By Sherri Blevins
As we say goodbye to 2022 and hello to 2023, we will have to adjust to some changes in the legal system. The legislature passed several bills last year that will take effect starting January 1, 2023.
One of the most talked about legal changes is House bill 272 – the statute known as the Constitutional Carry Bill, which changes certain restrictions on carrying or possessing a handgun and does away with the need to purchase a concealed handgun permit.
Governor Ivey commented on the change. She stated, “Unlike states that are doing everything in their power to make it harder for law-abiding citizens, Alabama reaffirms our commitment to defending our Second Amendment rights. I’ve always stood up for the rights of law-abiding gun owners, and I’m proud to do so again today.”
Not all new legislation will begin in January. House bill 17, the Bill Clardy Act, will become active in February this year. This legislation is named after fallen Huntsville Police Officer Bill Clardy, who was killed in an undercover drug operation in 2019. This law will allow Alabama law enforcement officers to conduct drug trafficking investigations without dangerous face-to-face meetings like the one during which Clardy was killed. Instead of face-to-face meetings, ALEA will be allowed to do wiretapping to investigate drug trafficking. Before the law’s passage, Alabama law enforcement would have to work with federal agents to get permission for wiretapping.
Another bill associated with firearms is House bill 513, revising the definition of a shotgun as a weapon that is “manufactured or converted and intended to be fired from the shoulder, and which is designed or modified and manufactured or modified to contain the energy of the explosive in a solid shotgun shell uses to shoot through a smooth carried either a number of bullet shots or a single projectile for each single trigger pull.”
Other bills passed this year include House bill 284, amending the State Human Trafficking Act to include the wording “Use or threatened use of any law or legal process, whether administrative, civil or criminal, in any way for purposes not designed for by the law, to bring pressure on another person to induce that or another person to do or refrain from doing something.” Senate bill 224 amended the Unemployment Benefits Act to specifically state that “reasonable and active effort means making a systematic and sustained effort to seek work, including contacting at least three potential employers for each week that unemployment is claimed.”
Visit the Alabama Secretary of State’s website for more information on newly implemented laws.