Posted on 04/23/2003 3:33:27 AM PDT by from occupied ga
(Atlanta, Tuesday, April 22) -- Facing mounting pressure by gun owners against SB1, House bosses decided to lighten up the bill for a last minute dash to the finish line.
If you are one of the many gun rights activists who've contacted your State Reps. recently, give yourself a pat on the back because your work is starting to pay off. But don't break out the champagne yet--the toughest part is still ahead. Here's what's going on:
In a surprise move yesterday, SB1 floor manager Rep. Wendell Willard (R-Dunwoody) informed the House Judiciary Committee he was jettisoning the controversial "child endangerment" section 16-5-73 which would let officials arrest you at their discretion for a so-called "dangerous situation" like keeping your gun unlocked so it's ready for self-defense.
This language first appeared earlier in HB197 which was authored by Mr. Willard and House anti-gun agitator Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D-Decatur). The stark lack of any requirement that an actual injury occur to a child or minor before you could be arrested, angered many gun owners and others, who protested the provision was an outrageous affront to the rights of the people.
Late last week, CSG lobbyists working at the Capitol found many House members nervous about section 16-5-73 and increasingly willing to support the Self-Defense amendment to SB1, which, Ms. Oliver complained, would make it so officials "can't prosecute anybody for having an unlocked gun."
Finally, it dawned on Mr. Wendell and Ms. Oliver that they were trying to grab too much. So they're pushing ahead with a reduced attack on your rights. The House Judiciary Committee approved it and it's now headed to the floor.
Your work in turning up the heat on the politicians is what caused them to throw the worst part of SB1 overboard in a last-ditch attempt to get the bill passed. But the fight ain't over yet by a long shot: SB1 is still a stealth triggerlock bill, and if it passes without the Self-Defense amendment, Georgia will effectively become a "triggerlock" state.
Right now, at least 15 states have so-called "triggerlock" laws, including the extreme anti-gun states like California, Massachussets, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. Georgia is NOT one of them.
That will change if SB1 passes without the Self-Defense amendment. Most triggerlock laws are based on the idea of "criminal negligence." SB1 would, for the first time, define criminal negligence in the Georgia Code. The Self-Defense amendment protects your rights by stating simply that keeping your gun unlocked is not criminal negligence.
If SB1 becomes law in its current form, and some 17-year old punk gets a hold of your gun and accidently hurts himself or one of his friends, you're looking at 10 years in prison.
The goal of the anti-gunners is to make high profile examples by imprisoning a few gun owners: destroying their lives under the new law to intimidate the rest of us into locking away our guns so they're not ready for self-defense.
If they can make keeping a gun for self-defense either useless or too risky, then more people will get rid of their guns--part of the long-term program to eliminate private firearms ownership.
Stealth triggerlock legislation is a new twist by anti-gunners to delete any specific reference to firearms, replacing it with broad, vague, general language that could refer to any dangerous instrument, especially guns. But the effect is still the same: if you keep your gun unlocked so it's ready for self-defense, and there's an tragic accident involving injury to a minor, you face 10 years in prison. Don't take the chance. Call your state representative immediately and insist they support Rep. Bobby Franklin's Self-Defense amendment to SB1.
ACTION ITEMS
Keep up the heat on the politicians, the pressure is working:
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/gl_peo_list.pl?List=sthousedl
3. If you haven't already done so, call the office of your state Rep. (or Reps.) and leave a message urging them to support Rep. Bobby Franklin's Self-Defense amendment to SB1.
4. If you've already contacted your state Rep. about SB1, you still need to call one more time because of these last-ditch changes to the bill. Insist on the Self-Defense amendment to SB1.
5. DO NOT e-mail your Rep. this time--inside word is most of the e-mail at the Capitol is backed up now and won't get read until after the session is over.
6. DO forward this e-mail this message to every gun owner you know in Georgia.
--
Citizens for Safe Government, Inc.
P.O. Box 813764
Smyrna, GA 30081
csg@arms.org
You are the feared and hated "powerful gun lobby" that the media, the neo-Nazis in Kongress like Hitlary and upChuck Schumer, and the mainstream media would like to enslave. Stick it to them.
Keep up the calls, but note that the e-mails arent likely to get through before the vote.
The stark lack of any requirement that an actual injury occur to a child or minor before you could be arrested, angered many gun owners and others, who protested the provision was an outrageous affront to the rights of the people.
Damns Georgia gun owners with something worse than merely faint praise. As I recall, the Second Amendment guarantees the Right to bear arms un-infringed and now we are reduced to fighting over the rotting scraps of our Constitution. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Mary Margaret Oliver and Wendell Willard with lots of help from the evil b!tch Sara Brady and her GA minions headed by Arthur Blank, the ultimate limousine liberal, who bankrolls the evil b!tch Mary Margaret Oliver (may they all scream in torment in hell forever). These Stalinist bastards don't think this crap up on their own, they work with lawyers and policy analysts from organizations like Brady's and the GA equivalent thereof.
This issue is of particular & nonacademic interest to me now. I will be taking off work this afternoon to swear out a warrant on someone in my neighborhood who was caught peeking into my daughter's window at 12:30 AM Easter morning.
Needless to say, this individual is a bit wacked and I'm not sure how he is going to behave between now and his trial. Law or no law - there will be no trigger locks on a weapon in my home.
This is good news.
Filth like moo moo Oliver and her fascist friends don't want you to be able to protect yourself. If you're defenseless, then you can't protect yourself against the predations of the state, and the last thing they want is exactly what the second amendment was written for - an armed populace as a check to tyranny. Your and your family's protection from ordinary unorganized criminals and would be rapists is of absolutley no consequence to the anti-gunners.
Just a personal observation for those who haven't seen her, the only time Oliver would possible have to worry about sexual assault would be if she tripped and fell down in a hog pen.
Lock up your guns.
Better yet, get rid of them.
Do it for the chill'run.
Willard is from Dunwoody which is a soccor mom suburb of Atlanta where the people live divorced from the reality of crime and self defense. The average moronic voter in Dunwoody thinks guns are bad, government is good, and that the police will protect you.
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