U.S. House Rejects Attack on Ashcroft & Privacy of Gun Buyers

In a bipartisan vote of 268-161, the U.S. House of Representatives defeated an attempt by anti-gun Representative Jim Moran (D-Va.)—joined by gun-ban extremists Reps. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)—to invade the privacy rights of law-abiding gun owners. Moran introduced an amendment that sought to give the FBI authority to retain records of law-abiding gun purchasers for at least 90 days, a policy the Clinton/Reno Department of Justice (DOJ) had attempted to make permanent with a last-minute regulation. Fortunately, Attorney General John Ashcroft’s recent proposal to reform and improve the operation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) included a call to slash the amount of time allowed to keep records on law-abiding citizens that are generated by NICS to less than one day.

NRA-ILA Executive Director James Jay Baker said, "On behalf of the NRA’s more than 4.4 million members, I am pleased to see that the U.S. House voted in support of maintaining the privacy of our citizens. While the Attorney General’s proposal is an effort to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens, Rep. Moran’s intentions were to further restrict those rights.... Our members are very pleased with the outcome of the bipartisan, overwhelming defeat of the Moran amendment."

Take the time to thank those U.S. Representatives who voted against the Moran amendment, and protected the privacy of law-abiding gun owners. And if your Representative voted against privacy and for the Moran amendment, be sure to voice your objection. To find out how your U.S. Representative voted on the Moran amendment, you can call the NRA-ILA Grassroots Division at 1-800-392-8683. For those on the Internet, you can go to the U.S. House web site.