United States/Your State Legislature – -(AmmoLand.com)- Second Amendment supporters often think that when a state legislature (or Congress) is not in session, then our rights are relatively safe. After all, when they are not in session, anti-Second Amendment extremists can’t pass legislation.
That is a true statement, but there is a flip side: Although anti-Second Amendment legislation cannot pass, neither can legislation that would either repeal anti-Second Amendment provisions already in the law or legislation to address new threats. This includes, but is not limited to, countering the existential threat of financial deplatforming.
Time will also be short this year. Why? In some states, the legislative session is a lot shorter in an election year. And legislators will be either running for re-election, running for a higher office, or retiring.
For example, in West Virginia, the 2021 legislative session was roughly three months. In 2022, it is scheduled for about two months. While two months sounds like a lot of time to get bill though, keep in mind that as is the case in Congress, there are committee processes, which vary by each state.
In addition, some states have hard deadlines for committees to act on legislation. Many a pro-Second Amendment bill – and a lot of anti-Second Amendment legislation – died because the clock ran out. Again, this shows that the processes in place can cut both ways.
So, at this point, Second Amendment supporters have their work cut out for them. They need to get in touch with their state legislators – NRA-ILA has a tool for finding out your federal, state, and local officials – and urge them to pass state-level versions of the Freedom Financing Act at the very least.
Given the threats that exist, Second Amendment supporters need to have the right priorities. Stopping financial deplatforming is the top priority, followed by addressing the threat of “campaign reform” that anti-Second Amendment extremists are embracing to muzzle our use of the First Amendment.
The fact of the matter is that effective activism for the Second Amendment can be as much about knowing how the legislative process works at the federal, state, and local levels. It isn’t enough to just know the facts or to know the desired end state. Second Amendment supporters should know how the various legislative processes work. By being knowledgeable about the issues and the process, they will garner goodwill from elected officials, and that can also be important.
That said, while knowledge of the process helps, the best defense is to work hard to elect pro-Second Amendment candidates at the federal, state, and local levels in order to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremism at the ballot box.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.