McCain Incumbent Protection Bill Threatens Gun Owners
-- Bill to keep gun owners in the dark, endanger existence of GOA

Gun Owners of America E-Mail/FAX Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org


(Tuesday, March 6, 2001) -- Irked by nettlesome groups such as GOA
which threaten to expose their anti-gun activities, Arizona Senator
John McCain (R) and Wisconsin Democrat Senator Russ Feingold (D) are
pushing legislation which would eliminate the ability of groups like
GOA to keep gun owners informed on how their legislators are voting.

In the name of reforming campaign finance laws, this Incumbent
Protection legislation would allow the government to seize the
membership lists of groups such as ours -- and potentially outlaw
our organization.  The issue is scheduled to come before the Senate
between March 19th and 26th.

The Incumbent Protection bill, S. 27, would require legislative
advocacy groups -- including Second Amendment organizations such as
GOA -- to report to the government if they spend more than $10,000
preparing for and participating in TV and radio broadcasts which
mention officeholder-candidates within two months of an election.
If they wished, government bureaucrats could define virtually all of
an organization's activities as "preparation" for TV and radio
interviews.

With GOA employees regularly appearing on TV shows such as Fox News,
Crossfire, and other programs to discuss gun-related legislation,
there can be little doubt that S. 27 would apply to this
organization.  If it did, GOA would be required to provide the
government with its donor list.  For the time being, this disclosure
would be limited to contributors of $1,000 or more, but no one
should assume this threshold would not be reduced or eliminated once
the government's foot was in our membership door.

It goes without saying that an activist who sends a check to GOA to
help protect his Second Amendment rights doesn't want his name being
registered with the government as a gun owner.  And for that reason,
GOA will fight this bill "tooth and nail."  And if this bill were to
become law, GOA would not comply.  We would fight it in court, and
exhaust every possible resource, because we are not going to turn
over our members' names to the government.

This underscores why it is SO VERY IMPORTANT that we defeat this
bill in the Congress!  GOA would rather spend its members' dollars
defending 2nd Amendment freedoms, as opposed to spending hundreds of
thousands of dollars fighting 1st Amendment battles in court.

Finally, because the Incumbent Protection bill would define
GOA's battles against anti-gun legislation as "electioneering" if
they occurred during election season, these legislative activities
could affect our tax-exempt status -- and ultimately, our existence.
Urge your Senators to keep their distance from John McCain and Russ
Feingold, and to respect the free speech rights of all Americans.


ACTION:

 1. Please call, fax or email your two Senators and ask them to
 filibuster and vote against the anti-gun McCain-Feingold bill,
 S. 27.  You can call the Senate at 202-224-3121, or toll-free at
 1-877-762-8762.  See the GOA Legislative Action Center at
 http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm for complete Senate contact
 information, and to send pre-written messages.

 2. Forward this alert to as many gu

I am very disapointed to hear McCain would sponsor such a bill. I thought he would have some standards, but this ain't the first time I have heard dirt on McCain.

CATM,
 mccain IS dirt.

And he is a Vietnam Vet too...Sounds like a Sell Out to me...[-!-!-]

When they say "reform" they really mean reform it so that it's harder for the 'subjects' to know what they are doing so that they can stay in office longer.

Politics is politics.  Yes, he's Rep, but.....could he be a wolf in sheeps clothing?  (on this issue????)

Hey! McCain! Here's your message!


           [-!-]

I'm very saddened to hear about this. I was a big supporter of McCain, because I believed that an old war hero would have done the right thing for our country. I was wrong....

Wow, sure glad he did not win in the primaries...then it would have been a choice between Gore and McCain.  I would have been forced to vote libertarian, and those guys are weird.

Uh oh, Bishop........ better put on your Nomex! [:D]

I used to have a lot of respect for John-the-'Manchurian Candidate'-McCain.  The GOP sent him to confer with Sen. Feingold concerning the campaign finance bill.  The only 'dealbreaker' that the GOP gave him was that any proposed law would have to apply labor unions as to any other interest group.  Guess which group the McCain-Feingold bill fails to include in its limits on soft money lobbying?  You guessed it- the labor unions.  Well done, John!

I expect to see McCain flip to the Democrat side of the isle.  I've noticed his "wild a-- ideas" and thought he might still be suffering from brain damaging war wounds or something..[:(!]

NoMex?

He lives on the East Coast, not the West Coast!

[:D]  [:D]  [:D]

Hey, before you all go off half cocked or fully cocked maybe a little research ius in order???? I went to the US Senate web site and there is no reference to S. 27. Nor to the McCain Incumbent Protection Bill. I plugged both these into the search boxes and found nothing. The web site is searchable by SR. number and keyword. I could think of no way to make us look stupider than have us call our senators and state reps raging about a non existant bill!

Secondly, this kind of sounds ludicrous. I think anyone of us would love to know who HCI is backing these days. That is what this phantom bill seems to be for. This "fax/e-mail alert" doesn't really lay out how the gov't is going to "outlaw" active groups. It only lays down the threat your name might be registered as a gunowner. Your names are alredy registered with the gov't. Every time you buy a gun your name is now checked with NCIC. If they really wanted all registered gun owners names they could easily get the names from another federal agency anyways!

This senate website says that it update bill activity every day. Unless the bill hasn't been introduced yet? I've heard a lot about this bipartisan effort for campaign finance reform but this sounds funny to me.

Take a look.....

The actual Finance Reform Bill....(The bill isn't numbered 27! And, there isn't even a section 27 in the bill!)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:2:./temp/~c107Ne8tKA::

www.senate.gov

sherm8404-
The "Incumbent Protection Bill" I believe is beeing used to refer to his campaign finance reform bill because that is what it accomplishes.