HB159 would allow a police officer to arrest a person without a warrant if the police officer has probable cause to believe that the person is a knowing participant in a “straw purchase” of a “regulated firearm.”
The House passed HB159 on February 28, 2023, by a vote of 115 to 19. We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill attempts to force universal background checks for firearms purchases under the threat of warrantless arrest. However, neither the bill’s classification of “regulated firearms” (e.g., handguns or semi-automatic rifles) nor its provisions related to the circumstances in which a person is “prohibited by law” from possessing them (e.g., under 21 years of age) is constitutional. The Second Amendment guarantees that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” without exception to a type of firearm or on account of age. In addition, the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment, in conjunction with the 26th Amendment, prevent “any State” from depriving or denying “any person,” such as “citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older,” of their “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”