March 20, 2009For more information contact:
Ted Novin
Office: 203-426-1320
Cell: 202-253-1860

Firearms Industry Applauds Introduction of
Firearms Fairness and Affordability Act in U.S. Senate
NEWTOWN, Conn. — Today, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) — the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry — applauded Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, for introducing legislation to rectify a longstanding inequity in the frequency with which firearms and ammunition manufacturers pay a federal excise tax on the products they sell.
The firearms and ammunition excise tax (FAET) is a major source of wildlife conservation funding in the United States. The Firearms Fairness and Affordability Act (S. 632) will allow the firearms and ammunition industry to pay the FAET on a quarterly basis, the same payment schedule on which every other industry supporting conservation pays the federal excise tax. Joining Sen. Baucus in introducing this important bi-partisan legislation were Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), the current co-chair of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, and five other senators.
Currently firearms and ammunition manufacturers must pay the FAET bi-weekly. This payment schedule forces many manufacturers to borrow money to ensure on-time payment, and industry members spend thousands of man-hours administering the necessary paperwork to successfully complete the bi-weekly tax payments — monies that are due to the federal government long before manufacturers are paid by their customers. This legislation will not lower the amount of conservation dollars collected by the tax.
The NSSF estimates that shifting to a quarterly payment schedule will free up approximately $22 million annually for manufacturers to reinvest and grow their businesses, resulting in enhanced conservation funding through increased excise tax payments by the industry.
Commenting on the importance of the legislation, Sen. Baucus said, “This is the right thing to do. It will help cut bureaucratic red tape and help the firearm industry save resources. This will ensure the gun industry is treated fairly.”
A broad coalition of sportsmen and conservation groups including the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, Ducks Unlimited, National Rifle Association and many others, support changing the schedule for FAET payments by the firearms and ammunition industry.
“Shifting to quarterly payments would allow manufacturers to invest in new equipment and product designs and enhance their marketing efforts,” said Steve Sanetti, president of the NSSF. “This in turn could lead to greater participation in hunting and the shooting sports, something that would benefit everyone.”
Total excise tax collections from firearms and ammunition manufacturers for the federal government’s fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2007 to Sept. 30, 2008) were $321.9 million.
“A financially strong and growing firearms and ammunition industry will not only generate greater excise tax revenues, monies that will be used to fund conservation throughout the United States, but will also help ensure America’s manufacturers remain financially healthy and a source of employment and tax revenue particularly in the current challenging economic times,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel.
“Singling out the firearms industry for tax payments every two weeks is bureaucratic and discriminatory,” said Sen. Crapo. “Changing to a quarterly excise tax payment system, as is used throughout the rest of the sporting goods industry, will allow firearms manufacturers to reinvest funds into developing new products and marketing efforts. It should provide increased funding for state wildlife preservation programs by easing restrictions surrounding the collection of these taxes. The firearms industry would still pay its full share of taxes, but it would do so in a more equitable manner that is keeping with other business practices.”
Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Pat Roberts (R-KS), John Ensign (R-NV) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) have co-sponsored the Senate FAET legislation.
A companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives was introduced earlier this year by Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI), the immediate past co-chairman of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, and was co-sponsored by fellow immediate past co-chair of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The House bill has the support of 37 members of Congress.
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Firearms and ammunition manufacturers have since 1991 contributed more than $3 billion dollars to fund wildlife conservation through the payment of the federal excise tax. Since the inception of the excise tax in 1937, more than $5.5 billion dollars has been collected.

PROIS PRO-STAFF SPOTLIGHT ~ ANNE VINNOLA

NEWS RELEASE
OBAMA EFFORT TO END ARMED PILOTS PROGRAM AN OUTRAGE, SAYS CCRKBA
BELLEVUE, WA – A revelation by the Washington Times that President Barack Obama is trying to quietly end the armed pilot program, making air travel more vulnerable to terrorist attack, should outrage travelers, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“The Washington Times nailed it,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, who proposed arming pilots just hours after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and championed the armed pilot program. “What Obama is doing is risking public safety, as the newspaper put it, ‘in the name of an anti-gun ideology’.”

The newspaper reported in its Tuesday edition that President Obama is “quietly ending the federal firearms program” by diverting some $2 million from the training program to hire “supervisory” staff, whose job, it appears, will be to harass armed pilots through unnecessary field inspections.

“How dare the president, or anybody in his administration, take measures to erode the safety of air travelers,” Gottlieb questioned. “The armed pilot program provides a guaranteed level of security to the public. There may or may not be an air marshal aboard every airplane, but there is definitely a pilot in the cockpit.

