Lucas is sponsoring House Bill 1055 and House Bill 1056.
These bills, along with Senate Bill 36, were proposed by Indiana legislators this week in response to President Obama’s executive action on gun control.
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“I want lawful people to be able to defend themselves and carry a gun,” Lucas said. “I know we’re seeing an encroachment upon our Second Amendment rights this year and I think that needs to come to an end.”
House Bill 1055 would allow people to carry concealed weapons on any state property, including public universities, without permission from the institution itself.
“Campus isn’t any different than the real world,” Lucas said. “In fact, isn’t college supposed to be preparing you for the real world?”
This type of legislation has been proposed in the past and IU has firmly stood against it, IU spokesperson Mark Land said.
“We are fortunate at IU to have well-trained police who are experts at handling any challenges when dealing with a large population of mostly young people,” Land said. “We don’t see how adding unrestricted access to firearms would help. That’s just a recipe for making this university less safe.”
Increasing access to firearms on campus would likely increase the probability for accidents involving firearms, Land said. At IU, guns should only be carried by the people professionally trained to use them, he said.
Lucas disagrees.
“(House Bill 1056) eliminates having to go to the state, to pay the state and jump through hoops just to prove that you’re innocent,” Lucas said. “As long as you’re not prohibited from carrying a firearm, you can carry a firearm. Having to wait several months and then pay money to get a little form that says you’re innocent doesn’t make sense.”
This is Lucas’s argument for House Bill 1056, which would repeal the law that requires citizens to have a license to carry handguns.
Currently, Indiana residents cannot be approved for gun licenses if they have committed a felony or have a history of domestic abuse.
Those people have already proven themselves to be lawbreakers, Lucas said. Therefore, they are going to get a gun whether they are legally allowed to or not, Lucas said.
“Right now to shoot someone, it’s the highest law that we have and is punishable by up to death,” he said. “But people are still killing people. How much more strict can we get than thou shalt not murder? If that law is not working, gun regulations won’t either.”
Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, said he finds this logic flawed.
“Obviously Representative Lucas thinks that laws don’t deter people,” DeLaney said. “If that’s so, he has to ask himself what we’re doing here.”
DeLaney said he fears that laws such as HB1056 encourage vigilantism.
“I think Representative Lucas hopes that if I’m accosted on the streets, some other citizen will be walking around with a gun and will protect me,” he said. “I don’t share that hope.”
The shooting should be left to the professionals, DeLaney said.
“I don’t want to live in an armed society, which is what these folks are heading towards,” DeLaney said. “The purpose of the second amendment was, in my view, to allow us to have a militia. The purpose was not to make each of us a self-appointed law officer.”
The third proposed bill, Senate Bill 36, would make convictions related to alcohol abuse irrelevant to whether or not someone is approved for a gun license.
DeAndra Yates, an Indianapolis resident and an Everytown for Gun Safety representative finds this legislation frightening.
In 2014, Yates’ then-13-year-old son was shot in the head at a birthday party. Though he survived, he is now a paraplegic and has, at least temporarily, lost the ability to speak.
“It’s just standing up for what I believe in and not wanting to be silenced,” she said. “Unfortunately someone silenced my son way too soon. I’ll be at the statehouse, room 130, at 8:30 next Wednesday morning. I’m the mom who won’t shut up.”
