As the 2024 session moves into our “spring break,” I find myself reflecting on a legislative session that has been just as tumultuous as last year. Recently, House Republicans and I have been championing two issues that I’d like you to know about – increasing the penalty for straw purchasing a firearm and handing it over to a known ineligible person and reinstating protections for religious entities back into the Human Rights Act. I also want to talk about how I see this session ending, specifically relating to spending and the tension between a looming deficit and legislative leaders who tend to overspend.

Increasing the penalty for individuals who knowingly purchase a firearm for someone else whom they know is prohibited by law from owning or purchasing guns, known as a straw purchase, has been a top priority of mine for five years now. I first introduced a bill that takes this measure to meaningfully address gun violence – by targeting criminals instead of law-abiding gun owners – in 2019, and I’ve pushed for a hearing ever since. 

  
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