On June 29, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Firearms Excise Tax Improvement Act of 2010 (HR 5552) by a vote of 412 to 6. The bill is now pending in the Senate.

This legislation corrects a longstanding inequity in the Internal Revenue Code by permitting firearm and ammunition manufacturers to pay the federal excise tax payment on a quarterly basis, like other industries that support conservation through a federal excise tax. Currently, manufacturers pay this tax on a bi-weekly schedule, forcing 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 tax payments -- monies that are due to the federal government long before manufacturers are paid by their customers. This excise tax is the major revenue source of wildlife conservation in the United States. This legislation will not increase the federal deficit, nor does it reduce the excise tax rate -- it simply changes the payment schedule.

Call your senators today at 202-224-3121 and ask them to support Senate passage of H.R. 5552 before Congress adjourns for the summer.

by Marcus Cole

As an American, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to many, many people who have risked and given their lives to defend our liberty. But as I reflect on the recent Supreme Court decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago, I thought I should take a moment to mention four Americans who have made a relatively uncelebrated contribution to the freedom I cherish and enjoy. I owe a special debt to four black men, and one gun.

The most important of these men, to me, was my father. When I was a boy, he and my mother moved our family of six from the Terrace Village public housing projects in Pittsburgh's Hill District to a predominantly white neighborhood. While many of our neighbors welcomed us, we were not welcomed by all. I recall a brick through the front window, and other incidents. But burned into my memory is the Sunday evening when my father was beaten with a tire iron on the street in front of our home, and in front of us, his four little children. Those three young white men were never caught.

When my father, with his surgically reconstructed eye socket and jaw, was released from the hospital, he did something he never once considered when we lived in the projects. He bought a gun.