So the 2011 legislative session in Indiana was pretty good to gun owners. We went six for six, with everything from improved preemption to a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law for employers. That's right, it's illegal for employers to discriminate against you for exercising your constitutional rights here in Indiana!
Did the other side even try floating any legislation?
Meanwhile, down in Texas, they're still trying to push forward on HB 2756, which would remove the odious concealment requirements under which our oppressed Texan brothers and sisters still suffer. If you're in Texas, pester your legiscritter!
EDIT: As Shootin' Buddy points out, this was entirely accomplished by our state association, the ISRPA, with pretty much bupkis for help from the national association, which was apparently fighting sexier and more telegenic fights in other states. The ISRPA has somewhere around 1,100 members, counting dead guys, and the high-powered lobbyists consisted of three old retired dudes who hung around the statehouse and pestered legislators to vote in favor of these bills and have I showed you this picture of my grandkids? That's an amazing return on investment; imagine what they could do with more members!
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Have already called and recalled and e-mailed and fax'd and called again not just on open carry but more importantly campus carry and to a lesser degree parking lot bill. Working on campus I am VERY interested to see campus carry get passed. I am quite impressed with the Students for Campus Carry. Good folks there. I still have hope for Americas future.
3 yards? Given that Indiana has 1,100 state association members, had 3 old retired guys who took leave from their gigs at Wal-Mart and Menard's as lobbyists and had absolutely no help from NRA-D.C., I think 2011 counts as a touchdown.
Shootin' Buddy
You don't expect a girl to get a football analogy right do you?
I keeed.
SB0411 is awesome actually. As someone who works for a public institution who's idea of limiting benefit expenditures includes delving into employees' psychological well being, tobacco habits and Body Mass Index, I foresaw them going after guns soon. Sadly I now know what a BMI is and that mine is far from being kosher with the actuaries.
> That's right, it's illegal for employers to discriminate against you for exercising your constitutional rights here in Indiana!
As a strict libertarian, I dislike laws like this.
I think that it should be legal for employers to do all manner of stupid evil things, like discriminate against blacks, gays, gun owners, etc.
...and I think that right thinking people should respond to stupid / evil employers by boycotting them, picketting them, etc.
SmartFlix's firearm policy: make sure any weapons you're carrying on company grounds are loaded.
TJIC,
And in anarchotopia, that's how it would be. But we aren't in anarchotopia, and I have no gripes with using the enemy's tools against him. :)
Here in Arizona it's the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association (established 1909, before Arizona was a state, and from which Arizona took its State Flag - it was the flag the rifle team took to Camp Perry in 1910, and was adopted as the State flag in 1917). But more recently the Arizona Citizen's Defense League has been a major mover of the legislature. Permitless concealed-carry, castle doctrine, no duty to retreat, have all been spearheaded by the ACDL.
REAL grassroots can work!
"You don't expect a girl to get a football analogy right do you?"
She was raised in the South; she understands football just fine.
"before Arizona was a state, and from which Arizona took its State Flag - it was the flag the rifle team took to Camp Perry in 1910, and was adopted as the State flag in 1917"
Learned something new today. That is certainly a wonderful story to throw in the antis' face.
Shootin' Buddy
TJIC, I'm with you, but I'll be happy to repeal these kinds of gun laws when all the other non-discrimination laws come down, too.
wv: insard: a liberal Democrat; from the Latin, insanus retardus
jf
There are Chicago Democrats in the ISRPA?
Re: State (Gun Rights) Associations:
Here in Nebraska, the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association has been FAR more effective on state issues than the NRA..... the NRA's efforts seemed to consist mainly of them flying in a lobbyist from the east coast on a hearing date, where he'd get kicked around the hearing room by Ernie Chambers (or Ernie's replacement), leave with a his tail between his legs, and when the vote came up, they'd offer a compromise ....... in one case, attempting to trade something we liked (Firearms Purchase Certificate-$5 to get a background check done ahead of time, good for 3 years, in place of NICS= The computer is never down!) for something we would not tolerate: State Senator Asssssshford's "Too Dangerous for Civilian Ownership" Committee (A permanent, unelected committee that was to meet every two years and add guns to a "You can't Own This (but LE can).) NRA was all for it! Some quick networking got it killed, but barely.... since then, the NFOA has made many inprovements, including pre-emption of local ordinances (screw you, Omaha!) and improvement of our carry permit regs.
