Oops, Wrong Victim: While the would-be robber managed to inflict a minor cut with his knife, he quickly remembered an urgent appointment elsewhere when the motorist he flagged down produced a firearm. http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?sid=221868&nid=5 --- Selling Guns To The Gun-Shy: The Wall Street Journal looks at how firearms are being marketed these days. http://www.2ndamendment.com/Content/News/20050728-05.htm --- Brazilian Legislators To Campaign Over Referendum: Two competing blocks of legislators will open their campaigns next week, to support or oppose that country's October 23 referendum on the continued sale of firearms to citizens. http://internacional.radiobras.gov.br/ingles/materia_i_2004.php?materia=233755&q=1&editoria= --- Last-Gasp Lawsuits?: With passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act likely, the Brady Bunch has filed two more lawsuits to emphasize the effects the new law would have. http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200507/CUL20050728a.html --- Ruger Responds To Lawsuit: Sturm, Ruger points out that it does not sell firearms directly to retail dealers, as alleged in the latest Brady-Bunch-sponsored lawsuit. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=51070 --- Frist Credited With Protecting Lawsuit-Protection Bill: The Washington Times credits Senator Frist with allowing only one fairly innocuous amendment to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050728-110712-5360r.htm --- From the Firearms Coalition: As I write this, the Senate has just voted 62 - 37 to table or set aside an amendment from Carl Levin (D, MI) which would essentially gut the bill by allowing anti-gun lawyers to force gun dealers that they could not have known that a gun would be misused. Proving a negative is a tough go under the best of circumstances. It looks right now like the motion to set aside the amendment will carry, killing the amendment. A previous amendment, one introducecd by Herb Kohl (D, WI) which would require trigger locks be sold with all handguns, passed 70 - 30. The net effect is nil since guns are already routinely sold with trigger locks. Hardly a poison pill amendment. There are other amendments in the chamber, most of them hostile. Larry Craig (R, ID) has said he will take the bill forward even if hostile amendments are hung on it. That piece of information should not have leaked, but it's now out there and there's no calling it back. There is already a fair amount of hand-wringing and bluster in the various email lists and blogs that NRA is selling out or that the Senate leadership is preparing to screw gun owners again. While I'm not naive enough to say that's never happened, I don't think it's happening now. What's being presented, and what has very real chance of passage, is a viable bill that improves our overall position. Some of our brethren seem to be taking the view that anything short of a touchdown pass on every play is a weak-kneed compromise. A year and a half ago, Neal Knox sent out an alert in much the same situation on much the same bill, but with a more-hostile congress. Here is what he said: March 1, 2004 Neal Knox Update -- The anti-gun crowd's sole focus right now is killing [the] gun industry liability protection bill. So why on Earth are so many panicky gun rights defenders (or people claiming to be) doing everything they can to help the enemy? Yes, [the bill] is in danger of being loaded up with anti-gun amendments in the Senate. But anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that the Senate is overloaded with anti-gunners and has been for several years. The only way to get the bill passed is to get it back to the House, where it can be cleaned up or killed. No bad amendments have yet passed. Even if they do, we do not have a uni-cameral legislature. For those who were asleep during civics class, that means that we have both a Senate and a House and legislation has to pass through both of those bodies. Larry Craig is a proven friend and a capable legislator. Let's let him run his bill. Meanwhile, you can help by calling your senator and urging him or her to support a clean bill. It can't hurt to mention that you will consider a vote for an anti-gun amendment to be the equivalent of an anti-gun vote on final passage. --- From The NRA-ILA: NRA-ILA Grassroots Alert Vol. 12, SPECIAL ALERT 7/28/05 TODAY'S UPDATE ON S. 397 (July 28, 2005)-- "The Protection Of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act" Today the U.S. Senate took a number of actions related to S. 397, as debate winds down with a vote on final passage expected in the next 24 hours. Among the Senate's actions today: * Passage by a vote of 70-30 of an amendment by Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) that requires federally licensed dealers to provide a "secure gun storage or safety device" (e.g., trigger locks, cable locks, safes, gun cases, a lock box, etc.) with the sale/transfer of every handgun (does not apply to long guns). It does not require gun owners to use the device, and does not create any new civil liability for gun owners who choose not to use these storage devices. Virtually all new handguns today are sold with some type of secure storage or safety device. The Kohl Amendment does not have any significant impact on current law or S. 397 itself. * Tabling (and thus, killing) an amendment by Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) by a vote of 62-37. The Levin Amendment would have gutted S. 397, creating a giant loophole for anti-gun activist lawyers, allowing exactly the type of lawsuits this bill is intended to prevent. Last year this same amendment was decisively defeated. Please contact your U.S. Senators IMMEDIATELY and urge them to support S. 397 without any anti-gun amendments. Be sure to tell your Senators that you consider any vote for anti-gun amendments as a vote against S. 397 itself. ON FRIDAY, JULY 29, THERE WILL BE VOTES ON ANTI-GUN AMENDMENTS TO BAN AMMUNITION AND GUT THE LEGISLATION! (For more complete information on S. 397, and to contact your U.S. Senators, please go to http://www.nraila.org/stoprecklesslawsuits.aspx . You may also call your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121. Please IMMEDIATELY share this information with everyone you know who supports the Second Amendment!) -- Stephen P. Wenger Firearm safety - It's a matter for education, not legislation. http://www.spw-duf.info .