Friends,

This month we concern ourselves with the question, “When is Range
Protection NOT Range Protection?”

Most anti gun legislation has a title that sounds good. How can you
possibly oppose a “Juvenile Justice” or “Child Safety” bill? Are you
such a cretin that you want juvenile injustice or child endangerment?
Of course not! The truth of the matter is the title of the bill does not
represent what the bill actually does! The titles are just covers for
more gun control. Gun owners know that, but gun owners are put
on the defensive and have to educate others about how the title says
one thing while the bill does another.

H3419 is a bill proposed right here in our own South Carolina
legislature! It has a good title, but H3419 is not range protection.
H3419 gives no protection to existing pistol and rifle ranges. H3419
would force all shooting ranges to close off membership to new
members or give up any immunity from nuisance noise lawsuits
for five years. H3419 will cause the death of the pistol and rifle
shooting sports. This prescription for the death of the shooting
sports is something HCI could only dream to impose upon us. Why
should we do their dirty work for them? We should be passing good
range protection, not shooting ourselves in the foot.

Please read carefully the analysis of H3419. Take the analysis to your
attorney if you want a legal opinion. We have, and they agree with us. Two
different attorneys have contacted me and told me the H3419 analysis is
correct. They tell me I will have letters from them to that affect soon.
Remember, the law you will be forced to live with is what is written in the
bill, not what the title claims the bill to be. The future of shooting
ranges and the shooting sports is in your hands. Don?t be sorry, be
certain. Learn the truth, then act to help us amend or kill this horrible bill.

We should first try to amend H3419 (as described in the analysis below) to
make it acceptable to the gun owners of SC because we need a good range
protection bill. There are some in SC who are demanding that H3419 get
passed AS IS, if need be. Unfortunately, they will not even allow input
from those who will not agree to support H3419 AS IS. Gun owners should not
allow H3419 to be passed as is. Gun owners will be better off to kill H3419
and start over next year than to accept H3419 as is.

Due to the special formatting required in this month’s Legslative Report
you’ll have to go to the online report to see the full text of and analysis
of H3419. It is available in it’s full at:

http://www.scfirearms.org/leg12_99.htm

Please distribute this analysis to the officers of the range where you
shoot and to all who are concerned about the shooting sports and range
protection. I would appreciate any feedback from range leadership and or
attorneys so that we can keep track of and try to coordinate the drive to
amend (hopefully), or kill H3419.

Thank you.
Rob Butler
GRSC Legislative Director
[email protected]