Tuscaloosa Lawmaker Resumes Fight Against Concealed Carry Permits

TUSCALOOSA, AL — A Tuscaloosa-area lawmaker is continuing his fight to ease restrictions on Alabama gun owners and allow for concealed carry of a handgun in a vehicle and certain public spaces without a permit.

Republican state Sen. Gerald Allen pre-filed a bill to address the matter ahead of the 2021 Alabama Legislative Session, arguing that the current law punishes law-abiding citizens, further restricting their constitutional rights, while detractors claim the changes to the law would put more guns on the street and pose additional safety concerns for law enforcement.

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The bill will be the latest attempt to push the measure through a previously wary statehouse by Allen, who said the 2021 incarnation of the bill is the same as one filed during the last legislative session. The 2020 bill managed to pass the Senate after failing in committee the previous year, but ultimately met its demise in the House of Representatives.

In a phone interview with Patch ahead of the legislative session beginning on Tuesday, Allen said Alabama citizens shouldn't have to pay a fee or purchase a permit to exercise their Second Amendment rights, but also pointed out that the measure is not aimed to block all permits, as permits would still be required for handgun owners crossing state lines with their guns.

"If you open carry and you decide to get into a vehicle, then you are in violation of state law because you do not have a permit to carry that weapon, which is concealed since you got into that vehicle," Allen said, pointing out that open carry of a handgun without a permit is legal in Alabama. "I don’t see any language in the U.S. constitution that says that in the Second Amendment. That's why we have to make it clear that you as a law-abiding citizen should not have to pay a fee to fulfill a constitutional right."

Alabama state law currently does allow citizens to keep a handgun in their vehicle if it's unloaded, locked in a container and out of reach, even if the person in possession of the pistol does not have a concealed carry permit.

The proposed legislation has been met with vocal opposition from groups such as Moms Demand Action and sheriffs across Alabama, with the bill's biggest opponent being the Alabama Sheriff's Association — a nonprofit professional organization made up of 67 Alabama sheriffs.

Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham serves as the organization's president and told Patch on Monday that the association's position on the proposed changes to the law would not change during the upcoming legislative session.

"I don’t think a person should be able to have a firearm in a car without a permit," he said. "It’s a big, major safety issue for us. Any time you have a person with a gun in a vehicle and it's concealed, you don’t know what you’re getting into and it's just a blind spot for law enforcement. I think the way we have it set up now is the right way. We don’t need to be changing any laws as it relates to firearms. If you look and see what’s going on in our country, I think this is a bad time to bring out bills that will put more guns on our streets."

While the Alabama Sheriff's Association asserts its opposition to the bill is out of concern for the safety of law enforcement and the public, Allen and other proponents of "constitutional carry" argue that the real reason is the potential loss of revenue generated by permit fees. Concealed carry permits are administered by elected sheriffs in each Alabama county, with some asserting that smaller departments would stand to lose out on much-needed revenue without permit fees.

"The sheriffs in every county in the state uses the pistol permit fund as a slush fund," Allen said. "The county commission budgets the sheriff’s department and it's one of those things where they have a [permit fee] fund set up and they can use it however they want. But their county commission, that’s their job to build a budget and make sure the sheriff’s department has all the equipment it needs to make sure the public is served."

Eddie Fulmer, president of BamaCarry, Inc. — a statewide gun rights group — echoed Allen's point in an interview with Patch as the organization is once again lobbying for the bill's passage as written.

"They say it's for officer safety, but when you dig down to the brass tacks ... it's about money," he said. "These smaller sheriff’s departments are very dependent on the permit money that they can mostly use at their discretion on what they want, and I don’t blame them for that. But in reality, that’s a tax on a law-abiding citizen who wants to exercise a constitutional right and I'm being required to pay for that."

Fulmer went on to claim sheriff’s departments in Alabama generate over $16 million in permit funds every year, which he said should underscore why the Alabama Sheriff's Association is so vehemently opposed to not requiring permits for concealed carry handguns.

"We have more permits in Alabama than any state per capita in the union and permits will still be a mainstay even if this bill passes," he said. "People go out of state and if you get stopped, you have to have a permit for reciprocity."

According to the U.S. Concealed Carry Association — a nationwide Second Amendment advocacy group — the state of Alabama issued 1.09 million concealed carry permits in 2020, ranking fifth-highest for total permits issued among U.S. states.

Cunningham brushed off the claims of sheriff's departments lining their pockets with permit fees, doubling down on his initial call for increased safety for law enforcement and the communities they serve.

"What we’re doing is we’re making sure the people that are getting permits are the people who can have permits and we’re screening the ones who shouldn't," he said. "With an open carry person, we don’t know if they have a permit, we don’t know if they are an ex-felon. We don’t know anything. And what disturbs me, too, is they put in these bills that law enforcement can't stop and ask questions.

"They want to turn our streets back into the wild, wild West," Cunningham added. "They want it to be like 'Gunsmoke.' You can get up in the morning and if you’re 18 and older just strap on a gun and walk down the street and nobody can question that. I don’t think we want that in our communities."

Fulmer pointed out that it is legal in Alabama to carry long guns, such as hunting rifles or shotguns, in one's vehicle without a concealed carry permit, which leads his organization to question the intentions behind the opposition from elected law enforcement officials.

"But when you get a pistol in there, it's a different story," he said. "We just feel that law-abiding citizens should not have to ask the government if they can carry a weapon for self-defense."

Senate Bill 5 is set to be formally introduced on Tuesday and will be assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration. Click here to follow along with the bill's progress.

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