I respect the NRA for what it has done, but I'd also add contact the NRA and ask them to not support yet another gun-control measure. Just my two bits.
Anyhow, here goes. Take the best parts and run with it.
Anyhow, here goes. Take the best parts and run with it.
From: Gun Owners of America
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 10:21 AM
Subject: VA Tech Shootings Spur Far-reaching Gun Control
Your Gun Rights Could Soon Hang In The Balance
-- VA Tech shootings now spurring the most far-reaching gun control in a
decade
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/ordergoamem.htm
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 http://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm --
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
at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Representative the
pre-written e-mail message below. And, you can call your Representative
toll-free at 1-877-762-8762.
----- PRE-WRITTEN LETTER -----
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 at
http://www.gunowners.org/110anatb.htm 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,
