You can have my gun when you pry it from my col… ooops, crossed the state line. Here you go.
The Senate voted down a proposal today that would have allowed concealed weapons permits from one state to be valid in any other state that had any form of concealed carry law. As stated before, my own views on gun control are somewhat complicated… I want to view them as tools, while at the same time acknowledging that they are very dangerous when used by the untrained, while at the same time acknowledging that that’s true of almost anything… all while finding the second amendment to be complicated by the militia part of the text and at the same time knowing that the intent of the second amendment was to fight tyranny yet even guns are no longer enough to resist a tyranny… okay, you see why it gets complicated. That’s probably the longest run-on I’ve written as an adult.
This is both a right to bear arms issue and a state’s rights issue. Strangely, the weakness of the first part is what allows the second part. While many gun rights supporters would state that the second amendment unequivocally allows people to carry guns, this isn’t true from a legal standpoint. Just as there are certain restrictions on the right to free speech (the first amendment) the law allows for restrictions on gun ownership and the right to carry (the second amendment). It also allows for those restrictions to be regulated by state. Therefore, what you have to do to get a gun and a concealed carry permit in, say, Nevada, may be very different from what you have to do in, say, Pennsylvania. Indeed, while in most states, a concealed carry permit is issued if you apply and meet the criteria, in 2 states no permit is needed at all and in a few others the permit may be denied even if you do meet the criteria; the difference between shall and may in the laws makes all the difference.
But even ignoring shall and may, in one state there may be training and background checks, while in another state it may only require that you be of a certain age and have no criminal record. From state to state the right varies. So what I’d like to do is ignore the gun control arguments – “concealed carry saves lives” vs. “more gun deaths happen in homes with guns” stuff – and just look at it from a state’s rights perspective. If someday, the gun control argument is settled and the second amendment conflicts resolved, we’ll have to look again, but right now, the law of the land is that states can regulate their own guns laws.
In that light, one of the arguments is that a license to drive in one state lets you drive in any state. That’s true, and it’s certainly a valid argument that hits all the right points; getting a license to drive is definitely more difficult in some states than others, and all states recognize other state’s license (except for some age differences) for temporary visitors. However, as far as I can tell – and I could be wrong – that is based on an interstate compact rather than a federal law, which is also why in some states you can get a new driver’s license should you move with minimal trouble, while in others you need to restart the whole process. Which makes me wary of a federal law saying that permits in one jurisdiction are valid in another.
But taking a page from the licenses, I think reciprocity could be worked out between the states. There might be occasional exceptions, like for age. The main concern, for me, would be that, like driver’s licenses, people permitted to concealed carry be subject to the laws of the jurisdiction they are visiting. Much like “Its legal to drive 75 back in my home state” wouldn’t hold water in a speeding violation, if someone from Washington wants to carry in New York, okay, but if they carry in to somewhere New Yorker’s can’t, ignorance of the law can’t become an excuse.
On the other hand, those who get carry permits are often – not always – but often those who would be most interested in actually learning and obeying the law. So it probably wouldn’t be much of a problem.
What prompted me to start writing about guns? Well, the fact that knife crimes are up in England, and that England is trying to do something about it. England is also a nation cited by gun control advocates as firearms are not available to the general populace. But if weapons are just tools, then banning them doesn’t do anything about the underlying problem of wanting to do someone harm. No guns? Knives. Ban knives? Hammers will be the next big thing in crime, perhaps. And so on, and so on, until lots of things are banned and people are still hurting each other, perhaps, I don’t know, garroting each other with string.