Omnibus Firearms Bill passes the House

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday evening which modifies the provisions for the carrying and possession of firearms in certain circumstances. The measure also cleans up and clarifies language from Oklahoma’s 2019 Constitutional Carry Law.

House Bill 2645, authored by Rep. Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, and presented on the floor by Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, allows for the transport of firearms on public roadways if an individual is eligible to carry a firearm, clarifies laws regarding where and when firearms can be carried, allows for the carrying of firearms by municipal employees and changes the law regarding the carrying of firearms in establishments that serve alcohol.

“The passage of Oklahoma’s Constitutional Carry Law in 2019 was a great victory for the Second Amendment rights of Oklahomans,” said Echols. “This bill cleans up some of the language from the 2019 legislation, clarifies a few provisions that needed to be more fleshed out and makes changes necessary to ensure the Second Amendment rights of Oklahomans are not unnecessarily infringed upon.”

The measure provides that it is lawful for a person carrying a weapon to be in a designated bar area of a restaurant as long as the person is not consuming beer or alcoholic beverages and as long as the owner of the establishment allows the carrying of firearms on the premise. It modifies the penalty for violations relating to carrying a firearm into an establishment or consuming beer or alcoholic beverages while carrying by making the penalty a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of $250.

“The House has made protecting Second Amendment rights a priority,” said West. “The language clarifications in this bill help citizens more clearly understand when and where they can carry, and the changes to current law help further secure the constitutional rights of Oklahoma gun owners.”

HB 2645 passed by a vote of 78-19 and is now eligible to be heard by the Senate. dose of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the CDC, which also reported that 12% of the state’s population had received two vaccine doses.

Oklahoma was 26th in the nation in the number of new cases per capita with 233.83 per 100,000 population, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers.

The seven-day rolling average of new cases in the state declined during the past two weeks, from 776 per day on Feb. 22 to 633.3 on

March 8, according to the Johns Hopkins data. The seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths increased slightly during the same time frame, from 23.7 daily to 23.9.