Hudson: HR38 won't affect access, restrictions on guns

A proposed bill that would require law enforcement to recognize concealed carry gun permits across state lines passed the House Judiciary Committee this week.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), who sponsored the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, or H.R. 38, has taken to social media and conventional news channels to drum up support for the legislation, claiming it won’t make it easier for people to get guns or affect which types of firearms they can use. He said he hopes it will pass the greater House of Representatives by the end of the calendar year.

“H.R. 38 is a very simple, common-sense bill that simply seeks to protect authorized citizens who are attempting to follow the law and do the right thing and also protect their families, trying to protect them from becoming criminals when they cross the state lines,” Hudson, who represents North Carolina’s eighth Congressional district, said in an over-the-phone press conference. “You’re not infringing on state rights because the state still has the right to determine what kind of gun you can carry and where you can carry it. This law is just saying you have to recognize that document just like you would a driver’s license.”

The bill would allow those with concealed handgun permits to have a concealed weapon in another state that already allows concealed carry. The individual would need to have a valid photo ID and a valid concealed carry permit as well as be allowed under federal law to have a gun.

Under the proposed law, individuals would still have to follow all local laws—state, county and municipal—where they are in regards to concealed carry even if they differ from the state where they got the original permit.

“There are a lot of issues out there, but concealed carry really is one that doesn’t deal with access to weapons,” Hudson said. “It doesn’t deal with state or municipal rules about what you can carry or where you can carry, so any state or municipality can still have rules about preventing concealed carry in certain places or preventing certain types of weapons. None of those things are prevented by [the bill].”

The opposition
Several groups—such as Everytown For Gun Safety—oppose the bill, however, claiming that it would lower concealed carry standards to the weakest laws in the country since some states have different requirements on who can obtain a firearm and what safety training classes individuals must take.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who’s the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said during the Wednesday, Nov. 29, discussion that he opposed H.R. 38 because he thought it would weaken gun restrictions across the U.S.

“The level of gun violence in our country is astounding and unacceptable,” he said, according to the U.S. House Committee on The Judiciary Democrats website. “Our gun violence problem is much more than the periodic, but all-too-frequent, horror of mass shootings. Every day in American, on average, 32 people are murdered with a firearm and 164 people are shot in an attack and survive.”

Nadler said Congress must work to close loopholes and fix weaknesses in the country’s gun laws instead of making it easier to carry firearms.

“This bill dangerously takes us in the opposite direction,” he said. “This bill would overrule restrictions on the concealed carrying of firearms that states have carefully crafted to make this practice safer, based on the needs and circumstances of each state.”

In the wake of recent mass shootings across the country, H.R. 38—any any legislation dealing with guns—faces criticism about possibly making it easier for people to access firearms. But Hudson said the bill doesn’t alter any requirements for gaining a gun or conceal carry permit; it just addresses how they should be accepted across state lines.

Arguing for safety
In fact, the Congressman said representatives are working to address many of the public's safety concerns. A separate bill in the house contains language that would require federal agencies to report information that might affect an individual’s ability to get a gun, putting more teeth into the background check system—which addresses the concerns many had about the Texas shooting where the Air Force failed to alert federal investigators about the shooter’s violent past. The measure would require agencies to input into the FBI system records of criminals, domestic abusers and others not allowed to carry a gun. It also encourages states to report similar information.

Hudson also said another bill would require the Bureau of Justice Statistics to report back to Congress on the criminal use of bump stocks, the device used in the Las Vegas shooting that makes semiautomatic weapons fire faster.

“Wherever you stand on the Second Amendment, everyone agrees we ought to enforce the laws we’ve got,” Hudson said. “The background system is only as good as the information that you put in it and the way you’re processing it, and we want to make sure that all the information is in it.”

Hudson said he has 213 co-sponsors for the H.R. 38, including three Democrats, and hopes H.R. 38 will move on to the Senate in the early months of 2018.