-----Original Message-----
From: GrassRoots <lcoble@netside.com>
To: lcoble@logicsouth.com <lcoble@logicsouth.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 5:00 PM
Subject: GrassRoots Legislative Update 1/2001
>GrassRoots South Carolina Legislative Update 1/2001
>
>FIREARMS RELATED BILLS IN 2001-2002
>
>H. 3010 - The GrassRoots gun law reform bill. This bill is a watered down
>version of the full Grassroots proposal. It eliminates the restricted areas of
>churches; parking lots of nice restaurants, publicly owned buildings, and
>schools; and state parks. It eliminates the one year residency requirement.
>It changes the law to only require one photograph instead of three for
>application and renewal. It standardizes signs used to post against CWP
>holders.
>Principles Involved: It is unconstitutional to have a one year residency
>requirement, or to legislate what a church can or can not allow into the
>sanctuary. Gun laws only restrict the good guys, not the bad guys. Thus, all
>any of the restricted areas do is create disarmed victim zones for the benefit
>of the criminals. Since SLED only needs one photo, why require more? CWP
>holders should be fairly warned that they are about to enter a prohibited area,
>thus signs need to be standardized.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly support this bill. While it is not everything
>we want, it is a good first step. We also believe we should try to amend this
>bill to include the full GrassRoots reform proposal.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143010t.html
>
>H. 3050 - The Home Invasion Protection Act. While protecting people’s homes is
>a good thing, the devil is in the details of this bill. This bill requires
>mandatory minimum sentences of up to 25 years, and provides that no part of the
>sentence can be suspended or probation granted. Additionally, a person
>sentenced under this bill would not be eligible for parole or any early release
>program that would reduce the mandatory minimum sentence.
>Principles Involved: Justice demands that the facts and circumstances of every
>case be considered. When it comes to true justice, one size does not fit all.
>It is exactly because of possible situations like the one described below that
>make mandatory minimum sentences without regard to the facts and circumstances
>of each case bad law.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill. This bill could result in a
>father getting a mandatory minimum 20 years in prison merely because the father
>goes to his daughter’s home to rescue her from an abusive spouse or boyfriend,
>and intends to tell the abusive spouse or boyfriend that next time there will
>be serious consequences for beating his daughter. No physical violence is
>required to get a conviction.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143050t.html
>
>H. 3079 - This is a firearms ballistics and registration bill. Retailers are
>required to provide SLED with a discharged bullet from every firearm sold.
>Firearms owners must report every sale, transfer by gift, theft, loss, or
>destruction of a firearm.
>Principles Involved: Firearms registration is the first step towards
>confiscation. A free people should not have to register with the government to
>exercise their Constitutional rights.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill. This bill registers all
>firearms owners and firearms.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143079t.html
>
>H. 3113 - A lock up your safety bill. You must lock up your pistol when it is
>not in use.
>Principles Involved: Everyone is entitled to exercise their God given right to
>self-defense. Laws already exist to punish people who create an unreasonable
>risk to others. Whether that risk is unreasonable requires a cost benefit
>analysis. We do not need a law that refuses to do a cost benefit analysis and
>merely punishes gun owners for having a self-defense weapon available.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill. The bill does not define
>what “in use” means, but another section of the law defines “use a firearm” as
>discharging the firearm. Thus, it could be argued that unless the firearm is
>actually being discharged, it must be locked up. It would be illegal to leave
>an unlocked pistol on your night stand while sleeping.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143113t.html
>
>H. 3165 - A bill to create firearms disabilities for domestic violence
>misdemeanors, and for mere allegations of threatened abuse.
>Principles Involved: The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental God given
>right. To allow the government to revoke this God given right is to turn it
>into a mere governmental privilege. A misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a
>$500 fine or thirty days in jail is not sufficient justification to revoke a
>God given right. Additionally, the burden of proof required to convict someone
>of a crime is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” yet this bill would allow a person
>to be denied the right to keep and bear arms using the much lesser standard of
>“preponderance of the evidence.”
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143165t.html
>
>H. 3167 & S. 96 - The South Carolina Exile Act. It must be understood that
>these bills do NOT address or even consider the use or misuse of a pistol. The
>primary effect of these bills is to punish people for mere possession of a
>pistol. These bills would create mandatory minimum sentences without regard to
>the facts or circumstances of the case for mere possession by a prohibited
>person. In fact, these bills specifically repeal existing punishments which
>allow for the facts and circumstances of a particular case to be taken into
>consideration and replace those punishments with one size fits all mandatory
>minimum sentences.
