Bill Carter
Carter's Country Outdoor Stores
Houston
October, 2002
Dear Members:
It’s hunting season again and that always puts a smile on the faces of gun dealers and their customers of all ages. This year looks like another banner deer season with plenty of rainfall in most parts of Texas during the summer/antler-growing season.
On the national level, the Senate passed the Smith/Boxer bill as an amendment to the Homeland Security Bill. What passed is very similar to the overwhelmingly approved House bill, allowing volunteer-trained airline pilots to be armed in the cockpit. It was another tremendous defeat for the gun haters.
We were disappointed when many Texas dealers received the June 12 letter from the BATF
informing us of their decision to return to the policy of requiring dealers with more than 15 guns traces in one year to undergo onerous additional record keeping. At our July 25th Washington, D.C. meeting with BATF top officials, we talked about the unfairness of this policy to larger firearms retailers. BATF reluctantly agreed to look at traces versus annual sales in 2003, rather than the set number of 15 traces.
According to the TGDA dealer survey, the long overdue NICS enhancements of July 23 have increased the NICS immediate proceed percentage rate from 68% to almost 90%. In addition, the appeal process for denied transactions has been improved so that denied persons can find out the reason for their denial in a few short days instead of weeks.
All in all, it’s been a good year thus far for the Second Amendment. Thanks for your continued support.