Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn announced Saturday at the general meeting of the Texas State Rifle Association in Austin that he will introduce the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act in the upper chamber next week.
The legislation, according to a press release from Cornyn’s office, will “allow those with concealed carry privileges in their home states to exercise those rights in states with similar laws.”
Cornyn proposed his concealed carry reciprocity bill in 2013 and again in 2015 but both attempts failed in the upper chamber. Cornyn’s present bill comes just over one month after North Carolina Republican Rep. Richard Hudson announced a concealed carry reciprocity bill in the House, and both bills are expected to be a companion to the other.
“Our Second Amendment right doesn’t disappear when we cross state lines, and I plan to introduce legislation in the first days of the 115th Congress to guarantee that. The Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 is a common sense bill to provide law-abiding citizens the right to conceal carry and travel freely between states without worrying about conflicting state codes or onerous civil suits.”
States with strict gun control laws like New York appear ready to put up a fight if such legislation passes Congress and makes it to President Trump’s desk. The NY Post’s usually right-leaning editorial board called it “insane” for Congress “override” the Empire State’s gun laws.
However, if the legislation manages to make it past the more difficult hurdles of the Senate as well as any potential court battles from State Attorney Generals, New York may not have much of a choice and Trump himself has repeatedly said he wants to see national reciprocity for legal gun owners across the U.S.
“I’m very much in favor of making all concealed-carry permits valid in every state,” Trump wrote in his book, “Crippled America.” “If we can do that for driving — which is a privilege, not a right — then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.”
