Last last night, the House passed SB291 with no amendments by a vote of 120-37.  SB291, now goes to the governor for his signature.  The governor will sign it into law, ignore the bill and allow it to become law or veto the bill.  Should he veto, the bill would still be subject to an over ride by a 2/3 majority vote in the General Assembly.

The House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee met this morning and voted 9 to 5 to pass SB308 favorably to the Rules Committee to schedule a hearing on the House Floor.  Senator Mitch Seabaugh and Representative Billy Horne, (R-71 – Newnan) presented the substitute bill.

Yesterday, SB291 passed the Public Safety Committee and is also headed to the Rules Committee.  This is an NRA backed bill and is better than the law we presently live under.  It is not as comprehensive as SB308, but is still a good bill.  Details can be found on GCO’s Current Bills Page.

SB308 will have a hearing before the full House Judiciary – Non Civil Committee Thursday Morning, April 22, 2010 @ 9:30 AM in Room 132CAP. The meeting room is on the First floor of the Capitol Building in downtown Atlanta.  The Capitol address is 206 Washington Street.

Agenda – SB 308 – Firearms; carrying and possession; change provisions; definitions (Seabaugh, Mitch)

The members of the House Judiciary Non – Civil Committee are: (The names are hot links to their contact information)

Link for SB308 as it passed the Senate.

Did your Senator vote Yea or Nay Wednesday, March 24, 2010 on SB308?  Here is a link to each state Senator’s vote on the bill.  If your Senator voted Yea, have you taken the time to write him/her and thank your Senator for voting for this bill?  If not, please do so today.

If your Senator was one of the 12 Nay votes, please write a polite letter asking why he/she does not support your civil rights.

The voting record on SB308 may be found here.

Your voices have been heard at the Capitol.  The Senate just voted to send 2 GCO backed bills to the House of Representatives! SB308 passed by a vote of 41 – 12 and SB291 was passed by a margin of 42-10!  This action was due in large part to your involvement with your Senators!  Thanks goes out to each GCO Member for your efforts.

Both bills will now be passed to the House of Representatives for them to hear, amend, and vote on the bill before sending it to a Joint Committee for final approval and then sent on the Governor Perdue’s office for his final determination.

However, the fight is not over.  We still have a long way to go.  Each member now needs to get busy, once again, contacting your Representatives and let them know that you support SB308 & SB291.   We will not publish a schedule for contacting your individual representatives.  We will notify you when your input is needed to contact committee members for scheduled hearings.

After we all breathe a slight sigh of relief, we need to get reinvigorated and start the process over.

A pro-gun enthusiast website called TheTruthAboutGuns.com did an article on the Waffle House Open Carry story involving GCO Member Matt Brannan and J.P. Mitchel  who were going about their normal routine and delayed a robbery by openly carrying their pistols.

When asked about how GeorgiaCarry.org feels about open carry, (Ed) Stone indicated it was a non-issue. “GCO takes no position on how its members carry, whether openly or concealed. As an issue of personal liberty, GCO’s position is that this should be up to the individual. Nobody should ever be put into a jail cell for peacefully exercising a civil right.”

Jerry Henry, the organization’s Executive Director and a practitioner of open carry himself, echoed Stone’s sentiments:

“As for GeorgiaCarry.org’s stand on open carry, we encourage you to be comfortable with how and what you carry.  The method of carry is a personal choice and should be left as such. Simply put, we are fighting for your right to carry.”

Regardless of how you feel about open carry, it certainly seems that two visible, citizen-carried .45’s deterred a crime at a Waffle House diner. But the more important issue is the continuing struggle for expanded gun rights in general, and the importance of providing real-life examples to a sometimes-undecided public of how guns can and do save lives on a regular basis.

“My Atlanta Gun Rights Examiners articles are meant to bring content that gun owners are not getting elsewhere,” Mr. Stone opined. “including interesting incidents like what happened with Matt and J.P. at the Wafflehouse. You just do not read stories like that in the local newspaper.”  The story my be found here.

Please click here to listen to a new radio ad that has been playing in north Georgia.
Jeffery Anderson, GCO Member and probably the next Life Member, who lives in Jasper, recorded the GCO public service commercial that will be played on radio station FM104.3 in Dahlonega.
This is at no cost to GCO, as it is a public service announcement. Bo Wilson is the station owner, and he helped Jeff record the ad that will be running on his morning show.
We are planning on taking this ad to all the radio stations around the state and using the Public Service announcement approach.