One of the most significant goals of Second Amendment rights groups’ today is nationwide reciprocity for concealed carry permit holders. It’s not the Holy Grail, which would be nationwide constitutional carry, but it most certainly lives next door to it. Imagine an entire country where you can exercise your right to bear arms without having to worry about some line on a map.
Two bills in the United States Congress mean to address this, one in the House and one in the Senate. Both very similar in that they allow a permitted concealed carry holder to carry in all states and that they must adhere to the laws of the state they are in. The one major difference is the permitting authority. One version says the permit must be issued by your home state, the state where you permanently reside. The other version says reciprocity includes any state’s permit, so an out-of-state permit would be valid in all states, including your home state. Constitutional carry states just need their driver’s license. Lucky stiffs…
Neither of these options are acceptable to the gun control elitists and states where they determine who may legally carry a firearm based on nebulous and secretive criteria, and permits are only issued to the rich, famous or well connected. Political hacks posing as law enforcement heads are also up in arms about this. They contend this will allow people from all across the country with little to no training to come in to their state with firearms, putting the lives of their officers and every citizen in the state at risk. There will be ‘blood in the streets’ they say.
Of course, the visions of anarchy, Wild West shootouts and ‘blood in the streets’ have never come true, even as more and more states adopt permitless carry. Undeterred, the elitists keep pushing their false narrative to keep the people afraid while pushing for even stricter gun control laws. The truth is, law-abiding, concealed carry citizens are among the most law abiding in the nation. They carry not to cause problems, only to defend their own lives and the lives of their loved ones.
If one of the currently stalled national reciprocity bills eventually makes its way to law, we can expect a flood of legal challenges from the nanny states, propelled by activist jurists who are ready and waiting to issue their pre-planned rulings. We can also expect these non-permissive states to radically alter their own carry laws to make it as difficult and complicated as possible to comply with for anyone who dares come into their state with a firearm.
As anyone who currently has more than one concealed carry permit already knows, each state’s laws have subtle differences that must be strictly adhered to. Then of course there are municipalities who’ve decided they need to jump on the gun control bandwagon and further regulate firearms for their little slices of turf.
Among the many different regulations such as duty to inform on traffic stops, some jurisdictions ban so-called “high-capacity” magazines or anything above 10 rounds. In New York you can only put seven rounds in your ten round magazines, unless you are on a firing range. Some jurisdictions ban “enhanced lethality” bullets, a.k.a. hollow point self defense rounds, or other specific types of ammunition.
If you want to get a taste of how national reciprocity would be treated, there is one already we can look at. It’s called the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA), also known as HR218. This national law allows qualified current, former and retired law enforcement officers to carry a concealed firearm in any state. The NRA Law Enforcement Division has a good resource page on LEOSA. See the link below for more details.
So you would think this would be easy, right? Sadly it is not. Not only are many officers not aware of the law, some jurisdictions feel free to outright ignore it. Current and former officers lawfully carrying under this Act have been harassed, had their firearms confiscated and been arrested. Even when charges are later dropped, this type of enforcement follows the good ol’ days concept of “you can’t take back a night in jail”. It is designed to send a clear message that unless you are permitted by THEIR jurisdiction, you cannot carry there.
Consider if this is how law enforcement, a supposedly close-knit nationwide community, treats it’s own in non-permissive states, image how they’ll treat the average out-of-state concealed carrying citizen?
Nationwide concealed carry reciprocity is long overdue in our country. Your ability to defend your life and the lives of your loved ones shouldn’t be determined by the next dotted line on the map, controlled by someone who doesn’t believe your life is worthy of Constitutionally protected rights in THEIR jurisdiction.
Bob
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NRA Law Enforcement Division / LEOSA – http://le.nra.org/leosa.aspx