[Politech] How online activism affected Senate firearm debate

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Fri Mar 05 2004 - 06:10:36 PST

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    -------- Original Message --------
    Subject: Summary of senate events around S1805
    Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 18:50:57 -0600
    From: Matthew Hunter <matthew@private>
    To: Declan McCullagh <declan@private>
    
    You might find this interesting for Politech; although the
    firearms angle isn't your usual fare, there is a politech
    angle: the influence demonstrated by the Internet (and bloggers
    in particular) on the political process.  S1805 is the "Lawful
    Protection of Commerce in Arms Act" (ie, the gun liability bill),
    and the fight concerned the amendments to that act (containing,
    among others, the assault weapons ban renewal and a measure
    restricting gun shows).
    
    Here's a summary:
    http://www.triggerfinger.org/weblog/entry/4959.jsp
    
    And for a more in-depth examination:
    http://www.triggerfinger.org/weblog/category/119
    
    Here's a snip from the first link:
    Rocky Mountain Gun Owners sends out email warning its members
    that the NRA is brokering a backroom deal to get the legislation
    passed, with the AWB and/or the gun shows bill attached, in the
    hopes that it can be stripped out in the house. This is a ricky
    legislative strategy, and the NRA's record is far from spotless;
    suspicions are understandable but lacking in proof.
    
    This warning sparked a LOT of opposition from within the
    gun-owning Internet community -- enough tthat the NRA started
    sending out emails of its own denying the accusation, but leaving
    themselves a suspiciously large amount of wiggle room. So,
    Senators are getting deluged by gun owners urging them to pass a
    clean bill, and at least some of these are specifying "but if the
    AWB is attached, kill it." Maybe some antis are calling in, too.
    Hard to say.
    
    [.....]
    
    Larry Craig, as I understand it the original author of S1805,
    stood up on the Senate floor and urged his colleagues to vote
    against his own bill. It was his bill, and he took personal
    responsibility to putting it out of its misery after the anti-gun
    amendments had tortured it. That takes balls. I'm proud of him
    for standing up and making that call. He made this tough decision
    and he got a vote of 90+ against his own bill. That's the
    anti-gunners voting against and that's the pro-gunners voting
    against; the ones left in the middle were the ones who wanted a
    compromise.
    
    Why is this such a big deal? Remember the pro-gun strategists
    were saying they could kill the provisions in the House! That's
    the NRA, folks, who issued a half-hearted denial of exactly that
    intent after the RMGO called them on it. For a long time,
    compromise has been the order of the day for the NRA and for
    pro-gun forces in the Senate. The Brady Bill, the Assault Weapons
    Ban, both were examples of compromise at work. Compromise a
    little here, a little there -- one slice of rights at a time.
    
    -- 
    Matthew Hunter (matthew@private)
    Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt
    Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp
    Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp
    
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