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OFF ALERT 06/30/06

PRO GUN AMENDMENT PASSES US HOUSE

Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave arguing for her pro-gun amendment.

On June 28th Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave passed an amendment to an appropriations bill that stops the federal government from implementing the trigger lock provisions of the gun lawsuits liability bill passed by the NRA last year.

The Musgrave Amendment (an amendment to the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations bill) will allow no funds to be made available (to the Justice Department) to carry out section 924(p) of title 18. This section is the penalties section relating to the new trigger lock law that says that every handgun sold, must be sold with a trigger lock.

The penalty for manufacturers, importers and licensed dealers who fail to provide a trigger lock with a sale of a handgun is:

Suspension for not more than 6 months, or revocation of their license.

Fine of not more than $2,500.

The trigger lock provision was part of the "Firearms Manufacturers Protection" bill that was signed into law on Oct. 26, 2005. The trigger lock provision took effect on April 24th, 2006. At the time the bill was being debated, we warned of the dangers of the trigger lock requirement, but the NRA insisted that the bill pass with that and other bad provisions.

There were 230 aye votes and 191 noes on Musgrave's amendment. All four Democratic, Oregon House members voted against your rights, only Republican Greg Walden supported the amendment.

Hooley, DeFazio,Blumenauer and Wu all voted "no."

You can view the vote here.

Capitol sources informed us, that before the vote, it looked like the amendment might die because the NRA had not taken a position. When pressed by hill staffers, the NRA simply would not take a stand on the amendment.

According to those sources, the NRA's reasoning for not getting involved was "our plate is just too full right now."

Remember that early in 2005 the NRA claimed they would strip out these bad provisions after they passed the gun lawsuits liability bill in the Senate. Then, when the trigger lock provisions were added in the Senate, they claimed they HAD to pass this bill as it was. They put a full court press on Congress to pass a bill with trigger lock provisions, and dismissed the anti-gun amendments as "meaningless."

Anyone who needs their firearm in a hurry, but has been fed the lie about trigger locks, won't call this capitulation on trigger locks "meaningless."

This amendment was an attempt to undo what the NRA did in 2005 -- and it passed, despite the naysayers in the institutional gun lobby. Now we need to get the same amendment attached to the appropriation in the Senate.