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The Gottlieb-Tartaro Report
Issue 029
May, 1997
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Also in this issue: -- Australia bans many rifles, forces owners to turn them in -- Clinton’s Surgeon General pick opposed -- Pro-gun candidate challenges Louisiana Senate election -- Army stops destroying guns -- Teaching a child gun safety may be hit by court -- see our Page Eight “Parting Shot”
Dear Subscriber,
The NRA shoot-out at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle May 2-6 could have been scripted in Hollywood. Maybe it even was, because one of the stars was the 72-year-old CHARLTON HESTON. For NRA watchers at the convention or in the media, there was drama, suspense, intrigue——maybe even romance, but we missed that part.
The board election campaign that led up to the convention was a real dog fight. At least two of the factions on the board duked it out with advertisements in official NRA magazines and other gun publications as well as in mail, phone and Internet communications. The main strategy of one faction was to defeat First Vice President NEAL KNOX and eight of his supporters in the board election.
When the results were in, KNOX and most of his friends had been reelected, but with fewer votes than usual, proving that negative campaigning apparently pays off.
The surprises started popping. Five days after the balloting officially ended, the NRA sent letters to over 500 write-ins on the ballot telling them that for the first time, they would be eligible to be candidates for the 76th board seat (one-year term) filled in balloting during the annual meeting of members on Saturday, May 3. At the meeting, voting members were given a ballot with 158 names.
By this time it was no surprise that HESTON was among the sudden write-in candidates, because the word spread around the exhibit hall and other NRA functions a day earlier, and HESTON came riding onto the scene for a 5 p.m. press statement on the eve of the members’ meeting.
No surprise: HESTON won out over his 157 lesser known opponents. He gathered over 1,000 of the almost 1,450 votes cast, and his election was announced to the members attending the annual banquet on Saturday night. The annual meeting earlier in the day ran for five hours and was marked by sometimes stirring officer reports (NRA-ILA head Tanya Metaksa’s “river of freedom” speech) and campaign speeches from key antagonists like Executive Vice President WAYNE LaPIERRE and KNOX. The members accomplished little, however. Few got to ask questions about concerns raised by the charges and countercharges of the board election campaign. Only one of several resolutions was discussed before being tabled. Then the body approved a sudden motion for adjournment.
The board meetings starting on May 5 were a different matter. President Marion Hammer was nominated by the nominating committee and was reelected unanimously with no opposition. More surprises: The committee then nominated KNOX to be reelected first vice president, and Director Roy Innis nominated HESTON to oppose KNOX. Result: HESTON elected 38-34, although almost an hour was expended in failed votes to suspend the rules before the board members knew the actual vote tally. Then Director Kayne Robinson was nominated from the floor to oppose committee nominee Second Vice President Albert Ross for reelection. Robinson won a squeaker, 36-35.
More surprises: The nominating committee nominated Director DONNA BIANCHI for LaPIERRE’s job as Executive Vice President. LaPIERRE was nominated for reelection from the floor. Result: LaPIERRE remains EVP after a 41-31 vote.
The rest of the officers were reelected without opposition, including Secretary EDWARD “JIM” LAND, Treasurer WILSON “WOODY” PHILLIPS, Executive Director GO CRAIG SANDERS, and Executive Director ILA Metaksa.
Insiders during the convention reported that as many as a dozen middle-ground directors were considering resigning because of the acrimonious NRA infighting. If anything, the votes indicate that there are still major differences on the board. One vote made the difference in the Robinson-Ross race, three votes would have made the difference in the HESTON-KNOX race, five in the LaPIERRE-BIANCHI contest. Now we’ll have to see if the man who parted the waters as Moses in a movie 40 years ago also knows how to bring them back together.
LOUISIANA ELECTION THAT SEATED ANTI-GUN SENATOR LANDRIEU IN DEEP TROUBLE
Last November’s election of anti-gun Democrat Mary Landrieu narrowly denied pro-gun Republican candidate Rep. Louis (Woody) Jenkins a seat as Senator from Louisiana. Jenkins challenged the election.
Last month the Senate Rules Committee voted to launch a full-scale investigation of the Louisiana election to determine whether Landrieu should be unseated and a new election called. It would be a blessing for gun owners.
Anti-gun Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) said the GOP was out to “steal” a Senate seat in Louisiana and accused Rules Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) of pushing for the Louisiana probe in order to secure the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Landrieu said the investigation is part of a “right-wing conspiracy” apparently led by the moderate Warner.
