Supporting Statement For Litigation

Greetings:

This e-mail is intended as additional supporting evidence for the class action civil litigation in behalf of residents of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, also known as the "Soldiers' Home".

The web site URL for the Home is:

http://www.afrh.gov/DWP/afrh/afrhhome.htm

Martin Cody, a resident of the Home, is the initiator of that class action suit, and David Bamberger, Attorney at Law, is providing legal representation.

You can e-mail David Bamberger at:

david.bamberger@piperrudnick.com

In support of this class action litigation, I previously submitted a written statement entitled, "EROSION", dated Monday 28 March 2005.

Last week, I reported for sick call for the first time since our new clinic was opened.

My leg was in severe pain, and I could hardly use it.

The doctor wrote a prescription and gave me a referral to be evaluated for possible surgery on my back.

Because it was a holiday weekend, I could not get my prescription until the middle of the following week.

So, I went to the PX, bought the strongest stuff I could find, and repeatedly took a whole bunch of it.

It didn't completely alleviate the pain, but it made it so I could endure the long weekend.

As for the surgery, I was supposed to see my social worker, but I'm having second thoughts.

I keep hoping the pain will go away and I'll be able to move my leg.

I just don't want to leave the grounds of the Soldiers' Home to go to a hospital in Washington, D.C.

Here at the Soldiers' Home, we used to have our own hospital, doctors, pharmacy, and diagnostic facilities.

But, in the interest of saving money, all of that has been dispensed with, and most of the former staff was let go.

It's so typical of government bureaucracies that they inevitably overdo whatever it is they're attempting.

The Soldiers' Home fired so many employees that the few staff remaining are unable to cope with their overwhelming numerical caseload.

For instance, when I saw the doctor about my leg, I also wanted something done about my hiatal hernia, and I wanted my prescriptions renewed.

But, he only had time to hurriedly write a prescription and a referral.

Likewise, my assigned social worker cannot possibly handle his caseload.

In all areas of medical and dental care here at the Soldiers' Home, there is no coordination or followup.

If an appointment is missed, no one bothers to find out why, or ascertain the problem.

Another facet of the problem is the change in demographics and the suspicion of criminal corruption that accompanies it.

Most of the current residents, unlike times past, are no longer ambulatory or able to care for themselves independently.

The problem with changing the demographics is that FIRST, the physical plant should have been altered in order to accommodate the residents who are senile, on oxygen, or are in wheelchairs or battery powered vehicles.

As it is, if there's any sort of disaster here, it will inevitably result in catastrophic deaths, for most of them will be trapped in too narrow passageways, behind doors which are not wheelchair accessible, and on upper floors from which they cannot escape or be rescued.

That's why I suspect some sort of criminal complicity in all this.

How else do you explain all the multitude of repeated blatant health and safety violations, when this Home is allegedly subjected to scrutiny by official oversight?

In other words, what is the District of Columbia Fire Department's inspection team doing?

Are they accepting bribes?

Who does the medical certification here at the Soldiers' Home?

One other thing I would like, if it were possible:

I'd like the Environmental Protection Agency to inspect the air and water in my room (and all other rooms).

I want to know about levels of lead and vermin in the tap water.

I want to know about the levels of radon gas, mold, and/asbestos in the dust that is ever present in my room.

The drastic reduction in staff and the continuing violation of, or failure to enforce basic standards of health and safety is evident in all other areas of the Soldiers' Home, not just the medical aspect.

There's probably more I could write, but this will have to do for now.

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

"My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

Spring 2006 "IONNSAICHADH AR CANAN"

"IONNSAICHADH AR CANAN"
(i.e., "LEARNING OUR LANGUAGE")

By: John Robert Mallernee, Clan Bard

Do you think you don't know how to speak Gaelic, just because you're American and speak only English?

Have I ever got news for you!

I'm copying this from a "WORD POWER" page taken from an old issue of "READER'S DIGEST" magazine.

It doesn't say on the page which issue it came out of, so I don't know which month or year it was, although it does mention "Saint Patrick's month."

Also, these words might be Irish, and not Highlander, but I suspect they're probably common to both languages.

So, here are a list of Gaelic words, with their definitions, which we use in our everyday English language.

