Will You Continue to Support the SAF After Their Involvment in ManchinToomey ?

I've been paying a lot of attention this whole thing (and definitely didn't support any version of the UBC) but I wasn't aware the SAF supported it. I had been thinking I need to support more pro 2A organizations than just the NRA and my local F&G but now I don't think SAF would be a wise move to give my green to.

“Our support for this measure was contingent on several key provisions, the cornerstone of which was a rights restoration provision that is not on the schedule for consideration,” said a frustrated CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “This is not a reflection against Senators Joe Manchin or Pat Toomey, who are staunch Second Amendment advocates, and I want to thank them for all of their efforts to include as many protections for our gun rights as possible.

“But it appears the Democratic leadership in the Senate was opposed to letting this important consideration come up for a vote,” he said. “We told everyone including a number of senators, that while there are many pro-gun rights provisions added to the main body of the bill, our support was contingent on this additional amendment coming to the floor. When we say something, we mean it.”

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...ottleib-withdraws-support-for-manchin-toomey/

Seems good to me. Note that I don't agree with them that mandatory UBCs are OK (lived with 'em in CA. No thanks!) but they are horse trading to undo specific significant harms.

For what it's worth the SAF said. ---- well, Ed you beatme to it.

“Our support for this measure was contingent on several key provisions, the cornerstone of which was a rights restoration provision that is not on the schedule for consideration, but it appears the Democratic leadership in the Senate was opposed to letting this important consideration come up for a vote. We told everyone including a number of senators, that while there are many pro-gun rights provisions added to the main body of the bill, our support was contingent on this additional amendment coming to the floor. When we say something, we mean it.”

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They dropped their support be for the vote.

I'll have to look in to this more to decide if its a deal breaker or not.

SAF

The SAF has been responsible for some serious "wins" in past years for us gun owner's, having said that....I am going to reserve judgement whether to "throw them under the bus" until I know all of the facts, which at this point I don't. It will all get sorted out in the near future and then I will decide "yea" or "nea". I am a firm believer in rewarding our friends & allies and punishing our enemies.

I suspect some back room strategies and a campaign of semantic disinformation that was agreed upon was reneged upon by congress.
SAF has some smart guys who I think were betrayed by the other side.
Let us see how this shakes out.

I appreciate what they "tried" to do and the fact that once they realized it wasn't going to work, they dropped their support. There are ways to improve the current situation, but the public debate seems to be polarized between the extremes of banning all scary guns, mags over 10 rounds and creating a national database of all civilian owned firearms and on the other end of the spectrum, a wholesale repeal of the NFA, BCA and FOPA.

SAF has some smart guys who I think were betrayed by the other side.

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Given who betrayed them, I wouldn't suggest that they were all that astute in making the deal. More to the point, if they can't figure out how to tell friend from foe, how can they be useful to the RKBA effort?

... and on the other end of the spectrum, a wholesale repeal of the NFA, BCA and FOPA.

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Personally, I'd like to see a much stronger show of committment from them that this really is the core of their mission, but I do agree with many others that the good they have indeed done grants them a lot of benefit of the doubt from me.

Undoubtedly, the T-M debacle is a serious, shining, oozey, inflamed black eye that will take a long period of untainted and stellar efforts from them to overcome.

Heck, there's still people who HATE the NRA even now for supporting FOPA back in 1986, and that bill was about 80% positive!

We always hear/read/say that whenever 'our side' compromises in a gun control debate, we really don't get a "compromise", instead, we lose a bit more of our 2nd Amendment Right. 'Our side' in the legislation would define 'compromise' to mean that they decided to give the other side a little of what they wanted instead of everything they wanted.

But that's not true compromise.

True 'compromise' is "give & take"; as in, we give you UBC but in exchange we get rights restoration, reopen the NFA registry, and open the access of handguns in regards to interstate transfers. In that example, we gave up a large chunk of our rights but we gain a large chunk back... in exchange.

It looks like the SAF wanted to sit down and actually draft a real compromise for once in the gun control struggle. They offered what the antis wanted and asked for some stuff back in exchange. The antis didn't want to barter these rights, they wanted them surrendered (even if a bit at a time). I presume the SAF wanted to get out in the front and control the conversation so that this time around we don't ONLY lose something, but this time we get something back as well, and so that 'our side' is driving the dialog rather than simply being in defense mode throughout.

And it looks like when the compromise they drafted wasn't accepted, they retracted their support from it.

If this is true, I'd opt to change the vote I cast in this thread.

I'm sorry to appear ignorant but what is the SAF?

loose noose said:

I'm sorry to appear ignorant but what is the SAF?

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Read the first sentence in the first post.

