SB1556 by Jerry Ellis?

[abajaj11]

Thanks vdub.
Here is a letter I wrote today to my Senator, and am also calling Ellis's office to voice opposition to the Bill.
Feel free to use to use parts of this as well, to contact your Senators. Here is a link to find out who your senator is:
http://www.oksenate.gov/FindMyLegislature.aspx

______________________
Subject: Please oppose SB1556 introduced by Sen. Jerry Ellis and support SB1550
"Dear Sen XXX,
As your constituent and an active voter in OK, I am writing to urge you to PLEASE oppose SB1556 introduced by Sen. Jerry Ellis. This bill intends to take away the rights of OK residents to have a concealed carry permit from another state be recognized in OK, while still allowing permits from other states to be valid for non-residents of OK. This bill further restricts our God given rights recognized in the Second Amendment for the following reasons:

1. It discriminates against OK residents. If an out-of-state permit is good enough for a non-OK resident in OK, it should be good enough for an OK resident.

2. For many reasons, OK residents may find themselves with a valid out of state permit, but no OK CCW permit. This can happen when someone moves inot the state first, or when the OK permit expires and needs renewal. If this Bill became law, it would be illegal for an OK resident with a valid out of state permit to conceal carry UNTIL they got the OK permit renewed. Application and renewal can take months. However, out of state folks can conceal carry with their out of state permit. So this Bill restricts OK residents rights more than out of state residents' rights.
Bear in mind that people moving in to the state have a grace period for even a Drivers' license transfer, and vehicle plate transfer, and driving is not a God-given right but a privilege. This Bill would require immediate transfer to an OK permit, that currently takes months. Until then, the person cannot carry to protect themselves.

3. Perhaps the intent of this bill is to generate "lost revenue" because some OK residents choose an out of state CCW permanently over an in-state one. I submit to you that the government should NOT be trying to generate "revenue" by taxing a God-given right, anymore than they should try to generate revenue by trying to tax our first Amendment rights. While covering processing costs seems fair, making money off OK residents' God given rights seems immoral. Instead I would urge you to support SB1550 that lowers the cost of processing fees for an OK CCW to a reasonable level.

Respectfully,
XXXX

 

[tgillespie]

I am the director of OK2A. The way we read the bill initially, and we consulted a member who is an attorney, was that it would keep Oklahoma from recognizing any other state's permit, which would in turn cause them to stop recognizing ours, possibly. I tried to contact Senator Ellis and never got a response. After a week, we published the first article. As we stated in our update, we give him the benefit of the doubt on the possibility of the staffer botching the language, but they had plenty of time to fix the language and didn't. So, either he and ORA aren't paying attention to their own bills or they decided to wait to fix it later. If it was the latter, they should have expected that someone would catch it and raise cane. As for the notion that we have a tendency to overreact or sensationalize, I'd like to know what that is based on (other than this article, which, as I said, we tried to speak to the author but to no avail).

 

[MLR]

They say the bill was meant to make it illegal for Oklahoma residents to have a concealed carry permit from another state. It is still a bad bill.

The bill was meant to prevent citizens from buying their rights from other States. The State of Oklahoma has a monopoly on the sale of individual rights to its citizens.

Michael

 

[vdub]

As for the notion that we have a tendency to overreact or sensationalize, I'd like to know what that is based on (other than this article, which, as I said, we tried to speak to the author but to no avail).

While I didn't say you have a tendency to overreact or sensationalize. I did say you overreacted or sensationlized your comments on this bill. As you probably know there are some gun rights groups that have a tendency to sensationalize or overreact to the details of gun rights bills. They send out emails of this nature to everyone trying to boost membership and revenue. When people start investigating the truth of the bills, it is usually found to be nowhere near what the gun rights group stated. There are a few groups that are openly mocked about this practice.

My statement is to make sure you are 100% correct before you go posting a story like you did and make sure you have all bases covered since it can damage your credibility. It would have been just as easy to post: "SB1556 is potentially a very damaging bill to the gun rights of Oklahoma residents. We have not been able to contact Senator Ellis to discuss bill and its intentions. Please check back and we will be sending out an update when we find out its intentions."

This give you many outs for the update story later. Due to Senator Ellis saying its "true intentions" were not as you described, it made OK2A look they were playing the "Sky is Falling" card. As an Oklahoma 2A group and seeing how some of the other Oklahoma 2A groups think in regards to our gun rights, I think lots of us are hoping you can achieve some improvements and become a great group to support. However, sending out reports like this repeatedly and having things said to be otherwise will only undermine your credibility in the long run.

As you can see here, the interpretation of the bill varied and seemed very ambiguous. You can also see that several of us have already written our Senators to make sure they fight against the bill.

 

[tgillespie]

While I didn't say you have a tendency to overreact or sensationalize. I did say you overreacted or sensationlized your comments on this bill. As you probably know there are some gun rights groups that have a tendency to sensationalize or overreact to the details of gun rights bills. They send out emails of this nature to everyone trying to boost membership and revenue. When people start investigating the truth of the bills, it is usually found to be nowhere near what the gun rights group stated. There are a few groups that are openly mocked about this practice.

