Oklahoma Secretary Of State To Count Permitless Carry Petition Signatures

The Oklahoma Secretary of State plans to go forward with counting signatures on a petition to stop permitless carry. 

Permitless carry was expected to go into effect November 1.  Meanwhile, the authors of the petition say they can’t completely comply with an order from the state Supreme Court. 

The state Supreme Court is looking for two things by Thursday. First, they want to know how many people signed the petition.  And second, they want a response to the protest against the petition.

If the petition has the roughly 60,000 signatures it needs, it will allow voters to decide whether to allow Oklahomans to carry firearms without a license, and without the current training that goes with it.

Opponents of the petition say the way it was worded is misleading and they are asking the state Supreme Court to throw it out.

“They’re all invalid as far as we are concerned. That’s why we filed the protest. Because of the misrepresentation of gathering those signatures to begin with,” said Don Spencer with the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association.

Representative Jason Lowe (D) Oklahoma City, who is promoting the petition, says, “I think the Supreme Court will look at the fact that we submitted our petition to the Secretary of State and thy had no problem with it. They signed off on it and they gave us the approval to disseminate that to the public.”

The Supreme Court seems to want some assurance that there are enough signatures before deciding whether the signatures are valid.

“At this point we do not have a specific number. People were delivering petitions at the last moment. Literally at 4:55 p.m.,” said Lowe.

Spencer said, “I know that it was taken out of false pretenses. If they really had the numbers, they would have been crowing about that and bragging about it and they’ve never really said hey we got it. So, I think either way they’ve fallen short.”

Lowe replied, “They’re basically saying that Oklahomans can’t read or write what they’re signing but they can handle dangerous weapons. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The Secretary of State’s Office plans to begin counting the signatures Monday, and although the signatures won’t be certified at that time, they plan to wrap up the count in about a week.