From: "Weldon Clark" Save Address Block Sender
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Subject: NRA Election to Determine Your Gun Rights
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 19:30:19 -0500
NRA Election to Determine Your Gun Rights
SECOND AMENDMENT ACTION COMMITTEE
Neal Knox, Chairman
Bill Davis, Secretary-Treasurer
465 Riverhill Drive, N.W.,
Atlanta, Georgia 30328-3718
Phone:(404)256-2334 FAX: (404)250-1446
February 14, 2000
e-mail Neal@NealKnox.com
bdavis123@mindspring.com
Dear NRA Voting Member,
While Bill Clinton and Al Gore were
making a frontal attack on gun rights, a
subtle, equally dangerous infringement of the
Second Amendment was being proposed from an
unexpected quarter:
"First, we believe in absolutely gun-
free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools.
That means no guns in America's schools,
period ... with the rare exception of law
enforcement officers or trained security
personnel.
"We believe America's schools should be
as safe as America's airports. You can't
talk about, much less take, bombs and guns
onto airplanes. Such behavior in our schools
should be prosecuted...."
NRA Executive Vice President Wayne R.
LaPierre, Jr., made those damaging statements
during his nationally televised speech at the
Denver NRA Members Meeting May 1.
All across the country, school boards and
state legislators are doing precisely what
LaPierre suggested: shutting down school
riflery programs, prohibiting historical
firearms displays, forbidding hunter safety
training with unloaded guns, and banning gun
possession by teachers and other adults with
carry licenses.
LaPierre said NRA "believes in no
unsupervised youth access to guns, period.
We have always supported holding adults
responsible for willfully and recklessly
allowing access to firearms."
By his standards, our parents were
reckless for deciding we could be trusted to
"access" the family guns - or hunt or shoot
alone with our own guns. We don't need laws
prohibiting parents from allowing responsible
teenagers to possess firearms.
LaPierre also blessed gun show background
checks by saying: "We will consider instant
checks at gun shows when, and only when, this
Administration stops (charging for NICS
checks) and stops illegally compiling the
records of millions of lawful gun buyers."
The next day President Charlton Heston
flatly said on ABC "This Week" that he was
"in favor" of gun show background checks.
Within six weeks, gun show background
checks Ð and "youth gun access" bans - had
been approved by both houses of Congress!
When the NRA Board met two days after
LaPierre's speech, I challenged his
description of "NRA policies" and was told
his speech could be considered only in secret
"executive session."
It was a secret session, so I can't tell
you what was said. However, the minutes show
the Board took no action -- making them NRA
policies by default.
I'll guarantee you one thing: Had it not
been for the defeat of Second Amendment
Action Directors in the last three elections
-- engineered by LaPierre and his supporters
-- he would not have been allowed to make
such statements or establish such NRA
policies.
It isn't pleasant to tell you these
things. As NRA-ILA Director in 1980, I put
LaPierre in charge of NRA Congressional
lobbying, and helped elect him EVP when I was
elected to the Board in 1991. I made a
terrible mistake.
Under the NRA Bylaws, the Board of
Directors -- not the Executive Vice President
-- sets NRA policies. And NRA policies and
actions will determine the future of our gun
rights.
That's why it is critical that you elect
Directors who are both dedicated and
knowledgeable, and who will not only talk
about your Second Amendment rights but will
stalwartly defend them.
Other organizations may boast of their
defense of the Second Amendment, but all put
together are no more than an irritating gnat
to Congress and state legislatures.
Where NRA goes, we all go. When NRA goes
in the wrong direction, we all go in the
wrong direction. That's why it is sheer
foolishness for members to resign their
memberships. That's why you should vote in
NRA Board elections.
Who sits on the NRA Board is important Ð
if they don't just sit.
We're in the middle of the biggest fight
in Congress since the 1968 Gun Control Act.
NRA has already conceded in principle -- and
both Houses have accepted -- virtually
everything in the Senate-passed Juvenile
Justice bill.
Despite the boasts of "The NRA Winning
Team," the only reason no gun bill passed in
1999 was because Bill Clinton didn't want
one. Clinton wanted to keep it alive for the
2000 campaign.
