House Bill 2792 started as a bill to recognize other states’ handgun permits and passed the House by a wide margin.
The bill was then sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where all the recognition language was removed. In its place the Senate Committee inserted language dealing with possessing firearms on motorcycles, snowmobiles, and ATV’s. This language had been taken from another bill.
Oddly, instead of just passing HB 2797 (the original motorcycle bill) as written, they “gut and stuffed” HB 2792 with this language. However, in addition to the motorcycle language, which is good and needed, Floyd Prozanski also included language to restrict the ability of persons with felony convictions to seek gun rights restoration.
Since 2009, when Prozanski drafted legislation to allow those people to petition the courts for rights restoration (a bill that passed both Houses without a single “no” vote), he has been trying to reverse his own bill.
The current law is working. Contrary to what Prozanski has implied in mass mailings and newspaper editorials, the courts are not returning gun rights to “murderers and rapists.” All the 2009 law does is make the process make sense. Prior to 2009 the law allowed someone to ask the courts to get his rights restored to buy a gun, but he still could not own it. It was absurd.
In 2009, we fixed this error, and in spite of universal support by both Houses, Prozanski has been trying to reverse his own legislation ever since.
HB 2792 was “gut and stuffed” to institute new and totally unneeded restrictions on the process.
Today, when the bill went back to the House for concurrence, the House refused to concur. This means that a “conference committee” must be appointed to resolve the differences.
Thus, there is still a possibility that this bill can be saved, if the conference committee strips out all the bad rights restoration language and just keeps the motorcycle language. But the reality is that politicians, no matter how good they are, are still afraid of what will happen at election time. Any legislator who takes the tough position of demanding that the bad language should be removed will no doubt face the kind of false and defamatory accusations that we have about “arming murders and rapists.”
So far, Prozanski has successfully ruined or killed every good gun bill that came his way. It is very important that the members of the House not allow him to continue destroying good legislation instead of simply moving his own bills to advance his agenda. Please contact Speaker Bruce Hanna and ask that he use his position to ensure that HB 2792 do no more than clarify motorcycle, snowmobile and ATV rules.
Contact Info and sample message for Speaker Hanna follow.
Representative Bruce L Hanna
Capitol Phone: 503-986-1200
Capitol Address: 900 Court St NE, 269, Salem, OR, 97301
Email: rep.brucehanna@state.or.us
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Dear Speaker Hanna,
As you know, HB 2792 was “gut and stuffed” in Senate Judiciary and no longer resembles its original intent.
This was the fate of every pro-gun bill that made it out of the House and was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As you also know, the House has refused to concur in the changes made in the Senate.
As the conference committee considers this bill, I strongly urge you to salvage the good language dealing with motorcycles, snowmobiles, and ATV’s, and remove the unneeded and counterproductive language dealing with gun rights restoration. The current law is working as it should. Please do not allow the false allegations about “arming murderers and rapists” to become a political weapon. Please use your influence to save what we can of this badly battered bill.
Sincerely yours,
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