This evening, Rep. Paymar released his "gun show loop-hole" amendment to Rep Dill's Game and Fish Omnibus. The amendment is being offered in the House Finance Committee tomorrow evening.

The following language is included (if you would like to see an official version, feel free to email me: crager@nrahq.org):
_____________________________________________________________
(a) No person at a gun show shall transfer a firearm unless the transfer is to a federally licensed firearms dealer, or the transfer is conducted by a federally licensed firearms dealer. A federally licensed firearms dealer may assist the transfer of a firearm between non-licensed persons, and shall cause a background check on the proposed transferee in the same manner, and in compliance with state and federal law, as if the federally licensed firearms dealer were transferring the firearms directly.

(b.) If any part of a firearm transfer agreement occurs at a gun show, and the transfer is completed, the transfer must be in compliance with clause (a)

(c) a “gun show” is defined as any venue, open to the public, in which twenty or more firearms are offered for transfer, and two or more persons are offering one or more firearms for transfer.

(d) this subdivision shall not apply to antique firearms as defined by subsection 624.712, subd 3.
_____________________________________________________________

Rep. Paymar is offering his amendment in this committee because he believes he has the necessary votes. Please contact members of the committee and urge them to vote NO on the Paymar Amendment. The following link is the House Finance Committee homepage:
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/comm/c ... comm=86106

More details to follow.

So half the people on here constitute a gun show when they have a guest over to look at a firearm....Gun show is defined as ANY venue, open to the public, in which twenty or more firearms are offered for transfer, and two or more persons are offering one or more firearms for transfer.

Rep. Paymar is at it again. He's going to attach his "gun show" amendment onto Rep. Dill's hunting bill in the Finance Committee. That is a committee with an anti-gun majority.

Per NRA's Chris Rager, the Finance Committee will meet Tuesday evening (not 8 am as scheduled ). Check electronic schedule after 9 am for update. http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hinfo/ ... =4/28/2009

Lets pack the room with opposition.

Unfortunately, I have to give a long-scheduled, public dinner speech at the same moment.

P. S. I wouldn't put it past the metro DFL Leadership to have deliberately arranged this (Paymar's poorly thought out amendment, the evening hearing, etc.) just to get out a lot of gun owners to SUPPORT Rep. Dill's bill WITH the "metro area carveout" in order to DEFEAT the shill amendment proposed by Paymar. The "metro area is unsafer" policy is a gift that will keep on giving. Without Rep. Dill's "hunter's convenience" language in the bill, Paymar's amendment will NOT be germane and out of order. Think about that. Is the DFL that cagy???

-----Forwarded Message-----
Subject: NRA Strongly Opposes Paymar's Amendment

Please find attached an amendment that Rep. Paymar intends to add to Rep Dill's omnibus Game and Fish bill tomorrow evening in the House Finance Committee. NRA is STRONGLY opposed to the amendment. Rep Paymar's amendment is what anti-gunners refer to as the "gun show loop hole." Please note the amendment's negative implications for gun ranges (the below comments are from our attorneys).

"Although the scope would ostensibly be limited to “gun shows,” that term is defined quite broadly and seemingly would encompass, for example, the rental of firearms at a range that has two or more employees and 20 or more firearms available for rental (note that the amendment does not say the transfer need be permanent). If so, every person offering to rent firearms at such a range would have to be an FFL, unless a NICS check and any required state background check were conducted on each renter (who was not an FFL) via an FFL."

* First and foremost, gun shows are not a primary source of guns for criminals. A Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report on “Firearms Use by Offenders” found that fewer than 1% of U.S. “crime guns” came from gun shows, with repeat offenders even less likely than first-timers to buy guns from any retail source.

* The bill will cause FFL's to violate federal law. The 1994 NICS statute only allows dealers to access the NICS system regarding actual proposed sales from their business inventory not as a "favor" to a private seller.

* Regulating the private sale of firearms will not prevent criminals from obtaining firearms.

* Rep. Paymar's Amendment will only affect law-abiding gun owners -- that's his intention. Criminals will not subject themselves to this requirement. Increasing costs and creating further obstacles for law-abiding gun buyers will not slow the illicit trade in firearms.

