are combating this latest onslaught ALONE in our nation's capital. GOA spokesmen spent all of last week doing radio and TV debates, interviews for newswires, and opinion editorials for newspapers. This week, we begin the battle in Congress to defeat legislation that could block millions of additional, honest gun owners from buying firearms.
Monday, April 23, 2007
The biggest gun battle of the year is about to erupt on Capitol Hill. Fueled by the recent Virginia Tech shootings, an odd coalition is forming to help expand the number of honest people who now won't be able to buy a gun.
The legislation has been introduced by none other than the Queen of Gun Control herself, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). But she has picked up a key ally, as the bill (HR 297) is being pushed by a powerful gun group in Washington, DC.
On Friday, The Washington Post reported on the strange coalition. "With the Virginia Tech shootings resurrecting calls for tighter gun controls," the Post said, "the National Rifle Association has begun negotiations with senior Democrats over legislation to bolster the national background-check system."
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), who was once on the NRA Board of Directors but resigned when he supported and voted for the Clinton semi-auto ban in 1994, is reported to be "leading talks with the powerful gun lobby in hopes of producing a deal [soon]," Democratic aides and lawmakers told the newspaper.
Rep. McCarthy admitted to the Post that her "crusades" for more gun control have made her voice "toxic" in gun circles. "So Dingell is handling negotiations with the NRA," the newspaper reported. "Dingell is also in talks with Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.), the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee."
Despite all this bad news, the Post article does go on to explain that there are some potential pitfalls.
First, you will remember that this is the bill you helped kill last year, when an avalanche of postcards was dumped on Congressional desks by thousands upon thousands of GOA activists. That's why the Post says there is one huge obstacle -- the members of Gun Owners of America.
"The NRA must balance its desire to respond to the worst mass shooting by a lone gunman in the nation's history with its competition with the more strident Gun Owners of America, which opposes any restriction on gun purchases," the Post reported.
SO WHAT DOES HR 297 DO?
Well, the rest of this alert will answer this question. This alert is long, but it is important to read it in its entirety. We need to "arm" ourselves with the facts so that we can keep pro-gun Congressmen from being duped into supporting a bill that, as of now, is being unanimously cosponsored by representatives sporting an "F-" rating by GOA.
HR 297 provides, in the form of grants, about $1 billion to the states to send more names to the FBI for inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System [NICS]. If you are thinking, "Oh, I’ve never committed a felony, so this bill won't affect me," then you had better think again. If this bill becomes law, you and your adult children will come closer to losing your gun rights than ever before.
Are you, or is anyone in your family, a veteran who has suffered from Post Traumatic Stress? If so, then you (and they) can probably kiss your gun rights goodbye. In 1999, the Department of Veterans Administration turned over 90,000 names of veterans to the FBI for inclusion into the NICS background check system. These military veterans -- who are some of the most honorable citizens in our society -- can no longer buy a gun. Why? What was their heinous "crime"?
Their "crime" was suffering from stress-related symptoms that often follow our decent men and women who have served their country overseas and fought the enemy in close combat. For all their patriotism, the Clinton administration deemed them as mentally "incompetent," sent their names for inclusion in the NICS system, and they are now prohibited from owning guns under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(4).
HR 297 would make sure that more of these names are included in the NICS system.
But, of course, Representatives Dingell and McCarthy tell us that we need HR 297 to stop future Seung-Hui Chos from getting a gun and to prevent our nation from seeing another shooting like we had on Virginia Tech. Oh really?
Then why, after passing all of their gun control, do countries like Canada and Germany still have school shootings? Even the infamous schoolyard massacre which occurred in Ireland in 1997 took place in a country that, at that time, had far more stringent gun controls than we do.
Where has gun control made people safer? Certainly not in Washington, DC, nor in Great Britain, nor in any other place that has enacted a draconian gun ban.
