The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011

HR.822, the "National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011" is a small but long-overdue step toward the restoration of the Constitutional right of Americans to self-defense by enabling concealed firearm permit holders to exercise their right to self-defense while traveling outside their home states.

Just a few years ago, the right of responsible Americans to carry a concealed firearm was all but lost due to decades of anti-liberty legislation and court rulings. Of course, not one of those laws affected the behavior of criminals. Today, forty-nine states have laws restoring, to some extent, the right of responsible adults to carry the best means of defense against those criminals – a gun.

Statistics from this restoration of the right to carry a concealed firearm show that civilians carrying guns tend to be more responsible in the use of their guns than law enforcement. The portion of licensed civilians who violate the law is statistically insignificant.

FBI data shows that states with right-to-carry laws have significantly lower violent crime rates. The seven states with the lowest violent crime rates are right-to-carry states.

Other statistics indicate that permit-holders from States with little or no training requirements are just as safe and conscientious as permit-holders from States with severe training and screening requirements. In fact, there is a strong movement to reduce training requirements and even permits altogether because legislatures are learning that training and permit mandates don't really matter. Besides, the people they should really be focusing on -- criminals -- don't bother with permits.

So, the claim that some States make that nobody else's permit is good enough is not valid. The bottom line is that those states most likely reject the permits of other States primarily because they lose revenue from reduced sales of their own permit -- not because permits from other States are somehow unsafe.

There is no rational justification for one State refusing to recognize the permits of another. This is a willful violation of the Second Amendment rights of visitors from other States. It must be stopped. HR.822 is intended to do just that.

HR.822 recognizes the significant impact of landmark Supreme Court cases 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.

HR.822 would establish interstate recognition of lawfully issued carry permits, just as they recognize driver's licenses and carry permits held by armored car guards.

HR.822 will not create a federal licensing or registration system; establish a minimum federal standard for the carry permit; involve the federal bureaucracy in setting standards for carry permit; or destroy permitless carry systems such as those in Arizona, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming.

I am unalterably opposed to the central government telling the States what they must and must not do except where absolutely necessary to enforce the US Constitution. Gun rights is clearly one of those fundamental Constitutional issues.

I therefore urge every congressman and the acting president to aggressively fight for immediate and overwhelming enactment of this legislation.