Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) has introduced a bill—the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act—that would give legal concealed carry gunowners the right to travel with their handguns from state to state without having to worry whether they’re breaking laws— like licensed drivers do, the Washington Times reported.
“[My bill] operates more or less like a driver’s license,” Sen. Cornyn 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.”
The National Rifle Association praised the measure, referring to it as a “much-needed solution to a real problem for law-abiding gun owners,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action, on the NRA-ILA website.
Cox went on: “The current patchwork of state and local laws is confusing for even the most conscientious and well-informed concealed carry permit holders. This confusion often leads to law-abiding gun owners running afoul of the law when they exercise their right to self-protection while traveling or temporarily living away from home.”
This isn’t the first time Cornyn’s broughtforward his bill. He introduced it in January of 2014, also, saying then that it would bolster “two of our nation’s most fundamental rights, ensuring law-abiding gunowners can lawfully carry their weapons into like-minded states, while respecting the rights of states to adopt laws that are best-suited for the people of that state,” in a statement on his website.
Similar legislation has been filed in the House of Representatives for several years, and has even passed there but has been stalled without a vote in the Senate. With Republicans holding a majority in both houses of Congress, a national reciprocity bill stands the best chance ever for passage. Whether it would survive a presidential veto is the key question.
