Two Alabama sheriffs told lawmakers today that Alabama’s requirement to have a permit to carry a concealed handgun is an important tool for law enforcement and public safety.

Representatives of the National Rifle Association and Bama Carry Inc., an Alabama gun rights organization, said the requirement to buy a permit infringes on the rights of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their families.

The two sides made their arguments at a public hearing this morning before the Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering a bill to repeal the permit requirement in Alabama.

Committee Chairman Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said the committee would vote on the bill next week.

In previous years, the committee has approved the bill, which has also won approval in the full Senate only to die in the House of Representatives.

Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham and Baldwin County Sheriff Hoss Mack were among those who spoke in opposition to the bill, by Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa.

“I get tons of phone calls from people that are concerned about gun violence in their neighborhoods,” Cunningham told the committee. "Tons. And I’m sending my young deputies, males and females, to respond to calls for services, and now we’ve got to take a tool that we have in place away from them to be able to remove these people off the street. But at the same time, I want to see my young male and female deputies go home at the end of the day."

Law enforcement made up a sizable portion of the overflow crowd in the committee room. Mack said more than 30 sheriffs were on hand.

Eddie Fulmer, president of Bama Carry, said the permit requirement does not stop criminals from carrying guns but affects only those who are committed to following the law, such as those who have accidentally let their permits expire and are arrested for carrying a loaded pistol in their vehicles.

“Aside from being the right thing to do, this bill will stop abuse of the permit system, which has never, in our opinion, kept a criminal from carrying a weapon," Fulmer said.

Fulmer read to the committee a list of 15 states that he said allowed concealed carry without a permit: Wyoming, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Idaho, Missouri, West Virginia, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Kentucky. Fulmer said the four states that border Alabama allow gun owners to carry handguns in their cars without a permit. In Alabama, a handgun in a vehicle must be unloaded and locked away out of reach if the owner does not have a permit.

Allen told the committee more than once that his bill would not end pistol permits in Alabama and said pistol permit sales have increased in some states that eliminated the requirement.

Todd Adkins of the National Rifle Association said pistol permit purchases rose in Arizona after that state repealed the requirement in 2010.

“This bill is not at all complicated. The base premise of Senate Bill 4 is that law abiding citizens have the right to defend themselves," Adkins said.

Judy Taylor of Tuscaloosa, one of many at the committee meeting wearing the red T-shirts of the organization Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said she was a gun owner and Second Amendment supporter who supports keeping the permit requirement.

“Sheriffs know their communities and their residents well and under current law can deny a permit based on frequent calls to law enforcement for domestic violence, or a troubling history of serious mental illness issues," Taylor said. She said the bill "removes the ability of sheriffs to deny a permit to dangerous people, lowering the bar for those who can carry a concealed, loaded gun in public and vehicles.”

At the end of the meeting, Ward noted that his committee has handled the permit bill a number of times only to see it die in committee in the House. Ward said if that happens again this year, he will wait on House action on the bill before considering it again next year.

Alabama and national politics.