In this alert:

• Detailed Info About Floor Amendment 1

Detailed Info About Floor Amendment 1

Floor Amendment 1 to HB 473 would turn HB 473 from a great gun-rights bill into the worst gun-control bill this session. Please forward this alert to any friends, relatives, or acquaintances you know who value their right to carry a self-defense weapon.

Please see Alert #290 for some basic background on Floor Amendment 1, along with a pre-written letter that you can e-mail to your own representative this weekend. We encourage you to also phone your own representative at home before Sunday night and ask him to support HB 473 as-is, and to oppose Floor Amendment 1 to HB 473, and to oppose HB 473 if Floor Amendment 1 gets attached to it. [Click here] to get the e-mail address and home phone number for your rep. Most reps publish their home phone, and some publish their cell phone numbers as well.

After you’ve contacted your own rep, we encourage you to contact House Speaker Greg Curtis (R-49) with the same message. Rep. Curtis holds an office of statewide relevance as house speaker, so it is appropriate for all Utah gun owners to contact him regardless of whether they live in his district. Because Speaker Curtis lives in Salt Lake, we expect that he will be home through Sunday evening.

And if you want to go the extra mile after contacting your own rep. and Rep. Curtis, you might want to call Rep. Steve Urquhart, the sponsor of Floor Amendment 1, and tell him that you have some serious concerns about his amendment. He’s the author of this amendment, so it’s appropriate for all concerned gun owners to contact him even if they don’t live in his district. When someone writes a piece of legislation, he should be willing to take responsibility for its contents and should be willing to hear the concerns of any citizen who might be affected by it. Especially given that this amendment was never presented in a committee hearing, where citizens would have an opportunity to comment on it. We have located Rep. Urquhart’s home phone, which is listed in the local Washington County phone book. Please try to call him at home before Sunday afternoon, as we expect he’ll be returning to Salt Lake at that time.

If you live in Rep. Urquhart’s district (House District 75), please mention this to him when you call. If you are a county delegate for Rep. Urquhart’s political party (Republican) in House District 75, or if you are planning to attend the local GOP caucus meeting later this month and run for a delegate position, please mention this. Ditto for Rep. Curtis.

House Speaker Greg Curtis:
Home phone: (801)943-3091
e-mail: gcurtis@utah.gov

Rep. Steve Urquhart
850 W 1130 North Cir
Saint George, UT 84770-2650
Home phone: (435)673-4424
e-mail: surquhart@utah.gov

When you call, you may leave brief message that includes one of the following talking points:

1. Floor Amendment 1 would turn HB 473 from a "housekeeping bill" (i.e., a bill that simply cleans up and clarifies the language of the existing law) into a major gun-control bill that would introduce substantial new restrictions of the carrying of self-defense weapons by permit-holders. If Floor Amendment 1 gets attached, then HB 473 needs to be defeated at all costs.
2. Floor Amendment 1 was drafted sloppily and in haste, as evidenced by the typo in the text. Hastily-drafted legislation does not make for good law.
3. This amendment would have many unintended consequences that will anger gun owners.
4. Careful cross-referencing of the portions of the Utah Code that are mentioned in the amendment makes it very clear that the amendment’s prohibition against open carry "on or about school premises" includes any square foot of ground in Utah that’s within 1,000 feet of ANY of the following facilities: any child-care facility (including those that operate in private homes), any pre-school, any elementary school (public or private), any middle school (public or private), any high school (public or private), any vocational school (public or private), any college (public or private), or any university (public or private).
5. This amendment would make it a criminal act for a permit holder to carry a CONCEALED firearm in a briefcase, purse, or backpack in thousands of vaguely-defined 1,000-foot "school zones" around the state. The amendment requires that the firearm be carried concealed on one’s person. In other words, you have to be wearing it. A firearm concealed in a purse, for example, would be counted as "open carry. We believe that the University of Utah administrators, among others, are likely to make use of this aspect of Floor Amendment 1 by actively enforcing it (i.e., having the campus police arrest and/or ticket permit holders who carry guns in purses or backpacks).
6. This amendment would make it a criminal act for a permit holder living in student housing to carry an unloaded firearm from his car to his dorm room in a locked suitcase. This would be counted as "open carry" on "school premises".
7. If you carry your weapon in a fanny pack, as do many of us, and you remove your fanny pack to put it in the trunk or back seat of your car before getting in the car (as many of us do), this would be a crime if done within 1,000 feet of a school because the gun would not be concealed on our person between the time that you remove the fanny pack and the time that you put it in your car.
8. Let your rep know that you, as an active voter, will tell all of your gun-owning friends, relatives, and neighbors that Floor Amendment 1 is the biggest single piece of anti-gun legislation this year and that any politician who supports Floor Amendment 1 needs to be defeated in the next election.
9. Under current law (as we read it), concealed-carry is an option for permit holders rather than a requirement. This amendment would make it a requirement in thousands of vaguely defined "school zones" throughout the state. You, as a free citizen, would rather retain the right to make your own choices in this matter as opposed to having the state make that choice for you.
10. If you are a permit holder and you are carrying concealed on a hot day and you remove your coat and you happen to be within 1,000 feet of a "school, you would be a criminal under this amendment.

