The Oklahoma state House of Representatives this week passed HB 2597, a bill that does away with the permit and training requirements one previously would have needed to own a gun. The bill passed 70-30, with all 24 Democratic state representatives voting against it. Second Amendment Republicans such as Rep. Jon Echols of Oklahoma City, who wrote the bill, told KOCO5 news that “Oklahoma has long had permitless carry, but only for citizens visiting from one of those surrounding states that allow it. I am excited to give our citizens the same rights and trust that we have afforded those visitors for so many years.”
Other supporters said that the bill, which doesn’t change any other existing Oklahoma firearms laws—including bans on convicted felons ands domestic violence perpetrators owning guns, and requirements for background checks to purchase them—will make owning a gun more financially egalitarian. “What this does is allow, as the [C]onstitution states, that a person can carry a firearm without having to purchase that right,” said Republican state Rep. Kevin West. Democratic state Rep. Monroe Nichols told Tulsa World that that is disingenuous. “I know a few poor people. Not one of them has ever come to me and said my big issue is deciding between a gun and a sandwich.”
I can actually see the argument against making people pay extra money to exercise their constitutional right; but I also wonder why those same legislators wouldn’t just create meaningful subsidies for lower-income citizens—like Oklahomans do for the fossil fuel industry. This is the main reason that Americans from all political persuasions need to look at gun violence as a public health issue. We could continue to disagree about whether or not this or that gun should be legal, but if we were on the same page in finding solutions to the No. 1 problem with guns (people dying because of the bullets that come out of guns), we could at least create federal- and/or state-funded programs that would promote better gun safety across the board.
The bill will move on to the Oklahoma state Senate.
from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2SEyY5p
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