Washington, DC

Friday, November 13, 2009

"The right of law-abiding American citizens to keep and bear arms is a sleeper issue underlying the current debate over government controlled health care," says gun rights expert John M. Snyder.

"Although the right to life and mandatory taxpayer funding of abortion have come to the fore of the discussion since the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill that would greatly expand government control of citizens' health care, the continuing right of Americans to obtain and use firearms is no less a genuine concern," Snyder continued.

Snyder said that, "What various government health care proposals would do is take the determination of health insurance coverage out of the hands of patients and the health care industry and place it in the hands of government officials. These government officials could stipulate that the acquisition or possession of firearms somehow is detrimental to a person's health and deny or limit the coverage to such person.

"As a matter of fact, Obama's National Institutes of Health already supposedly is seeking a nexus between guns and health. This is the case even though just a few years ago Congress voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control, viewing such research as based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even though firearms were and are used often to save lives and deter crime."

Snyder added that, "Although Senators such as Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada like to tell their constituents what stalwart supporters of Second Amendment rights they are, they leave no stone unturned in their promotion of a government controlled health care system which could be used to undermine or eliminate those very rights.

"It's time for law-abiding gun owners to stand up and oppose a reform of the American health care system that could lead to an undermining of their gun rights."

Shotgun News has named Snyder the senior rights activist in Washington.

John M. Snyder

Telum Associates, LLC

Arlington, VA

202-239-8005