If you want something done at your state level: Embrace Federalism! Join and support your State 2A organizations. The NRA is fine for Washington DC, and to fight the UN in New York, but they just don't know what's going on in Holdrege, Nebraska, or your Broad Ripple neighborhood.....
Be an NRA Member. It's a start, but that is akin to showing up every four years in November and voting for the guy with the (R) next to his name..... You also need to vote in the state and local elections, the primaries, show up to town hall meetings....
.... that would be your state and local organizations. Their efforts have more effect on you AND you have more of an effect on THEIR EFFORTS.
First time comment, long time reader. (Og sent me thisaway.)
Even though I live in West Mordor, I joined the ISRPA. Good on them. Our own ISRA are good people- just wish we could get past the Mordor Democrats
N5
"There are Chicago Democrats in the ISRPA?"
Stag, well, I don't know about Chicago Democrats (the dead guys, we don't know if they are dead or not but we still mail newsletters to them at the listed nursing homes) but the entire Hyde Park Republican Caucus is a member of ISRPA.
Shootin' Buddy
Join the Indiana State Rifle and Pistol Association: the few, the proud, the heavily armed, the mostly retired, crabby old guys.
S B-
Both of them??
Stag, yes exactly, both of them. The others are still too young to vote.
Shootin' Buddy
Yep ... it doesn't take much lobbying to get an awful lot done.
Amateur lobbyists are so damned rare they get all sorts of attention.
TJIC: as long as you are required by the state to get a permit to exercise a basic human right, you need to forbid assholes from looking at the list of permittees.
In Libertopia, we all own guns, and an employers would have an absolute right to only hire rabbit people. But we don't live there yet.
From the new law (SB 292): "However, except as provided in subdivision (5) concerning a building that contains a courtroom, a unit may not prohibit or restrict the possession of a handgun under this subdivision in a building owned or administered by the unit if the person who possesses the handgun has been issued a valid license to carry the handgun under IC 35-47-2."
Does that mean what I think it means? Does that mean that if the building doesn't contain a court room, but has metal detectors, I still get to carry there? Which will turn into I get to waive my pink card and walk on by?
(I hate the way acts are described as diffs to the code. Laws should be kept in a good source control system, so you can easily diff revisions.)
And it looks like SB 506 removes the requirement to have your license in your possession. It looks like they changed "without a license issued under this chapter being in the person's possession" to "without being licensed under this chapter to carry a handgun"
Still working on things here in NC, but I'm hopeful. We have 3 good bills in the works as we speak.
Also tend to agree with TJIC from an idealist standpoint, but we live in a real world with practical realities.
Similar to when people say they want to legalize all drugs. I say, yes, but only after we've eliminated government sponsored housing, feeding, and health care for people who are so deeply in to drugs that they don't want to contribute.
In the case of employers and gun rights - other than very small individual owned businesses, US employers now operate more as agencies of the government than as private enterprises. The hospital where I work gets the overwhelming majority of its revenue from the .gov. They get special deals on land, special deals on taxes, all kinds of cash grants, and what amounts to a government-enforced oligopoly, all in return for carrying out government agendas.
Then, suddenly, when it comes to my Second Amendment rights, they want to have all the same rights and freedoms as a private individual?
Sorry, no. You, hospital, are for all intents and purposes an agency of the government. Your ability to interfere with my rights should be restricted just as severely as any other government agency. As soon as you give up your government-sponsored oligopoly and all your other sweetheart ties to the government, we can start talking again about your private property rights as an employer.
Alath
Carmel IN
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