>Principles Involved: At first reading, a person’s initial gut reaction is that
>these bills primarily attack some of the worst dregs of society. So, how could
>anyone be against that, even if it is for merely possessing a pistol and does
>not require any misuse of the pistol? But after really thinking about this
>bill, a person’s initial gut reaction gets overcome by his or her conscience
>because these bills are not limited to only attacking the worst dregs of
>society. These bills could also be used to attack people who have turned their
>lives around - people who are born again Christians who want to do the right
>thing and live respectable lives and take care of and protect their families
>just as you and I would do.
>
> GrassRoots used the following guiding principles to evaluate H.
>3167 and
>S. 96:
>< We should always seek to be fair and just regardless of who is involved
>because when justice suffers, we all suffer, and that includes gun owners.
>< People change. Some people become born again Christians and dedicate
>their lives to doing good, others just finally grow up and start being
>respectable. We should recognize and accept that fact. We should not deny
>people the opportunity to be judged on who they are instead of who they used to
>be.
>< More gun control laws in the name of fighting crime are wrong and
>should
>be opposed. Telling anti-gunners that more gun control passed under the guise
>of “protecting the children” or “crime control” is wrong, but still trying to
>pass this gun control bill under the guise of fighting crime is hypocritical.
>< The right to keep and bear arms is a Constitutionally guaranteed God
>given right. We should not allow the government to revoke such rights and
>create a second class citizenship. Once the government sets the precedent that
>2nd Amendment rights can be revoked, what stops them from revoking any of the
>your other rights? We should not allow such precedents to be set or stand.
>< Teaching society that simple possession of a firearm is inherently evil
>and deserves punishment teaches society a lesson we do not believe. People
>should be punished for doing things which are harmful to others, not for mere
>possession of an object.
>< Our limited resources should be spent on protecting our
>Constitutionally
>guaranteed God given rights, not wasted on a politically motivated agenda.
>Resources wasted on this bill could be better spent passing the GrassRoots
>reform bill, or repealing the one gun per month gun rights rationing law, or
>repealing the racist law prohibiting low cost handguns.
>
> H. 3167 and S. 96 violate each of these principles. Thus, GrassRoots
>must strongly oppose H. 3167 and S. 96. Examples and further discussion of the
>principles follow.
>
> One guiding principle is that justice demands that the facts and
>circumstances of every case be considered. When it comes to true justice, one
>size does not fit all. It matters not whether the victims of injustice are at
>first just the dregs of society. Most bad laws start out targeting the dregs
>of society first so as to get popular support, and to establish a precedent.
>Then, once the precedent is set, the law can be expanded to include more and
>more people.
>
> Sen. Barry Goldwater said it best when he stated "extremism in the
>defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no
>virtue." Also, remember the following words:
>First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said
>nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social
>Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a
>trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did
>little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.
>We should stand firm in support of the principle of “justice for all,” and not
>support injustice merely because we don’t like the targets of the injustice.
>
> Another guiding principle is that people change and should be judged by
>who they are, not who they used to be. Suppose that thirty years ago a
>teenager grew five marijuana plants (which weighed a total of ten pounds) in
>his back yard, got busted and served his time. South Carolina law defines this
>as a violent crime even though no violence ever occurred. This person gets out
>of prison, changes his ways, leads a respectable life, and has a family. Now,
>his family is being threatened by someone stalking his daughter, so he gets a
>pistol to defend his family. Just obtaining the pistol is a felony. This bill
>would require a mandatory minimum prison sentence for this father. This bill
>would treat this father just the same as it would treat a gang banger out
>committing more crimes. That is wrong. Justice does not come in a one size
>fits all law. Justice demands the facts and circumstances of the case be
>considered when deciding how to make the punishment fit the crime, and this
>bill does not do that.
>
> A third guiding principle is that passing more gun control in the name
>of crime control is wrong. We constantly ask the anti-gunners why they think
>that if 30,000 gun control laws haven’t stopped crime, that another gun control
>law will. How does this gun control bill help control crime? It doesn’t. It
>only replaces punishments that are able to be made to fit the crime, with
>punishments that ignore the facts and circumstances of the case in question.
>How does this help gun owners? It doesn’t. When justice suffers, we all
>suffer, and that includes gun owners too.
