Send this message to all 100 Senators (it took me a little over an hour) and then contact me and I will send you a Red's Trading Post Translucent tumbler (Fancy word for Traveling Mug). Good Luck and encourage others to do so as well.
I wrote Ryan back when he notified me of this post and urged him:
1. To require verificationI also wrote:
2. To add the caveat "While supplies last."
It seems one hour could be spent composing a list of every email address--if such doesn't already exist--that people could paste in their email "BCC" address bar--then--with a pre-prepared email, it could literally take supporters seconds to do this instead of an hour. I'll look into this and advise--if there is not any online list, and if people literally need to visit every senate website to fill out a form, we should compile a list of actual email addresses--you might want to save any email replies you get from them to compile such a list--I'm surprised the gun groups haven't done this already.
I spent some time blundering around Google and didn't find a consolidated list anywhere. What say we compile one, starting with the Senate.
If you help Ryan out in this and fill out the forms for the Senators, you should get some sort of confirmation email reply with an address--assuming it's not just an autoresponder that no one checks...Damn politicians making us jump through hoops to send 'em our wishes really grinds my gears (and yeah, I know about spam.)
Feel free to leave as many senate edresses as you can find in comments, below.
If a gunblogger who has the time and is looking to generate some traffic wants to take this on, I sure wouldn't mind...
5 comments:
New Jersey:
Sen. Frank Lautenberg
webmail@lautenberg-iq.senate.gov
Sen. Bob Menendez
webmail@menendez-iq.senate.gov
Note the format of email addresses...just paste in your state's Senators last names and you should be good to go.
How I did it: I brought up the Senators' contact pages format http://lastname.senate.gov/ and clicked on their "Contact Me" button. Then, I used my browser's "Show Source" function and searched for 'mail' and there it was.
Go get 'em folks!
I sent the following to my two Senators in Texas:
ATF Enforcement Practices
There has been an alarming increase in aggressive and possibly illegal and unconstitutional enforcement actions by the ATF against law-abiding firearms dealers. These actions are increasingly resulting in dealers losing their Federal Firearms Licenses and their businesses over trivial infractions like using the letter "Y" on a form instead of the word "yes." The underlying rational for such punitive decisions is clearly unreasonable as the plain meaning of "Y" in answer to a yes/no question is obvious to even the most intellectually challenged. Additionally, the ATF persistently refuses to publish regulations in the Federal Register that specify the standards under which it operates, thereby violating the most basic tenants of the notice requirement of constitutional due process. Also, the combination of vicious punitive actions for trumped-up or imagined violations and the lack of publicly posted regulations and standards clearly violates the "arbitrary and capricious" legal standard of review for administrative agencies.
The actions of this agency are the virtual poster boy for a vindictive, out of control agency that has no regard for the constitution or laws that it has sworn to protect and defend. I want answers to what is going on with this agency, and I want a full investigation on all fronts.
I am part of a growing body of people who have decided to "put our money where our mouth is," and we are going to aggressively support organizations and politicians who protect our second amendment rights and mercilessly remove from public office those who do not protect our second amendment rights.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to a full investigation and resolution of these issues.
I wrote Sherrod Brown and George Voinovich the following (borrowing from Ryan's and anon's excellent work):
Dear Senator,
I am writing today to make you aware of the alarming increase in revocations of firearms-dealer and firearms manufacturing licenses inflicted on law-abiding small business owners and their employees by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
From 1994-2005 the number of dealers has decreased nearly 80%; from 2001-06 the number of license revocations had increased nearly 600%. Furthermore, the number of firearms manufacturers from 2001-06 has decreased nearly 85%. The vast majority of these were small businesses run by law-abiding and patriotic entrepreneurs; licenses have been revoked for infractions as trivial as allowing customers to write the letter "Y" in a space on a form such as Form 4473, instead of the word "yes," and judges have found that BATFE in at least some cases has engaged in double counting of trivial infractions to trump up a finding of "willful violations" against these business owners.
Additionally, the ATF habitually refuses to publish regulations in the Federal Register that specify the standards under which it operates. This appears to violate the public notice required to meet the standards of due process. In addition, BATFE's combination of extreme punitive actions for trivial violations and its unwillingness to publicly post regulations and standards governing its own conduct appears to violate the "arbitrary and capricious" legal standard of review for administrative agencies. These are not isolated instances; BATFE has been doing things of this sort for years.
Senator, the habitual nature and increasing frequency of actions by BATFE in this area make it increasingly difficult to dismiss out of hand the contention that there exists a formal or informal policy within BATFE (if not elsewhere in the Justice Department that is supposed to oversee the agency) to conduct a back-door assault on the Second Amendment by administratively restricting the supply of firearms.
In such a war as we face today, a war we did not invite but must nonetheless fight, the law-abiding armed citizen can, in the right time and place, be as important to national defense as the soldier or the spy satellite. Quite apart from those pragmatic considerations, however, more and more people have become aware that BATFE appears to be operating as a law unto itself, indifferent to the G_d-given rights of the people (enumerated and otherwise) in the Constitution. This is corrosive to the domestic tranquility, something else a nation at war --with an enemy who will not hesitate to turn internal division to his advantage -- can ill afford.
BATFE's actions in this area can in no way be posed as part of a larger war or homeland security effort, nor even be construed as necessary and proper to the carrying out of the enumerated powers of the federal government. I and others like me aggressively support organizations and politicians who protect our Second Amendment rights, and steadfastly oppose and strive for the electoral defeat of those politicians who do not understand their Constitutional obligation to recognize and uphold those rights.
Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to a full investigation of BATFE, and a swift and just resolution of these issues.
Respectfully,
Amusingly (sort of, but only if you like irony), I listed the message to Brown under "Gun Control" (heh) and the one to Voinovich under "Government Affairs."
Some might disagree with invoking a war/homesec angle as well as the inalienable rights argument. I can understand that, but am happy to explain why I did it:
I do not and would not accept a homesec rationale for civilian disarmament under any circumstance, but I think that making the "armed citizen in national defense" argument serves to torpedo any "you're not a team player" accusation that "state 'conservatives'" (aka the Giuliani crowd) might throw out way. Anyone who opposes both the present war and gun rights is a lost cause, of course, while those who oppose the present war and support gun rights are free to write me off, or just ignore or refute the parts of the argument you don't care for. ;-)
Oldsmo, I am no slouch myself when it comes to writing letters, however, I can see no way to improve your work, so I will copy it and send to all Senators as soon as I figure out how the fuck to do that, unless you would rather I not use your words. However, I must say you covered all the bases and I can't improve on it.
Straightarrow, thank you kindly and help yourself. Happy to be of service.
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