The Republican-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the bill late Wednesday during an eight-hour meeting that ended with three GOP senators joining committee Democrats in approving an amendment that a Republican supporter said “guts the bill completely.”

The committee’s action followed testimony from officers with the Evansville and Fort Wayne police departments and leaders of the state Fraternal Order of Police, police chiefs association and county prosecutors association.
They argued that eliminating the permit system would strip police of a screening tool for identifying dangerous people who shouldn’t have guns.