With SB 25 concerning guns in locked vehicles, Sen. Nugent takes another run at an issue he addressed last year with SB 11. Like MacArthur said of old soldiers, bills never really die, they just get reintroduced. Last year, the bill passed the Senate 42-8 and then died in the House, apparently without a hearing.
As I wrote last year:
[The bill] prohibits property owners, be it an individual, corporation, governmental organization, or otherwise from adopting or enforcing a policy that prohibits an individual from keeping a firearm in the individual’s locked vehicle provided that the individual is otherwise legally entitled to possess a firearm. An exception is made for school property, penal facilities, and certain childcare facilities.
This raises an interesting question for libertarians: whose rights should trump here: The property owner’s right to control his or her real estate, or the gun owner’s right to bear arms and control property rights to his or her vehicle?
To a certain extent, this quandary seems mostly hypothetical. After all, how would you ever enforce such a provision. The gun in the locked vehicle is a little like Schrodinger’s cat in the box; with an unknown status. Or maybe it’s more like the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear. If the car is sealed, it’s tough to know whether there is a gun in there or not until such time as the vehicle becomes unlocked and this legislation no longer applies.
This raises an interesting question for libertarians: whose rights should trump here: The property owner’s right to control his or her real estate, or the gun owner’s right to bear arms and control property rights to his or her vehicle? As a hunter, SB-25 is very important to me because of the need to transport a firearm for legally hunting purposes. Sometimes I have to drive 45minutes one way to get to my hunting spot for example. It is a real inconvenience to spend 90 minutes just to exercise my legally purchased Indiana hunting license. Please help Indiana residents pass this bill.
We must not only continually defend our 2nd amendment rights, but we must attempt to gain/regain ground. If we simply attempt to stand our ground we will lose. We must also take the offensive position and actively seek ways to improve our position. The anti-firearm activists are not content with not baring arms themselves, they want to force their opinion on everyone else. May God bless this cause, for He is the one who gave us the right to hunt for food and defend ourselves.