Week 8 in the Iowa Legislature – Keep the Omnibus Bill in its Original Form

Week 8 recap:

The last time we emailed you we were just announcing the “Omnibus Gun Bills,” also known as HSB201 and SSB1251. In the last week we’ve seen the Omnibus Gun Bills:

• Introduced in both the House and Senate.
• Receive unanimous, bi-partisan passage in judiciary subcommittees in both the House and Senate.
• Come under a heavy assault from the media and gun control zealots.
• Pass the House Judiciary Committee by a 19-2 vote (with Republicans & Democrats voting yes).
• Pass the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 10-3 vote (with Republicans & Democrats voting yes).

We’ve passed our first major milestone, and it truly would not have been possible without your support. This week you responded more than once with little or no advance notice. We’ve created a day-by-day recap of how the Omnibus Gun Bills survived their first major challenges of the legislative session. It’s because of your support that the Omnibus Gun Bills have been able to make it this far. We are truly humbled and grateful to have your support.

What you need to know for week 9:

The Omnibus Gun Bills now enter a new and much more dangerous stage of the legislative session. This may very well be the most critical point of the 2015 legislative session.

You should know that we’re not the only organization backing these bills. The NRA, the American Suppressor association, and several law enforcement groups are all pushing to get these bills signed into law as well. The Omnibus Gun Bills have been carefully crafted to include everything we can possibly get signed into law. They’re not perfect, there are a lot of other things we’d love to include. But the reality of the situation is the legislature is not ready to pass everything we want.

These bills include everything that’s capable of being passed right now. We cannot let perfection get in the way of doing what’s possible right now.

There’s a slight difference between HSB201 and SSB1251. The content of the bills are the exact same, but the wording is slightly different. It will take an amendment to make the wording of these bills exactly the same. We know that anti-gunners of all forms are also trying to get this bill amended and make it un-passable.

Let us be absolutely clear: Any attempt to alter, or even add to the content of Omnibus Gun Bills will KILL THESE BILLS.

Because there are so many groups involved with these bills, if the content changes in any manner other than syncing up the language, key groups will pull their support. Should that happen these bills are dead on arrival.

Gun owner privacy protection – updates to concealed carry – repealing the ban on supervised youth handgun shooting – legalizing suppressors – it all disappears in the blink of an eye if the content of these bills get changed.

We’ve worked behind the scenes for months crafting these bills. If we continue to see the level of support we’ve seen in the last week, they stand a very good chance of being passed. This is why we cannot allow them to be altered.

We’ve drafted a new “Pass the Omnibus Gun Bills WITHOUT ALTERATION” Advocacy Campaign to tell the legislature to pass these bills as is. This may be the most critical point of the 2015 legislative session. We cannot allow anti-gunners or anyone else to monkey around with these bills.

Please do everything you can to help us protect these bills. Let’s stay the course, and see this through.

What you can do right now:

Tell your legislators to keep the Omnibus Gun Bills in their original form. Changes to these bills are UNACCEPTABLE.

Fighting for your Second Amendment rights in Iowa,
Sheena Green
IFC Communications Director
NRA Member