Just got this from GOA...
Great News!
-- Feinstein semi-auto ban is dead, as Senate shoots down gun
control bill
Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org Tuesday, March 2, 2004
It got quite ugly today in the U.S. Senate.
First, the U.S. Senate voted to renew the Feinstein semi-auto ban.
Then it voted for the McCain gun show ban. All this in addition to
the "Lock Up Your Safety" requirement that Senators tacked on to the
lawsuit protection bill last week.
You will remember that Gun Owners of America had warned senators
last week to oppose S. 1805 if it was loaded down with gun control
provisions. Thankfully, pro-gun senators heeded the call to kill
the bill once it was turned into an anti-gun abomination. These
senators were joined by their anti-gun counterparts who opposed the
underlying bill because they still want to bankrupt the gun makers.
The final vote on defeating S. 1805 was 90-8.
You can see how your Senators voted on the gun control amendments at
http://www.gunowners.org/cgv.htm on the GOA website. The following
describes the critical provisions that were tacked on to the lawsuit
protection bill before it was soundly defeated:
Lock Up Your Safety Requirement
Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) offered this gun control amendment last
week. It would require all handgun purchasers to pay an implicit
"gun tax" by requiring them to buy a trigger lock when they purchase
their handgun, irrespective of need. In addition, the amendment
would create a broad and implicit cause of action against gun owners
who fail to actually use the storage device to lock up their
firearms. Of course, a locked gun then becomes unavailable for
self-defense. The Senate passed the Kohl amendment 70-27.
Feinstein Semi-auto Ban
The Senate voted 52-47 in favor of the Feinstein semi-auto
amendment. This amendment would extend the ban that was signed into
law by President Clinton in 1994 -- a ban which outlaws certain
magazines and more than 180 types of semi-automatic firearms.
Unless Congress authorizes such an extension, the ban will sunset
in September 2004.
McCain Gun Show Ban
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) offered this amendment to outlaw the
private sale of firearms at gun shows, unless the buyer agrees to
submit to a background registration check. The language could
effectively eliminate gun shows because every member of an
organization sponsoring a gun show could be imprisoned if the
organization fails to notify each and every "person who attends the
special firearms event of the requirements [under the Brady Law]."
Thus, if the person responsible for handing out "Brady pamphlets"
took a break to go to the bathroom, everyone responsible for the
event could be sent to prison. The McCain amendment passed 53-47.
Ammunition Restriction Study
This amendment, offered by Senators Bill Frist (R-TN) and Larry
Craig (R-ID), passed the Senate 85-12. Among other things, the
language of this provision would commission the Attorney General to
determine whether the ban on so-called "cop killer" ammunition
should include superior performance bullets in popular hunting
calibers such as the 30-06.
The good news is that the attempt to renew the Feinstein semi-auto
ban is dead... for now. Of course, there are still semi-auto ban
bills pending in the House and Senate, and we can expect Feinstein
to again offer her gun ban as an amendment to some other "must pass"
bill.
The bad news is that the prospects for getting any kind of
legislation to the President's desk this year to protect gun makers
is very slim.
Today's vote makes it very difficult for a pro-gun senator to offer
this bill as an amendment to another bill. After all, anti-gunners
can demand that any provision to protect the gun industry now be
offered as a "package" with the anti-gun amendments that were
attached to the bill over the last couple of days.
It would have been far better for Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)
to have brought this Senate bill to the floor in such a way that NO
gun control amendments could have been offered. Doing so would have
involved using parliamentary tactics that are somewhat difficult to
detail in an e-mail alert. But the Senate has often used these
tactics in the past. A vote to pass a "clean bill" could very well
have succeeded, as almost 60 Senators had cosponsored the underlying
legislation.
GOA wants to thank all of its members and activists for calling and
e-mailing their Senators over the last several days. The outpouring
of opposition from grassroots gun owners kept phones ringing off the
hook in Senate offices, and to be sure, contributed to pulling
several "fence sitters" to our side on the Feinstein amendment.
Again, you can see that vote at
http://www.gunowners.org/cgv.htm along with all the others.