Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Concealed Carry Reciprocity

I guess we must be scaring the gun control crazies a bit.  PBS (which definitely qualifies as a gun control crazy organization) had an interview with Daniel Webster (no, not that Daniel Webster) of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Control Policy worrying about what might happen if the last ten states with discretionary permit issuance laws were forced to recognize permits from other states.  (No word what he thinks about Illinois, which has no permits at all.)
DANIEL WEBSTER: Well, at the federal level right now, the effort most relevant to the case we're talking about now with Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin is a bill that would make it so that the relatively few number of states -- about 10 states have laws that allow law enforcement to use their discretion issuing permits for concealed carry of firearms.

The bill under consideration would make it so that you would have to -- a state would have to honor a concealed carry permit from any state in the United States. So, Florida, for example, has one of the least restrictive, most permissive types of laws. And people are already getting permits from Florida that they use in other states that allow that.
But the congressional -- what's under consideration in Congress now would make it so that across the board, states like Maryland, for example, that have what's called a may issue concealed carry, would have to honor permits from states with very lax standards.
Except that Florida is not "one of the least restrictive, most permissive types of laws."  Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming--they don't even require a permit anymore to carry concealed.  Even among shall-issue states, to call Florida "least restrictive, most permissive" just shows his ignorance.  Idaho, for example, is less restrictive, enough so that I ended up getting a Florida permit because states like Texas would not recognize Washington State or Idaho concealed carry permits.  Florida has instructional requirements, for example, that Washington State and Idaho do not.  (Although some Idaho counties do have such requirements.)

I would love PBS to get a real expert on the show, but if they did that, it wouldn't suit their agenda. It makes me wonder how often the "experts" on other issues that PBS has on are as knowledgeable as this guy.

1 comment:

  1. no, not that Daniel Webster

    There was a man from Peoria who ran for the Illinois State Senate in the 46th District in the Democrat primary this year - named James K. Polk.

    Really.

    As far I can tell, though, he had no position on the annexation of Texas.

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