Uzi does it
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But with the support of a far-right coalition including elements of the NRA, the John Birch Society, the Christian Coalition, and the National Right to Life Committee, Barr won the election with 52 percent of the vote. The payoff for the NRA came in early 1995, when Newt Gingrich appointed a task force to examine firearms legislation. At the NRA's urging, the speaker named Barr to head the task force.
Barr's agenda is unabashedly pro-NRA. He proposes abolishing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and revoking the Brady Bill that requires waiting periods for the purchase of handguns. This summer he stumped for a bill that eliminated funding for research at the Centers for Disease Control on gun-related fatalities. "[The CDC has] not eradicated disease," said Barr. "They have work left to do."
Most importantly, he engineered the March 22 House vote repealing the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons. "It was Bob Barr's job to get it done, and he did," says Neal Knox, the NRA's first vice president.
Three times, Barr charged up the Hill to push the repeal vote. He managed to get a vote scheduled for May 1995, but it was taken off the agenda after the Oklahoma City bombing. Last fall, Barr organized more than 100 of his colleagues, Democrats as well as Republicans, to repeal the ban. But his effort got lost in the furor over the 1996 budget.
Finally, in early March this year, Barr had lined up enough House members to force a vote. With only two hours scheduled for debate, and no committee hearings, the bill passed 239-173. Sixty-eight out of 86 House freshmen voted to repeal the ban.
Tanya Metaksa, executive director of the NRA's political arm, told Mother Jones, "It wasn't the task force that got the vote scheduled. It was Bob. He convinced his colleagues in the Republican Caucus to do it."
