I’ve been peppered with messages from folks asking me to blog on the national right-to-carry reciprocity bill introduced today in Congress.
(The Hill) – Gun owners would be allowed to carry concealed weapons around the country under new legislation introduced in the Senate.
The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act would allow gun owners who have a concealed carry permit in their home state to bring their firearms in any other state with concealed-carry laws.
“This operates more or less like a driver’s license,” Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the second-ranking Republican in the upper chamber, told The Hill. “So, for example, if you have a driver’s license in Texas, you can drive in New York, in Utah and other places, subject to the laws of those states.”
Yes, a bill has been introduced to allow national reciprocity. Yes, it would mean you or I could go to California or see some of the Revolutionary War sights in Massachusetts and New York State and be able to carry the means with which to defend ourselves.
This proposal *might* make it through Congress. At the very least, it will be great to get some Senators and Congressmen on record as to their support (or lack thereof) of basic civil rights when it comes to guns.
President Barack Hussein Obama will never sign the bill into law and I am skeptical we would have the votes to over-ride an Obama veto.
So, while the bill has been introduced, don’t get your hopes up.
It’s got about as much chance at passage as a bill to eliminate Obamacare.
I know how our two wonderful senators from Illinois will vote. I am not a genius, nor do I play one on TV.
Sound and Fury, signifying nothing.
Call me a pessimist, but I don’t think it would even get through the Senate, even the nominally Republican Senate. It certainly wouldn’t pass with a veto-proof majority. And Congresscritters just don’t spend their political capital on bills that they know are doomed.
Getting the idea out in front of our representatives has a certain utility. As mentioned, it will get some of them on record concerning their stand on the issue, and it will also bring it to the national stage. Exposure to the idea is the only way something like it will ever get passed. I dont expect it to this time around, or even the next, but eventually it will and there will be someone in the Whitehouse with the stones to actually sign it. A day to look forward to.