D.C. bill heads to House

From Gunowners of America:

By a resounding vote of 62 to 36 last week, the U.S. Senate has approved an amendment, offered by Senator John Ensign of Nevada, to repeal the D.C. gun ban.

Congratulations!

But the battle is not over.

This week, the House will take up the D.C. voting legislation. And anti-gun Speaker Nancy Pelosi is angling to impose a "gag rule" on the House, so that D.C. gets its unconstitutional representative, while continuing its draconian anti-gun laws (like microstamping).

So here's the deal: The House will be asked to consider a "rule" which establishes the time for debate and provides for which amendments may be considered -- and which may not.

It is expected that the Pelosi rule will seek to deny the House any vote on the D.C. gun ban and thereby strip the repeal of the ban from the House bill.

So what we are asking you to do is to write and/or call your congressman and demand that he oppose any rule that strips the D.C. gun ban repeal from the D.C. voting bill.

Just to remind you of how draconian the D.C. gun law is:

* Following the Supreme Court's decision in Heller declaring the law to be unconstitutional, D.C. made a few cosmetic changes which will, as a practical matter, allow it to continue to deny its citizens the right to keep and bear arms.

* Then, the City Council passed a whole series of new anti-gun measures. These include a requirement that most guns used for self-defense "microstamp" fired casings in two places with a "unique serial number."

Aside from being ineffectual with respect to stolen guns or crimes where the brass has not been left behind, this microstamping provision is intended to make guns so expensive that they won't be available anywhere -- including your state.

ACTION: Write your Representative and urge him or her in the strongest terms to oppose any rule which will strip the gun ban repeal from the D.C. voting bill. ...

Article here. As I noted before, I doubt that the repeal provision will make it to the bill that the President signs. D.C. residents will continue to have their Second Amendment rights violated, and the Dems will get another reliable vote in the House.

UPDATE - House panel pulls D.C. bill:

The District's push for a full vote in the House of Representatives hit a snag Tuesday when two gun amendments and a number of others were offered shortly before a House Rules Committee hearing on the bill. The committee pulled the legislation from Wednesday's floor debate in response.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the District's nonvoting member of the House, said she would testify before the committee perhaps as early as Wednesday seeking a rule to restrict amendments to the bill. The same rule was employed when a similar bill passed the House in 2007.

Mrs. Norton said that she did not think the bill will be ready this week, as originally expected. Still, she said she was grateful the committee pulled the bill “to spare me from having to formally request that it be pulled from the House floor, had it proceeded so quickly that these gun amendments had somehow been possible.” ...