I wasn’t in the best of shape when I got the call. I had the flu, but when the Sheriff’s department for my county in Wyoming called me, I’d at least recovered my voice enough to answer. My concealed carry permit was available for pickup.

Why pickup? A quick Google search revealed that Wyoming makes you sign for your permit to prove you’ve received it. Anyway, I noticed something immediately when comparing my new Wyoming permit to my now voided California permit.

It’s a card, not a piece of paper with the laws stapled to the back. I was once told that the state of California gives out paper permits so they can easily destroy them when the right to keep and bear arms finally deteriorates in its entirety in the Golden State. Apocryphal perhaps, but scarily believable.

I wasn’t happy I had to get a permit to carry a firearms, to beg permission from the state of Wyoming to exercise my natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Sure, getting a permit in Wyoming was easier and cheaper than it was in California, but does that make it OK?

The Second Amendment’s prohibition against government infringement on my gun rights is easy enough to understand. “Shall not be infringed” is plain language, even if you’re not a constitutionalist.

Nonetheless, my Wyoming permit doesn’t make me list the guns I wanted to carry or spend a whole weekend “qualifying” with said guns. I can carry what I want.

And I want to carry in my native state of Colorado, too. I still have a lot of family there, and after getting a barrage of God-awful information regarding the laws in that state, I decided a Wyoming gun permit was a necessary evil. (Colorado has reciprocity wth Wyoming).

The whole permitting process is deeply infuriating. I had to beg the government for permission to carry a gun — to exercise a civil right — so I can protect myself and my children, rather than go unarmed.

But that’s the state of our world right now. Until our government abides by its founding document, the supposed law of the land, we have to follow those laws. Although, I wouldn’t blame anyone — in Wyoming or elsewhere — for practicing civil disobedience. Their lives may depend on it.

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73 COMMENTS

  1. No one myself included likes the idea of a permit to carry.
    Having this little piece of plastic from my state government doesn’t change me or the possible use of my gun one bit.
    Whether I had a permit of not. Id still be same person with the same gun.
    I see it for what it is. Another tax to be paid.

  3. um, wyoming is constitutional carry for resedents, and colorado is open carry, other than Denver. why again did you waste time and money?

    • Maybe because Denver? And maybe because she wants to carry concealed?

      Open carry is a thing where I live, but I’m not doing it because I don’t want to deal with the potential hassle from hoplophobic morons. And because I can legally carry in more places with a CCW license.

      I don’t like the idea of asking permission to exercise a constitutionally protected human and civil right, but I don’t consider a $55 five-year license a waste of money, either. It has real benefits.

      • Juxtaposing constitutional carry with a $55 five year license – what benefits does it have?

        • Very few states are constitutional carry at this point in time. So the real benefit of a CCW permit is reciprocity. If you travel, that can be a very useful thing.

        • Having a license gives you reciprocity to carry in non-constitutional carry states. So there is that.
          *got beat by Mark N. 🙂

        • Juxtaposing constitutional carry with a $55 five year license – what benefits does it have?

          Not violating 18 USC 922 (q) (and thus not risking 5 years in federal prison) when you knowingly travel through a school zone?

        • The USA has over 330 million people here. I truly WISH that carrying a gun was so easy that no one needed a special permit that requires money to get, but there are a certain amount of people among those 330 million who I wouldn’t allow a plastic cafeteria spork. They might gouge their own eye(s). They are too stupid to get a permit or license most likely.
          Also there are a LOT OF PEOPLE who are not allowed to have guns due to personal disabilities or acts. Some shouldn’t be prohibited but many should. I just can’t see my way to letting the rapist who has finished their complete sentence being allowed to buy and carry a gun.
          Constitutional Carry is becoming more common. The computer networks to run a person’s name and ID do exists to check a person as “no criminal record” are available but not every LE Agency has that capability on them and online 24/7 in the field where police contact people in public.
          LE officers get attacked and killed very often. Who knows how many are injured in those altercations EVERY DAMN DAY. i wish in a wonderful, perfect world, cops wouldn’t need them. If that was true though you probably wouldn’t NEED to carry a gun at all.
          That perfect world may exists in fiction but does NOT exist here in the real world. So we compromise. The old way was; “Default-No One But Cops Carry” in 98% of America that was densely populated. The places that were lightly peopled it was morel likely a rabid coon or a bear was a threat, so people had guns at hand. The world has changed. Not for the better, but realists deal with it.