>
> A fourth guiding principle is that we should be repealing laws which
>revoke our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, such as the 2nd Amendment, and
>turn these rights into mere governmental privileges, not passing more such
>laws. A high ranking police officer asked me why the government can’t just
>revoke a prior criminal’s 4th and 5th Amendment rights too, since we have
>already set the precedent to allow the government to revoke a prior criminal’s
>2nd Amendment rights. The officer stated it would be so much easier for police
>to get convictions if they could raid people’s homes without probable cause or
>warrants, and then just beat confessions out of suspects who were prior
>criminals. The officer said this to illustrate his point that every
>ex-criminal should have all his Constitutionally guaranteed rights restored
>after paying his debt to society, and that laws which allow the government to
>revoke Constitutionally guaranteed rights even after the debt to society has
>been paid are wrong. There should be no second class citizens in America.
> We should not pass laws which set bad precedents which can later be
>used
>to hurt us. While the law is supposed to only apply to people convicted of
>violent crimes (and already “violent crimes” don’t even have to be violent,
>they only need to be labeled violent by the politicians), there is nothing to
>stop the law from being expanded to include other “politically incorrect”
>categories. Remember how the Lautenburg amendment expanded the federal
>firearms disability law from applying only to felonies to include misdemeanor
>domestic violence, even if the domestic violence did not involve firearms or
>physical contact, and made it retroactive to include misdemeanors committed at
>any time during a person’s lifetime?
>
> A fifth guiding principle is that we should not teach society that mere
>possession of a pistol is worthy of severe punishment, regardless of whether
>the pistol is used improperly or not. Once we start agreeing that it is the
>mere possession of an inanimate object that warrants special punishment, and
>not the acts committed by the person, we will have laid the foundation for
>society to start to think that all people who possess guns are less worthy of
>protection and subject to greater punishments. Firearm possession will become
>the scarlet letter of society.
>
> A sixth guiding principle is that our limited resources should be spent
>effectively. Lost opportunities to do good are another cost of this bill. By
>wasting valuable time and resources on this bill, we are not able to work on
>repealing bad gun laws or passing good gun laws. The time and resources spent
>fighting this bill of injustice could better be spent on passing the GrassRoots
>reform bill, or abolishing the one gun per month law. There is no good reason
>for gun owners to support this bill. There are real pro gun bills already
>introduced which deserve the support of gun owners. Stop wasting valuable time
>on bad bills.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill for all the reasons detailed
>above.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143167t.html
>and
>http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1140096t.html
>
>
>S. 78 - A trigger lock bill. This bill would make it a criminal offense to
>have
>a loaded firearm on the premises if the loaded firearm is misused by a child.
>Principles Involved: This bill places an unreasonable and unsafe burden upon
>guns and gun owners. Since virtually everything has some risk involved, most
>other objects and actions are evaluated by a cost benefit analysis. For
>example, going to the hospital involves risk and is actually more dangerous
>than having a loaded gun in the home. But, when a cost benefit analysis is
>performed, it is shown that more harm would occur by preventing people from
>going to a hospital than occurs by letting them go. Similarly, a cost benefit
>analysis would show that more lives are saved by the ready accessibility to
>loaded firearms than are harmed by the same. Remember, there are 2.5 million
>defensive uses of firearms every year in the US, and few true children are
>accidently harmed by guns. To prohibit this cost effective deterrent to crime
>would increase the harm committed by the criminal element against the
>innocent. This bill is nothing more than a thinly veiled gun control bill
>under the guise of “protecting the children.”
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1140078t.html
>
>S.96 - See H.3167 above.
>
>Bye for now and all the best,
>We're GrassRoots - WE'RE STICKIN' TO OUR GUNS!
>http://www.scfirearms.org
>
>Send questions regarding this Legislative Update to:
>rbutler1@pop-server.sc.rr.com
>
>To join GrassRoots South Carolina Visit: http://www.scfirearms.org/app.html
>
>Note New Postal Address:
>GRASSROOTS
>P.O. Box 6383
>Columbia, SC 29260
>
>This Update is only sent to individuals who wish to receive GrassRoots
>Updates. If an error has been made and you wish us to take your e-mail
>address off of our send list please simply respond to this e-mail and write
>remove in the subject or text area. Your e-mail address will be prompty
>removed and you will not receive any further e-mail from us.
