By: Journalist Christopher Ungaro (TU)
Later today, the Senate will hear OKWU-501, a bill that intends to lower the minimum age necessary to carry a concealed weapon from 21 years old to 18 years old.
The bill’s author, Rep. Grant Molder (OKWU), described some of his intentions behind the bill.
“I wrote the bill because someone close to me faced an act of aggression and violent crime and they didn’t have any way to protect themselves in that situation so this bill was designed to give people, especially 18-year-olds who go to college and decide to live alone a better chance to protect themselves in these dangerous college towns,” Rep. Molder said.
Additionally, the bill does not extend these rights to students who are in school, except for students who are in the military or who do agricultural work. Rep. Molder said there are a few exceptions.
“I am friends with a lot of people that work in agriculture, and when they go from one of their leases to another, they have to carry a gun in the vehicle and they are 16, so they have to break the state law to do this,” Rep. Molder said of the agricultural exception. “So this is just basically making them able to follow the law to fulfill their job because if you get attacked by a wild hog you are gonna need a gun so that hog doesn’t attack you.”
Regarding the exception for veterans, he states, “Veterans already handle guns at the age of 18 in the military, so they have already been trained by the military to handle guns and they know what they are doing. So we want to just go ahead and extend that right if they are 18 years old to be able to do this for them.”
Finally, Rep. Molder said he does not think this bill would increase the risk of gun violence within Oklahoma. Primarily, he argued that an increase in legal access to guns would not increase the amount of illegal use of guns.
“People who want to increase violence like that, they are going to find a way to do it anyway, so law abiding citizens that want to be able to protect themselves in the face of violent acts of crime will now have a chance to because criminals will always find a way to commit their crimes,” Rep. Molder said.
The bill also provides an exception to stop the allowances it grants to those 18 or older from applying to those with charges relating to drug possession and use.
OKWU-501 is being voted on in the Senate this afternoon. Watch to see whether this controversial new bill passes.