(The following story by Deborah Barfield Berry appeared on The News Star website on December 10, 2009.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House approved a federal spending package Thursday that includes a provision to allow Amtrak passengers to bring guns on board in checked baggage.
Rep. John Fleming, R-Minden, who introduced the proposal early this year, praised the House action.
“This strong bipartisan measure is an essential part of the effort to reclaim our Second Amendment rights, which have been eroded over the years by activist judges and liberal lawmakers,” Fleming said in a statement Thursday.
The provision was included in the 2010 omnibus spending bill approved 221-202. The bill now heads to the Senate.
Under the provision, guns in checked baggage carried aboard Amtrak trains would have to be unloaded, declared and stored in a locked special container. Amtrak has a year to implement the change.
Amtrak passengers used to be able to bring unloaded firearms in checked baggage aboard trains, but that policy was changed after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Currently, only law enforcement officials may carry weapons aboard the trains.
Amtrak officials said security measures already in place include random baggage checks.
Sportsmen and hunters said the gun provision would boost travel on Amtrak.
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, who proposed the measure in the Senate, called the move an “important victory for sportsmen and gun owners.”
“It affirms congressional support of the Second Amendment,” Wicker said in a statement. “Airline passengers in our country are allowed to transport firearms in secure, checked baggage when declared during the check-in process. Law-abiding gun owners who choose to travel on America’s taxpayer-subsidized rail line should be given the same right.”
But Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said the proposal would undermine national security efforts.
“It is no secret that rail systems are an attractive target for terrorists,” Thompson said Thursday on the House floor, noting terrorist attacks on rail systems in other countries. “We’ve been fortunate that no such attacks have occurred on U.S. soil.
But with passage of this legislation, securing the nation’s railway system becomes far more difficult.”