Last week, State Senator Judson Hill (R-Marietta) announced that he had crafted a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment that would protect Georgians from any “public option” health care proposal at the Federal level and that he had the support of the Senate Republican Caucus in this effort.
As always, I try to read the bill before I comment on it. I figure that I can’t ask my Representatives to do something I’m not willing to do myself, and I also like to be informed so that I can then pass the knowledge on to y’all and whoever else asks me any questions.
This morning, Senator Hill sent me the text of the bill, which you can see for yourself here.
There are no calls for “states rights”, “10th Amendment”, “nullification”, or any other such thing in this bill – though the first two were mentioned at a press conference last week, by both Hill and Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock).
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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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