Michigan Gun Owners
From GOA:
URGENT MICHIGAN ALERT
-- Contact Rep. Dingell and urge him to drop his support of the Schumer-McCarthy bill!
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/ordergoamem.htm
Monday, April 30, 2007
Last week, GOA alerted you twice to the Brady Law expansion bill -- legislation that will continue the assault on your Second Amendment rights.
This bill (HR 297) is gun control, pure and simple, and it is being pushed by the most rabid anti-gun congressmen in Washington. Current and past sponsors include anti-gun Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and Dick Durbin (D-IL). And on the House side, there's the notorious Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and John Conyers (D-MI) who are in full support of this gun control measure.
But what is confusing a lot of pro-gun Congressmen on the Hill is the fact that a former NRA Board Director (Rep. John Dingell of Michigan) and a current NRA board member (Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho) are both on record in support of this legislation.
No wonder so many pro-gun congressmen on the Hill are confused.
So what can we do? Or more importantly, what can YOU do?
Well, your living in Michigan gives you a very powerful voice in this fight. As mentioned above, a congressman from your state -- John Dingell -- has already cosponsored this bill. It's not too late to ask him to reconsider his support. After all, he opposed the original Brady bill in 1993. So why, in heaven's name, would he support an expansion of the law in 2007?
The Washington Post reported on April 20 that Rep. Dingell has become the point man for pushing HR 297. As such, he should have to explain to every Michigan resident why he thinks it was necessary for him to become a mouthpiece for Sarah Brady and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY).
McCarthy is the Queen of Gun Control in the House of Representatives.
She holds an F- rating with Gun Owners of America. And while she is the chief sponsor of this bill, she's taking a back seat, having admitted to The Washington Post that her "crusades" for more gun control have made her voice "toxic" in gun circles.
"So Dingell is handling negotiations with the NRA," the Post reported. "Dingell is also in talks with Sens. Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), House Minority Leader John A.
Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.), the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee."
In essence, Dingell has become an "evangelist" of sorts for this gun control bill in the House. And this from a former NRA Director! We dare not let him stab the gun community in the back without us raising a fuss.
And that's why your help is needed.
Getting Representative Dingell to back off of his evangelistic kick
-- and to renounce his support -- would send shockwaves through the Congress and keep pro-gun legislators from getting behind this legislation as well.
So it is imperative that you, and as many other gun owners in the state of Michigan as you can find, contact Rep. Dingell and encourage him to stop doing the dirty work for Sarah Brady and Carolyn McCarthy. Tell him to stop selling out our rights.
You know that more gun control is not the answer to school shootings.
And that is why we have provided you a special letter below to really help make the point that gun control is the problem, not the solution.
ACTION:
1. Please take immediate action and contact Representative John Dingell. You can write him by e-mailing his Legislative Director in Washington, DC at:
joshua.tzuker@mail.house.gov
Or you can contact Representative Dingell by:
Phone: 202-225-4071 -- or use the toll-free switchboard at
877-762-8762
Fax: 202-226-0371
2. Circulate this e-mail far and wide in the state of Michigan. Get EVERY GUN OWNER you can to contact Representative Dingell. Urge him to reconsider his position on this bill and to renounce his previous support of it.
----- Pre-written letter -----
Dear Representative Dingell:
I am very concerned about our Second Amendment rights. And I am extremely disappointed that you are doing Carolyn McCarthy's dirty work in supporting HR 297, as reported by The Washington Post on April 20 in "Dingell, NRA Working on Bill to Strengthen Background Checks."
According to the Post, you have been anointed as the evangelist to get pro-gun representatives to support HR 297, even though you voted against the Brady bill in 1993. Why are you trying to expand something you were against in the first place?
One of the nation's leading anti-gun medical publications, the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the Brady registration law has failed to reduce murder rates. In August 2000, JAMA reported that states implementing waiting periods and background checks did "not [experience] reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates." Studies from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Academy of Sciences also found similar results.
So I implore you to NOT support this legislation... to tell Rep.
McCarthy that you want OUT... and that you will instead try to REPEAL the gun control laws that create criminal safe zones, such as the one that exists on the Virginia Tech campus where no one is allowed to carry a gun for self-defense.
Rep. Dingell, do you really think that expanded background checks will ultimately stop evil-minded people from getting a gun and prevent school shootings? In considering your answer, don't forget Canada, Germany and Scotland. Even though these countries have imposed massive amounts of gun control, they have all been afflicted with school shootings in the past ten years.
And are you aware that current gun control laws are denying law-abiding Americans their Second Amendment rights -- sometimes erroneously, but other times by intent? Before the Virginia Tech massacre occurred on April 16, there were several students and professors at that university who had publicly expressed their desire to carry guns on campus. But gun control left them disarmed and defenseless.
Now, rather than repealing existing gun control, HR 297 would expand the Brady law -- even though it has already kept countless, law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
Americans have been prevented from buying guns because of outstanding traffic tickets, because of errors, because the NICS computer system has crashed, because combat veterans sought treatment to deal with the shakes after returning home and because married couples got into screaming matches with one another -- and are now disarmed for life as a result of the Lautenberg gun ban that you voted for in 1996.
This should teach us that if you give an anti-gun bureaucrat an inch, he'll take a mile. (By the way, Gun Owners of America has documented, on its website, numerous instances of the abuses mentioned above, which have resulted in good people being denied their gun rights FOREVER.)
Again, I hope that you will reconsider your support for HR 297 and renounce everything it stands for. Please tell me that you will do so.
Sincerely,
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