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 06.17.10
THE NRA SELLOUT CONTINUES |
The
NRA's shameless sellout of gun owners and the US Constitution
continues. HR 5175, a bill to cripple free speech is fast tracked
for passage in the US House and the NRA's "do what you
want to the girl just don't hurt me" approach gets worse
every day.
You can listen to Wayne LaPierre's bumbling, contradictory explanation
of this contemptible roll-over here.
You can read about this bizarre and dangerous stand the NRA
has taken here,
here
and here.
You can contact your Congressman using this website.
You can make it short and sweet. NO ON HR.5175.
If you are an NRA member, you can contact them, but we will
tell you what they will say and in fact, even have said on their
outgoing message if you call them. The craven double talk follows:
We appreciate some NRA members’
concerns about our position on H.R. 5175, the “DISCLOSE
Act.” Unfortunately, critics of our position have misstated
or misunderstood the facts.
We have never said we would support any version of this bill.
To the contrary, we clearly stated NRA’s strong opposition
to the DISCLOSE Act (as introduced) in a letter sent to Members
of Congress on May 26 (click here to read the letter).
Through the courts and in Congress, the NRA has consistently
and strongly opposed any effort to restrict the rights of our
four million members to speak and have their voices heard on
behalf of gun owners nationwide. The initial version of H.R.
5175 would effectively have put a gag order on the NRA during
elections and threatened our members’ freedom of association,
by forcing us to turn our donor lists over to the federal government.
We would also have been forced to list our top donors on all
election-related television, radio and Internet ads and mailings—even
mailings to our own members. We refuse to let this Congress
impose those unconstitutional restrictions on our Association.
The NRA provides critical firearms training for our Armed Forces
and law enforcement throughout the country. This bill would
force us to choose between training our men and women in uniform
and exercising our right to free political speech. We refuse
to let this Congress force us to make that choice.
We didn’t “sell out” to Nancy Pelosi or anyone
else. We told Congress we opposed the bill. As a result, congressional
leaders made a commitment to exempt us from its draconian restrictions
on free speech. If that commitment is honored, we will not be
involved in the final House debate. If that commitment is not
fully honored, we will strongly oppose the bill.
Our position is based on principle and experience. During consideration
of the previous campaign finance legislation passed in 2002,
congressional leadership repeatedly refused to exempt the NRA
from its provisions, promising that our concerns would be fixed
somewhere down the line. That didn't happen; instead, the NRA
had to live under those restrictions for seven years and spend
millions of dollars on compliance costs and on legal fees to
challenge the law. We will not go down that road again when
we have an opportunity to protect our ability to speak.
There are those who say the NRA has a greater duty to principle
than to gun rights. It’s easy to say we should put the
Second Amendment at risk over some so-called First Amendment
principle – unless you have a sworn duty to protect the
Second Amendment above all else, as we do.
The NRA is a bipartisan, single-issue organization made up of
millions of individual members dedicated to the protection of
the Second Amendment. We do not represent the interests of other
organizations. That's their responsibility. Our responsibility
is to protect and defend the interests of our members. And that
we do without apology.
Note. You can view and track HR 5175 here.
You can read an analysis of the bill here.
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© 2000 - 2010, Oregon Firearms Federation. All Rights Reserved.
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