Police chiefs implore Congress not to pass concealed-carry reciprocity gun law - Polidicks

Back in the early 1900s, concealed carry was commonly banned. It was seen as sneaky, the sort of thing a criminal would do, not a law-abiding citizen. Bearing arms meant that if you wanted to carry a firearm, you could do so openly on your hip, and that was the norm. But a hundred years later open carry is being increasingly legislated against. There are plenty of states in the US where you cannot open carry, and plenty more where it's a sure-fire way to get an unpleasant interaction with the police. So if you can't open carry, and you can't concealed carry, then you can't carry- so what, in your own words, does the right to bear arms mean?

Not to mention open carry is increasingly frowned upon and draws unnecessary attention to yourself. It's better to conceal carry so you can go about your day without anyone bothering you about it. Especially since there are individuals who will call 911 at the very sight of a gun.

Your statement was you are the one that brought up the second amendment.

So your argument is that we need to change legislation because the social conventions of the majority are turning against your personal hobby. That seems downright backwards. You can't legislate your way around a social change - prohibition did nothing to change people wanting to drink. And it seems prima facie problematic to try to legislate against the will of the majority in a democracy. I recognize there are times when it is necessary but I really don't think this is one of those times. (Oh, and if you're going to blame the handful of people who overreact to open carry, I'm going to go ahead and blame the gun-humping nuts who "open carry" an AR-15 to the local mall. There's idiots on both sides.)

The first thing I posted in this thread was suggesting that a federally issued license could be added to force states to recognize the rights of an individual to concealed carry. Those licenses would be considered as federally protected and would not allow states to discriminate against anyone who owns one. Then Proboards asks if states can just ignore the federal mandate/protections which would go against the whole point of my suggestion. So I try to explain that no they wouldn’t have a choice in the matter because it would be treated as a federally protected right. And then both you and Proboards made the extraordinary argument that the 2nd amendment shouldn’t protect the right to conceal carry. What I’m trying to get at here is no one has made any valid arguments against my suggestion of allowing people to obtain a federal concealed carry permit in exchange for making the standards of obtaining one fairly difficult (but not stupidly unfeasible). By all means, argue about why you don’t think my suggestion of implementing a federal standard for national reciprocity wouldn’t be ideal, but for fucks sakes stop trying to subvert the issue by attacking 2nd amendment instead of explaining why you think national reciprocity is a bad idea.

No, it's that concealed carry is a more socially acceptable alternative to open carry because a minority of the public carries out excessive and irrational reactions. But if concealed carry is banned or de facto banned as it is in many states, then social conventions or not, that leaves no opportunity to 'bear arms' as is legally protected. I'll echo AlbertWesker's statement: I've yet to hear a reason why a national concealed carry system with strict requirements would be a bad thing. Statistically, concealed carriers are overwhelmingly more law-abiding and less likely to commit a firearm-related offense than police officers. They're not the people we need to be worried about. If it's just a knee-jerk 'guns are bad, carry is bad' thing, then anti-gun folks should be all for a strict system that would supersede the extremely lax issuance requirements of many states.

Did you really just compare a possible expansion of individual rights and freedoms to being oppressive as the prohibition movement? No first of all, the right to own firearms has never been confined to just being about a hobby. Also national reciprocity is something desired by gun owners who make up a significant part of society. The suggested changes would add protections to our rights so that certain states would no longer be able to discriminate against gun owners by making permits virtually unobtainable or making interstate travel impossible due to a labyrinth of legalities. You can’t compare expanding gun rights to the dumpster fire that was prohibition.