KEEN - - - To wail in lament for the dead, from the Irish, "caoine"
(note the Americanization of the spelling, for there is no "K" in the Celtic alphabet)

SMIDGEN - - - A small amount

BARD - - - Once, a person who wrote and recited epic poetry; today, an accomplished poet

CAIRN - - - A pile of stones set up as a monument or landmark

SMITHEREENS - - - small pieces

GLOM - - - to catch or grab

GALORE - - - in plentiful amounts

DOUR - - - sullen; gloomy

REEL - - - To sway from a blow or shock, often as in dizziness

BLATHER - - - To talk foolishly or babble

BROGUE - - - Sturdy shoe (and originally a peasant's heavy shoe); also, strong Irish or Scottish accent in the pronunciation of English

DUN - - - A dull grayish brown, or a description of a horse of that color

KIBOSH - - - Nonsense

SLEW - - - A large number or quantity

GLEAN - - - To gather, learn, find out
(Gosh, gee whillikers, that word's even in our Holy Bible!)

HOOLIGAN - - - A young thug or street hoodlum

SLOGAN - - - A distinctive phrase often associated with a product or political party

Slainte mhath, y'all!

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS

Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

"My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

Anger Management

***** WARNING!!! *****

This dangerously illegal and immoral subversive underground resistance message is being surreptitiously monitored by the Beaming Internet Government Broadband Radio Oscillation Telecommunications Hearing Electronic Reconnaissance (i.e., B.I.G. B.R.O.T.H.E.R.) as part of a coordinated official clandestine domestic surveillance investigation, in cooperation with the National Administration of Zealous Interrogation (i.e., N.A.Z.I.) and the Commission On Message Monitoring Investigative Electronics (i.e., C.O.M.M.I.E.).

Serious felony criminal charges are pending, with extreme penalties yet to be determined!

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Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

Here is a hilarious story that was posted at "THE BLOOD IS STRONG" Scottish discussion forum web site.

The URL for that web site is:

http://www.thebloodisstrong.com/

Unfortunately, when I first read this, I was sitting in the public library here at the Ol' Soldiers' Home, and I spontaneously erupted into loudly uproarious uncontrollable laughter.

Shhhh - - - quiet, PLEASE!!!

Also, I apologize if the harsh language in this story is offensive.

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ANGER MANAGEMENT! ! !

When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don't take it out on someone you know.

Take it out on someone you don't know.

I was sitting at my desk when I remembered a telephone call I'd forgotten to make.

I found the number and dialed it.

A man answered, saying "Hello."

I politely said, "This is Chris.

Could I please speak with Robyn Carter?"

Suddenly a manic voice yelled out in my ear, "Get the right f**ing number!" and the telephone was slammed down on me.

I couldn't believe that anyone could be so rude.

When I tracked down Robyn's correct number to call her, I found that I had accidentally transposed the last two digits.

After hanging up with her, I decided to call the "wrong" number again.

When the same guy answered the telephone, I yelled "You're an asshole!" and hung up.
I wrote his number down with the word "asshole" next to it, and put it in my desk drawer.

Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I'd call him up and yell, "You're an asshole!"

It always cheered me up.

When Caller ID was introduced, I thought my therapeutic "asshole calling" would have to stop.

So, I called his number and said, "Hi, this is John Smith from Verizon.

I'm calling to see if you're familiar with our Caller ID Program?"

He yelled "NO!" and slammed down the telephone.

I quickly called him back and said, "That's because you're an asshole!"

One day I was at the store, getting ready to pull into a parking spot.

Some guy in a black BMW cut me off and pulled into the spot I had patiently waited for.

I hit the horn and yelled that I'd been waiting for that spot, but the idiot ignored me.

I noticed a "FOR SALE" sign in his back window which included his telephone number, so I wrote down the number.

A couple of days later, right after calling the first asshole (I had his number on speed dial), I thought that I'd better call the BMW asshole, too.

I said, "Is this the man with the black BMW for sale?"

"Yes, it is", he said.

"Can you tell me where I can see it?" I asked.

"Yes, I live at Thirty-Four Mowbray Boulevard, in Vaucluse.

It's a yellow house, and the car's parked right out in front."

"What's your name?" I asked.

"My name is Don Hansen," he said.

"When's a good time to catch you, Don?"

"I'm home every evening after five."

"Listen, Don, can I tell you something?"

"Yes?"

"Don, you're an asshole!"

Then I hung up, and added his number to my speed dial, too.

Now, when I had a problem, I had two assholes to call.

Then I came up with an idea.

I called Asshole Number One.