IMPORTANT TALKING POINTS FOR CAPITOL HILL
Regarding Cho's evil actions last Monday at Virginia Tech, your Representative needs to understand three things:
1. If a criminal is a danger to himself and society, then he should not be on the street. If he is, then there's no law (or background check for that matter) that will stop him from getting a gun and acting out the evil that is in his heart. (Remember that Washington, DC and England have not stopped bad guys from getting guns!) So why wasn't Cho in the criminal justice system? Why was he allowed to intermix with other college students? The justice system frequently passes off thugs to psychologists who then let them slip through their fingers and back into society -- where they are free to rape, rob and murder.
2. Background checks DO NOT ULTIMATELY STOP criminals and mental wackos from getting guns. This means that people who are initially denied firearms at a gun store can still buy one illegally and commit murder if they are so inclined -- such as Benjamin Smith did in 1999 (when he left the gun store where he was denied a firearm, bought guns on the street, and then committed his racist rampage less than a week later).NOTE: In the first five years that the Brady Law was in existence, there were reportedly only three illegal gun buyers who were sent to jail. That is why in 1997, a training manual produced by Handgun Control, Inc., guided its activists in how to answer a question regarding the low number of convictions under the Brady Law. The manual basically says, when you are asked why so few people are being sent to jail under Brady, just ignore the question and go on the attack. [See GOF's Gun Control Fact Sheet.]
3. Background checks threaten to prevent INNOCENT Americans like you from exercising your right to own a gun for self-defense. No doubt you are familiar with the countless number of times that the NICS system has erroneously blocked honest Americans from buying a gun, or have heard about the times that the NICS computer system has crashed for days at a time, thus preventing all sales nationwide -- and effectively shutting down every weekend gun show.
Perhaps the most pernicious way of denying the rights of law-abiding gun owners is to continuously add more and more gun owners' names onto the roles of prohibited persons. Clinton did this with many military veterans in 1999. And Congress did this in 1996, when Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) successfully pushed a gun ban for people who have committed very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or merely yelling at a family member. Because of the Lautenberg gun ban, millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans can never again own guns for self-defense. HR 297 will make it easier for the FBI to find out who these people are and to deny firearms to them.
GOA has documented other problems with this bill in the past. In our January alert on HR 297 we pointed out how this bill will easily lend itself to bureaucratic "fishing expeditions" into your private records, including your financial, employment, and hospital records.
HR 297 takes us the wrong direction. The anti-gun Rep. Dingell is trying to sell the bill to the gun owning public as an improvement in the Brady Law. But don't be fooled! The best improvement would be to repeal the law and end the "gun free zones" that keep everyone defenseless and disarmed -- except for the bad guys.
CONTACT INFORMATION: You can visit the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center to send your Representative the pre-written e-mail message below. And, you can call your Representative toll-free at 1-877-762-8762.
Dear Representative:
I am a Second Amendment supporter who strongly opposes HR 297 -- the NICS Improvement Act of 2007 -- and I strongly agree with Gun Owners of America that this bill should be defeated.
The minor improvements this bill makes to the Brady instant check are insignificant when compared to the outrageous invasions of our privacy it would permit.
Gun Owners of America has posted an analysis of HR 297 on its website, showing how the bill will target millions of law-abiding gun owners, including thousands of combat veterans who served our country bravely.
Supporters of this bill say we need it to stop future Seung-Hui Chos from getting a gun and to prevent our nation from seeing another shooting like the one at Virginia Tech. But honestly, what gun law has stopped bad guys from getting a gun? Not in Canada, where they recently had a school shooting. Certainly not in Washington, DC or in England!
I think we've got to stop treating criminals like medical patients, thus allowing them to slip through the cracks. If we are not going to incarcerate dangerous people, then all the gun laws in the world will never stop them from getting firearms.
Don't be misled into thinking that this is a bill that gun owners endorse. Most gun owners want Brady repealed, not "fixed." The law has done nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns, but it has violated the Second Amendment rights of millions of law-abiding Americans.
Sincerely,
Sorry I forgot.
They have been since 1968.
Utter BS.
No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334 (Julian P. Boyd, Ed., 1950).