* There are no lawful “unlicensed dealers.” Any person who engages in the business of buying and selling firearms as a course of business is required by federal law to obtain a federal firearms license. People who “engage in the business” without a license can be arrested and convicted of a federal felony—whether they “engage in business” at a gun show, or out of a home, office, or vehicle.

Oy.

Unfortunately, I've got a commitment at 6PM, and while I may be done in time to get over to the Capitol on time, I might not.

Hope some -- no, lots -- of you will be there. And, just to be a little snarky, I hope those folks who weren't listening about how bad this bill already was to have taken the point.

Methinks: yes. Even with Dill's language, it seems Paymar's amendment has no place in this omnibus, no? This has to be about providing a distraction from the real prize: Dill's metro-area exception.

Even if it's not so, act like it is. Don't become captivated by the shiny, scary-looking Paymar amendment and ignore the dull, innonuous-looking Dill amendment.

The hearing will take place at the conclusion of the floor session today--approximately 3pm, maybe later.

Note: Paymar's amendment may violate federal law:

According to the regulations: ”FFLs may initiate a NICS background check only in connection with a proposed firearm transfer as required by the Brady Act. FFLs are strictly prohibited from initiating a NICS background check for any other purpose.” 28 CFR 25.6(a) (emphasis supplied). The Brady Act only “requires” an FFL to perform a NICS check, moreover, when the FFL transfers a firearm to a non-licensee. See 18 U.S.C. 922(t)(1) (“a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer shall not transfer a firearm to any other person who is not licensed under this chapter, unless … before the completion of the transfer, the licensee contacts the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of that Act”).

The bill, however, contemplates that an FFL will perform a NICS check on behalf of a non-licensee who is transferring a firearm to another non-licensee. The Brady Act contains no requirement or authorization for this.

And a little more:

“(j) Access to the NICS Index for purposes unrelated to NICS background checks required by the Brady Act. Access to the NICS Index for purposes unrelated to NICS background checks pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 922(t) shall be limited to uses for the purpose of:

(1) Providing information to Federal, state, or local criminal justice agencies in connection with the issuance of a firearm-related or explosives-related permit or license, including permits or licenses to possess, acquire, or transfer a firearm, or to carry a concealed firearm, or to import, manufacture, deal in, or purchase explosives; or

(2) Responding to an inquiry from the ATF in connection with a civil or criminal law enforcement activity relating to the Gun Control Act (18 U.S.C. Chapter 44) or the National Firearms Act (26 U.S.C. Chapter 53).”

28 CFR 25.6(j).

I think all this pretty clearly prohibits the portion of the amendment that states: “A federally licensed firearms dealer may assist the transfer of a firearm between non-licensed persons, and shall cause a background check on the proposed transferee in the same manner, and in compliance with state and federal law, as if the federally licensed firearms dealer were transferring the firearm directly.”

In response to JoelR,

Regardless of whether Dill's uncased and unloaded provision was a statewide uniform provision or the current version, Rep. Paymar planned to offer the amdt either in the committee process or on the floor.

He tried to offer it initially in the Public Safety Committee hearing; but, because I had the necessary votes to prevent it--he simply postured. The Finance Committee is not as pro-gun as the previous committees that the omnibus has traversed.

For those of us that aren't professional activists, perhaps one of the more senior members can provide some guidance on this.

Are we just showing up to be a number, or will we have to voice our concerns?

Will there be some organization (someone we should meet at the capital steps or someone that will speak for us at the meeting)?

Open carry?

I'll take pride of authorship over this idea.

In this case, Joel made the point to me that 60 people present and obviously a group would be better than 5 guys with a clear message and great signs.

3pm is going to be hard for me but I'll try to swing it. We can certainly meet up before hand. If I'm able to be there, expect a strategy post with my cell number and a meet up place.

While Open Carry is legal and your choice, my advice is "fight one battle at a time" No reason to have one form of activism take away from another. That's just an opinion BTW.

