(KFSM) – Deputies with both the Logan County Sheriff’s Office and Franklin County Sheriff’s Office will not arrest residents solely for open carry, authorities say.
On Monday (June 8), Logan County Sheriff Boyd Hicks and Franklin County Sheriff Anthony Boen both said their departments won’t arrest anyone solely for openly carrying a firearm.
This all comes after Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin both said they believe open carry is legal under Arkansas law.
Sheriffs in Pope, Johnson, Benton, Washington, and Sebastian counties have all made similar statements.
In the cases of the Logan and Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, each open carry case will be looked at individually, and authorities will make a determination on whether an arrest should be made based on evidence of criminal intent.
In addition to Rutledge and Griffin, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Arkansas law does not prohibit openly carrying a handgun as long as the person with the gun doesn’t intend to commit a crime.
The governor addressed the issue when 5NEWS asked him about it in an interview in Bentonville on Friday (June 5). Hutchinson was attending a ceremony for graduates of Circuit Judge Tom Smith’s Drug and Veterans Courts.
The governor added he is not in favor of seeing large numbers of people carrying handguns openly.
“I don’t want a society in which everybody is open carrying, so I think it’s not something you encourage,” he said. “I think you have to evaluate it in terms of what the constitutional rights are and what the law is.”
