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Politics : US Government Attack on Gibson Guitar -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jrhana who wrote (173)	5/22/2012 11:39:24 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 227

FEDS Want To Seize Musicians Guitars? This Crazy Lacy Act Lunacy Just won’t Stop- aka ” Lunacy Act” May 18, 2012 axvault.com Lawmakers are scrambling to save the summer concert season from federal agents poised to seize the instruments of rock and country stars because the wood used to make them may have been illegally harvested–and without their knowledge. “I don’t want the musicians from Nashville who are flying to Canada to perform this summer to worry about the government seizing their guitars,” said Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander. Alexander, whose state is home to famed Gibson Guitars used by bands and stars like Van Halen, the Allman Brothers, Sheryl Crow, Ted Nugent and Paul McCartney, said Friday that he and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden are working to protect the artists, their instruments and makers and eventually change the law governing illegal wood harvesting. “Senator Wyden and I are going to write the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a letter in the next couple of weeks and try to make it clear that wood harvested before 2008 to make musical instruments can’t be seized by the federal government,” Alexander said in a statement. “The Justice Department and Fish and Wildlife have said they have no intention of doing that, but Sen. Wyden and I are going to make it absolutely clear. We hope to get a clear ruling within a few weeks, and if we can’t get a clear ruling, we’ll introduce legislation to change the Lacey Act.” The 112-year-old Lacey Act regulates the trade in bird feathers for hats and was amended in 2008 to cover wood and plants. The goal: make sure the woods used were not exported in violation of another country’s laws. Their goal is to protect wooden instruments built with materials imported before 2008, when the Act was expanded. “This law was never intended to apply to those instruments,” said Alexander. They are also working to help companies like Gibson–raided by the Feds recently–figure out what imports are legal. Wyden and Alexander met with representatives from the music industry, wood import business and environmental and conservation groups Thursday to settle on a solution. “We held this roundtable because instrument makers like Gibson Guitars in Tennessee are an important part of our music industry, and if the Lacey Act as written is keeping them from being able to get the wood they need to make instruments, we need to make every effort to fix the regulation,” said Alexander. “The law was intended to prevent illegal logging and protect U.S. job that are threatened by illegal logging, it was never intended to seize instruments or wood products that were obtained prior to the passage of the Lacey Act amendments in May 2008 because they were made from imported wood—and when laws have unintended consequences, Congress has a responsibility to promptly make changes,” he added. Posted in: Gibson, News Comments (9) 9 responses to “FEDS Want To Seize Musicians Guitars? This Crazy Lacy Act Lunacy Just won’t Stop- aka ” Lunacy Act”” GUitarstuff4U May 18, 2012 at 7:26 pm \| Permalink \| Reply YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!!! stupid ass crap like this make “Normal” people,(not politicians) want to line up all the retards that make these stupid ass laws and run them over with a tank! Jesus Christ, makes me wonder just how these morons passed reading interpretation in school! People wake the hell up and vote the people that do this kind of stuff out of office in November! Ray Whiteside May 18, 2012 at 7:46 pm \| Permalink \| Reply The feds have nothing better to do than take away a persons living in these hard times when we need music most. Scott Knauss "Coconut Grove. Fla." May 18, 2012 at 8:24 pm \| Permalink \| Reply Jus alot of “HorseShit” as far as I’m concerned .. typical jackass nonesence !!!!! wannabe May 18, 2012 at 9:23 pm \| Permalink \| Reply It is all crazy. “Who is John Galt?” It is just like the book “Atlas Shrugged” It was written as exaggerated hyperbolic fiction. But it seems more real every day. Mike- Admin RC Hinrichs May 19, 2012 at 12:06 am \| Permalink \| Reply Someones been watching too much Faux.news Actual American May 22, 2012 at 2:58 pm \| Permalink \| Reply RC Hinrichs feels that it’s important to control what information you are allowed to see. Your papers pleasss! Matt Fleming May 21, 2012 at 5:01 pm \| Permalink \| Reply I have been following the Gibson Lacy Act debacle for a while. How I understand it is that it wasn’t about the actual wood, but whether or not the wood being shipped to Gibson was considered raw or finished. It is a law in Madagascar that wood shipped from them needs to be finished to a certain degree to protect local labor. The wood received by Gibson in the eyes of the U.S. Fed violated Madagascar’s law, not any U.S laws. Basically Gibson was raided because Madagascar didn’t follow their own laws. Or, perhaps they were raided because they supported Mike Huckabees in the 2008 presidential election, but that’s a whole other topic. Here is a video pertaining to the Lacy Act. Andrea Johnson of the Environmental Investigation Agency says the government has no interest is going after individual musicians. Once again, they say one thing and do another. youtu.be JoeThePimpernel May 22, 2012 at 2:58 pm \| Permalink \| Reply The purpose of the feral government is to put the peasants in their place. Robbins Mitchell May 22, 2012 at 3:03 pm \| Permalink \| Reply Note to self:…buy more ammo at Walmart this weekend