Thanks for your message as well as your civil tone in providing me with your reasons for opposing the bill. While reasonable people can of course disagree on legislation, and while I do still believe that some types of weapons may not be needed to protect one’s family, self, home and property, I understand why some are particularly upset about the bill as introduced. It came to my attention that there had been an error in the preparation of the bill relating to including the language permitting a sheriff to inspect the homes of assault-weapon owners which is not what I understood to be in the bill. If I had known that it was, I would not have signed on as a sponsor. Of course I should have read the bill in its entirety prior to signing onto it; however, I received a briefing on it without mention of the warrantless search language.
Here is what happened:
1. The bill was drafted by Senate Committee Services staff, using an old version of a bill introduced in previous sessions. This version included language (not requested by the sponsors this session) allowing the sheriff to search a residence to ensure assault weapons were securely stored. This was in Section 2 (5) (a).
2. Once the error was discovered and shown to CLEARLY have been a drafting error, and with approval by the Secretary of the Senate, the Code Reviser was able to correct the bill. The Senate Majority Leader, Senator Rodney Tom, agreed to have the bill corrected to the sponsors’ original intent.
3. The Code Reviser corrected the bill on Friday. If you now read Section 2 (5) (a) you can see the language is no longer included.