PA Gun owners alert. NRA playing politics with your rights

[mike bell]

April 19, 2004


With Arlen Specter, the NRA Convention and President Bush all being
in the news, I thought you might find the following article of
interest. Please circulate this to all your pro-gun lists.

Sincerely,

Larry Pratt
Executive Director
Gun Owners of America

--------------------------------------------

Specter's Smoking Gun

by Dimitri Vassilaros
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Friday, April 16, 2004


Gun Owners of America makes the National Rifle Association look like
Neville Chamberlain at Munich.

People have been known to sell out whatever principles they have
left for politics. Like the Republican Party hierarchy and the NRA
endorsing U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter over U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey in the
April 27 primary.

The GOA prefers to stick to its guns.

"Specter has always voted for gun owners -- when we do not need
him," said Larry Pratt, executive director of the 300,000-member
organization. He describes it as a grassroots citizens' lobby for
the Second Amendment since its founding in Virginia in 1975.

"(Specter) is the reason why the semi-automatic gun ban got out of
committee and became law. He left the room so he would not be
present to vote."

In its endorsement, the NRA said that "Specter has stood for
America's gun owners and sportsmen to protect our firearms freedoms,
earning high ratings from the NRA for many years of support for the
Second Amendment."

Well, not exactly.


Takes A Walk

From the July 21, 1989, Washington Post:

In yesterday's vote, the fate of the measure hung by a thread as
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), delayed by other business, came into
the room just as DeConcini's proposal appeared headed for a
one-vote victory. If Specter had voted with other Republicans, the
proposal would have died in a tie vote, but Specter said he was not
prepared to vote. Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.)
declared the measure approved and adjourned the meeting. After the
session, NRA legislative director Wayne LaPierre accused Specter of
'taking a pass' on the issue.

The American Rifleman, a publication of the NRA, in a September
1989 story, "Specter Abstains in Critical Vote," suggested Specter
stood still for America's gun owners. "Sen. Arlen Specter, an
expected vote in favor of S. 1225, the Bush administration's
crime-fighting package, and an almost certain vote against the gun
ban, abstained from both votes.

And yet the GOA reminds us that Specter stood with President Bill
Clinton by voting for the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill. That included the
ban on so-called assault weapons.


Ridin' With Ted

"Pennsylvania does not need another six years of Specter," Pratt
said. "Toomey's appeal to mainline voters on gun issues is very
significant. Specter is outside the mainstream. He convinces them
every six years. You will find him at gun shows this year, but after
that, he is back in the saddle another six years, back with Joe
Biden and Ted Kennedy."

And back to being anti-gun, such as in 2002. Specter, along with a
few other liberal senators, voted against allowing airline pilots to
arm themselves in their cockpits.

If the NRA is Chamberlain, the GOA is Churchill. Attempts to reach a
spokesman for the NRA were unsuccessful.

Calls to Specter's people asking for comment only generated this
official response:

The NRA, the country's largest gun owners organization, praised
Senator Specter for voting against the Feinstein Amendment in 1993
that would have banned certain semi-automatic firearms. The NRA is
urging their members to vote for Senator Specter over Toomey.

The NRA must think that appeasing Specter will give gun owners peace
in our time.

[emlaur]

I was watching Fox News yesterday. They were discussing the reasons why a moderate/conservative president like George W. Bush would support a liberal Arlen Specter and not a conservative George Toomey for the senate. The consensus was that President Bush needs Senator Specter to swing the Pennsylvania vote to him in the November election. I hope this is'nt an indication of the depth of President Bush's committment to defending the Second Ammendment.

[emlaur]

Sorry, that should have been Pat Toomey.