My statement is to make sure you are 100% correct before you go posting a story like you did and make sure you have all bases covered since it can damage your credibility. It would have been just as easy to post: "SB1556 is potentially a very damaging bill to the gun rights of Oklahoma residents. We have not been able to contact Senator Ellis to discuss bill and its intentions. Please check back and we will be sending out an update when we find out its intentions."

This give you many outs for the update story later. Due to Senator Ellis saying its "true intentions" were not as you described, it made OK2A look they were playing the "Sky is Falling" card. As an Oklahoma 2A group and seeing how some of the other Oklahoma 2A groups think in regards to our gun rights, I think lots of us are hoping you can achieve some improvements and become a great group to support. However, sending out reports like this repeatedly and having things said to be otherwise will only undermine your credibility in the long run.

As you can see here, the interpretation of the bill varied and seemed very ambiguous. You can also see that several of us have already written our Senators to make sure they fight against the bill.

As I said, after we tried to contact him, we gave him a week to get back to us and he never did. The attorney we consulted said we were right in our interpretation, so we published it, again, after a week with no response. The senator only responded when Fox 25 contacted him. We were not trying to sensationalize anything. The way we read it, the title of the first article was entirely correct. And as for Senator Ellis, he had two weeks to fix the language in the bill and didn't. Even if he says its "true intentions" were to make it mandatory for all of us to have tea at 2pm, that doesn't matter because that isn't what the bill said.

I am very pleased that you and several others have contacted their senators about this bill because it is a bad bill, whether as written or as they say it was to be written. The true problem is the cost. We have several concealed carry instructors in our organization and several of them have had students go through their classes but never have had the money to get the license. So, we asked Senator Shortey to run SB1550, which would lower the cost to $35 ($10 for the Sheriff and $25 for OSBI).

 

[vdub]

As I said, after we tried to contact him, we gave him a week to get back to us and he never did. The attorney we consulted said we were right in our interpretation, so we published it, again, after a week with no response. The senator only responded when Fox 25 contacted him. We were not trying to sensationalize anything. The way we read it, the title of the first article was entirely correct. And as for Senator Ellis, he had two weeks to fix the language in the bill and didn't. Even if he says its "true intentions" were to make it mandatory for all of us to have tea at 2pm, that doesn't matter because that isn't what the bill said.

I am very pleased that you and several others have contacted their senators about this bill because it is a bad bill, whether as written or as they say it was to be written. The true problem is the cost. We have several concealed carry instructors in our organization and several of them have had students go through their classes but never have had the money to get the license. So, we asked Senator Shortey to run SB1550, which would lower the cost to $35 ($10 for the Sheriff and $25 for OSBI).

I understand you are defending your actions and what you tried to do to verify the information. However, you need to view it from the outside and how people who do not value gun rights as we do. From my viewpoint and it seems a few others, the situation could have been handled better when the current views of the country try to paint gun owners and gun rights groups with many stereotypes.

I will fight against the bill due to I don't agree even with the Senator's intentions. Still have not heard back from my Senator.

 

[abajaj11]

Thank you, tgillespie, and OK2a. I think you made exactly the right call on this Bill and I sincerely hope it gets killed. it is terrible legislation indeed.

 

[abajaj11]

The bill was meant to prevent citizens from buying their rights from other States. The State of Oklahoma has a monopoly on the sale of individual rights to its citizens.

Michael

Yes indeed! And the next logical step will be a license to write or speak in public forums.....not taking away your first amendment rights, but just ensuring you take a class in what words and terms can be used, and what is forbidden, and then a license with reasonable fee to generate some much needed "revenue".

Just kidding.
right?

 

[tgillespie]

I understand you are defending your actions and what you tried to do to verify the information. However, you need to view it from the outside and how people who do not value gun rights as we do. From my viewpoint and it seems a few others, the situation could have been handled better when the current views of the country try to paint gun owners and gun rights groups with many stereotypes.

I will fight against the bill due to I don't agree even with the Senator's intentions. Still have not heard back from my Senator.

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. I just find it interesting that we are the ones who handled it wrong when we gave him opportunity to respond to his bill that his staff member messed up. He gets a pass and we don't.

Thank you, tgillespie, and OK2a. I think you made exactly the right call on this Bill and I sincerely hope it gets killed. it is terrible legislation indeed.

Thanks abajaj11

 

[vdub]

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. I just find it interesting that we are the ones who handled it wrong when we gave him opportunity to respond to his bill that his staff member messed up. He gets a pass and we don't.

So since I don't agree with your handling of the matter or didn't shout your praises, I am giving the Senator a pass?!?! That is a very interesting interpretation you have on my comments. Try not to take the constructive criticism so personal and get your feelings hurt.

The truth is I didn't give the Senator a pass. I have tried contacting the Senator, wrote my Senator to urge opposition of this bill, posted the letter I sent so others could use, and will followup with them if I don't hear back. I don't think anyone is giving the Senator a pass in this thread or buying this Bill as good for anyone.