Puerto Rico changed from “may issue” permits to “shall issue” permits on January 1, 2020
On January 1, 2020, Puerto Rico changed from “may issue” permits to carry firearms to “shall issue” permits.
Puerto Rico recently underwent a sea change in its firearms law. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico had one of the most restrictive firearm laws of any American jurisdiction. In 2016, there were only 225,000 legally owned firearms in the Commonwealth. The legislature noticed the Supreme Court decisions in Heller, MacDonald, and Caetano, and the many cases pending before the courts. They also must have noticed Puerto Rico’s homicide rate was higher than any state in the United States.
The legislature decided to bring Puerto Rico law into compliance with the Second Amendment. In 2019, they debated the subject and passed Act No. 168. Governor Wanda Vázquez Garced signed it into law on December 11, 2019. The act took effect on January 1, 2020.
The act transformed Puerto Rico from a highly restrictive may-issue jurisdiction into a moderate, shall-issue jurisdiction. The law included reciprocity arrangements to recognize permits from the 50 states. It appears those arrangements have been thwarted by administrative inaction.
Opponents of reforming may issue law to shall issue routinely predict the change will degrade public safety. They tend to use the “blood in the streets” emotional argument. There have only been four years and a few months since the law in Puerto Rico went into effect We have the homicide rate figures for the four years before the law went into effect and the four years after. We have an approximation of what happened to legal gun ownership in Puerto Rico during from 2020 to 2023.
