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The House has voted 322-99 to pass H.R. 5012 which is FOP endorsed legislation designed to prevent seizure of firearms during a state of emergency as we saw in NOLA post Hurricane Katrina. The Senate passed similar legislation--S.2599 earlier in the month 84-16. [EDIT] The text of the bill as it passed the House. The NJ delegation and their votes:
Yeas Frank A. LoBiondo (R - 02) Jim Saxton (R - 03) Christopher H. Smith (R - 04) E. Scott Garrett (R - 05) Michael A. Ferguson (R - 07) Steven R. Rothman (D - 09) Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R - 11) Nays Robert Menendez (D) Frank R. Lautenberg (D) Robert E. Andrews (D - 01) Frank Pallone, Jr. (D - 06) Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D - 08) Donald M. Payne (D - 10) Rush Holt (D - 12) (NJ district 13 is still vacant after Menendez vacated it for Corzine's Senate seat) I'm pleasantly surprised to see Rothman, my former congressman, cross the aisle to vote in favor of this bill. When I lived in his district I sent a good 2 dozen or so letters to him regarding Second Amendment related issues. If I recall correctly, he responded negatively to those letters without exception. [EDIT] Dave Kopel explains what the legislation means and does. Interesting exerpt: The bill's findings state: (1) The Second Amendment to the Constitution states, `A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,' and Congress has repeatedly recognized this language as protecting an individual right.
If the Jindal bill becomes law in its current form, then the bill would be the fifth time in which a Congressional law has formally recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right. These laws are the Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866, the 1941 Property Requisition Act, the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986, and the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act (S. 397). See Stephen Halbrook's Tennessee Law Review article for discussion of the first three.
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