On the Rules Committee Recommendations Concerning Weapons

As you know, tomorrow the Legislature will be adopting its rules for the 2013-2014 biennial session. One of the rules changes requested will be to return to the previous rules regarding guns on the State House floor. Here is the information I need to take into account on this change:

~ Following the days after the massacre at Newtown I received several emails from constituents; one began like this: "Too much is too much! Now is the time to legislate some controls."

~ While I was running for State Representative and introducing myself to neighbors in my ward, a common thread of the many issues people spoke about often began with "And the first thing they did was allow guns in the State House!"

~ I've had mothers tell me that their 4th grader wouldn't be allowed to do their State House tour because they heard about Legislators dropping their guns or being observed taking them out to show them off.

~ This isn't something we should allow to be divisive now; the state has real issues that affect the lives of our fellow citizens. We need to work together to find the best solution for the most important issues for today and for the future: the economy, jobs, education, and how to pay for what we need.

~ Legislators carrying guns in the State House is a distraction, a disturbing and frustrating unnecessary division that was artificially created to take attention away from important issues of the last biennium.

As a representative of my constituents, I will vote as my constituents have asked me to vote. We need to return to the previous rule and ask all Legislators to leave their guns outside and allow us to get to work on what matters to the people.