This would be great. If I’m traveling up I95 I have to stop and lock up my gun before I cross the Maryland border, and cannot carry concealed in NJ. Or Pennsylvania or NY if I go there. Or anywhere up north. Or, if I want to go west. I took a course on CCW and got a license
EXCLUSIVE: John Cornyn Introduces Bill Allowing Concealed Carry Permits To Work In All 50 States
Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn introduced a bill Thursday to allow concealed carry license holders to carry their guns in any state.
The bill, titled the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, will compel states to recognize concealed carry permits from all states as a valid certification to carry a concealed firearm, according to the bill text. A similar bill was proposed in the House in 2023 by Republican North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson with widespread Republican support, with a Republican majority in both chambers only bolstering the law’s likelihood to pass.
President-elect Donald Trump has also voiced support for the law on the campaign trail.
“The Lone Star State has long championed our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and gun owners in Texas and across the country should not have that fundamental right violated when they cross state lines,” Cornyn said in statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This legislation would reduce unnecessary burdens for law-abiding citizens and allow them to carry a concealed firearm in every state that permits it, and I’m grateful for the overwhelming support from my fellow Republican colleagues on this commonsense bill.”
In reality, the vast majority of states would honor my NC permit, except for California, Oregon, NY, PA, Colorado, Maryland, NJ, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Michigan, Colorado, and Illinois. A big thing would be to understand the laws of the other states, but, since both of my guns have 10 round mags (though the 9mm also has a 12 round mag) I’d be fine. The question becomes with a law like Cornyn’s, should there be some sort of nationalized standard for concealed carry in terms of where one can carry? How about standardized licensing? Do we want los federales setting those standards? Might it be better than each individual state setting a standard, at least in terms of traveling outside of a state? Or, should we just leave it to each individual state?
Anyhow, it will pass the House. However, the chance of getting enough Democrats to vote to overcome a filibuster is low.
Critics of concealed carry reciprocity have said that the law would force states to potentially allow carry from gun owners who aren’t qualified to carry in their states, as well as problems with states affirming the authenticity of out-of-state permits, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
“With the tragic rate of gun violence today, I simply cannot support efforts to further weaken our nation’s gun laws,” Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said according to Politico when Hudson proposed concealed carry reciprocity in 2017. “That includes renewed efforts this Congress to relax the standards for issuing concealed carry permits or to establish a national system that would further erode state-level concealed carry standards.”
So, this comes back to perhaps requiring people to pass a CCW class in order to carry outside the home state. When NC was looking to pass Constitutional Carry residents would not be eligible to carry in other states. They would have to pass a class. Perhaps Cornyn’s law could require passing a class?
I appreciate your views. The second amendment community needs to stop the nitpicking,!
Pass concealed carry reciprocity and we will worry about this other stuff later.
To sit here and nitpick it We hurt are own cause.
The Democrats gun grabbers don’t do this They are united all the time. We in the second amendment community are not united we need to be.
It is our right as Americans to keep and bear arms and that’s in any state.
That is because you are not united at all. You allow your enemies to be in your club. They know that and take advantage of it. All you have to do is look at how the republican party stabs Republican voters in the backs EVERY TIME.
If states are required to recognize other licenses from other states — marriage licenses, driver’s licenses including CDLs, CDL medical cards, &c — why shouldn’t they also be required to recognize firearms licenses?
Yikes! A federal concealed carry license? Twenty nine (29) states permit concealed carry by any person who can legally own a firearm – no license or permit required!
Federal overreach!!
We don’t need a federal firearms license. We need the feds OUT of the Second Amendment altogether.
Agreed. But until then, nation-wide reciprocity is good enough. Just like with driver’s licenses, marriage licenses, and vehicle license plates. Some state demand vehicle safety inspections, some do not, but you don’t get your car towed if you enter Virginia with a vehicle registered in Ohio. Maybe something like a clause in the constitution giving “full faith and credit” to the lawful acts of the other states. But that will never happen.