10/22/2005

While gun control passes in the House, SDGO expresses a big THANK YOU
to all of its members and activists who waged a lone battle of opposition -- And you can be encouraged that your calls made a HUGE difference in one area

South Dakota Gun Owners E-mail Alert PO Box 3845, Rapid City, SD 57709 (605) 737-5583 LibertyTeeth@sdgo.org http://www.SDGO.org

An alert from Gun Owners of America - http://www.gunowners.org

Saturday, October 22, 2005

"The anti-gun provisions in S. 397 would probably be stripped out in the House if all the gun groups were working together with GOA." -- Rep. Ron Paul, Sept. 15, 2005

It's a shame really.

Rep. Ron Paul is totally correct. Working united, we could have encouraged the House leadership to bring up a CLEAN bill.

H.R. 800, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, garnered well over 250 cosponsors and would have passed the House easily if the leadership had brought up this bill rather than its Senate counterpart, S. 397.

Unfortunately, GOA was the ONLY national group calling for the passage of the clean House bill instead of the Senate bill, which contained new gun control. SDGO and several other no-compromise state level groups joined with them.

On Thursday, the House passed S. 397 and sent it to the President. Because he has promised to sign this legislation, it is all the more tragic that House and Senate leaders refused to send him a clean bill.

FIRST, HERE'S THE BAD NEWS...

As we have mentioned before, S. 397 imposes a mandatory "gun tax" by forcing every gun buyer to purchase a trigger lock and takes us to the verge of mandatory trigger lock usage.

The bill provides immunity (from lawsuits) for those who use trigger locks, but there is no such immunity for gun owners who keep a firearm available for self-defense WITHOUT a trigger lock. This may establish an implicit cause of action against any gun owner who chooses not to use the lock he has been forced to buy. While it does contain language that is supposed to prohibit civil liability, gun law experts believe that this could easily be side-stepped in state court, and that gun owners who fail to lock-up their handguns could still be tried for negligence.

Unfortunately, S. 397 was passed on the argument that it does not create any liability for gun owners. However, this line of reasoning fails to explain why gun owners would want to support a law which says that gun owners are liable, but then says that they aren't.

Make no mistake: no matter how many convoluted phrases were added to the trigger lock amendment, rabid anti-gun zealots will be working overtime to find the loopholes and convict gun owners anyway.

Regardless, why would gun owners want to support a new law which forces us to buy a lock-up-your-safety device that could endanger our lives, and which makes it easier to pass the next law mandating that we use it?

The push towards trigger locks may very well follow the push for mandatory seat belts and motorcycle helmets. And if our country ever takes that next step -- and straps every gun owner with California-style lock-up-your-safety legislation -- then we will need to remember this day as the day that laid the foundation.

Mary Carpenter certainly will. She is the grandmother who has had to live with the fact that two of her grandchildren were killed in 2000, because no one in the house could get to the family weapons to protect themselves against the pitchfork wielding thug.

People in the home had been trained with firearms and knew how to use them. But the guns were locked up in compliance with California state law. Gun owners can go to http://www.gunowners.com/psatext.htm on the GOA website to view the public safety ad -- produced by Gun Owners Foundation -- which features Mary Carpenter and her tragic story.

Another amendment which passed as part of S. 397 would give impetus to adopting a "penetration standard" for armor piercing bullets by commissioning a Justice Department study of the issue. If a "penetration standard" were adopted, a gun-adverse administration could probably use it to ban virtually all ammunition. The rabidly anti-gun Violence Policy Center is already lauding this gun ban study as one "that may ultimately lead to a strengthening and expansion of the federal ban on armor-piercing [read: hunting] ammunition."

You can see how your Representative voted by going to http://www.clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/ on the House of Representative's website.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS...

SDGO is glad that Congress has passed legislation that is intended to stop predatory law suits designed to destroy the gun industry. That much is very good, and SDGO supports that 100%. SDGO hopes that the law accomplishes what its sponsors intended.

