This week, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons (R) signed into law NRA-backed Assembly Bill 95 (AB95)--the “Emergency Powers Firearms Protection Act.” This new law will prevent a governmental entity or law enforcement agency from confiscating firearms from law-abiding citizens during a declared state of emergency.
AB95 will protect Nevadans from an event similar to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when residents of New Orleans were subject to door-to-door firearm confiscation at the direction of New Orleans police. “This law guarantees that the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Nevadans will never be violated during a time of emergency,” said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox. “The citizens of Nevada can be assured that they and their Constitutional freedoms will not suffer like those citizens of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.”
“NRA promised to fight to ensure that the gun confiscations we saw in New Orleans are never repeated anywhere in America, and we are devoted to fulfilling our vow,” said Cox. The NRA-backed measure received wide bipartisan support in the Nevada Legislature. According to the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Valerie Weber (R-5), the Emergency Powers Firearms Protection Act “was a legislative priority for all of the co-sponsors and members to protect Nevada's gun owners.”
AB95 passed unanimously out of Assembly and Senate policy committees and off both floors. Since Hurricane Katrina, 18 other state legislatures passed measures similar to Nevada’s Emergency Powers Protection Act. Last fall, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate passed a similar federal bill with broad, bipartisan support, which President Bush signed in October 2006.