{"id":8264,"date":"2013-01-24T11:14:41","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T17:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=8264"},"modified":"2013-09-11T09:28:52","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T15:28:52","slug":"committee-considers-liability-for-firearm-owners-ammunition-offenses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=8264","title":{"rendered":"Committee considers liability for firearm owners, ammunition offenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Jan. 23 on two bills that would create liability for firearm owners and would include ammunition in certain offenses involving firearms.<\/p>\n<p>LB50, introduced by Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford, would prohibit unreasonable placement of a firearm where a minor may unlawfully possess it.<\/p>\n<p>The bill would impose liability for civil damages if a gun owner\u2014who is 19 years or older\u2014unreasonably leaves the firearm in a place where a minor or a mentally incompetent person may take possession of it.<\/p>\n<p>Ashford said the purpose of the bill was to prevent \u201ccatastrophic instances\u201d of juveniles and mentally ill persons obtaining firearms to commit crimes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a personal responsibility measure. It does not prevent an individual from purchasing, possessing or using a firearm in a legal manner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>No one testified in support of the bill.<\/p>\n<p>John Wallace of the Nebraska Firearms Owners Association, testified in opposition, saying it failed to define what would be considered \u201creasonable storage\u201d of firearms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The bill] opens up the door for civil liability for law abiding gun owners,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Ron Jensen, lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, also testified in opposition, and said the bill is redundant. If tragedies result from gun owners improperly storing their guns, he said, they already would be liable under current law.<\/p>\n<p>Ashford also introduced LB148, which would include ammunition in offenses involving the transfer of firearms.<\/p>\n<p>LB148 would impose the following changes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a Class ID felony for a first offense for possession of a deadly weapon that is a firearm\u2014or ammunition\u2014by a prohibited person, and a Class IB felony for subsequent offenses;<\/li>\n<li>a Class III felony for the unlawful transfer of a firearm\u2014or ammunition\u2014to a juvenile;<\/li>\n<li>a Class III felony for the possession of a deadly weapon that is not a firearm\u2014or ammunition\u2014by a prohibited person; and<\/li>\n<li>a Class IV felony for transferring a firearm\u2014or ammunition\u2014to a person who is prohibited from receipt or possession of such items by state or federal law.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine testified in support of the bill, saying it mirrors current federal law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAbout 95 percent of [firearm] cases are prosecuted by state attorneys not federal [attorneys], so we need a state law to enact ourselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Jerry Soucie, a private attorney, testified in opposition to the bill, saying the use of ammunition varies statewide among rural and urban communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere will be a mirror application of this statute throughout the state, but the crimes would not be prosecuted the same,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The committee took no immediate action on either bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Jan. 23 on two bills that would create liability for firearm owners and would include<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-8264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-brad-ashford"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8264"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13171,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8264\/revisions\/13171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}