    • Maybe to carry within a federally-defined school zone. Under the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 in order to carry [in or on the grounds of a public, parochial or private school; or within a distance of 1,000 feet from the grounds of a public, parochial or private school] a person must hold a license issued by the state containing the school.

  4. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s called conservative authoritarianism. Certain people (even gun owners) choose the authoritarian path over the path of freedom. They aren’t live and let live people. Kind of like people that hate open carry but endorse concealed carry or vise versa. They capitulate to their impulse to control people and enforce their opinion on them. The people of Wyoming think you need a card with your picture on it, and training, and of course want you to pay money to them, they like money. They got to know who is licensed and who is not, right? Because the licensed one isn’t the “bad guy.” And they need to know who the bad guys are and are not. And obviously the one who submits to the authority and shares the same opinion with them, is the good guy. So get your permits, feel good about them, and advertise that you are a law abiding good guy.

    • Feel free to protest, my friend. Don’t capitulate. Don’t follow the path of conservative authoritarianism. If you travel with a weapon in a state that doesn’t recognize your right to carry, openly or concealed, enjoy your jail stay, Keep up the good fight, and thanks for the lecture.

  5. Having grown up in the country in the South to great parents, Dad a gunsmith & builder of custom hunting THANK THE LORD, INDISPUTABLE BLESSINGS BEYOND MEASURE), Trained by Dad when I was age 5 (1942) beginning with then new Daisy Red Rider BB gun and receiving an M1911,45 that survived WWII when I was 14, a handgun has been either worn or carried in a brief case over the subsequent years and to this day, to be 80 years ‘come Thanksgiving’ this year. Needless to say most of that time there was no such thing as a “hundgun permit” except for cops, politicians and other connected crime members. One has to do and act on the wisdom and intelligence that Our God has created us with. “NUFF SAID”.

  6. That card says a lot about you, Sara:
    * You aren’t a convicted felon.
    * You aren’t a convicted drug user.
    * You aren’t a spouse beater.
    * You aren’t under indictment, subject to a restraining order or a fugitive from justice.
    * You have not been adjudicated mentally incompetent.
    * You have passed multiple background checks to prove the above (assuming you have purchased guns from an FFL).

    Unconstitutional as it is, perhaps when you encounter some anti-freedom business, you can use it to start a conversation about what it does say about you, and ask the business owner, “Do you know that about your other customers?”

    • So, a convicted felon or someone under indictment should have less right to self defense? Thats some repugnant thinking right there. Rights can’t be RIGHTS when you get to pick and choose who gets to use them.

      • We don’t choose. The felon choses. When you knowingly commit a violent felony, that is a choice, and implicit in the choice is a decision to accept all consequences, including prison and losing certain rights for life if you are caught. You voluntarily renounce those rights by choosing to commit the crime. It’s the felon’s choice.

        • Seems to be a logical fallacy. If committing a “felony” causes one to “lose their rights” then you should have no problem with the government making more and more acts – or not even acts, just mere possession of a substance or deemed contraband item – a felony so as to, rightfully in your view, strip people of their rights.

          If a person does something wrong – and serves their time, if that is the sentence, then it’s only right and moral that upon release they be allowed to exercise their natural rights. If they have done something so heinous and evil then I would suggest that the only right that they should forfeit is their right to life and then all of the other rights become moot points.

          To continue to punish someone for a past crime is no less evil than the pre-crime that the political gangsters and stormtroopers want to punish people for.

          Be careful what you wish for.

      • When you commit crimes, rights (life, liberty, property) can be taken away from you via due process of law. It’s called justice.

