LINCOLN — The hot-button debate of gun control versus gun rights brought a huge crowd — including at least two people openly carrying semi-automatic rifles — to the State Capitol on Friday.
An estimated 400 gun rights advocates, many wearing gray T-shirts proclaiming “We the People Shall Not be Infringed,” crowded the hallways and two legislative hearing rooms. They vastly outnumbered the fewer than a dozen gun control advocates, many of whom wore red T-shirts reading “Guns Kill Kids, Gun Control Now.” The subjects of public hearings Friday were bills that sought to protect victims of sexual violence and harassment from gun violence, and another to prevent suicides using firearms.
But opponents were also there to protest another measure proposed this session — a “red flag” law that would allow judges to order, after a hearing, that guns be taken from people deemed unstable or dangerous.
What was clear after Friday’s public hearings is that nothing will be done this year on gun control legislation. In the end, none of the three bills was prioritized by Friday’s deadline, meaning they won’t advance this year