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CCW Officially Delayed
Indefinitely
By Brad Foster
Well, it is official. By now you will have seen in the news that the CCW reform bill will not be taken up again this session. We got the word Tuesday afternoon, as soon as they came out of the meeting. This is very disappointing news for all of us. I would like to tell you what we know about how this came about, and why the decision was made.
MCRGO's leadership was invited to a private meeting with Speaker Perricone yesterday to discuss the reasons behind the decision to stop movement on the CCW bill. I would like to share with you some of what Rod Collins was told about what went on at the CCW decision meeting between the Governor and the legislative leadership.
While MCRGO was not invited to the decision meeting, the NRA was there and was consulted about their willingness and ability to support a referendum fight and what the chances would be. They were also asked about legislative priorities. I think this is a major step, to have a gun group invited behind the scenes with the leadership in a decision making role. We would like to have been included in the meeting, but I guess we're not quite to that point, yet. We feel it is an accomplishment to have been asked to sit down in private to discuss their reasoning -
that shows that we are being taken seriously.
Given all the political ramifications and the input from the various people there, Speaker Perricone made the decision to stop advancing the legislation. CCW reform will not come up again this year, and probably not before the election. We are on hold for an indefinite period. While there was obviously input and influence from others, this was Mr. Perricone's decision to make as the Speaker of the House. He did this knowing full well what it could mean to him in terms of political repercussions after the promises he had made to us.
While technically they had kept all their promises (to introduce CCW reform, get it to a friendly committee, and get it to a vote early in the first session), he did regard it as a reversal to stop advancing the legislation. He knew this would not be well-received, and did it only after carefully considering the possible outcomes of the various courses of action. Since it did not look like CCW reform could win politically, he stopped it.
Now, before you fly off the handle, let me ask you to think about this objectively. CCW is a very important issue for us, perhaps the most important. But it is not necessarily the most important issue for them, and there is much more at stake than CCW. What really did us in was the threat of a referendum. This threat was taken very seriously, and the opinion of all involved was that we do not have the money, the political muscle, or the weight of public opinion to survive a referendum.
If a referendum were to be placed on the ballot in the present political climate, we would in all probability lose CCW reform almost before it could get started, and lose it forever. In addition, the voters that such a referendum would bring to the polls would be likely to swing the House back in favor of the Democrats. The 2000 election is very critical, because the winners will be in charge of redrawing all the political boundaries in Michigan for future elections ("redistricting"). So this is not just about CCW reform, but about who will run the state of
Michigan in the future. So it is easy to understand why the Republican leadership decided to back off the issue at this time.
But I want to make it perfectly clear that I am very happy about the way that things developed up to this point. The outcome of this round is bitterly disappointing, but let's look at what we have done: We have proven that our strategy of constructive engagement works! Remember, the legislature came through for us. They did what they promised to do - they passed CCW reform, by an overwhelming majority on both sides of the legislature. This is an incredible achievement, and it was made possible by the hard work of all the MCRGO volunteers at the local level. We were
able to convince our Senators and Representatives that they should vote with us, and that we would be there for them, to back them up. They saw us and listened to us, and they did the right thing. We won in the legislature, and that scared the hell out of the other side. Never forget that - we got it passed this session, and that has never been done before. We can do it again in a future session.
We won in the legislature, but we lost in the court of public opinion. In the face of public emotion in the wake of Littleton, misinformation and disinformation by an ignorant and hostile media, high-profile opposition by a number of misguided celebrities and public figures, and some well-calculated political manuevering by well-funded and well-organized anti-gunners, we lost. We lost because in the final analysis, the leadership looked at the odds and figured they couldn't come out on the winning side if they tried to pass this into law. And I am sorry to have to admit that
I think they are right.
As much as we dislike this decision, it was just practical politics. The leadership did not do this because they do not support us in principle. The other side was stronger, and they won. It's as simple as that. I wish we were stronger, but we aren't. For as new as we are, and as inexperienced as we are, and as little money as we have to work with, we made an excellent showing. I am proud of every MCRGO member who has been involved, and proud to be part of the organization. Now, we have to get to work to become even stronger.
As I said earlier, we have proven that our strategy of responsible, informed, constructive engagement works. In my opinion, the worst thing we could do right now would be to turn on those who have supported us and send them angry calls and letters. As much as it might "feel good" to lash out in anger and disappointment, I do not think that this kind of reaction will help us at all. They need to know that we are a mature, responsible group, able to understand and work within the political requirements of the real world.
I got a number of notes from members after this announcement appeared on the email list. Some were supportive (thank you!) and others were critical. I understand your disappointment, but I just have to clarify something: We aren't "surrendering", as some have characterized it. To push the metaphor, we are continuing the attack in another direction.
This is a long term battle in a much longer war for our rights. We are going to suffer setbacks and reversals. Just because we recognize political realities doesn't mean that we have thrown in the towel.
The fact is that we lost because public opinion was turned against us. If we want the politicians to follow through on CCW reform,
Continued on page 4
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