Right Wing Nation

Frim the NRA-ILA (emphasis mine):

The Indiana House passed two critically important pro-gun measures this week: HB 1028, sponsored by Rep. Eric Koch (R-65), prohibits employers from enforcing policies that ban employees from lawfully possessing firearms in locked vehicles on employers’ property and also codifies in state code that there is no duty to retreat from an attacker, further enhancing your right to self-defense. HB 1028 was passed with overwhelmingly bi-partisan support by a vote of 82-18.

The employer question is thorny; private property is private property, though if employers prohibit firearms in cars in their parking lots, they are also requiring you to drive to work and back unarmed (then there’s the issue of how good an idea it is to leave a firearm in an unattended vehicle). The “castle” clause has never been codified, though rarely are Hoosiers prosecuted for exercising their right to self-defense, retreat or no.

The point I’d like to make, however, refers to that last bolded phrase, in that last sentence above: “HB 1028 was passed with overwhelmingly bi-partisan support by a vote of 82-18. ”

You often hear that Indiana Democrats are nearly as conservative as the national GOP, and that Indiana Republicans are far to the right of the national GOP, and here is the evidence. Gun control is political suicide in Indiana. Even our Democrat governors, Bayh and O’Bannon, knew to leave their grimy hands off Hoosier guns (Bayh from political savvy, and O’Bannon because he was a southern Indiana good old boy).

There aren’t many states left like this. I can’t imagine Rendell vetoing gun control legislation here — though Pennsylvania is, to be sure, a very gun-friendly state.

But Hoosier Democrats are the point. Sure, they’re Democrats, and they’re suing the state over the voter ID law (though why, I’m not sure, since there aren’t many districts they have any hope of winning, even with voter fraud, and polls at the time indicated that the voter ID bill had the support of 75% of those surveyed). But my blue dog Democrat representative put many Republicans to shame when it came to the Second Amendment.

Contrast these Hoosier Democrats to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Oh, and in case you didn’t see it before:

Also this week, HB 1176, sponsored by Rep. Troy Woodruff (R-64), passed by a vote of 78-21. HB 1176 allows for Right-to-Carry permits to be renewed online, as well as to allow for carry permit applicants to apply for a “lifetime” carry permit, should he or she choose to do so. If passed by the Indiana Senate, HB 1176 would provide law-abiding, qualified, Hoosiers the option of obtaining either a permit valid for four years, or a permit valid for the lifetime of the licensee. We are grateful to Rep. Koch and Rep. Woodruff for their leadership on these bills, and to all the House Members who voted in support of these pro-gun advances.