Post by pavel on Mar 17, 2016 18:14:25 GMT -6
A small group gathered at the Capitol on Thursday to urge members of the Mississippi Senate to vote against a bill that would allow churches to designate certain members to carry concealed guns in church. Later that afternoon, a Senate committee passed the bill, sending it to the full Senate for a vote.
Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, the author of the bill, has said the bill’s intention is to give church members a way to protect themselves in the wake of the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston last year.
But local members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church said the “Mississippi Church Protection Safety Act” does the opposite, putting Mississippians at risk by lowering the bar for who can carry a concealed gun in public.
Gipson says, however, that a change to the law last year already provided a permitless concealed carry option to Mississippians otherwise eligible to carry a gun under state or federal law. The law would allow concealed carry without a license in a “purse, handbag, satchel, other similar bag or briefcase or fully enclosed case.” Gipson's bill added holster and sheaths to that list, which concerns some law enforcement officials.
Read more: www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/17/group-opposes-guns-church-bill/81906392/
Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, the author of the bill, has said the bill’s intention is to give church members a way to protect themselves in the wake of the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston last year.
But local members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church said the “Mississippi Church Protection Safety Act” does the opposite, putting Mississippians at risk by lowering the bar for who can carry a concealed gun in public.
Gipson says, however, that a change to the law last year already provided a permitless concealed carry option to Mississippians otherwise eligible to carry a gun under state or federal law. The law would allow concealed carry without a license in a “purse, handbag, satchel, other similar bag or briefcase or fully enclosed case.” Gipson's bill added holster and sheaths to that list, which concerns some law enforcement officials.
Read more: www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/17/group-opposes-guns-church-bill/81906392/