Knowing that most of what he wants is in
the bag, in his State of the Union Address
Jan. 27 Clinton upped the ante -- demanding a
license to purchase any handgun, with a
"safety" test.
Clinton has moved so far, so fast,
because LaPierre's compromising policies --
and his pleading in Chairman Henry Hyde's
Judiciary Committee May 27 to "Be reasonable"
-- gave Republicans a green light to join
anti-gun Democrats pushing for more gun laws.
That has happened only because in January
1997 LaPierre successfully mutinied against
the Board majority which had challenged his
violations of board-set financial policies.
In violation of published election rules
he arranged for an illegally late political
ad near the 1997 ballots telling members "Do
Not Vote For" the two Vice Presidents, the
Finance Committee chairman, and others who
threatened his highly paid position.
With the assistance -- and money -- of
NRA vendors whose multi-million dollar no-bid
contracts depended on LaPierre staying in
office, his supporters won a narrow majority
in 1997's election.
That thin majority elected Nominating
Committees which ruthlessly removed Directors
who had challenged LaPierre -- Second
Amendment stalwarts like Bob Hodgdon, Donna
Bianchi, Ken Oehler, G. Sitton, Leroy Pyle,
Albert Ross and many others. With many more
well-funded "Vote Against" ads, the Board has
almost totally changed.
Many of the new Directors are outstanding
people, but they can be manipulated because
they haven't yet figured out how the NRA is
being run. I have no doubt that some will
begin to question LaPierre's leadership --
and some already have.
Directors are being kept fat, dumb and happy
by shrewd tactics such as the last-minute
switch of the winter Board meeting to warm,
fun-filled Las Vegas. After a most unusual
one-day Board meeting, Jan. 16, Directors
were treated to two days seeing the latest
guns and accessories at the SHOT show while
staying at the luxurious Flamingo Hilton --
all at the expense of NRA members.
At the lavish NRA President's Reception
Past President Jim Reinke, figurehead co-
chairman of "Committee To Get Rid Of Anyone
Who Questions LaPierre" (or whatever their
name) told me, "Old friend, I'm opposing your
re-election to the Board."
That was no surprise. I asked Reinke who
paid for his pro-LaPierre ads and mailings --
since many of his Director candidates were
never asked for contributions, nor were prior
contributors.
I suspect -- and told Reinke -- that
most of that (at minimum) $50,000-$60,000 or
more per year came from NRA contractors. Jim
argued there's nothing wrong with a
contractor who has a Life Membership also
contributing to LaPierre's supporters. But
there's plenty wrong if contractors must
contribute to keep their contracts.
Jim's group also has run ads against, and
killed, proposed Bylaws and charter
amendments to require full reporting by
directors and staff of beneficial
relationships with NRA vendors -- or flatly
prohibiting such potentially corrupt dealing.
But far more important than a few million
misappropriated dollars is what LaPierre and
his friends have done to our gun rights. His
outrageous speech at Denver, and the way his
statements have been acted on by Congress,
should strike fear in the heart of every NRA
member.
The Board that existed just three years
ago would probably have fired him on the
spot. Now the last of those Directors is
targeted for defeat. That's why I am asking
you to cast your ballot to restore enough of
those Directors to question LaPierre's
policies and help educate all those new NRA
Directors.
Please use the ballot in your March NRA
magazines, and urge your friends and fellow
voting NRA members to double the power of
their ballots, by voting only for these 13
stalwarts:
Sally Brodbeck
Weldon Clark
William Dominguez
David Gross
Fred Gustafson
Michael Kindberg
Joe Olson
Frank Sawberger
Tom Seefeldt
John Trentes
Miles Ugarkovich
Glen Voorhees
Neal Knox
The biographies of our candidates can be seen
on:
http://www.paulrevere.org/nrabod/index.htm
Our gun rights depend on who is at the
helm of NRA.
Yours for the Second Amendment,
NEAL (s)
Neal Knox
P.S. For a copy of LaPierre's Denver
speech, or other corroborating information,
send a self-addressed stamped envelope. And
please, if you can, send a few dollars to
print and mail more copies of this letter.
*************************************************************
From The 2ndAmendmentNews Team
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