By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Clatsop County, OR District Attorney Joshua Marquis has acknowledged that his misgivings years ago about a change in state law that expanded concealed carry via a “shall issue” statute were all wet.
In a letter to the Portland Oregonian, responding to a story that appeared in the Oct. 8 issue of that newspaper about the rise in concealed carry licenses, Marquis noted, “I thought it would be a disaster. I was wrong.”
The letter ironically appeared as the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a lawsuit in Maryland, challenging that state’s arbitrary concealed carry licensing structure that gives broad discretion to state officials to deny, essentially on a whim, permits to carry.
That law was challenged by the Second Amendment Foundation and Maryland resident Raymond Woollard, whose permit renewal was denied because he could not show “a good and substantial reason” why he should be allowed to carry a firearm for persona protection.
But the man who posed a threat to Woollard and his family perhaps provided that demonstration in September when he attacked his estranged wife and his parents. Kris Lee Abbott, who went to jail after his confrontation with Woollard in the Woollard home a few years ago, had been freed. After attacking his wife and beating his parents with a pipe, Abbott committed suicide with a gun he legally could not possess because of his felony conviction in the Woollard incident.
When the federal lawsuit was initially decided by District Court Judge Benson Everett Legg, who found the Maryland licensing scheme unconstitutional, the judge wrote, “A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”
Judge Legg also noted in his ruling that “In addition to self-defense, the (Second Amendment) right was also understood to allow for militia membership and hunting. To secure these rights, the Second Amendment‘s protections must extend beyond the home: neither hunting nor militia training is a household activity, and ‘self-defense has to take place wherever [a] person happens to be’.”
Marquis’ letter could be a wake-up call to officials in Oregon and neighboring Washington, where concealed carry has been under attack by anti-gunners trying to exploit last year’s Sandy Hook massacre to further their political agenda. Concealed carry had nothing to do with the Newtown school shooting, or the movie theater attack in Aurora, CO last year, but that hasn’t stopped gun prohibitionists from trying to capitalize on public outrage.
According to his letter, Marquis was “appalled by the prospect of thousands of drivers packing heat when few really needed to and the risk it would place police officers in…” But his admission that he was wrong is seen by gun rights activists as a small victory.
This is not the first time a public official has acknowledged that he was mistaken about legally-armed private citizens and how they would conduct themselves. By some estimates, there are more than eight million citizens who legally carry concealed in this country, and more than 445,000 of them live in Washington, and about half that number in Oregon. Surprisingly, there is no reciprocity between the two Northwest States in terms of concealed pistol license recognition but residents of both states can obtain licenses from the other. Idaho, meanwhile, recognizes licenses from both states.
