McCAIN TAKES AIM AT GUN OWNERS
Sen. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ) has undergone an ideological conversion. From the conservative we once
knew he
has drifted far to the left. He’s even considering defecting from the Republican Party like Sen. JAMES JEFFORDS. Today he is no friend of gun owners.
Now he’s come up with a truly dangerous gun control bill masquerading as merely a way to
keep convicted felons from evading background checks at gun shows. The title of S. 890, the “Gun Show Loophole
Closing and Gun Law Enforcement Act of 2001,” also known as the McCAIN-LIEBERMAN Bill (co-sponsor is JOSEPH LIEBERMAN, D-CT), is totally misleading. The bill is actually packed with hazardous provisions that have nothing to do with the so-called
“gun show loophole.”
And as for that “loophole,” JOE WALDRON, executive director of
the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, says, “the whole concept
of a gun show loophole is a myth.”
The title of McCAIN’s bill raises
another question: Why do we need a law to enforce gun laws? The whole thing is a smoke screen for the destruction of gun shows as we know them.
The McCAIN bill’s “gun show loophole closing,”
which requires background checks on prospective buyers at gun shows, is the least of what this bill would do.
Plowing through the 8 pages of the bill’s legalese, ALAN KORWIN, author of Gun Laws
of America, found the following grim
provisions:
1) Federal
control over gun shows nationwide - each
show must be federally approved, licensed, and registered.
2) Every
gun show promoter must be federally registered.
3) Every
person who attends a gun show must be federally registered.
4) Every
private individual looking to sell a single gun
would be treated as a vendor and must
be registered even if the gun isn’t sold.
5) Imprisonment
of gun show promoters who cannot prove
they notified every person attending a gun show of the new rules.
And much more. KORWIN sums up:
“Perfectly legal gun sales - with no victims or criminal activity of any kind - are outlawed at gun shows by the
McCAIN - LIEBERMAN bill, unless the sale is pre-registered with the
federal government; real crimes are totally unaffected; and your friends in the federal government take over full
control of gun shows - which have been free of government infringement for more than 200 years.”
McCAIN is pitching his gun control agenda in unprecedented movie
theater trailers, too. A 30-second “public
service” message has been filmed by McCAIN warning Americans not to mess with guns. It’s like a TV commercial
for movie houses, and is scheduled to play on 2,500 screens in 210 cities this summer.
The cost of $250,000 was paid by the Americans for Gun Safety
Foundation.
However,
McCAIN won’t be shouting at ear-splitting level, because the Motion
Picture Association of America just required
a reduction in allowable volume, responding
to complaints about loud public service announcement sound.
BRITISH OWNER SELLS SMITH &
WESSON TO SAF-T-HAMMER FOR $15 MILLION
Tomkins Corp., a subsidiary of Tomkins PLC of the United Kingdom, sold Smith & Wesson to Saf-T-Hammer
Corp. in
a $15 million cash deal. Under the agreement, Saf-T-Hammer
will also take on approximately $53 million in debt.
BOB SCOTT, president of Saf-T-Hammer and former vice president
of Smith & Wesson, said, “Smith & Wesson, a brand name for 147 years, would be at the top of any list of
immediately identifiable corporate logos recognized world-wide. We are proud to return this storied company to
American ownership.”
Under the foreign ownership, Smith & Wesson made a controversial
deal with
the CLINTON administration to install safety
locks and follow other government instructions in return for being dismissed from municipal lawsuits against the
gun industry.
The company was sharply criticized
by leaders of the gun industry. Some gun retailers vowed to quit selling the company’s products.
INDUSTRY AWARD FOR INTRODUCING
WOMEN TO SHOOTING SPORTS GOES TO SHARI LeGATE
SHARI LeGATE of the Women’s Shooting Sports
Foundation - the woman who created the “A Day at the Range” instructional clinic - was recently honored for introducing 7,500 women to shooting during the program’s two year history.
The Shooting Industry Academy of
Excellence selected GATES
as its 10th Annual Shooting Industry Award recipient. GATES said to the reception audience, “I want to thank the Academy and everyone who voted
for me. The Women’s Shooting Sports Foundation became what it is because of all those people who supported it so
I could do what I did.”
Previous recipients of the Award
include Olympic Gold Medalist KIM RHODE of the US Shooting Team (1997) and RICHARD FELDMAN, American Shooting Sports
Council (1995).
RUSS THURMAN, Shooting Industry magazine editor, said, “In 1992
the idea was conceived that maybe we should have an award that’s based upon merit decided by hundreds of individuals
in the industry, not decided by an editorial board and not influenced by advertising.”
