Free Republic

This extreme legislation, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011, would obliterate state and local eligibility rules for concealed weapons and the state’s discretion to decide whether to honor another’s permits. At least 36 states now set a minimum age of 21 for carrying concealed guns, and 35 states require some sort of gun-safety training. Thirty-eight states prohibit people convicted of certain violent crimes like misdemeanor assault or sex crimes from carrying concealed weapons. The act would override those rules, requiring states with tight restrictions, like New York and California, to allow people with permits from states with lax laws...

In “Gunfight,” his provocative, highly uneven new book about the fight over gun control, the constitutional law professor Adam Winkler writes that “gun rights and gun control are not only compatible; they have lived together since the birth of America.” He argues that “despite the controversy over the meaning of the Second Amendment, Americans have always had the right to keep and bear arms as a matter of state constitutional law. Today, nearly every state has such a provision in its own constitution, clearly protecting an individual right unattached to militia service... --snip-- But Mr. Winkler implies that gun control...