In the myth of Sisyphus, Zeus punished the ruler in question by forcing him to roll a large boulder towards the top of a hill—only to have it roll down just as he approach the summit. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. For eternity. That said, there may come a day when the President signs a bill that creates national right-to-carry reciprocity. Where a concealed carry license would be just like a driver’s license: issued by one state, recognized by all. Where you could schlep your concealed carry gun from sea-to-sea shining without facing detention, arrest and the loss of your Second Amendment rights. Until then . . . the NRA will keep rolling that stone uphill and you, my friend, should contact your elected reps to help push that weight. It’s the right thing to do. Make the jump for the NRA’s 411 on this year’s attempt, HR822 . . .

Earlier this year, Congressmen Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) introduced vital legislation that will enable millions of permit holders to exercise their right to self-defense while traveling outside their home states.

There is now only one state (Illinois) that has no clear legal way for individuals to carry concealed firearms for self-defense.  Forty states have permit systems that make it possible for any law-abiding person to obtain a permit, while most of the others have discretionary permit systems. (Vermont has never required a permit.)

H.R. 822 would make a major step forward for gun owners’ rights by significantly expanding where those permits are recognized.

Dozens of states have passed Right-to-Carry laws over the past 25 years because the right to self-defense does not end when one leaves home.  However, interstate recognition of those permits is not uniform and creates great confusion and potential problems for travelers.  While many states have broad reciprocity, others have very restrictive reciprocity laws. Still others deny recognition completely.

H.R. 822 would solve this problem by requiring that lawfully issued carry permits be recognized, while protecting the ability of the various states to determine the areas where carrying is prohibited within their boundaries.  The bill would not create a federal licensing system; rather, it would require the states to recognize each others’ carry permits, just as they recognize driver’s licenses and carry permits held by armored car guards. Rep. Stearns has introduced similar legislation since 1995.

As of this writing, H.R. 822 has 242 cosponsors.  Click here to see if your congressman is a cosponsor.  However, more support is needed to make this bill a higher priority.

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43 COMMENTS

  1. The only chance we have to get that bill passed is to elect Gov. Rick Perry our next President, because if that no good COMMIE mitt romney gets in we’re all screwed.

    • Romney is the worst gun grabber of them all. He’s a lying, double-dealing snake of a RINO. I wouldn’t trust Mitt the Shitt if he said that the sun rises in the east.

        • And why is that, sir?

          If a good, solid conservative is not elected, I am not confident that this nation can long survive. It certainly will not do so if Obama is elected, and may not even in the case of a true conservative victory.

          • It’s the good solid conservatives that got us into this mess, which Obama inherited.

            I have serious doubts if Obama can or even wants to do anything about the real problems. But those lunatic Republican candidates, cannot be taken seriously, unless you’re a one-issue voter.

      • Ron Paul’s foreign policy scares the crap out of me. His ignorance and naivete is incredible.

        • This.

          Ron Paul does not seem to understand the considerable power that a world power such as these United States wields, nor does he recognize the duty to exercise that power responsibly.

          • bizarre, you think the one guy who is against our endless wars is the one that doesn’t know how to be responsibly American? who would you suggest does?

      • Well the reason he gets ignored is that he only wins online polls and straw polls which are easily rigged by a small dedicated group of supporters.
        In primaries he is lucky to 15% of the vote. In a real election as the candidate for a major party he might get as much as 35%.
        With this kind of history why should anyone give him more press time than they did to Pat Paulsen? Ron Paul is roughly as electable as Tim Calhoun.

        • The point isn’t whether he is electable or not. The point is we have no other choice.
          Ron Paul is the only candidate the 1) will not compromise on the Constitution and 2) understands that Keynesian economics will be the ruin of us all and 3) understands the alternative free market system, the effects of government regulation on our loss of prosperity and freedom (they are connected) and 4) the need to end the Federal Reserve Banking system with its fractional reserve banking, fiat money and price fixing of interest rates and 5) the need to restore our sovereignty by ending our involvement in foreign defense treaties 6) the need to cut spending enormously and immediately! No one else is going to do this! These are the things that must be done to save America! So vote for Ron Paul or don’t ever claim to be a Constitutionalist!

