There is a big problem with concealed carry. If you have a concealed carry license in your state, you are probably aware that it’s not recognized if you cross over state lines. How does that make any sense? Why doesn’t your Second Amendment right to bear arms continue into all of the states no matter where you travel?
There’s an important congressperson who wants to change this.
Congressman Richard Hudson (R-NC) is at the forefront of the movement to make it legal to carry your concealed weapon across state lines, and penned the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act or H.R. 38. This is a brilliant bill that allows a gun owner with a concealed carry permit to travel with their gun in states that allow concealed carry.
There are a few states that don’t even allow concealed carry because they have “no-issue” laws. These include New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Hawaii. So, the new concealed carry bill wouldn’t work in those states, but would for most of the others.
The bill would allow for a concealed carry permit to act in the same way that a driver’s license does. Considering that almost 20 million people have a concealed carry permit in their state, it goes without saying that this new bill, if passed, would impact a lot of Americans.
Since states are able to come up with their own laws regarding the Second Amendment, some states already have a form of reciprocity when it comes to recognizing concealed carry permits. For example, Florida is very good on this issue. They recognize the concealed carry permit of any state pursuant to Section 790.015 Florida Statutes, as long as the other state will honor Florida’s weapons permit. That’s reciprocity with gun rights as it should be.
There are some states that don’t agree with this type of cooperation. Our country’s capital, Washington, D.C. doesn’t recognize other states’ gun permits. So if you travel to D.C. with your concealed carry weapon, you’re breaking the law. You have to have one of their specific permits and be a resident to conceal carry your firearm there.
People have definitely been arrested and charged with the crimes when they travel with their firearms over state lines. Jeremy Preston is one of those people. He lives in Tennessee, has a concealed carry permit there, but was traveling to Delaware where he works. When he was pulled over by a police officer for speeding, he rightfully declared to the officer that he had a Glock in the glove box with his concealed carry permit. The officer arrested him anyway on a felony charge. The arrest had the potential to ruin his life and his $100,000 job at a nuclear power plant.
The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act hopes to prevent this problem from happening to citizens who lawfully and responsibly own guns. The bill has been sitting in Congress since 2019 — and the Democratic majority is unlikely to vote on it. However, if Republicans can bounce back in just two years, hope is renewed for gun owners throughout the nation.