ALL amendments are subject to interpretation by congress and the courts. Personally I'm perfectly happy with the 2nd amendment being interpreted to the point of having guns be license-only because while the right to bear arms is a legal right, I don't think of it as a natural or moral right the same way I do about Freedom of Speech. While I believe that the freedom of speech is a right that should be protected regardless of what the letter of the law says, I think that the "right" to bear arms is not something of much value to modern society

See, here's the thing. Licensing opens several different cans of worms, none of which are particularly relevant to this discussion nor are ones I want to open now. But what's being suggested is close to that in a sense. Right now, there are wildly different standards for CCL holders to meet across many states. Even just in the area I live, I know New Hampshire and Vermont have completely different courses than Maine does. As it stands? Sure, that's not the best idea (even though NH did accept Maine licenses back when we required them). What's being suggested by us is a national standard. I'll clarify it a step further and put forward that it could operate like the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians. I, an NREMT-certified individual, can apply for an EMS license in any state that follows Registry standards, and receive it based on the standardized training I've gone through. State EMS officials look at my application, see that it went through NREMT, and know right off the bat what I can do. What if concealed carry worked similarly? Have a federal or national organization dedicated to standardized (and rigorous) training, which would give you a certification, which could get you the license for the state in which you are currently a resident. Under this system, reciprocity would make complete and total sense because everyone with a CCL would have gone through a known quantity and quality of training. There would be no reason to deny it based on current objections, that being in the vein of "I don't know what his state's requirements are and I don't know that he isn't a hazard." Of course, such a thing must come with the stipulation that it may never be closed. Otherwise we could end up with another machine gun registry situation, and that is unacceptable.

That’s mainly the reason why I was suggesting state permits should be issued alongside the federal permits. So if states like New Hampshire wanted to keep their lax standards or constitutional carry, they could do so. It just wouldn’t be federally recognized by other states.

Your mistake is assuming the social convention is "people don't want to see guns". It's not. People don't want to be around guns. Concealing them might reduce the odd looks you get from passersby but it doesn't change the core problem of "people don't like people who insist on carrying deadly weapons". More and more places are becoming "gun-free zones" - businesses included. If anything, moving from open to concealed carry will accelerate this - if people see fewer guns carried, they'll assume those still carrying guns are increasingly exceptional and aberrant. Basically, culture is changing the norms to match the current needs. Very, very few people need to carry guns these days - police, maybe some types of private security like armored truck guards, people in wilderness areas - not just rural farmland, but actually wild, like the Alaskan interior. And since carrying lethal weapons has inherent risk, we (rightly) have concluded that unless you have some specific reason to be carrying one, you ought not to carry one. No, I picked an example that I thought people would recognize. I made no value judgement on whether prohibition was "oppressive" or "evil", I just noted it as an example of a politically-powerful minority attempting to change social rules through legislation. Also, knock it off with the emotional appeals. Yammering on about "individual rights and freedoms" is just virtue-signaling to your ideological comrades, it does nothing to actually convince your opposition, especially when you're bashing an example analogy instead of engaging with my actual argument. Citation fucking needed. The best numbers I can find are 70-95M gunowners, but only 15M concealed carry permit holders, and of those, how many regularly travel out of state, and wish to carry concealed weapons while doing so? I would be quite surprised if that's over 100K people.

In this particular case, the “states rights” argument is being used to deny people of their rights regardless of whether or not you agree with them. It’s not acceptable that some states are able to discriminate against people who would otherwise meet all the legal requirements for concealed carry which anyone could possibly throw at them. This is why we need a national standard, so that states cannot deny a qualified person of their rights just because they don’t feel like issuing permits to anyone. How fucked would it be if states could just stonewall all permits to protest just because they don’t agree with the message or don’t think the average person should be able to have one? Also you still haven’t answered my question about why a strict national standard for federal concealed carry permits would be a bad idea. If you don’t answer that in the next post, I’m just going to assume you have no valid arguments to stand on.

Once again, the so-called "right" to own guns and carry them concealed doesn't win a lot of sympathy from me because I personally think that the 2nd Amendment has been a disaster for our country in many ways. What you call "discrimination" I simply look at as regulations meant to keep society safe. Regulating guns and gun ownership keeps society safe, while regulating speech does not.

Rights are rights. They're all parts of the same document, and weighed equally. You can view them however (as is your right ) but your personal opinion doesn't really matter, because thankfully, most people in this country aren't keen on voting away other peoples rights any more. States don't get to deprive people of the rights granted to them by the federal government, the supreme law of the land. There was actually a rather big scuffle about it that happened centered right around where you're probably posting from.