        • Sounds like someone puts more stock in man made laws then god given rights. Good luck with that. You also strike.me as someone who isnpor civil forfiture too. So, by your logic,someone who breaks the antifa punks jaw who spits in his face and has the bad luck to get convicted should loose their rights forever? Same with the poor bastard who lives in commiefornia and his new psycho girlfriend calls the cops on him because he looked at another girls ass and hets him.locked up should loose his rights too? Wow, what a great American freedom lover you are! Nazi dickhead.

  7. I can understand the griping over state permission vs. inalienable right, but for the moment it is what it is.

    That being the case, what was the cost and list of requirements for California vs. Wyoming. I’m sure California cost more than just $55. Here in Pennsylvania it’s only $20 for a five-year license, on a one-page application, with no fingerprints or training or list of acceptable handguns or psych evaluation. And in many counties it’s issued on the spot (although some do make you wait).

    • Yes, our chains rest lightly upon us, my fellow Pennsylvanian. Compared to our neighbors in NY, NJ, and MD we have it easy. But I still think the PA LTCF is unconstitutional; not only does the federal 2A say “shall not be infringed” but the state constitution says “shall not be questioned”. I don’t see how “shall not be questioned” can be squared with requiring payment of a fee, a background check, and a requirement to present a license for inspection upon demand by law enforcement.

      (Yes, I know PA is supposedly an open-carry state. But that’s not true in Philadelphia, nor in any vehicle, nor during a declared state of emergency [which happens several times a year, usually due to snow].)

      • Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams were both sentenced to prison for felonies within a year of each other.

        What are those PA Democrats drinking?

    • $178.00 for your initial application. Renewals are $77.00. California CCW are only good for 2 years.

  8. this isnt comply accurate. i live in Orange County Ca and they issue you a card with your guns (up to 5) on the back.

  9. BLESSED BEYOND MEASURE, HAVING BEEN BORN IN THE DEEP SOUTH TO GREAT PARENTS, COUNTY FOLKS WITH COMMEND SENSE, Dad, a gunsmith and builder of Custom Hunting Riles and a Bench Rest Rifle that garnered 3 first place trophies, Dad began my gun training when I was 5 years of age (1942) with the then new Daisy Red Ryder BB rifle, teaching what TO NOT DO And THEN WHAT TO DO. Between that time I was instructed in safely using .22 caliber rifles and handguns and subsequently acquired a Mod. 1911.45 autoloader that had survived WWII in fair condition; this refinished and with adjustable sights added handgun accompanied me to College.
    From that time through current date a handgun has been worn, carried in a briefcase or alway readily at hand since and will continue as long as I live and if I live until Thanksgiving his year( 2017) that my 80th birthday.
    Our Triune God, Our Creator, blessed us with intelligence, wisdom and common sense and thus we are responsible for the protection of our family loved ones and yourself; that in spite of all of the efforts by any and all Adversaries to render us helpless, reducing us to the status of mind-washed subservient cowering servants of the state.
    Many of us refuse to be forced to ‘go like sheep into the darkness of subservience” and choose to BE PREPARED in spite of living and working in states whose government seek to disarm, that in the 9 states in which I worked.
    BE PREPARED; STAND FOR FREEDOM; NEVER SUBMIT REGARDLESS OF THE PRICE THAT MAY HAVE TO BE PAID!!!

  12. I’m no fan of permits, either, for the same hundred or so reasons as everyone else. They should be eliminated and we’re all working on that.

    Still. Had to “beg” the government for permission? It’s an online application and a $64 fee. You swing by the local Sheriff’s office to pick it up and it’s good for five years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s B.S., I get it. See above. But begging? Hyperbole much?

    It’s not even needed in Wyoming where you live, but rather for reciprocity with other states. So you’re griping about Wyoming…..because of Colorado? That makes a lot of sense. So even with firearms freedom and constitutional carry in all 50 states, you’d still gripe that you need a license in case you want to visit D.C.? And if D.C. finally came around, then Canada?

    If you genuinely find this situation “deeply infuriating”, then perhaps you are not temperamentally suited to carry a firearm, even in Wyoming. I’m concerned there will be blood in the byways.

