Press Release: GOA Denounces Lautenberg Gun Ban

GOA Denounces Lautenberg’s Gun Ban and Registration Bill

For Immediate Release
May 2, 2003
Contact: Ellie McDaniel
703-321-8585

(Springfield, VA) — Gun Owners of America today denounced Sen.
Frank Lautenberg’s so-called “Homeland Security Gun Safety Act.”

“This would be better known as the Purchase Ban and Registration
Bill,” said GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt.

“The bill creates a huge loophole that allows federal officials to
shut down all firearm sales in the country. Equally horrendous, the
bill allows those same officials to register gun owners’ names
indefinitely.

“Registration of firearms is precisely the technique that the Nazis
used to confiscate guns from the Jews — and ultimately, from all
non-Nazi party members in Germany. Once the Jews were disarmed,
genocide was committed.

“The law the Nazis used was not theirs. It was passed five years
before they came to power. Has the Senator learned nothing from
history?” asked Pratt.

Other measures in the Lautenberg bill would allow a Clinton-Gore
administration to stop all firearms sales across the country. The
bill says that whenever the Homeland Security Threat Level reaches
‘elevated,’ federal officials can take as long as they want to
approve or deny background checks. Of course, our country has been
at an ‘elevated’ or higher Threat Level since the warning system
was created following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“Again, Lautenberg seems to have learned nothing from history,”
Pratt said. “England, an island nation, has a gun ban. And what
has been the result? A sharp increase in crime committed with
illegal guns in the hands of criminals.

“The best way to keep the peace is to have an armed populace.
Lautenberg’s proposals will only increase crime just like all other
gun control laws do,” Pratt concluded.

-GOA-

Larry Pratt is the Executive Director for Gun Owners of America, a
national gun lobby with over 350,000 members located at 8001 Forbes
Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at http://www.gunowners.org on the
web.

Either Larry Pratt or another GOA spokesman is available for press
interviews.