Tanya K. Metaksa: Renouncing Sam Colt

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_metaksa/20000810_xctme_renouncing.shtml

Renouncing Sam Colt


On a very, very hot humid day in August 1969 the Hall of the
House at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., was packed with
hundreds of citizens. The issue was gun control and the main act
was Sen. Thomas Dodd, the father of the 1968 Gun Control Act.

The GCA, the first federal gun control legislation in over 30
years, had passed after the assassinations of President John F.
Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Senator Bobby Kennedy
during the turbulent '60s. Tom Dodd, who was chairman of the
Senate subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency had become the
prime gun control proponent in the U.S. Senate and had used
the issue to go around the country holding public hearings to
further his cause. Even after the passage of GCA he kept
hammering away for more and more restrictive gun legislation.
Whether the unusual summer hearing was his idea or the idea of
one of the members of the Connecticut legislature was
irrelevant; proponents and opponents showed up and many
signed up to speak.

A blond young man took to the floor and announced that he
was from New Haven representing the Bobby Kennedy Youth
Corps. He gave an impassioned speech for more gun control.
The speech, of course, used the deaths of the Kennedys and
King to illustrate why we needed state gun control legislation. It
included the usual misstatements concerning current federal and
state law and ended on a plea for more restrictions. The speaker
was very earnest and quite effective. His name was Joseph I.
Lieberman.

Since that time 30 years ago Joseph I. Lieberman has risen to the
top of Connecticut politics and during all these years he has been
involved with Bill and Hillary Clinton. When Bill and Hillary
were students at Yale Law School they were volunteers in
Lieberman's first political campaign for the Connecticut State
Senate in 1970. Now the Democrats will try and position
Lieberman as someone who took Clinton to task during his
impeachment hearings, yet when it came time to vote on
removing his fellow Yale Law School alumnus from office, Joe
Lieberman voted no.

After Lieberman's impassioned speech on gun control in 1969 he
didn't mention his support for gun control for many years. It
was the politically smart thing to do. After the statewide
elections of 1970 when sportsmen were instrumental in
throwing out Sen. Tom Dodd and both electing Lowell Weicker
as their U.S. senator and former representative, Tom Meskill, as
governor, the gun issue became a non-issue in Connecticut for
over a decade.

Lieberman served six years in the State Senate rising to become
majority leader. In 1976 he made an unsuccessful attempt to
become a congressman and left public service for several years
reappearing as a candidate for attorney general. He was
successful in that race in 1982 and was re-elected in 1986. He
took the plunge into national politics by challenging and beating
the incumbent, Sen. Lowell Weicker, in 1988.

In the U.S. Senate, Lieberman has not, like Al Gore, voted on
both sides of the gun control issue. His record is clear. Although
he comes from the state which gave us the Colt .45, the gun that
won the West, he casts his vote in lockstep with Schumer,
Feinstein, Boxer, and Vice President Gore. Expect a
Gore-Lieberman administration to continue and build upon the
anti-Second Amendment bias of the Clinton-Gore
administration.

The Clinton-Gore administration is utilizing every opportunity
to push their anti-gun agenda. They don't miss a beat; even at
events that one would think to have nothing to do with gun
control, they push it. This week the Department of Housing and
Urban Development held a conference in Washington, D.C., on
"Building a Better Tomorrow: Best Practices." At the opening
session they played a video featuring Clinton, Gore, and HUD
Secretary Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo's assault of the firearms'
industry was prominently featured in this blatantly political
video.

In addition the agenda of the HUD conference included a
workshop session on Cuomo's gun initiative on each day of the
conference. Every other workshop appeared only once on the
schedule. Additionally, most other sessions featured success
stories presented by local participants; Deputy General Counsel
Max Stier was the only presenter at the gun seminar. The
description read as follows:

The workshop will provide an overview of the
comprehensive program HUD is sponsoring to promote
community safety and reduce gun violence in all the
communities HUD services. In particular, the workshop
will discuss HUD's successful work encouraging gun
manufacturers to take responsible steps to reduce gun
violence, HUD's BuyBack American initiative, the Public
Housing Drug Elimination Program, the Communities
for Safer Guns Coalition and other efforts.

Anyway you cut it, a Gore-Lieberman administration will
continue the gun control efforts of Clinton-Gore. And, if elected,
they won't have to waste any time reinventing programs, they
just will continue and build on those started under Bill Clinton
and Al Gore. For gun owners this election is about whether they
get to take back their rights or watch as the federal government
renounces Sam Colt, abandons Winchester, and rejects an
industry that has kept this country free for over 150 years.

Tanya K. Metaksa is the former executive director of the National Rifle
Association's Institute for Legislative Action. She is the author of
"Safe, Not Sorry," a self-protection manual, published in 1997. She
has appeared on numerous talk and interview shows such as
"Crossfire," the "Today" show, "Nightline," "This Week with David
Brinkley" and the "McNeil-Lehrer Hour," among others.
 
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