"Hello."

"You're an asshole!" (But I didn't hang up.)

"Are you still there?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"Stop calling me," he screamed.

"Make me," I said.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Don Hansen."

"Yeah?

Where do you live?"

"Asshole, I live at Thirty-Four Mowbray Boulevard in Vaucluse, in a yellow house, with my black Beamer parked in front."

He said, "I'm coming over right now, Don.

And you had better start saying your prayers."

I said, "Yeah, like I'm really scared, asshole," and hung up.

Then I called Asshole Number Two.

"Hello?" he said.

"Hello, asshole," I said.

He yelled, "If I ever find out who you are - - -"

"You'll what?" I said.

"I'll kick your ass," he exclaimed.

I answered, "Well, asshole, here's your chance.

I'm coming over right now."

Then I hung up and immediately called the police, saying that I lived at Thirty-Four Mowbray Boulevard in Vaucluse, and that I was on my way over there to kill my homosexual partner.

Then I called Channel Nine News about the gang war going down on Mowbray Boulevard in Vaucluse.

I quickly got into my car and headed over to Mowbray Boulevard.

I got there just in time to watch two assholes beating the crap out of each other in front of six cop cars, an overhead police helicopter and a television news crew.

NOW, I feel much better.

Anger management really works.

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The guy I got that story from lives in Australia.

I don't know where he got it from.

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

"My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

SOUTHERN COOKING AND ARMY MESS (BOYHOOD MEMORIES)

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Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

It's a chilly, snowy day here at the Ol' Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C., and I just came from the mess hall, where I gorged myself with two cold cuts sandwiches and a bowl of chicken noodle soup, with Boston cream pie for dessert.

If you're old enough, do you remember the Campbell's Soup commercials on television, which used a variation of the popular song, "LOVE AND MARRIAGE" to advertise "SOUP AND SANDWICH"?

Mama used to feed us kids Campbell's cream of tomato soup, with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Mama was born and raised in Alabama, and she and Aunt Ellen and Grammaw and Grampaw loved fried okra and fried green tomatoes and buttermilk.

But, I didn't.

I was forced to eat that stuff and I hated it!

I liked my first taste of buttermilk, but I never liked it after that.

Go figure.

I went to school in Spring Lake, North Carolina, and they served turnips and turnip greens in the cafeteria.

Boy, I sure wouldn't eat that stuff!

I tried it, but I didn't like it.

But, other kids loved it, especially with vinegar.

Other kids also liked licorice candy, but I always hated it.

I had forgotten, but my sisters reminded me of Daddy fixing us fried egg sandwiches and pork and bean sandwiches.

He was a career master sergeant in the United States Army, initially trained as an Army cook, later becoming a personnel sergeant.

The sandwich was just plain fried eggs, with catsup, between two slices of untoasted plain white bread.

Another thing Daddy enjoyed, and we ate a lot of, were bowls of bread and milk.

That was just plain white bread, broken up into a bowl, with milk poured on top.

My favorite meals were Mama's spaghetti and cheese, preferably with slices of fried Spam.

I reckon the spaghetti and cheese was made the same way other folks make macaroni and cheese, but with spaghetti.

We ate a lot of Spam, and I always loved it.

Actually, I think we ate a lot more bologna and weiners.

We often snacked on uncooked weiners, calling them "cold dogs".

I think Spam was sort of a special treat.

I reckon this was peculiar to our family, for I have not seen anyone else fix spaghetti and cheese, fried Spam, bread and milk, pork and bean sandwiches, or fried egg sandwiches.

I like fried catfish, but Mama told me that proper Southerners don't eat catfish, for only Yankees and poor white trash would stoop to it.

Do you remember "MERITA" brand bread?

It was my favorite because of the commercials on "THE LONE RANGER" television show.

For the best effect, please be sure and enjoy watching this free Internet streaming broadcast, presented by the HULU web site, of the classic television series in "FULL SCREEN" mode.



When our family went on vacation, driving between Spring Lake, North Carolina and Jasper, Alabama, we would pass through downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and seeing the huge "MERITA" bakeries, I got all excited, figuring the Lone Ranger lived there!

I idolized my grampaw, and tried to copy everything he did.

After eating pancakes, he would mix butter into the leftover pool of syrup in his plate, stirring it into a delicious paste, which he spooned up and ate just as it was.

So, I learned to do that, too.