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States … Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America." Gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789
"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms;…" Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789 Samuel Adams
Who are the militia? are they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American...The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. Tenche Coxe 1788
The prohibition is general. No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. William Rawle 1829.
IOW- You are a complete idiot.
Yeah...
What YOU said!
‘We’ haven’t always put qualifiers on the right. Your example of prisoners is a tautology: those deprived of rights don’t the have the right, therefore the right isn’t absolute, etc. You might as well cite slaves as an example.
Background checks aren’t just a violation of the unalienable (parse that as un a lien able, a right that no one can make a claim (lien) against) right to self defense, which freed criminals surely have unless a man freed from prison is to be considered a slave with no such right. If someone is so dangerous that they can’t be trusted in society then they shouldn’t be released. Social engineers might believe that disarming ex-cons makes us safe, but in reality this just creates a black market demand for private sales or stolen guns, and further ignores that some people do grow or reform.
Distinguishing unalienable and alienable rights: Voting isn’t an unalienable right as non-citizens don’t have that right, yet they have a right to self defense and in most jurisdictions can buy, keep and bear arms if they are legal residents with alien status.
Background checks violate the fundamental right to engage in contracts (if you give me x $ I will sell you what is mine) and to dispose of (legal) private property, which is also one of the hallmarks of free men. A background check is obviously an infringement as specifically prohibited by the second amendment.
As a matter of political pragmatics the fact that supposed conservatives don’t recognize or are capable of making such arguments in defense of the Republic shows just how far the marxist-collectivist mentality has progressed among ‘we’, ‘society’, and any other collecticist construct you’d care to invoke. There are no shortage of Lenin’s useful idots ready to sell the sensible rope with which they will be hanged.
Having a gun doesn’t make one armed; that is a matter of commitment and mindset to a defensible position.
We are gun owners. Try and repeal the Second. I friggin' dare you...
FReegards....
I tend to agree here. I will be watching this. But,, I have this to add,, I believe the NRA has supported in the past to keep people with mental problems from owning a gun, while the Dems have in the past have supported allowing the mentally ill to buy guns. (reason being, I believe, they would not mind nuts owning guns due to in the long run, it would help their agenda) Now, here is the thing,,, I strongly agree that there are some mental cases out there that should not be allowed to own a gun. But,, what will mental illness be defined as??? That is the key! While, I do believe this is the one area that we could use a little caution in,, I am stating this from some personal knowledge here,, there is a segment in the mental health community that walk around always on the verge of doing something. Some can and do own weapons. They were in hospitals before,, but due to new laws,, are now walking the streets. These people should never own a gun.
I don`t want to repeal the right to bear arms, I`m all for arming teachers and the right to carry. But, the instant back round checks, as they are today, never hurt me or mine. It`s just common sense.
And if the general public were armed, very few would probably survive their first attempt at violence..
Those that did survive would learn, or die as well, in their own time..
An assailant's documented mental instability and violent history only serves to strengthen the self-defense argument, if one were to ever find themselves in a court of law regarding such an altercation.
What part of "innocent until proven guilty" are you having trouble with? Why should I have to prove I am not a criminal to exercise a Right? Why do I need to ask permission?
Until more folks get this mindset back, our Rights remain in jeopardy.
Okay, and what were the odds that your so-called "alternative" of repealing the waiting period, along with the entire background check infrastructure, would have gotten through both the House and the Senate and then been signed into effect by President Clinton in 1997?
Give me a fricking break, man.
If you want to bash the NRA, base it on something real, rather than fantasyland.
As long as you and the NRA have that attitude none. You don't get what you don't strive for. The antis know this well and NEVER stop pushing. The NRA is content to go along and only give them some of what they want rather than reverse the trend and take stuff back
I've been known to travel to the ends of the earth, for a FRee cold beer, and you ain't THAT far from Billings, MT. Blackbird.
GC '68 GC '86 Instant background check (national level) Mandatory Trigger locks sale with gun (some local jurisdictions) and these are just the ones that I know of.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.