On February 19, 2022, the Associated Press published an article reporting Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray saying he expected the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had bottled up the Constitutional Carry bill, to advance the bill to the full Senate. From AP via usnews.com:
Republican Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray said he expected a Senate committee in the coming week to advance the bill loosening Indiana’s already lenient firearms restrictions that the GOP-dominated House approved last month.
The Judiciary Committee was the chosen vehicle used by the Republican majority of senators to kill Constitutional Carry in 2021. The Republicans senators had met in caucus and are reported to have used a secret vote to kill Constitutional Carry. They did so with the simple method of never allowing the bill to be debated or voted on in the Judiciary Committee. The problem for the Republican senators is Constitutional Carry is very popular with their base constituency.
Analysis:
There are 21 states which have Constitutional Carry. It has not been a problem. Homicide rates have not increased. As with all the other reforms which have removed and loosened decades of infringements on the Second Amendment, the "blood in the streets" promised by those who wish to disarm the population, has not materialized.
Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray has had to acknowledge this. He has been educated, in spite of decades of indoctrination by the Left. Facts are stubborn things. From windobi.com:
“As you look around other states that have done the same thing, there haven’t been a lot of other problems, at least that we have seen, that have cropped up as a result of this policy and so we’re trying to cautiously move forward with it,” Bray said.
In 2021, there were 21 Indiana senators which co-sponsored Constitutional Carry. In 2022, there are eight Indiana senators which have signed up as sponsors for HB 1077.
The 2A project (founded in Indiana in 2020) claims Indiana Governor Holcombe is the force behind the scenes working to stop Constitutional Carry in the Indiana Senate.
If the bill is stopped in the Senate, Governor Holcombe will not be required to sign or veto the bill. A veto would likely end his career in the Republican party in Indiana. If he signs the bill, the calculation might be he would lose a few votes from voters who rely on the old media for their information. The dominant media in Indiana would make it a campaign issue. He might be called a "radical" or "paid for by the NRA".
This appears to be a similar situation to what happened to Constitutional Carry in Wisconsin. This correspondent has been told by people who are familiar with the Wisconsin situation, Governor Walker was the force behind the scenes which killed Constitutional Carry while Walker was in office. Indiana has a more organized Second Amendment activist base than Wisconsin does.
If HB 1077 is voted out of the Judiciary Committee, it is likely to pass the Senate. It is not certain. In 2021, it was reported 21 of 39 Indiana senators secretly voted to kill the bill. All of them may not be willing to do so publicly. Indiana has 39 Republican senators and 11 Democrat senators. The bill requires 26 votes to pass. 14 Republican senators would need to vote against the bill to kill it, if it is allowed to come to the floor of the Senate for a vote.
Will Republican senators be willing to listen to their base, and pass a bill universally opposed by the dominant Media? It has happened in 20 other states, without ill effect.
©2022 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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