The figure above shows the 32 states that honor a Pennsylvania concealed carry permit (resident). Interested readers can look up where other state permits are honored here.

Since the November 8th election, there has been some hope that national reciprocity for concealed handgun permits would be similar to that for driver’s licenses. If you have a driver’s license in Florida, you can drive all the way to Maine or Washington state or drive in Alaska or Hawaii. That is not the case permitted concealed handguns. If you are a truck driver who is carrying valuable shipments, and you have to travel in California, Illinois, New York or some other states, you are effectively banned from carrying over your entire trip. Since you can’t carry in New York state, there is no way that you can go from New England to the rest of the country or vice a versa.

But with only 52 Republicans in the Senate and 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster, Democrats are promising to kill any reciprocity bill. From the Wall Street Journal:

Peter Ambler, executive director of Americans for Responsible Solutions, a gun control super PAC, said his organization plans to fight national reciprocity “tooth and nail,” threatening a Democratic filibuster of the legislation in the Senate. “It’s a race to the bottom,” he said. “It allows people that have permits from states with the weakest standards possible to carry [weapons] in the streets of any U.S. city.” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat and ardent gun-control advocate, said he believes any version of a national reciprocity bill would be “dead on arrival” in the Senate, due to strong Democratic opposition. . . .

The argument about the race to the bottom is easy to deal with. Permit holders are not only incredibly law-abiding, but there is also no evidence of more problems with permit holders in states that have relatively laxer regulations on who can carry (see chapter 10 of More Guns, Less Crime).

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

concealed carry

By johnrlott

