00                       SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 17                                                                    
01 Relating to requesting that President Bush renounce and reverse Clinton                                                 
02 Administration anti-gun-ownership policies and reorient the United States Department                                    
03 of Justice towards policies that accurately reflect the intent of the Second Amendment to                               
04 the United States Constitution to grant individual Americans the right to keep and bear                                 
05 arms.                                                                                                                   
06 BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ALASKA:                                                               
07       WHEREAS the founding fathers considered popular ownership of firearms by private                                
08 citizens to be a natural right and one of the surest safeguards against tyranny and                                     
09 governmental excesses; and                                                                                              
10       WHEREAS the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution recognizes and                                   
11 protects the inalienable right of American citizens to keep and bear arms; and                                          
12       WHEREAS, in 1994, art. I, sec. 19, Constitution of the State of Alaska, was amended                             
13 by an overwhelming majority to specifically protect an Alaskan's individual right to keep and                           
14 bear arms; and                                                                                                          
01       WHEREAS the Clinton Administration's stance on gun ownership moved                                              
02 dangerously in the direction of abridging or eliminating individual Second Amendment                                    
03 freedoms; and                                                                                                           
04       WHEREAS, under the Clinton Administration, the United States Department of                                      
05 Justice adopted an extremely narrow interpretation of Second Amendment freedoms that                                    
06 denied the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms; and                                                     
07       WHEREAS it has been the express policy of the Clinton Administration Justice                                    
08 Department that the Second Amendment does not protect the right of individual citizens, but                             
09 rather applies only to governmentally recognized military organizations; and                                            
10       WHEREAS the Clinton Administration's stance on gun ownership intentionally                                      
11 ignored the original intent of the Constitution's framers and sought to dramatically limit the                          
12 Constitutionally affirmed Second Amendment freedoms of individual law-abiding Americans;                                
13       BE IT RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature urges President Bush to                                        
14 renounce the Clinton Administration's anti-gun ownership policies; and be it                                            
15       FURTHER RESOLVED that the Alaska State Legislature requests President Bush to                                   
16 use his executive powers and influence to reorient the United States Department of Justice                              
17 towards a policy that fully recognizes the right of individual Americans to keep and bear arms                          
18 as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.                                                
19       COPIES of this resolution shall be sent to the Honorable George W. Bush, President                              
20 of the United States; the Honorable Richard B. Cheney, Vice-President of the United States                              
21 and President of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable Trent Lott, Majority Leader of the U.S.                                 
22 Senate; the Honorable Thomas Daschle, Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate; the Honorable J.                              
23 Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; the Honorable John Ashcroft,                              
24 Attorney General of the United States; and to the Honorable Ted Stevens and the Honorable                               
25 Frank Murkowski, U.S. Senators, and the Honorable Don Young, U.S. Representative,                                       
26 members of the Alaska delegation in Congress.