Bill Description: House Bill 621 would clarify in which parts of a courthouse carrying a concealed weapon is prohibited.

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Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the United States Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. Conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?

Although Idaho is generally regarded as being one of the more permissive states when it comes to carrying a concealed weapon, Section 18-3302C, Idaho Code, forbids concealed carry “in a courthouse” among a few other places. 

House Bill 621 would limit this language somewhat by amending it to prohibit carrying a concealed weapon “in the courtroom portions of a courthouse or in any area of a courthouse being used as a jail or holding facility for the detention of prisoners or any person undergoing trial or awaiting sentencing.”

The bill’s statement of purpose calls out the practice of “county courthouses being created within county offices” as the impetus for the bill, but it does not address when county offices exist within county courthouses, such as in Ada County. It appears that the non-courtroom offices and meeting rooms within the courthouse would be required to allow concealed carry under the language of this bill. 

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