Come support SB 1214 on Monday Feb 18th

I have received this update & request for support of SB 1214 (Bill to remove the current ban on CCW permitee's from carrying concealed on School Campuses) from Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson:

Hello all you supporters of SB1214 –

The bill has been scheduled for a committee hearing on Monday, February 18, at 1:30 p.m., in Senate Hearing Room 1.

I know it’s hard to get off work, but if any of you can come to the hearing, please do – the more the better. A good showing of supporters will impress the committee members.

If you can’t come, you will be able to watch the hearing live on the internet. I’ll send out a link in a few days so you’ll know how to do that if you’re not familiar.

In the next few days, there is a lot that people can do to lend support to this bill:

1. Email your own legislators and encourage their support for the bill.

2. If you haven’t already and can get up to the capitol, get signed up on the kiosk in either the House or the Senate. You only have to sign up once. Then you can send a message from home when a bill is heard and express your support or opposition to the bill. That will be read at the committee hearing, and your name and expression of support will become a part of the permanent record for that bill. If you can slip away between now and Monday and sign up on the kiosk, then even if you can’t come to the hearing on Monday, you’ll be able to list yourself as a supporter. If I’m confusing you, Dave Kopp and John Wentling can help explain.

I’ll be in touch in the next few days with some additional information. Thanks so much for your support for this bill. I really appreciate it and look forward to seeing some (many?) of you on Monday.

Best regards,

Senator Karen S. Johnson

If you can't come to the meeting, you can watch the hearing live via the Internet. Select Senate Hearing Room 1. Also be sure to sign up for the Arizona RTS (Request to Speak) system at either the Arizona Senate or House building via any of multiple kiosks. You'll be able to set a username & password that you can then use to enter your for or against vote as well as to submit a letter to be read during the hearing via the following Arizona RTS website: http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp

Update 1: The turnout in support for this bill was excellent. I estimate that proponents outnumbered opponents at about 2 to 1. I also noticed that opponents listed made up "what if" scenarios but when asked could not cite a single example to back it up. Proponents listed actual examples & statistics to back up their arguments. Very well done.

Soon you should be able to watch a video of the proceedings in the archive. Here is a local Fox news report on it. Interesting that they included video of full auto assault rifles although it would be rather difficult to conceal carry such a weapon. Here is a local CBS 5 news report on it.

Update 2: The archive of the video is now available here. The video is titled "02/18/2008 - Senate Judiciary"

The first 10 minutes are for another bill. The SB 1214 hearing begins at roughly the 10 min:24 sec mark. Initially you'll hear an overview of what the bill does as well as thoughts from AZ Senator Karen Johnson. The testimonials from those against the bill begin @ about the 0hr:14min:30sec mark. They were not asked to avoid repetition so you'll find that each testimonial basically covers the same points over & over. You can sum up their talking points with the following:

1) more guns = more bad, more accidents, more death
2) Police will be too confused if there is more than one person with a gun at the scene (a bad guy or gal & one or more good guys or gals)
3) citizens with guns will use their guns to kill in situations that without guns would have ended in nothing more than a heated argument, yelling, or perhaps a severe physical beating.

When asked, none of them were able to cite specific events where the above took place. They simply went on about imaginary "what if" scenarios with zero evidence to support their arguments based on nothing more than their own fear of guns.

The testimonies of those in favor of the bill began @ 1hr:05min:12sec. Due to time constraints & the fact that there were so many there to speak in favor of the bill, those in favor were asked to only bring up items that had not yet been discussed by other proponents. Even with that constraint, we managed to speak in favor of the bill for roughly 1 hr & 19 min's until the 2hr:24min:30sec mark which is when they list people who have submitted their stance against the bill online but did not sign up to speak. At 2:27:50 they begin the list of those in favor of the bill that did not speak. All done by 2:29:00 where they move on to SB 1408.