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Gun Ban Drive May Be Back
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Gun Ban Drive May Be Back
Monday, June 3, 2002
BY DAN HARRIE
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Supporters of a failed, four-year petition effort to ban legally concealed guns in schools and houses of worship are regrouping and may try again in 2004 to get their cause on the ballot.
If there is a next time, they will do it differently, relying on fund-raising and paid petition signature gatherers to get the job done.
Leaders of the volunteer "Safe to Learn, Safe to Worship Coalition" met in a four-hour retreat Saturday to lick their wounds after acknowledging they had fallen far short of mustering the 76,180 registered-voter signatures needed by today's deadline to put their initiative before voters in November.
"People were feeling kind of sad and frustrated," meeting facilitator Dave Jones said Sunday. "But they were hopeful, too."
"We took a little vote and no one wanted to give up."
If the coalition, made up of more than a dozen organizations and religions, does launch a 2004 initiative, it will have to do so from scratch. State law nullifies an approved petition after four years, effectively trashing the approximately 40,000 signatures already in hand.
Initiative organizers remain convinced that Utah residents overwhelmingly support a ban on all weapons -- including legally concealed guns -- in public schools, colleges, universities and religious edifices. They blame their defeat on the practical difficulty of using only volunteers to collect tens of thousands of signatures statewide (10 percent of voters participating in the last gubernatorial election in 20 of 29 counties).
"What we have learned from this whole thing is money talks," said Jones, a former state legislator and Democratic Party leader. "If you're going to get anything on the ballot, you have to pay for it -- you have to buy it."
Three of the four statewide initiatives that have made it on Utah's ballot during the past decade used paid signature gatherers. The state Legislature stiffened the requirements in 1998, and since then the only two initiatives to qualify employed professional petition passers.
"I hate to say it, but that's the only way to do it," said Frank Pignanelli, an organizer of a petition to restrict and increase taxes on radioactive waste coming into the state. "Initiatives have become a political industry."
Paula Plant, chairwoman of the Safe to Learn, Safe to Worship Coalition, said her group's failure has "proven it is impossible" to achieve ballot status with an all-volunteer campaign. "But if you have the money and you operate like a business, you can win."
Plant and other initiative supporters insist that their cause is extremely popular.
"Nine of 10 people [asked] would sign the petition," she said.
Bunk, said Janalee Tobias, leader of Women Against Gun Control.
"They had all the king's horses and all the king's men on their side -- the media and pollsters. They still couldn't get it passed," said Tobias.
While she acknowledged that getting an initiative on the ballot is a chore, Tobias said there is a simple reason this one fell short.
"It's the common-sense people who don't want to be victims in this state," she said. "I've got to hand it to the people of Utah. They understand that criminals don't obey the law."
Tobias, who has actively lobbied against a ban of legally concealed guns in schools and places of worship, says such a restriction would only serve to invite violent criminals to prey on unarmed, vulnerable students and congregation members.
"It should be called the 'Unsafe to Learn, Unsafe to Worship' petition," Tobias said. "The schools where they're having the shootings are ones that don't allow law-abiding people to have concealed weapons."
Maura Carabello, executive director of the Utah Gun Violence Prevention Center, said the initiative was never about attacking gun rights.
"We are not by any means an anti-gun coalition," said Carabello. "We're talking about restricting a handful of places, and the idea that that's inappropriate is bizarre to me."
The 17 members of the coalition range from the Utah Education Association teachers' union to the Episcopal Diocese, and from the Utah Medical Association to the League of Women Voters. Some of the groups have been vehemently opposed to abandoning their grass-roots foundation to employ professional signature gatherers.
While no final decision has been made, the coalition has authorized a study that in the next few weeks will provide more information about the cost and feasibility of a professional petition-passing effort for 2004.
Another option would be a Capitol Hill lobbying campaign to back a bill in the Legislature, possibly including the hiring of professional lobbyists, and creation of a political action committee to support friendly candidates in elections. But that legislative strategy elicits skepticism from some.
