The Indiana legislature is considering a bill that would remove permitting requirements for carrying a handgun in public.
Lafayette officials worry it makes it difficult to know whether someone is carrying a gun illegally.
Lawmakers behind the legislation say the state’s current permitting process is too restrictive and their bill removes hurdles for those who want to legally carry a handgun.
At a hearing on his bill, Representative Ben Smaltz assured people that his legislation would not turn Indiana into “the Wild West.”
“This bill is for the lawful citizen of the state of Indiana,” he said. “The simplest way to look at this bill is if you were going to get the permit anyway, you just don’t have to anymore. If you were never going to get the permit because of your criminal behavior, we’re not going to let you have a gun.”
But Lafayette Chief of Police Patrick Flannelly said without the permitting process it’s not clear how police are going to be able to tell whether someone is legally or illegally carrying a gun in public. Flannelly testified on the bill as a local police chief and as a member of the board of directors with the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police.
“If they are carrying a firearm, now we at least have a screening mechanism in place to be able to know if they have a permit or not,” he said. “If they don’t have the permit then that’s something we can take enforcement action on - seize the firearm and make an arrest as appropriate. Without that mechanism in place, we’d be coming into contact with people who could be up to the illegal activity, have a firearm on their person, and not be able to do anything about it.”
Earlier this week, lawmakers made changes to the bill so that it wouldn’t go into effect until 2022 - saying that it would give law enforcement time to develop a new method for determining whether or not someone was carrying illegally.
But Flannelly said that just doesn’t make sense.
“There is nothing in place to show us what mechanism we’ll use to determine in the future whether a person is proper or not. They’ve talked about how they are going to build a database,” he said. “It brings me back to square one: we already have a database and we already have a mechanism in place. Why are we going to replace this?”
According to state data, only 98 of over 2,000 permit applications in Tippecanoe County last year were denied. Flannelly said those denials were based on someone having a felony conviction or a serious history of drug and alcohol abuse.
“This has not been significantly prohibitive,” he said. “It’s a good process and it’s fair.”
In Tippecanoe County, roughly 21,000 people hold active gun permits. Across that state, that number is a little over one million.
Flannelly said speaking personally he would like to see state permits become more stringent and include some training requirements.
“You need to understand the level of responsibility you undertake when you buy a firearm,” he said.
Kathy Parker is a current volunteer and former head of the Greater Lafayette Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She said only federally licensed gun dealers need to conduct background checks when someone purchases a gun.
According to her, that creates a loophole allowing someone to purchases from a private seller without undergoing a background check.
“I could sell you a gun, but if you want to carry it to the grocery store or the library you have to get a permit, and to get a permit you have to undergo a background check,” she said. “It’s the last tool that law enforcement has to make sure you aren’t dangerous, that you aren’t a domestic abuser, that you don’t have alcohol issues, that you aren’t a convicted felon.”
Without the permitting process, Parker said there isn’t a good way to keep dangerous people from carrying a loaded gun in public.
“With rights come responsibilities,” she said. “ Asking people to undergo a background check before they carry a loaded gun in public is not too much to ask.”
The bill will be up for a vote in front of the full House within the next week.