HB 512 Safe Carry Protection Act.

Please contact the members of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee today and Monday to voice your support. Use telephone, email, and facsimile.  They need your encouragement.

Chairman – Powell, Alan

Vice Chairman – Taylor, Darlene K.

Secretary – Atwood, Alex

Members

Cooke, Kevin

Frazier, Gloria

Glanton, Mike

Greene, Gerald E

Hightower, Dustin

Hitchens, Bill

Holcomb, Scott

Jackson, Mack

Lumsden, Eddie

Neal, Jay

Talton, Willie

Waites, Keisha

Please also attend a hearing on this bill on Monday, March 4, at 3:00 pm in Room 415 CLOB – (Coverdell Legislative Office Building – 18 Capitol Square SW, Atlanta, GA, 30334)

CLOB is across the street from the Capitol on the SouthWest side of the Capitol Building.  Mitchel Street SW changes to Capitol Square SW when it crosses Washington Street SW.

Thanks in advance for your efforts getting this bill moved forward.

Your encouragement is desperately needed.  While GCO does not usually comment on the efforts of other groups, an organization calling itself “Georgia Gun Owners” is spreading lies and misinformation about HB 512 in its postings on Facebook and in mass emails that it sends both to members and thousands of people who are not its members but somehow wound up on its mailing list.  These postings and emails have resulted in a flood of predictably negative attacks from people who read the email, but did not read the bill.

“Georgia Gun Owners” claims that the bill was introduced “in the dead of night,” that it is “secret,” that it would lead to mental health screenings for all gun owners, that it imposes new fees on firearms license applications, that it requires you to “give up your medical privacy,” and that “poison pills” are waiting in the wings, such as “mandatory training.”

Apparently, “Georgia Gun Owners” derived all of this without reading a bill, since they claim it is “secret.”

Georgia Gun Owners is asking people to oppose the entire bill based on its misunderstanding of a provision relating to checks for involuntary hospitalizations.  The truth is that current law includes voluntary hospitalizations as well as involuntary, and HB 512 is narrowing the scope of that provision down to involuntary hospitalizations only.

Here are the facts, straight from John Monroe, Vice President of GeorgiaCarry.Org.

The fee of $3 is in current law and is not changed by HB 512.

Want more information about HB 512? See Ed Stone’s Atlanta Gun Rights Examiner article on the bill.  Click on the link here.

Please:

(1) Contact the members of the committee above today and Monday to encourage them.  Use telephone, email, and fax.

(2) Please attend Monday’s hearing, if possible.  3:00 in room 415 CLOB.

Whether you can or cannot attend, please contact each member of the committee listed above to express your support for HB 512.

After weeks of work, state Rep. Rick Jasperse has introduced HB 512, the Safe Carry Act of 2013. The bill is designed to enhance the safety of all Georgians through the safe carrying of firearms by responsible citizens. Among other things, the bill would reduce the number of off-limits places, eliminate the need for fingerprints for renewals of GWLs, expand state preemption of local regulations to include all weapons, and recognize the safe record of GWL holders by adding them to the list of those exempt from several firearms laws. GCO strongly supports this bill and encourages its members to tell their representatives that they would like to see the bill passed into law.  The actual bill can be found here.

The holder of ticket # 776 in the GeorgiaCarry.Org 6th Annual Pistol Raffle is the big winner.  The name of the winner will be announced when the ticket holder comes forth as stated in the rules of the raffle!

Thanks to all who took part in the raffle as it was a big success for GeorgiaCarry.Org.

This is from an article in the Times-Georgian.com by Winston Jones 02/06/13

An amendment to remove a reference to firearms from Carroll County’s disaster and emergency ordinance was passed by the Board of Commissioners Tuesday without discussion.

The decision to change the ordinance was made to avoid conflicting with Second Amendment issues raised by a Georgia gun rights organization.

The action eliminates the word “firearms” from a list of items whose sales could be suspended in case of a local disaster declared by the county commission chairman. The wording was questioned in a Jan. 18 letter, hand-delivered to commission Chairman Marty Smith, by James Camp of Temple, representing GeorgiaCarry.org.