    • I do understand what Sara is saying. After spending my first 58 years in So. Calif, I found myself more or less annoyed, occasionally infuriated, by many things after I moved to Wyoming. I had not expected to find so much of the same bullshit here, some rather outrageous taxes, and the overabundance of government “employees” everywhere. But it was mostly just conditioned reflex to having lived with all of it so long in Calif. – and I eventually got over the outrage anyway. So will Sara.

      The one thing I did appreciate so much was the option to carry openly, and the total lack of negative response from both ordinary people and the very few “cops” I’ve encountered. I carried concealed too, at times, and never had a “license.” I still carry both ways now, and nobody seems to care.

      Sara travels, and I do not anymore. Makes a difference. Don’t see why that difference makes so many people here butthurt because she thinks it is a rum deal to have to get a “permit,” just like most of the rest of us do. Her life, her reasons, and her safety…

      • Sara travels, and I do not anymore. Makes a difference. Don’t see why that difference makes so many people here butthurt because she thinks it is a rum deal to have to get a “permit,” just like most of the rest of us do. Her life, her reasons, and her safety…

        I’ve only been reading articles here for a year or two, but I’ve noticed a common trend that Sara’s articles always tend to draw a few assholes to the surface. Maybe they don’t like women? Maybe they don’t like gingers? Maybe they’re afraid of gingers and are overcompensating behind the relative safety of their screens?

        • Or maybe it’s not any of those strawmen you so meticulously erected but rather some of us don’t like her opinions. If she puts an article on here, she can suck it up and take the criticism like every other writer.

  14. The best thing I can say about laws requiring a license for concealed carry, not to mention those requiring background checks, or registration, or owner licensing is this: they prove us right. These are the laws that provide the statistics showing how the people misusing guns aren’t hampered by laws, while those who care about laws rarely cause any trouble.

    • I agree; it is the Shall-Issue (and a few liberal May-Issue) States that feed John Lot the statistics on the growth of carriers over the years and the growth of female carriers. These on top of the little bit of data (FL and TX IIRC) that shows that CCP holders don’t violate laws and get their permits suspended/revoked.

      It is for these reasons that – for a long time – I preferred Shall-Issue over Constitutional-Carry. Now, I’m more comfortable with Con-Carry because it’s a growing and significant MINORITY of States. We can point out the stats on Shall-Issue States; AND, mention that many States that started with Shall-Issue decided that concealed-carry was such a non-issue that they dropped their requirements for a CWP. None have reverted to requiring a permit. So, what have the good citizens and legislators of these dozen Con-Carry discovered? That there was no blood-in-the-streets and hardly any accidents or incidents that justified mandating a card.

      What we PotG need to be concerned with is getting N-R so as to inoculate the highly populated (and therefore politically powerful) Won’t-Issue States out of their hoplophobia. The voters in these States represent a long-run threat to restoration of gun-rights nationally. The few gun-owners resident there can’t rescue themselves; so who will remove the threat of the hoplophobe majorities? If we don’t get our Congress-critters to take us seriously about N-R the threat will continue to loom over us indefinitely.

  15. Irked by not being allowed your Constitutional guarantees? All the politicians in Washington take an oath to follow it yet National reciprocity will be fought against with such vigor by the majority of politicians it’s doomed to fail!

  16. Sure, getting a permit in Wyoming was easier and cheaper than it was in California, but does that make it OK?

    Absolutely not.

    It is like a rapist saying, “What I did to that woman was okay because I only inserted my [man part] a little bit just once even though I could have inserted it all the way many times.”

    Just as there is no such thing as a “little rape”, there is no such thing as a “little infringement”.

  17. and after getting a barrage of God-awful information regarding the laws in that state,

    As a resident of Colorado, what do you mean? Bad laws or bad information about them.

    • I hear that a lot. UBC and mag limits is the usual answer. UBC is a pain. The mag limit is unenforceable, but there’s probably enough ambiguity to scare off out-of-staters. They don’t know about the assertion clause and prosecutorial burden of proof.

      I bought two “magazine repair kits” for my 17rd Ruger at the gun show with the place crawling with LEOs.