THE INDUSTRY ON THE LEGAL FRONT
The California Supreme Court recently
heard arguments in a
key lawsuit
which could determine whether a firearm manufacturer can be held responsible for the criminal use of its firearms.
The case stems from a lawsuit brought
by the survivors of victims in a 1993 San Francisco shooting when a disgruntled businessman entered a law firm and opened fire with two TEC-DC9
handguns.
The suit, brought against Miami-based
manufacturer Navegar Inc., was thrown out in 1997, only to be reinstated two years later by a state appeals court. The appeals court said Navegar
was negligent
in advertising
because it could attract a criminal element.
The Supreme Court accepted the
case and a decision is
expected this summer.
Lawyers for Navegar have consistently
argued that the gunmaker should not be punished for criminal acts committed after its guns are legally sold.
As the case moves through the Supreme Court, other groups have become concerned over the potential
for liability precedent, including the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). STEPHEN McCUTCHEON, PLF attorney, said, “The appeals court overstepped its bounds in creating a new tort, the tort of negligent advertising.”
DID
NEW JERSEY SEN. ROBERT TORRICELLI BREAK CAMPAIGN LAWS ON GUN MAILING?
The Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen,
a gun owners group, sent out an “Election Alert” mailing during the 1996 Senate race. It looked like any other.
But it was not, and it
may have been illegally paid for by New Jersey’s senior Senator.
The letter went out to 144,000
gun rights supporters in New Jersey, warning them that the Republican candidate, Rep. RICHARD A. ZIMMER, would
be every bit as bad for gun owners as his Democratic opponent, ROBERT G. TORRICELLI.
The one-page letter said, “DICK
ZIMMER would like law-abiding firearms owners to believe that because he is a Republican, he is better than ROBERT
TORRICELLI. Not so!” The letter recommended voting for a little-known Conservative Party candidate or not voting at all.
No one will ever know how many
votes the letter siphoned away from ZIMMER; strongly anti-gun TORRICELLI won by a comfortable margin with 55 percent of the vote.
But now federal prosecutors are investigating
allegations
that the $50,000 mailing was secretly arranged by TORRICELLI’s campaign staff and that it may have been improperly paid for by a Democratic Party organization.
The New York Times tracked the money trail, talking
to people involved in a grand jury investigation into the alleged scandal. Two witnesses, said the Times, have told FBI agents that the TORRICELLI campaign surreptitiously engineered the mailing and
arranged for its payment.
It is illegal for candidates to
direct spending for their campaigns by third parties such as local political groups. The inquiry was begun by the Justice Department’s
Campaign Financing Task Force, which was looking into a string of donations to TORRICELLI’s campaign by contributors who were
illegally reimbursed by others.
The gun group’s open letter, according
to the Times, had originally been circulated by hand to gun shops and firearms groups by the Coalition of New Jersey
Sportsmen when TORRICELLI campaign strategists noticed the rift between gun owners and ZIMMER. TORRICELLI aide
JAMES P. FOX had intermediaries contact RICHARD A. MILLER, the gun group’s chairman. The campaign contact asked
MILLER if he would be willing to have the letter distributed more widely, and he agreed, according to statements
made to the FBI.
MILLER delivered the letter and
his mailing list to a printer he had often used, which forwarded it to Jarvis Direct Mail, the company that sent
out the letter. MILLER
and his gun group had no part in paying for the mailing, that was taken care of by the TORRICELLI campaign, according to MILLER.
Jarvis Direct Mail was paid with
a combination of cash, postage stamps and a check. TORRICELLI campaign records make no mention of the mailing,
which was printed on Oct. 28, 1996, eight days before the vote.
The Bergen County Democratic Organization,
the party group in TORRICELLI’s political home base, wrote three checks to RPR
Creative Marketing, an advertising firm owned by a TORRICELLI campaign supporter. RPR funneled the money to Jarvis Direct Mail, according to the New York Times.
If it is proved that the campaign
secretly paid for the mailing, or arranged for the payment, it would point to a violation of the requirement that
federal campaigns disclose all money that they raise and spend.
Federal indictments of several TORRICELLI aides are
expected. The investigation continues.
GUN
RIGHTS GROUP ENDORSES CRANE RESOLUTION
The Citizens Committee for the
Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) recently endorsed a resolution to put Congress firmly on record
as affirming an
individual Second Amendment civil right to keep and bear arms, according to CCRKBA Public Affairs Director JOHN MICHAEL SNYDER.