“We trust commercial airline pilots with $500 million aircraft,” he continued. “We can certainly trust them with $500 pistols to defend those planes, and the lives of their passengers.

“Certain individuals have never liked the armed pilot program,” Gottlieb acknowledged. “These anti-gun, anti-self-defense bureaucrats seem more interested in their own power, and protecting their little empires, than they are in protecting the public. And now, Obama is catering to their anti-gun bigotry.”

Call the White House at (202) 456-1111, or send a comment by visiting www.whitehouse.gov/contact.

Konus M-30 Rifle Scope

Copyright © 2009 by Anne Vinnola

While testing this scope we were looking at it from a varmint hunting perspective. The Konus M-30 met and exceeded our expectations. Relatively new on the American rifle scope market, the M-30 is an excellent choice for your hunting needs.

The  M-30 series is designed with a glass engraved reticle system in which the reticle is laser-etched onto crystal clear precision glass rather than a thin wire.  This eliminates the chances of becoming misaligned or breaking as is the case with other scopes.

 With the  1/8 MOA locking adjustments there is less room for slipping and change.

Each scope has a  built-in anti-canting bubble, one piece tube construction is
waterproof and fogproof.

This new line of long-range scopes feature an illuminated blue reticle, which can easily  be viewed against any other color and is generally softer on the eye than red or green reticles. 

Each scope comes with a lifetime replacement guarantee and Konus has excellent customer service.

This scope is great for  varmint hunting by the serious shooter who is after great ballistic accuracy.

Prices are reasonable, from $529 to $629.

On a long road trip to South Dakota for a pheasant hunt my friend Kirstie and I were getting tired. We had been fighting snowy road conditions for many hours. I dug around in the cooler and found a couple of energy drinks.  After drinking these…ok, choking them down Kirstie and I called the manufacturer to tell them just how bad they tasted and how they made both of us feel jittery and sick to our stomachs.  The sugar and caffeine made us feel a bit more energized for a time but it was a false sense of security and soon we felt worse than before we drank the energy drink.

After that experience I was hesitant when the 5- Hour Energy™ people asked me to look at their product from a hunting perspective.  I received a few samples in the mail and read the ingredients, which include but are not limited to.

 Vitamin B6 which helps our nervous system function properly increases the amount of oxygen carried in our blood and aids in the processing of carbohydrates for energy.

B12 which helps in the production of amino acids, and the processing of carbohydrates into energy.

 Niacin (B3) is important in energy production. It plays a key role in converting fats, proteins, carbohydrates and starches into usable energy.  It also helps remove toxic chemicals from the body, and has been shown to increase the level of HDL (good cholesterol) in the blood.

 Tyrosine, an amino acid that transmits nerve impulses to the brain, elevates mood, improves memory and increases mental alertness.

Caffeine: The original formula has the same amount of caffeine as one cup of premium coffee.

As a hunter I appreciate the portable quality of this. It is only 2 ounces and sealed well. I can throw it in my daypack and head out for a long hard day of walking. I like the taste of the orange flavor, but even if I didn’t 2 ounces is an easy way to get quick energy.

One of my favorite benefits from 5-Hour Energy is that I don’t get that jittery feeling and am not worried that my aim will be blown.

The directions recommended by the manufacturer for using 5-Hour Energy are as follows.

RECOMMENDED USE: Drink one half (1/2) bottle (one ounce) for moderate energy. Drink one whole bottle (two ounces) for maximum energy. Do not exceed two bottles of 5-Hour Energy shots daily, consumed several hours apart. Use or discard any remainder within 72 hours (three days) after opening. Refrigeration not required.

CAUTION: Contains caffeine comparable to a cup of the leading premium coffee. Limit caffeine products to avoid nervousness, sleeplessness, and occasional rapid heartbeat. You may experience a Niacin Flush (hot feeling, skin redness) that lasts a few minutes. This is caused by Niacin (Vitamin B3) increasing blood flow near the skin.

Do not take if you are pregnant or nursing, or under 12 years of age.

EDITORIAL by DON BENDELL
 
WE CAN BOUNCE BACK QUICKLY!
 
