PA Bill Number: HB1661
Title: Further providing for schedules of controlled substances; and providing for secure storage of xylazine.
Description: Further providing for schedules of controlled substances; and providing for secure storage of xylazine. ...
Last Action: Act No. 17 of 2024
Last Action Date: May 15, 2024
Swarens: Guns on planes? Indiana legislator says yes :: 10/18/2017
A conversation about gun laws with state Rep. Jim Lucas quickly becomes an exploration of the gap between sincerity and seriousness.
Lucas, for example, is sincere when he argues that federal restrictions on private ownership of machine guns should be abolished.
Or that laws banning citizens from carrying guns on airplanes should be eliminated. Lucas would allow airlines to decide whether passengers may bear arms at 30,000 feet. And he told me he wouldn't hesitate to fly on a commercial flight where he and others carried guns.
He also argues that federal and state background checks, waiting periods and other brakes on gun ownership should be eliminated. That includes Indiana's law that requires Hoosiers to acquire a state permit to carry a handgun in public.
Lucas isn't trolling the rest of us with these ideas. An absolutist on the Second Amendment, he believes that any government restriction on the right to own guns is unconstitutional.
But there lies the gap between sincerity and seriousness. Not even the National Rifle Association is pushing to let your peculiar neighbor down the block pack a fully automatic weapon. Few, even in the Indiana Statehouse, take Lucas' extremist views all that seriously.
So why bother to engage with him? Well, first he's one of only 150 state lawmakers in the Indiana General Assembly, which represents 6.6 million people. His ideas matter far more than most.
Second, the popular argument that the NRA tells legislators what to think and how to vote isn't entirely accurate. Lucas and more than a few of his colleagues would fight against more restrictive gun laws whether or not the NRA existed. They, and many of their supporters, come from the point of view that owning and carrying a gun is as natural a right as attending church on Sunday or reading the newspaper each day. Compromise is not in their vocabulary, not because of NRA cash but because of their own core beliefs about their constitutional rights. Understanding that is important when trying to engage in any conversation about reducing gun violence in our country.
Third, Lucas has a gift for attracting attention. Last week, he garnered national headlines with his draft proposal to require licensing of journalists. He followed that over the weekend with a second proposal to require a license to exercise other constitutional freedoms, including free expression, freedom of worship and voting.
As we talked Monday afternoon, Lucas described his own proposals as "vile." But said his point is to call attention to the "hypocrisy" of requiring gun owners to obtain a permit to carry a deadly weapon in public.
Again, he's sincere. He honestly can't see the difference between reasonable restrictions on carrying a weapon that could be used in an instant to end a life and, say, speaking in public without fear of government reprisal.
And again he's one of fewer than 200 elected leaders representing Hoosiers on the state and federal levels.
Decide for yourself whether that's the type of thinking we need in the halls of power.
Contact Swarens at tim.swarens@indystar.com. Friend him on Facebook at Tim Swarens; follow him on Twitter @tswarens.
