During the 2019 legislative session, Wyoming Gun Owners’ Aaron Dorr was told by a lobbyist with the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) that they would be making a major push for FIX-NICS gun control during the 2019 interim committee process.
These summer committees serve as a vetting tool for the legislature.
Most times, if a bill dies in the interim committee process, it will not be filed, let alone advanced, during the upcoming legislative session. On the other hand, if the bill advances through the interim committee, it will likely move forward in the legislature.
The NSSF lobbyist, Nephi Cole, asked Aaron if he would approve of this legislation, or at least turn a blind eye to this legislation. Of course, speaking on behalf of WYGO, Aaron said, “Hell no, we’re not ok with it!”
FIX-NICS legislation would allow liberal judges to take guns away from Wyomingites before they have been convicted of a crime, usually based on the word of a so-called mental health professional who may find you ‘unstable’ just because they disagree with your politics.
More than that, FIX-NICS is seen by many gun owners as the first step in trying to pass a full-fledged ‘Red Flag Gun Seizure’ bill, similar to what nearby Colorado did the year before.
And with so many moderates filling the Wyoming legislature, WYGO had no guarantee that the legislature would strike this bill down. Our goal was to stop that bill before it ever made it to the Capitol in Cheyenne.
As the bill was brought forth in the Joint Judiciary Committee in the fall of 2019, WYGO began to crank up the grassroots pressure on the committee members, instructing them to stop the bill. On October 31, 2019, the committee shelved the bill by a 1 vote margin.
But WYGO never thought that this bill was dead.
So we were not surprised when the biggest swamp monsters in the Republican party (Senator Mike Von Flatern along with Representatives Bill Pownall and Clark Stith) refiled this bill, just two weeks before the start of the 2020 legislative session.
WYGO had to move fast.
The 2020 session was slated to last just 26 days, and bills move very fast. Aaron immediately drafted an email/social media campaign for WYGO, which would allow gun owners to send pre-written emails directly to their legislators in Cheyenne.
Thanks to the members of WYGO, we had the budget we needed to boost this mobilization program on our Facebook page, and we made sure that every gun owner in
the state learned about this bill (HB 59.)
As you can see, this post went viral with thousands of shares, getting the word out to even more gun owners, organically!
But far more imporant was the number of emails that were being sent in to Cheyenne.
Remember, we are not talking about Washington, D.C. here. When a legislator receives ten emails from their district, it definitely gets their attention.
When they receive 20, 30, 40, 50 and even more, they go into panic mode!
But they were wrong about that.
Thanks to the generosity of WYGO members and Aaron’s ability to acquire digital tools for WYGO at reduced rates thanks to his work in multiple states, WYGO has one of most advanced digital advocacy platforms available!
This allowed us to target every single email that WYGO members sent directly into the individual State Senator and State Representatives’ email inbox.
As you can see above, House members were receiving 60, 70, and even 80 emails from WYGO members. Representative Kirkbride, one of the bill’s cosponsors, received a whopping 84 emails — each one from his district!
In the Senate, the numbers were even higher with Senators receiving between 75 – 150 emails in opposition to this bill!
The pressure proved to be too much for the moderates that were advancing this legislation, as well as their caucus leaders who knew how much this would hurt their caucus during the 2020 primaries.
And so, just days before the start of the 2020 session, Representative Pownall pulled the bill!
This was one of two gun control bills that WYGO stopped during the 2020 legislative session.
Republicans and Democrats alike joined up to push for a 3-day waiting period for all handgun sales, as well.
The bill, Senate File 80, was filed just days before the session started.
WYGO ran a similar digital program on this legislation, and gun owners again flooded the legislature with emails in opposition to the bill.
Most gun rights organizations are worried about what the legislature thinks about them. And almost all of them are terrified of angering Republicans.
But that is foolish, especially in a ‘Red’ state where the Republicans are in charge of the legislature. The Dorr Brothers and Wyoming Gun Owners know that.
Based on the smashing success that WYGO has had over the last few years — from passing Stand-Your-Ground law to running successful efforts exposing gun-grabbers during the August primaries — politicians in Cheyenne shouldn’t look for changes in WYGO tactics anytime soon.