  2. National reciprocity is a good first step.

    Then make the manner is which guns may be carried uniform. I vote for allowing guns to be worn openly or concealed.

    • I agree that gun control laws should be uniform, state to state. I guess that’s another way to say they should be federal. But, in order to be fair to California, the other 49 states would have to live with their norms, a sort-of lowest common denomonator.

      After that, we can federally enact the rest of my plan for porper cun control.

      • What an interesting idea of “fairness.” Fairness = ” the most restrictive regime for personal liberty.” ?

        Having lived in California, I can state authoritatively that the government is uninterested in fairness in terms of personal liberty. If it involves sex they’re all for it. If it involves self-reliance, they are foursquare against it.

        Therefore, there will be little useful complaint from California in having to live up to rules “imposing” personal liberty for transient citizens of the United States who choose to live in the more sane jurisdictions of the country.

      • Why would anyone want to be fair to a 3rd world S**thole like California? You might as well offer up the District of Columbia as a model of good and effective government.

  3. National CCW reciprocity will never happen, period, unless SCOTUS makes it so. National reciprocity would be the death of the Brady Campaign Against America and every other group of balloonheads and wingnuts. The Joyce Foundation, Move On, George Soros and their respective clients in Washington will never allow reciprocity to happen, not while there is a breath in their bodies. If history has taught us anything, it’s that dictators do not willingly give up power.

    • I agree it will never happen but how would it be the death of the Bradys and the Joyce folks?

      Are you really saying Soros and the lefty wingnuts are your dictators? Ralph, that’s a little far out even for you, don’t you think?

      • They certainly are dictators, at least in so far as they seek to dictate what others can do by means of a nanny-state.

        They are people concerned with obtaining power for the sake thereof, and are thus not worthy to wield it.

      • how would it be the death of the Bradys and the Joyce folks?

        If reciprocity was the law of the land, all the wingnut states would be required to recognize out of state permits and allow visiors to carry, while at the same time they would be prohibiting their own citizens the same right. That would be impossible. Such a system, where outsiders receive more favorable tretment than locals, could never stand. The outrage against the balloonhead politicians would be immeasurable and the backlash severe. Wingnut states would have to recognize the right of their own citizens to carry, and that would be the end of you and your ilk.

  4. The Library of Congress site, linked above, is down right now for maintenance. I’m sure that all ten of Massachusetts’ congressmen are cosponsors, but I just wanted to check to see if there were one or two holdouts.

    I firmly believe that national reciprocity will be the law of the land before the decade is out, if not sooner. Yes, it will probably have to go to SCOTUS, but it’s going to happen one way or another. Full faith and credit (Article IV, Section 1) and 14th Amendment jurisprudence will eventually carry the day.

  5. The next puppet to serve as front man for the elite will likely be a Republican, from the other branch of the one party system. I could see this passing and getting signed then. I see New Jersey’s non existant permits don’t distinguish between open or concealed carry. Oh, that would be fun.

  6. Sorry but you guys are on the wrong side of this one. The principle of federalism (states’ rights) has helped us so many times in the past–abandoning it for the minor privilege of carrying through NJ, NYC, DC, and IL seems a bit pointless to me. Just avoid the blue states and inner cities altogether

    • Give the feds more power over states, and over the citizens of those states? Yep, sounds like a bad idea. You already hear the talk about “we should use the lowest-common-denominator California for the requirements,” etc.

      There’s already reciprocity between various states, and it continues to grow. You guys hoping this goes through thinking there will be one set of gun laws to rule them all might be kicking yourselves after getting what you wish for.

      Also, going for recognized permits would probably destroy any hope of ever having federal constitutional carry. I know some of you guys who have already jumped through multiple hoops to get your permits in anti-gun states might not mind throwing other people under the bus, though. I see that a surprising amount with CCW’ers from gun-grabber states. They’re all about gun freedom until it conflicts with their set limit of gun freedom.

    • You are way off base. Firearms reciprocity isn’t federal control any more than driver’s license reciprocity is federal control.

  7. I agree. This is a states issue. By getting the federal government involved, you open on concealed carry to a federal ban one day. Leave it to the states and vote with your feet. If the liberal states really do have it right and banning guns is a good idea, their states will thrive and the ones without harsh gun control will be abandoned.

