Concealed Carry & Home Defense

CCW Weekend: Why You May Want To Hold Your Horses On National Reciprocity

(Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

Guns and Gear Contributor
Font Size:

By Sam Hoober, Alien Gear Holsters

As we’re all likely aware, the House of Representatives has passed HR 38, a bill containing both a national reciprocity law but also a bit of a patch for the Brady Act, enhancing the data collection and enforcement powers of law enforcement to keep prohibited persons from purchasing firearms.

The law, if passed as-is, would compel states via the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution to recognize any valid concealed carry license. Anyone in the United States would be able to put on a concealed carry holster, put a pistol in it and be able to lawfully carry in any state so long as they had a permit.

You might get the idea that grey skies are about to clear up, and we, the maligned concealed carry community, can finally put on a happy face. The current arrangement has some serious drawbacks, as it makes criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens and all for the shocking act of crossing a line on a map. Harelipping Bloomberg is just the icing on the cake!

I’d hold my horses, though.

While this is a positive step in safeguarding Second Amendment rights, there are some enormous hurdles standing in the way which are going to need to be dealt with before taking effect. A lot can go wrong between here and national reciprocity.

First is the Full Faith and Credit Clause itself. For those unfamiliar, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of Article IV, Section 1 mandates that states accept (or “give full faith and credit”) to the public acts, records and proceedings of other states. In short, states must recognize and honor official documents and so on of other states, though Congress can dictate how they are recognized.

However, there are exceptions. Specifically, the Supreme Court held in Pacific Employers Insurance v. Industrial Accident that the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not apply to public policy or statutes. In other words, the laws or public policies of one state cannot override those of another, so the traffic laws of, say, California don’t apply in South Dakota.

Here’s why that matters: the final arbiter of what our rights actually are in practical terms is the Supreme Court, for good or ill, and there hasn’t been a Supreme Court case establishing a right to carry a gun. An absolute right to own, yes; that was settled by Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, but not to carry.

The closest thing to a SCOTUS case regarding carrying of firearms outside the home were two appellate cases, 2012’s Moore v. Madigan from the 7th Circuit and 2016’s Peruta v. California from the 9th Circuit.

In Madigan, the 7th Circuit held that the right to carry was fairly obviously implied by the Second Amendment and therefore that Illinois had to at least offer a permit of some type. Illinois’ shall-issue carry law was passed soon after, preventing the issue from going to the Supreme Court. In Peruta (which was denied a writ of cert by the Supreme Court this year) the 9th Circuit held that while California’s may-issue laws may involve strict scrutiny in granting a person a license, a person can technically get a license, meaning Second Amendment rights are respected.

As a result, concealed carry and also reciprocity could be considered matter of state policy and laws. As it stands, HR38 is likely to be challenged (and an injunction against national reciprocity issued) on those grounds.

At this point, you might think “well, all states take driver’s licenses, so how could that be?” A driver’s license is actually recognized voluntarily. The states have all agreed to recognize motor vehicle licenses without federal prompting; there is no legislation compelling any state to recognize a driver’s license from another.

Then there’s the issue of the bill getting past the Senate, which is not guaranteed. Both houses of Congress have been dogged by infighting and dysfunction for years. Currently, there are 52 Republicans, 46 Democrats and 2 Independents. Presuming all 52 Republicans vote for the bill, 8 Democrats need to cross the aisle to pass the bill. The task is not Herculean, but far from guaranteed, and that’s after any revisions are made.

Should the bill be substantially altered, it must then go before a conference committee, wherein members of the Senate and House must agree on the bill before sending it to the President for signature.

So yes, this is a wonderful step towards national reciprocity. The law-abiding citizens of the United States should be able to carry in accordance with their Second Amendment rights without fear of arrest thanks to draconian restrictions by paternalistic elites that have the temerity to posit they act in our “best interests.” They don’t, and never have.

But we have a long way to go before it becomes reality.

Click here to get your 1911 Pistol Shopping Guide.

Click here to get The Complete Concealed Carry Training Guide

Sam Hoober is Contributing Editor for AlienGearHolsters.com, a subsidiary of Hayden, ID, based Tedder Industries, where he writes about gun accessories, gun safety, open and concealed carry tips. Click here to visit aliengearholsters.com.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel