-=Continued from previous post=- 
     Those attending the meeting can expect to see a Clinton-like
assault on those who propose and support those changes.  
     And they will see an all-out effort to force an early
adjournment -- and time-consuming speeches and movies extolling
the accomplishments of the NRA officers and staff.
     But if the members stay glued to their seats, and insist
that President Hammer get on with the business of the
association, it will be the first time since 1985 that NRA
members have been allowed to take important actions at an annual
meeting.
     NRA members first exercised their rights to control NRA at
Cincinnati, when a group called "The Federation For NRA" -- named
that day -- proposed and the members passed a dozen Bylaws in an
all-night meeting that gave the membership the tools to control
the association.
     As one of the three designated leaders of that effort, I
proposed each of the Bylaws that prevented the highly symbolic
and disastrous-to-gun-rights move of NRA Headquarters out of
Washington, D.C., 
     -- that gave the members the power to fire the top staff and
officers who had attempted to block NRA-ILA's efforts to stop a
gunmaker-led firearms licensing scheme (then fired those
officers), 
     -- that gave the members the power to elect the Executive
Vice President (and then elected Harlon Carter),
     -- that allowed members to nominate members of the Board of
Directors by petition (ending NRA's self-perpetuating Russian
elections).
     Over the next few years the Board systematically weakened or
eliminated most of our reforms, except for the petition process
for nominating Directors -- which they emasculated by ignoring a
member-passed Bylaw prohibiting publication of their Nominating
Committee list.  (Such publication was successfully blocked in
court this year.)
     The 1985 meeting in Seattle was stacked with paid staffers
who attended at NRA expense, and California Rifle & Pistol
Association members, many traveling at CRPA expense (for which
CRPA was reportedly fined $70,000 by the IRS for commingling
political and association money).
     The majority of members at that meeting voted to give up
their power to enact unamendable (by the Board) Bylaws at the
annual meetings, shifting such Bylaw amendments to a mail
ballot -- easily controlled by the Board and staff due to their
control of the magazines (which probably has caused this year's
full financial disclosure bylaw to fail).
     Three members -- Director Ronin Colman, Gun Week Editor Joe
Tartaro, and Endowment Member Marvin Shoaf -- have proposed the
corporate charter changes, some of which deserve to pass,
probably after some perfecting amendments.  
     Their proposals won't solve all of NRA's problems, but
they're a start -- and they need to be carefully considered.
======================================================================
                           Credibility
                          By NEAL KNOX
     WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 10) -- The night President Bill
Clinton stretched the Gun Control Act of '68 to ban the
importation of 59 "modified assault weapons" by Executive Order,
NRA-ILA Executive Director Tanya Metaksa debated White House
Spokesman Rahm Emanuel on national television -- and was gutshot
by her own side.
     Emanuel gleefully hit her with:  "When Charlton Heston was
nominated and elected to the board of the NRA, he himself said in
an interview in San Francisco it was inappropriate for a personal
ownership of the AK-47 because he knew then ... that the AK-47 is
a military weapon, it is not a sporting weapon."
     Tanya could do nothing but ignore Emanuel's damaging shot.
     The anti-gunners will be quoting Mr. Heston a lot after his
expected election as NRA President at the Philadelphia Board of
Directors meeting June 8 -- unless he clearly and emphatically
renounces his statement that "AK-47's are inappropriate for
private possession," and announces that he was wrong to support
the Gun Control Act of 1968.
     For the good of NRA and our gun rights, I sincerely hope he
will make both statements clearly and forcefully at the June 6
annual meeting of members.
     His powerful statements on the importance and significance
of the Second Amendment, read eloquently in speeches at the
National Press Club, at the Conservative Political Action
Conference and elsewhere, are neutered by the obvious
contradictions in his 1968 support for the Gun Control Act in
1968, and his current opposition to repeal of the Brady Act and
the ban on so-called "assault weapons."
     Although the October 1968 American Rifleman identifies
Heston as one of "little more than a handful" of "diehards" in
the Hollywood anti-gun movement, the Cleveland Plain Dealer
reported March 15 that he "informally" supported GCA '68 law but
"backed away from the law within a few years." 
     "At the time, it seemed like a responsible idea," he said. 
That is the closest Heston has come to renouncing those efforts,
in which he worked directly with the Lyndon Johnson White House,
according to documents from the LBJ Library in Austin.
     Heston told the Plain Dealer, "reopening a 30-year-old
debate is a little like a 1990s politician opposing the policies
of President Johnson."  
     Not really.  The issue isn't Johnson's policies, but the
anti-Second Amendment law that resulted from them -- which was
the basis for the "sporting purposes" import ban that Clinton
expanded last month, and is the basis of virtually all Federal
gun laws.
     When Heston's support for GCA '68 first surfaced, Gun Week
obtained a statement that "a handful of dissidents ... seek to
impugn my integrity regarding the Second Amendment and Bill of
Rights, based on a couple of meetings held 30 years ago with
suspicious types like Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas and Gregory
Peck. ...  I stand by my record."
     It is his record that people like Rahm Emanuel, Sarah Brady
and Josh Sugarmann won't let him forget.
     That "couple of meetings" included an appearance on the
popular Joey Bishop television show, public speeches, and visits
to Associated Press and United Press at which the actors provided
statements prepared for them by the White House, according to the
LBJ Library materials.
-=Continued in next post=-
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