However, at the same time that Sen. Daschle was accusing the Rules Committee of “partisanship” and Mary Landrieu was claiming a right-wing conspiracy, a grand jury in St. Martin Parish was indicting 64 individuals for vote-buying, according to Jenkins. The anti-gunners may have a lot to worry about.
The indictments in St. Martinville followed the arrest in March of four persons in St. Helena Parish, Louisiana, for vote-buying. A parish in Louisiana is the equivalent of a county in other states——Louisiana alone of the United States follows the parish system of the Code Napoleon inherited when the territory was bought from France by Thomas Jefferson.
The indictments were brought in connection with the 1995 primary elections for sheriff, clerk of court, assessor and Police Jury. They were not related to the Senate election.
However, pro-gun Jenkins said, “The indictments in St. Martin Parish and the arrests in St. Helena Parish are symptomatic of what goes on in some of our rural areas, but this is really quite small compared to vote fraud in New Orleans. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Jenkins said the Senate Rules Committee must have subpoena power and a determined team of investigators in order to break the vote fraud and multiple voting in Orleans Parish. Gun owners are hoping for a thorough investigation.
MONTANA LAWMAKERS QUESTION BATF RAID
Nine members of the Montana House of Representatives sent a sharply worded letter to United States Attorney Sherry Matteucci requesting an explanation of the BATF’s March 4 raid on the Tehinnah Ranch, a religious commune near Melrose, Montana. The BATF was searching for explosives but found nothing in their second visit to the Tehinnah Ministries ranch in a year. “Tehinnah” means mercy and grace in Hebrew.
A story about the March raid in Butte’s Montana Standard was headlined: “The feeling of persecution... Federal raid, rumors worry Tehinnah Ministries members.”
The religious group led by Joseph and Judy Ramirez, said the story, moved to Montana from Kyle, Texas in 1990 and began raising sheep, cattle and chickens. They were first greeted with rumors they were radicals who had splintered from the Church Universal Triumphant near Livingston, Montana, and later branded Branch Davidians after the 1993 federal attack on David Koresh’s compound in Waco, Texas.
The newspaper story described the deeply religious adherents of the Tehinnah Ministries as law-abiding, well-dressed and soft-spoken, with a neatly kept ranch where they mostly keep to themselves. Several families live at the commune adjacent to Interstate 15’s Moose Creek exit, which is used by large numbers of hikers going to the back country. A sign near the ranch announces “Tehinnah Ministries” and gives their telephone number, so it’s no hideout.
The BATF was acting on rumors that the ranch was being used to stockpile weapons and explosives in its March search, which alarmed a number of Montana lawmakers. The legislators held a meeting with United States Attorney SHERRY Matteucci to discuss the possible insufficiency of the search warrant sought and served by the BATF because it was apparently prepared by her office in Great Falls.
In a letter dated April 7 1997 from the office of Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Clark (R-House District 8), he and eight other Montana representatives asked follow-up questions not addressed at their meeting and expressed their concerns: “It appears from all the legal advice we are able to obtain that the search warrant in question was a ‘shotgun warrant’, intended to be a fishing expedition for the BATF, and that this warrant would be immediately recognized as a violation of the Fourth Amendment by any competent attorney or experienced law enforcement officer.”
The warrant’s flaws were “too apparent to have been an oversight or accident,” the letter said, then asked whether Matteucci’s Great Falls office prepared the search warrant, whether she had authority to take disciplinary action against the prosecutors involved and whether she would exercise that authority. The legislators were particularly concerned about disciplining “the BATF personnel who reportedly searched enclosures not included in the search warrant.”
The key paragraph pointedly noted: “Also, the application for the warrant and its supporting affidavit are sealed by the court. We have been told that when such records are sealed, it is almost invariably done by the court because of an explicit request from the prosecutors involved. Also, we are told, such records are rarely unsealed until the prosecutors approve of such unsealing to the judge who ordered the sealing. Will you request of the supervising judge that the application and affidavit in this case be unsealed and made public? If you will not make such a request, what can be your reason?”
The legislators concluded by asking how Matteucci proposed to insure that, if a serious transgression had occurred, it would not be committed in the future.
Representatives who signed the letter included Rep. DAN McGEE, Rep. MATT BRAINERD and Rep. DOUGLAS T. WAGNER.
While it is true that profiles show right wing terrorists prefer rural compounds instead of the urban safehouses used by left wing terrorists, and it is also true that right wing terrorists frequently have a religious focus, the BATF still needs to follow the law in its investigations of religious people who live in rural compounds——they might simply be religious people who live in rural compounds.
