Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Federal Land Anti-Gun bill on the move

Here's a Federal bill that needs following expecially
while Montana's state legislature is considering HB 246 and HC 228 and joint house HJ 26 (see these items in postings below this one.)

Federal Land Anti-Gun bill on the move

Lost in all the news of the massive bailout bill that just passed the Senate is another enormous bill, one that increases federal control of public and private land.

Of particular concern to gun owners is that the bill, S. 22, will greatly expand the amount of land controlled by the National Park Service. NPS land is currently subject to a gun ban.

While President Bush took steps in the waning days of his presidency to reverse the ban, the new regulations apply to persons who carry a concealed firearm with a permit. Non-permit holders and open carry are not explicitly addressed.

Another eyebrow-raising aspect of this bill is that it is actually a compilation of over 150 separate pieces of legislation that never passed out of Congress on their own merits.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) successfully held up over 100 of these bills, until anti-gun Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rolled all of the bills into one so-called Coburn Omnibus and forced it through the Senate in January on a vote of 73-21.

As the House prepares to take up the bill, the Democrat leadership has taken procedural steps to ensure that the measure cannot be amended or altered in any way. That means that if it passes the House, it goes right to President Obama’s desk, where it will be signed into law.

Here are a few of the more troubling aspects of the bill:

· It authorizes the federal government to buy private land adjacent to national parks and trails. Such land would be controlled by the NPS, and thus be subject to the gun ban.

· The bill federalizes the Washington-Rochambeau Route, a 650 mile trail that stretches from Rhode Island to Virginia and includes sections of major thoroughfares such as Interstate 95 and U.S. Route 1, and passes through cities like Boston and Philadelphia. The entire trail would fall under the NPS and the gun ban.

· The National Landscape Conservation System groups together millions of acres of federal land and places it under one new umbrella agency. The NLCS was created during the Clinton administration and run administratively since then. S. 22 will codify the system, which raises concerns for hunters and sportsmen. Much of this land is consolidated from the BLM and the Forest Service, which have always allowed hunting and recreational shooting. It is unclear what rules will be promulgated by the new agency and if gun owners’ rights will be protected.

· S. 22 strips out small concessions won by pro-gunners in the House last year that would allow state and local law to govern firearms possession and hunting on certain land.

· S.22 allows for NO amendments. Pro-gun members who want to offer an amendment to fully repeal the NPS gun ban are prevented from doing so by the anti-gun leadership.

The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the bill this Wednesday or Thursday.

Unless the NPS gun ban is repealed and the rights of gun owners are protected, Gun Owners of America opposes the bill in its entirety.

ACTION: Urge your US Representative to repeal the NPS gun ban in S. 22, or to vote against the entire bill. You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center (© 2008 by Gun Owners of America) pre-written e-mail message below to send your Representative or compose your own letter:

__________________

Dear Representative:

I urge you to oppose S. 22, a bill that will greatly expand the amount of land controlled by the National Park Service (NPS).

NPS land is currently subject to a gun ban. While President Bush took steps in the waning days of his presidency to reverse the ban, the new regulations apply to persons who carry a concealed firearm with a permit. Non-permit holders and open carry are not explicitly addressed. Which is why S. 22 raises so many concerns:

* It authorizes the federal government to buy private land adjacent to national parks and trails. Such land would be controlled by the NPS, and thus be subject to the gun ban.

* The bill federalizes the Washington-Rochambeau Route, a 650 mile trail, and places it under the NPS gun ban.

* S. 22 will codify the National Landscape Conservation System, which raises concerns for hunters and sportsmen. Much of this land is consolidated from the BLM and the Forest Service, which have always allowed hunting and recreational shooting. It is unclear what rules will be promulgated by the new agency and if gun owners’ rights will be protected.

* S. 22 also strips out small concessions which were won in the House last year that would allow state and local law to govern firearms possession and hunting on certain land. But the anti-gun House leadership is preventing any amendments to fully repeal the NPS gun ban.

If these concerns are not corrected in S. 22, I would strongly urge you to vote against it.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

____________

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Rep. Rehberg voices stimulus fears

By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake
Published: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 11:41 PM CST
Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont, arrived in Kalispell Wednesday with a big subject on his mind: the recently enacted $787 billion economic stimulus law.

