Publicola

The Colorado Senate passed SB24. Here's a letter I received on the subject from Rocky Mountain Gun Owners:

"This week the State Senate passed SB24, Sen. Ken Chlouber's concealed
carry bill.

The bill itself passed out of the Senate with 23 votes, 5 more than the
required 18
majority.

Since Republicans now control the Senate, and thus decide who is the
chairman of the
"committee of the whole" Senate for Second Reading, most of the
amendments offered
by Democrats were ruled as "not fitting under the title."

Understand what is happening here: the Democrats, mostly from Denver,
used just this
circumstance 2 years ago as a way to run a series of anti-gun
amendments to a
concealed carry bill. The Democrats then used these recorded votes to
attack sitting
Republican legislators - especially on the "guns in schools" issue - in
the 2000 elections.

Though RMGO had worked to add language to prohibit a statewide database
of permit
holders, which was successful in the Senate State Affairs Committee,
Chlouber joined
with hardcore anti-gun Denver Democrat Sen. Ken Gordon to strip that
language from
SB24. That means that sheriffs can, and will, enter all permit holders
into a statewide
database, effectively creating a dangerous persons list, a perfect tool
for tyranny.

Sen. Doug Lamborn fought hard to keep the database prohibition language
in the bill.
Lamborn used a procedure called an "amendment to the committee of the
whole" to
force a recorded vote on this issue. 6 Senators voted to prohibit a
statewide database
of permit holders: Lamborn, Bruce Cairns, Mark Hillman, Andy McElhany,
Dave Owen
and Senate President John Andrews. For those keeping score at home,
this serves as
a list of the stalwarts for gun rights in the State Senate.

We were able to slightly move the training requirement. Sen. Bruce
Cairns offered an
amendment on Second Reading to change the requirement to have training
within the
last 5 years: it has now changed to 10 years. Though this amendment
passed, this
hardly makes SB24 a good bill.

SB24 was assigned by the House Speaker into the Local Government, a
committee
with no conservatives. This wasn't by accident.

What is wrong with SB24? Here is a short list:

No database prohibition

Training requirements - hunter safety not included, and there is a 10
year time limit on
training.

Fee -- $100 plus $30 fingerprint fee plus the required training makes
this bill affordable
to Ross Perot, but out of reach for many Colorado citizens.

Safezones - K-12 public schools; any facility that has security
personnel and weapons
screening devices.

Fingerprint logging - SB24 requires applicants to submit their
fingerprints, which are
then forwarded to the FBI and entered into their fingerprint database.

Existing permits expire early

Residency requirement - Rather than allow sheriffs to issue permits to
non-county
residents (which would provide a safety outlet when cities like Denver
refuse to issue
permits, as they are now threatening), SB24 requires you to apply in
your county of
residence. It also fails to allow visiting out of state citizens to
apply.

What you can do: call your State Representative today at 1-800-811-7647
or 303-866-
2904 and urge him/her to either fix SB24 or kill it."


I realize people not in Colorado may not be interested in this but there is a lesson for non-Coloradans: the NRA & the Republicans are not as pro-gun as they would have you believe. I refer you to this earlier blog on the same subject.

If you do live in Colorado now would be a real good time to start writieng &/or calling you Representatives & urge - no, demand that they kill this bill in the house.