Illinois House Delegation Urged to Kill Legislation Harmful to Hunters, Sport Shooter

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Illinois House Delegation Urged to Kill Legislation Harmful to Hunters, Sport Shooters To: City and State desks Contact: Richard A. Pearson of the Illinois State Rifle Association, 815-635-3198; Web site: http://www.isra.org CHICAGO, Oct. 10 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following was released today by the Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA): The ISRA is urging members of the Illinois delegation to the U.S. House to strike language from an important appropriations bill that would prove disastrous to hunters, sport shooters, and military historians. Buried deep within S. 1438, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, is language requiring the "demilitarization" of equipment formerly owned by the U.S. Department of Defense. This language, contained in Section 1062 of the Act, covers a wide range of equipment, including rifles and pistols sold to the public as surplus, or distributed to shooting clubs as part of the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Demilitarization of such equipment must render it permanently, and irreversibly inoperable. In the case of rifles and pistols, demilitarization procedures include welding moving parts together or putting saw-cuts through receivers or other key mechanisms. Section 1062 of the Act would have a significant impact on law-abiding gun owners. Millions of hunters would be forced to surrender their Model 1903 deer rifles to the government for demilitarization. Likewise, target shooters would have to turn in their M1 Garand rifles for a similar fate. Gun collectors would see the government disfigure or destroy many museum pieces in their collections. "Section 1062 is a dream come true for the gun control movement," commented ISRA president Richard Pearson. "There is no compelling public safety interest driving this legislation. Its only goal is to remove lawfully owned firearms from the hands of law-abiding citizens. The fact that this demilitarization requirement was slipped into the military appropriations bill at this critical time in our nation's history is quite disturbing. This is yet another example of the gun control movement's habit of cynically exploiting tragedy to further their unpopular agenda. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) should be ashamed of himself." "The ISRA is calling upon the Illinois delegation to the U.S. House to work to remove Section 1062 from this vital appropriations bill," continued Pearson. "This never should have gotten out of the Senate. But, in light of their demonstrated disdain for law-abiding gun owners, we wouldn't have expected Senators Durbin or Fitzgerald to accomplish this task." The ISRA is the state's leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership. For nearly a century, the ISRA has represented the interests of over 1.5 million law-abiding Illinois firearm owners. http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1010-108.html