Political Action

I'm very new to this forum - having only started creeping around here in the background since I saw your speaker at the Guns Across America Rally last month. I've been impressed by the vibe I've gotten from the discussions on here. It's much more agreeable than the ones I've received at meetings from other gun rights organizations in the area. I do have a couple questions though. What political action or types of community outreach does OKOCA focus on, and do you all address gun rights apart from open carry? That may seem like an odd question seeing that you were obviously founded to focus on open carry issues, but I didn't know if you all addressed general threats to Second Amendment rights on the premise that they inevitably affect open carry rights as well.

Thanks for any clarification!

yoshieslunchbox said:

I'm very new to this forum - having only started creeping around here in the background since I saw your speaker at the Guns Across America Rally last month. I've been impressed by the vibe I've gotten from the discussions on here. It's much more agreeable than the ones I've received at meetings from other gun rights organizations in the area. I do have a couple questions though. What political action or types of community outreach does OKOCA focus on, and do you all address gun rights apart from open carry? That may seem like an odd question seeing that you were obviously founded to focus on open carry issues, but I didn't know if you all addressed general threats to Second Amendment rights on the premise that they inevitably affect open carry rights as well.

Thanks for any clarification!

Click to expand...

Great questions! Let's see whether I can form a coherent response at this late hour

1st of all, I was the guy at the rally who introduced everyone. My name is Bryan Hull, and I'm one of the Founders and the current President of OKOCA. Thanks for opening an account and posting here on OCDO. To respond to your comment about the "vibe", we try hard to stay very focused on our core mission. This means that our efforts stay more focused, as well. I'd invite you to read our mission statement.

Our efforts from the time when SB1733 was signed by the Governor until it went into effect on Nov 1 were completely focused on education. Educating interested gun owners on what the law said, educating the media so that they "got it right", and educating those law enforcement agencies who were interested in our take on open carry... We feel that we did a good job, since to our knowledge there have been no incidents of problems with open carry in Oklahoma.

While we are continuing the education mission, the focus has shifted a bit. We are now working with businesses to educate them on why the "gun free zone" is such a fallacy, and does absolutely nothing to keep them safe. We have "No guns = No Money" cards and a very effective http://okoca.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Letter-to-Businesses.pdf, both of which I've linked. Our members have had a lot of success using these tools, along with a respectful attitude.

The 2013 Legislative session just began today. We have studied a number of bills, and a few of us will be walking the halls of the Capitol to lobby as needed. One of our most powerful "assets", if you will, are the 2600+ Oklahomans on our Facebook page, where we are letting people know when emails and phone calls are needed. Sometimes, when a bill is on the line, that FB page turns into a play by play.

Since we are an apolitical educational org, we don't support any particular candidate or party. Other groups do a very good job with that. This allows us to reach out to individuals and groups who would normally feel uncomfortable looking for information or training from groups who they oppose philosophically or politically. Some of us are in the process of getting our instructor licenses, so that we can teach more people the skills they need to carry legally and safely for their protection.

I hope that I answered your questions. Speak up if you have more!

Thank you for the reply. My other question is a bit more specific. Is your organization planning on doing any political organizing about the current slate of proposed federal legislation, such as mandatory universal background checks, or the Feinstein weapon ban. Both of those issues affect open carry rights by denying citizens the ability to acquire self-defense weapons (registration and prohibition of specific handguns), but they aren't directly aimed at open carry per se. That logic makes sense to me, but I don't want to overstep myself and post commentary on your forum that strays away from the central purpose of what you all are trying to accomplish.

Thanks in advance for any reply.

yoshieslunchbox said:

Thank you for the reply. My other question is a bit more specific. Is your organization planning on doing any political organizing about the current slate of proposed federal legislation, such as mandatory universal background checks, or the Feinstein weapon ban. Both of those issues affect open carry rights by denying citizens the ability to acquire self-defense weapons (registration and prohibition of specific handguns), but they aren't directly aimed at open carry per se. That logic makes sense to me, but I don't want to overstep myself and post commentary on your forum that strays away from the central purpose of what you all are trying to accomplish.

Thanks in advance for any reply.

Click to expand...

While our members do share relevant information regarding Federal legislation attempts, our board of directors believed that we have a much stronger impact on state and local issues of interest. Also there are other groups (many of which we support) who are in a position to do a better job on the Federal level.

Personally, I live less than 8 blocks from the Capitol and stop by there often during the legislative session. The capitol security guys at the checkpoint know me and my empty holster very well. There are others who are in the group who can say the same.

To go along with what Okiebryan said, OKOCA is a nonprofit and can't have much political involvement in things that are not directly related to our mission and purpose. Universal background checks don't really have anything to do with lawful open carry.