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Where's Reciprocity at?

uskrusader

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Is there any political action planned or in motion to have state pistol permits recognized by all the states like driver's licences are? Currently I'm trapped in CT....surrounded by liberal states who won't let me cross state lines while armed.

If there is, where can one follow this legistlation? Get updates, etc. I hardly everhear the NRA mention it.
 

GWbiker

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Come visit Arizona. Bring along your gun and your current state CCW permit, which is valid here.

With few restrictions, you can OC, too!
 

AWDstylez

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It's never going to happen. They don't want us to be able to carry when we need it most, venturing into the shit holes that surround us.

I make trips to NJ fairlyfrequently and I'd love to be able to carry while in that dump. It'd probably do me more good than being able to carry here.
 

Alexcabbie

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This type of legislation has been proposed and there was some hope years ago, but with this current upcoming Congress and the Boy Wonder about to take the helm in DC we are going to have our hands full just holding the line.

A requirement to honor other states' CHPs would work wonders for Washington D.C. as the thug life there would have to wonder if the victim they are stalking is an armed Virginian and not your usual easy pickin's.

I remember an hilaarious story about an old African-American granny who got accosted by a trio of thugs who confiscated her groceries and then demanded "what you gots in yo' purse"; whereupon she said: "You can take this" and pulled out a .32 revolver and killed one and injured the other two. This BTW happened in Richmond Va. Priceless!!
 

shad0wfax

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AWDstylez

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Alexcabbie wrote:
A requirement to honor other states' CHPs would work wonders for Washington D.C. as the thug life there would have to wonder if the victim they are stalking is an armed Virginian and not your usual easy pickin's.



D.C. is not a state.
 

Gunslinger

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There are several states that honor all CCWs, two that don't require them for CC--VT and AK, and many that have wide reciprocity. Complete reciprocity would take either a Federal Statute or a SC decision that interprets FF&C for CCWs the same as it does for DLs. This won't happen with bin obooba in the Whitehouse and the gutless democraps in congress. The SCOTUS sometime in the future would be the most likely, but still a long shot, way of enacting the right which any strict constructionist fully supports. A case could be made under the 14th amendment, imo, as 'equal protection of the law' is currently denied with respect to 2A rights enjoyed by a majority of the states. Or better yet, the earth could swallow DC, NY, NJ, IL and CA whole.
 

Mike

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Gunslinger wrote:
Complete reciprocity would take either a Federal Statute or a SC decision that interprets FF&C for CCWs the same as it does for DLs. . Or better yet, the earth could swallow DC, NY, NJ, IL and CA whole.
The Congress lacks the power to command the states to accept any state's CHP, and the Supreme Court has never forced states to accept each other's driver's licenses - the states did this on their own.

The best one can hope for is (1) continuing trend for states to honor each other's permits, (2) success in GeorgiaCarry.org's law suit to force states like Georgia to issue CHPs to non-residents pursuant to the Article IV privileges and immunities clause, and (3) success in moving more states to become unlicensed open carry states.
 

PT111

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The Congress lacks the power to command the states to accept any state's CHP, and the Supreme Court has never forced states to accept each other's dirver's licenses - the states did this on their own.
Glad someone realizes this. :banghead:
 

Gunslinger

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Mike wrote:
Gunslinger wrote:
Complete reciprocity would take either a Federal Statute or a SC decision that interprets FF&C for CCWs the same as it does for DLs. . Or better yet, the earth could swallow DC, NY, NJ, IL and CA whole.
The Congress lacks the power to command the states to accept any state's CHP, and the Supreme Court has never forced states to accept each other's driver's licenses - the states did this on their own.

The best one can hope for is (1) continuing trend for states to honor each other's permits, (2) success in GeorgiaCarry.org's law suit to force states like Georgia to issue CHPs to non-residents pursuant to the Article IV privileges and immunities clause, and (3) success in moving more states to become unlicensed open carry states.
Congress can pass a law for a Federal CCW honored in all states and base it upon DLs and pilots licensing full credit granted. This is de facto reciprocity. In fact, the SC could take a case claiming the violation of FF&C--or your favorite P&I,with respect to CCWs and rule that the clause/article allows for it and they must be recognized. I doubt they ever would, but the power exists both in the legislative and judicial branches to do so.
 