THE FORCED AUSTRALIAN GUN BUY-BACK
If you think the voluntary gun buy-back programs in the United States pose an eventual threat to legal gun ownership, you should see what Australia has done.
All governments of “Down Under” have banned the ownership of self-loading rifles and self-loading and pump action shotguns. Turn them in or you will be prosecuted. Period.
It was “A joint initiative of the Commonwealth, States and Territories.”
The new “firearms reform” law requires gun owners with banned firearms to “Take them, unloaded and in a bag to a collection center. You will receive fair compensation, tax free, for the firearms you hand in.”
It is appalling to see the once-brave citizens of the land of Crocodile Dundee meekly handing in their guns. British law has no constitutional protection for the right to keep and bear arms.
The Compensation Handbook contains a “Firearms Price List” telling how much the Australian Firearms Buyback will pay you for your freedom to own a gun.
Some sample prices:
Prices were “based on the average sale prices listed in dealers’ catalogues across Australia in March 1996.” All semi-automatic center fire rifles, pump action shotguns, semi-automatic rim fire rifles and semi-automatic shotguns were on the list.
Australian government advertisements tell their citizens: “These firearms must be handed in before 30 September 1997. Firearm Reform: We need to comply.”
“What happens if I don’t comply?” asks the handbook? “Severe penalties for breaches of the firearms control laws will apply in every State and Territory. These penalties may include jail sentences.”
Hunters and sportsmen stayed out of politics, hoping they would be let alone.
BACKLASH AGAINST AUSTRALIAN RIFLE BAN
Membership in Australian gun clubs is booming, thanks to the “firearms reform” law that banned many sports rifles and forced shooters to show a “genuine need” to own any firearms.
National membership in the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia has risen 50 percent in the past ten months as shooters realize the need to unify against further anti-gun hysteria.
Perhaps there’s hope they may get their banned guns back one day.
BANK GIVES DEPOSITORS GUNS INSTEAD OF INTEREST
The First Community Bank of the South in Fort Deposit, Alabama is offering customers rifles and shotguns instead of interest on certificates of deposit.
Bank President Danny Flowers told reporters, “This is a natural for us. The area is renowned for deer hunting. Hunting’s a way of life.”
The 93-year-old bank has $65 million in assets in this rural town of 1,200 35 miles south of Montgomery.
First Community is launching its Guns for Funds promotion this month as a way to attract deposits and lock them in long term. It copied the idea from the Bank of Boulder, Colorado’s 1976 bicentennial premium program.
Customers buying a certificate of deposit can receive guns or accessories up front instead of interest later. They must agree to leave the money on deposit for a stipulated period to earn particular premiums.
A Weatherby Mark V Deluxe rifle with walnut stock and rosewood pistol grip requires a 12-year deposit of $1,471 or a four-year deposit of $4,627. At 5 percent simple interest, four years return on $4,627 would amount to $925.
The bank prepared a catalog of firearms brands and items available, but customers can ask for other items which will be special ordered for them.
Danny Flowers doesn’t think his premiums will ever be turned against him. “The person who comes in and gets a CD from us is not going to be somebody who’d rob us. We know most of our customers by sight.”
GUN-RIGHTS GROUPS OPPOSE CLINTON PICK FOR DUAL HEALTH POSTS
The selection of Dr. David Satcher for the dual post of surgeon general and assistant health secretary has gun-rights groups up in arms. Alan Gottlieb, founder of the 550,000-member Second Amendment Foundation, told the Washington Times, “We oppose David Satcher. He’s totally anti-gun.... This is another slap at gun owners by Bill Clinton, who is the most anti-gun president in history.”
Similar comments came from the Gun Owners Action Committee and the National Rifle Association.
Dr. Satcher currently serves as the director of the Atlanta-based federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and has characterized handgun violence as a “public health problem.”
The White House has not yet formally announced that Dr. Satcher is the top candidate, but a White House spokeswoman confirmed published reports that he is. The dual post would make Dr. Satcher the nation’s top physician and public health administrator.
The dual post has been difficult to create from two formerly separate jobs, which is supposedly what has caused the delay. The surgeon general job has been vacant since Dr. Joycelyn Elders was fired from the post in December 1994 in a flap over her comments on homosexuality, abortion, drug use and masturbation.
One group was pleased by Dr. Satcher’s selection. Julio Abreu, legislative representative of the AIDS Action Council, a lobbying group, said his organization is “certainly pleased” that Dr. Satcher is in line for the two posts. Abreu praised Satcher for introducing programs that allow more local control of AIDS funding. Others praise his rapid response to the hantavirus epidemic in the Southwest in 1993.
