Source: PHOTO: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images
STATEHOUSE — It was the State Senate’s turn to pass a swath of bills on Thursday as the deadline for the end of the legislative session gets closer.
The Senate passed several bills with a wide variety of topics one after the other with minimal discussion. The only bill to garner any meaningful discussion was a bill that would rewrite some of Indiana’s code on firearm sales. It would also allow state lawmakers and certain members of the governor’s cabinet to carry a handgun in the Statehouse.
Democrats have been consistently against this proposal from the get-go and State Sen. Greg Taylor (D-Indianapolis) made one last short plea for the bill to be defeated by pointing out the bill’s latest change.
“We had a provision in (the bill) that you had to have a carry license (to carry in the Statehouse),” he said,. “I think that’s coming out. We used to have an understanding of who was not a prohibited person.”
Taylor’s concern is that licenses point out who is legally allowed to carry and under Indiana’s constitutional carry law, he believes someone who is a prohibited person could end up carrying a gun in the Statehouse.
Opponents of the original bill did not like the staff provision that would have let an estimated 700 people be able to be armed.
The bill also reworks how financial institutions keep track of gun sales. It also prohibits the state government from keeping a registry of who owns a firearm.
It was given final approval on Thursday and is now one of several bills on the desk of Gov. Eric Holcomb.
Holcomb says he will sign a Senate bill to limit his office’s emergency powers. The bill limits an emergency declaration to 60 days before the General Assembly can intervene and approve a 60-day extension.
Holcomb exercised emergency powers during the COVID-19 pandemic by extending 30-day emergency declarations without the support of the General Assembly.