    • First, this bill doesn’t grant any “power”or authority to the Fed, rather it merely requires states to honor permits issued from another state. It does not create a federal permit, nor does it federalize permits other than to require that permits from one state be honored by bad actor states like NJ, NY, MA, CT, etc.

      These states are not going to come around to “constitutional or permit less carry”. Ever. Even if SCOTUS ruled positively fro the right to bear arms outside the home, these states would use their existing restrictions to the fullest of their ability to prohibit bearing arms Like DC. NJ, & MD have said as much already ; that their “permit schemes” are constitutional and there is no right to bear arms outside the home (MD did so in Williams, which might be headed to SCOTUS).

      We should all be supporting the lifting of this discrimination through getting 822 passed.

      Now, that said it appears that NRA-ILA isn’t fully supporting this bill given their tepid, lukewarm lobbying efforts for it. Contrast their support for this bill with the “protection of lawful commerce in arms” act. The latter got the NRA-ILA’s absolute full time and attention until it was passed. HR822 however has only been mentioned a few times since January.

      Also, why does it need more co-sponsors? 218 is enough to pass the house, as was proven to us with the so called AWB in 1994. There are 242 co-sponsors now, more than enough to pass. So GET IT PASSED already and sent to the Senate and GET IT PASSED there! Stop lavishing more money on do nothing staff so they can afford the latest 7 series BMW (you know who you are) and Merc SLK (you know who you are too).

  8. “…there may come a day when the President [sic] signs a bill that creates national right-to-carry reciprocity.”

    THE President is Mr. Obama. I don’t think it will happen. Perhaps you meant “a president”?

  9. We don’t need it. Let the states handle it. Once it becomes a federal law it can be changed in a heart beat should one side have complete control.

    • And if it does change in a heartbeat, we’d be no worse off than we are now. I’m sorry but there’s no downside to reciprocity.

      • I’m not so sure. If they can threathen to withhold transportation funds to get the states in-line for what ever, they can do it to force repeal of pro-gun laws. The upside would be that at some point the “other” side would be in power and could reverse things.

  10. Apparently it has only been relatively recently that police were universally permitted by Federal statute to CCW while off duty.

    • You are thinking of LEOSA (the “Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act”), a 2004 federal statute (expanded in 2010) that allows active and retired LEOs to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the US, regardless of any state or local law to the contrary. It isn’t known whether LEOSA overrides department policies about off-duty carry by active LEOs; that issue hasn’t been tested yet and could go either way.

  11. NEVER gonna happen, because it ignores one of the founding principles of federal gun law: its up to the states, and gun control is a real States Rights issue.

    There are a few basic requirements on the federal level, but federal gun control is generally founded on a states-rights model (thus the Federal requirement that you can ONLY purchase a gun in a state you are a resident of): Nevada can allow Nevada residents to have semi-automatic, evil black rifles with 5000-round auto-feeding magazines while California limits California residents to 10 round EBRs with bullet buttons, and everyone is happy.

    The same exists already for concealed carry.

    Utah will give a concealed carry permit to practically any non-felon with a pulse (including non-residents of any state which doesn’t have reciprocal recognition of Utah concealed carry permits), while California deliberately devolves authority to the county level: Sacramento will give one to just about any county resident willing to wait through the somewhat tedious process, while San Francisco will pretty much only give them out to Senators.

  12. Here in Alaska ccp’s can be obtained with a class by a certified instructor, although anyone over 21, even those without a ccp, can carry it concealed or in plain sight as long as the individual can legally own a firearm. And that doesnt apply to just handguns; I could take my AR or AK to the grocery store if I wanted to. Permits in Alaska are really only available so that us Alaskan’s can carry down south, and so that people who never go shooting or anything, can pretend and think they are “a trained expert,” because they put 50 shots down the barrel of their brand new, overpriced pistol, that they got from Wal-Mart a few months back because it looked cool, and they needed a boost to their manhood.

    Anyway, Alaska has the most gunfriendly laws in the US, and as a result has a low number of shootings (with the exception of the shithole known as Anchorage).

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