Many Americans; republicans, and independents who actually believe in working are scared, very, very scared. Those who do not believe in working, who think our government is a bottomless money pit, were told they were victims and promised ice cream cones if they voted for a Change to Believe In. Many republicans have given up hope on their own party and our nation. Why? Our economy was doing fine until 2006, when we elected a liberal Congress, and our President and many other republican legislators joined the liberal crowd and spent money like a spoiled stepchild. In fact, the biggest whiners right now are republicans who stayed at home on election day. Many showed up but decried the chosen republican nominee, and that enabled Obama to become elected.
Now, with President Obama still promising ice cream cones, our country is rapidly plunging headfirst into a major economic depression. In the two-months after Obama was elected the DOW plunged over 25%. Many jobs and businesses have been lost and many more will. Some people have even lost half of their retirement. Yes, it is going to get worse before it gets better, but it will eventually get better. Then, when it does, we will be facing double digit inflation because of the Obama government now printing money while businesses are losing money. The things that have propelled the United States to the forefront of the world in regards to success, personal freedoms, and privacy are being destroyed right before our eyes; in order to keep liberals getting re-elected.
In times of world or national crisis, we have always depended on our President to reassure us, to remove our fears and our doubts. However, our new President has failed us there miserably and has been using our fear, and in fact, magnifying it to get support for his runaway spending spree. The President and our Congress are spending like Paris Hilton with a gold card in a party store. Do we get reassurances? No, we get more smoke-blowing than untaxed free cigarettes at a NASCAR race.
Yes, the President inherited a recession, but he took his inheritance and tossed it down into the deep, dry well of Depression. It has not dawned on him that you can never tax your way into prosperity, that in every country where the government takes care of everybody and distributes the wealth, it never, ever works. Human rights disappear. Freedoms come with strings attached. When the economy is in a freefall, you throw it a parachute, which is called “tax breaks,” as many as possible. Socialism has never worked and has always failed miserably, but licking those free ice cream cones; nobody cares, because the ice cream tastes so good.
I have never seen our freedoms, rights, and traditions so quickly eroded and so much apathy about such demise. On top of that, buying the line about a “Change to Believe in,” many voters not only elected Obama and re-elected the Congress with the lowest popularity ratings in history, but they added even more liberal legislators to the Congressional tax-and-spend clique. Obama and this Congress want to punish people for making money, and then are surprised when those same people will not play that game. Those who make lots of money, KNOW the stimulus plan will only make matters worse not better. Gas and oil rates are down but will sky-rocket before long, because the government has stopped our drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, although China is drilling to its heart’s content a little further out. Millions of acres of land with oil and natural gas underneath have been closed to drilling by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar simply because oil or gas rigs might be seen from National Parks lands a mile or so away. Amazingly, Obama’s approval ratings are high at around 60%, but he is still blaming GWB for his problems and getting away with it but not for long. Now, for example, close to 70% believe Obama’s mortgage salvation plan will not work, and they are right. When incentive is removed, people do not try to succeed. The old cliché “the rich only get richer,” does not work when they get punished for getting rich. The rich are protecting what they have and will not work to make more to get punished for it, so the poor do not get jobs or money anyway, as a result.
However, the good news is that we can recover and recover quickly. What goes down, will come up. The country might be in a depression, but I refuse to be in a depression. Please join me, and we can bring America back to, well, becoming America again. If you hold a pencil in your fist and push on the upper half with your thumb, you can break it easily, but if you hold a large group of pencils together, you cannot break them with both hands no matter how strong you might be. We will survive this by workng together, doing what is needed to regroup, turning to God for help, and getting back to solid, real conservative principles.
            When the Boogeyman goes to bed at night and is ready to turn off his lights, his heart pounding and his breaths rapid; he slowly, carefully looks under his bed then moves to his closet and opens the door with a whimper, then a relaxed sigh. The Boogeyman then jumps into bed very relieved that I am not hiding anywhere in his room or closet. That has been my attitude my whole adult life, and it must be the attitude we need to survive anything. That is precisely the attitude we Americans must get back to in order to survive this frightening ordeal we are all going through.
            There are specific things we must do to get our nation back from those who woo the lazy masses who want a guaranteed rocking chair at sunset, redistribution of wealth, and undeserved government handouts:
1.                           We must target and call-out Republican legislators who vote with the democrats on tax or spending bills, and then we must back their opponents in upcoming primaries.
2.                           We must only elect conservatives, not phony conservatives, and get back to Reagan-like conservative politics.
3.                           We must act now to help elect conservatives to Congress in 2010. We must also elect conservatives to our state houses and in our state gubernatorial races.
4.                           We must take a very hard line on any republican politicians who feather their own nests for personal profit or power.
5.                           Finally, we must get united behind one very conservative Ronald Reagan-like Presidential candidate starting now.
Our hope lies in God we trust and a united, unbending stand for true conservatism which built America and made America great. Nothing else will work.  If Obama stops spending and cuts taxes like crazy, especially business taxes which are the highest in the free world; that can end the Recession and coming Depression, but he will not. He needs the ice cream cone lickers in order to get re-elected. As George Bernard Shaw said, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.”
If you believe in hard work, just rewards, personal freedoms, lower taxes, the US Constitution exactly the way it was written and intended, and keeping Big Brother out of our private lives; please join me in a fight for America. Where do we start? Our nation is being knocked down on our knees. From there, we can only look up, and that is also the perfect position for prayer.
 