>
>Send questions regarding membership or newsletters to: lcoble@netside.com
>Report merchants that post to: jrponti@yahoo.com
>Join Our E-mail discussion group
>at:http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/scfirearms
>
From: GrassRoots <lcoble@netside.com>
To: lcoble@logicsouth.com <lcoble@logicsouth.com>
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 5:00 PM
Subject: GrassRoots Legislative Update 1/2001
>GrassRoots South Carolina Legislative Update 1/2001
>
>FIREARMS RELATED BILLS IN 2001-2002
>
>H. 3010 - The GrassRoots gun law reform bill. This bill is a watered down
>version of the full Grassroots proposal. It eliminates the restricted areas of
>churches; parking lots of nice restaurants, publicly owned buildings, and
>schools; and state parks. It eliminates the one year residency requirement.
>It changes the law to only require one photograph instead of three for
>application and renewal. It standardizes signs used to post against CWP
>holders.
>Principles Involved: It is unconstitutional to have a one year residency
>requirement, or to legislate what a church can or can not allow into the
>sanctuary. Gun laws only restrict the good guys, not the bad guys. Thus, all
>any of the restricted areas do is create disarmed victim zones for the benefit
>of the criminals. Since SLED only needs one photo, why require more? CWP
>holders should be fairly warned that they are about to enter a prohibited area,
>thus signs need to be standardized.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly support this bill. While it is not everything
>we want, it is a good first step. We also believe we should try to amend this
>bill to include the full GrassRoots reform proposal.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143010t.html
>
>H. 3050 - The Home Invasion Protection Act. While protecting people’s homes is
>a good thing, the devil is in the details of this bill. This bill requires
>mandatory minimum sentences of up to 25 years, and provides that no part of the
>sentence can be suspended or probation granted. Additionally, a person
>sentenced under this bill would not be eligible for parole or any early release
>program that would reduce the mandatory minimum sentence.
>Principles Involved: Justice demands that the facts and circumstances of every
>case be considered. When it comes to true justice, one size does not fit all.
>It is exactly because of possible situations like the one described below that
>make mandatory minimum sentences without regard to the facts and circumstances
>of each case bad law.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill. This bill could result in a
>father getting a mandatory minimum 20 years in prison merely because the father
>goes to his daughter’s home to rescue her from an abusive spouse or boyfriend,
>and intends to tell the abusive spouse or boyfriend that next time there will
>be serious consequences for beating his daughter. No physical violence is
>required to get a conviction.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143050t.html
>
>H. 3079 - This is a firearms ballistics and registration bill. Retailers are
>required to provide SLED with a discharged bullet from every firearm sold.
>Firearms owners must report every sale, transfer by gift, theft, loss, or
>destruction of a firearm.
>Principles Involved: Firearms registration is the first step towards
>confiscation. A free people should not have to register with the government to
>exercise their Constitutional rights.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill. This bill registers all
>firearms owners and firearms.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143079t.html
>
>H. 3113 - A lock up your safety bill. You must lock up your pistol when it is
>not in use.
>Principles Involved: Everyone is entitled to exercise their God given right to
>self-defense. Laws already exist to punish people who create an unreasonable
>risk to others. Whether that risk is unreasonable requires a cost benefit
>analysis. We do not need a law that refuses to do a cost benefit analysis and
>merely punishes gun owners for having a self-defense weapon available.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill. The bill does not define
>what “in use” means, but another section of the law defines “use a firearm” as
>discharging the firearm. Thus, it could be argued that unless the firearm is
>actually being discharged, it must be locked up. It would be illegal to leave
>an unlocked pistol on your night stand while sleeping.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143113t.html
>
>H. 3165 - A bill to create firearms disabilities for domestic violence
>misdemeanors, and for mere allegations of threatened abuse.
>Principles Involved: The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental God given
>right. To allow the government to revoke this God given right is to turn it
>into a mere governmental privilege. A misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a
>$500 fine or thirty days in jail is not sufficient justification to revoke a
>God given right. Additionally, the burden of proof required to convict someone
>of a crime is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” yet this bill would allow a person
>to be denied the right to keep and bear arms using the much lesser standard of
>“preponderance of the evidence.”