In recommending the amendment, County Attorney Cynthia Daley said the ordinance was drafted 11 years ago from a model provided by the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

As originally worded, the ordinance says that in times of local disasters or emergencies the commission chairman could “suspend the sale, distribution, dispensing or transportation of firearms, alcoholic beverages, explosives and combustible products and can close businesses which sell them.”

“My recommendation is that we remove it (the word ‘firearms’),” Daley said. “I can’t think of any incidence where it would be used.”

Camp was in attendance at the meeting, but did not speak.

The vote was 6-0 in favor of the amendment, with District 1 Commissioner Trent North absent.

GeorgiaCarry.org has filed legal court cases against similar ordinances in other locations and has been successful in many cases of getting the laws removed, according to the organization’s website. The group has also asked the city of Carrollton to remove firearms as one of the prohibited items from the GreenBelt trail, but the city hasn’t yet acted on the request. The February city council meeting, which would have been held Monday, was canceled.

This is from an article in the Times-Georgian.com by Winston Jones 02/01/13

The Carroll County Board of Commissioners plans to amend its current disaster ordinance to avoid conflicting with Second Amendment issues raised by a Georgia gun rights organization.

The proposed ordinance eliminates the word “firearms” from a list of items whose sales could be suspended in case of a local disaster declared by the county commission chairman. The wording was questioned in a Jan. 18 letter hand delivered to commission Chairman Marty Smith by James Camp, of Temple, representing GeorgiaCarry.org.

The proposed ordinance was presented to the BOC at its Wednesday work session. It will likely be brought up for vote at Tuesday’s 6 p.m. regular monthly meeting.

Radio Ads for GCO will begin appearing on the Herman Cain Program on Monday 01/28/13 and will run through 04/15/13 depending on the response we receive.  These ads are 15 second ads and will be heard between 10:00 AM and 12:00 Noon, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

The audio of the ad can be heard here.

GCO asked the City of Atlanta to repeal its preempted ordinance banning firearms at assemblies and events in Atlanta.  Member of the Atlanta City Council Michael Julian Bond tells Channel 2 news that he believes a GCO lawsuit against Atlanta would be “frivolous” and “ill timed.”

He says “I am very disturbed by this kind of advocacy.”

It sounds like Councilman Bond does not want to repeal his illegal ordinance.

WSB TV shows Jerry Henry, the Executive Director of GCO, and displays the attorney letter GCO had sent to the City of Atlanta, in the following video:

VIDEO LINK

There is more information contained in the article that WSB TV posted on its web site, link here.

GCO will not permit the City of Atlanta to violate state law.  The ordinance is illegal and must go, or the city must acknowledge that the ordinance is illegal and agree that it will never be enforced.

GCO Executive Director Jerry Henry did an excellent job representing Georgia’s law abiding gun owners yesterday, January 16 on the national news. Here is a video of Jerry in the CNN studios for those who missed it.

LINK TO CNN VIDEO

In addition, last night, a portion of Jerry’s clip from CNN appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Those who are familiar with Jon Stewart know that he favors the President’s policies on gun control.  Check out the link and see what Jon Stewart has to say about Jerry Henry’s statements.

LINK TO DAILY SHOW VIDEO  Jerry appears at 2:25 “There Goes The Boom.”

Thanks, Jerry, you represented GCO with poise and excellence, as usual.  It appears your statements actually forced the reporter at CNN to actually think about the subject and maybe reconsider some views that she thought were common sense approaches to this issue.

The purpose of posting this email is to show our members and the public the kind of hatred, bigotry, and venom we receive from our liberal detractors on a fairly regular basis.  We wanted to share this email as one example of the love your Executive Director received recently.  We will share more of the love  in the future as we deem fit.  The email below is copied directly from the inbox.  Any spelling or grammatical errors are those of the writer.

We ask those who wish comment on this post, please keep your comments polite and show respect to the writer below and GCO.

This email is titled – Time to wake up!

Michael Karamian   Sent 01/17/13     3:31 AM

The Supreme Court announced January 7, 2013, that they would not be hearing our “private property rights/church carry case”.  This brings our efforts to return the private property rights to the private property owner and decriminalize church carry via the court system to an end.

This does not mean that we are through fighting for the church’s right to decide or your right to self defense when attending church.  We will have a bill introduced that will address this issue and others in the upcoming General Assembly Session.  We will keep you informed of our progress in the coming days.  The General Assembly Session starts on January 14.