He would give us kids rides on his mule, he taught me to milk a cow, took me fishing on the Black Warrior River, and when he took me fox hunting, I had my first cup of coffee!

He grew up hard and poor, working in coal mines and plowing fields.

He drove nothing but Buick automobiles, and smoked Prince Albert tobacco in his pipe.

Across the road from Grammaw and Grampaw's house in Walker County, Alabama was Frenchy's Barbecue.

If you're Southern, you grow up with barbecue, and it IS gooo-ood!!!

Everybody in my family, and everybody I know, loves cole slaw, but I do not like it and will not touch it.

One time, our Methodist church in Spring Lake, North Carolina raised money selling Brunswick stew and Welsh rabbit.

Boy, I sure like that!

Another treat that Mama would fix was cans of tamales.

I love tamales!

Uncle Roy stopped by our house and fixed us some enchiladas.

That was the first time I'd tasted enchiladas, and when we later moved to El Paso, Texas, I was totally nuts about all Mexican food!

I think he also fixed us our first pizza.

I love almost any food that's Mexican or Italian!

Here at the Ol' Soldiers' Home, they just don't know how to fix real Mexican or Italian meals.

Well, them there is some of my faded memories of a Southern boyhood in an Army family.

Actually, there is more, but I'll write about that some other time.

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS

Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

NOTE: "My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

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Report on Soldiers' Home in Today's "WASHINGTON POST"

***** WARNING!!! *****

This dangerously illegal and immoral subversive underground resistance message is being surreptitiously monitored by the Beaming Internet Government Broadband Radio Oscillation Telecommunications Hearing Electronic Reconnaissance (i.e., B.I.G. B.R.O.T.H.E.R.) as part of a coordinated official clandestine domestic surveillance investigation, in cooperation with the National Administration of Zealous Interrogation (i.e., N.A.Z.I.) and the Commission On Message Monitoring Investigative Electronics (i.e., C.O.M.M.I.E.).

Serious felony criminal charges are pending, with extreme penalties yet to be determined!

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Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

Here is a news report about the Ol' Soldiers' Home published in the WASHINGTON POST newspaper, dated Tuesday 21 February 2006.

The URL for the WASHINGTON POST newspaper is:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/


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GROWTH FIGHT INVADES SOLDIERS' REFUGE


Retirement Home's Proposal Infuriates D.C. Neighbors

By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, 21 February 2006

B01

The rolling hills of one of Washington's largest spans of undeveloped land are dotted with pines and oaks, two fishing ponds, a fighter plane and a tank.

At the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Northwest Washington, those acres have been the place of quiet contemplation for legions of veterans who fought with swords in the Mexican War, lost limbs in the War Between the States, threw grenades in the First World War and manned battleships in the Second World War.

It is where President Abraham Lincoln escaped to a summer cottage and where he penned the last draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

But the battle that is the talk of the Home's hallways is raging around the historic site itself.

Its administrators have drafted a master plan, opposed by a small group of neighborhood activists and planning officials, to save the landmark from financial hardship by turning more than half its vast space -- nine million square feet -- into a development project that could include condominiums, shops, a hotel, embassies, and medical and office buildings.

The land is the retirement home's biggest asset, and leasing much of it to developers is crucial for "our financial survival," said Timothy Cox, chief operating officer for the home, better known as Old Soldiers' Home.

"We truly have no other choice."

But some residents and planning officials have balked at the scale and scope of the master plan, which calls for one hundred and thirty foot tall buildings in a neighborhood of small townhouses with canopied front porches.

The plan also has been criticized for lacking a traffic plan for the area, which could be flooded by thousands of new people.

"My neighbors and I are sympathetic to the Home's needs," said Reyn Anderson, who lives near the campus.

But she said, "A worthy goal does not give the home carte blanche."

Since the Home was established in Eighteen Fifty-One, its campus, surrounded by the Park View, Columbia Heights and Petworth neighborhoods, has been shrinking.

The five hundred acres slowly have been whittled away as land has been taken for Children's Hospital, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington Hospital Center and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

In Two Thousand Four, the Home sold forty-six acres to Catholic University for twenty-two million dollars, the first time the Home made money off its land, Cox said.

But it continues to grapple with tough financial times.

Faced with rising health care costs and an aging World War II population among its approximately one thousand residents, Cox said the Home is scraping a trust fund that is supported by fifty cent per week paycheck deductions from enlisted military personnel.

