The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has introduced legislation that would expand the type of criminal offenses that would get a convict barred from possessing firearms. Under current law, someone who has been convicted of a serious crime is statutorily barred from possessing a firearm. But someone who is convicted of attempting, conspiring or soliciting another to commit those very same crimes is not subject to any penalty under state law. Representative Tim Briggs says, in a memo seeking sponsors for House Bill 1859, that his proposal would add attempted rape, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit robbery to the list of crimes that already prohibit a person from possessing a firearm under state law.
