Cache cops keep close eye on legislature

FILE - This March 3, 2013, file photo shows handguns displayed in Sandy, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

Gun laws and gun control have been hot topics since the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut in December. Two of Cache County’s top lawmen have been watching closely how these laws are being written and debated.

On Wednesday the Utah Senate passed a bill that would allow people to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Logan City Police Chief Gary Jensen says that is just one of many bills affecting law enforcement which are still being studied at this point.

“There are some that are talking about how you can carry,” Jensen says. “Some are talking about the response of police, if, in fact, an open carry situation, or some sort of maneuvering with a weapon, would be automatically disorderly conduct or whether it would be some legal definition there with Representative (Paul) Ray’s bill.

“We’re just watching carefully to see the legislature’s posture and we’ll just see how it goes.”

None of the gun bills passed by the Utah Legislature so far this year were supported or opposed by the Utah Sheriffs Association. Cache County Sheriff Lynn Nelson says he joined others in the association who wrote a letter to the President asking that the federal government not take away people’s 2nd Amendment rights.

“I think that’s one of our basic tenets of the Constitution and that’s something that the sheriffs association felt strongly about,” Nelson says. “That’s why they generated that letter and put it forth. It obviously had a tremendous amount of support.”

Nelson says the letter was put on Facebook and it got more than 200,000 responses, 98% of them supportive.

Nelson says right now it is very hard, often impossible, to buy a gun or gun accessories in Cache Valley.

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