(Thursday, July 17 1997) Women’s rights organizations, family and police groups, civil rights and gun organizations — what do they all have in common? On Monday, representatives from this diverse coalition ascended Capitol Hill to denounce the Lautenberg gun ban passed last September.

Concerned Women for America, the largest women’s rights organization in the country, came out strongly against the Lautenberg provision. Joining them were groups such as the Home School Legal Defense Association, Women Against Gun Control, Law Enforcement Alliance of America, Safety for Women and Responsible Motherhood and Gun Owners of America — all of which took part in a Women’s Gun Rights press conference calling on Representatives to cosponsor H.R. 1009, which has more cosponsors (29) than any other bill to repeal Lautenberg.

Yesterday, GOA notified all pro-gun Representatives and Senators of the growing groundswell of support for Chenoweth’s repeal bill as evidenced by the press conference. Sadly, there are more than a few pro-gun Representatives who should be expected to join the fight to repeal Lautenberg but haven’t yet done so. Below is a current list of the cosponsors to H.R. 1009. If your Representative is not on the list, please contact him or her immediately. Ask your Rep. why he or she continues to ignore the widespread opposition to the Lautenberg gun ban.

     BUNNING (R-KY)      KIM (R-CA)
     CANNON (R-UT)       LaHOOD (R-IL)
     CHAMBLISS (R-GA)    LEWIS, R (R-KY)
     COBURN (R-OK)       McINTOSH (R-IN)
     COOKSEY (R-LA)      PAUL (R-TX)
     CRAPO (R-ID)        PICKETT (D-VA)
     CUBIN (R-WY)        SKEEN (R-NM)
     DICKEY (R-AR)       SMITH (R-MI)
     DOOLITTLE (R-CA)    SPENCE (R-SC)
     GIBBONS (R-NV)      STUMP (R-AZ)
     GOODE (D-VA)        THORNBERRY (R-TX)
     HASTINGS (R-WA)     WATTS (R-OK)
     HERGER (R-CA)       WICKER (R-MS)
     HILL (R-MT)         YOUNG, D (R-AK)
     HOSTETTLER (R-IN)

The phone number for the Capitol Hill switchboard is 202-225-3121. Toll-free service is available at 800-962-3524 and 800-972-3524, but those numbers have been inoperable or tied up much of the time in recent days. Voice, fax, and e-mail contact info for the offices of individual Representatives can be found on the GOA website; http://www.gunowners.org/mailerx.html is an auto-mailer which you can use to send a prewritten message to all Representatives who have yet to cosponsor H.R. 1009.

Note: at the press conference, Janalee Tobias of Women Against Gun Control presented Rep. Chenoweth with a huge stack of petitions in support of the repeal. GOA had made that petition available to you for signing by placing it on the web and faxing it by request. It was expected that, once the petitions had been presented, the opportunity for signing would end. However, Mrs. Tobias told Rep. Chenoweth that WAGC will continue to gather signatures.

Again, please contact your Representative if he or she is not on the cosponsor list above.