A pro-gun House or Senate?

As summer turns to fall, the news for gun owners has not brightened.
A vote looms, the anti-gun media frenzy intensifies, and the gun
business becomes more difficult. The price of guns is going up, while
the availability will be shrinking. Over the Columbus weekend gun stores
across the nation saw a run on handguns made by Colt’s. It’s amazing how
supply drives demand and price.

Colt’s Firearms, the company that had a hard time selling its
Pythons, Anacondas and several other handguns, announced it’s
discontinuing many of its civilian handguns. The mainstream press is
treating this news as if Colt’s completely stopped manufacturing all its
civilian firearms due to threats of lawsuits. The story was worth a
feature article in this week’s Newsweek, and an October 12 Washington
Post editorial applauded the Colt’s decision and pontificated that “an
outright ban on handguns would be best.” The biased reporting by the
media prompted a reply from
Colt’s: “Colt’s
Manufacturing Company, Inc., a premiere firearms manufacturer based in
West Hartford, Conn., strongly refuted media reports that it is exiting
the total handgun portion of its business.”

Colt’s Firearms has been in deep financial trouble since the end of
the Vietnam War and their major profitable business has been Department
of Defense contracts. CEO after CEO has gone through the revolving door
in an effort to change the company’s fortunes. All have been
unsuccessful. The selling of the famous gold Colt horse statue — a gift
from the Turkish sultan, which stood proudly atop the star-covered blue
dome of their factory for well over a century, indicated the depths of
their financial woes. In 1992 the company filed for bankruptcy and two
years later they reorganized. Yet their financial troubles kept growing.

It is obvious that when one reads Monday’s announcement, they are
reorganizing to better position their “smart gun” technology. Steven
Sliwa, the immediate past president, will become the president of a new
company to manufacture and market this new and still unproven
technology. Mike
Allen of
The New York Times explained their strategy: “To help further insulate
the company from legal liability … it plans to create a separate
company, perhaps to be called iColt, that would license the smart gun’s
technology.”

The threat of lawsuits may be the reason cited, but it’s just the
final straw for a company that was financially unable to compete in the
civilian marketplace. They maintain that they will continue to
manufacture and sell those guns that are profitable — including
military, police, and collectors’ models.

But that’s not the only reason Colt’s firearms will become more
expensive. On Oct. 8 UPS announced that they would only ship handguns by
next-day air. Handgun manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and gun
owners are looking at a possible six-fold increase in the cost of
handgun shipments. If a gun buyer purchases three handguns in the next
five years, the increase in shipping costs alone could easily be over
$100. Just another method of raising the cost of buying a handgun and
making fewer and fewer self-defense handguns affordable to the
low-income family.

Within a day both RPS and Airborne informed shippers that they would
no longer accept any handgun shipments, leaving shippers with the only
choice being FedEx and UPS next-day air. Jason Young, account
representative for The Service Source, informs WorldNetDaily that they
have negotiated “aggressive shipping rates” and is willing to work with
handgun shippers. He can be reached at 1-877-843-7687 or by
email for anyone who needs to
ship one or more handguns.

In addition to the news about Colt’s and the shipping industry a
court case made the news this past week. Judge
Ruehlman in Ohio
dismissed the suit filed by the city of Cincinnati against a dozen
firearms manufacturers (Colt’s Firearms included), a distributor and
three trade associations. The judge ruled that “there is no theory of
collective liability under Ohio law” that applies in this case. He went
on to say, “Further, neither the law of Ohio nor any other jurisdiction
of which the Court is aware permits recovery in strict liability for the
intentional use of a product to accomplish an intended result such as
homicide or suicide.” Although the result in this suit is good news for
manufacturers and gun owners, the list of pending trials appears
endless. The trial lawyers are prepared to lose in order to find the
best theory to use in subsequent cases; and while losing they are
forcing industry and gun owners to spend their energy and money fighting
each and every case.

The Columbus Day issue of Roll Call, the newspaper that reports on
congressional activity, announced in its “Scoop” column that a deal on
the Juvenile Justice Bill may be imminent. It reported that “The
agreement worked out by House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., and
Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will require that 95
percent of the background checks for purchases at gun shows be completed
within a day.” Since Attorney General Reno claims that 95 percent of all
sales at gun shows are completed within two hours, the conferees agreed
that only those purchasers who have arrest records for which final
disposition is unavailable must wait up to three days. All others must
complete the transaction within 24 hours. Roll Call didn’t cover the
rest of the gun package: mandatory trigger locks, the Feinstein ban on
imported “high capacity” magazines and a ban on possession of “assault
weapons” by juveniles.

The story goes on to say that the House pro-gun forces led by
Majority Whip Tom Delay, R-Texas, want the Senate to vote on the
conference report first. DeLay is reported to have stated, “It’s a
pro-gun House; let the Senate vote first.” It is believed by many that
Senate Democrats will filibuster the bill because it does not include
the complete Lautenberg Amendment and includes an amendment on the Ten
Commandments that Senate liberals hate. If the Senate fails to pass the
conference report, then the House will not have to vote.

If the Juvenile Justice Bill fails in either the U.S. Senate or House
gun owners will cheer, but the anti-gun lobby believes their efforts
this year will eventually be successful. They and their Democrat
supporters are looking forward to using gun control as a major issue in
the 2000 elections. As a result both Democrats and Republicans are
positioning themselves to blame each other if the Juvenile Justice Bill
doesn’t become law. No matter who blinks first, law-abiding gun owners
are the ones who lose.

There will be a vote. It’s now time to contact your senators and your
representative. They need to hear from every law-abiding gun owner and
every person who supports the Bill of Rights. It’s not just about
trigger locks, magazine bans, or gun shows. It’s about the right to
purchase, to own, to transport, or to use the gun of your choice. If you
fail to make that call, the Washington Post will be ecstatic to
influence the outcome.