Mike

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Gunslinger wrote:
Congress can pass a law for a Federal CCW honored in all states and base it upon DLs and pilots licensing full credit granted.
Huh? No, Congress has no power to interfere in the state's exercise of their police powers. If you have a cite otehrwise, let's hear it - Congress has never commanded the states to accept each other's driver's licenses.
 

shad0wfax

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Mike wrote:
Gunslinger wrote:
Congress can pass a law for a Federal CCW honored in all states and base it upon DLs and pilots licensing full credit granted.
Huh? No, Congress has no power to interfere in the state's exercise of their police powers. If you have a cite otehrwise, let's hear it - Congress has never commanded the states to accept each other's driver's licenses.

Mike's right.

Gunslinger: the 10th amendment disagrees with your assertion. Congress shouldn't be able to do that.
 

shad0wfax

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insane.kangaroo wrote:
The 10th amendment doesn't allow the federal government to regulate police powers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Officers_Safety_Act

In enacting the LEOSA, Congress overrode the authority of any state or local government to deny LEOSA-qualified individuals, from any jurisdiction, the right to carry concealed firearms.

Oh, LEOSA certainly allows it, but I could argue that the LEOSA is unconstitutional, as it could be used as a method of enforcing federal tyranny over the states themselves.

The Constitution and the original Bill of Rights as a collective only allow the federal government to establish a Navy. (I would argue that an Air Force should be treated just like a Navy in the modern day.) Technically a standing Army is unconstitutional as well. Why would a standing federal police force be any different?
 

Bill Starks

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http://www.ocala.com/article/20090126/ARTICLES/901260255

Stearns goes on offensive to push concealed-weapons law

By Bill Thompson
Staff Writer

Published: Monday, January 26, 2009 at 5:34 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 26, 2009 at 5:45 p.m.

OCALA - Saying Americans need a "fighting chance" to confront outlaws in a violent society, U.S. Rep Cliff Stearns has gone on the offensive to promote his bill to allow concealed-weapons permit-holders to cross state lines without fear of having their constitutional rights curtailed by another state's laws.

In an op-ed that appeared Monday on the Web site of the conservative publication Human Events, the Ocala Republican championed his measure as a way to enhance public safety as well as counteract liberal anti-gun activists whose policies he believes seek to undermine the Second Amendment protections afforded to gun owners.

But an anti-gun group questions whether Stearns and a co-sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, should be writing gun policy for states that seek an alternative route.

Stearns and Boucher filed the bill, known formally as the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009 (H.R. 197), earlier this month.

The bill would cause states that issue concealed-weapons permits to recognize valid permits held by visitors from other concealed-carry states, such as Florida. Yet those permit-holders would be subject to the regulations of the host state, not those of their home state.

If the host state does not issue concealed-weapons permits, the holder of a valid concealed-carry license would still be allowed to carry their weapon almost anywhere while in that state. They would not be permitted to carry their weapons into police stations, jails, courthouses, polling places, government meetings, schools, sporting events unrelated to firearms, in areas of bars or other places licensed for on-site consumption of alcohol where guns are prohibited, or inside the passenger area of airports.

The law would also not apply to people who are barred by federal law from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a firearm, nor would it allow a machine gun or a "destructive device" to be transported across state lines.

Other than in 2005 and ‘06, according to the FBI, the rate of violent crime — defined as murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault — has been on a steady downhill march since 1991. The agency's most recent report showed that the violent crime rate again began to drop in 2007 after the brief uptick and will do so again in 2008, based on preliminary data.

In his op-ed Stearns attributed this decline to the rise in concealed-carry laws.

He notes that states enacting concealed-carry laws have significantly less violent crime, as measured by the FBI, with 30 percent fewer murders, 46 percent fewer robberies and 12 percent fewer aggravated assaults. Overall, their crime rates are down 22 percent.

In Florida, which has had a concealed-carry law for more than two decades, murder rates have dropped 58 percent in that time, while violent crime overall is down 32 percent.

Stearns also observes that a U.S. Department of Justice survey of 2,000 criminals revealed that one-third of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured" by a gun-toting would-be victim. Moreover, 40 percent of them confessed that they had been deterred from committing a crime because they thought the victim was armed.

"Allowing law-abiding people to arm themselves offers more than peace of mind for those individuals — it pays off for everybody through lower crime rates. . . . That is why more and more states have passed right-to-carry laws over the past decade."

But in addition to public safety, Stearns pushes the constitutional correctness of his cause.

