You may recall that in recent years, GOA has
enlisted your aid in fighting so-called "gang"
legislation, which typically includes attempts to
apply federal RICO anti-racketeering statutes to
minor gun infractions -- thus harassing and
prosecuting otherwise law-abiding gun owners as
though they were Mafia bosses.

Well, Feinstein's S. 456 is the latest vehicle
for such underhandedness.

At issue is section 215 of the bill. In essence,
your family, gun shop employees, or even church
bowling league would be considered an organized
"gang" and subjected to draconian prison
sentences if you did any of a number of things,
such as:

* having a gun (loaded OR unloaded) in your
glovebox as you -- inevitably -- drive within
1,000 feet of a school, even if you didn't know
the school was there;

* selling a gun out of your store while being
entrapped in a Bloomberg-style "sting" operation;

* teaching your son to shoot without giving him a
written letter of permission (which must be on
his actual person), even if you are standing
right behind him at the range the whole time; or,

* simply being one the 83,000 veterans whose
names were illegally added to the Brady system by
President Clinton (or, presumably, one of the
thousands more who will be on the list if the
current Veterans Disarmament bill passes), if you
continued to possess a firearm.

Now, there's a lot of legal verbiage in S. 456,
which is quite large as bills go. Feinstein and
her anti-gun cronies will counter that the
situations listed above aren't enough -- you also
have to commit a crime of violence while engaging
in them.

Oh yeah? Consider how many people defending
themselves from carjackers or their businesses
from hold-ups are indicted by anti-gun
prosecutors merely for exercising their right to
self-defense. And what judge is going to say that
the "gun crimes" in those instances aren't crimes
of violence?

Further, any anti-gun prosecutor could simply
state that family members or gun shop employees
are "co-conspirators" or are "aiding and
abetting" actual criminals using guns.

And of course, we have had plenty of warning of
what happens when prosecutorial powers are
enormously expanded. Take the original RICO Act
itself, for example. We were told that it was
needed to shut down the Mafia -- a tool to be
used in the fight against organized crime. But in
the years since its passage, the RICO Act has
become the overzealous prosecutor's version of
going nuclear... wrapping everything up in one
big package of conspiracy charges and twenty
years to life prison terms.

It just isn't right that you, your spouse, and
your two teenage boys could be treated like the
Gambino family just because you brandished your
firearm to scare away a carjacker... without
firing a shot! And prison terms of 10, 20, or
even all of your remaining years aren't right in
such instances, either!

In short, section 215 of S. 456 is unacceptable.
It must be deleted, period. To our knowledge, the
entire Second Amendment community -- spearheaded
by GOA and the NRA -- is adamantly opposed to
Feinstein's scheme.

It should be noted that there is lots of talk on
Capitol Hill about how to "handle" the problems
of S. 456 with a minimum of fuss. The most likely
scenario is that there would only be two
amendments allowed -- one Republican and one
Democratic. Once that is done, the Senate would
immediately proceed to a vote on the bill...
which may or may not be a recorded vote. Gun
owners should bear in mind that, regardless of
which politician is saying otherwise, there is NO
GUARANTEE that the Republican amendment would
even attempt to totally strike section 215. The
amendment might not help matters that much, and
might not pass anyway.

So this attempt to placate gun owners with a
"roll of the dice" amendment vote is nothing more
than the usual smoke-and-mirrors designed to give
politicians cover from the wrath of a known
activist constituency.

GOA doesn't believe in gambling with your rights.
Our position is firm and unalterable: section 215
must go away, now. The time to kill a snake is
before it strikes. And this snake could strike at
any time; a vote on final passage could occur as
early as this week.

So here's what you can do to help kill the snake.
Any individual senator can place a "hold" on a
particular piece of legislation until his or her
concerns are addressed; if the Leadership ignores
those objections, it becomes extremely difficult
to move the legislation forward. The "hold" is a
legislative tactic that we have used to great
advantage in the past. We need at least one
Senator to take that step and place a hold on S.
456.

ACTION:
http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm

Please utilize the Take Action feature to send
your Senators a pre-written message asking them
to place a "hold" on S. 456 until such time as
section 215 is deleted from the bill.