Don Bendell, 62, is an author of 25 books including his newest novel, DETACHMENT DELTA, about modern day Delta Force, which was released worldwide in January, 2009 by Berkley Books (Penguin-USA), with over 1,500,000 copies of his books in print worldwide. Don is a popular editorialist who has appeared on FOX NEWS LIVE, and many national radio shows. A 60% disabled vet, Don served as an officer in 4 Special Forces (Green Beret) Groups, including a 1968-1969 tour on an A-team in Vietnam, as well as in the Top Secret Phoenix Program and has two sons in Special Forces.  A 1995 inductee into the International Karate Hall of Fame and a Grandmaster in 5 martial arts, he and his black belt master wife, Shirley, also own karate schools in southern Colorado. Don lives in Florence, Colorado. Write him at don@donbendell.com

Check out my latest article at Shotgunlife.com!

http://www.shotgunlife.com/Women-Shooters/pheasant-phun.html

Friends, I have used ProEars for several years now and they are the absolute BEST in hearing protection. BUT something to know is that ProEars enables you to hear the game way before it hears you. Please watch this video. It is enlightening!  ProEars    http://www.bowtube.com/media/338/Hear_Game_Before_You_See_It/

March 2, 2009

Hunters, Target Shooters and Industry Provide
$336 Million for Wildlife and Education
NEWTOWN, Conn. — When a target shooter purchases a box of ammunition or a hunter a new deer rifle, wildlife in America benefits.
Every sportsman and woman contributes to a system that has been responsible for supporting healthy wildlife populations of both game and non-game species for the last 70 years.
State-By-State Apportionment

The contributions, in the form excise taxes paid on sporting firearms, ammunition and archery equipment, benefit every state and have generated approximately $5.6 billion for wildlife conservation since 1939. The contribution for 2009 is a record — nearly $336 million, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which recently announced the Wildlife Restoration apportionment.
“We want all Americans to know about and value the support that hunters, recreational shooters and the firearms and ammunition industry make to wildlife conservation,” said Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, trade association for the firearms and shooting sports industry. “With wildlife populations professionally managed and thriving, we can safely say that this is one investment guaranteed to not lose value.”
Species such as the white-tailed deer, Rocky Mountain elk, pronghorn, wild turkey and black bears have made significant population gains due to research and improved habitat funded by the Wildlife Restoration program.
In making the announcement, Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, “These investments, which help create jobs while protecting our nation’s natural treasures, are particularly important in these tough economic times.”
Of the $336 million total, some $64.7 million benefits hunter education and firearms and archery range programs.
These contributions are the result of the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, passed in 1937, which directs funds to states based on land area and paid hunting license holders, among other criteria. And while there is always a temptation for governments to redirect funds, legislative safeguards prevent these Wildlife Restoration monies from being diverted away from state wildlife agencies.
Both game and non-game species benefit as agencies use the money to manage wildlife populations, conduct research, acquire wildlife lands and public access and carry out surveys, among other uses. According to U.S. Fish & Wildlife, more than 62 percent of Wildlife Restoration funds are used to buy, maintain and operate wildlife management areas.
“The firearms and ammunition industry is proud to play a role in collecting, managing and contributing to these funds,” said Sanetti.
Sanetti hopes, however, that Congress will correct an inequity in the way the excise taxes are currently paid by industry, with the result that even more funds marked for conservation would be collected.
Legislation introduced earlier this year by Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wisconsin) will allow the industry to pay the firearms and ammunition excise tax (FAET) on a quarterly basis, the way other industries that support conservation do. Currently firearms and ammunition manufacturers must pay the FAET bi-weekly, a schedule that forces many manufacturers to borrow money to ensure on-time payment. Industry members spend thousands of man-hours administering the necessary paperwork to successfully complete the bi-weekly payments — monies that are due long before manufacturers are paid by their customers.
This legislation will not lower the amount of conservation dollars collected by the tax.
“Shifting to quarterly payments would allow manufacturers to invest in new equipment and product designs and enhance their marketing efforts,” said Sanetti. “This in turn could lead to greater participation in hunting and the shooting sports, providing even more funding for wildlife conservation and hunter education.”