Earlier this year Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., introduced H.R.38, legislation that would allow concealed carry permit holders in one state to exercise their right to carry in other states.
Despite introducing a similar bill every year for nearly a decade without success, Hudson believes that the House, and even the Senate, will approve it this time. The bill made it through the House Judiciary Committee 18-9 on March 25.
A similar version made it through the committee in 2017.
“We got it through the Judiciary Committee, we got it through the House. But the Senate wouldn’t move it,” Hudson told Fox News last week.
However, this time Senate Majority Leader “John Thune is committed to the issue. So I think we’ll get it done this time.”
Hudson told Newsmax shortly after he introduced the bill in January that concealed carry reciprocity “is just common sense” to him — and it should be to everyone.
“When I drive from my home in North Carolina to D.C., I don’t have to stop at the Virginia state line and take a new driver’s test and get a Virginia driver’s license,” Hudson said on “Carl Higbie Frontline.”
“They recognize that North Carolina license. And so it’s just common sense that when it comes to your Second Amendment right, your right to conceal carry, that every state ought to recognize that concealed carry permission coming from a different state.”
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, also believes that reciprocity on gun rights makes perfect sense.
“Our First Amendment rights do not change from one state to another and our Second Amendment rights should not either,” Jordan told his colleagues. “Law-abiding citizens should be able to a concealed firearm between states without worrying about conflicting state criminal laws or onerous civil suits.”
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, agrees that national right-to-carry is a logical approach.
“Nobody should leave his or her right of self-defense at the border when they cross over into another state. The Founders never envisioned such a scenario when they ratified the Constitution. Law-abiding, licensed citizens do not commit violent crimes,” Gottlieb said in a press release.
“Our very essence as an organization is to protect and defend the right to bear arms,” Gottlieb continued. “We’re gratified that other Second Amendment organizations are also on board, so we are in very good company.”
Chief among those “other Second Amendment organizations” is the National Rifle Association, and Bob Barr, NRA president, noted that the time had come for a national right-to-carry reciprocity law.
He observed that the NRA had always been at the point of the spear to fight on behalf of law-abiding gun owners on other concealed carry issues, and that he’s looking forward to this one.
“We have now reached another crucial point in the concealed-carry movement. It is time to eliminate the patchwork of state laws that makes it nearly impossible for lawful Americans to travel from one state to another without having to choose between risking their lives by leaving their firearms at home or jeopardizing their freedom by inadvertently violating the law in more-restrictive states,” he said.
But assuming the bull makes it through both the House and Senate, will President Trump sign it into law? He said he would in November.
“I will protect the right of self-defense wherever it is under siege. I will sign concealed carry reciprocity. Your Second Amendment does not end at the state line,” he said.
If he sticks to his guns, that’s great.
But that appears to be a departure from his thinking seven years ago.
In 2018, Rep. Steve Scalise, R- La., told Trump that the House intended to push a bill that would fix some of the problems with firearm background checks, and combine it with a national right-to-carry reciprocity bill.
“You’ll never get this passed if you add concealed carry to this,” he said.
“You’ll never get it passed.”
This meeting took place a few weeks following the Feb. 14, 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead.
Addressing that event specifically, the president said, “I like taking the guns early. Take the guns first, go through due process second.”
Also, some Second Amendment advocates claim that Trump has been sending mixed messages lately leaving them confused.
It’s going to take a Herculean effort to get H.R.38 approved by both chambers of Congress — especially the Senate.
It would be heartbreaking to get that far only to have the president veto it.
Trump campaigned this time around on the promise that he would be a pro-Second Amendment president — especially on national right-to-carry.
Congressional Republicans and pro-Second Amendment Americans should hold him to it.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and is a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He’s also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz’s Reports — More Here.
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