"The 'gun-free zone' fraud isn’t just about banning firearms or even a symptom of academia’s distaste for an entire sensibility of which the Second Amendment is part and parcel but part of a deeper reluctance of critical segments of our culture to engage with reality."
-- Mark Steyn
Thanks to your Faxes, e-mails, and phone calls to the Speaker of the House late last week and over the weekend, SB 78 Substitute (which passed the Senate last week) has been put on the list of bills to be heard on the floor of the House. We don’t know whether it will actually get heard before the clock runs out, but at least it’s now in the queue instead of being sidetracked (which we had feared might happen). GOUtah! supports SB 78 Substitute.
Please go to the Action Item at the end of this alert to see what you can do to help.
SB 78 Substitute, sponsored by Sen. Mark Madsen of Senate District 13, basically revises the state’s liability laws in order to strongly discourage employers from having company policies that prohibit people from keeping firearms locked in their cars in the company parking lot. Quite a few Utah employers currently have such policies, which are usually created by big east-coast firms that write corporate personnel policies for small and mid-sized companies.
SB 78 Substitute got revised slightly in the Senate but it’s still a gain for Utah gun owners and we continue to support it. We would like to see it pass the House without any further changes, because any amendment at this point would force the bill to be sent back to the Senate, where it probably wouldn’t get heard before the clock runs out.
We wish to thank several of our readers who alerted us to HR 45, a bill that has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. We often get so busy during the annual Utah legislative session that we sometimes lose track of what’s happening outside the Beehive State, so we’re grateful to readers who forward such interesting news items to us.
HR 45 is officially titled "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009." You can read the full text of the bill [HERE]. We don’t think HR 45 will pass. In fact, we think it’s pretty much dead on arrival in Congress. But we’re glad to know about it and we find it an interesting case study, providing us with an explicit glimpse at part of the wish-list of the hoplophobes. A hoplophobe is someone who has an irrational fear of weapons.
HR 45 was introduced two months ago by a hoplophobic congressman from Chicago, Rep. Bobby Rush of the 1st Illinois Congressional District, but as of today the bill still has no cosponsors. Usually a bill will gain at least a few cosponsors within its first couple of months.
HR 45 would do a lot of awful things. If you wish to purchase any handgun, or any semiautomatic rifle or shotgun that uses a detachable magazine, you would be required to get a federal gun-owner license and you’d also be required to register those firearms with the ATF.
If you already own any handguns or any semiautomatic rifles or shotguns with detachable magazines at the time the law takes effect, you would be required to obtain a license and to register those firearms with the ATF within two years.
You would also be required to notify the ATF any time you change your address.
We don't think anyone in the House, aside from Rep. Rush himself, wants to touch HR 45 with a ten-foot pole, even though we suspect that quite a few members of Congress love this bill in principle and wish that it could be made into law. In large measure, the reluctance of Congress to pass something like this is due to our success as Second-Amendment activists over the past 15 years in utilizing the mainstream political process to cause political pain for elected officials who support gun control. This may also explain why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – one of the biggest hoplophobes on Capitol Hill -- has made it clear that she doesn't want Congress to run an "assault weapon" bill anytime soon.
In other words, people like you have succeeded in making it much more difficult for the hoplophobes to make the kinds of big strides they'd like to make in the legislative branch of government, both here in Utah and in Washington, D.C. We’re not saying that you should rest on your laurels, and we fully expect to stay busy protecting and, where necessary, reinstating the right to keep and bear arms. We’re just saying that your hard work and your activism over the past 15 years (or more, in some cases) have paid off.
One of the tactics used by the anti-gun people is to try to get us to expend time and energy and money fighting a scary bill like HR 45 that isn't likely to pass, which leaves us with less time and energy and money to fight other forms of gun control that have a much greater chance of being enacted. In essence, a bill like HR 45 can be viewed as a distractive or decoying tactic, even though we have no doubt that Rep. Rush and quite a few of his colleagues would sincerely like to see it pass. We suspect that there will be other pieces of anti-gun legislation with a much greater chance of passing, such as federal "safe-storage" legislation or a ban on private-party transactions at gun shows. Also, the Obama Administration may try to use executive authority to reinstate the gun ban in national parks, or to persecute legitimate gun dealers via the ATF as was done during the Clinton Administration. We believe it’s important that we in the Second-Amendment activist community shepherd our scarce resources so that we may muster them to fight these more probable threats if and when they arise.
So feel free to peruse the text of HR 45 and shake your head in disgust, as we did. But you probably don't need to loose too much sleep over it.
Please take a moment to contact your Utah State Representative and ask him to vote for SB 78 Substitute, the "parking lot bill", as-is with no further amendments. Use the pre-written letter below if you wish.
You can find the e-mail address and home phone number for your representative at GOUtah! website [Here].
If you don’t know who your representative is, you can use the following map to find out which House district you live in.
If you send e-mail, please put the main point of your message (such as "I Support SB 78 Substitute") in the "subject" line of your message, as this is all your rep is likely to read at this point. Faxes and phone calls will be more effective.
If you want to leave a brief phone message for your rep at the Capitol, you may call the House Switchboard on weekdays (it’s open until 5:00 pm). Alternatively, you may send a Fax any time of the day or night, with the name of your rep printed clearly at the top of the Fax.
Utah State House of Representatives
House Switchboard: (801)538-1029
Fax for Republican representatives: (801)326-1544
Fax for Democratic representatives: (801)326-1539
Date:
From:
To:
Dear Representative :
As one of your constituents, I encourage you to vote for SB 78 Substitute as-is, with no further amendments.
I support SB 78 Substitute, which revises the state’s liability laws to discourage employers from prohibiting their workers from keeping legally possessed firearms locked in their cars in the company parking lot.
Thanks for taking time to consider my opinion on this matter.
Sincerely,
That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #319 for 9 March 2009. 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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