  20. I just moved from Wyoming after living there for seven years. It’s the most gun friendly state I’ve ever lived in. When asked by a Sheriff if I was carrying that day and finding out I wasn’t, his response was “Why not?”. WYOMING is a Right To Carry state with no permit needed for a resident inside of the state of Wyoming, COLORADO (satellite state of California) requires the infringement upon you rights. You are even allowed to carry a long gun uncased in the front seat with a magazine inserted as long as the chamber is clear. Wyoming is one of the few states where you can get pulled over for a traffic stop and end up in a friendly conversation for 45 minutes about guns and what the next hunting season is.

    • also did 7 years there. Now i’m in another constitutional carry state of Idaho. But 100% agree with you. People that come from Cali, native or not, seem to like to bitch about something

    • COLORADO (satellite state of California) requires the infringement upon you rights. You are even allowed [in Wyoming] to carry a long gun uncased in the front seat with a magazine inserted as long as the chamber is clear.

      Same in Colorado. The statute that prohibits carrying long guns in motor vehicles specifically says “unless the chamber of such firearm is unloaded“. C.R.S. 33-6-125.

        • That [sort of] depends on when you acquired the magazine. If you have a >15 round magazine and assert that you owned it on 01 July 2013, then the state has the burden of proof to refute the assertion.

    • You can open carry in Colorado, except for Denver. That was a wrong decision by the State Supreme Court. You can carry a loaded and chambered pistol in your car. And the statute for long guns is a hunting offense, not a criminal one.
      Colorado (outside of Denver, and the People’s Republic of Boulder) is very Red.

  21. seriously, i don’t know what she’s complaining about. Constitutional carry there was one of the main reason i did NOT get a CCL in Wyoming. And then she complains about the process? After living in California? wtf… Really? I just find it hard to find any sympathy for her when she’s complaining about living in one of the gun-friendliest states in the country when plenty of other people can’t even carry a sharp stick cause it scares the locals. This is just a “boo-hoo feel sorry for me” piece.

  22. In NC it’s about $95 plus your eight hour course. Prices vary. Well worth it when you consider your CCW (in NC) serves as your NICS check. Majorly speeds up the purchase process. Still infringement though.

  23. Non steril airport and public transportation white out ccw is an felony in colorado aka commirado !!

  24. Ma’am, with all due respect, I thought you would know that (in 2011) Wyoming became, (despite the unfortunate six months residency requirement), the fourth state to allow concealed carry without a permit. I hasten to note that I find your articles interesting and informative.

    • From the article:

      And I want to carry in my native state of Colorado, too

      As a resident of Wyoming, Sara would need a Wyoming concealed carry permit in order to lawfully carry concealed in Colorado.

      Of course, Sara can carry openly in Colorado. As long as she avoids Denver (or, at least, stays in her car while passing through Denver).

  27. The state office in Cheyenne is backed up on both issuing new permits and renewing existing permits.

    Mine took three full months to renew, where four years ago, it took only four weeks.

    This is thanks, in part, to Obama’s “War on Coal,” which has caused state tax revenues to decline rather dramatically.

  31. Just so you understand, many counties in CA issue the paper licenses AND Cards like what you got from Wyoming. A few issue ONLY cards and not the paper license. You just live in a county that chooses to issue ONLY the paper license.

  32. Can TTAG just be done with Sara’s columns already? She didn’t have to “beg” anyone to get a permit. As much as a pain as it is until the laws get changed that is the process. Between this and her asinine column about how hunting “feeds” her family and they have no trophies on the wall I have had just about enough.

    She writes for the sake of writing, nothing interesting, intelligent or exciting….

  33. I am wondering why she felt it necessary to get a WY CWP, in 2017 she didn’t NEED it for Wyoming, it had already been a Constitutional Carry state for nearly 7 years… If she wanted it for reciprocity purposes (that is why I have one) fine, but she could have carried open or concealed in the State of WY when she went through this process that she was annoyed that she “had” to go through…

    It seems to me that if you are going to write for a firearms website, you should probably be familiar with the laws of the state you are writing about… Just sayin’.

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