The Home is under the auspices of the Department of Defense, but it does not receive taxpayer money.

War, however, has been good for the Home; it has made more money recently, with many troops mobilized to Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the future of its health care, decades down the road when these veterans could come to the Home, is a looming and potentially expensive problem, Cox said.

"The wounded military coming back now, we haven't had to deal with those types of severe disabilities.

In World War II, soldiers with those injuries -- they didn't survive.

They died," Cox said.

"We have to find a way to pay for heroes coming back with things like three prostheses, a colostomy bag or a head wound they will have for the next sixty years of their lives."

Running the Home is a costly proposition because it subsidizes much of the veterans' costs.

These are the veterans, most of them career military, who cannot afford to retire in such places as Florida or Arizona.

The average contribution from veterans living at the Home is eight hundred dollars a month, or about nine thousand six hundred dollars a year -- a fraction of each resident's thirty-one thousand to forty-one thousand dollar annual living cost.

"The people we serve are truly low and moderate income," Cox said.

"And this will be their only home until they die."

The developed part of the land is checkered with amenities, including a golf course, chapels, banks, a convenience store, a barbershop and beauty salon, residential towers and greenhouses leased to the Smithsonian Institution.

The Home's master plan did not state the amount of money officials need or hope to make.

That was a concern for planning commissioners, who made a financial strategy part of the requirement for further consideration of a revamped master plan.

The proposal was challenged at a National Capital Planning Commission meeting this month, when more than a dozen speakers, including a neighborhood woman with her two babies in tow and a bespectacled historian worried about the future of Lincoln Cottage, spoke out against the proposed development.

After hours of debate and speeches at the Groundhog Day hearing, the commission voted against approving the master plan.

In particular, the panel took exception to the proposed nine million square feet of development that would surround a National Historic Landmark and block one of the best views of the nation's capital.

The Historic Preservation Review Board similarly swatted down part of the plan in January, citing the proposed development as "too great to avoid very serious adverse effects."

Both commissions asked Home officials to reconfigure the proposal and return with a plan that calls for less aggressive development on the site.

One neighborhood resident called the plan "a developer's dream" and a preservationist's "worst nightmare."

"Hundreds of years after people forget we all were here, they'll come from all over the world to see Lincoln's Cottage," said the resident, James Carstensen.

"What a shame if they couldn't see the land as Lincoln saw it.

What a shame if they saw row after row of town homes and tall buildings."

Lincoln Cottage was named a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and last year was placed on the group's list of eleven most endangered places in the United States.

Residents of Parkview and Petworth argue that heavy development in an area that is already densely populated will snarl traffic and choke the neighborhoods.

It would also devour the green space that was intended more than one hundred years ago to be one of Washington's great parks, said Sandra Hoffman of Petworth, an adversary of the project.

"This could be a huge loss, for the neighborhood and for the city," Hoffman said.

"My constituents feel very much excluded from this process," said District of Columbia Council member Jim Graham (Democrat - Ward One), who has filed a formal request under a federal code asking to be an official consulting member of the Home.

Before it became a retirement home and presidential cottage, the land and mansion were the estate of George W. Riggs, who went on to establish Riggs National Bank.

In Eighteen Fifty-One, after the Mexican War, Congress purchased it as a retirement home for soldiers.

When the nearby neighborhoods were built, planners did not incorporate extra parks or pathways, because the Home's land was open to the public and was enjoyed by families who picnicked, relaxed and played on its hills.

But in Nineteen Twenty-Five, when areas along North Capitol Street were sprouting with new homes, the retirement home closed itself off from the neighborhood with a wrought-iron fence.

After the Washington riots of 1968, the fence was topped with barbed wire.

Part of the Home's redevelopment plan carves out small public parks, space that residents haven't had access to for eighty years, Cox said.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

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Here is the web site URL where you can see the original story, with accompanying maps and photographs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/20/AR2006022001365.html

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

"My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

Pending Legislation

Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

As an "Endowment" member of the National Rifle Association, I receive frequent e-mails from that organization, most of which I ignore or delete.

But, I just now received one which actually did contain some important information, so I'm sending you two (02) of the items I deemed most worthwhile.

There were more topics covered, but if you want further information, you can visit the National Rifle Association web site.

Their URL is at:

http://www.nra.org/

The first proposed legislation pertains to everybody, for it is nation-wide.

