Current Congressional environment provides window of opportunity for Second Amendment

By Jeff Knox

The surprise introduction and passage of a pro-rights amendment attached to a credit card bill this spring could be a hopeful sign of things to come.

In a beautiful bit of political surgery, Dr. Tom Coburn, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, put forward an amendment repealing the troubling National Parks firearms ban. Coburn's amendment was far superior to the new regulations adopted by the NPS toward the end of last year. Those minor improvements were short-lived though as they were halted by an activist judge worried about the "environmental impact" of law-abiding park visitors possibly possessing guns. Under the Coburn Amendment, National Parks and Federal Wildlife Refuges assimilate the firearms laws of their host states just as National Forest and BLM units have done without serious problems for decades. Once Senator Coburn was able to introduce the amendment, there was little opponents could do to stop it because too many of their colleagues are from districts full of GunVoters and Senators didn’t want to go on record supporting any gun ban. The bill passed with Senator Coburn's amendment by a vote of 90 to 5.

Since the underlying credit card legislation was being strongly supported by the White House, the anti-rights leadership in the House couldn't just bottle it up. The die-hard anti-rights members who wanted to vote for the credit card legislation convinced Pelosi and company to offer the amended bill up in two separate votes, one for the main bill and one for the amendment. That was probably a mistake because the amendment passed by a vote of 279 to 147 so now many of those 147 are going to have some explaining to do to GunVoters back home.

The credit card bill – with the Coburn Amendment – was sent on to the White House for the President's signature which he provided expeditiously, but with an expression of disappointment about the rights provisions being attached. He further ordered that the rights provisions would not go into effect until the credit card provisions do in early 2010. Senator Coburn responded to that senseless delay by vowing to attach the same amendment to every "must pass" piece of legislation that comes before the Senate until the National Parks gun ban is lifted.

The success of the National Parks amendment demonstrates that a clear majority of the members of Congress support common sense gun law reform – whether that support is rooted in philosophy or politics doesn't matter as long as the votes are there. Now that it has been proven that the votes are there, the rights community needs to keep a steady stream of good reform legislation rolling in to exploit those votes.

The situation is counter-intuitive, but completely logical. Why has there not been the overwhelming flood of restrictive gun control legislation that was so widely predicted and how could significant reform legislation pass so handily instead?

The answer is simple. Democrats have figured out three important facts:

1. Angry GunVoters are a powerful political force which can turn elections.
2. Like bees, when GunVoters aren’t angry, they are relatively harmless.
3. Angry or not, anti-gun voters are too few to really impact elections at all.

Those three undeniable facts are driving the Democrat strategy which is to express support for the Second Amendment while assiduously avoiding anything that might stir up GunVoters. If a gun vote is unavoidable they give lip service to the anti-rights crowd, but vote to avoid ticking off the GunVoters.

Some serious progress can be made if pro-rights politicians can get good legislation around the leadership and onto the floor for a vote. That's easier to do in the Senate these days than the House, so that's where efforts need to be focused.

Two bills in the Senate need immediate support:

S.669, The Veterans' Second Amendment Protection Act sponsored by Richard Burr (R-NC), has passed out of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and is awaiting action in the full Senate. Senators need to cosponsor this important legislation and push for a vote.

S.941, The ATF modernization Act sponsored by Mike Crapo (R-ID), is currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has signed on as a cosponsor so it will probably make it out of the committee to be voted on by the full Senate. This is a very important bill and Senators need to be urged to cosponsor and push for a vote.

The current environment is a window of opportunity. Rights activists need to push as much as they can through that window before it slams shut.

Permission to reprint or post this article in its entirety is hereby granted provided this credit is included. Text is available at www.FirearmsCoalition.org.