This is beginning to become a pattern.
Last year, Mark Gordon broke a written campaign promise when he vetoed HB-125, legislation to repeal deadly ‘Gun Free Zones’ here in Wyoming.
As you all know, we rammed the same bill back through the legislature this year in the form of HB-172 and its now law.
Well, we’re going to have to do that again as Mark Gordon has vetoed the Second Amendment Preservation Act (SF-196) in a bizarre press conference full of materially false statements.
To be honest, I wasn’t surprised.
Gordon has been enraged with the legislature all session over the passage of HB-172 and over the fact that they overrode his veto of five different bills.
Gordon thinks he’s a king, and he doesn’t like being challenged.
(Mark Gordon, slamming the legislature and WYGO’s Aaron Dorr during his press conference announcing a veto of SF-196.)
Like I said, Gordon made a bunch of weird statements during his press conference.
First, Gordon accused the legislature of making gun rights into a litmus test this year as though fighting to safeguard the Second Amendment is a cheap, political stunt.
Second, Gordon reassured us that he’s pro-gun; that we all enjoy the 2nd Amendment for ‘hunting, fun, and self-protection.’ Weak! Gun rights are about stopping tyrants…not ‘fun.’
Third, Gordon lied through his teeth and said that SAPA would stop Wyoming cops from helping President Trump deport foreign nationals or arrest drug cartels. There are specific carve outs in SAPA to protect all of those actions, and Gordon knows it.
Fourth, Gordon said he wants to ensure that Wyoming cops can enforce federal gun control laws, directly implying that he’s not happy with the lack of gun control laws in state law. Here’s an idea, Governor, have someone propose a gun control bill in Cheyenne and see what happens!
Yes, it’s enraging to have a badly needed pro-gun bill vetoed again by our supposedly ‘pro-gun’ Governor.
But here’s the good news.
Senate President Bo Biteman and Speaker of the House Chip Neiman said this in a joint statement when session wrapped up serval weeks ago:
“Both the House and the Senate are committed to adopting SF 196 exactly as passed this year. If the governor sees fit to veto SF 196, as is his prerogative, then the Legislature will take this issue up immediately as we convene for the 2026 session and send it to the governor first.”
In other words, we’re going to do the same thing with SAPA that we did with ‘Gun Free Zone’ repeal this year.
We will win this fight; it’s only a question of when.
In case you missed my statement to the press on this veto, it’s below:
WYGO members were stabbed in the back (again) by Governor Gordon with his veto of the Second Amendment Preservation Act.
The excuses that he used to justify this veto are bogus, just like his excuses in vetoing ‘Gun Free Zone’ repeal last year.
WYGO members are used to this. We overrode Gordon’s veto of ‘Gun Free Zone’ repeal last year by passing HB-172 this year, and we look forward to doing the exact same thing with SAPA next year.
The joint statement from President Biteman and Speaker Neiman vowing to pass SAPA next year if Gordon vetoed it (combined with SAPA’s 29-2 Senate vote and 53-7 House vote) make it clear that the fight to pass SAPA isn’t going away.
WYGO has been passing pro-gun bills into law long before Gordon was Governor, and we’ll be doing it long after he’s gone.
But should the rumors be true and Governor Gordon seeks to change the law and run for a 3rd term, we look forward to that primary now that he’s vetoed two wildly popular pro-gun bills.
For Wyoming,
Aaron Dorr
Policy Advisor
Wyoming Gun Owners