They do/did much more good than bad, no one org. is perfect but at the end of the day we need to stand united. Our enemies constantly seek to drive a wedge between gun owners and will again. This won't be the last time so support those who support us even if it's not 100%. What would be the alternative? They will learn and already did if I remember they ultimately pulled their support

I don't agree with everything SAF does, but give them the benefit of the doubt because of their successes, and their explanation.

BTW I was (and still am) completely against UBC's, but I said myself I would have traded UBCs (or at least a form of UBC) for destruction of all existing 4473 records and any associated data, removal of all serial #'s from the UBC's, a law against collecting and storing info on gun owners, and a couple of smaller concessions (like removal of the sporting purposes test on imports and, eliminating the tax stamp on suppression devices and SRBs etc).

I would love to draw the line in the sand and just say no more, but eventually we need to start whittling away at some of the currently accepted infringements.

I also believe that if we gave up UBCs and got rid of some of the other things, UBCs would be easier to beat in court. Smart political play coupled with smart legal strategy will get us back on track far faster than either one alone.

I think it took them a little too long to retract their support. Many of us were telling them for several days that the bill did not say what SAF said it said. A lot of confusion and division was caused by SAF supporting the bill while others (those who read the bill, and knew what "is" is) were against it.

They do do more good than harm, but they almost cost us "big time". I agree with what Sam said, and might add that SAF is very good at litigation but, apparently, not so much with legislation. Perhaps they should stick to their strengths.

Alan Gottlieb's statement that they would not support Schumer-Toomey-Manchin came after the amendment was already effectively dead. At the time he made that statement, it was widely understood that the votes were not there, even though the vote had not happened yet. It was also considerably after GOA and NRA came out against the amendment.

SAF has had some excellent success on the litigation side of the fence and have shown a willingness to work with other RKBA groups. Two qualities I've always admired about them. However, their lobbying attempts here appear bush league at best. If you have Chuck Schumer on your side and Dave Kopel, the NRA and GOA arguing against you, you have an obligation to present a better case than "Trust us! This is great!"

Dave Kopel made some very specific allegations of sloppy drafting that to my knowledge, CCRKBA and SAF still haven't addressed. Personally, my perception is that SAF was out of their depth on this one and got snookered. I would hate to see that effect the good work they do; but this was a case of very poor judgment at best. I know I am going to be reluctant to donate more money to an organization that thought this was a smart move, with or without rights restoration.

I'm okay with the UBC. And whether or not it's a good idea, I believe not coming to an agreement on it will engender a backlash which could affect things I do care about, like AWB or high-cap issues. I think this was overreach and fear it will muddy the waters.

I can only handle on knife in the back at a time. They cannot be trusted.

If the bill went to the senate floor as they proposed, there was a lot of good in it. Unfortunately, there was some very bad in it as well, and reminded me of the 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act which gave us interstate travel, but at the same time closed the National Firearms Registry to new additions.

It would be nice to be able to purchase handguns from an FFL in any state, but it wasn't worth having every single transaction "blessed" by the feds to get it.

I'm okay with the UBC.

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Really?

And whether or not it's a good idea, I believe not coming to an agreement on it will engender a backlash which could affect things I do care about, like AWB or high-cap issues.

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A backlash? From whom? The senators who couldn't even send an agreement to the house...who would never have voted for it anyway? This wasn't going anywhere because the people really don't want it, and it's a bad idea. No worries about a backlash. The relatively few seriously anti-gun voters aren't strong enough to do anything about it, the vast majority of voters in the middle-ground don't care one way or the other, and those of us on the pro-gun side are VERY motivated to stomp it to death. Looks like we're in good shape right now.

I think this was overreach and fear it will muddy the waters.

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I think it was a strong showing of force, which we desperately needed, and thoroughly -- comprehensively -- exhausted the will of the Congress to march down this dead-end road again anytime at all soon.

If they couldn't turn the Sandy Hook tragedy into a SINGLE piece of federal anti-gun legislation after all the massive effort they poured into it, they aren't likely to be able to work up the momentum to get that ball rolling again for years to come.

We done GOOD.

Really?

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Yes, really. When I sell guns privately I go through FFL. I don't want to have to guess if someone is qualified to own one. I leave that to the NICS check.

A backlash? From whom?

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Voters. From a non-partisan polling group:

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/more-backlash-against-senators-on-gun-vote.html

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/05/hagan-landrieu-gun-voters-could-help-in-2014.html

I will continue to support the SAF for their judicial victories, but I think the time has come to abandon any compromises. The gun rights movement seems to be gaining momentum and it is to our advantage to turn any legislation into a zero sum game. Nine states have already passed a version of the Firearms Freedom Act, and we handed gun control at the national level a very visible defeat.

The only reasonable gun control is legislation that repeals some of the existing restrictions with no ground being surrendered.