How online activism affected Senate firearm debate

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Summary of senate events around S1805
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 18:50:57 -0600
From: Matthew Hunter <matthew () infodancer org>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

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 () infodancer org)
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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