Kentucky Representative Anne Northrup along with 49 other misguided Republican representatives voted against the Hostettler Amendment to the Treasury-Postal funding bill that would have stopped the BATF from enforcing the Clinton & Wesson sellout agreement. The Republican Congressman from Indiana has fought a tireless battle in the Congress to peel back the restrictions that Clinton unilaterally imposed upon gun owners this past March.

We encourage you to contact Rep. Northrup to express your disappointment in her vote on this important matter. Be polite and stick to the facts, but let her know that she voted the wrong way on this one. Her contact info is:

Representative Anne Northup
1004 Longworth House Office Bldg.
Washington D.C. 20515

Wash. Ph. (202) 225-5401
Wash. Fax: 202-225-5776
WebPage www.house.gov/northup/

The Smith & Wesson agreement was extracted by a sort of government sponsored extortion--the threat of bankrupting law suits to accomplish what they couldn't accomplish in the legislature. To us, this is wrong in principle and practice. I know that if I were an S&W dealer, I would drop the line before I agreed to their terms.

Jeff Snyder draws into sharp focus the provisions of this agreement and the following is only a partial list of the elements of this agreement. From "What No One Bothered to Tell You About the S&W Agreement" in American Handgunner, July/August 2000:

"…Mainstream reporting on the actual contents of the agreement has been minimal, focusing primarily on the "safety" aspects of the deal. The agreement goes far beyond the imposition of safety standards, however. Essentially, the agreement performs two major tasks: first, it enacts significant modifications to federal gun control laws and imposes new restrictions long sought by gun control activists, including bans on cheap, concealable handguns; and, second, it nationalizes the operations of gun manufacturers and dealers and presses them into service as law enforcement agents…

…In order to become an authorized dealer of S&W or any other manufacturer who becomes a party to the agreement, the dealer must agree not to sell any "semi-automatic assault weapons" as defined in the federal assault weapon ban. Please take note what has just happened. The 1994 assault weapon ban sunsets in 2004. Its prohibitions cease to be effective unless the law is renewed by act of Congress. The S&W agreement has just made the ban on "semi-automatic assault weapons" and large capacity magazines permanent. The agreement requires that dealers carry at least $1 million of liability insurance, that all firearms be secured in "a locked fireproof safe or vault" other than during business hours, keep firearms in locked display cases during business hours except to show a firearm to a customer, pass a comprehensive written exam which shall be developed by the manufacturers in consultation with the ATF and approved by the Oversight Committee" and send all employees to annual training sessions developed by the manufacturers and similarly approved.

Authorized dealers are also required to electronically record make, model caliber or gauge and serial number of all firearms that they acquire and institute an electronic inventory monitoring system, perform an inventory check once a month and maintain the results of the report in a secure location…

…The dealer requirements implement three other substantive gun control restrictions. First, dealers pledge not to transfer any firearm prior to receiving notice from NICS. Current law permits dealers to complete a sale if they have not received notice within three days.

This "loophole" in the Brady act has just been closed. No sales until the government declares that the buyer is permitted to purchase a firearm. This permits the federal government to implement a discretionary de facto waiting period because the sale cannot take place until the government gets around to completing the background check.

Next, the dealers agree that they will not sell or transfer firearms to individuals unless they "have demonstrated that they can safely handle and store firearms through completion of a certified firearms safety training course or by having a certified firearms safety examination."

Finally, a person who wants to buy more than one handgun at a time will have to wait 14 days after he purchases the first to pick up the remaining guns…."

As you can see, this is the worst kind of law because it isn’t law at all, it is a contract among parties and therefore essentially immune to challenge. Like everything else this administration has done, it is a corruption of the legislative and judicial process to accomplish an agenda that it could not achieve in a legal and honorable way. Americans on both sides of this issue should be appalled and repulsed by the subversion of the legal process which this agreement represents.