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A National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Bill

H.R. 822, introduced in the U.S. House by Representatives Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), would allow any person with a valid state-issued concealed firearm permit to carry a concealed firearm in any state that issues concealed firearm permits, or that does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms for lawful purposes. A state’s laws governing where concealed firearms may be carried would apply within its borders. The bill applies to D.C., Puerto Rico and U.S. territories. It would not create a federal licensing system; rather, it would require the states to recognize each others’ carry permits, just as they recognize drivers’ licenses and carry permits held by armored car guards. Rep. Stearns has introduced such legislation since 1995.

• H.R. 822 recognizes the significant impact of the landmark cases, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), which found that the Second Amendment protects a fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms and that the protections of the Second Amendment extend to infringements under state law.

• Today, 48 states have laws permitting concealed carry, in some circumstances. Forty states, accounting for two-thirds of the U.S. population, have right-to-carry laws. Thirty-six of those have “shall issue” permit laws (including Alaska and Arizona, which also allow carrying without a permit), two have fairly administered “discretionary issue” permit laws, and Vermont (along with Alaska and Arizona) allows carrying without a permit. (Eight states have restrictive discretionary issue laws.)

• Citizens with carry permits are more law-abiding than the general public. Only 0.01% of nearly 1.2 million permits issued by Florida have been revoked because of firearm crimes by permit holders. Similarly low percentages of permits have been revoked in Texas, Virginia, and other right-to-carry states that keep such statistics. Right-to-carry is widely supported by law enforcement officials and groups.

• States with right-to-carry laws have lower violent crime rates. On average, right-to-carry states have 22 percent lower total violent crime rates, 30 percent lower murder rates, 46 percent lower robbery rates, and 12 percent lower aggravated assault rates, compared to the rest of the country. The seven states with the lowest violent crime rates are right-to-carry states. (Data: FBI.)

• Crime declines in states with right-to-carry laws. Since adopting right-to-carry in 1987, Florida’s total violent crime and murder rates have dropped 32 percent and 58 percent, respectively. Texas’ violent crime and murder rates have dropped 20 percent and 31 percent, respectively, since enactment of its 1996 right-to-carry law. (Data: FBI.)

• The right of self-defense is fundamental, and has been recognized in law for centuries. The Declaration of Independence asserts that “life” is among the unalienable rights of all people. The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms for “security.”

• The laws of all states and the constitutions of most states recognize the right to use force in self-defense. The Supreme Court has stated that a person “may repel force by force” in self-defense, and is “entitled to stand his ground and meet any attack made upon him with a deadly weapon, in such a way and with such force” as needed to prevent “great bodily injury or death.” (Beard v. United States (1895))

• Congress affirmed the right to own guns for “protective purposes” in the Gun Control Act (1968) and Firearm Owners’ Protection Act (1986). In 1982, the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution described the right to arms as “a right of the individual citizen to privately possess and carry in a peaceful manner firearms and similar arms.”

Why the Gun is Civilization

This post is by Marko Kloos


   Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.


   In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.


   When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.


   There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.


   Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.


   When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Mike Vanderboegh’s Gunwalker Letter to Mexican Consul General (A Must READ)

This is taken directky from The Truth About Guns

CÓNSUL GENERAL SALVADOR DE LARA
Consulado General de México en Atlanta
1700 Chantilly Dr. NE
Atlanta Georgia 30324

Your Excellency,

I have been asked by someone who knows you well to brief you in writing about what I know about the scandal known as “Project Gunwalker” which resulted in the death of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on 14 December and especially on the deliberate, calculated and premeditated violation of Mexican sovereignty that this incident entailed.

By now I understand that you have been made aware of the questionable circumstances surrounding the death of BPA Terry — how the ATF allowed over 2,000 semi-automatic rifles to be purchased by informants and “straw purchasers” and smuggled south of the international border in an ill-conceived attempt by the ATF to boost the agency’s case for more funding in the much criticized “Project Gunrunner.” In this operation, American gun stores were encouraged to allow questionable sales to go through, even when they called ATF to ask if they wished the transactions to be declined at the point of sale. (See the case of Carter’s County gun stores in the Houston area.)

Here is what attorney Dick Deguerin was quoted as saying about this case, just a day before the murder of BPA Terry:

“Let me tell you something about Carter’s Country. They have been co-operating with ATF from the get go,” says attorney Dick Deguerin who represents Carter’s Country owner, Bill Carter.

Deguerin says the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms asked Carter’s Country to complete transactions, even when sales people strongly suspected the weapons were headed to Mexican drug gangs.

“They were told to go through with what they considered to be questionable sales. They were told to go through with sales of three or more assault rifles at the same time or five or more 9 millimeter guns at the same time or a young Hispanic male paying in cash. It’s all profiling, but they went through with it,” said Deguerin.

It was inevitable that one or more of the weapons allowed to go south without notifying the appropriate authorities of your government would end up in the hands of criminals. Brian Terry is dead from a bullet fired from one of these. Statistical probability and plain logic indicates that far more than one of your own citizens have already been killed by them since this operation began.

You should know that one ATF employee, Darren Gil, the ATF attache in Mexico City, tried to do the right thing. Though he was kept out of the “intelligence loop” by Special Agent in Charge of the Phoenix, Arizona office, William D. “Bill” Newell, my understanding from other ATF agents who have now been contacted by Senator Grassley’s office, is that Mr. Gil, when he learned by informal communication channels that this was happening, clashed with SAC Newell over whether your government should be notified. Newell insisted that there would be no notification of the appropriate Mexican authorities.

Mr. Gil, I am told, did not take the word of a mere SAC when such an action involved possible violations of treaty and formal understandings between our two governments, contacted his superiors in Washington, D.C. In a meeting that I am told included the Deputy Attorney General, Deputy Director Melson of ATF and various subordinates, it was decided to keep the government of Mexico in the dark. Mr. Gil, in return for his honest attempt to prevent an effusion of blood as well as an international incident, was forced into retirement and did so on 31 December of last year. Here, in words of an experienced ATF street agent, is what I was told on 17 December 2010:

“Darren Gil, former attache to Mexico is an honest and honorable guy. He was forcefully removed from Mexico without warning in November in large part because he wouldn’t sit silent on these matters. He will tell the truth if asked by competent authority. He retired Dec 31 because of all this.”

I understand that representations have been made to your government informally that this was an isolated incident. Yet, if that were the case, then why did our Attorney General Eric Holder select SAC Newell to replace Darren Gil earlier this week? He is to go to Mexico City and take over the attache position by 8 May according to ATF orders.

This again is a studied and deliberate insult to the government and sovereignty of the Republic of Mexico. To select the man who insisted that your government be lied to, either by omission or commission, cannot be otherwise interpreted

I urge you to press this question with the U.S. State Department at the earliest opportunity. At the least, the government of the United States owes the Mexican government an abject apology for allowing this scandal to threaten the lives of Mexican citizens and the safety of your streets. Whether such an outrage demands monetary damages is, of course, a matter of consideration for your government. I would say, however, after many years of studying the ATF from near and far, that talk is cheap, promises forgotten and apologies insincere. Money damages, on the other hand, is a coin of the realm they well understand.

If I can be of further service, do not hesititate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126