Rep. PHILIP M. CRANE (R-IL), a CCRKBA Congressional Adviser, introduced the measure, H. Con.
Res. 119. CRANE has been the recipient of the CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Year and Special Lifetime Achievement
Awards.
PROPOSED
GUN BAN IN CONNECTICUT RAISES PROTEST
Democrat lawmakers, who hold the
majority in the Connecticut legislature, are trying to pass a new bill limiting sales of high-powered rifles. The state Senate has already approved a bill that would outlaw most of the high-powered rifles
that are still legal in Connecticut, those with magazine cartridges and pistol grips and that could be converted to fire automatically.
DAVID LYMAN, owner of the Blue Trail Shooting Range in Wallingford, CT, said, “People are pretty ticked
off. Everybody has been calling and sending e-mails.” But nobody is confident it will help.
Numerous competition rifles, such as the $1,199 Bushmaster
DCM, which LYMAN carries at Blue Trail,
would be illegal if the Democrat bill passes.
State Representative RONALD SANANGELO, a Republican from Naugatuck, has vowed to fight the bill when
it reaches the State House of Representatives. “It’s foolish, it’s pure politics,” he said.
He made the point that criminals do not buy guns in gun
stores
and that they do not typically buy large guns like the rifles in question, which are so large they would draw immediate
attention in public.
If the gun ban passes both houses,
it will be the first gun issue to cross the desk of Republican Governor JOHN G. ROWLAND, who has not said what
he would do with the bill, veto it or sign it into law.
NEVADA
HAS NEW GUN RIGHTS LAWS
Nevada’s Republican Governor KENNY GUINN
has signed two bills protecting gun rights that won applause from gun rights advocates. SB 20 allows non-residents
to apply for a Nevada Right to Carry permit, and SB 172 abolishes the two-gun-per-permit limitation for Nevada Right to Carry permits.
OHIO
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PASSES LAWSUIT PROHIBITION
House Bill 192 was passed by the
full House and is awaiting Senate consideration. It seeks to prohibit reckless lawsuits filed by big city anti-gun
mayors against the firearms industry. Observers say the bill has a good chance of passing the Senate.
OREGON
GUN-BAN BILL DIES IN SENATE
A bill that would allow schools
to ban people with concealed handgun licenses from bringing their firearms on a school’s campus recently got one
hearing in the Oregon State Senate Judiciary Committee, which declined to hold a vote and then announced it would
close for the rest of the session. So the bill is dead.
Opponents of the bill argued that
people with concealed handgun permits can be trusted because they go through rigorous background checks and training
before they receive a license.
The hearing was less contentious
that last session’s gun show bill, which bogged down legislators for weeks.
MICHIGAN
SUPREME COURT AGREES TO HEAR GUN PETITION CASE
The case over whether the state’s
new concealed carry law can be subject to a referendum will be taken up by the Michigan Supreme Court. The state’s
highest court issued the order a week after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the law can be subject to
referendum despite a $1 million appropriation for enforcement. Laws with appropriations, gun rights advocates argue,
cannot be subject to a statewide vote because state law prohibits referendums on budget bills.
MARYLAND
GOVERNOR VETOES GUN SAFETY BILL
A bill that would have made Maryland the first state to require public schools to teach gun safety from kindergarten through 12th
grade was vetoed recently by Democrat Gov. Parris Glendening. The governor said he would have signed the bill if lawmakers had not provided for teachers
taking students to gun ranges.
TOLEDO, OHIO GUN BAN PROVOKES REACTION
The Toledo city council recently passed an
ordinance banning
the resale or trade of certain semiautomatic firearms. It makes it illegal for anyone to knowingly “sell, deliver, rent, lease, display for sale,
transfer ownership, or possess certain semiautomatic firearms.” It also forbids possession of ammunition magazines
loaded with more than 10 rounds.
Wood County Public Defender WILLIAM
STEPHENSON moved
from Toledo to Bowling
Green because of the new ban. “It’s basically petty harassment
of law-abiding gun owners,” he said.
Toledo Police Chief MIKE NAVARRE
disagreed, saying, “The types of weapons that have been banned by this ordinance are not the types of weapons that
everyday citizens should have in their homes. Assault weapons should be used solely by the military and by law
enforcement.”
The “assault weapon” label is regarded
by gun owners as a
misleading anti-gun invention to generate fear of widely-owned rifles used in competition, hunting, and occasionally for
self-defense.
