From: LEROY.PYLE@prn-bbs.org (LEROY PYLE) Subject: OHIO ALERT by Larry Pratt To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 18:24:20 GMT Do you really think the answer to federal gun control is state gun control? by Gun Owners of America 703-321-8585 Ohio Brady-style registration-mechanism -- HB 336-- moving fast. Vote in Judiciary Committee today (06121195)! Please CALL and FAX your Ohio state Representative and members of the Judiciary Committee (listed below) immediately. Main Switchboard: 614-466-3357 I FAX: 614-644-9494 Ask your state Representative to support Rep. Ron Hood's amendments. Judiciary Committee (For all #`s Area Code = 614): Kasputis (644-0961), Mason (6446002), Sutton (6446037), Womer-Benjamin (466-2004), Hood (466-1464), Ford (466-1401), Garcia (466-1418), Hartley (466-3787), Lucas (466-3486), Myers (466-8100), Doty (644-5085), Reid (6446020), Suster (466-8012), Taylor (466-1957), Wise (644-9444). FYI -- GOA sent the following letter to Ohio State Representatives which explains the problem: June 20, 1995 Members Ohio House of Representatives 77 South High Street Columbus, OH 43266-0603 Dear Representatives, In the next 48 hours in Columbus you will likely vote whether or not to take away even more of your constituents' gun rights. You will be asked to ratify and mimic at the state level the Brady Act's unconstitutional mandate to state and local governments that they carry out unfunded background checks. This is in violation of the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Bill of Rights; five out of six U.S. Federal District courts have declared this to be so. If you vote for HB 336-- or a so-called "substitute" bill -- it will be you, not the federal government, who acts to take away the rights of your gun owning constituents. Why should Ohio's legislature cave into such an obviously uncon- stitutional law? After all the Brady Act's waiting period sunsets in less than 4 years. The heart and soul of the Brady Act is NOT the waiting period. The heart and soul is the mandated background check requirement. "instant" or otherwise. Such a mandate is de facto registration. It is dangerous to the rights of gun owners in spite of legal "safeguards." The federal Brady Act mandates a background~check registration- mechanism which the courts are finding unconstitutional on 10th Amendment grounds. But establishing a state-based background check registration-mechanism just like Brady's "instant check" only shifts the location of the registration mechanism. It also removes any effective 10th Amendment claim by Ohio against the Brady Act. As it is currently drafted, I urge you to reject HB 336's false solution to the Brady Act's violation of the 10th Amendment. GOA has draft legislation -- "Brady Act Cutoff "--that preserves 10th Amendment posture without instituting its own Brady-style "instant check" registration-mechanism. "Brady Act Cutoff" has been introduced in Georgia by pro-gun legislators who want to roll back a Brady-style "instant check" set up there. Currently the Ohio Attorney General is requiring dealers to pay a $15.00 fee for every handgun purchaser that is "checked." GOA questions whether the Attorney General currently has this authority under Ohio law. In any event the Brady Act confers no authority to charge fees and such authority should be denied to the Attorney General and any other law enforcement entity by the legislature. Codifying the authority of the Attorney General to charge $5.00 per "check" will establish the idea of taxing gun owners for the exercise of a constitutionally protected right. Experience shows that it will also lead to calls for increasing this tax in the future. GOA recommends the following amendments as minimum safeguards to the rights of Ohio's gun owners: 1) No authority to collect fees from dealers or purchasers of handguns. Dealers and gun owners should not have bear the brunt of a purported public safety function that benefits all Ohio citizens. 2) Felony penalties for whoever fails to destroy within 10 days any statement or record received, created, or pro- cessed by any law enforcement official in the State of Ohio pursuant to sub-paragraph (i) of subparagraph (A) of paragraph (1) of subsection (s) of section 922, United States Code or in any similar provision of HB 336 which may be enacted. 3) HB 336 should include language stating that it will not take effect unless and until the United States Supreme Court finds the Brady Act constitutional. This preserves Ohio's state's rights challenge to the unconstitutional Brady Act. GOA opposes HB 336, but if it is passed it should include the safeguards listed above. As you can see, HB 336 does not expand, or even protect, the rights of gun owners. Rather it takes them away. And if anti-gunners ever move to confiscate guns, HB 336 provides the information system for them to find not only handgun owners, but, in principle, all firearms owners. Experience shows in places like Virginia and Pennsylvania that gun control laws like the so-called "instant" check system don't go away, they expand to include all firearms. In 1991 Virginia expanded its "instant check" registration-mech- anism to all firearms -- pistols, rifles and shotguns -- to avoid something `~worse." It didn't work because in 1993 the antigun gov- ernor and weak-willed Republicans used the "instant check" regis- tration-mechanism to impose "one-gun-a-month" rationing on gun buyers. Please don't let it happen in Ohio! Referring to Virginia's "one-gun-a-month" law the current NRA 2nd Vice President wrote back in September 1993 that, "Such laws can only be enforced if state agencies are allowed to create a computer registry of all sales" (Guns & Ammo Magazine, p. 24). Enclosed with this letter is a copy of an NRA Board resolution that passed overwhelmingly which cites the dangers of so~called "instant check" systems. A vote for HB 336 is a vote to lay the foundation for gun rationing and confiscation. Your immediate opposition is all that stands between the anti-gunners and passage of this dangerous legislation. The real focus and effort of progun state legislators should be to urge federal legislators to repeal the Brady Act in the U.S. Congress and support challenges on 10th Amendment grounds in the courts. Please oppose HB 336. Sincerely, Larry Pratt Executive Director ===================================================================== The Paul Revere Network/HQ Chicago BBS (312)482-9940 (V)482-9910 -==***==- BYPASSING the bias of the broadcast media via the "narrowcast" capabilities of the telephone lines! =====================================================================