One issue I haven’t discussed yet has been the speculation and subsequent actual selection of who the new Secretary of State would be, to fulfill the remainder of the term Karen Handel abandoned.
Earlier this week, Governor Perdue gave a belated Christmas gift to Doug Macginnitie and Brian Kemp when he announced that he had selected his former Floor Leader State Rep Jim Cole (R-Forsyth) as the interim Secretary of State, and Cole announced that he would seek election to the full term of the post this November.
I honestly know nothing about Cole, so I went to the source I always go to for information about a current member of the General Assembly – LEGIS.
There, I looked at the bills he sponsored so far this term, with particular emphasis on the bills he authored himself. It is these bills, the ones he authored himself (or at least takes official credit for doing so), that I want to point out to you:
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A ‘Comprehensive Revision of Georgia’s Gun Laws’ a good thing?
HB 615 is being heralded as a “comprehensive revision of Georgia’s gun laws”, but it has recently come under fire from some even within the liberty movement.
I needed to look at this bill for a few reasons, and so today I did. What I found was rather interesting, and has changed my views on the bill as it exists at this moment.
First, I think that this bill will pass any Constitutionality challenge based on the requirement of a single subject, as the subject here is gun rights, and the various areas HB 615 changes are all specific instances of laws regarding gun rights.
As far as the various changes made in HB 615, the first is that the phrase “pistol, revolver, or concealable firearm” is replaced with “weapon”, allowing a greater range of weaponry to be legally carried. One problem I have with this is that “weapon” is never clearly defined, and thus a restrictive definition could be added at a later time. Other than that though, this seems like a good move.
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