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Show Hatch fights for amendment rights Sen. Orrin Hatch is leading the fight in Congress to preserve our Second Amendment rights under the Constitution. The gun control lobby has managed to tack some strict anti-gun laws onto the crime bill that is now before Congress. These laws will ban the ownership, sale and manufacture of a number of semi-automatic firearms. The weapons banned are functionally identical to many types of semi-automatic hunting and target firearms. Sen. Hatch rightly believes that these laws will only infringe and hassle law-abiding citizens and hunters. Drug dealers and criminals will obtain and use these type of weapons regardless of any laws passed. Parts of the Crime Bill which get tough on criminals are needed, but laws restricting private ownership of semiautomatic semi-automatic firearms will only infringe upon the second amendment amend-ment rights of law-abiding citizens. We should applaud, encourage, and assist Sen. Hatch in this fight. Our rights as citizens are at stake. The national media are trying to instill in the public mind that military style semi-automatic firearms are 'assault weapons.' This is a distortion, since a true assault rifle is one defined as being capable of fully automatic machine gun fire. True "assault rifles" are lightweight mobile machine guns capable of fully automatic fire and have been illegal in this country since the 1940s. Yet the media are relentless in their ' ' assault rifle ' ' mania. In reality, the weapons at stake are not even "assault rifles," but are military style semi-automatic firearms. Functionally there is a big difference, but the gun control people are blurring them all together. Many types of hunting and target weapons, including rifles, shotguns and pistols are semi-automatic. To put restrictions on this class of firearm will greatly infringe upon our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. Concerned citizens are encouraged to write or call Sen. Hatch and let him know that we support him in this fight. Call 524-4380 or write Senator Orrin Hatch, 135 Russel Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510 or 125 South State Room 84002, Salt Lake City, Utah 84138 Liberal Senators Biden, Deconcini, and Metzenbaum, who are sponsoring the bills to take away our guns, would also like to know how we feel. Write: Washington, D.C, 20510. |
