NRA-ILA FAX ALERT
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SPECIAL 4/7/99
CARNAHAN/CLINTON-GORE COALITION
DENIES MISSOURIANS RIGHT TO CARRY
Yesterday, voters in Missouri narrowly defeated "Proposition
B" -- the state's Right To Carry ballot referendum. Despite
critical support from NRA and the tireless work by our grassroots
group, Missourians Against Crime (MAC), the tactics of the anti-
gun cabal of Gov. Mel Carnahan (D) and President Clinton worked
to deny law-abiding Missourians their right to self-defense. The
two untold stories of this campaign will no doubt be the stellar
on-the-ground work by NRA members and Right To Carry volunteers,
who poured hours of their time into participating in the
political process. Unfortunately, it is they and the rest of the
law-abiding citizens of Missouri who lost out on Tuesday. The
other story you probably won't read about in the anti-gun press
is the unscrupulous manner in which Caranahan and the resources
of the Clinton-Gore Justice Department manipulated the process.
Carnahan had thwarted the will of the legislature to pass
Right To Carry the last few years. When their bills passed the
Missouri House by overwhelmingly votes, each time, the Governor
was able to twist enough arms in the Senate to halt bills there.
Then, early last year, the General Assembly passed a bill
authorizing a Right To Carry referendum. Carnahan, term-limited
and eyeing a 2000 U.S. Senate race against staunch Second
Amendment defender Sen. John Ashcroft (R), promised first to
remain neutral during the referendum campaign. As we saw later,
however, Carnahan put his own personal political aspirations
first, and broke this pledge.
In fact, it was Carnahan's daughter who chaired the Safe
Schools and Workplaces Committee (SSWC), the major group
organized against the measure, and she inherited his political
network, including his top dollar consultants. High ranking
members of the Carnahan administration also worked to defeat
Prop. B. They were their most destructive in the "battle of the
ballot language." The referendum ballot language passed by the
General Assembly read:
Shall state or local law enforcement agencies be
authorized to issue permits to law-abiding
citizens at least 21 years of age to carry
concealed firearms outside their home for personal
protection after having passed a state and federal
criminal background check and having completed a
firearms safety training course approved by the
Missouri Department of Public Safety?
When polling data showed majority support for Prop. B as it
was passed by the legislature, a lawsuit challenging that
language was filed and won. Carnahan's personally-appointed
Secretary of State was then able to rewrite the language, which
unsurprisingly was approved by the administration's anti-gun
Attorney General. The language voters saw April 6 did not include
"law-abiding citizens" or the age, criminal background checks and
firearm safety training qualifications originally passed by the
legislature.
In its efforts to deny Missouri citizens the freedom of
choice, the Carnahan political machine was aided and abetted by
another friendly anti-gun administration -- that of Bill Clinton
and Al Gore. The weekend before the election, in a recorded
telephone message directed at women voters and automatically
dialed to 75,000 homes statewide, Hillary Rodham Clinton
assailed Prop. B as "just too dangerous for Missouri families."
Even more offensive was the use of your tax dollars to lobby
against Prop. B! Officials in Janet Reno's Justice Department,
Missouri's two U.S. Attorneys, Edward Dowd and Stephen Hill, co-
signed a letter on U.S. Department of Justice letterhead urging
sheriffs and police chiefs across the state to rally resistance
against Prop. B. Their letter not only listed a toll-free number
in Dowd's office through which callers could receive anti-Prop. B
materials, but also outrageously mischaracterized Prop B. The
U.S. Attorneys went so far as to say that the measure would allow
permit holders to carry firearms that were banned by the federal
government in 1934!
When the Associated Press called Dowd after MAC issued a
statement criticizing the "obvious use of federal funds and
resources to influence this election," he refused to discuss the
matter. Reporters instead were referred to the Department of
Justice, which had approved the effort. The tax-payer funded
lobbying by Dowd and Hill drew praise from the Kansas City Star,
which like the St. Louis Post Dispatch, shrilly opposed Prop. B.
The state's largest papers devoted thousands of words -- both on
and off the editorial page -- to scaring readers into opposing
the referendum.
On April 6, the combination of political strong-arm tactics
and the media's scare campaign proved too hard to beat.
As supporters of Right To Carry and as consumers, we thought
you would like to know who the key financial backers of the anti-
Prop. B movement were. Listed below are the companies and
organizations that contributed at least $1,000 (through March
25) to the defeat of Prop. B:
Handgun Control, Inc............................$141,504
Development Specialists.........................$35,000
Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.........$25,000
James B. Nutter Co.
Schnucks Markets
Silver Dollar City
Sprint Corp.
Civic Council of Greater Kansas City
Hallmark Cards..................................$20,000
UtiliCorp
FAM Holdings....................................$15,000
Southwestern Bell Telephone.....................$11,700
Commerce Bank of Kansas City....................$10,000
Commerce Bank of St. Louis
Unity Health
DST Systems, Inc.
Express Scripts
SSM Health System
American Century Companies......................$5,000
BJC Health Systems
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Central Banccompany
Children's Mercy Hospital
J.E. Dunn Construction
Earthgrains
Faultless Starch/Bon Ami
General American
Kansas City Royals
Kansas City Chiefs
Mallinckrodt, Inc.
Maritz, Inc.
Site Oil Company
St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Rams
Sverdrup Corp.
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center...............$3,000
Butler Manufacturing
Saint Luke's Shawnee Mission
Cardinal Glennon Hospital.......................$2,500
Harmon Industries
Health Midwest
Michael Douglas Foundation
Missouri Gas Energy
Hycel Properties................................$2,000
INDEECO
St. Joseph Health Center
World Wide Technology...........................$1,750
Heartland Health Systems........................$1,500
Tension Envelope
Greater Kansas City WPC PAC.....................$1,075
AMC............................................ $1,000
Argosy Casino
Brown and Associates
The Claymont Company
Drumtech
Educational Employees Credit Union
First Morgan LLC
Gentry Properties
Lemay Building Corp.
Marcone Appliances
Midwest Petroleum Co.
S&H Parking
Sosland Companies
St. Louis University
Tomax Development Corp.
United Fruit and Produce
Our sincerest thanks go out to all of our Missouri volunteers who
worked so tirelessly to pass "Proposition B." We are not giving
up the fight to pass Right To Carry in Missouri, and look forward
to working with you in the future to pass this much-needed
legislation.
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This information is provided as a service of the National Rifle
Association's Institute for Legislative Action -- www.NRAILA.org
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