From firearms-alert-owner Fri Jul 29 01:08:20 1994 Return-Path: firearms-alert-owner Received: from localhost (chan@localhost) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.4) id BAA02708 for firearms-alert-outgoing; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 01:08:08 -0700 Received: from localhost (chan@localhost) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.4) id BAA02700; Fri, 29 Jul 1994 01:08:05 -0700 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 01:08:05 -0700 From: Jeff Chan Message-Id: <199407290808.BAA02700@jobe.shell.portal.com> To: firearms-alert Subject: KNOX: Firearms Coalition 7/28/94 Online Report Sender: firearms-alert-owner@shell.portal.com Precedence: bulk Status: RO Date: Thu, 28 Jul 1994 23:19:02 -0700 From: "Christopher W. Knox" To: cknox@crl.com Subject: FCO 7-28-94 ======================================================================== Online Report to the F I R E A R M S C O A L I T I O N Box 6537, Silver Spring, MD 20916 ======================================================================== July 28, 1994 Release 1.16 ======================================================================== In this issue: * Not much time for fanciness, signature. Crime bill goes before the full Congress. ======================================================================== A note from Chris I usually like to sign these bulletins, but I don't have time to fool with it tonight. You know what you have to do. While you're at it, call that sleepy bird hunting buddy with the Model 1100. ======================================================================== July 28 update -- The House-Senate conference on the crime bill went at it until 3 a.m. this morning, agreeing that the final crime bill will include Feinstein Lite, a ban on over 10-shot magazines and 19 named so-called "assault weapons" and similar guns with military-looking features. They started again at 8 a.m. and finished just before noon. The extreme haste to complete the bill indicates how badly the Administration wants it, and the desire to wipe the Whitewater hearings out of the news. Normally, unless it were the very end of the session, this crime bill wouldn't be considered before at least next week -- allowing time for the final huge bill to be printed and read. But all bets are off as to when it will be on the floor -- though probably not before Monday. This bill still isn't law. There's growing opposition to it by both pro-gunners and Congressmen opposed to all the social spending programs, like "midnight basketball leagues" and arts and crafts training called "crime prevention." Even Rep. Henry Hyde, the sole Republican to vote for the gun ban in conference, said he will vote against the crime bill he helped create -- calling it "wish list for frustrated socialists." The so-called "assault weapon" provisions accepted by the House conferees are the same as what the Senate conferees added Tuesday night. That language is almost identical to what the House passed in May, except there are no restrictions on presently owned guns that would be banned from manufacture or importation. That is, there is no requirement to register those guns, or for the owners to maintain any special records if they are transferred. The Senate-supported amendment bans 19 guns by make and model, plus the same generic descriptions in the Feinstein amendment, which would prohibit manufacture of about 150 additional models that have been made in the past. There are no restrictions on possession of existing over 10- shot magazines, but they could only be transferred as if they were firearms, which would mean they would have to go through a dealer if sold across state lines. Police complaints about their personal guns and magazines were partially met by allowing law enforcement officers to buy or possess new over 10-shot magazines for off-duty guns. But the officers would not be able to buy new guns prohibited by the ban, and could not possess one made after the effective date except on duty or if the gun were presented to the officer by his department. The bill does not have the so-called racial justice provision demanded earlier this week by the Black Caucus, so they had said they would oppose the procedural vote to bring the crime bill to the House floor. Now they've rolled over, saying they won't kill the President's crime bill because of just one issue. No telling how much that will cost America's taxpayers -- or the lives of how many Marines, if the price Bill Clinton paid was the invasion of Haiti, which is something else the Black Caucus wants. NEAL KNOX REPORT Administration's Plan By NEAL KNOX WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 21) -- Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is about to blow the whistle on the Clinton Administration's closely guarded future plans: "creating a class of 'restricted weapons' (which) would include all handguns and semi-automatic long guns that are not otherwise banned." The proposal is part of the 89-page report of the "Interdepartmental Working Group on Violence," prepared by some 120 Clinton