I don't know how we did it, but we did kill the Assault Weapon Ban Bill by our atendence at Tuesday's hearing. The following is the text of an e-mail alert put out by the CT Coalition of Sporsman:

Great thanks to all PATRIOTS who showed up and/or wrote their
Reps!  WE CAN WIN IF WE STAND TOGETHER!!

See Bob Crook's report below:


"At today's meeting of the Public Safety Committee this bill was listed
as
the last on the  agenda. The committee put it on HOLD, which meant NO
ACTION
since today was the Deadline for reporting bills out of Committee.

Since the Public Hearing on Tuesday, the Coalition of CT Sportsmen and
NRA
lobbyists have been doing heavy lobbying and providing clarifying
information presented by YOU at the Public Hearing. We estimate about
175
sportsmen came to the hearing. You were well dressed, articulate, and
responsive to questions designed to "shake " you. No mention was made by
you
trying to "improve" the bill and it was obvious to the Comm members we
ARE
opposed to ANY expansion of gun laws not legitimate. In my 20+ years of
lobbying guns, this was one of, if not the best, coordinated, unified
and
well attended hearings. The legislators WERE impressed!

Our vote count was close (always conservative), but we were confident we
had
the 12 needed for a tie (Ties kill a bill). As it turned out we had more

than we expected! The Comm Republicans caucused for about 1/2 hour on
all
the bills; the Democrats were in for about 80 minutes. The gun bill was
not
the only controversial issue, but had high prominence. We don't know as
yet
the positions of all the legislators in committee discussion, but we
obviously had more Democratic support than Sen. Penn expected. The
political
axiom is: If you don't have the votes, don't call the bill. Since the
bill
was on the agenda, some action had to be taken and HOLD is equal to No
Action. This also stopped about a two hour committee public debate on
the
bill, which was going nowhere.

Much of this support was due to YOUR presence at the public hearing,
phone
calls, letters, e-mail and personal contact with your legislators. It
Works!
Comments made indicated that constituent presence at the hearing had
significant importance. Those that lobbied your legislators at the
heating
and elsewhere are to be applauded - you saved the day!

Is it all over? Hardly. This bill will resurface again and throughout
the
session (ends June 6) and will have to be continuously fought. This is
the
beginning. We won round one.

To everyone who attended the hearing Tuesday and/or contacted the state
legislators -  Thank you. The next step is data collection demonstrating
how
futile, ineffective and disrupting this copy-cat California Law is.
We're
telling legislators to visit www.calnra.org - not to read gunowners
comments, but to read press releases from major CA news organizations
demonstrating the chaos,  the futility, and constant expansion of this
law.
WE don't need that in CT!

Lastly you need to thank ALL the members of the Public Safety Committee
for
their wisdom in defeating this bill - particularly if your state senator
or
representative is a member of the committee. AND, ask them to keep you
informed as to NEW developments concerning the gun issue - there will be

many!

Remember - NOTHING is dead until the session ends!!!!!!

Bills that were approved (JF) by the committee and may become vehicles
for
an AW amendm