01/95 HR 464: Republican Leadership Betrayal

Republican Leadership is Giving us the Shaft!
— Time to hold their feet to the fire on semi-auto ban repeal

by Gun Owners of America

(January 25, 1995) — The Republican Party leadership in the House is trying to kill the best chance we have of passing the semi-auto ban repeal. They are trying to prevent the repeal measure (which also would lift the limitation on magazine capacity) from being introduced as an amendment to the crime bill. And thus, they have said they are strongly considering a plan that will divide the crime bill into several separate bills — preventing a semi-auto ban repeal from being considered germane if offered as an amendment to any of these bills. (In other words, the leadership wants the repeal to come up as a stand-alone bill, not an amendment to the crime bill.)

Attaching the semi-auto ban repeal to the crime bill is the best chance we have of actually enacting this provision. As a stand-alone bill, the repeal would either be vetoed by the President or die a slow death in the Senate.

That is why Reps. Bartlett (MD) and Stockman (TX) want to introduce their bill as an amendment to the crime bill. They are willing to do it; we just need the Republican leadership to not block their attempts. By the way, Rep. Chapman (TX) has joined forces with Bartlett and Stockman! Their new bill (that is, a third bill) will now be known as the Bartlett/Chapman/Stockman bill, and it is a tougher bill than the original Chapman bill. Thank you for contacting your Representatives last week. Now we must move to the next fight.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:

* Contact the Republican leadership and urge them to allow the semi-auto repeal to be offered as an amendment to the crime bill. Tell them not to break up the crime bill into several different bills. Tell them they need to put forth their best effort to enact the semi-auto ban repeal. Everybody admits that the House does have the votes to pass the repeal measure. If the House, attaches the repeal measure to the crime bill, then we can easily prevent it from being taken out in the Senate (by using a filibuster). But if the House fails to put the repeal measure in the crime bill, the repeal will probably just sit on the shelf and go nowhere.

* Offices to contact in the Republican leadership are: House Speaker Newt Gingrich (202-225-4501, fax: 5-4656), Majority Leader Dick Armey (5-7772, fax: 5-7614), Majority Whip Tom DeLay (5-5951, fax: 5-5241) and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bill McCollum (5-2176, fax: 5-0999). All numbers begin with 202-225.

* Don’t let the leadership tell you that a semi-auto repeal may provoke a Clinton veto, and that they can not risk jeopardizing their crime bill reforms. Gun owners helped put the Republicans in the majority last November 8. Even President Clinton has admitted this! If it wasn’t for gun owners, the Republicans wouldn’t even have a crime bill to be pushing. It would still be a Democratic Congress and Republicans would still be on the outside looking in. Tell them they had better dance with the ones who brought them!

Furthermore, it was Republicans like Henry Hyde (IL) that helped pass the semi-auto ban last year. If traitors like him hadn’t stabbed us in the back, we wouldn’t be in this mess. And then, after we (temporarily) defeated the crime bill last year, it was Rep. Newt Gingrich who allowed the “moderate” Republicans to negotiate a compromise crime bill — one that still included the gun ban in it! Gingrich later admitted that he had made a mistake, that he should have hung tough and fought harder (The Washington Times, 9/19/94). But that admission came a little bit too late. Tell the leadership that they had better not make the mistake of failing to do everything possible — of putting forth their best efforts — to salvage our Second Amendment rights.

Finally, we can not just assume that Clinton will veto a crime bill that has the gun ban repeal in it. It is true he has threatened to do so. But when was the last time you heard him make a promise and stick to it! There are Democratic Congressmen that believe Clinton might actually sign a crime bill (that has a repeal measure) into law. After all, it could be quite difficult for the President to veto a crime bill with his election around the corner.

* Please distribute this alert to your friends, family, gun clubs, fax/phone trees, etc.