Finally...efforts to get BP reclassified !!

[roundball]

That's outstanding Claude...should be exponentially more productive and timely than the way they initially announced the request for letters
:thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Its about time that the leading manufacturer of Black Powder in this country joined all of us who are furious at the silly rules made up by bureacrats who don't have a clue about bomb making, or how powder is used for sport. There have been two major bombings in this country blamed on Black Powder, and in both cases, the charges were false. The bombing on the Univ. of Wisconsin Campus of a lab building that killed one grad student working over nite, was a truck bomb using Fertilizer, NOT Black Powder. But that is the incident that the Senate used to support restricting Black Powder back in 1968, when the 1968 Crime Control Act was passed. Again, in 1995, the Murrah building in Oklahoma City was blown up with a truck bomb, using fertilizers, and gasoline, NOT BLACK POWDER. But again, initial reports blamed Black powder. I also think its noteworthy that when the Columbine High School, in Boulder Colorado was attacked by two students with pipe bombs, NONE of the pipe bombs went off! They did contain black powder, and other smokeless powders. I believe more than 50 of the bombs were found among their effects, or had been tossed into the cafeteria.

I am sure we will all gladly join in petitioning the government to change the current rules. Paul

 

[leslie]

I don't think hazmat fees will be affected since it will still be hazmat.I hope they can get it changed however,so that maybe public perception of the stuff will change.

 

[Claude Mathis]

I heard from GOEX again and apparently, they want all letters sent to GOEX and not directly to the Legislators.

Personally, I think a "public campaign" would make a more significant impact than a single manufacturer, but that's what GOEX wants.

 

[roundball]

I heard from GOEX again and apparently, they want all letters sent to GOEX and not directly to the Legislators.

Personally, I think a "public campaign" would make a more significant impact than a single manufacturer, but that's what GOEX wants.

That's amazing...if I was in DC and approached by Goex with this request, it would immediately sound like a 100% self serving undertaking...but its impossible to ignore scattered letters from individuals all over the country...incredible. :shake:

 

[widget350]

There's nothing to stop a person from sending a letter to Goex AND their legislator...

 

[Claude Mathis]

I heard from GOEX again and apparently, they want all letters sent to GOEX and not directly to the Legislators.

Personally, I think a "public campaign" would make a more significant impact than a single manufacturer, but that's what GOEX wants.

That's amazing...if I was in DC and approached by Goex with this request, it would immediately sound like a 100% self serving undertaking...but its impossible to ignore scattered letters from individuals all over the country...incredible. :shake:

I was somewhat surprised, after my phone conversation with them.

Here is the email I received yesterday (in part).

The Headline section on the GOEX web site outlines the type of information needed to sway opinion in Washington. As you can see, most of it is economic in nature. It would be great if your constituents would address these issues in their letters. GOEX plans to make the initial approach to Capital Hill by the end of May, so it would be helpful if we had the letters by that time.

I asked if that meant they didn't want us to write directly to the Legislators (as we had discussed previously) and I received this...

Claude:
GOEX will process the letters
Thanks for your help
Dan

 

[roundball]

I heard from GOEX again and apparently, they want all letters sent to GOEX and not directly to the Legislators.

Personally, I think a "public campaign" would make a more significant impact than a single manufacturer, but that's what GOEX wants.

That's amazing...if I was in DC and approached by Goex with this request, it would immediately sound like a 100% self serving undertaking...but its impossible to ignore scattered letters from individuals all over the country...incredible. :shake:

I was somewhat surprised, after my phone conversation with them.

Here is the email I received yesterday (in part).

The Headline section on the GOEX web site outlines the type of information needed to sway opinion in Washington. As you can see, most of it is economic in nature. It would be great if your constituents would address these issues in their letters. GOEX plans to make the initial approach to Capital Hill by the end of May, so it would be helpful if we had the letters by that time.

I asked if that meant they didn't want us to write directly to the Legislators (as we had discussed previously) and I received this...

Claude:
GOEX will process the letters
Thanks for your help
Dan

It must be that the fine print in their reply is so small I can't actually see the words that their reply is shouting out loud and clear:

Go Away !!!!!
:shake:

 

[roundball]

Thinking about their reply to you, I don't take being told to 'kiss off' very well. As far as I'm concerned the cat is out of the bag on the idea...let's just take the idea of wanting BP in general reclassified and run with it on it's own merit.