Also, we would be remiss if we failed to mention that there is at least one "silver lining" in this entire ordeal. Don't forget that your hard work KILLED the Feinstein semi-auto ban this past summer.

Remember several months ago when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wanted to offer a renewal of the semi-auto ban to S. 397? South Dakota Gun Owners and GOA asked Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to use whatever means possible to block her anti-gun amendments.

Well, that request fell upon deaf ears. So we asked you to lobby him, since his office had been incorrectly asserting this strategy couldn't be done. (Some in his staff were even claiming there was no Senate rule allowing the majority party to block bad amendments.)

But after SDGO members and activists like you applied the heat, Frist took another look. He then used parliamentary rules to "fill the amendment tree," which is exactly what we asked him to do. "Filling the amendment tree" is a technical term which explains how the majority party can offer amendments in such a way as to block the minority party from offering other amendments.

Democrats were beside themselves. On the floor of the Senate, Harry Reid (D-NV) complained about the strategy Frist had employed:

"I have nothing in my memory that [Sen. Frist] has ever done this before; that is, immediately going to a bill and FILLING THE TREE SO NO OTHER AMENDMENTS CAN BE OFFERED. [Emphasis added.] I have never, ever known him to do this. It is so unusual. It is not in keeping with how he has done business here during his tenure as majority leader. While filling the tree is within the rules, it is done very rarely. And again, I am surprised that Senator Frist did this." (Congressional Record, July 27, 2005, pp. S9104-5)

You guys achieved this significant victory! You guys were responsible for making the sure the Feinstein ban was never offered on the floor of the Senate. You guys deserve the credit.

It was just so unfortunate that, after achieving this great victory, Frist blinked. He could have blocked EVERY SINGLE anti-gun amendment, but he allowed two to be offered, namely, the trigger lock amendment and the armor-piercing study.

So take heart... your hard work did accomplish much. You convinced Frist to block Feinstein's ban in the first place. And that was no small undertaking.

WHY REMAINING "NO COMPROMISE" IS ALWAYS THE RIGHT THING TO DO

Some have faulted SDGO and GOA for remaining "no compromise" throughout this battle. They claim that by sticking to our guns, we were endangering the chance to pass this legislation that might have the effect of protecting gun makers.

First, please realize that this underestimates YOUR collective power. This ignores the power of the grassroots. Remember, we were also told that blocking the Feinstein ban couldn't be done through parliamentary procedures. But together, we convinced the Senate Majority Leader to think differently, and we accomplished a remendous feat together. Don't ever underestimate the strength of he gun rights community working together as one!

Second, as a pragmatic matter, the desire to compromise ignores one imple fact: we could have EASILY won this battle to pass a clean bill! Consider:

* A filibuster-proof majority of Senators had cosponsored S. 397 BEFORE THE BILL HAD TRIGGER LOCKS in it.

* A super majority of Representatives had cosponsored H.R. 800 -- a bill which contained NO TRIGGER LOCKS in it.

* The President had said he would sign a bill, even if it had NO TRIGGER LOCKS in it.

Add to this the fact that the bills passed both houses of Congress by HUGE majorities (65-31 in the Senate, and 283-144 in the House).

So why couldn't we insist on a bill that had no trigger locks? What was the problem? Why couldn't we stare down the anti-gunners and just say, "We're going to pass a clean bill because you don't have the votes to stop us."

Winston Churchill once said that, "If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed, if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival."

Early on, we had the upper hand. SDGO and GOA insisted on a clean bill. Why do some think that was too much to ask?

The answer is quite simply this: the spirit of Neville Chamberlain lives on, from one generation to the next. Some people just always seem to have the desire to placate the other side, even when they've got the muscle to get things done right.

Winston Churchill didn't buy it, and neither should we. Speaking to the failings of appeasement, Churchill said, "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping it will eat him last."

Well, at SDGO, we don't appease. We prefer to shoot the crocodile.

Again, thanks to all of you who worked so hard and stood with us. Your efforts have not been in vain.