utbagpiper
Banned
Minions of the CC Industrial Complex hold themselves up as the responsible practitioner of our RKBA. The CC Industrial Complex has been the greatest impediment to permit-less carry in MO, and other states. The CC Industrial Complex would have OC made unlawful via legislative acts.
Utah is not among those "other States".
While we do not yet have legal gold star OC, we have made some important progress in the last few years including specific protections against bogus charges of Disorderly Conduct for those who OC a holstered firearm, as well as permit free car carry (OC or CC) in Utah. Two years ago, permit free CC/OC passed our legislature but was vetoed by the governor.
So far as I can recall, we've never had either individual permit instructors, nor any association of Utah permit instructors lobby against any bill that moved us closer to permit free constitutional carry. They've never lobbied in favor of any bill to require additional training for permits.
A couple of years back when we had some reported problems with Utah certified instructors in other States, the local instructors lobbied to require all Utah certified instructors to come to Utah in person for initial and periodic refresher training. I believe they joined with pro-RKBA organizations to lobby in favor of requiring non-resident holders of Utah permits to first obtain their home-State permit if their State recognizes a Utah permit. This was done to protect recognition of Utah permits by other States.
I understand that in some States, permit instructors have taken to favoring their own income over true RKBA. That is most unfortunate, but do not assume that your local experience is ubiquitous.
If a permit is a infringement, permits must be disparaged at every turn.
Hogwash.
Shall issue permits have served as an important stepping stone from no practical carry allowed in many places, toward permit free respect for RKBA? With the exception of Vermont, how many States currently enjoying permit-free concealed carry did not pass through shall issue permits?
Only those completely naïve as to how the SCOTUS makes decisions would think that Heller and McDonald were made without consideration of the State and local firearms laws. In his dissent, Breyer bemoans that 41 States preempt cities from passing local gun bans as the reason more local gun bans don't exist. He points out that pro-RKBA respondents point out the statistical data on strict gun laws correlating to higher murder rates with no drop in suicides, while laws making it easier to carry guns have benefits for personal protection. He writes, "These empirically based arguments may have proved
strong enough to convince many legislatures, as a matter of legislative policy, not to adopt total handgun bans."
Of course, he goes on to give his reasons for rejecting the data. But the data was present before the court. If Breyer writes on it, it was certainly on the mind of the 5 Justices who ruled favorably (however narrowly, but favorably) in Heller. And that data was present largely because politically achievable progress on legally carrying firearms had been made since antebellum and Jim Crow era laws intended to disarm slaves and other "undesirables" had been applied fairly universally to all commoners, excepting only the wealthy and well connected. The majority decision also quoted State constitutional RKBA provisions, some of which had been updated to be more explicit about the individual right to KBA.
Even if we had somehow had exactly the same members on the court in 1980 as we had in 2007, I'm not at all convinced that Heller would have been decided in favor of an individual right to own a handgun and keep it ready for use in one's home. I believe there is a distinct possibility that it would have instead come down as a "collective right" subject to complete bans of guns anytime a modest government interest could be shown. 5-4. Only one justice would have had to be swayed to the other side.
There are times and places where the supposed "value" of permits needs to be attacked so as to advance from shall issue permits to permit free carry. But there are other times and places where shall issue permits and recognition of out-of-State permits remain the next politically and/or judicially possible stepping stone. Getting DC to recognize other jurisdictions' permits would be a huge win for our ability to defend ourselves. Similarly if Maryland, NJ, NY, Illinois, Cali, and other States were required to recognize out-of-State permits.
Sure, a single ruling forcing the entire nation to recognize permit-free RKBA would be ideal. We are not likely to see that. We can continue to make incremental progress. Shall issue, non-discriminatory permits have been and will likely continue to be an important part of that for some time to come. Such permits are offensive to our constitutional rights, but are less offensive than most every other politically/judicially probable alternative.
Let us also not forget the millions of LACs who have enjoyed greater ability to legally defend themselves the last 3 decades because of shall issue permits, than otherwise would have been able to. Permit free carry would have been better, but not political feasible in most areas.
And as much as we all support OC, we need to recognize that even most who carry are not comfortable with OCing themselves. The ability to legally carry discretely was instrumental in bringing many new persons into the fold of the pro-RKBA community.
Thirty years ago conventional wisdom was that gun ownership was going to come to an end. Fewer people were hunting. Ranges and gun training had been taken from schools. It was getting harder for the ever more urbanized population to find ranges for recreational target shooting. The gun haters just had to wait for us gun owning dinosaurs to die off and there wouldn't be enough who cared about guns/RKBA to put up any practical political opposition. But then something happened. Crime was way up and somehow, Florida cracked the door on shall issue permits. Most States followed. And a whole new group of gun owners emerged: urbanites who wanted guns specifically for self-protection. Many had no interest at all in hunting, or target shooting or collecting. They wanted to protect themselves, but were not inclined to OC in most cases. The '94 black gun ban hit and the community fractured between "Fudds" and collectors and militia nuts with black rifles and the growing ranks of handgun packing city dwellers woke up and came together.
Shall issue permits played a key and positive role in drawing many new folks into our ranks. They helped set the stage for Heller.
We need to move beyond them to permit free carry as quickly and as widespread as possible. But shall issue permits are nothing to disparage for any who understand the history.
Charles