Individuals can call me for updates re the time of the hearing: 703-282-5296 or email: crager@nrahq.org

Here are some general Gun Show talking points:

Gun Shows
The Gun Show Myth

Gun shows are large, public events that for many decades have been held in convention centers and banquet halls, attended by gun enthusiasts, hunters, target shooters, law enforcement and military personnel, and their families. Under federal law, firearm dealers—persons engaged in the business of selling firearms for profit on a regular basis—are required to conduct background checks on anyone to whom they sell any firearm, regardless of where the sale takes place. Federal law also provides that a person who is not a dealer may sell a firearm from his personal collection without conducting a check.

Though Congress specifically has applied the background check requirement to dealers only, and specifically exempted from the dealer licensing requirement persons who occasionally sell guns from their personal collections, gun prohibition activists call this a “loophole.” Gun prohibitionists also falsely claim that many criminals get guns from gun shows; the most recent federal study puts the figure at only 0.7 percent.

After many months of claiming they wanted a bill that required sales of guns at gun shows, by non-dealers, to be subject to the background check requirement, anti-gun members of Congress voted against such a bill, because it did not contain other provisions designed to put gun shows out of business. Some of the most relevant facts in the debate over gun show legislation include:


The Myth of “Unlicensed Dealers”

• Under current federal law, it is illegal to “engage in the business” of “dealing in firearms” without a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.1 “Engaged in the business” means buying and selling firearms as a regular business with the objective of profit.2 Violations carry a five year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.3

• A licensed dealer may do business temporarily at a gun show, just as he could at his permanent licensed premises. Every legal requirement applies equally at both types of location, including background checks and record keeping on all transactions.

• People who “engage in the business” without a license can be arrested and convicted of a federal felony—whether they “engage in business” at a gun show, or out of a home, office, or vehicle.


Gun Shows Are Not a Source of “Crime Guns”

• A 2006 FBI study of criminals who attacked law enforcement officers found that within their sample, “None of the [attackers’] rifles, shotguns, or handguns … were obtained from gun shows or related activities.” Ninety-seven percent of guns in the study were obtained illegally, and the assailants interviewed had nothing but contempt for gun laws. As one offender put it, “[T]he 8,000 new gun laws would have made absolutely [no difference], whatsoever, about me getting a gun. … I never went into a gun store or to a gun show or to a pawn shop or anyplace else where firearms are legally bought and sold.”4

• A Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report on “Firearms Use by Offenders” found that fewer than 1% of U.S. “crime guns” came from gun shows, with repeat offenders even less likely than first-timers to buy guns from any retail source. This 2001 study was based on interviews with 18,000 state prison inmates and is the largest such study ever conducted by the government.5

• Previous federal studies have found few criminals using gun shows. A 2000 BJS study, “Federal Firearms Offenders, 1992-98,” found only 1.7% of federal prison inmates obtained their gun from a gun show.6 Similarly, a 1997 National Institute of Justice study reported less than 2% of criminals’ guns come from gun shows.7


Gun Shows and Terrorism

Anti-gun organizations have tried to claim that terrorists buy guns at gun shows. Yet the cases they point to don’t prove their point.

• One suspect followed to gun shows was later found “unloading shipments of automatic weapons, explosives, grenades and rocket launchers” in Beirut. These arms, of course, are not available at U.S. gun shows.

• Another gun buyer “was arrested in an investigation of the September 11 attacks.” But the probe never linked him to the attacks, and there was no indication that he ever shipped guns overseas.

• Another case involved an Irish man convicted for using a “straw buyer” at a Florida show to purchase guns from a licensed dealer, for shipment back to Ireland. But in this case, the system worked—the smuggler was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.

• A glance at any TV or newspaper coverage of the Middle East shows that terrorists have no shortage of access to firearms, and far more powerful weapons, without resorting to highly regulated markets in the United States.


Gun Show Legislation Overreaches

Many legislators have proposed to restrict gun show sales, but their proposals would simply create a bureaucratic nightmare—shutting down the shows while leaving criminal markets untouched. Among other problems, various gun show bills (such as H.R. 96 in the 110th Congress) would:

• Create gun owner registration. “Special firearms event operators” would have to submit names of all “vendors” to the U.S. Justice Department both before and after the show—whether or not any of the vendors sold a gun. A private citizen who enters a gun show hoping to sell or trade a firearm, but who does not find a buyer and leaves with his own gun, would be on file with the Justice Department forever as a “special firearms event vendor.”

