Federal, UN Briefing
The first panel discussion focused on federal affairs and the threat of global gun control that is being pursued within the United Nations (UN).
CCRKBA Public Affairs Director John Snyder told the audience that “gun grabbers still parade through the halls of Congress.”
“The (Charles) Schumers, (Ted) Kennedys and (Dianne) Feinsteins still want to take away from us as many of our firearms as they possibly can,” he insisted.
He said the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act will provide important protections for gunowners by protecting gunmakers from junk lawsuits.
Snyder warned that there will be attempts by domestic gun grabbers to use the UN and other international bodies to further their agenda. He said there are efforts right now to adopt treaties that would affect the export, import and manufacture of small arms, and programs that would require national registries.
“My reaction to this is quite simple,” he declared. “You UN people, keep your hands off our guns!”
Following Snyder at the podium, NRA Federal Affairs Director Charles Cunningham told the audience that elections do matter to gun rights politics. He cited the defeat last year of South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle (D), who had been one of Capitol Hill’s biggest obstructionists and had supported gun control measures. With him gone, and a larger pro-gun majority in the Senate, Cunningham said Congress had gone through “an election upgrade.”
“Gun control in politics has become a losing issue,” Cunningham stated. “We have to see that it stays that way.”
He concurred with Snyder that passage of legislation to protect the gun industry from harassment lawsuits is essential, and that the bill now being considered by Congress is acceptable. There are two amendments that have been greatly distorted on the Internet, he said. One is an amendment calling for a study of so-called armor-piercing bullets that essentially does nothing, and the other is a trigger lock provision that does not require trigger lock use, but simply the sale of such locks. Nearly all new guns sold today come with locking devices already.
BATF Reform?
Looking at the federal political landscape, Cunningham said that a reform of the Bureau of lcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is “long overdue.”
“This rogue agency continues as if elections didn’t happen,” he said. “The policies and practices of this agency are completely out of line with what Congress envisioned.”
He disclosed that a letter had been sent to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in late summer, seeking an oversight hearing of the agency that could result in reform legislation that will rein in the bureau.
Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America then told the audience that, while “we do have a lot to celebrate,” gunowners must not let down their guards. He likened gun locks to seat belts, recalling how seat belts were originally introduced as safety devices for optional use, but gradually were mandated by states. He suggested that gun locks could follow the same path, with legislatures eventually making it a crime not to use them.
Pratt further contended that firearms dealers have been subjected to extreme regulations. He asserted that government should not be permitted to tell a dealer what he can or can’t sell, and that the notion of such regulation is not in the Constitution.
“We should not be in a position of agreeing to gun control when gun control is the winning issue that it is,” Pratt observed. “We should force the issue.”
Pratt wants to force Congress to vote on a completely clean gun maker protection bill, to have members on record with a vote.
John Burtt, chairman of the Fifty Caliber Shooters Institute and a former California resident and retired Riverside police officer, told the audience that he and his wife moved from the Golden State to Oklahoma two years ago “specifically because of the anti-gun attitude of the legislature.”
California banned .50 BMG caliber rifles and declared them assault rifles that must be registered with the state or moved out of California. Burtt warned the crowd that “the extremists in the California legislature have successfully banned a single-shot, bolt-action center-fire rifle that has never been used in a crime in the state of California, as an assault weapon, all because the firearm was ‘too powerful.’ ” That set a horrible precedent, he contended, because now that lawmakers have banned one gun, they will be emboldened to ban other rifles they decide are “too powerful” for private citizens to own.
“Many states . . . take their cue from what happens in California,” Burtt warned. Since the ban became effective, similar bans have been introduced in 10 other states.
Addressing the problems faced by blackpowder shooters, Pat Walker of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA) reported that his group is re-organizing and that he is a member of the board of directors.
Blackpowder shooters face the same problems at the federal and international levels as do those who shoot modern firearms. One dilemma faced by the blackpowder community is that, while front-loaders are deemed not to be firearms by the ATF, they are considered firearms for the purpose of taxation on their manufacture by the Internal Revenue Service.
People who build muzzleloaders for sale are small businessmen who object to paying the 10% tax on those guns. However, relief is on the way for people who build 50 or less blackpowder rifles, handguns or shotguns because of a new exemption that took effect Oct. 1.
He detailed the restrictions on blackpowder possession and shipping, and noted that the UN is also looking at proposed international controls on blackpowder possession.
“The last time we fought this kind of tyranny,” Walker said, “we won, and we won with blackpowder.”
State Level Issues
Shifting attention to the states, the next panel provided an overview of what state legislatures have been doing to gunowners.
Hawaii state Sen. Sam Slom (R) said Honolulu is “just like West L.A. without the salsa.” The gun control issues are much the same, he explained. He said there have been “several important victories” at the state level, and that gunowners are winning on several fronts.