Since I'm an outsider, I may not understand the nuance behind this, but why is it that Second Amendment advocates never seem to mention the very first words of the first line of the Second Amendment, which goes "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," and so on? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." When the entire sentence is taken, that seems to provide a pretty damn necessary context. Even the founding fathers, with the muzzle-loaders of their time (When you'd actually have been much better off with a bow and arrow than a gun if you needed to fire more than once) seemed not to want just any idiot to be able to carry a gun. A 'well-regulated militia' seems to imply individuals who need to be properly trained and certified, in the capacity of their duties as members of a disciplined and organized militia. What it does not seem to be is what today's interpretation is: an excuse for fetishists to walk around with their tools out. Of course, I am an outsider, and may be unaware of adjustments to the Second Amendment in law that nullify that 'well regulated militia' part. If there have been any such decisions, please educate me.

That’s not how rights work. You don’t arbitrarily take away people’s rights because it makes some parts of the population feel uncomfortable. I don’t plan on using guns for self preservation, but I’d really rather have one in case shit happens and I no longer have a choice in the matter. Police response times in some areas can be in excess of 30 minutes and having a ranch like I did can attract wild animals and natural predators. You clearly have no clue what you’re talking about if you don’t think people who live in rural areas should be able to have guns. Even then, there are plenty of other valid reasons to have firearms in modern society. There’s no reason to not allow qualified people to concealed carry considering it’s been demonstrated that permit holders have far fewer weapons violations than the police. Maybe I’m bashing your analogy because it’s a garbage analogy. Forcing state governments to respect people’s rights is in no way comparable to the federal government attempting to ban alcoholic beverages which only serve to hinder people’s senses. Also stating that the second amendment is supposed to be a federally protected right of the individual is not an emotional appeal. It’s pointing out what so many of you are conveniently forgetting. I shouldn’t have to cite something that should be common knowledge by now but here. The gun numbers Do you not consider 23% and the numbers you mentioned as a significant amount of the population? Actually even if you don’t, the whole premise of your argument that people shouldn’t have this right because “not enough people use it” is terrible. It’s like trying to argue that transgender persons shouldn’t have a right to use restrooms of their chosen gender because they make up less than 1% of the population and it makes people feel uncomfortable.

Well regulated back then meant more so "in working order", unlike today where regulation tends to imply restrictions. The militia was the people, many towns, cities, and states had a militia to defend against attack and enforce laws. It's redundant in the modern world to a point, militias still exist in some places but most people look down on them as extremists. The use of arms for sport and self-defense is still relevant, however.

Sorry if it sounds like I’m giving people on here some sass earlier but that was because I feel like they were being intellectually dishonest and intentionally trying to misconstrue my points. But I think you’re just trying to understand the logic behind the law so I’ll try to explain the best I can. Basically the founding fathers did not want to have an official standing army because they wanted to avoid any possibility of the newly formed government abusing its power against the people it governed. Instead they opted to use militias which could be readily called upon by the government to protect the interests of the country. At the time the militias were considered to be a part of the federal government and was seen as a necessary evil to ensure the security of the country. So basically what the 2nd amendment was supposed to translate into something more along the lines of this: ”Because a well run government militia is necessary to the security of the country, the citizenry must also be allowed to arm themselves.” In modern times, the militias have been replaced by the military. The point of the amendment was to ensure that people would already have access to weapons like firearms in case the government or military were ever turned against the people. Over time people keep trying to find ways to obfuscate the original context of this law, but anyone who knows the history of the Revolutionary War should really know what the intentions of the law were. It’s a hard reset button. It’s so painfully obvious that the founding fathers were absolutely paranoid about their government being used to oppress people after having just fought a huge bloody war for independence against their own oppressors (the British Empire).

