Bill to bar millions more from gun ownership

[Mitch HanK Sauer]

McCarthy & Schumer Duping Pro-gunners Into Supporting Gun Control
-- Bill to bar millions more from gun ownership

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: [phone] / FAX: [phone]
www.gunowners.org


ACTION: Please urge your Senators and Representative NOT to
cosponsor the Schumer-McCarthy bill. Don't think that just because
your congressman is "pro-gun" that he won't sign onto this bill.
Some relatively good legislators have been duped into cosponsoring
it. So your elected officials need to hear from you.

After reading the alert, please send them the pre-written letter
below. You can contact your Representative and Senators by visiting
the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at
www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send them a pre-written
e-mail message.


(Tuesday, September 30, 2003)

Remember the so-called "Our Lady of Peace Act" from last year?
Well, Our Lady is back, but under a new name.

Two notoriously anti-gun legislators have teamed up again to deny
millions of additional Americans their right to keep and bear arms.
They are Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy
(D-NY).

What makes this bill so dangerous is the fact that many Congressmen
who are perceived to be "pro-gun" are supporting the bill as well.

According to CNS News, a current NRA Board member, together with a
former board member, appeared at a press conference last week to
support the Schumer-McCarthy legislation. Specifically, Senator
Larry Craig (R-ID) and Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) lent their visible
support on Thursday in favor of the "NICS Improvement Act."

NICS, of course, refers to the National Instant Check System -- a
key component of the Brady Act which forces honest citizens to prove
their innocence to the FBI before they can purchase firearms from
gun dealers. The Brady Act, named after anti-gun lobbyists Jim and
Sarah Brady, requires gun purchasers' names to be given to the FBI,
thus creating the potential that the feds could keep an illegal
registry of firearms owners.

As of today, this new bill still does not have a number. However,
it is expected that it will be almost identical with its earlier
incarnation, H.R. 4757, from last year.

As such, the bill could require states to turn over vast numbers of
records (on potentially all Americans) to the FBI for use in
connection with the Instantcheck. These records -- often containing
sensitive, personal information -- could include ANY state record
relevant to the question of whether a person is prohibited from
owning a gun.

This starts with a large volume of mental health records, but the
FBI could also require that a state forward all of its employment
and tax records in order to identify persons who are illegal aliens.
It could require that states forward information concerning drug
diversion programs and arrests that do not lead to prosecution, in
order to determine whether a person is "an unlawful user of... any
controlled substance...."

GOA opposes adding mental health records because psychiatry is one
of the most anti-gun professions of all. Consider the recent study
published by the American Psychological Association. In the press
release announcing the study, two Berkeley professors likened
"right-wing conservatives" like Rush Limbaugh and Ronald Reagan to
Hitler and Mussolini. Huh? These shrinks are the people we want to
determine who should own a firearm? The Second Amendment should
never be in the hands of this profession.

Regardless, one must realize that this bill is NOT about keeping bad
guys and wackos from getting guns. Bad guys and wackos will ALWAYS
be able to get guns, no matter how many restrictions there are.

The bill would also help FBI officials to effectively stop millions
of additional Americans from purchasing firearms, because they were
guilty in the past of committing minor misdemeanors. You might
remember the Lautenberg Gun Ban which President Bill Clinton signed
in 1996? Because of this ban, people who have committed very minor
offenses that include pushing, shoving or, in some cases, even
yelling at a family member have discovered that they can no longer
own firearms for self-defense.

But the anti-gun nuts in Congress are upset because many of the
states' criminal records are incomplete. As a result, the FBI does
not access all of these records when screening the background of
someone who purchases a firearm from a gun dealer. The
McCarthy-Schumer bill would change all that and keep millions of
decent, peaceful citizens from owning firearms because, in each
case, of nothing more than a single, minor offense committed long
ago.

This bill is all about control. Schumer and McCarthy want to keep
pushing their agenda forward, making it impossible for more and more
Americans to legally own guns!

Already, the Brady Bunch is crowing that passing this bill "would
represent the first substantial piece of federal gun legislation
since at least 1996" and that such passage would "explode the myth
that nothing can be achieved on guns in Congress."

They might well get their way since prominent Republicans like
Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah are supporting the bill.

The Schumer-McCarthy bill is an anti-self-defense piece of
legislation that will only make the country safer for criminals
while opening the door to invading the privacy of all Americans.


------ Pre-written message ------

Dear Representative ______________,

I urge you NOT to cosponsor the Schumer-McCarthy bill, which has
been dubbed the "NICS Improvement Act."

The Brady Act has been a complete failure, and it does not need to
be improved. Not only does this bill violate the Second Amendment,
it creates the very real potential that the FBI would illegally
maintain a gun owners registry -- despite existing prohibitions in
the law. (Remember how the FBI illegally provided files on
prominent Republicans to President Bill Clinton in 1996?)

More to the point, the Brady Act has not stopped criminals from
using guns in crime. One of the nation's leading anti-gun medical
publications, the Journal of the American Medical Association
(August 2000), found that the Brady registration law has failed to
reduce murder rates.

It's no wonder. Criminals don't obey gun laws. Plus, laws such as
the Brady Act have utterly failed to put criminals behind bars. In
a fact sheet entitled "Instant Registration Check Threatens Gun
Owners' Rights," Gun Owners of America notes that in the first five
years the Brady Act was in force, eight people were prosecuted under
the Act and only three were sent to jail. So while the Brady Law
has been a failure at stopping bad guys, it has succeeded in giving
gun owners' names to the FBI.

Regardless, you took an oath to uphold the Constitution -- a
document which includes a protection stating that the right to keep
and bear arms "shall not be infringed." But the Schumer-McCarthy
bill is an infringement! Among other things, this bill will result
in millions more Americans not being able to own guns, simply
because they committed a Lautenberg-type offense, such as pushing,
shoving or, in some cases, even yelling at a family member.

Finally, I am very uncomfortable with the idea that this bill could
give the FBI access to all of my private tax and financial
information. This is a dangerous expansion of federal power, and it
is decidedly un-American.

Again, I hope that you will NOT cosponsor this bill. And I would
like to hear from you about whether you support this massive
increase in gun control.

Sincerely,

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Get the facts! The GOF Gun Control Fact-Sheet is your free,
comprehensive guide to the truth about gun control vs. gun rights.
Written in a concise manner, the Fact-Sheet is nonetheless
fully researched (over 150 footnote citations). It shatters
the gun grabbers' phony arguments and provides you with powerful
proof for use in making the pro-gun case. Stop by
www.gunowners.org/fs0101.htm to download or print a copy.

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