In news that will shock no one, a year-long legislative study has Republican legislators looking to relax Arkansas gun laws yet again.
As part of an ongoing study, a joint executive subcommittee of the Arkansas General Assembly heard explanations and asked questions on Wednesday about a draft final report about potential changes to Arkansas’s firearms laws.
The committee appears prepared to recommend passage of bills to allow firearms at school bus stops, parades and demonstrations. Another change would expand where Board of Corrections members can legally carry guns. A final report from their Arkansas Firearms and Concealed Carry Laws Study is due Oct. 1.
Employees from the Bureau of Legislative Research and the attorney general’s office presented a draft Wednesday, which included:
- A bill from Rep. Jeff Wardlaw (R-Hermitage) that would repeal a statute that says the possession of a firearm “in fields, forests, along streams, or in any location known to be game cover” is evidence that a person is hunting;
- Another bill from Wardlaw to repeal a statute that imposes a fine and potential jail time on a person who negligently discharges a firearm while deer hunting;
- A broad bill, with no sponsor currently listed, that would remove school bus stops, parades and demonstrations from the list of places where it is illegal for someone to carry a firearm, either openly or concealed. This same bill would drop a requirement currently in place for additional training before someone can legally carry a concealed firearm on college campuses. This sprawling bill would also provide immunity to colleges and community colleges for injuries caused to third parties by anyone carrying a firearm on campus. This same law would explicitly make it legal for someone with a concealed carry license to carry a handgun in a motor vehicle and leave a handgun in his vehicle, whether locked or unlocked, in most parking lots;
- Another bill from Wardlaw, joined by Sen. Terry Rice (R-Waldron), to clarify that the Arkansas State Police have no discretion as to whether to issue a concealed-carry permit to a person who meets the legal requirements for such a license;
- A bill from Sen. Ricky Hill (R-Cabot) directing the Joint Legislative Committee to conduct a study on the propriety and process of restoring firearms rights to people who have lost their right to own or possess firearms due to involuntary commitment;
- A bill, sponsored by Wardlaw and Rep. Jack Fortner (R-Yellville), explicitly stating that counties and municipalities “shall not enact an ordinance or promulgate a regulation concerning firearms that is more restrictive than state law;”
- A bill from Rep. Joey Carr (R-Armorel) to also prevent local regulation of “knives and knife-making components”
Three people signed up to speak. Up first was Anna Morshedi, who said she was speaking as “a concerned parent with kids in elementary and middle school.”
Moreshedi — who is also a volunteer with Moms Demand Action, a national group that describes itself as “fighting for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence” — expressed concern that some of the proposed measures left Arkansas law inconsistent with federal law, which makes it tough or impossible for gun owners to know which laws will apply at any given time. She also asked if there was a reason why pre-K buildings were not expressly exempt from having firearms inside when there are stand-alone pre-K facilities that would not fall under the language used in the proposed statutes. (Legislators did not answer her question on this point, with subcommittee chair Rep. Josh Miller (R-Heber Springs) explaining this was merely a time for the public to comment, not to ask questions.)
Arthur Broadbent III spoke next. He said he had 35 years of experience as a middle- and high school teacher, and he rhetorically asked why the Legislature would make it legal for someone to carry a firearm on school grounds when we’ve spent the last couple of decades installing metal detectors at school doors, keeping school buildings and classrooms locked to keep guns out, and taken myriad other steps to distance children from guns at school.
In fact, as Broadbent delivered his testimony, yet another school shooting was unfolding in Georgia, where at least four people were killed.
Three other items of note from today’s hearing:
Sen. Justin Boyd (R-Fort Smith) mentioned that he was working on a bill to create some firearms exemptions that would apply to Civil War reenactments and reenactors. Boyd said the issue was “more complex” than he initially expected, but that he was going to apply a law from Tennessee as guidance. Miller then chimed in to ask, on behalf of traitors everywhere, “Do you promise to be more lenient to those who fought for the South?” Boyd paused for a second — likely due to the absurdity of the question — before saying his position was always “equal protection under the law.”
Boyd also proposed a bill that would have raised the range of possible fines for shooting at a train from their current $25-$250 to $100-$5,000 per incident. He noted the lower part of the range was necessary because the statute also applies to throwing rocks and sticks at trains. Sen. Hill proposed just making violations of the statute a class-A misdemeanor, which automatically carries a fine of up to $2,500, and Boyd adopted that suggestion in place of his original proposal. No one seemed concerned that such a change also increases the potential punishment for throwing a rock at a train under the statute from its current three-month maximum sentence to up to one year in jail.
Finally, the legislators noted that, under the current law, members of the Board of Corrections can carry firearms anywhere a law enforcement officer is allowed to carry. Hill wanted to repeal this power, explaining people appointed to the Board of Corrections are being given more leeway to carry firearms than legislators get, despite the board members not receiving the same training as law enforcement. Hill therefore moved to repeal the board members’ powers to carry firearms beyond the powers regular citizens have.
The subcommittee’s next hearing will be Sept. 16 at 1 p.m. They will vote on whether to accept the final report and adopt its recommendations at that time. Any changes would require approval from the full Legislature before they could become law. The General Assembly is set to convene for its next biennial session in January 2025.
