Tulsa’s police chief accepts that permitless carry is state law and has focused his rhetoric toward ways the federal government can help his detectives better track guns used in crimes.
At the Department of Justice’s Public Safety Partnership Violent Crime Reduction Summit Monday, Franklin said he and ATF officials would like a federal database of gun dealer records. Federal law currently prevents ATF from keeping such a database.
Franklin’s remarks followed a question from Public Radio Tulsa about if he has worked with the legislature to address permitless carry in light of remarks he made about the law over the summer. Tulsa World reported in June that permitless carry has led to gun theft in the city.
Franklin said such a database would help his department in gun crime investigations. His detectives currently have to visit dealers to try to connect guns to crimes they’re investigating.
“The way the law is set up, you can’t currently have electronic records for firearms. You have to store them manually. The gun dealerships have to store them in a Rolodex, basically, and so we have to go to that location and physically go through the Rolodex and find the purchaser of a firearm,” he said. “That is very tedious work, and it really slows down investigations when we are looking at a gun crime.”
Franklin said discussions about Second Amendment rights are “touchy,” which is why he's unsure ATF will make any progress in getting the database.
A spokesperson for Tulsa's U.S. Representative Kevin Hern did not immediately respond to request for comment on the matter Tuesday.
Guns at the Capitol
While Franklin was reserved about his views on permitless carry, it’s still a topic of discussion in the Oklahoma State Legislature.
A 2019 NPR analysis revealed that cities in states that have made it easier to carry guns in cars — including permitless carry — had seen sharp increases in the number of guns stolen from cars in major cities. Tulsa police say the city averages one report of a gun stolen from a car each day.
State Rep. Monroe Nichols, D-Tulsa, said he has a bill that would repeal the state’s permitless carry law. Nichols was one of several Democratic legislators in Oklahoma who proposed a bill that would have repealed permitless carry and several other laws in June.
Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, disagrees with Nichols' efforts.
“Should we change the law so that we can take away people’s Second Amendment right to a firearm because thieves are attracted to firearms? That’s not a good argument,” said Humphrey, who believes greater education is the way to lower the number of guns stolen from cars.
Humphrey also disagreed with Oklahoma Democrats’ push to get rid of the state’s preemption law, which prohibits local governments in the state from enacting stricter gun laws than what legislators enact. Nichols said Democrats hope to repeal the law in the upcoming Legislative Session.
Humphrey said getting rid of the law could lead to fewer gun rights for people in places like Tulsa than in rural areas.
But Nichols argued that repealing the preemption law would allow officials to better represent their constituents.
“The statements of our police chief in the past, certainly the feelings of our community, certainly the folks who have been victimized by gun violence ... We want to get rid of preemption. We want Tulsa to be able to decide what we will allow folks to carry around in our community. Because we have some major population centers, and somebody could do a lot of damage just in a short amount of time because we have a lot of folks who are all close to each other, densely populated in Tulsa,” Nichols said.
