On Monday, I covered a newly introduced bill in Wyoming that would compensate gun owners for their legal fees if they were arrested and charged with a shooting but saw those charges dropped or were acquitted on the basis of self-defense.
I’d hoped that the bill would make progress this session, even though under the legislature’s rules for bills in a budget year like this one, two-thirds support is needed to keep the bill alive.
As it turns out, HB 14 couldn’t even get a simple majority on Tuesday, and was officially passed by on a 29-32 vote.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Gary Brown, R-Cheyenne, called the legislation “a great bill for a person that would have to defend themselves.”
It wouldn’t have barred people from being investigated in use-of-force incidents. And it was, Brown said, “carefully crafted” to fit Wyoming’s existing laws.
Rep. Art Washut, R-Casper, who has been both a law enforcement officer and instructor, opposed the bill.
“Jury trials are unique experiences and sometimes juries render verdicts that take you by surprise,” said Washut.
Law enforcement and prosecutors may have followed the evidence properly and still get a curveball acquittal that would sap resources from their county, he added.
“I really worry that we put a terrible chilling effect on our prosecutors — they may be doing absolutely nothing wrong,” he said. “And now we have our local communities paying out big payments.”
I don’t see this bill as an indictment of police or prosecutors, but a simple matter of justice. Law enforcement may very well believe that a shooting was a criminal act, but if prosecutors can’t convince a jury and they instead conclude that it was a justifiable use of force in self-defense or defense of others, then the defendant shouldn’t be left bankrupt or destitute just because they defended themselves in court after defending themselves from an act of violence.
My hope is that Brown will reintroduce this bill next session, when only a simple majority will be needed to advance the measure. In the meantime, both he and Wyoming gun owners should be talking to House members about their stance on HB 14 and urging them to get behind the bill.
The two-thirds majority rule could also trip up two other pro-2A bills introduced this session. HB 95 would expand Wyoming’s campus carry law to allow permitless carry on college and university campuses, while HB 96 would scrap the state’s discretionary “may issue” carry permits for adults 18-to-20, who currently have to receive a personal recommendation their county sheriff based on individual circumstances before they can obtain a provisional carry license.
That statute is a lawsuit waiting to happen, and if lawmakers want to save the state some money they’ll adopt HB 96 and make those provisional licenses “shall issue”, just as they are for adults 21 and older. I’d love to see HB 95 adopted as well, of course, but it’s a little harder to make a budget-based argument for that particular piece of legislation.
Wyoming already has some of the best gun laws in the nation, but that’s no reason to slow down on the progress that has been made in recent years. At the very least, HB 96 needs to move forward this session, and lawmakers need to revisit Brown’s bill at the earliest opportunity next year.
Editor’s Note: The anti-gun left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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