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Rich Wheeler's
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Page
(Construction started: 30 April 1999)
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Criminals who get guns to break laws
will break laws to get guns.
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Clinton Unveils Draconian Gun
Control
Isn't it strange...
Premier Clintong thinks Mutually Assured Destruction
is good for international safety,
but not good for personal safety?
Bill Clinton and the anti-gunners in Congress
are doing their best to use the horrible tragedy in
Colorado for their own political gain.
Even Reuters pointed out yesterday that,
"The White House has expressed hope that shock over
the 15 deaths last week . . . will help fuel support
for the [anti-gun crime] bill."
No doubt, you heard the President parading
his laundry list in a nationally televised press conference.
His unconstitutional agenda calls for regulating just about
everything but rubber bands and paperclips (...on second
thought, paper clips might be included....):
- Background checks on buyers at all gun-show sales.
With this provision, Clinton is seeking what his
ideological predecessor, King George III, was never able to
obtain -- a registration list of all gun buyers.
- Raising the legal age for handgun possession from 18 to 21.
(The current age for purchasing a handgun is already 21; the age for possessing a handgun is 18.)
This provision will add a little spice to your next
gun safety lesson with the young adult in your house.
Your son or daughter will commit a felony as soon as they
touch the handgun, if they do not -- as required by federal
law -- have a written note of permission from you
on their person.
- Banning juvenile possession of certain semiautomatic rifles.
Like the provision before it, this one will do nothing to stop
juvenile thugs from using guns. Rather, it will punish
law-abiding kids who go target shooting with their parents,
or in some cases, will punish those brave teenagers who
have used their family semi-auto to scare off burglars
in the home.
- Mandatory prison sentences of three to 10 years and
$10,000 fines for adults, including parents, who allow
children access to guns. To avoid liability, parents
will be forced to lock up their means of defense.
The killers in the Arkansas schoolyard shooting are going
to be out of jail in about five years, which means that their
grandparents -- whose guns were stolen to commit the crime --
could spend more time in jail under this provision
than the actual killers!
- Mandatory "safety locks" on all guns sold.
This provision will simply lead to the requirement
that parents lock up their guns (see above).
But locking up your means of defense means that a gun
will not be immediately usable in an emergency
and will actually cost lives.
When Beretta tested a "Saf T Lok," it caused
18 of 27 rounds to "totally malfunction."
And when Handgun Control's chief attorney attempted
to demonstrate the same trigger lock at an HCI-sponsored event,
he found, to his embarrassment, that he was unable to
disengage the lock. (The Wall Street Journal. 23 April 1999)
- Making buyers of explosives subject to the same
Brady law background checks as gun purchasers. We will
have to go through background checks in order to buy
common items which can be used to make bombs.
Are we going to have to go through background checks
to buy gasoline for our cars, propane tanks for our barbecues,
nails for our building projects and fertilizer for our yards?
This could also mean that sporstmen who use muzzleloaders
and those who use "reloaders" -- (i.e., who recycle
their used cartridges -- would have to undergo Brady checks
every time they buy a can of powder.
- Halting imports of ammunition clips that hold more than
10 rounds. Don't tell the President, but a shotgun can pump more lead in less than five seconds than a semi-automatic
with a large magazine clip can put out in a minute.
A shotgun can pump six 00 buckshot shells in less than five
seconds -- that's a total of seventy-two .33-caliber pellets.
Each of these pellets is about the size of a 7.62x39 round --
the type of ammunition which is fired from a semi-automatic
rifle such as the SKS. If Clinton finds this out,
he'll probably go after shotguns next.
- Limiting individual handgun purchases to one per month.
If Clinton can ration a constitutional right to one-per-month,
then he can later make it one-per-year, one-per-lifetime, etc.
- A lifetime ban on gun ownership for people who commit
violent crimes as juveniles.
The language for this provision needs to be viewed
very carefully. After all, a mere verbal threat to damage
property is a "crime of violence" under current federal law.
Should an ill-advised, idle threat made in one's youth
keep that person from protecting his future family
for the rest of his life? (You might recall that as a
teenager, Bill Clinton assaulted his father and threatened
him with violence.)
- A three-day waiting period for all handgun purchases,
with an additional two days if law officers need them to
complete their investigation. (It's already ten working days in my state.)
Waiting periods endanger the lives of innocent people
who need self-protection. Just ask the residents of Los
Angeles who fled to gun stores during the riots of 1992
to buy a gun for self-defense -- only to discover that
they had to wait through a fifteen day waiting period.
On Capitol Hill, Senators Lott and Hatch are avidly
working to send the anti-gun crime bill S. 254
to President Clinton. Thankfully, Senator Bob Smith
(R-NH) is using every parliamentary maneuver imaginable
to keep Clinton's anti-gun crime bill bottled up.
To date, no comprehensive bill has been introduced that
includes all of the President's proposals.
But there are bills in the Congress that contain bits and
pieces of the President's goals. Expect Chuckie Schumer and
others to introduce more bills in the near future.
The President isn't the only one from the administration
stumping for more gun control. GOA Executive Director Larry
Pratt briefly debated Vice-President Al Gore during an MSNBC
national town-meeting. Gore rejected the
notion that citizens should carry concealed firearms,
and advocated more gun control instead.
Pratt referenced the John Lott studies showing that
concealed carry laws reduce crime rates, and even used
the Clinton Justice Department's own figures to show that
as many as 1.5 million people use a gun in self-defense
every year.
Pratt also pointed out that decent citizens -- like
Assistant Principal Joel Myrick of Pearl, Mississippi in
1997 -- have used guns to halt mass shootings in schools.
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Action
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Resources
- Gun Owners of America
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102
Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585
http://www.gunowners.org
Subscribe to the GOA E-Mail Alert Network. No cost,
no obligation, and the volume of mail is quite low.
Simply send a message to goamail@gunowners.org and include the state
in which you live, in either the subject or the body.
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References
- Clinton Unveils Draconian Gun Control.
Gun Owners of America E-Mail/FAX Alert.
Gun Owners of America, Springfield, VA. 30 April 1999.
http://www.gunowners.org
- Senator Bob Smith Blocking Anti-gun Crime Bill
-- But Trent Lott Threatens to 'Roll' Smith
Gun Owners of America E-Mail/FAX Alert.
Gun Owners of America, Springfield, VA. 13 July 1999.
http://www.gunowners.org
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