Brady Campaign celebrates NRA sell out of
gun owners
US. Senators John Sununu and Judd Gregg ignored your postcards,
letters, emails and phone calls --- they were absent in the fight
for freedom...
“We commend the United States Congress
for its action today
to strengthen the Brady background check system.” Those
were the words of Paul Helmke the President of the Brady gun ban group.
Helmke was referring to the sneak passage of HR 2640 -- the
NRA-supported expansion of federal gun control -- which passed with no
debate and no recorded votes. Both the US
Senate and the US House passed this bill on
December 19th under so called "unanimous consent" agreements.
We are not surprised that politicians would push more gun control with
no accountability. But what is greatly troubling is that the National
Rifle Association (NRA) was the primary force behind this latest attack
on Second Amendment rights.
Let's be clear, if the Brady Campaign is supporting HR2640, which is
co-sponsored by the likes of anti-gun Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and Rep.
John Dingell (Who sold gunowners out in 1994 when he voted for the
Clinton semi auto ban.) And supported by anti gun US Senator
Charles
Schumer, the legislation cannot and does not benefit firearms
owners.
The New Hampshire
Firearms Coalition, Inc. has been opposed to HR2640 from the
beginning. We are opposed to any legislation which will expand
the unconstitutional instant check. We are also opposed to any
legislation which gives the power to disarm law abiding Americans to
shrinks -- (psychologists and psychiatrists).
The NRA's spin machine is operating at full capacity praising the
passage of a bill written by the most anti-gun members of Congress.
The bill expands and extends the failed Brady background check system,
a gun registration scheme that has denied thousands of qualified people
the ability to purchase a firearm.
It is amazing that the NRA would revive a bill that was going nowhere
just to give more power to the people who are denying legitimate
firearms purchases now.
You will recall that the NRA supported the original Brady Bill because
they approved of background checks for gun buys. That a "pro-gun"
organization could support prior restraint of a right is bad enough,
but now, years after this system has been in place, the NRA joins
forces with an organization that has raised millions of dollars to
strip Americans
of their Second Amendment civil rights in order to expand this
dangerous law.
The NRA insisted that this bill, rammed though when they hoped no
one was watching, was going to benefit gun owners. On their
website, the
NRA uses the following quote to further their lie that HR2640 is good
for firearms owners: "Provides
that if a person applies for relief from disabilities and the agency
fails to act on the application within a year—for any reason, including
lack of funds—the applicant can seek immediate review of his
application in federal court."
A year? A
person who applies for relief has to wait a year before they can demand
that some action be taken? That's a mighty long time to wait for the
right to have a firearm... especially if you need one. Oh, and then
they get to go to court, to "seek" review. The newly disarmed veteran can spend
thousands of additional dollars to sue. And, as the plaintiff, the
wrongly disarmed veteran has the burden of proof. While
enemies of gun rights are crowing about
this "victory," the biggest problem, (lost in NRA's extensive
justification for what CBS News called “the first major new gun control
bill in more than a decade,”) is a simple reality that NRA refuses to
acknowledge:
This
bill turns over more power and more information to the very agencies
that have used existing law to deny thousands of Americans their Second
Amendment Rights... or make it
prohibitively expensive to exercise those rights.
In Virginia, countless qualified buyers are denied purchases because of
the intentional obstruction of government agencies who maintain these
records.
The original Brady Bill allowed for an end to the mandatory waiting
periods when the availability of records allowed for an "instant"
background check. We have long since passed that point, but for far too
many people the background check is anything but "instant" stretching
to weeks and months for many. How can the NRA and its apologists
believe that the abysmal record keeping (or the outright obstruction of
some agencies) is going to improve by handing these bureaucracies more
power and personal information?
In an article entitled "Clearing The Air On The Instant Check Bill ",
NRA said the following:
"In the late 1990s, gun buyers often experienced ridiculous delays
while NICS sorted through cases of mistaken identity or incomplete
police records. Many purchasers were wrongly denied and forced to go
through a cumbersome appeals process. At the same time, state officials
testified before Congress about woefully incomplete records they
provide to NICS--a problem confirmed in recent reports by the U.S.
Department of Justice"
Someone needs to alert these so called guardians of our gun rights,
that
nothing has changed. We are now well past the 1990's.
Gun owners
are still being delayed and denied and still face "cumbersome appeals
processes." If you are delayed without cause, that's just
"tough." The
so called "safeguards" built into the law are meaningless and ignored.
Sure, the law says if you don't get an approval within three days, a
firearms transfer may take place, but just try it. And now NRA
wants to solve the problems they created with Brady by giving
us more of the same. They are telling us that the government
bureaucrats will now be using accurate records, we should all be
thankful and this is a great step forward.
We at
NHFC, Inc. beleive that the "ridiculous delays" is justification enough
to REPEAL the instant check. We cannot see how a organization
that
calls itself progun could support expanding the instant registration
check. It's broken, lets get rid if it!
In the world of gun rights, "good intentions" don't cut it . As poorly
kept and abused as the records of criminal behavior are, at least
crimes are generally easy to quantify. "Mental illness" is far less
black and white. You will recall the Bush efforts to screen the entire
US population for "mental illness."
The NRA has joined forces with politicians and organizations who have
declared their intention to end gun ownership in this country. They
have rammed through legislation that requires that more records be
handed over to people who have proven they cannot be trusted with them
-- the feds. They have asked that gun owners believe that the same
people who defunded the process to allow people to get their gun rights
back under the current law won't defund the lengthy process to get your
rights back under this new law.
If you believe that more records in the hands of more government
operators is a good idea, you may want to think about the first act of
the Clinton Administration when they took over the White House in
January
1993. The FBI record
scandal proved beyond any doubt how unscrupulous political
operatives can bypass the law to ruin people's lives.
Here is
what you can do to help:
1) In an alert titled "Outrage
of the Week" the NRA has invited readers to share their "weekly
outrage." They
say "If you see something that you feel would be a good candidate for
the “Outrage of the Week!” section, please send it to: freedomsvoice@nrahq.org,
We
think the sneaky passage of the NRA-Schumer-McCarthy gun control
bill more than qualifies.
Please send a copy your message to the NRA's Federal Lobbyist, Chuck
Cunningham, chuckc@visi.net and federal-Affairs@nrahq.orgPlease let the NRA know
that they don't speak for New Hampshire firearms owners when they
support more gun control!
2) US Senators Judd Gregg and John Sununu received thousands of
postcards, letters, emails and phone calls from NHFC, Inc. members and
supporters. They ignored your requests to filibuster the
bill. We asked them nicely "... don't allow gun control to pass on your watch"
but they ignored our calls for help and refused to filibuster the
bill. In fact they were absent when HR2640 was
passed! You need to contact them and let them know
you are
outraged at their sellout to the anti gun forces of evil. Be polite but firm. Let the
Senators know that you are watching what they do in Washington and you
were outraged that they allowed gun control to pass on their
watch!
Let them both know that you don't appreciate the fact that they were
ABSENT when this important piece of legislation was approved!
Senator Sununu may be contacted here: http://www.sununu.senate.gov/webform.html Senator Gregg may be contacted
here: http://gregg.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