The second proposed legislation will directly benefit myself and my fellow residents here at the Armed Forces Retirement Home.

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NATIONAL RIGHT-TO-CARRY RECIPROCITY BILL INTRODUCED

U.S. Representative Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) recently introduced H.R. 4547-a national Right-to-Carry (RTC) reciprocity bill that would provide national reciprocity for state carry licensees.

The bill would allow any person with a valid carry permit or license issued by a state to carry a concealed firearm in any other state if they meet certain criteria.

The bill would not create a federal licensing system; it would simply require the states to recognize each other's carry permits, just as they recognize drivers' licenses.


For more information on the bill, please visit

www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=189.


Please be sure to contact your U.S. Representative at (202) 225-3121, and urge him or her to cosponsor and support H.R. 4547!

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D.C. PERSONAL PROTECTION ACT

A TOP LEGISLATIVE PRIORITY

As we continue to note, one of NRA-ILA's top legislative priorities in Congress continues to be the passage of S. 1082 and H.R. 1288 - the Senate and House versions of the "District of Columbia Personal Protection Act."

This legislation seeks to restore the constitutionally-guaranteed Second Amendment rights of the residents of the District of Columbia.

The need for this corrective legislation is obvious.

Since 1977, the District has banned the possession of all handguns not acquired and registered before that year.

D.C. law also prohibits keeping an assembled rifle or shotgun in the home, effectively outlawing the use of firearms for lawful self-defense.

And despite these Draconian gun control laws, Washington, D.C. consistently has one of the highest murder rates in the nation.

Please be sure to contact your U.S. Senators and Representative and ask them to cosponsor and support S. 1082 and H.R. 1288.

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I am posting this at my blog and sharing it in the Internet discussion forums I participate in.

If you wish to share this with others, then please be considerate and conceal the identities of multiple recipients, in order to preserve their privacy.

Also, instead of merely forwarding this e-mail, it's better to copy the text and paste it into a brand new blank e-mail.

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

"My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

FOR UTAH GUN OWNERS (DATED INFORMATION)

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NOTE: This item was posted at the "OUR ETERNAL STRUGGLE" web site on Thursday 16 February 2006. 
_______________________

Greetings and Salutations to All my Kith and Kin and All the Ships in Outer Space:

I just received this message from the National Rifle Association alerting me to pending legislation in Utah, which I personally think needs immediate ratification.
_______________________

Utah, Your Right to Self-Defense Needs Your Help!

Please contact members of the State Senate Judiciary Committee immediately!

Senate Bill 24, sponsored by State Senator Mark Madsen (R-13), will allow law abiding citizens to have a loaded and/or concealed self-defense firearm in their car without the need to obtain a concealed weapon permit.

Additionally, under current law it is technically illegal for you to carry a concealed firearm in your home or on your property.

SB 24 would clear up this unintended technicality. 

When first heard on Wednesday, this bill was met with negative comments from five of the committee members.  

They voted to give it further consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee this Friday, February 17 at 4:00 p.m. in RM W130.

Time is of the essence and four of these five committee members, who are undecided, need to hear from gun-owners in the state of Utah!

Please contact the following members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to vote 'Yes' on SB 24 and send it to the Senate Floor.

Senator Al Mansell (R-9)

E-mail: amansell@utahsenate.org

Senator Lyle Hillyard (R-25)

E-mail: lhillyard@utahsenate.org

Senator Mike Dmitrich (D-27)

E-mail: mdmitrich@utahsenate.org

Senator Gregory Bell, Vice Chairman (R-22)

E-mail: gbell@utahsenate.org

All members of the Senate can be reached by calling Capitol switchboard at (801) 538-1035.  

The fax number for all Senators at the Capitol is (801) 326-1475

To find further contact information please use the

"Write Your Representative" feature found at www.NRAILA.org.

_______________________

Oh, if only we could have that same degree of personal liberty in the rest of the United States, particularly here in Washington, D.C.!

Oh, how much safer we might feel!

If you wish, you may relay this message to others.

But, if you do, please be considerate and conceal the identities of your individual recipients, in order to preserve their privacy.

Also, instead of merely forwarding an e-mail, it's better to copy or cut the text from this message and then paste it into a brand new blank e-mail.

This topic is sufficiently important that I am also posting this in my blog, as well as at the various Internet discussion groups which I participate in.

Thank you.

John Robert Mallernee, KB3KWS

Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400

NOTE: "My personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."

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