Typo in Federal law mandates locking train passengers in boxes

By Jim Irvine

Fox News is reporting that the bill intending to allow passengers to check guns on Amtrak has a typo in it requiring not just the gun, but the passenger to be “locked in boxes for their journey.”

While this seems funny, we must remember little mistakes in Ohio’s first concealed carry law that made it illegal to for someone to legally transport a handgun in a car without a concealed carry license. It was years and at least one person convicted of a felony before the legislature fixed the problem. Hopefully Congress will act a little quicker.

From the story:

It may sound absurd. But President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak be locked in boxes for their journey.

It's a mistake in the law's wording. But for now, the clerical error is the law of the land.

Earlier this week, Congress sent the president a massive spending bill that funded dozens of federal departments. Tucked into the transportation section of the legislation are safety requirements for Amtrak customers who carry firearms on board the government-backed train system. The bill Congress passed mandates that passengers with firearms declare they have weapons with them in advance and stow them in locked boxes while on the train.

The bill text was correct when the House approved the legislation last week. The Senate followed suit Sunday, but somewhere along the line, the language that referred to putting the guns in locked boxes morphed into stuffing "passengers" into locked boxes.

This illustrates the importance of having groups like Buckeye Firearms Association and the NRA involved in legislative matters. It is our job to ensure that such mistakes are not signed into law. Having huge Federal bills go through many incarnations, then passed without sufficient time to review them makes for an impossible job.

Last December the NRA and Buckeye Firearms Association found an amendment with a potentially unlimited fee increase for concealed carry license holders. We worked late into the night to get the bill amendment stricken from the bill which was then re-voted and signed into law by Governor Strickland. Government and activist groups working together to pass better laws for the citizens. This is how it should be.

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