"So many liberal politicians and self-appointed experts want to keep honest Americans from having access to firearms," despite the apparent deterrent effect, Stearns wrote. "The reverse logic of this ‘knee jerk' reaction is astounding and has led to an outright assault on our basic constitutional and natural rights. These misguided policies to keep firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens literally meant a death sentence for thousands of Americans."

"Our society is a violent society," Stearns concludes. "However, the innocent deserve access to the tools they need to defend themselves. Let's give those who decide to take responsibility of possessing a concealed-carry permit a fighting chance anywhere in America."

One supporter of the Stearns-Boucher bill described it as the missing link in American's gun policy.

John M. Snyder, public affairs director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, in a statement urging more members of Congress to sign on to the measure, noted that "gun grabbers slather at the potential for passing restrictive gun control legislation" with Democrats in control of both the White House and Congress.

Snyder argued that Democrats suffered considerably at the polls the last time a Democratic-led Congress "went gung-ho for gun control." That was 1994, when Congress, with then-President Clinton's approval, enacted the since-expired ban on semiautomatic weapons. The Republicans took over that year, only to relinquish control in 2006.

Noting the sunset of that prohibition and the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun ownership, "Snyder adds, "What has been missing is federal right to carry concealed legislation so that persons permitted to carry in a state may carry in other states, in much the same way as people licensed to drive in a state may drive in other states."

Yet a spokesman for a leading gun control group cautioned against putting too much faith in the safety or constitutional arguments for the Stearns-Boucher bill.

For one thing, Florida is a "terrible example" of the effectiveness of concealed-carry laws, said Doug Pennington, spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Pennington pointed out that the same FBI reports Stearns relies on show that since 1987, when Florida enacted its concealed weapons law, until 2004, the state was the most violent, or second-most violent, state in America. The most recent report had it fifth.

"Exporting the Florida model to the rest of the country is probably not the greatest policy idea ever conceived," Pennington said.

He challenged Stearns' claim about the link between the drop in violence and the passage in concealed-carry laws as a "huge, complex, maddening" circumstance that defies such a simplistic explanation.

Crime dropped, Pennington maintains, also because tougher mandatory-sentencing laws kept violent criminals behind bars longer, because the economy improved and unemployment dipped and because there was more public education about gun crimes.

Moreover, the 1993 Brady Act has since 1994 precluded the sales of firearms to 1.6 million people who failed to pass federal mandatory background checks for several reasons, including being barred because of a criminal background, exhibiting a propensity for violence, or having mental health problems.

But the constitutional rationale cuts both ways, he maintains, for Wisconsin and Illinois, which do not have right-to-carry laws, or the 15 others that claim some discretion over who gets issued a concealed-weapons permit. (Thirty-three states, including Florida, are classified as "shall-issue," meaning the state cannot deny a permit to someone who meets all the legal criteria.)

"At least two states don't want it for their own reasons," Pennington said, "and it's wrong for a congressman from Florida or anywhere else to tell people in those states what kind of gun laws they should have."

Bill Thompson can be reached at 867-4117.
 

david.ross

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But an anti-gun group questions whether Stearns and a co-sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, should be writing gun policy for states that seek an alternative route.

Odd, I seem to recall they pushed the AWB... maybe states wanted to take a different route then as well.
 

Gunslinger

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shad0wfax wrote:
Mike wrote:
Gunslinger wrote:
Congress can pass a law for a Federal CCW honored in all states and base it upon DLs and pilots licensing full credit granted.
Huh? No, Congress has no power to interfere in the state's exercise of their police powers. If you have a cite otehrwise, let's hear it - Congress has never commanded the states to accept each other's driver's licenses.

Mike's right.

Gunslinger: the 10th amendment disagrees with your assertion. Congress shouldn't be able to do that.
Mike seems to change his position on constitutional law when it suits him. He claims the P&I clause allows FEDERAL law to trump states' police powers to regulate CCW to nonresidents via that clause and in violation of the 10A. Wrong, as I've said many times. Now, suddenly, he reverses his role. My statement is that under the 2A, Congress could pass a law saying all persons not lawfully excluded have the right to "bear" arms and extend it to CC or OC or both. States have extended full faith and credit for drivers or pilots license via the Constitution--I never said Congress had anything to do with it. The Constitution does. You're correct about the 10th--and that has been my argument against his P&I uber alles bias. But, Congress has and can again pass laws expanding the BoR to all states under new interpretation vetted by the SC if challenged. The interpretation--which will of course not happen anytime soon, of the 2A extension is constitutional and within the purview of the Legistlative branch.
 
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