A bill backed by the NRA in the Idaho House turned out some unlikely opponents Monday: Idaho gun owners.
The NRA said it’s a modest bill, mainly aimed at making Idaho’s law on concealed weapons clearer. It would also remove an exception.
Right now Idaho law says elected officials don’t need permits to carry concealed weapons. This bill would say they do.
That is part of what gun rights advocates object to.
“The problem is we are removing people’s rights and that’s not the direction we need to go,” Greg Pruett of the Idaho 2nd Amendment Alliance. He estimated 30,000 elected officials would need said permits under the bill.
Pruett has been pushing a separate measure that would remove concealed permit requirement for everyone in Idaho.
Gun rights advocates have other problems with the NRA’s bill: they say the definition of weapons is too broad and they dislike that a section on background checks adds a check for mental health conditions.
And there’s also pushback from the other side. The NRA-backed bill would make concealed weapons permits required only in city limits. Anti-violence groups say that leaves vast swaths of Idaho where people could carry without any training.
The NRA said Idaho law has always implied that -- they want to remove any ambiguity.
“I never thought I’d see the day where we had Idaho’s 2nd Amendment Alliance in agreement with Moms Demand Action. But there’s a first time for everything,” said Dakota Moore of the NRA.
The bill awaits a vote in the House State Affairs Committee.