• Require registration of gun shows. This bureaucratic requirement would allow an anti-gun administration to harass event organizers for paperwork violations. It would also allow government agents to harass gun owners who gather for purposes other than selling guns.

• Allow harassment of show organizers and vendors. H.R. 96, for instance, allows inspection, at a gun show, of a show promoter’s or dealer’s entire business records—including records of transactions that occurred at other shows or at a dealer’s licensed place of business. These inspections are time consuming for licensees and highly intrusive; conducting business at a gun show while simultaneously undergoing a compliance inspection would be impossible.

• Turn casual conversations into “gun show sales.” A person could still agree to sell a gun to a neighbor in a conversation over the backyard fence; but if the same conversation took place at a gun show, the background check requirement would forever apply to that gun. This unworkable and unenforceable system would even apply to a gun that a seller and buyer talk about at a gun show, but don’t have with them.

• Fail to provide for true instant checks. The biggest controversy during the 1999 debate on gun show legislation was how long a “delay period” should be allowed for investigation of a questionable background check. The Lautenberg amendment allowed three business days—the same as current law for dealers at their regular places of business. That delay would, of course, be impractical for a weekend gun show.

1. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(1)(A).
2. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(21)(C). The term does not include occasional sales by hobbyists or collectors.
3. 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(1).
4. Anthony J. Pinizzotto, et al., Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation’s Law Enforcement Officers 53 (Aug. 2006).
5. Caroline Wolf Harlow, Firearm Use by Offenders 6 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Nov. 2001).
6. John Scalia, Federal Firearm Offenders, 1992-98 10 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2000).
7. Pamela K. Lattimore, et al., Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities: Trends, Context and Policy Implications 99 (Dec. 1997).

Sure. That's not a secret. But could you help me out here? Who, exactly, were the folks who, by pushing this horrible precedent of an Outstate Hunter's Mild Convenience Bill, gave him a golden opportunity to do it in the notoriously anti-gun Finance committee? And who were the folks who, up until today, were saying that this gave up "nothing"?

Remind me. Please. My point, precisely, Chris-- by handing him this obviously germane bill, which had to go through Finance, you gave him a golden opportunity.

I seem to remember a story about a guy trading a cow for a bag of beans . . .

I'm sorry, but that just isn't going to work.

Minnesota gun owners -- even the ones in the metro area -- simply can't spend their day phoning and emailing the NRA guy to learn when a hearing may start, and then plan on dropping everything and rushing off to St. Paul at a moment's notice to, perhaps, wait around for hours and hours.

It's just not possible.

It's not that they don't care about stopping this horrible amendment to this [expletive deleted] bill you've been pushing. It's that they simply can't.

So: post the information here. Tell people when and where this amendment is going to be heard, and if you give them enough of a heads up, I'm sure that at least some will. Hell, even though I can't get away until at least 7PM tonight, if you send a short text email to pager@ellegon.com , I'll try to show up, if you can tell me that this amendment is going to be heard any time after that. If I can.

But I've taken a look at the names on the Finance committee, and I'm not at all sure that even if we could get sixty folks there -- and we've done that, but with some reasonable notice, not this call me throughout the day and then drop everything and dash stuff -- it would stop that.

[posted, PMed, and emailed]

Let's face it, the NRA let themselves get played on this one.

Not only did they make the mistake of handing them the geographic exemption zone on a platter, they are now seeing what happens when you don't bring your "A" game all the time.

Rolling it into the omnibus bill is a perfect strategy for the antis, as it forces people to either vote down (or Pawlenty to veto) a lot of popular legislation to kill a few bad sections. The addition of the amendment is even uglier.

I said before the beginning of the legislative session that the DFL strategy for this session and the 2010 session was going to be all about putting the GOP (and specifically Pawlenty) on the nasty side of every single issue in preparations for the gubernatorial race. This qualifies.

-Mark