"The only cynicism in the group is toward the Legislature," said Carabello. "Our legislators have shown themselves to be pretty narrow and bull-headed on any gun issue."
http://www.sltrib.com/06032002/utah/742427.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Monday, June 3, 2002
BY DAN HARRIE
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Supporters of a failed, four-year petition effort to ban legally concealed guns in schools and houses of worship are regrouping and may try again in 2004 to get their cause on the ballot.
If there is a next time, they will do it differently, relying on fund-raising and paid petition signature gatherers to get the job done.
Leaders of the volunteer "Safe to Learn, Safe to Worship Coalition" met in a four-hour retreat Saturday to lick their wounds after acknowledging they had fallen far short of mustering the 76,180 registered-voter signatures needed by today's deadline to put their initiative before voters in November.
"People were feeling kind of sad and frustrated," meeting facilitator Dave Jones said Sunday. "But they were hopeful, too."
"We took a little vote and no one wanted to give up."
If the coalition, made up of more than a dozen organizations and religions, does launch a 2004 initiative, it will have to do so from scratch. State law nullifies an approved petition after four years, effectively trashing the approximately 40,000 signatures already in hand.
Initiative organizers remain convinced that Utah residents overwhelmingly support a ban on all weapons -- including legally concealed guns -- in public schools, colleges, universities and religious edifices. They blame their defeat on the practical difficulty of using only volunteers to collect tens of thousands of signatures statewide (10 percent of voters participating in the last gubernatorial election in 20 of 29 counties).
"What we have learned from this whole thing is money talks," said Jones, a former state legislator and Democratic Party leader. "If you're going to get anything on the ballot, you have to pay for it -- you have to buy it."
Three of the four statewide initiatives that have made it on Utah's ballot during the past decade used paid signature gatherers. The state Legislature stiffened the requirements in 1998, and since then the only two initiatives to qualify employed professional petition passers.
"I hate to say it, but that's the only way to do it," said Frank Pignanelli, an organizer of a petition to restrict and increase taxes on radioactive waste coming into the state. "Initiatives have become a political industry."
Paula Plant, chairwoman of the Safe to Learn, Safe to Worship Coalition, said her group's failure has "proven it is impossible" to achieve ballot status with an all-volunteer campaign. "But if you have the money and you operate like a business, you can win."
Plant and other initiative supporters insist that their cause is extremely popular.
"Nine of 10 people [asked] would sign the petition," she said.
Bunk, said Janalee Tobias, leader of Women Against Gun Control.
"They had all the king's horses and all the king's men on their side -- the media and pollsters. They still couldn't get it passed," said Tobias.
While she acknowledged that getting an initiative on the ballot is a chore, Tobias said there is a simple reason this one fell short.
"It's the common-sense people who don't want to be victims in this state," she said. "I've got to hand it to the people of Utah. They understand that criminals don't obey the law."
Tobias, who has actively lobbied against a ban of legally concealed guns in schools and places of worship, says such a restriction would only serve to invite violent criminals to prey on unarmed, vulnerable students and congregation members.
"It should be called the 'Unsafe to Learn, Unsafe to Worship' petition," Tobias said. "The schools where they're having the shootings are ones that don't allow law-abiding people to have concealed weapons."
Maura Carabello, executive director of the Utah Gun Violence Prevention Center, said the initiative was never about attacking gun rights.
"We are not by any means an anti-gun coalition," said Carabello. "We're talking about restricting a handful of places, and the idea that that's inappropriate is bizarre to me."
The 17 members of the coalition range from the Utah Education Association teachers' union to the Episcopal Diocese, and from the Utah Medical Association to the League of Women Voters. Some of the groups have been vehemently opposed to abandoning their grass-roots foundation to employ professional signature gatherers.
While no final decision has been made, the coalition has authorized a study that in the next few weeks will provide more information about the cost and feasibility of a professional petition-passing effort for 2004.
Another option would be a Capitol Hill lobbying campaign to back a bill in the Legislature, possibly including the hiring of professional lobbyists, and creation of a political action committee to support friendly candidates in elections. But that legislative strategy elicits skepticism from some.
"The only cynicism in the group is toward the Legislature," said Carabello. "Our legislators have shown themselves to be pretty narrow and bull-headed on any gun issue."
http://www.sltrib.com/06032002/utah/742427.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878