A good idea except the part about setting rules in states that don't have it.
-Doc
U. S. Constitution, Article IV, Section I
"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."
The NRA has called for Congress to pass National Right to Carry Resiprocity legislation this year. Currently CCW is a patch work of resiprocity agreements between some states and others. Some such as New York and California do not recognize any other state. This legislation would require states to recognize the CCW permits issued by another state and set rules for concealed carry holders in states that currently do not have CCW.
I highly encourage everyone to write/call their Senators and Representatives encouraging them to pass this legislation.
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A good idea except the part about setting rules in states that don't have it.
-Doc
While I support the idea of national reciprocity I do have a few concerns. First the federal law restricting the carrying of guns within 1000 feet of a school would have to be changed to allow the carrying of firearms with ANY state issued permit not just the state permit in which the school is located. Second as with all federal laws I have a problem with federal interference with state laws. I am positive that everbody on this site will agree that there are many unjust state gun laws. However difficult it is to change a state law,it is easier to change a state law than a federal law. And if the national reciprocity act or whatever it is to called turns out to be a bad law it would be hard to change. The conditions,restrictions and amendments of a federal natioal recicprocity law would have to be scrutinized very carefully. I am sure that there would be many compromises in any such legislation and the end results might and I say might,in the end do more harm than good. For instance would such a bill say that a particular state must change its own law to conform to federal standards thereby making it more difficult to get a permit? An example might be to require a state to have unreasonable training requirement. Such a law could easily require so many things that in effect the federal government would be deciding who gets to carry guns and that really concerns me. It could open the door to legislation like Sen Boxers' bill. However I can see the benifit if a person were traveling through say Chicago or New York with their repressive gun laws. Before I get jumped on however I do think that each state should recognize all other state permits and in my opinion article 4 section 1 of the constitution gives the Congress the power to pass a national reciprocity act. Call me paranoid but I do not trust Washington DC. All Im saying is lets look at the proposed law VERY carefully before adding our support. Hopefully such an act will simply require that all states must honor another states permit without alot of amendments.
The legislation I've seen proposed is lacking. The only way I would support a bill like this would be if it allowed completely unlicensed carry, allowed carry literally everywhere (no "gun-free zones" anywhere), and had amendments repealing the National Firearms Act, Gun Control Act, and Hughes Amendment.
You might think I'm joking. I'm not. The Secondment Amendment cannot be negotiated.
As always the devil is in the details. While I haven't seen any legislation from this congress the bill that was preposed in the last congress simply did two things. Required states to recognize CCW permits issued by another state and set places CCW could not be carried if the state had no CCW statute. I.e. police stations, government buildings schools and so forth. The language made it clear those restrictions would be void in states that had set their own CCW guidelines. So, I don't really think states rights would be that much of an issue. Essentially the goal is to require states to honor the 'Full Faith and Credit" clause of the US Constitution.
As for carrying a concealed weapon under a reciprocity agreement or national reciprocity within 1000ft of a school. I don't know of any case where a CCW holder carrying under reciprocity has been charged for simply carrying within 1000ft of a school without having committed some other felony. So, I'm just not convinced it's that big of an issue, but I do understand your concern. If you know of such a case by all means I'd love to know about it.
I understand you're passion for the Second Amendment, but let's be honest. Any bill that affirms total unlicensed/unrestricted carry and totally repealed basically all federal firearms law would never make it through Congress let alone into law. I think we all know that even if we don't like it. So, rather than make progress to our goal you'd rather things stay statis quo?
Regarding the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act of 1995 (the federal law which makes it illegal for an armed citizen to drive within 1000 feet of any school).The NRA told me several weeks ago that they had recently received information that someone is currently being prosecuted under this law as a stand-alone charge. There is a growing grassroots movement to get this law fixed. Anyone interested in helping should PM me their E-mail so we can add you to our coordinated efforts. We have already created legislation to fix the law, and are working on getting it introduced.
Concealed Carry Reciprocity is CURRENTLY banned under Federal Law. (Important)
I like the idea of requiring the states to acceppt each other's permits, that would do away with this puzzle of good here no good there permits. Should be like a driver's license then. As long as the permit requirements for this new thing don't end up being more restrictive than the current ones or change states to may issue (I think that "common sense Boxes proposal" goes that way).
If Barbara Boxer is for it there is an extremely good chance that I am against it. If Congess is for it thers is still a good chance that I am against it. I am against any Federal Law requiring states to accept something and Carry Permits is one of those things. You can get all excited if you want to about it but I will guarantee you that before it becomes law there will be enough strings attached to it to hang all of us no matter how it starts out. The Feds do not give without taking away more than they give so those states with Constituional Carry better pay close attention along with those such as GA that don't have any kind of requirement other than passing a background check. Those that don't issue permits or so few that you can count on one hand will be exempted so you will wind up with about what you get with a FL permit now but be required to have one for AZ or VT.
Constitutional Carry for the entire nation is far off but I would love to see some standardization from those states the require permits on such things as car carry, prohibited places and preemption of cities and towns to require them to follow state laws. Go 100 miles in any direction right now and there is a good possibility that unless you make some kind of adjustment you have broken a gun law somewhere.
The problem with this is Washington State you just have a background check done No having to certify with the weapon that will be carried. And for that I am thankful for. But That should not be needed we have allowed them to take away our god given rights. Look back at how the west was won and you will see no damn permit was needed to carry your guns to where you and your family was moving to. So now we as a species who is suppose to be evolving have decided that it is better to give up our liberties for what little safety it provides. As it was said we will lose both for thinking that way.