Time To Repeat Last Month’s Success

You will remember that last month, your activism helped get several dozen Congressmen to sign letters written to two appropriations chairmen. Those letters, authored by the pro-gun Rep. Hostettler, asked House leaders to defund the BATF’s ability to enforce the Clinton & Wesson sell-out agreement.

GOA members and activists helped Hostettler get more than 60 signatures for these letters — a significant number, to be sure. Hostettler’s office noted that such a high number of signatures forces the subcommittee chairmen to “take notice” that there’s a lot of support for refusing to tolerate back-door gun control.

Since S&W inked the agreement with the Clinton administration, not one manufacturer or dealer has signed on to the compact. While disheartened, the administration is continuing its attempts at coercing other companies to buckle under. What is at stake here is whether Clinton will succeed at bypassing Congress to expand the S&W pact and, thus, impose gun control legislation upon manufacturers, upon dealers AND UPON YOU!

Clinton Offering “Carrot On The Stick” To Get Manufacturers To Swallow Gun Control

One of the administration’s tactics is the ancient art of the “bribe.” In true fascist style (which essentially is private benefit from public power), many gun banners in administrations across the country are willing to buy Smith & Wesson arms exclusively for their police departments.

For example, this was illustrated in a recent interview with WorldNetDaily. Taurus Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Bob Morrison, explained the bribe HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo offered them. “If we would come with S&W, he [Cuomo] would absolutely make us favored with lush government contracts to buy more firearms from us,” Morrison said.

To their credit, Taurus told Cuomo and the Clinton administration to take a hike. That’s the good news. The not so good news is that many companies are still under the threat of lawsuits on the one hand, and are being offered the bribe on the other. And thus, Rep. Hostettler has introduced legislation to stop both.

Hostettler Bill (H.R. 4257) Would Stop The Strong-Arm Tactics Of The Anti-Gun Clinton Administration

Rep. Hostettler recently introduced H.R. 4257 to stop the administration from rewarding any gun maker that cuts a gun control deal with the government.

The language from this bill has an excellent chance of making its way to the President’s desk, as it could be easily included in one of the government appropriations bills! Thus, it is imperative that H.R. 4257 gets as many cosponsors as possible — and soon. Now that the budget process has started, Hostettler needs a huge show of force (by getting many cosponsors on his bill) to convince House leaders they should add his “no-funds-for-bribing-gun-makers” bill to the budget.

Gun owners need to contact their Representatives in support of H.R. 4257. We must stand up for the businesses that make our 2nd Amendment freedoms possible. As Ben Franklin said, “we all need to hang together, or else we’ll all hang separately.”

Hostettler Scores Big In The DOD Appropriations Committee Today

As this alert was going to press today, Rep. Hostettler had just succeeded in getting his bill amended to the Department of Defense appropriations. This is a tremendous first step, but more work is needed.

The 39-20 vote assures that the DOD will not be able to reward S&W with favoritism, but the amendment which passed today is quite limited. It ONLY APPLIES to the Defense Department. The bigger concern is still the Departments of Treasury, Justice and HUD, which are wielding huge “carrots,” luring other gun makers to sell their souls to the administration. For this reason, we still need to get as many cosponsors as possible on H.R. 4257.

Good Work On Your Senators

Your activism has paid off handsomely in the U.S. Senate. Democrats had threatened to offer dozens of amendments to the education bill (S. 2). And regrettably, some Republicans were crafting anti-gun compromises to blunt the Democratic proposals. Either way, gun owners stood to lose ground.

But thankfully, thousands of emails, faxes and phone calls from hard-core GOA activists poured into the Senate, urging opposition to such a suicidal game plan. When the lights are turned on, darkness flees.

The result has been that compromising Republicans on the Hill have found some backbone, and have used parliamentary maneuvers to keep gun control entirely off the bill. It appears that the education bill has stalled, and no attempts to attach gun control to the bill are expected.

—– Pre-written Message —–

Dear Representative:

Please cosponsor H.R. 4257, a bill that would defund any attempt by the Clinton administration to show favoritism to gun makers — like Smith & Wesson — that cut gun control deals with the President.

It is outrageous that the gun haters in the President’s administration are trying to bribe gun makers into joining Smith & Wesson and imposing gun control upon the people of this nation.

I hope you will notify Mr. Hostettler right away that you want to cosponsor H.R. 4257. Please let me know what you intend to do. Thank you.

Sincerely,