Governor Fallin Believes State’s “Few And Reasonable” Gun Laws Should Stay

Image courtesy of OK.GOV | https://www.ok.gov/governor/

Mary Fallin, Republican Governor of Oklahoma, vetoed Senate Bill 1212, which would have eliminated firearms safety training requirements and eased regulations on background checks.

This is a surprising decision to go against the NRA, who was in support of the self-defense legislation.

Introduced in February and passed overwhelmingly by both the state’s House and Senate, the final version of the bill basically would have removed the need to get a state-issued license to carry a gun for the purposes of self-defense. The National Rifle Association’s Oklahoma state director Travis Couture-Lovelady put it this way –

Every law-abiding citizen should have the right to protect and defend themselves without first getting government permission. Twelve states have adopted what are called “constitutional carry” laws to ensure that law-abiding gun owners can protect themselves without first getting government permission.

Couture-Lovelady continued –

Constitutional carry laws have made individuals, communities and states safer. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, “In 2014, the seven states [at that time] with constitutional carry had much lower rates of murder and violent crime than did the seven jurisdictions with the lowest percentages of permit holders. Indeed, the murder rate was 31 percent lower in the states not requiring permits. The violent crime rate was 28 percent lower.”

Following the veto, Chris W. Cox, the Executive Director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, had this to say – 

Gov. Fallin vetoed this important piece of self-defense legislation despite the state legislature’s overwhelming approval of the bill and her commitment to NRA members to support constitutional carry when she ran for reelection. Make no mistake, this temporary setback will be rectified when Oklahoma residents elect a new, and genuinely pro-Second Amendment governor.

Here is the text of the press release in full –

How do our readers feel about this decision? Does this make it harder to defend yourself in Oklahoma?