Some analysts might assume that, in light of the Tucson shootings, Arizona might be taking a look at its gun laws. That’s correct. But it’s looking at the gun laws with an eye on further expanding gun rights. CBS News reports:
The shooting rampage that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a former legislative colleague, has done nothing to slow down the Legislature….
….Arizona Republicans remain adamant that the shooting will not dissuade them from pushing their pro-gun agenda.
They want new laws allowing college and university faculty members to be able to carry concealed weapons on campus, an issue that gained attention after the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech University. Only Utah has a law allowing concealed weapons on college campuses while 24 states have bans, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
“There are going to be some nervous Nellies, so to speak, but I think that it will be overcome,” said John Wentling, a leader of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun owners advocacy group active at the Capitol. “We still have an obligation to protect constitutional and civil rights.”
Bills already introduced this year in Arizona in the Republican-controlled Legislature include barring landlords and homeowner groups from restricting the right to bear arms in self defense, and expanding the current law that allows gun owners to display a weapon in self defense. And Wentling said his group’s priority bill, which he wouldn’t discuss, hasn’t been unveiled yet.
One of the biggest pushes for change is here in California:
The mass shooting in Tucson last weekend is fueling the gun control debate in neighboring California, with an advocacy organization renewing a push to prohibit firearms in restaurants and state lawmakers taking up a bill that would end the state’s open-carry law.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence launched a drive last week challenging restaurants and cafes to exert their private property rights and ban guns in their establishments.
The push formalized a campaign the group’s California chapter has been loosely waging since last year.
Karen Arntzen, Brady’s California chapter coordinator, told FoxNews.com on Monday she thinks the Arizona shooting should help refocus Californians on gun control and bring more restaurants on board.
“Since the Tucson shooting, more of them are coming forward,” Arntzen said. “It’s renewed the gun control debate. It’s renewed the focus on mental illness, easy access to guns.”
But open-carry advocates, who have been meeting at California restaurants exercising their open-carry rights over the past year, are not happy with the push and are vowing to counter the Brady Campaign. The California skirmish is one of many taking place across the country as gun control advocates and Second Amendment defenders clash anew in the wake of the Arizona shooting attack.
Meanwhile, the is a move in Florida to expand gun rights:
Gun owners with concealed-weapons permits would be allowed to openly carry those weapons in public under a bill that will be taken up this spring in the state Legislature.
Besides allowing weapons to be carried in the open, it would allow permit holders to carry guns at universities and in private schools.
The bill is one of three filed that would liberalize state gun laws. One of the others would forbid doctors to ask patients if they own guns; another would forbid local governments to pass their own gun laws.
The mass shooting last week that left six people dead and seriously wounded Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords hasn’t dampened Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Greg Evers’ determination to pass the open-carry law.
“I have no reservations about pushing the bill; we are one of four states that doesn’t have open-carry. It’s the right thing to do,” said Evers, a Republican from Baker in Northwest Florida. “The only way to stop a perpetrator is with equal force.”
Former National Rifle Association president and lobbyist for Unified Sportsmen of Florida Marion Hammer said the bill is necessary. Some NRA members have complained that the casual removal of a sportscoat at a restaurant or a gust of wind can suddenly expose a legally concealed weapon and put the owner in violation of the open-carry ban, Hammer said.
Evers, who is strongly backed by the NRA, has a powerful ally in Gov. Rick Scott, who supported the measure on the campaign trail. A a spokesman said he hasn’t changed his mind since the shooting last weekend that wounded 19. Among the dead was a federal judge.
Many legislators are taking a wait-and-see attitude.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.