Dr. Satcher has been attacked for using biased studies on handgun violence to promote an agenda designed to make gun ownership look dangerous so that it becomes socially unacceptable.
FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
STEARNS Right To Carry Bill: Rep. CLIFF STEARNS (R-FL) has gained more co-sponsors for his H.R. 339, which would require every state to recognize a concealed carry permit issued by another state. A law-abiding citizen from one state would not lose his or her Second Amendment rights when traveling to another state.
The number of co-sponsors now stands at 34. Recent additions to the bipartisan roster of supporters include Rep. MIKE McINTYRE (D-NC), Rep. JIM BUNNING (R-KY), Rep. EARL HILLIARD (D-AL), and Rep. BOB NEY (R-OH).
Sen. TED STEVENS (R-AK) has stopped the Army Material Command from carrying out its order to inventory all arms on hand in preparation for sending 90 percent of them to be destroyed at Anniston Arsenal——including those with historical or museum value. Destruction of these guns defies a Department of Defense appropriations measure that specifically prohibits it. The halt of destruction is temporary while officials review procedures.
STATE LEGISLATIVE ROUNDUP
California: AB 136, a bill designed to overturn the State Firearms Preemption Law, thus allowing cities and counties to pass their own restrictive measures. The bill’s sponsor, Los Angeles Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa, is intent on getting a floor vote, but insiders say the bill has no chance of passage.
AB 1124 passed out of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. It would require that trigger locks be placed on all firearms sold, but was amended to make closet or locked box storage after purchase legal without trigger locks——which still leaves the trigger locks on all firearms sold, and still requires them in other than closet or locked box storage. A similar bill was defeated in committee last year, but AB 1124 is awaiting a floor vote, where it has some current support.
Florida: The House passed HB 909, legislation requiring Florida to recognize valid out-of-state carry licenses. The measure passed on an 86-to-25 vote. The bill now moves to the Senate for consideration.
Georgia: Governor Zell Miller signed into law SB 247, right to carry reform legislation. The new law clarifies prohibited areas where permit holders can lawfully carry.
Illinois: HB 1557, a right to carry and firearms preemption bill, was sidetracked by an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver. Anti-gun House Speaker MIKE MADIGAN ruled that a supermajority vote (71 votes in the Illinois House) was necessary for passage of the bill. Stunned by the slick trick, sponsor Rep. MIKE WEAVER asked that the bill be held until a later date. While WEAVER scrambles to gain the needed additional votes, the bill will stay in the active file.
Kansas: HB 2159, the right to carry bill, remains on the desk of Governor BILL GRAVES. Time is running out, for the bill will die without his signature.
Louisiana: HB 824, a measure that would undo the statewide right-to-carry law, will soon be voted on by the full House. It allows individual parishes to ban the right to carry even if its residents possess a state-issued right to carry permit. The gun grabbers didn’t take long to strike back at the successful right to carry law in Louisiana.
New Jersey: The Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen gained a partial victory in removing a number of firearms such as the M1A and Colt Match Target rifle (new production) from the Florio gun ban list.
North Dakota: Governor Schafer signed the right to carry reciprocity bill into law. North Dakota now recognizes out of state carry permits held by non-residents if the issuing state also recognizes North Dakota’s carry permits.
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION’S VIEW ON RUN RIGHTS
CLINTON’s Chief Deputy of the Department of Justice, RONNIE L. EDELMAN, wrote on official Justice Department letterhead: “The Second Amendment is interpreted by this administration as prohibiting the federal government from preventing a state government from forming or having a state-recognized militia force.”
EDELMAN expanded: “The Second Amendment is deemed to be a collective right belonging to the state and not to an individual.”
In addition, CLINTON’s Assistant Attorney general, ANDREW FOIS wrote on official Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs Stationery to Montana’s U.S. Senator MAX BAUCUS that “there is no personal constitutional right, under the Second Amendment, to own or use a gun.”
What was that about “the right of the people...”?
ANTI-GUN CONGRESSMAN HAS BIGGEST WAR CHEST
If you’re a computer fan and have Internet access, you’ll find a World Wide Web site at http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/ that tells you something about one of the most ferocious anti-gun members of Congress. It’s a Federal Elections Commission information site posted by a private citizen. It shows that Rep. Charles E. Schumer, Brooklyn Democrat, has the biggest war chest in Congress, with $5,052,292 stashed away.
