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Defeat Every Word of Gun Control!
Gun Owners of America today submitted testimony at the request of the Ranking Member of the Senate Constitution Subcommittee. GOA took a strong stance against all the gun control legislation on the table and urged the Senate to put forth real solutions to school violence -- like letting teachers and principals protect their students.
Also, GOA wants to thank all of you who participated in our online poll over the past week. With 20,897 votes cast so far, the poll results indicate that 96% of GOA’s membership OPPOSES “universal background checks” -- and, hence, opposes the very guts of the gun legislation that is expected to move in the Senate.
Now, it's time to talk strategy -- that of the anti-gunners, and of ours, as well.
Within the next three weeks, we expect Senator Patrick Leahy's Senate Judiciary Committee will move a national gun registry bill to the Senate floor.
The Judiciary Committee bill will probably not contain the Feinstein semi-auto gun ban, and it may or may not have a magazine ban which would render most of the nation's guns unusable, at least for the foreseeable future.
But the Judiciary Committee bill will almost certainly ban all private sales of firearms -- or any private exchange where the gun buyer does not first get permission from the FBI. And it’s this background check requirement that will inevitably set up a framework for a universal gun registry.
The Leahy bill will most certainly have a "gun trafficking" section that is based on other legislation (S. 54) that he’s already introduced. This would turn everyone who lives under repressive state gun laws into a federal "prohibited person," as well. Hence, if your state requires a license to possess a gun, you would also become a federal prohibited person. Oh, and the Leahy bill would also send you to prison for 20 years for unknowingly selling a firearm to a marijuana user. So, the next time you're thinking of selling a gun, all we can say is: "Are you felling lucky?"
Anyway, here's Harry Reid's strategy: He has at least eleven Democratic senators running for reelection in pro-gun states in 2014 -- and they don't want to SEEM anti-gun. The eleven Democratic senators in pro-gun states are: Mark Begich (Alaska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas), Mark Udall (Colorado), Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), Al Franken (Minnesota), Max Baucus (Montana), Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), Tom Udall (New Mexico), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Tim Johnson (South Dakota), and Mark Warner (Virginia).
All of these Democrats will vote for the national gun registry and gun licensure. And, in exchange, Reid will allow them to vote against the Feinstein gun ban, which will be the sacrificial lamb to the more important gun control which Democrats really want.
But aside from the fact that the Democratic "non-controversial" gun control bill is, in many ways, worse than the "controversial" bills, there are two additional problems.
First, if gun control gets to the Senate floor, all bets are off. There are dozens of horrific gun control proposals that could easily be added on the floor. For example, a Lautenberg amendment -- supposedly intended to "combat terrorism" -- would allow Obama to ban guns for every gun activist in America just by putting their names on a secret "watch list."
Second, if gun control makes it to a House-Senate conference committee, all bets are off. The conference could report a bill which contains a Feinstein amendment, even though neither the House nor the Senate voted for that language. The conference report is unamendable, and, under the recent anti-gun changes in the Senate rules, there is no way to keep a Senate-passed bill out of the hands of an anti-gun conference.
THE SOLUTION TO ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS
First, we cannot allow one word of gun control to move to the Senate floor. NOT ONE WORD.
Second, the way we keep gun control from reaching the Senate floor is to defeat the “motion to proceed” to the Leahy Bill. (The “motion to proceed” is usually offered by the Senate Majority Leader -- in this case Harry Reid -- to bring up a bill for consideration. The Senate quite often brings up legislation under a Unanimous Consent agreement, but if there is not unanimity, the “motion to proceed” can usually be debated, if not filibustered.)
ACTION: Link Removed to vote against the Motion to Proceed to any gun control bill reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill cannot be allowed to get to the Senate floor, or Harry Reid will then have a free-hand to start his “let’s make a deal” game.
We need to tell Mark Pryor (D Arkansas) that we don't want any gun control passed!
