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2001 - The Year in Review
Here are some of the top stories we brought you in the NRA-ILA FAX Alert
in 2001. Next year will mark our ninth year of bringing you legislative
and political updates via the NRA-ILA Fax Alert, which can also be
received via e-mail, or online through the NRA-ILA website,
www.NRAILA.org. To receive our Alert via e-mail, simply go to our
website, click on the
"Sign Up For Email" link, and follow the
instructions. If you still receive the Alert by fax, please consider
converting to e-mail to help NRA-ILA save funds. Please call (800)
392-8683 once you begin receiving the alerts via e-mail, and let us know
we can remove you from the fax system.
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JANUARY:The year kicked off with the departure of the most anti-gun
administration in history, and the inauguration of
our 43rd president,
George W. Bush. While
NRA-ILA rallied support for President Bush's
cabinet nominees
John Ashcroft for Attorney General and
Gale Norton for
Secretary of the Interior, NRA-ILA also revealed that the state of
Maryland had implemented a "ballistic fingerprinting" requirement that
created a de facto handgun ban. Unable to comply with the requirement,
many gun makers simply ceased shipping firearms to Maryland.
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FEBRUARY:
Thanks to the pressure brought on the U.S. Senate by NRA
members,
John Ashcroft was confirmed as Attorney General and
Gale Norton
was confirmed as Secretary of the Interior. The partisan attacks on
these highly qualified nominees failed to derail their confirmations,
despite the combined efforts of both the gun-ban lobby and radical
environmentalist groups. Just a week after confirmation, AG Ashcroft
publicly called for tougher enforcement of existing laws against
criminals, rather than passing new laws that infringe upon law-abiding
citizens' Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Also, the latest addition to the
anti-gun community, a group that calls itself "Americans for Gun Safety"
(AGS), launched its well-funded campaign to shut down traditional
American gun shows. The group, which actually has zero members and
nothing to do with gun safety programs, is the pet project of Internet
billionaire and former HCI Board Member Andrew McKelvey.
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MARCH: Anti-gun organizations, having failed in recent years to advance
their extremist agenda using the legislative process,
unveiled a
back-door plan to circumvent it. The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence
(CPHV), the sister organization of HCI, announced it would encourage
state attorneys general to abuse consumer protection laws and establish
arbitrary, expensive, and sometimes impossible-to-achieve manufacturing
and design criteria for firearms manufacturers. In addition, U.S.
Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) renewed their
attempt to
severely restrict NRA's ability to communicate with its
members regarding lawmakers and their positions on firearm-related
issues. Their legislation, "The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001"
(S. 27), passed out of the U.S. Senate, but has thus far failed in the
House of Representatives. The possibility remains strong that this
attack on the First Amendment will return next year.
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APRIL: The gun-ban lobby suffered two monumental judicial defeats, as
the courts continued to reject their reckless lawsuit agenda. First,
the Louisiana Supreme Court threw out the City of New Orleans' lawsuit
against law-abiding firearms manufacturers. Then,
the New York Court of
Appeals rejected Hamilton v. Accu-Tek, another reckless lawsuit that was
heavily supported by HCI and CPHV. These rulings added to the growing
list of cases where courts have determined that firearms manufacturers
cannot be held liable for the criminal actions of third parties.
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MAY: On May 17, NRA-ILA Executive Director James Jay Baker received
a
letter from Attorney General John Ashcroft, which carefully laid out the
Department of Justice's (DOJ) position that the Second Amendment clearly
protects an individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms. This letter marked
a 180 degree change in policy from the Clinton-Reno DOJ, which had
publicly supported the mythical "collective" rights theory promoted by
anti-gun extremists. Also, U.S. Senator James Jeffords (I-Vt.)
announced his decision to
abandon the Republican party to become an
independent, throwing control of the U.S. Senate to the Democratic
Party. This resulted in pro-gun Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) being
replaced as Majority Leader by anti-gunner Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and the
Senate Judiciary Committee falling under the control of three of the
most rabid anti-gun extremists in the Senate: U.S. Senators Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Chuck Schumer
(D-N.Y.).
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JUNE:
AG Ashcroft announced a proposal that would decrease the amount
of time records of lawful gun purchasers generated through the
National
Instant Check System (NICS) can be kept to no more than 24 hours. The
announcement was part of a package of proposals intended to ensure NICS
operates as originally intended - effectively, instantly, and without any
danger of it being abused as a mechanism to register law-abiding gun
purchasers - and to improve the enforcement of existing laws, something
NRA had called for throughout the ordeal of the Clinton-Gore
Administration. In addition, the gun-ban lobby known as HCI announced
it had
changed its name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,
as it desperately seeks to gain public acceptance by trying to create
the facade that it is something other than a group of anti-gun
extremists. Also, the new president of the American Medical Association
(AMA), Dr. Richard Corlin, announced at the AMA's annual meeting that
the organization will expand its focus to include political activism in
the realm of promoting gun control.
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JULY: The United Nations held its "Conference on the Illicit Trade in
Small Arms and Light Weapons," and while the goal of many of the
participants was clearly a full-scale assault on our Right to Keep and
Bear Arms, the U.S. delegation, headed by U.S. Under Secretary John B.
Bolton, stood firm. Bolton's statement to the conference was clear and
unmistakable, and the final product was a non-binding "Draft Programme
of Action" that targets the "illicit trade in small arms," rather than
the rights of America's law-abiding gun owners-the true target of many
involved with the conference.
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Statue at U.N. Headquarters |
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Prof. Lund |
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OCTOBER: Perhaps
the most significant development of 2001 occurred when
the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right to arms. Written by Chief Judge William
Garwood, the 84-page decision in the case of
U.S. v. Emerson carefully
dissected the flaws in past court decisions relating to the Second
Amendment, such as the oft mis-cited
U.S. v Miller, and used copious
historical evidence to support its conclusions. George Lund, a law
professor at George Mason University, summed up the significance of the
case when he called it "[T]he most important and favorable Second
Amendment judicial decision in American history."
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NOVEMBER: Firearm owners enjoyed
a successful day at the polls in
Virginia and
New Jersey, where 92% and 82% of NRA-PVF-endorsed
candidates, respectively, were elected to office. Unfortunately,
Clinton Appointee Ann Brown, the departing Chair of the Consumer
Products Safety Commission, initiated the process to
recall certain
Daisy Powerline BB guns just two days before her resignation became
effective. Also, Senator John McCain set the stage for next year's
early legislative battles, as he
promised to bring up his anti-gun show
legislation, S. 890, as soon as possible when the Senate reconvenes in
January.
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DECEMBER: The year ended with Attorney General John Ashcroft under
attack from anti-gun extremists and their supporters in the media for
simply obeying federal law. This was part of the shameless campaign,
heavily promoted by anti-gun extremists, to
exploit our nation's
legitimate fear over terrorism in order to further their gun-ban agenda.
On a positive note, however, U.S. Representative Bob Stump (R-Ariz.)
led the effort to strip from the "National Defense Authorization Act for
FY 2002" a provision that sought to provide the Secretary of Defense
with the authority to require "demilitarization" of any "significant
military equipment" that has ever been owned by the Department of
Defense. Known as Section 1062, the provision could have required all
U.S. military surplus firearms (such as the venerable M1, M1 Carbine,
and Model 1911, as well as all Civilian Marksmanship Program rifles,
even "sporterized" surplus bolt-action Springfields!), firearm barrels,
ammunition, and gun powder that had been lawfully acquired be rendered
permanently inoperable.
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