Rep. Schumer is almost certain to announce his candidacy for the Senate seat of Republican Alphonse D’Amato, who comes up for reelection next year. Schumer is known as Mr. Gun Control, having been a vociferous supporter of every measure that might restrict gun rights during his tenure in the House of Representatives.
Rep. SCHUMER’s plan to push a bill creating gunrunning as a federal crime was the subject of a recent supportive editorial in the Buffalo News. Headlined, “New Yorkers suffer needlessly from weak handgun laws elsewhere,” the editorial begins with the funeral of a law officer gunned down by a criminal, then asks where the weapon came from. It began with a legal sale in Georgia and by an unknown route came into the hands of a young East Side Buffalo man, where it became a murder weapon.
Then come the magic tricks and rhetoric that has made Rep. Schumer infamous: because Georgia has “loose” gun laws, and New York has “tough” gun laws, guns flow from Georgia——and all other “loose” states——to New York. A study by Schumer showed that guns don’t flow from New York to “loose” states. But in 1966, Schumer’s study found, 1,243 guns sold in Florida wound up being used in crimes in other states.
Therefore, stronger federal laws ought to “sweep aside state variations on handguns, recognizing the community value of New York’s tough approach were it applied nationwide.”
That’s what the Buffalo News thinks of Charles Schumer.
And he has the biggest war chest in Congress. The 1998 Senate election in New York is going to be tough.
ANOTHER GUN BUYBACK PROGRAM TRADES MERCHANDISE FOR YOUR GUNS
Ceasefire Oregon, a Portland church group, has organized its 1997 gun buyback program with the usual anti-gun propaganda, including a gaudy brochure with a logo of two youths dying of gunshot wounds, one on the ground, another above him in a theatrical I’ve-been-shot pose.
“Gun violence——it’s an epidemic,” says the brochure, comparing guns to a disease. “Help end the bloodshed.”
Ceasefire Oregon collected 1,679 guns at turn-in events in 1994, 1995 and 1996. “Those firearms are forever out of circulation,” says the brochure.
It adds, “A gun in your home does not make you safe.” This one-sided campaign is backed by Oregon’s current Governor and the Mayor of Portland.
MOM WON’T LET DAD TEACH DAUGHTER TO SHOOT
Like many of us, RODNEY FETTER of Norco, California, learned to handle guns safely at an early age. His grandfather worked as a gunsmith and his father loved to hunt.
It seemed only natural that when he had his own children, he would pass that tradition on. When his daughter Nicole Rose approached the age of six—the age when he was first taught about guns—he began talking to her about his plans to teach her gun handling.
But before NICOLE could pull her first trigger, RODNEY’s former wife Susan Fetter of La Habra, California obtained a temporary restraining order to keep her former husband from allowing the child to touch any guns.
SUSAN FETTER learned of her former husband’s plans in February, when he dropped off NICOLE after a visit. SUSAN FETTER said she heard him tell the girl, “NICOLE, practice closing one eye so you can learn to shoot that gun.”
SUSAN FETTER told reporters, “I’m scared to death for her safety.”
RODNEY FETTER planned to start NICOLE’s lessons with a Red Ryder BB gun, the first gun he ever used. He intended to build up to a real pistol as the girl’s skill and understanding matured. He owns several guns and keeps a rifle and a .357-caliber handgun at his home—unloaded.
RODNEY FETTER said, “If she knows how to use them and handle them, she’s safe. It’s like teaching kids to use a computer.”
California law does not set an age at which children can use guns, leaving it to the discretion of a parent or guardian.
SUSAN FETTER said, “She’s 5 years old. She doesn’t know the difference between a real gun and a fake gun.”
SUSAN FETTER was parroting RON GUTIERREZ, a social worker with Legal Services for Children, a San Francisco agency that represents children’s interests in court. GUTIERREZ said, “Even with the father’s instruction, even if he rigorously tried to instill in her proper safety procedures for handling a gun, she still would not be able to fully understand. The average 5-year-old cannot distinguish between actually injuring someone and play injury.”
Do we detect a wee bit of anti-gun bias here?
Another therapist, psychologist LOIS NIGHTINGALE of Yorba Linda, California, said, “I personally don’t like guns, but I’m also a strong advocate that if it’s not illegal or hurting somebody, parents have a right to pass on their hobbies or beliefs to their children.”
RODNEY FETTER, a truck driver and warehouse worker, said of the upcoming Orange County court hearing on the case, “All I want is mutual respect. SUSAN’s going to do stuff with NICOLE that I don’t agree with, but who am I to say no as long as it’s reasonable and she’s not hurting NICOLE?”
The question before the judge will be to decide if learning gun safety endangers the child.
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