The Second Amendment Preservation Act, HB 85, is Finally Moving in the Senate

HB 85 blasted through the House of Representative this year, largely due to the groundwork Missouri patriots did both last year and this year securing co-sponsors. It was one of the first 4 bills passed by the House and was reported the Senate by February 8th.

It sat in the Senate, along with virtually all the other House bills that have passed since then, waiting for committee assignments. Finally on March 11, the day before the legislature went on Spring Break, HB 85 was assigned to the General Laws Committee.

Why did it take so long?

First, understand that there are roughly 2000 bills filed each year, about 1500 in the House and another 500 in the Senate. There is intense competition for time in committees and on the floor of the House and Senate. The House and Senate can be "territorial" with their bills, and the leaders of each chamber want to make sure their members (who elected them to those positions) have a crack at the process.

Accordingly, Senate leadership did not start committee assignments for bills that had already passed the House and were waiting for hearings in the Senate, including HB 85, until after all the Senate bills had been assigned to committees.

The main thing to understand is that it is still early in the session and we have made great progress.

WHAT'S NEXT?

HB 85 was assigned to the General Laws Committee, where the senate version, SB 39, was given top billing and promptly voted "do pass" earlier this year. It will have its own hearing in the next week or two. Currently, the next hearing is scheduled for March 23, but the schedule was already full before HB 85 was referred, and it's unclear whether an opening can be made.

Watch the hearing schedule here: https://www.senate.mo.gov/hearingsschedule/hrings.htm

Once HB 85 has a hearing we are confident that the committee will promptly vote "do pass" and then it will be up to the president pro tem of the Senate, Dave Shatz, to accept the bill from the General Laws Committee and place it on the calendar for the full Senate to consider.

Then, it's up to the majority floor leader of the Senate to call it from the calendar to the floor.

None of that will happen unless enough senators want the bill to pass, and frankly, the Missouri Sheriffs' Association has some of them running cool on SAPA. MSA has not been very cooperative in the efforts to resolve issues they have with the bill.

Fortunately, a number of individual constitution-supporting sheriffs and LEOs HAVE been cooperative, and they have helped to identify areas in SAPA that can be modified to optimize their day to day law enforcement work without diminishing the power of SAPA to protect your rights.

A new Senate Committee Substitute that includes these tweaks has been drafted and will soon be made available to the public.

In the mean time, stay tuned. The next step will be a full court press on the Senate to pass HB 85, as amended in committee.

- Ron
--

And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works. --  Frédéric Bastiat - "The Law"

Ron Calzone

Thank you for the update mikeak!

Bump.

Public Hearing Tomorrow