Miss. House votes to allow weapons on Capitol grounds

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Here’s hoping those angry legislative debates don’t carry over into the parking lot.

The Mississippi House voted 65-53 Wednesday to lift a ban on lawmakers or others having weapons on the Capitol grounds — for example, in the trunks of their cars.

Weapons would still be banned inside the building.

The proposed change is part of the legislative operating rules, and the Senate would need to approve the rules before the weapon ban would be lifted.

Rep. Sidney Bondurant, D-Grenada, said some lawmakers probably already carry their hunting rifles in their vehicles.

“I would say this is just getting in compliance with reality,” Bondurant said.

In 2004, the Senate granted an exception to the legislative operating rules and allowed 29 of its 52 members to bring weapons onto the Capitol grounds.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, gave his colleagues a lighthearted warning that they might have to watch out for angry constituents. He recalled one year when legislators were debating a motorcycle helmet law and a bunch of angry bikers came to the Capitol.

“The security had to take some monkey wrenches away from some guests,” McCoy said with a chuckle. “You’d better be careful.”

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The resolution is Senate Concurrent Resolution 502.

BOBBY HARRISON: Interesting proposal

JACKSON – At the beginning of each session, the House and Senate adopt joint rules. The rules include such items as deadlines to act on legislation at different stages in the process.

This year all of the attention on the joint rules has been over a proposal to shorten what is supposed to be a 125-day session.

The Senate, under new Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant’s leadership, has come up with an interesting proposal that will not get much attention because it is technical in nature, but it could result in more open government.

Currently, in a bill, asterisks (***) are used to depict when language is removed from existing law. To find out what the deleted language is, a person has to check the legal code or depend on the description provided by others.

It can create a method to sneak language into law. Under the Senate proposal, the deleted language would remain in the bill, but with a line through it to indicate it is being removed.

The House rejected the Senate proposal. The House leadership expressed some legitimate concerns. For instance, when whole sections of law are being removed,  a 25 page bill could grow to 125 pages.

There still is work to do on the joint rules before they are finalized and time to explore the issue of the deleted language further to see if there is a way to make it work.

It would provide people interested in the legislative process more information. And that always is a good thing.

Read more from Bobby Harrison each day in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.