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143165t.html
>
>H. 3167 & S. 96 - The South Carolina Exile Act. It must be understood that
>these bills do NOT address or even consider the use or misuse of a pistol. The
>primary effect of these bills is to punish people for mere possession of a
>pistol. These bills would create mandatory minimum sentences without regard to
>the facts or circumstances of the case for mere possession by a prohibited
>person. In fact, these bills specifically repeal existing punishments which
>allow for the facts and circumstances of a particular case to be taken into
>consideration and replace those punishments with one size fits all mandatory
>minimum sentences.
>Principles Involved: At first reading, a person’s initial gut reaction is that
>these bills primarily attack some of the worst dregs of society. So, how could
>anyone be against that, even if it is for merely possessing a pistol and does
>not require any misuse of the pistol? But after really thinking about this
>bill, a person’s initial gut reaction gets overcome by his or her conscience
>because these bills are not limited to only attacking the worst dregs of
>society. These bills could also be used to attack people who have turned their
>lives around - people who are born again Christians who want to do the right
>thing and live respectable lives and take care of and protect their families
>just as you and I would do.
>
> GrassRoots used the following guiding principles to evaluate H.
>3167 and
>S. 96:
>< We should always seek to be fair and just regardless of who is involved
>because when justice suffers, we all suffer, and that includes gun owners.
>< People change. Some people become born again Christians and dedicate
>their lives to doing good, others just finally grow up and start being
>respectable. We should recognize and accept that fact. We should not deny
>people the opportunity to be judged on who they are instead of who they used to
>be.
>< More gun control laws in the name of fighting crime are wrong and
>should
>be opposed. Telling anti-gunners that more gun control passed under the guise
>of “protecting the children” or “crime control” is wrong, but still trying to
>pass this gun control bill under the guise of fighting crime is hypocritical.
>< The right to keep and bear arms is a Constitutionally guaranteed God
>given right. We should not allow the government to revoke such rights and
>create a second class citizenship. Once the government sets the precedent that
>2nd Amendment rights can be revoked, what stops them from revoking any of the
>your other rights? We should not allow such precedents to be set or stand.
>< Teaching society that simple possession of a firearm is inherently evil
>and deserves punishment teaches society a lesson we do not believe. People
>should be punished for doing things which are harmful to others, not for mere
>possession of an object.
>< Our limited resources should be spent on protecting our
>Constitutionally
>guaranteed God given rights, not wasted on a politically motivated agenda.
>Resources wasted on this bill could be better spent passing the GrassRoots
>reform bill, or repealing the one gun per month gun rights rationing law, or
>repealing the racist law prohibiting low cost handguns.
>
> H. 3167 and S. 96 violate each of these principles. Thus, GrassRoots
>must strongly oppose H. 3167 and S. 96. Examples and further discussion of the
>principles follow.
>
> One guiding principle is that justice demands that the facts and
>circumstances of every case be considered. When it comes to true justice, one
>size does not fit all. It matters not whether the victims of injustice are at
>first just the dregs of society. Most bad laws start out targeting the dregs
>of society first so as to get popular support, and to establish a precedent.
>Then, once the precedent is set, the law can be expanded to include more and
>more people.
>
> Sen. Barry Goldwater said it best when he stated "extremism in the
>defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no
>virtue." Also, remember the following words:
>First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said
>nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social
>Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a
>trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did
>little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.
>We should stand firm in support of the principle of “justice for all,” and not
>support injustice merely because we don’t like the targets of the injustice.
>
> Another guiding principle is that people change and should be judged by
>who they are, not who they used to be. Suppose that thirty years ago a
>teenager grew five marijuana plants (which weighed a total of ten pounds) in
>his back yard, got busted and served his time. South Carolina law defines this
>as a violent crime even though no violence ever occurred. This person gets out
>of prison, changes his ways, leads a respectable life, and has a family. Now,
>his family is being threatened by someone stalking his daughter, so he gets a
>pistol to defend his family. Just obtaining the pistol is a felony. This bill
>would require a mandatory minimum prison sentence for this father. This bill
>would treat this father just the same as it would treat a gang banger out
>committing more crimes. That is wrong. Justice does not come in a one size
>fits all law. Justice demands the facts and circumstances of the case be
>considered when deciding how to make the punishment fit the crime, and this
>bill does not do that.
>
> A third guiding principle is that passing more gun control in the name
>of crime control is wrong. We constantly ask the anti-gunners why they think
>that if 30,000 gun control laws haven’t stopped crime, that another gun control
>law will. How does this gun control bill help control crime? It doesn’t. It
>only replaces punishments that are able to be made to fit the crime, with
>punishments that ignore the facts and circumstances of the case in question.