appointees and career bureaucrats. The Administration refuses to release the leaked report, which contains elements from the FBI "working paper" on firearms laws which we reported last year. The plan dictates: "Restricted weapons could be possessed only in one's home, one's place of business, on the premises of a target range (depending on the terms of the registration certificate) or while being transported to or from any of the of the above. ... thus divid[ing] firearms into three groups: banned, restricted, and unrestricted (i.e. long guns which are not semi- automatic)." The "working group" wants to impose restrictions on how legal firearms are stored and prescribe tougher Federal penalties for unlawful gun possession (now up to 10 years and $10,000 fine), while extending the prohibited classes to persons convicted of certain misdemeanors and "people with a violent or mentally ill background." Among its many provisions, the plan says Congress should "reduce the lethality of firearms" and "encourage or mandate the use of trigger locks, limit magazine sizes, and continue to fund research into "Smart Gun" technologies capable of rending firearms unusable except by their owners." Perfectly on cue, Rep. Charles Schumer's House Crime Subcommittee held hearings today on "Firearms Technology: Using Innovation to Stop Gun Violence." Although there were demonstrations of the BATF's and FBI's competing systems for computerized forensic examinations of spent shell cases and matching recovered bullets to particular guns, the main interest was in a system to take an electronic photo of any weapon -- accurately enough to identify the make and model -- hidden under clothing from up to 100 yards away. The device, expected to initially cost about $10,000 and supposedly available in about a year, was described as a "passive millimeter wavelength detector." No mention was made as to how or whether the device could be used to scan a home for firearms, but even Schumer acknowledged that scanning someone on the street presented "an interesting question" under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "unreasonable" search and seizure. Schumer was also ecstatic about the development of a "smart gun," incapable of being fired except by the owner or person to whom issued. The primary discussion concerned police officers killed with their own guns -- up to 20 percent of those shot --and children who obtain a parent's gun. (Note -- There was a news report today of a 13-year-old boy who protected himself and his younger siblings by killing an intruder with his father's .357 after the man broke into their house and was trying to break down the door of the bedroom to which the children had retreated.) The most significant factor in the computerized case and bullet comparators is that the systems are not nearly feasible for the often proposed national databank of a computerized bullet and case scan from every gun in the country. Although the computer programs are capable of reducing a year's work by a forensic examiner into an hour, which is clearly a great accomplishment, both systems require a person to do the final examination and contain a database of only a thousand or so cases and bullets -- while there are millions of guns. Further, as one of the BATF technicians acknowledged in a private discussion after the hearings, firing a single gritty bullet could change a barrel's characteristics so much that it would nullify any data from earlier bullet markings. Another problem is that barrels rifle with hammer-forging and other modern methods leave no unique identifying characteristics. That fact caused forensic experts to be unable to identify which policeman's Glock killed a bystander during a recent shootout involving police in Miami. --- (Help Neal Knox defend the Second Amendment and begin receiving the bi-monthly "Hard Corps Report" by contributing to the Firearms Coalition, Box 6537, Silver Spring, MD 20906. For legislative updates call (301) 871-3006 [automated voice] or the Bullet'N Board [computers] (703) 971-4491. Email: NEALKNOX@GENIE.GEIS.COM) NEAL KNOX REPORT Bill Clinton's Call By NEAL KNOX WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 10) -- Majority Democrats on the House- Senate crime conference seem to be waiting for a decision from the White House on whether to push for a crime bill containing the House-approved "Racial Justice Act." If Bill Clinton wants to include that virtual racial quota for executions, it would assure a Senate Republican filibuster, and probably kill the bill -- along with the so-called "assault weapons" ban. For him to give it a thumb's down would mean alienation of the Black Caucus, which he and other Democrats will need in this fall's critical elections. It's up to Clinton. My guess is that he'll strip "Racial Justice" to get the gun ban, and try to buy off the Black Caucus with even more billions of social spending. If gun owners don't begin getting off their duffs right now -- registering to vote and registering their friends, getting involved in NRA's greatly expanded grass roots campaign, and