I was arguing about concealed carry - that is, after all, the subject of this thread. You don't need to CC to take care of coyotes or wolves or whatever predator is endemic to your region, and you definitely don't need to CC for home defense. I fully recognize the need for weapons in such cases, and would defend the right to own and carry weapons reasonable for such purposes. If anything, you just argued in favor of letting individual states, or even counties, decide their firearms law. One may need to regularly carry a gun in the hinterlands. One does not need to regularly carry a gun in a well-developed urban area, where the biggest predators are the feral cats and it's a two-minute walk to the nearest police station. Would it not then make sense to let each region set their laws as fits their citizens? You seem to still be missing the point of the analogy. People, in general, like to drink. People, in general, don't like the presence of firearms. No matter how you change the laws, those facts aren't going to change. If you change the laws so that one's ability to carry a gun is literally unimpedable, people still won't like you carrying a gun in situations where it's unnecessary, in precisely the same way that, when the government changed the laws so you literally could not buy or produce alcohol, people still wanted to drink, and for a large part, continued to do so. Uh, what? I said myself "70-95 million gun owners in the US". 23% times a population of 330 million, is 75.9 million, which is both greater than 70M and less than 95M. Our numbers there are in agreement. (Although your source doesn't seem to say "23%" anywhere, it says "22-31%" for gun ownership rates, and then 3% for "super-owners"... did you just link to the first source you found or did you typo or what?) But not every person who owns a gun wants to concealed-carry it. For instance, a lot of those single-gun gunowners just have a shoulder gun of some sort, a rifle or shotgun, something you really can't concealed-carry. Plenty of people who own handguns don't carry them everyday, and even among those who do, open carry is pretty popular. And finally, among those who do regularly concealed-carry a firearm, how many of them also regularly travel across state lines while carrying? Because those are the only ones actually affected by CC reciprocity, and that is the group I was claiming is small.

This whole chunk of your response hinges on the fact that people somehow are cognizant of the fact that there are guns around them, like they have some sixth sense for detecting them. I could promise you that if literally everyone you've ever encountered in life was carrying a gun, you would be none the wiser to it, and it would have no bearing on your life at all. The entire premise of CC is concealed carry. The demographics, geography, season, whatever factor, has no bearing on if CC should be allowed or not. The only exception I can make for that is in "sanitary" areas like courthouses, airports, etc. Then there is this part, which is based solely on the fact that, to you, not enough people exist for universal CC. There are a ton of reasons you can argue against CC, but if this is the hill you choose to defend, then you don't really have a reason to be there in the first place. I live in Tallahassee, FL, and I travel to Georgia nearly every weekend to go hunting during the season, and I also venture into Alabama and Louisiana on occasion with friends (passing through Mississippi as well). Thankfully, those 4 states recognize my CC license from Florida, and I can travel and carry pretty much unhindered in all of them. If they didn't though, it would be a logistical nightmare for me because I would have to stop at state lines and remove and lock my weapon, and then take it out again once I got through the restricted state. There's plenty more to be said on why CC is good, but I wanted to address the point you were trying to make here first.

No clearly you don't recognize it because you just said that people in my position don't "need" to carry a gun. People who live in large rural areas do carry guns for convenience because running back and forth to a house that's over 16 acres away just to access your gun is not feasible during an emergency. I said states who want to issue STATE permits below the federal standards should be allowed to do so; but all other states would be obligated to respect the rights of a federal permit holder. Federal permits would be based off of the current Massachusetts permit requirements because anything more is intentionally excessive to dissuade qualified people from exercising their right to carry. States should not be allowed to withhold permits from everyone that isn't a cop or famous person. The point of your analogy was that you think gun owners are a minority trying to force their viewpoints on society, but really it's the other way around. Society doesn't have a protected right to not feel uncomfortable around the scary evil gun people. No one's asking to make absolutely everyone have the right to carry a gun; we're asking that a few problem states be made to respect the rights of people who want to carry a gun if those people are qualified enough to do so. Some states have a qualification level of "if you ain't a cop or millionaire, then fuck off". Stop being pedantic, you know exactly what I meant with that number. Yes I meant the 22-31% range and no I didn't get that from the first thing I found. I used The Guardian as a source because it is one of the more reliable sources used in threads like Sensationalist Headlines. The point of it was to show you that gun owners aren't just some insignificant minority you get to write off. Even if the number was a bit less, your argument just comes across as "it's OK to deny some people of the legal means to exercise their rights as long as it doesn't inconvenience the rest of the population" which quite frankly sounds like the kind of logic that Donald Trump would use. Also in what world do you live in where open carry is preferred over concealed carry? The only thing that does is make you a target, both figuratively and literally.

