Tony Cook

tony.cook@indystar.com

Gun rights advocates see the upcoming legislative session as their best shot yet to get rid of an Indiana law that requires a license to carry handguns.

The controversial legislation failed to advance during the 2016 session, but supporters think this time could be different after sweeping Republican victories on Election Day and with a new, gun-friendly lawmaker overseeing the committee that acts as a gatekeeper on such bills.

"I think the planets are aligned this year," said Rep. Jim Lucas, a Seymour Republican who plans to file the bill when lawmakers convene in January.

He and other advocates of so-called "constitutional carry" — including the powerful National Rifle Association — see licensing requirements and fees as unnecessary impediments to the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. They want Indiana to join at least 11 other states that allow people to carry concealed handguns on their person or in their vehicles without a permit.

"I want to decriminalize our constitutional right to bear arms," Lucas said. "Our right to self-defense shouldn’t be controversial."

Boosting his hopes is a new chairman of the Indiana House committee that handles firearms legislation: Rep. Ben Smaltz.

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Smaltz, an Auburn Republican, was appointed chairman of the House Public Policy Committee last week to replace outgoing Chairman Tom Dermody, who did not run for re-election. The committee is often the first stop for legislation dealing with hot-button issues including guns, alcohol, gambling and abortion.

Smaltz has been a staunch advocate of gun rights.

Last year, he helped lead an effort to inoculate gun manufacturers from an ongoing lawsuit filed by the city of Gary. He also co-sponsored legislation that legalized manufactured sawed-off shotguns and voted in 2014 to allow guns in locked vehicles in school parking lots.

In an interview with IndyStar, Smaltz acknowledged that he's sympathetic to the "constitutional carry" argument but said as committee chairman he will keep an open mind.

"The Indiana Constitution is very clear about a person being able to possess firearms," he said. "I think in the past I’ve just looked at it from a constitutional basis. But as a chairman, I’m looking at it with new eyes."

The renewed push to drop Indiana's licensing requirement comes as Indianapolis continues to grapple with homicides, including a string of shootings over the weekend that left five people dead. In all, there have been 134 criminal homicides this year — one shy of the tally at this time last year, which was the city's deadliest ever.

Indianapolis police say guns are being used more often in those killings. Of the 144 homicides last year, 84 percent involved guns. This year, guns have been involved in 91 percent of the homicides.

Getting rid of the state's licensing requirement would only make it easier to carry a weapon, opponents of the legislation say.

"I would be totally against that. I think that’s nonsense and crazy," said the Rev. Charles Harrison, a pastor at Barnes United Methodist Church who leads the Ten Point Coalition, an Indianapolis crime prevention group.

"We already have a problem with the proliferation of unlawful guns on the street," Harrison said. "That will make it way easier for people who shouldn't have guns to get guns. I think that would have a dramatic impact on increasing violence in places like Indianapolis, Gary and Fort Wayne."

He suggested lawmakers from rural areas of the state are out of touch with what's going on in the state's larger cities.

"They need to have conversations with legislators from those cities and talk to people who understand the realities of life in some of these high-crime neighborhoods," he said. "It’s a war zone."

The state has more than 750,000 active handgun licenses. Nearly 4,900 applications were rejected last year, according to Indiana State Police.

Licenses, which have a one-time cost of $75, can be denied for various reasons, including felony or domestic violence convictions, certain drug and alcohol convictions and being found mentally incompetent by a court.

Under the legislation Lucas plans to file, people currently prohibited from carrying a handgun would still be prohibited.

But some law enforcement officials say getting rid of the licensing process will hamper efforts to get illegal guns off the streets.

"Permitting serves a legitimate purpose in terms of denying the right to carry a handgun to certain individuals," Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said. "It also serves a very practical purpose for us in that it provides us with one mechanism for tracking where a handgun has been."

His office has filed more than 1,000 charges of carrying a handgun without a license this year.

"There are any number of scenarios that play out probably every week that start with an officer determining an individual is carrying a handgun without a license," Curry said. "That could be where someone’s involved in a traffic stop, for example, and an initial pat-down for officer safety determines the person has a handgun on them. It could and frequently does then lead to a search warrant for a vehicle and then a discovery of narcotics."

Curry, a Democrat, said the renewed effort to roll back gun control measures at the Statehouse is disappointing.

"It is clearly not an unnecessary hoop," he said of the licensing requirement. "For us, it’s just beyond discouraging that, in our mind, the legislature keeps going the wrong way on gun issues. To me, the fundamental question is: What purpose does this serve other than just grandstanding?"

The push in Indiana to get rid of handgun licensing requirements is part of a nationwide effort on the part of gun advocates. At least four states — West Virginia, Mississippi, Idaho and Missouri — have passed new laws within the past year to ditch their permitting requirements.

Another reason for optimism among supporters in Indiana is the election of Gov.-elect Eric Holcomb, whose campaign featured commercials of his wife, Janet, training women how to shoot handguns and pledging that her husband would defend gun rights.

Holcomb declined through a spokeswoman to directly address the proposed licensing repeal.

"Governor-elect Eric Holcomb is a proud supporter of the Second Amendment and will continue to protect Hoosiers’ right to keep and bear arms," said his campaign press secretary, Caroline McKinney.

The legislation likely will test the leaders of the Republican-controlled General Assembly, who, despite an unprecedented third term of supermajorities, have promised to be inclusive of Democrats.

House Speaker Brian Bosma said he doesn't see a need to change Indiana's gun laws, but he emphasized that the voices of other House Republicans would play an important role in any decisions. As for his decision to tap Smaltz for the public policy chairmanship, he said it doesn't indicate the fate of any particular piece of legislation.

"You’d be hard-pressed to find a leader in our caucus who wasn't a very strong gun-rights advocate. I don’t think Ben's selection does anything but represent the vast majority of our caucus," Bosma said.

He later added: "I think our current guns laws are properly protective of the Second Amendment, and I don’t see that we need to have changes, but that’s just me personally."

IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert contributed to this story.

Call IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter: @indystartony.

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