Montana's lone congressman likened its proportion and potential to change the country's future to the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

"We saw, and we kind of knew then, life was going to change forever," Rehberg said during an interview with the Inter Lake editorial board. "At these times, you kind of have to slow up, and wonder, are we really going to want all the government we're going to be getting with this ... It is the biggest spending bill, frankly, in the history of the world."

Rehberg joined all other House Republicans and seven Democrats in opposing the bill during two floor votes during the past two weeks. But the bill cleared Congress and President Obama signed it into law Tuesday in Denver.

Weeks ago, Rehberg noted, the Obama administration had stated it wanted the bill to provide a timely infusion into the economy, to be targeted at job generation, to mostly involve temporary spending and to be a transparent package.

Rehberg said the bill came up short on all counts.

He said much of the planned spending will not occur for at least two years; some estimates suggest that only 12 percent of the spending can be considered bona-fide stimulus spending; more than half is geared toward government spending, much of which may not be temporary; and the bill was rushed through Congress with an utter lack of transparency.

Rehberg said the final version, exceeding 1,000 pages, was made available at 11 p.m. the day before it went to the House floor for a vote. As a result, he said, it was barely read by anybody in Congress.

Rehberg said the bill affords "an unprecedented amount of flexibility for the executive to spend money without oversight," but Congress will have a responsibility to exert as much oversight over stimulus spending as it can.

Republicans offered alternatives that were heavy on tax breaks that would have provided a much more rapid, effective jump-start for the economy, he said.

"I'm truly offended by people who say you voted against the economic stimulus package because you don't support jobs," Rehberg said. "It's just absolutely untrue."

This week, Rehberg said he has been hearing plenty from constituents during stops in Butte, Bozeman and Kalispell, where he led a roundtable forum on the stimulus bill Wednesday night.

"Nobody's coming up and saying, 'I sure wish you voted for it,'" he said.

Rehberg refuted some of the rhetoric coming from the Democratic leadership, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement last week that the bill does not include earmarks or pet projects for lawmakers.

He cited the inclusion of $8 billion for the construction of high-speed rail that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has been pressing for a rail project in Nevada.

"Everybody recognizes that it means his high-speed rail between Vegas and Los Angeles," Rehberg said.

He noted that a Republican senator had inserted language in the bill that would have prevented stimulus money from being spent on museums. But that language was removed from the bill before it was passed.

Rehberg said it was removed because Sen. Reid had been aggressively pushing for federal funding to build a "mob museum" in Las Vegas. There is no certainty that the museum will be built, Rehberg said.

"But is there an assumption that will happen?" Rehberg said. "Yeah, you can bet that mob museum will be built."

Rehberg said the bill includes funding for many projects and programs that have long been supported by the federal government, but they have very little to do with generating economic activity.

"Some of these things have merit," he said, citing funding for Head Start programs and long-promised payments for Filipino veterans of World War II.

He said one of the biggest unintended consequences of the bill — combined with billions in recent banking and auto industry bailouts — is the potential to spur inflation in coming years as the full impact of the spending permeates the economy.

"That is my fear," he said.

But Rehberg said there is a need for political leaders to strike an optimistic tone about the fundamental strengths of the American economy.

"I don't want to talk down the economy," he said. "I don't want to be right. I really don't. America needs to end this recession ... but I think this 'stimulus bill] is just going to delay success."

David Crockett's speech is worth repeating

David Crockett (1786 - 1836) of Alamo fame had also served as a US House Representative for the state of Tennessee. He was a man of principle possessed of a desire to conduct his congressional duties in accord with the U.S. Constitution as the following excerpt from The Life Of Colonel David Crockett (pub. 1884) demonstrates:

". . . a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support . . . [it seemed] everybody favored it. The Speaker was just about to put the question, when Crockett arose. Everybody expected, of course, that he was going to make one of his characteristic speeches in support of the bill. He commenced:

"Mr. Speaker -- I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the Government was in arrears to him. This Government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the war of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor, and if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of; but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The Government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

The bill was defeated. Referencing the matter later, Crockett said:

"You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men--men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."


Why did David Crockett take this position? He offers the an explanation by way of a constituent (a Mr. Horatio Bunce) who expressed his displeasure with Crockett's vote in favor of an appropriation years earlier (for $20,000 for people whose homes were destroyed by fire). Mr. Bunce spoke:

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. . . . . . So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you."


Ron Paul: How Much is this Really Costing?