Note: The next five talking points are quoted from an alert put out by the Utah Shooting Sports Council, though we’ve renumbered them 11-15 from 1-5 as posted in the USSC alert. We thank USSC for their efforts, and we hope they don’t mind that we quote their talking points.

------- Begin USSC excerpt -------

11. There are plenty of laws against people other than permit holders having guns on campus, threatening others with weapons, and violent criminal acts. Paranoid fears that the sight of legally carried self defense gun may incite panic are flimsy excuses.
12. Floor Amendment 1 is just another attempt by the Universities to impose their demands for a campus-wide ban on LEGALLY carried self defense weapons.
13. Implied threats from the University of Utah to resume federal lawsuits are reprehensible, and Legislators should not be intimidated by them.
14. Far from making campuses safer, this bill only infringes on self defense by the good guys, making campuses more attractive to criminals.
15. Existing laws cover violent criminal acts, threatening others with weapons, and restrict carrying legal self-defense weapons by anyone but permit holders.

-------- End USSC excerpt ---------

16. When talking to your own representative, let him know that you live in his district and that you would like him to contact you after he votes on Floor Amendment 1 and on HB 473 to tell you how he voted. Tell him that Floor Amendment 1 must be prevented from becoming law at all costs, and that if this amendment gets attached to HB 473, then HB 473 must be defeated.
17. When talking to your own representative, if you are a member of your representative’s political party, please tell him that you intend to become a delegate to that party’s county convention this spring. If you are already a county delegate, please mention this fact.

To read the full text of Floor Amendment 1, [click here].

Here’s the key phrase:
"The permittee shall conceal the firearm on the permittee if carrying it on about school premises under Subsection 76-10-505.5(3)(a)"

Here are a few key points that can be taken from the above sentence:

• This is the second version of Floor Amendment 1. This new version got released last night, and presumably it’s the version that will be voted on Monday. Even though this is the second version of the amendment, it still contains a typo: "on about school property" should read "on or about school property". This is obviously a hastily drafted piece of legislation. Hastily drafted legislation does not make good law.



• Although the 1,000 foot perimeter around schools has been removed from the text of the amendment (it was explicitly included in the first version that we looked at yesterday), it’s still actually there. That’s because Subsection 76-10-505.5 (which is referenced by the amendment) in turn references 76-3-203.2 to define the term "on or about school premises", which includes a 1,000-foot perimeter. These sneaky people think they can convince us that they’ve removed the 1,000-foot perimeter when, in fact, they haven’t.



• The requirement that the firearm be concealed "on the permittee" means that you have to be wearing the firearm on your person. Thus, you can’t have it concealed in your purse if you’re a woman (or if you’re a man who carries a purse, since the law does not discriminate against cross-dressers). You can’t conceal it in your briefcase or backpack, either. Even if you have an unloaded firearm in a locked suitcase, for example, you can’t take that suitcase within 1,000 feet of a school or college.

That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #291 for 1 March 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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