GOA: Who Sold You Out on the Holder Nomination?

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

GOA wants to thank all of you for your hard work in opposing the extremely anti-gun Eric Holder for Attorney General.

While we lost the battle on Monday (by a vote of 75-21), you guys registered your opposition loud and clear.

There is no doubt that your activism truly made gun rights THE issue in this nomination battle. Every Senator who spoke against Holder mentioned Second Amendment fears. And even among many of the Senators who voted for him, there was tremendous concern regarding Holder's stance on gun rights.

As stated by The Washington Post yesterday, "Holder overcame concerns by a small but vocal group of GOP lawmakers about his position on national security and GUN RIGHTS, as well as his recommendations in two controversial clemency decisions by President Bill Clinton."

This was truly a battle worth fighting. In fact, the man who was being deified two weeks ago is now the very same President who is widely seen as not being able to shoot straight in selecting cabinet members and is already starting to lose public support. The battle over Holder was certainly central to taking the bloom off this rose.

So thank you for helping magnify our voice on Capitol Hill. GOA spent many hours lobbying against Holder, as we were the only gun rights group in Washington to tell Senators we would be rating this vote in our end-of-session grade report.

With Holder in office, you can expect to see renewed efforts to drive gun dealers and manufacturers out of business -- similar to the efforts he supported while in the Clinton administration.

Expect also to see attempts to classify more guns as "not suitable" for sporting purposes. And don't be surprised to see attempts to use the No Fly List to disqualify gun owners from exercising their Second Amendment rights. (Bureaucrats can add innocent Americans to the No Fly List -- and have done so -- without any due process of law being followed.)

With Eric Holder at the helm, the list could easily become a No Gun List, as there are already discussions in Washington about doing this.

All the above horror scenarios are policies that could conceivably occur without ANY legislation being passed in Congress. That is what makes Holder's confirmation as Attorney General so dangerous. Through the use of Executive Orders or by prosecuting gun owners, Holder can inflict much damage upon the Second Amendment -- even apart from lending his support for legislation, such as renewing the semi-auto ban.

So what can we do now? Is the battle over Holder finished?

No, not yet. There's one more action item that needs to be taken. There are 75 Senators who ignored your pleas to vote against Holder. They need to hear from you and know that you're upset.

They need to be reminded again and again that voting for gun control is what cost Bill Clinton's party the control of Congress in 1994... and Al Gore his election in 2000... and John Kerry the presidency in 2004.

And don't forget, there are the 21 Senators who voted right. They need to be thanked. So please don't file this alert until you've taken the action item below.

ACTION: Please use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your Senators a pre-written e-mail message. You will be prompted to input your zip code, which will then bring up the correct letter for your Senators.

The pre-written letter will differ according to whether your Senator voted in favor or against Eric Holder. (Three Senators missed the vote entirely. GOA is treating their absence as an anti-gun action.)

NOTE: GOA's pre-written letters are usually editable by the sender. In this instance, they are not for the sake of avoiding confusion, so that Senators who voted wrong are not thanked (and vice versa).
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Of course, for those of you seeking a more expressive model, there's always this sample letter over at Sipsey Street:

Letter to the Editor submitted to The Birmingham News through al.com
(http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/info.ssf?lettereditor.html)

With his vote to uphold Eric Holder as the next Attorney General of the United States, Jeff Sessions has joined the ranks of cheese-eating surrender monkeys. His vote for the corrupt and thoroughly anti-firearm rights Holder will forever mark Jeff as a sellout with no more principles than a 3rd Avenue North streetwalker. In fact, to compare him to a cheese-eating surrender monkey is probably an insult to HONEST cheese-eating surrender monkeys around the world, including France.

When the people of Alabama figure out what Holder is going to do to the Second Amendment rights of us all, Sessions had better start looking for a rent-controlled apartment in New York City because the good people of this state won't want his sorry posterior coming back HERE.

Mike Vanderboegh
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com