>How does this help gun owners? It doesn’t. When justice suffers, we all
>suffer, and that includes gun owners too.
>
> A fourth guiding principle is that we should be repealing laws which
>revoke our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, such as the 2nd Amendment, and
>turn these rights into mere governmental privileges, not passing more such
>laws. A high ranking police officer asked me why the government can’t just
>revoke a prior criminal’s 4th and 5th Amendment rights too, since we have
>already set the precedent to allow the government to revoke a prior criminal’s
>2nd Amendment rights. The officer stated it would be so much easier for police
>to get convictions if they could raid people’s homes without probable cause or
>warrants, and then just beat confessions out of suspects who were prior
>criminals. The officer said this to illustrate his point that every
>ex-criminal should have all his Constitutionally guaranteed rights restored
>after paying his debt to society, and that laws which allow the government to
>revoke Constitutionally guaranteed rights even after the debt to society has
>been paid are wrong. There should be no second class citizens in America.
> We should not pass laws which set bad precedents which can later be
>used
>to hurt us. While the law is supposed to only apply to people convicted of
>violent crimes (and already “violent crimes” don’t even have to be violent,
>they only need to be labeled violent by the politicians), there is nothing to
>stop the law from being expanded to include other “politically incorrect”
>categories. Remember how the Lautenburg amendment expanded the federal
>firearms disability law from applying only to felonies to include misdemeanor
>domestic violence, even if the domestic violence did not involve firearms or
>physical contact, and made it retroactive to include misdemeanors committed at
>any time during a person’s lifetime?
>
> A fifth guiding principle is that we should not teach society that mere
>possession of a pistol is worthy of severe punishment, regardless of whether
>the pistol is used improperly or not. Once we start agreeing that it is the
>mere possession of an inanimate object that warrants special punishment, and
>not the acts committed by the person, we will have laid the foundation for
>society to start to think that all people who possess guns are less worthy of
>protection and subject to greater punishments. Firearm possession will become
>the scarlet letter of society.
>
> A sixth guiding principle is that our limited resources should be spent
>effectively. Lost opportunities to do good are another cost of this bill. By
>wasting valuable time and resources on this bill, we are not able to work on
>repealing bad gun laws or passing good gun laws. The time and resources spent
>fighting this bill of injustice could better be spent on passing the GrassRoots
>reform bill, or abolishing the one gun per month law. There is no good reason
>for gun owners to support this bill. There are real pro gun bills already
>introduced which deserve the support of gun owners. Stop wasting valuable time
>on bad bills.
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill for all the reasons detailed
>above.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1143167t.html
>and
>http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1140096t.html
>
>
>S. 78 - A trigger lock bill. This bill would make it a criminal offense to
>have
>a loaded firearm on the premises if the loaded firearm is misused by a child.
>Principles Involved: This bill places an unreasonable and unsafe burden upon
>guns and gun owners. Since virtually everything has some risk involved, most
>other objects and actions are evaluated by a cost benefit analysis. For
>example, going to the hospital involves risk and is actually more dangerous
>than having a loaded gun in the home. But, when a cost benefit analysis is
>performed, it is shown that more harm would occur by preventing people from
>going to a hospital than occurs by letting them go. Similarly, a cost benefit
>analysis would show that more lives are saved by the ready accessibility to
>loaded firearms than are harmed by the same. Remember, there are 2.5 million
>defensive uses of firearms every year in the US, and few true children are
>accidently harmed by guns. To prohibit this cost effective deterrent to crime
>would increase the harm committed by the criminal element against the
>innocent. This bill is nothing more than a thinly veiled gun control bill
>under the guise of “protecting the children.”
>GrassRoots Position: We strongly oppose this bill.
>Current Status: In House Judiciary Committee
>Full Text at: http://www.leginfo.state.sc.us/sessions/114/text/1140078t.html
>
>S.96 - See H.3167 above.
>
>Bye for now and all the best,
>We're GrassRoots - WE'RE STICKIN' TO OUR GUNS!
>http://www.scfirearms.org
>
>Send questions regarding this Legislative Update to:
>rbutler1@pop-server.sc.rr.com
>
>To join GrassRoots South Carolina Visit: http://www.scfirearms.org/app.html
>
>Note New Postal Address:
>GRASSROOTS
>P.O. Box 6383
>Columbia, SC 29260
>
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