Constitutional Law

Jim McClure passes on

Obit here. He served as Senator from 1972 to 1991, and played key roles in starting off the gun rights movement. I can recall his leading the legislative fight to curtail the power of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, somewhere around 1977-78, and the first hearings into ATF abuse in 1979, and his serving as Senate floor manager for the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986. He was a lot more than just its floor manager -- when the GOP leadership balked at bringing it up for a vote, he attached it to a key appropriations bill, won by around a 3-1 vote, and then got a deal to bring it up in the next Congress without it being sent back for committee action.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on March 01, 2011 (boomark / email).