Money where your mouth is
Looks like the NRA is pushing the Second Amendment Enforcement Act. Good. The Hill notes that NRA is pressuring conservative Democrats to put up or shut up:
The National Rifle Association is putting the election-year squeeze on conservative Democrats, demanding that they buck their leadership to support a bill to erase more of the District of Columbia’s gun laws.
Democratic gun rights supporters will risk losing their A-plus rating if they don’t sign a discharge petition to be filed Wednesday bringing the gun-rights bill directly to the floor.
It will be the first time in more than 20 years that the NRA has “scored” a discharge petition in determining the grades it gives lawmakers before the November election, said spokesman Andrew Arulanandam.
Hats off to NRA for that one. Put the pressure on. Typically, gun bills are avoided like the plague in election years.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Hell yea! That’s the type of NRA I’ve always wanted to support. It’s good to see that the NRA rating system will once again mean something.
There’s one little thing that could make this a bit sweeter…
If you look at our legislative setbacks, you’ll see a pattern of amendments that have been tacked on to bills at the last moment. Yet we’ve never adopted that tactic ourselves.
What could make this a tad sweeter is to tack on something that kills the requirement to buy your firearm in the same state or territory you reside in.
After all, we have the NRA endorsed, Brady approved NICS check, which I’ll remind everyone is a Nationwide Background Check.
In the spirit of compromise, when we got handed that blasted NICS, we ought to have had gotten something in return. A little give-or-take.
If DC refuses to zone for any firearms stores, residents would then be required to move out of state, establish residency, buy a firearm and move back. A last minute NICS intervention would stop all that nonsense.
Striking down the law preventing people from transporting (bearing) their firearms to (for instance) a range in a neighboring state would be icing too.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Whoops, looks like the transport law is in there.
July 24th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“If you look at our legislative setbacks, you’ll see a pattern of amendments that have been tacked on to bills at the last moment. Yet we’ve never adopted that tactic ourselves.”
Because we’re too honest to sneak around like that. A bill should stand or fall on it’s own merits.
That being said, I could stand to use that tactic once – tack on an amendment that bans tacking on amendments that have nothing to do with the stated, narrowly targeted, purpose of the bill. Tack it on to money for the troops, or something else no congresscritter would want to be caught dead voting against.
Ok, getting off my soapbox now. 🙂