Don't have to mention Goex exclusively...make it generic...list all the BP companies that we know about in alphabetic order...and without Goex even realizing (or appreciating) it we'll be creating cover for their request...bottom line is we'll be the benefactors of our efforts.

So let's go...how about a form letter that all the MLF members can use to flood every Representative & Senator's Email address that we can find?

Post it on other websites for increased widespread distribution.

Get the NRA behind it.

Would we even want to ask the NMLRA to publish it to their membership for additional flooding as well?

Also, some states have grassroots organizations that could possibly be tapped too.

The power of the Internet communication engine is at our fingertips and this could be being discussed everywhere within a few days...let me know if I can help

 

[Claude Mathis]

Thinking about their reply to you, I don't take being told to 'kiss off' very well.

I found the reply a little puzzleling. Especially after we discussed the deytails on the phone. Oh well, I'm sure they have their reasons.

So let's go...how about a form letter that all the MLF members can use to flood every Representative & Senator's Email address that we can find?

I like the idea.

At first, GOEX was going to write a letter that the Forum members could send in, but I suggested that it might be more effective if the public sent individual letters. The major points could be listed for the Forum members and they could incorporate those ideas in their own, personalized letter. Original, individual letters carry more weight than a Xeroxed copy of the same text.

I also think it's important that the letters don't mention "the Forum". That way, it will appear to be the general public, rather than an organized effort by a single group.

Your thoughts?

 

[roundball]

Your thoughts?

Well, IMO an individual forum doesn't have to be indicated, and frankly would have no name recognition at the legislator level anyway...but I do think some benefit could come from some amount or organized effort, particularly if there was name recognition.

Knowing the enormous amount of mail that comes in to a legislator's office, it's screened of course, and just some emails trickling in from a few joe blows may be filtered out from ever making it into the morning report to a legislator...but...if a staffie started to see an unexpected uptick in references to official sounding organizations like the NRA suddenly appeared in Emails, or other official "sounding" national / state organization names...I'd think that unexpected trend might get some additional attention, become a focus item...then they'd probably also take more notice of the joe blow emails as well.

Remember back when OSHA was discovered trying a back door us on regs that would have made the cost of BP prohibitive, we got an Email campaign going, got the NRA involved, they took OSHA to task, and OSHA was stopped.

So my thoughts would be both...a massive Email campaign from every possible individual at a minimum, but also to have any member who is part of any organization with an official sounding name...(just to make one up, something like "North Carolina Historical Reenactors Club")...to get their club onboard and have their members start Emailing referencing their club's name in the subject line of all their Emails.

Is there an NRA member on the Forum with any connections to the NRA leadership?

Who on the Forum has any influece with NMLRA leadership to get them behind this...always a lot of sentiment expressed about how the NMLRA goes to bat for ML folks, well here's a golden opportunity?;

Who on the Forum belongs to reenactor organizations who could get their club leadership to get behind this?

Anyhow, those are my initial thoughts...others reading this can chime in with ideas, expand on it, consolidate things into a strategy...maybe temporarily set up a special Forum category as sort of a reference library of the things we begin to formalize, etc ??

 

[Tman]

Biggest impact will be us writing letters to our Congressmen and Senators AND for groups to get involved from the top down............flood our States folk in Washington with info and have it come at them from the other side (top down from BATF) by a national campaign. IF they see constituents being the squeaky wheel AND the Feds thinking of change, it will make more impact.

 

[brudford]

This is great that Goex is attempting to do something. However when the Communist Democrats
get control of both houses of congress and the
White House in November I think #11 caps and all
smokeless powders will be classified as explosives
as BP is. Also there will be a Federal ban on lead bullets and then it is all over. You can think positive if you want to,however it is still going to happen and we are powerless and to few in numbers.

 

[mykeal]

Bo,

Interesting thoughts.

However, this forum is specifically for discussion of the use of shooting accessories. Your posts are political in nature; as such they belong in the Non-Muzzleloading forum. I'm sure you will find much more interest in your views there.

 

[sidelock]

Bo is talkin streight though aint he? Its goin to git tuffer---- just look out. :cursing: :cursing: