BRUSH FIRE ALERT 05/15/2015

BROWER SINGLE-HANDEDLY TRYING TO KILL CAMPUS CARRY

(Chuck Muth, president, Citizen Outreach) - AB148 is “Amanda’s Law” – a bill sponsored by conservative Assemblywoman Michele Fiore that would extend our God-given Second Amendment right of self-defense to Nevada’s college and university campuses.

SB175 is an omnibus gun bill sponsored by Sen. Michael Roberson that, as the National Rifle Association explains, “would improve concealed carry recognition and revises self-defense laws.  Most importantly, this legislation would greatly improve Nevada’s preemption law and abolish handgun registration in Clark County.”

Both bills are damned good gun bills and *should* easily pass in both GOP-controlled houses of the Legislature.

Indeed, SB175 has already passed in the Senate and AB148 has already passed in the Assembly.

Assemblyman Ira Hansen is Chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee.  He also has a 100% rating by the National Rifle Association.  He is a gun rights champion who has given a hearing in his committee to every gun-related bill sent over from the Senate, including SB175.

However, Senate Judiciary Chairman Greg Brower is refusing to give AB148 even a hearing in his committee, let alone a committee vote before the deadline of midnight tonight (Friday).

He’s also bottling up a number of other gun bills already passed by the Assembly.

In response, Hansen has been holding up a committee vote on SB175 – which led to a very unfortunate email alert from a gun group this week urging its supporters to contact Hansen and pressure him to release SB175 even though Hansen has no intention whatsoever of killing SB175.

More on the strategy to pass BOTH bills in a minute.  But make no mistake…

Hansen is the good guy in this drama. 

Brower is the bad guy.

You see, Brower is claiming there aren’t enough votes to pass AB148 in his committee and/or on the Senate floor and, therefore, says he’s not going to spend any time hearing the bill or allowing an actual vote to get everyone on record.

But either Brower is lying through his teeth or somebody has done a major flip-flop on this issue.  Here’s why…

Amanda’s Law was proposed for the first time in 2011.  It passed in the Senate with bipartisan support. 

And there are nine senators who voted for Amanda’s Law in 2011 who are still in the Senate today.  So unless any of them have flip-flopped on the issue, the Senate starts with nine votes for Amanda’s Law this session – not counting five new Republicans.

Two of those five new GOP senators – Scott Hammond and Pete Goicoechea – co-sponsored Amanda’s Law while serving in the Assembly in 2011.  So unless one or both of them have flip-flopped, that’s 11 of the 11 votes needed to pass Amanda’s Law on the floor of the Senate…not counting the other three freshman Republican senators.

Brower’s other claim is that there aren’t enough votes to pass Amanda’s Law out of his 7-member Judiciary Committee to make it to the floor.  But that’s not true either – unless, again, someone has flip-flopped.

There are four Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Brower and Roberson both voted for Amanda’s Law in 2011.  And Hammond co-sponsored Amanda’s Law as an assemblyman in 2011.

That’s three.

The other Republican is freshman Sen. Becky Harris, who up to this point has voted in lockstep however Roberson has told her to vote.  Why should anyone believe she’d defy him on this one?

In addition, Harris’ campaign website from 2012 reads: “SECOND AMENDMENT: Becky Harris believes in ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms.’” 

It doesn’t say, “except on college and university campuses.”

But lastly, and most importantly, I’m told that Harris has told at least two

separate legislative insiders in Carson City that she supports AB148!

So again, either Brower’s lying or somebody has flip-flopped. 

And if somebody has flip-flopped, Nevadans, especially Nevada’s gun rights supporters, deserve to know who it is.

But even if Brower’s correct, that Amanda’s Law doesn’t have the votes, there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever for legislators elected to legislate not to vote on the issue and get everyone on record. 

Any horse as lame as Brower’s claims would get a bullet in the head.

But back to Ira Hansen’s strategy to get both bills passed…

If Brower continues to block a simple up-or-down vote on Amanda’s Law by the deadline tonight, Hansen will amend SB175 and add the language for Amanda’s Law into it. 

Since both bills are gun-related bills, the move will easily comply with the Legislature’s extremely liberal interpretation of the “single subject” rule.

The Assembly will then vote in favor of the SB175/AB148 combo bill and send it back to the Senate.

At that point, the Senate will have to vote to accept Roberson’s SB175 bill as amended with the campus carry language added – or reject it.

If they reject it, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with the campus carry amendment removed. 

At that point the Assembly will vote to either accept SB175 without the campus carry amendment or reject it.

If they reject it, a “conference committee” of assemblymen and senators will be appointed to hammer out a compromise.

If it gets to that point, gun rights legislation this session could well become an all or nothing proposition – a situation that NEVER should occur with Republicans who claim to be Second Amendment supporters in the majority in both houses.

But if it does, it will be Brower’s fault, all Brower’s fault and solely Brower’s fault.

Because all of this can be avoided by Brower if Brower will simply allow a simple up-or-down vote on Amanda’s Law in his committee today. 

By doing that, we’d then get a “clean” vote on AB148 in the Senate and a “clean” vote on SB175 in the Assembly.

But without that committee vote on campus carry today, Hansen will be left with NO CHOICE but to add campus carry to Roberson’s SB175.

Hansen’s not the problem.  Hansen’s the solution if Brower continues to be the problem.

There is no aspect of the gun rights issue more important than the principle of a God-given right to self-defense.  That right shouldn’t be stripped from citizens simply because they walk onto a college campus. 

Amanda’s Law is and should be the proverbial “hill to die for” for gun rights supporters this session.  All of the other gun rights bills and issues, including those in SB175, pale by comparison in importance. 

If the Nevada Legislature, under GOP control, is going to reject the right to self-defense on college campuses, at the very least it owes the people a recorded, public vote so everyone knows who sold us out and sided with the criminals, murderers and rapists…and who sided with the law-abiding citizens of Nevada.

Please contact Sen. Brower IMMEDIATELY and urge him to give Amanda’s Law, AB148, a committee vote TODAY…

Senator Greg Brower
775-684-1419
Greg.Brower@sen.state.nv.us

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