| Original Message |
nancy
Posted Jun 26, 2009 3:16 PM
Eight Republicans Help Confirm a Hard-Core Gun Banner
-- And how to keep Senators from "spinning" their support for gun
control
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
"Too much work [was] left undone. After a few sleepless nights, I wrote
for myself a list of issues on which I needed to do more in the years
ahead. One of those issues was global regulation of small arms." --
Harold Hongju Koh (2001)
Friday, June 26, 2009
Imagine that. The Senate confirmed this week, by a vote of 62-35, a gun
banner who stays up at night thinking of ways to impose more gun control
upon American citizens.
Harold Koh is that gun grabber, and he was confirmed yesterday to be the
Legal Adviser at the State Department.
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans attempted to kill the Koh nomination
with a filibuster -- until eight of them crossed the aisle to help
Democrats confirm Koh.
The back-stabbing Senators are: Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Susan Collins
(R-ME), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Mel
Martinez (R-FL), Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and George Voinovich (R-OH).
Once the filibuster was thwarted, Koh's nomination passed easily. The
vote on final passage can be viewed at:http://tinyurl.com/m4m2f5
Koh is eager to assume his post at the State Department, having lamented
that there is only so much that can be done from the outside to push gun
control treaties, and that ultimately we need people like him in
positions of power. The chief lawyer for the State Department is just
the position someone like him needs to push more gun control through
international treaties.
GOA will continue watching for any attempt by the Obama administration
to foist an international gun control treaty upon the citizens of the
U.S.
Please stay tuned.
Don't Let Your Senators Escape the Heat of the Spotlight!
If you have been watching the news, you have no doubt seen stories on
the health care debate. This is the topic de jour on Capitol Hill, and
Congress is ramping up to vote on a bill in a few weeks.
Last week, GOA alerted you to the fact that the whole health care issue
has become a Trojan Horse for gun control, among other things.
However, there are detractors who claim that the current health care
debate will have nothing to do with guns. For example, GOA has been
"informed" that a search of the TeddyCare bill does not turn
up the word
"guns," and that the word "database" is seen only a
few times.
Hmm, if your Senator's office gives you that as a response, then tell
them not to be so lazy and naive.
One needs to do more than type in a word search in order to analyze
legislation. The database was set up under section 3001(c)(3)(i) of the
stimulus bill. But the Kennedy bill allows for sweeping new
regulations, which make it potentially impossible for any doctor to
refuse to enter your records under the current section 13112 exemption.
Many things you tell your doctor in the privacy of his office could
affect your right to own a firearm. And just because anti-gun zealot Ted
Kennedy doesn't notify us up front of his anti-gun intentions doesn't
mean they don't exist.
Frankly, we got this same garbage in connection with the Veterans
Disarmament Act (officially known as the NICS Improvement Act), where
the anti-gunners took away the guns of 150,000 veterans through language
which was not explicit. Before the bill was signed into law last year,
some detractors even claimed that because the NICS bill did not mention
the word "veterans," we must have been wrong to suggest that
the bill
would disarm vets!
Well, guess what? The disarmament which was already occurring before
President Bush signed the legislation into law last year is now
occurring with a vengeance under the Obama administration. (In fact,
GOA members should be looking for an upcoming mailing which will give
you postcards to send in support of an important bill -- introduced by
Sen. Burr of North Carolina -- which will protect veterans from the
fangs of the Veterans Disarmament Act.)
The point is, no Senate staffer should ever give you an opinion on a
bill unless he has read the entire code that the bill will be amending.
Nor should they ignore the potential for an Obama administration to
abuse any particular piece of legislation.
Remember how the RICO Act, originally enacted to help combat the Mafia,
was later used to crack down on legitimate banks and peaceful pro-life
protesters? The original RICO Act never used the word
"abortion," but
that didn't stop overzealous prosecutors from going after the
non-violent protestors.
And who would have thought, when the original Brady law was passed in
1993, that it would be used to keep people with outstanding traffic
tickets... or couples with marriage problems... or military vets with
nightmares from buying guns? After all, the Brady law never mentioned
those people groups, and yet the law has been used over the past 15-plus
years to deny gun rights to those very people.
Reading legislation is not a job for the timid or the lazy. If staffers
in your Senate offices aren't willing to read current bills IN THE LIGHT
OF EXISTING LAWS -- and to do the research necessary to compile this
information -- then politely encourage them to get another line of work.
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