By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Despite being term limited, a western Arkansas lawmaker said today she isn’t giving up on trying to repeal a state law that bans the carrying of concealed weapons in church.

“I am looking to hopefully get someone else. I’ve talked with other legislators, and hopefully we’ll pursue it on with other legislators that will still be there in the House” in 2011, said Rep. Beverly Pyle, R-Cedarville.

She declined to say which lawmakers she has talked to.

Pyle’s comments came a day after state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel released an opinion saying he believes the state’s current law is constitutional.

“In my opinion, a court would likely hold that the statute’s text does not indicate an intent to regulate religious worship,” McDaniel said in the opinion. “The ban on concealed firearms in houses of worship does not favor one religion over another religion because the ban applies to all houses of worship.”

Pyle said today she “respectfully disagrees” with the opinion because “the state of Arkansas has made the decision for everyone and it is a separation of church and state issue.”

She also said she doesn’t understand why the state law lumps churches and bars into the same category.

“I don’t understand why churches was included in that bill,” she said, adding she understands the need to ban concealed weapons from bars.

“The bill that I had amended (during the session) would have allowed churches themselves to make that decision,” she said.

Pyle said she requested the opinion so she could gauge her options in trying to get the law changed.

She said she feels the state law violates both the First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and “I felt like an attorney doing the research on that would clarify those for me.”

“I didn’t get those answers,” she said, adding she felt the opinion “was vague.”

During the legislative session this year, Pyle said she introduced the bill to repeal the ban on concealed weapons in church because of concerns over several church shootings across the country. She said it would be up to each church whether to allow the concealed guns.

Church leaders appearing before legislative panels earlier this year were split on the issue. Supporters said each individual church should have the right to decide the issue, while opponents said guns did not belong in church and that their presence was contrary to the meaning of the word “sanctuary.”

McDaniel said in the opinion that he believed the state law was constitutional.

“The ban on concealed firearms in houses of worship does not favor one religion over another religion because the ban applies to all houses of worship,” McDaniel said. “Furthermore, when reading the ban in context of the entire statute … the ban also applies to many secular places. Thus, the law does not favor religion over non-religion.”