INDIANAPOLIS — Hoosiers who have permits could take their guns to libraries, public hospitals and city council meetings under a measure the state Senate approved Monday.
The bill by Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, would — with the exception of schools, courts and law enforcement offices — do away with all rules that prohibit licensed gun owners from carrying their weapons on public property.
“They are your first responder,” Tomes said, referring to those carrying concealed weapons. Senate Bill 292 passed on a 38-12 vote. It now moves to the House.
Some Senate Democrats — particularly those who represent urban districts — said the bill would make public meetings more dangerous.
“It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t protect the citizens of the state of Indiana,” said Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis.
“We’re taking local control – remember, we all are for smaller government – but we’re going to take local control and put it in our hands, because we know better. … I’m confused. I don’t understand it.”
“We’ve been programmed to believe that we’re always going to be safe and secure, but that’s not necessarily the case,” he said.
Tomes cited the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, when a gunman shot and killed 32 people in a gun-free portion of campus.
“Those individuals in that room were trapped. They could not get out. They were in the doorway of eternity. They were facing certain death. They were programmed to believe that they were always going to be safe,” he said.
At the heart of the guns debate, he said, is the question: If you were in line to become one of that gunman’s victims, “would you be willing now to have somebody in the room with a gun besides that shooter, besides that bad guy?”
Sen. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, said the bill is one of several measures that remove legal restrictions currently in place that the chamber has approved in recent weeks.
He cited one that changes public intoxication laws so that, he said, someone could “walk down the sidewalk defecating his pants, or even sleep on the sidewalk,” and not be arrested.
“Now, we’re going to allow these same people to carry firearms,” he said. “What’s going on here?”
Charter schools
The Senate also approved legislation that allows charter schools to move into unused public school buildings for a rental cost of $1 per year.
Under Senate Bill 446, once a building is vacant, school corporations will have two years to decide whether they intend to use it again. If the answer is no, it will go on a statewide listing of vacant school buildings.
For the next two years, charter schools will have the option of claiming that building. They could rent it – and assume all costs involved in operating and insuring it – for $1 per year.
If, during that two-year period, no charters claim the school, then the school corporation gets it back and can do with it what it wishes – whether that’s selling the building or repurposing it.
“The taxpayers in the end really don’t have any control over buildings they’ve already bought,” said Sen. Timothy Skinner, D-Terre Haute. He was one of just a few critics. The bill passed, 42-7.
Gay marriage
The Indiana House had scheduled a vote Monday on a measure that would write a gay marriage ban into Indiana’s constitution. However, the bill’s author – Rep. Eric Turner, R-Marion – decided not to call it for a vote until today, at the earliest.
Same-sex marriage is already illegal under state law, but Turner is pushing to make it much more difficult for the General Assembly to overturn that law.
His amendment would also bar “civil unions” or other legal recognitions of same-sex couples’ relationships – something that opponents say would pose problems in areas ranging from health insurance to wills.
A gay marriage amendment has died in the House the last four years, but it is believed to stand a much stronger chance now that Republicans hold a majority there.