"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Two good gun-related bills, SB 67 (the "parking lot" bill) and HB 473 (the "open carry" bill) are languishing in the House Rules Committee. The Rules Committee is the committee that assigns a bill to a standing committee in the House. The bill then gets heard and debated and voted on by the standing committee to which it has been assigned, and if the standing committee approves the bill it forwards it to the floor of the House where it gets debated and voted on by the entire House. If the bill passes the full House, it must then go to the Senate (if it hasn’t already been there), where it gets assigned to the Senate Rules Committee to start the same sequence over there.
So you can see that it takes many steps to pass a bill. But as long as a bill stays in the Rules Committee it goes nowhere. Bills have been known to die simply because the Rules Committee (in either the House or the Senate) simply sits on them.
SB 67 passed the full Senate and now needs to pass the House. This is Sen. Mark Madsen’s bill to prohibit employers from banning legally possessed firearms that are kept locked and hidden from view inside an employee’s car out in the parking lot.
HB 473, sponsored by Rep. Curt Oda, clarifies the current law regarding the open carrying of a loaded firearm by someone who has a valid concealed-weapon permit. Some people have looked at the current law and have concluded that it’s already legal for a permit holder to openly carry a loaded firearm in any location where it would be legal for him to carry concealed.
However, BCI (the state agency that issues and regulates concealed-weapon permits) and the Utah Attorney General’s Office appear to be reluctant to issue official opinions to this effect, and some state authorities seem to think that the language of the current law is ambiguous in this regard. We don’t see the ambiguity ourselves, but then we’re not lawyers. HB 473 would eliminate any ambiguity that might exist in the current code and would make it explicitly legal to openly carry a loaded firearm (with a valid permit) in any location where it is already legal to carry concealed.
GOUtah! supports both SB 67 and HB 473.
The longer these two good bills remain in the House Rules Committee, the less chance they have of passing.
Please contact House Speaker Greg Curtis and House Rules Committee Chairman Steve Urquhart and politely encourage them to assign HB 473 and SB 67 to the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee as soon as possible so that these two good bills may move forward.
House Speaker Greg Curtis
gcurtis@utah.gov
Home phone: (801)943-3091
Capitol phone: (801)538-1029
Fax: (801)326-1544
House Rules Chairman Steve Urquhart
surquhart@utah.gov
Office phone in St. George: (435)656-4424
Capitol phone: (801)538-1029
Fax: (801)326-1544
Date:
From:
To:
Dear Representative :
As a Utah voter and a law-abiding gun owner, I encourage you to expedite SB 67 (Sen. Madsen’s parking lot bill) and HB 473 (Rep. Oda’s open-carry bill), and I respectfully request that you please endeavor to get these bills assigned to the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee as soon as possible.
Thanks for taking time to consider my opinion on this matter.
Sincerely,
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #285 for 14 February 2008. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending your firearms rights.
Remember that getting this information is meaningless unless You Act On It Today. If you just read it and dump it in the trash, your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal!
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