Posted on 10/11/2026 5:23:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Concealed Carry Reciprocity is a perennial issue for good reasons. Currently, reciprocity is granted only between states that enter into compacts. How many states offer reciprocity? That’s hard to say with precision. Most likely, only 22, and five more require no permit. The devil, as always, is in the details: at least six states--Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Maine--seem to have reciprocity but only honor permits issued in those states.
Yes, that’s contradictory and makes no sense, which creates a problem for anyone traveling in those states. If you come to the attention of the police, they may agree no one can be sure of what’s legal and what isn’t, which makes the law void for vagueness, or they may be uninformed, or hard-asses who will arrest you for any offense, real or imagined, and God only knows which sort of judge you’ll draw.
This state of affairs is particularly annoying in that the Second Amendment is an express constitutional right, and the right not only to keep, but to bear arms in public has been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court, subject to limited exceptions, such as “sensitive places” like courtrooms, jails, and the like. Concealed carry permits must be shall-issue rather than may-issue.
None of that matters much to blue cities and states, which grudgingly comply with the letter of the law while doing everything they can to violate its spirit, constructing all manner of blatantly unconstitutional rules and fees to obstruct and frustrate gun owners.
It’s enraging when one considers that every state grants reciprocity for driver’s licenses, marriage licenses, and other common matters. None of these invoke an unalienable, constitutional right like the Second Amendment, the right that secures every other right, yet that’s where the law stands, and probably always will:
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I have to side with the states on this one where concealed carry is the issue. I don’t want to, but I feel like I have to.
Never heard of the Full Faith and Credit clause, I see.
L
Of course I’ve heard of it. I’ve also heard that concealed carry is not a 2A issue. Whatever you think is fine with me.
Why not buundle firearms reciprocity to automobile registrations? Massachusetts, for example, would not have to recognize Texas or Arkansas concealed carry permits. But Massachusetts drivers would have to stop at Arkansas and Texas state lines for a temporary tag to visit or drive through the respective state. Firearms are a Constitutional right, automobiles are not.
Why not buundle firearms reciprocity to automobile registrations? Massachusetts, for example, would not have to recognize Texas or Arkansas concealed carry permits. But Massachusetts drivers would have to stop at Arkansas and Texas state lines for a temporary tag to visit or drive through the respective state. Firearms are a Constitutional right, automobiles are not.
You really need to read the highly suppressed and now out of print 1982 Senate report on the RKBA. I have a paper copy from the US Government printing office.
Here is an on line copy.
https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html
“The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.”
19th century cases
16. * Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878).
“If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the (p.17)penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.”
17. * Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Crim. App. 298, at 300-01 (1878).
“We believe that portion of the act which provides that, in case of conviction, the defendant shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on or about his person is not within the scope of legislative authority. * * * One of his most sacred rights is that of having arms for his own defence and that of the State. This right is one of the surest safeguards of liberty and self-preservation.”
18. * Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 8 Am. Rep. 8, at 17 (1871).
“The passage from Story (Joseph Story: Comments on the Constitution) shows clearly that this right was intended, as we have maintained in this opinion, and was guaranteed to and to be exercised and enjoyed by the citizen as such, and not by him as a soldier, or in defense solely of his political rights.”
19. * Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846).
“’The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.”
And the SCOTUS case that led to the Civil War..
Are Negros citizens...Dred Scott
“It would give to persons of the negro race, who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union, the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased.... and it would give them full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to KEEP AND CARRY ARMS wherever they went.”
Paragraph 77 in the link below.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html
If/when it finally gets to SCOTUS, the issue won’t be “concealed” carry because 2A makes no distinction between concealed and open.
The issue will be the right to bear arms, regardless what state you happen to find your self in.
Until 2010’s McDonald decision, states could deny your 2A rights seven ways to Sunday and you had no recourse. The current problem is many of those states have “legacy” violations of your 2A rights on the books. And Antis being Antis, it always was going to take a SCOTUS decision to settle the argument.
I had to check, although Kavanaugh covers the Eighth Circuit Court, but whether it is accepted or not has to be voted on by all of them.
Spit.
I live in Massachusetts, the biggest gun-grabber there is, and they have a firearms database we are under penalty of law that we have to register “ghost guns”, firearms, or frames we have built in it before the end of the month.
And they definitely won’t ever voluntarily recognize reciprocity.
I believe people should be able to carry any kind of weapon openly, everywhere.
Of course it is. It's half of that "keep and bear" thing in the 2A itself.
Illinois says "hold my beer 'n watch this!"
Illinois banned every single weapon I own, despite my having purchased every single weapon I owned IN ILLINOIS more than a decade ago.
The state wanted myself and almost 2 million other gun owners to register our weapons so we could keep them.
Guess how many responded? It was so low, the state could barely report it. Under 5,000 losers and suckers registered their weapons.
I ended up moving out of the damn' state for the Free State of Tennessee. It was one of the reasons I left that hell hole, the tax tyranny by JB Pritzker and the super-majority democrat controlled legislature was the main reason.
The list of weapons banned in Illinois is in the HUNDREDS, and last I recall, Glocks are banned in the state now too.
Imagine that.
Ugh. That does sound even worse. Glocks aren’t even banned here.
I don’t have to register any firearms I might have owned before this law went into effect the year before last. Only the ones I might have built, such as an unserialized receiver or frame, or ones I might have milled from a blank.
I don’t know where this guy got the idea that Colorado doesn’t have reciprocity. It’s on the state website.
https://cbi.colorado.gov/firearms/concealed-handgun-permit-chp-reciprocity
I really doubt that anybody is going to risk their career and possible person liability arresting you for a completely legal act. The wording on the website is not on any way ambiguous.
Constitutional carry is the only goal worth seeking. No permits or registrations, no tracking of purchases or ownership. Shall not be infringed means shall not be infringed.
Crime with a weapon should be punished severely enough to deter those so inclined. If you can’t be trusted to be armed you should not be running around loose.
I don’t see a distinction between concealed and open in the second amendment.
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