The Militia Acts codify the 'militia' as all able-bodied males and formed the basis for our modern military draft. If an American is eligible to be drafted in times of war, they are already part of the militia. In 18th century English, that militia will be 'well-regulated' if it is sufficiently armed to execute its intended function. Let me get this straight: You recognize and accept the utility of firearms for defending your home against a violent intruder, but you [i]don't[/i] accept the utility of firearms for defending yourself against a mugger?

your right to carry a gun everywhere is neither absolute or protected by federal rights

another fun quote “The exercise of Congress’s power is particularly warranted” for concealed-carry reciprocity, the Republican attorneys general wrote, “because the states that refuse to allow law-abiding, nonresident visitors to carry concealed weapons place their occupants in greater danger — not less — from gun violence. These states leave citizens without any real option for self-defense, and so it is not surprising that they have been unable to show that their regulations reduce crime.” In Massachusetts, simply owning a gun requires a permit approved by the local police chief. “That’s why Massachusetts has the lowest gun deaths of any state,” Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said. “Because we watch guns and who possesses them very closely. I think we have great gun laws, but it does us no good if we have reciprocity and everybody can come to the Boston Marathon carrying. I can’t believe with all the tragedies we have in this country, we want to open up the floodgates to more guns.” We can't even agree on what works, so why should we institute a federal top down approach? They bitch and moan about how the ACA puts this "one size fits all" framework on everything, but the 10 requirements of coverage are all pretty much universal procedures and coverage that was available almost everywhere, in this case they're trying to put a top down approach when nothing is universal about our nation's gun laws.

Which for the third damn time my suggestion would make a federal standard for obtaining a federal concealed carry permit, so that people who qualify would have their 2nd amendment rights protected from hostile state governments. No one is even suggesting that the 2nd amendment is an absolute right which cannot have some restrictions, but it’s absolutely asinine to think that “the right to keep and BEAR ARMS shall not be infringed” should be interpreted as “you don’t have ANY right to bear arms because reasons”. If a state doesn’t allow any legal means of acquiring a concealed carry license (in this case by refusing to issue any through unfair discrimination) while open carrying is also banned, then there is no feasible way for that right to exist within that state. It is blatantly a violation of federal law to provide no legal means of access to a right. Do you even try to read the past 5 posts before making stupid one-liner responses that were already shot down? Jesus Tap-dancing Christ.

In Massachusetts, simply owning a gun requires a permit approved by the local police chief. “That’s why Massachusetts has the lowest gun deaths of any state,” Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said. “Because https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/table-20

... You managed to find an example about Massachusetts being against national reciprocity while completely ignoring the fact that I mentioned like 3 times that the federal standard I had in mind would be based on their laws to qualify for a federal permit. I made that suggestion to specifically address the issue of some states not having strict enough qualifications for concealed carry permits. Just wow.

great so who gets to make the standard? the ATF, Congress, some "bipartisan" committee? it will be politicized in every way and be totally useless

You mean like the “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act,” which passed the House in December and is now assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee? The very first thing posted in the OP? The one which as far as I can tell, doesn’t do anything to address people’s concerns over states which issue permits without any training requirements or safety classes? I think you should take a step back and put some consideration into what you are trying to argue before posting again.

Circling logic here but you're calling for the fed to adopt some state's regulations as the minimum requirements, but the CCRA only is concerned about making the CCW permits issued by one state valid in the other even though they don't have the same requirements, and just because it passed the house doesn't mean shit considering the only bills passing the house these days are absolute dogshit partisan rags while the senate has to at least pass with some bipartisanship. THEN you state that its a good thing that states already are offering reciprocity with their fellow states. Pretty much every state recognizes some other state's permits, in effect, the states are already self regulating. Why do we need some act that will smash this system that already works, and impose unilatteral recipriocity on states? the CCR Act is pointless and is just a tool for the NRA to further expand their bullshit, let the states Finally, you still don't have any suggestions on just who gets to decide what a federal standard would be outside of just reciprocity, there's virtually no way to do this on the federal level without it becoming yet another red vs blue issue. but please i'm the one who's missing the forest for the trees.