“The National Rifle Association has abandoned plans to hold its 2007 convention in Columbus following the passage of a ban on assault weapons by city officials,” reports the WaPo. The convention would have drawn up to 60,000 people and generated as much as $20 million.
Federal lawsuits have overturned two previous attempts by Columbus to ban assault weapons. The latest law attempts to avoid that by spelling out a distinction between legal sporting weapons and military-style assault weapons.
News like this always has me dancing a jig. But you can never relax with these guys. StoptheNRA.com says in a recent email:
“Now, while the eyes of the nation are fixed on the upcoming Supreme Court nomination, Majority Leader Frist has said that he plans on bringing S.397 to a vote in the senate THIS MONTH. S.397, known by the NRA as the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.” is an early Christmas present to the gun industry.
S.397 would virtually guarantee that no firearms manufacturer or dealer would ever have to set foot in a civil courtroom again. By setting a standard of liability so high that even signed confessions might not matter, the NRA is trying to make its friends in the gun industry immune to the American civil system. And in so doing, it will be stripping away the rights of the victims of America’s gun violence epidemic.”
The email goes on to ask that we stay vigilant and enlist in their battle against this monster. Please be ready to contact your Senators when Frist tries to sneak this one through.
News like this always has me dancing a jig.
Clint Eastwood would have said, “That made my day!”
Sorry. No excuse.
Um, if the firearms are banned, then by definition they are not “perfectly legal”. And citizens’ constitutional rights weren’t “revoked”, though one could argue that their rights’ are being threatened. But the law can be likewise challenged on constitutional grounds, just as the previous two attempts were, successfully. This is what democracy looks like.
That said, it makes sense for them to change their convention plans.
(Personally, I’m generally sympathetic to protecting the 2nd Amendment, but I think the NRA is way too rabid and absolutist about their interpretation.)
Too bad the NRC didn’t do the convention and THEN have the ban go through–after they partied it up in Columbus. That would have been funny.