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Neal Knox Update Wisconsin override? |
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NRA Board vote | ||
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Tuesday the Wisconsin Assembly will vote on whether to override Gov. Jim Doyle’s (D) veto of a license to carry law. The Senate has already passed the measure and the state’s press and leftist organizations are practically foaming at the mouth to stop it. The override could succeed or fail by a single vote. The vote had been scheduled this past Tuesday but was cancelled because one pro-gun member was absent due to illness a claim disputed by the press, which said the delay indicated the majority Republicans didn’t have the votes. The licensing bill originally passed two votes short of a veto-proof two-thirds margin. The two Republicans who originally voted against it have agreed to support the override but at least one of the seven Democrats who voted for the bill will oppose it. Three other Democrats say they will vote to override but the other three aren’t talking and for the law to pass at least one of them must stand by his or her earlier vote, despite the blandishments and coercions to “support your governor.” It’s nail-biting time in Wisconsin. New York Gov. George Pataki (R) has included in his Executive Budget a proposal to increase the handgun license fee to possess, not carry by a $100 “certification” fee, establish a five-year expiration (most are now issued for life), charge $25 for each handgun owned, and lift the cap on licensing charges by local licensing agencies. New York’s budget problems are so great that these fees cannot possibly make any difference to the treasury, but will hurt individual handgun owners which, of course, is the intent. When the handgun license fee was initially enacted in 1911 it was 50 cents. It has been increased in nearly every session of the legislature since. “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” Ohio's new concealed handgun license, which takes effect April, disqualifies applicants who have felony convictions, have protective orders against them, or who have been committed even voluntarily to a mental institution. Making that last determination is a problem for sheriffs, the state’s attorney general says, for the Federal law protecting the privacy of individuals’ medical records says such records may be used only for health care purposes. Do you suppose Gov. Bob Taft (R), who opposed the law every step of the way, then signed it while piously proclaiming his love for the Second Amendment, will now decide that no licenses can be issued because those non-available medical records can’t be checked? NRA-ILA has a new web page, www.ClintonGunBan.com, designed to educate Congressmen and staff to the “purely symbolic” (to quote the Washington Post) “assault weapon ban.” A streaming video “Story of the Gun Ban” is available on the page, along with news updates and other info. Being designed for politicians, the video focuses on the political impact of the 1994 Ban, which Bill Clinton told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper caused Republicans to take control of the House for the first time in 40 years while defeating the only sitting Speaker in modern history. The bill will expire Sept. 13 unless the anti-gun crowd succeeds in passing an extension or expansion as they’re swearing to do. Their own just-started web page, www.NRAmadness.com, is long on emotion [and noise] and short on facts (most of those distorted or false) about both the gun ban and S. 659, which prohibits lawsuits against gun manufacturers and FFL’s for misuse of their products by other parties (not all civil suits, as claimed). The page is apparently from Handgun Control Inc., still the official name of the Brady Bunch. S. 659 is scheduled to be on the Senate floor for three days beginning March 3 and will attract a string of “killer amendments” including extension and expansion of the semi-auto ban, gun show restrictions, and striking the just-enacted Tiahrt reforms The NRA-ILA video contains so much information, both visual and voice-over, that it’s going to be very difficult for the uneducated to absorb it. And unfortunately, there’s no pause button to read the on-point newspaper headlines or a button to return to the Home Page. Despite those quibbles, it contains a lot of good information that most people and certainly most new Congressmen and staff don’t know. And it should reassure those who fear that NRA-ILA is going to accept the ban in order to get S. 659 enacted.
This is the Firearms Coalition's Alerts list. |
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