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REPRESENTATIVE
HOSTETTLER
Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN) is still rattling his
saber in the direction of the White House. Determined to
keep Bill Clinton from imposing back door gun control upon the nation,
he is asking grassroots gun owners to continue helping him "defang"
the recent agreement between the Clintons and Smith & Wesson. You will remember that last month, your activism helped get several dozen Congressmen to sign letters written to two appropriations chairmen. Those letters, authored by the pro-gun Rep. Hostettler, asked House leaders to "defund" the BATF's ability to enforce the Clinton & Wesson sell-out agreement. Gun Owners of America (GOA) members and activists helped Hostettler get more than 60 signatures for these letters -- a significant number, to be sure. Hostettler's office noted that such a high number of signatures forces the subcommittee chairmen to "take notice" that there's a lot of support for refusing to tolerate back-door gun control. Since S&W inked the agreement with the Clinton administration, not one manufacturer or dealer has signed on to the compact. While disheartened, the administration is continuing its attempts at coercing other companies to buckle under. What is at stake here is whether Clinton will succeed at bypassing Congress to expand the S&W pact and, thus, impose gun control legislation upon manufacturers, upon dealers AND UPON YOU!
One of the administration's tactics is the ancient art of the "bribe". In true fascist style (which essentially is private benefit from public power), many gun banners in administrations across the country are willing to buy Smith & Wesson arms exclusively for their police departments. For example, this was illustrated in a recent interview with WorldNet Daily. Taurus Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Bob Morrison, explained the bribe HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo offered them. "If we would come with S&W, he (Cuomo) would absolutely make us favored with lush government contracts to buy more firearms from us.", Morrison said.
To their credit, Taurus told Cuomo and the Clinton administration to
take a hike. That's the good news. The not so
good news is that many companies are still under the
threat of lawsuits on the one hand, and are being
offered the bribe on the other. And thus, Rep. Hostettler
has introduced legislation to stop both. Rep. Hostettler recently introduced H.R. 4257 to stop the administration from rewarding any gun maker that cuts a gun control deal with the government. The language from this bill has an excellent chance of making its way to the President's desk, as it could be easily included in one of the government appropriations bills! Thus, it is imperative that H.R. 4257 gets as many cosponsors as possible -- and soon. Now that the budget process has started, Hostettler needs a huge show of force (by getting many cosponsors on his bill) to convince House leaders they should add his "no-funds-for-bribing-gun-makers" bill to the budget.
Gun owners need to contact their Representatives in support of H.R.
4257. We must stand up for the businesses that make
our 2nd Amendment freedoms possible. As Ben
Franklin said, "We all need to hang together,
or else we'll all hang separately." On May 10th, 2000 Rep. Hostettler succeeded in getting his bill amended to the Department of Defense appropriations. This is a tremendous first step, but more work is needed. The 39-20 vote assures that the DOD will not be able to reward S&W with favoritism, but the amendment which passed today is quite limited. It ONLY APPLIES to the Defense Department. The bigger concern is still the Departments of Treasury, Justice and HUD, which are wielding huge "carrots," luring other gun makers to sell their souls to the administration. For this reason, we still need to get as many cosponsors as possible on H.R. 4257.
Your activism has paid off handsomely in the U.S. Senate. Democrats had threatened to offer dozens of amendments to the education bill (S.2). And regrettably, some Republicans were crafting anti-gun compromises to blunt the Democratic proposals. Either way, gun owners stood to lose ground. But thankfully, thousands of emails, faxes and phone calls from hard-core GOA activists poured into the Senate, urging opposition to such a suicidal game plan. When the lights are turned on, darkness flees.
The result has been that compromising Republicans on the Hill have found
some backbone, and have used parliamentary maneuvers to keep gun
control entirely off the bill. It appears that the education bill
has stalled, and no attempts to attach gun control to the bill are
expected.
Dear Representative:
Please cosponsor H.R. 4257, a bill that would defund any attempt by
the Clinton administration to show favoritism to gun makers
-- like Smith & Wesson -- that cut gun control
deals with the President. It is outrageous that the gun haters in
the President's administration are trying to bribe
gun makers into joining Smith & Wesson and
imposing gun control upon the people of this nation. I hope you will
notify Mr. Hostettler right away that you want to cosponsor
H.R. 4257. (Article provided by The Gun Owners Of America (GOA)) |