getting involved with local campaigns for both State and Federal offices -- and don't get even with those Congressmen who have voted to ban guns, then we're going to see far more sweeping gun laws pass next year. The political climate couldn't be better. Pollsters are saying there are perhaps 150 contestable seats in the House, three times as many as normal. And you're not the only one who's mad at Congress. Please. Get involved! --- ABC Day 1 ran a segment profiling me as "NRA's Top Gun" July 4. Host Forrest Sawyer said "This guy really believes in the right to bear arms," but said my critics believe I'm "tearing NRA apart," and "out of step" with the membership. I'll gladly agree with the first statement, but the rest is Handgun Control Inc.'s line. Former NRA Directors Nate Arenson and Dave Edmondson accused me of "turning NRA into a purely political organization" and foolishly "refusing to compromise" on firearms legislation. It's because they were so willing to compromise that they're no longer Directors -- but ABC didn't mention that fact. ABC continued to portray me as single-handedly directing and controlling NRA, which bothered me, for it is neither accurate nor fair to Wayne LaPierre and the other officers and leaders of NRA. They didn't broadcast my major point -- made in three different interviews, that no gun law has ever reduced the crime rate -- but they did show me making other key points, such as the failure of the D.C. laws to prevent a specific shooting. And they included most of my wife Jay's well-done comments about guns, NRA members, and having "come from a long line of women who have defended themselves with guns." That made me --and all of us -- look a great deal more human. The ABC interviewers were fascinated by one evil-looking, quite powerful semi-auto pistol with magazine ahead of the trigger guard -- the kind of gun they call an 'assault weapon' -- until I told them it was an 1896 Mauser Broomhandle. While I was trying to teach Michelle McQueen how to shoot skeet, she said, "This is great fun, but it has nothing to do with those awful assault weapons." I told her that nothing is deadlier than what she was holding. The Damascus, Md., Izaak Walton League president, Mac McCollum, was ready. He walked out with a milk jug filled with water, which Michelle shot -- and was shocked by the destructive force of that light skeet load. But none of that was shown. The program grew out of a "Wall Street Journal" profile last October, which immediately prompted all four networks, including CBS "60 Minutes," to want to follow me around Capitol Hill with cameras. I refused until I learned that Day 1 had filmed five deposed directors (and had even flown one Knox-basher to a South Dakota pheasant hunt and paid for his hunting license). That's when I figured I'd better defend myself. I think we came out looking good enough that someone in charge of scheduling repeatedly postponed the program, gave it no advance promos, and buried it on the Fourth of July when it was preempted, literally in some markets, by fireworks displays. Nevertheless, I thought the film was fair -- and that's something we seldom see. ======================================================================== Copyright 1994 by Neal Knox Associates P.O. Box 6537 Rockville, MD 20916. Reproduction and distribution of this bulletin by any means is encouraged so long as this statement is retained. ======================================================================== PGP Users Remove the asterisks to use this key. *-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3 mQCPAi1tPEUAAAEEALs5MUajMVKA9QQkiibPXDLzUOzXvgIkTY5/pU4iczGolC/T JjBcUuzFXXVSAeJkoJTJNbI/OKVGJrAeoqNdCpHkKXaWg6J3dCxZikkHHSoO2tRW GeVsJHT9+q5KozqqVGxisIoyQvF6MmfGalJY7jnfwacxi2SY3Q5t55+a10qVABEB AAG0J0NocmlzdG9waGVyIFdhcnJlbiBLbm94IDxja25veEBjcmwuY29tPg== =rsvv *-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- We recommend encryption of sensitive data such as credit card numbers. ======================================================================== Dear Neal, I use the information you provide to protect my gun rights. Enclosed is my contribution so that you can continue your work: $500 [ ] $250 [ ] $50 [ ] $25 [ ] Other:____ [ ] Bill my MasterCard [ ] Visa [ ] Quarterly [ ]; Monthly [ ]; Once [ ] Card No. ______________________ Expiration Date _____ Mr. [ ] Mrs.[ ]______________________________ Signature ______________________ Ms. [ ] Address __________________________________________ Phone _______________ City _____________________________________________ State ____ Zip_______ Email Address ______________________ Print and mail, or send via Email to nealknox@genie.geis.com Firearms Coalition Box 6537 Silver Spring, MD 20916 -- "If you want to have a large population and to provide it with arms so as to establish a great empire, you will have made your population such that you cannot handle it as you please." -- Machiavelli _The Discourses_ To receive the Online Firearms Coalition Bulletin send mail to cknox@crl.com with "subscribe" as the subject. More info and PGP key available via finger.