Committee advances House Bill 1588 after restoring binary-trigger language, adds higher-education exception

A special legislative gun committee voted Thursday to send House Bill 1588 to the full committee with a due-pass recommendation after approving several technical and substantive amendments, including restoring language about binary triggers and adding an explicit exception for property owned or controlled by the State Board of Higher Education.

The vote follows hours of line-by-line review of the bill’s definitions and exceptions. Chairman Heinert presided over the meeting and the committee adopted multiple edits that change wording such as replacing “city, county, township” with “political subdivision,” adding language about school property leased or rented by a school, adjusting enforcement and penalty language, and clarifying when a license must be produced to law enforcement.

The panel reinstated language addressing binary triggers — a provision that, as written, excludes a “binary trigger that fires one round upon the pull of the trigger and one round upon the release” from the bill’s definition — after several members and outside sportsmen urged that the wording remain. “They do not want that language removed,” Chairman Heinert said during debate. The committee voted to remove the overstruck deletion on page 2, lines 13–14; the motion passed by roll call, 3–1, and the committee agreed to present the provision as unstricken when the bill goes forward.

Why it matters: The changes determine where and how the proposed restrictions in HB 1588 would apply, who may adopt exceptions and what penalties and enforcement processes would look like. Restoring the binary-trigger…