Slom noted that people are learning important things from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, one of them being that “you can dial 9-1-1 but it’s a lot better to have a loaded magazine when you do it.”
He said gunowners can have “a profound influence” at the state level, and that with the 2006 election cycle on the horizon, now is the time to get involved in the political arena. One successful strategy he’s used is to take fellow lawmakers to the gun range. He recounted his experience with a female lawmaker, who had been against guns, but after one trek with him to the range, “she liked it, and she wants to come back.”
“Don’t hesitate to ask someone” to go shooting, he urged.
He also recommended getting more women involved in shooting, building coalitions and revitalizing organizations with aging memberships. Slom also told the audience to utilize talk shows, write letters to the editor, and go on or start programs on public access television to get the pro-gun message in front of the public.
CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron reported that 38 states have shall-issue concealed laws, eight others have discretionary issue laws, and four remain holdouts with no concealed carry.
Waldron called concealed carry reciprocity “the next frontier” on the gun rights map. This is going to be a tough challenge, he said, because many states don’t like the idea of citizens from other states carrying guns inside their borders. Those discretionary-issue states will likely remain so.
“If they don’t trust their own citizens with a license, why would they trust outsiders,” he questioned.
Waldron said many rural-area Democrats have “seen the light” and are sensitive to the gun rights issue. However, he said gunowners need to keep an eye on local governments, which have the authority to set up “no shooting” areas that can be used to eliminate shooting opportunities near populated areas. Range encroachment is a big issue, which is why two thirds of the states have range protection laws on the books, he suggested.
Advances are being made in terms of reciprocity, Waldron said, and that could open up more areas where citizens can go legally armed outside their home states. He noted that several states, including Texas, Florida and Oklahoma, have passed pro-gun bills this year, while in Washington state, the legislature turned back several gun control measures even though Democrats control both houses and they had political debts to pay to anti-gunners.
Illinois Troubles
Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA), noted that his state is a “test bed for all kinds of legislation.” This year, some 240 gun control bills were introduced, and that the Illinois Council Against Gun Violence gets hundreds of thousands of dollars of support annually from the anti-gun Joyce Foundation.
Illinois gunowners fought the bad bills, had to “swallow some salt” with a couple of pieces of legislation, but also got a bill passed that protects gun ranges. They also managed to turn back a bill that would have deemed fund-raising banquets like those done by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited and Friends of the NRA to be gun shows.
There are two pro-gun lobbyists working the legislature in Springfield, he noted, while lamenting that he had approached a variety of other organizations in an attempt to build a coalition, but none of those groups ever assisted gunowners in legislative hearings.
Pearson predicted there will be all kinds of efforts in other states, based on the Illinois model, to ban lead shot for hunting, and ratchet down in other ways on gun ownership.
Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association in Ohio, offered a brief review of activities in the Buckeye State. Recalling that the Columbus ban on so-called assault weapons had garnered an NRA pullout of its 2007 convention, Irvine said there are court challenges on the horizon to battle local gun bans or restrictions in Toledo, Clyde and elsewhere that were passed despite state law to prohibit such local ordinances.
He reported that new concealed carry reform legislation has been introduced and it includes state preemption. The new law would also do away with some of the problems in the current law, he added. Another tenet of the bill would protect licensed gunowners from being named in print by zealous anti-gun newspapers.
“Good legislation is not a destination,” he said. “It’s a journey.”
He also encouraged gunowners to get involved politically, to elect pro-gun candidates, and to get their friends, family and fellow shooters involved.
In California, they will need more than one election to change the political landscape, according to attorney Chuck Michel with the California Rifle and Pistol Association.
“California and Sacramento remain the petri dish for all kinds of gun control legislation,” Michel stated.
He said there are “a number of extreme measures still floating around” the state assembly, including bills that go after ammunition sales.
Profiling Shooters
One of the ammunition bills, which was sidelined this year, would have set up the means to profile shooters by logging the caliber of ammunition they were buying. That way, he said, the state would know what kind of gun someone owns, how often they shoot, and would allow the state to conduct a cross reference with the state’s handgun registry to determine whether someone is purchasing ammunition for a gun that is not registered to that individual.
These ammunition bills can be traced to California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and the anti-gun Brady Campaign, he indicated.
Michel lamented that the California Department of Justice “continues to become the gun police in the state.”
“They are seizing guns, interpreting every statute to our detriment,” Michel alleged.
The legislative session is not over and Michel said there were bills on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk. Michel also gave an update on the campaign in San Francisco to pass a gun ban through a referendum. There is an NRA website (www.stopthesanfranban.com) that deals with the ban proposal.
SAF has already announced that it will look at a court lawsuit to stop the ban from taking effect if it passes, and Michel announced that the NRA and CRPA are also preparing for battle.
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