LAW
OFFICIALS ALLOW MORE GUN PERMITS IN CALIFORNIA’S VENTURA COUNTY
Ventura County Sheriff BOB BROOKS and Simi Valley Police Chief
RANDY ADAMS trust their citizens enough to allow concealed carry permits to larger numbers of
gun owners. Permittees have increased from 245 six years ago to at least 548 today.
Previous Sheriffs and police departments issued permits only
to residents whose lives were threatened or were considered targets because of the nature of their work, such as
judges, attorneys, bodyguards, and gem couriers.
BROOKS has been Sheriff since 1998 and in that time has approved
238 new permits. BROOKS said he believes the
additional permits make Ventura County - already the safest urban area in the West - even
safer, because only upstanding citizens
receive permits.
In Simi Valley,
Chief ADAMS has also changed the standard for permits. He said, “If you are a law-abiding citizen and you feel
you need one for your protection, and if you have a clean background and test to be mentally and emotionally stable
and you demonstrate proficiency with the weapon, then most likely we’re going to issue one to you.”
COURT
SAYS TUCSON CAN BLOCK GUN SHOW
The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that Tucson
doesn’t have to give gun show promoter PAT McMANN a contract to use the Tucson Convention Center (TCC).
However, the three-judge panel unanimously agreed that if the
city does allow the gun show to go ahead as planned, it may not require private sellers to perform background checks
on buyers.
The court did not address the issue of whether a city policy
requiring background checks on all gun sales at the TCC is legal.
The city is appealing Superior Court Judge STEPHEN C. VILLAREAL’s May 14 ruling that the policy is “invalid and unenforceable” because it conflicts with state
law.
ALBUQUERQUE’S
MAYOR OUT OF STEP WITH HIS CITY COUNCIL ON GUN BAN
Albuquerque Mayor JIM BACA, a former CLINTON administration official who was fired as head of the Bureau of Land Management, has proposed
to opt out of a new state law and to ban
concealed handguns in the city.
A majority of the nine City Council members, however, have said
they are not inclined to ban concealed
handguns in Albuquerque
when it would be legal in other parts of the state.
Two of
the councilors - both mayoral candidates - vowed to fight BACA’s bill tooth
and nail. Candidates GREG PAYNE and MIKE McENTEE both said
many of their constituents have called telling them to fight BACA’s ban.
GLOBAL
LEFTISTS TARGET U.S. GUN RIGHTS
A United Nations conference in
July will push for a
worldwide ban on private ownership of guns, hiding behind rhetoric that sounds like a fight only against gunrunners and terrorists.
“The United Nations Conference
on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and All Its Aspects,” will be held at U.N. headquarters in New York. The title itself is a mask.
If you read the “Draft Program
of Action” written by the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and the U.N. Preparatory Committee,
you discover that all
gun trade is illicit to these organizations. You discover that “All Its Aspects” includes legal gun sales.
IANSA associates for worldwide gun bans
include: Coalition for Gun Control, Canada; Coalition for Gun Control, New Zealand; Coalition to Stop Gun violence,
U.S.; Million Mom March, U.S.; and National Coalition for Gun Control, Australia.
IANSA’s major funding sources are: the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller
Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, The Compton Foundation, Belgian Ministry for Development Cooperation, Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Kingdom Department for International Development.
GLOBAL
GUN GRABBERS HOPE TO SIGN UP A BILLION MOMS
Anti-gun activists orchestrating events for the upcoming United
Nations anti-gun conference have launched a program based on the U.S.’s Million Mom March. The international program will be known as “The Billion Mom March.”
Their website is called www.billionmommarch.org. The international
organization will use the Internet to pressure President GEORGE W. BUSH and First Lady LAURA BUSH with an anti-gun
email during the July U.N. Small Arms Conference in New York.
One of the organizers, ELVI RUOTTINEN said the Billion Mom March will not take the form of a single
protest march like the “Million Mom March.” Instead, various protests will take place in different nations throughout
the rest of the year, she said.
SOUTH
PACIFIC TO COPY AUSTRALIA’S GUN LAWS
South Pacific nations are set to adopt gun
controls similar to Australia’s virtually total ban. Representatives of Australia, New Zealand and 14 other Pacific Islands Forum nations have been meeting with representatives from Japan and the United
States to
work out a gun law regime for the increasingly troubled region.
The forty delegates agreed that governments should adopt broadly
uniform controls, such as stricter limits on ownership of semi-automatic and automatic firearms - similar to the
laws introduced in Australia after a bloody shooting in Port Arthur.
The delegates