Lands Bill Fight Ends – Greater Battles Over Gun Rights Loom

As Lands Bill Fight Ends — Greater Battles Over Gun Rights Loom

Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- In March, both the U.S. House and Senate finished up work on a massive, anti-gun $10 billion omnibus federal land bill.

The bill had been held up for over a year in large part due to GOA members fighting for Second Amendment rights on federal land — YOUR land.

The Second Amendment has been null and void for many years on all land controlled by the National Park Service (NPS). While regulations promulgated in the waning days of the Bush administration partially reversed that gun ban, a federal judge recently blocked those rules from taking effect.

GOA worked closely with pro-gun members of the House and Senate to add a complete repeal of the NPS gun prohibition to the larger land bill. While these efforts delayed passage of the bill, in the end the anti-gun congressional leadership teamed up with “pro-gun” compromisers and passed the measure without protecting the Second Amendment.

In an effort to appease gun owners, language was added to the bill to protect hunting and fishing. But, as GOA pointed out to the Congress, the Founding Fathers did not pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to protect a recreational pastime.

The final attempt to protect the Second Amendment from NPS bureaucrats came on a procedural vote in the House that would have made in order an amendment, sponsored by pro-gun Reps. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Rob Bishop (R-UT), to repeal the gun ban. That motion failed by a vote of 242-180.

So now not only does the gun ban remain in place, the new bill greatly expands the total amount of NPS land. Since NPS-controlled parks and trails also include many busy roadways, hundreds of thousands of gun owners can unwittingly find themselves in violation of the gun ban without even knowing they are on federal land.

Representatives Hastings and Bishop, along with Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), have vowed to continue their efforts to wipe this unconstitutional gun ban from the books. In the Senate, Tom Coburn (R-OK) is also pushing for the repeal of the anti-gun NPS regulations.

Gun Owners of America would like to thank the thousands upon thousands of email subscribers who repeatedly contacted their congressmen in this battle to protect the Second Amendment. We were sold out by compromisers this time, but we will “remember in November” those who voted against the Second Amendment.

Please help spread the word so we can get even more people contacting their elected officials. As the late Senator Everett Dirksen said, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.”

And do we ever need to turn up the heat!

Many important battles for your Second Amendment rights lay before us. For instance, Barack Obama and his anti-gun cronies are making a massive push to renew the Clinton semi-auto ban.

The President and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, are blaming the current violence among Mexican drug cartels on firearms from the United States. This is another blatant attempt by anti-gun advocates to use whatever situation they can find to further erode your Second Amendment rights.

The problems of corruption and violence in Mexico should not be used as an excuse to curtail your right to keep and bear arms. But once again law-abiding American gun owners are in danger of being punished for the criminal actions of others.

The Clinton gun ban is just one of the attacks that you and GOA will be fighting.

There is also a massive anti-gun bill in Congress, H.R. 45, that includes universal gun owner licensing and registration, and the Obama White House continues its efforts to ban private firearms transactions at gun shows.

You can help us reach out to even more gun owners. Please forward this message to your friends and encourage them to sign up for the GOA email alerts.

And if you haven’t already become a member of GOA, consider joining. For a small amount of money such as $35, $50 or $100, you can join with other Americans to save our Constitutional rights. Visit www.gunowners.org to join GOA today.

Thank you again for being part of the GOA team working to protect American liberty.