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Senate Rejects National Reciprocity for Concealed Carry

I admit… I’m torn on this one. 

In a rare win for gun control advocates, the Senate on Wednesday rejected a measure allowing a person with a concealed weapon permit in one state to also hide his firearm when visiting another state.

The vote was 58-39 in favor of the provision establishing concealed carry permit reciprocity in the 48 states that have concealed weapons laws. That fell two votes short of the 60 needed to approve the measure, offered as an amendment to a defense spending bill.

Opponents prevailed in their argument that the measure violated states rights by forcing states with stringent requirements for permits to recognize concealed weapons carriers from states that give out permits to almost any gun owner.

On the one hand, the 2nd Amendment is a federally guaranteed right and should be uniformly enforced.  Then, of course, we run smack dab into the issue of incorporation. 

On the other hand, all rights in the Constitution are subject to reasonable restrictions.  Defining “reasonable” should be left to the states, which are sovereign.

Thoughts?

Posted by Owen at 1715 hrs
Firearms + Politics + Politics - General

1. Where is it written in the Constitution that rights are subject to restrictions?

   At least Feingold had the sense to support this amendment.

   Kohl is nothing but a gun grabber.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 22, 2009 at 1745 hrs
   
   
   

2. Marc;

   Tenth Amendment:
   The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

   See also the Fourteenth Amendment:
   nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ...

   So, as long as a state has duly passed a law, and it is not in conflict with either its own constitution, or the of the United States. They may make reasonable restrictions on the exercise of rights.

   Also see:
   The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873)
   and the discussion of police powers.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 22, 2009 at 1810 hrs
   
   
   

3. I don’t think crime is reduced by concealed carry and I don’t think violence is increased by concealed carry.  I don’t think my ability to own a gun, no matter the type, is an effective or rational deterrent against government oppression.  I think it is an ongoing argument about nothing between extremist lovers of gun porn and reactionary anti-gun zealots.

   Sorry to be a-hole on this Owen, I know you are asking for honest opinions about an intricate issue of law that really could spawn a thoughtful debate about state’s rights versus constiutional rights.  But I just have a visceral reaction to this topic.  I hate it, it goes nowhere, no one on either side is right in how they characterize the results if their side loses, and no one wins elections based on it.  So hopefully that explains my prickishness on the topic.

   I will now sit back an take the lashings I am due from either side.  Or hell, maybe everyone will just ignore me as I probably should have done on this topic.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 22, 2009 at 2230 hrs
   
   
   

4. First lets look at the intent of the founding fathers on weapons:

   “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
   -Samuel Adams

   “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
   -Thomas Jefferson

   “As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
   - Tench Coxe, Asst. to Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton… in the Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789

   “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government. This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty… The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to Protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorize the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.”
   -St. George Tucker, Lawyer, Revolutionary War militia officer, legal scholar, U.S. District Court judge!!!

   Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
   -James Madison

   We must remember what the Bill of Rights are…human rights that NO government has the right to impose their will over.  The 10th Amendment, while freeing the States to enact their own laws, are still prohibited from enacting any law that would come into conflict with the human rights enumerated in the first 9 Amendments.  Therefore, the states are in violation when they do so.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 23, 2009 at 0303 hrs
   
   
   

5. Lefty, in many states where concealed carry is legal, certain crimes have dropped. Nor have we seen the bloodbath that anti gun folks always claim will happen. That said, the states can pass restrictions, within the state constitution, as per elovrich. Kind of like how is Roe v. Wade were overturned by the supreme court, it would go back to being a State issue, where it belonged in the first place.

   Posted by Billiam on July 23, 2009 at 0627 hrs
   
   
   

6. I am with lefty on this one as far as caring about guns and not believing the claims of either side of the issue. 

   I care about it from one angle only, that of a constitutional right and here is where I think Lefty and everyone else should care.  If you agree that gun ownership does not lead to violent chaos you should be against gun legislation that infringes on the constitutional rights because if some group comes up with the correct argument for limiting that right, it is only a matter of time before enough precedents of baby step infringements cause a restriction that you do care about or causes enough restrictions where you no longer have the right to protest them.

   All basic rights should be defended as vigorously as possible, if you believe in the value and validity of the American contitution.  That is not saying that you are unpatriotic if you are anti-guns, but it does show ignorance of or lack of respect for the constitution and the rights provided by that document.  Or the worst yet most likely possibility, that you are apathetic about that right because you do not personally own or want to own a gun.  Infringements on one right sets precedents for more infringements on any one of our other basic rights.

   Lefty, that is why I care about this issue.  I do not own nor want to own a gun, but I am eager to defend others rights to own and carry them.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 23, 2009 at 0843 hrs
   
   
   

7. And know, apairently I dont use spel chek.  So when I write contitution, it was a careless keyboard error.  I am not against tits.

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 23, 2009 at 0847 hrs
   
   
   

8. Tuerqas,

   I support the right to bare tits.  However, I am against “concealed carry.”

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 23, 2009 at 1414 hrs
   
   
   

9. Exactly!  Why didn’t the founding fathers have that included in the Bill of Rights?
   I wish I was against tits… 

   
   Whoa, the regression…

   Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 23, 2009 at 1423 hrs
   
   
   

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