Senate OKs church, concealed carry, nullification bill

The Senate on Tuesday passed the "Mississippi Church Protection Act" to allow armed security in churches, concealed carry without a permit and to provide for attempts to nullify federal regulations and executive orders that would limit gun rights.

There was much debate. Sen. Hillman Frazier, D-Jackson, waved a sheathed sword and quoted Bible Scripture as he argued against passage of the bill. Proponents also quoted Scripture, and even the Five Man Electrical Band — "signs, signs, everywhere signs" — as they fended off an amendment to require churches with armed security to post signs.

"We don't need to pimp the church for political purposes," Frazier said said as he held an ornate sword at the podium. "If you want to pass gun laws, do that, but don't use the church."

Sen. Sean Tindell, R-Gulfport, spoke for passage of the bill and said, "This will allow a church to have a sergeant-at-arms to protect the church body, just like we have (in the Legislature)." He said church violence such as the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina, are prompting such measures.

The Senate voted 36-14 to pass an amended version of House Bill 786, authored by Rep. Andy Gipson, R-Braxton. It now heads back to the House for more deliberation.

The bill would allow churches to create security programs and designate and train members to carry concealed weapons. It would provide criminal and legal protections to those serving as church security.

The bill also would allow concealed carry in a holster without a permit in Mississippi, expanding a measure passed last year that allowed concealed carry without a permit in a purse, satchel or briefcase, and another recent law that allows open carry in public.

The bill also seeks to prohibit Mississippi officials from enforcing any federal agency regulations or executive orders that would violate the state constitution — an attempt to federal gun restrictions not passed by Congress.

Senators argued whether this last provision would violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"Where did you go to law school?"  Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, asked Tindell during the debate. "Are they telling people there that the Mississippi constitution trumps federal law? ... You may have been wrong about things before, but you've never been more wrong than this. This is like arguing whether the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit. This is embarrassing, hopeless."

But Tindell drew applause from several other lawmakers when he answered "Yes I do," to a question of whether the state could challenge federal agency regulations and executive orders not passed by the representative body of Congress.

Shirley Hopkins Davis with the Mississippi chapter of Moms Demand Action in a statement called the Senate vote a "dangerous setback" that could dismantle the state's concealed carry permit system.

Gipson, also a pastor, after the House recently passed his bill, said: "I wish we lived in a world where this bill wouldn't be necessary."

As they worked to meet a Wednesday deadline for floor passage of general bills, lawmakers on Tuesday also:

• Argued again, briefly, over a move to take control of the Jackson airport and give it to a new, regional board. When HB 1203, to revise membership of the Mississippi Coast Coliseum Board, came before the Senate, Sen. David Blount and others in the Hinds County delegation unsuccessfully attempted to amend it to require a regional Coast Coliseum board from Jackson, Harrison and Hancock counties. They said the Coast board should be treated like a pending bill is treating the Jackson airport, and have a regional bill.
• Passed HB 494, which extends the current state public schools sex education programs that allow teaching of abstinence and "abstinence plus" for five years. Sen. Sally Doty, R-Brookhaven, has pushed for more comprehensive sex education. Saying she was speaking on behalf of 5,000 pregnant teens in Mississippi, Doty tried to amend the bill for more negotiations with the House, but the Senate voted to send it on for the governor to sign into law.
• Passed a bill that could allow House and Senate negotiators to revise the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the main funding formula that directs more than $2.2 billion in annual school funding. 
• In the House struck language in a Senate bill that would consolidate Medicaid, the Department of Human Services and other agencies, and called instead for a study on consolidation. The House version of SB 2348 calls for a study report on consolidation be given to the Legislature before its 2017 session.

• In the Senate passed a bill to penalize physicians who perform what Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, called “dismemberment,” or Dilation and Evacuation, abortions. House Bill 519 would allow for injunctive relief against a physician that performs such an abortion. If the doctor continues to perform such procedures, a civil action could be brought about, and criminal action as a last resort.  

• In the Senate passed the Mississippi Achievement School District, which would create a statewide school district that incorporates districts that have received an F rating for two consecutive years. The State Board of Education would determine what districts could come into the district. It would not require all districts with a rating of F for two years to be part of the district.

Contact  Geoff Pender at (601) 961-7266 or gpender@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @GeoffPender on Twitter.