BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today applauded the introduction of the “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act” by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and is encouraging America’s 22 million-plus licensed citizens to get behind the measure.
“No citizen should leave his or her self-defense rights at their state border,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “While many individual states do have reciprocity agreements, we have always maintained—and the Supreme Court has affirmed—the right to keep and bear arms applies to the entire nation, and this legislation certainly recognizes that.
“We’re encouraged that so many members of the Senate, 43 in all, are signed on as co-sponsors,” he added. “Unfortunately, we don’t see a single Democrat’s name on the list, but hopefully that will change, because their constituents have Second Amendment rights, too.”
The Cornyn-Hagerty measure will allow citizens with concealed carry permits and licenses in their home state to exercise their rights in any other state. It also treats state-issued carry licenses like a driver’s license; good in any state, but the laws of those states must be followed. It protects state sovereignty by not establishing a national concealed carry standard.
“The last time a national reciprocity bill was introduced,” Gottlieb recalled, “it passed the House but stalled in the Senate while the gun prohibition lobby and Capitol Hill anti-gunners flat-out lied about what it would do, and not do. Wild claims that reciprocity would force states to not enforce their own laws ran rampant, as did the specious argument that the federal government would adopt a single weak standard everyone would have to follow.
“That experience reminded us how anti-gunners will say literally anything to prevent law-abiding Americans from being able to exercise their right to bear arms, and to defend themselves, while traveling,” he noted. “It’s time for national reciprocity to become the law of the land, and we hope American gun owners will keep an eye on this legislation.”