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Hudson Urges Support of Concealed Carry Reciprocity

December 6, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 6, 2017
Hudson Urges Support of Concealed Carry Reciprocity
Rep. Hudson’s Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38) will be voted on later today
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson (NC-08), author of the bipartisan Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38), spoke on the House floor in support of his legislation:
“For every freedom-loving American who exercises their Second Amendment right, today is your day. For the 73% of Americans who support concealed carry, today is your day. For the 15 million concealed carry permit holders out there, today is your day. And finally to the single mothers out there who just want to protect themselves and their families, today is your day.”
Image removed.
To watch the whole speech, click here.
Full transcript
“Let me tell you a story. It’s a story about an African American single mother with two kids, living in south Philly. After twice being the victim of muggings, she decides to go out and legally purchase a firearm to protect herself, gets trained with her weapon, and applies for a concealed carry permit. Sometime thereafter, she crossed the state line into New Jersey and at a routine traffic stop, did exactly as she was trained: handed her driver’s license and concealed carry permit to the police officer and let him know that she had a pistol in her purse. What she didn’t know is that the state of New Jersey doesn’t recognize the concealed carry permits of their neighbor in Pennsylvania. And so this poor single mother, who has never had a brush with the law, spent almost 50 days in jail and was looking at 10 years in prison. Are you serious? We have to make sure that never happens again.
The other side today is going to argue that we’re violating states’ rights with this legislation, but Article IV, Section 1, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, says very clearly that every state should give the full faith and credit to the judicial proceedings and documents of every state and that Congress has the responsibility to determine how those documents will be recognized. That’s why a driver’s license is recognized in every state. That’s why if I get married in North Carolina, but I move to Arizona I’m not a single man again. They recognize that marriage. That’s why divorce decrees are recognized in every state. The concealed carry permit should be recognized the same way.
But this is not trampling states’ rights because states can still determine what can be carried, where it can be carried – they can set any kind of limits they want about how weapons are carried in their municipalities or states. For example if you visit the state of New York, they have a limit on the size of a magazine on a pistol – you’ve got to follow that law. If they want to set restrictions about places where you can’t carry – even with this legislation, that law would have to be followed. The states retain this right. Just like a driver’s license.
The other side is also going to stand up and claim all kinds of doomsday scenarios about how we’re ‘going to increase crimes,’ we’re ‘going to increase the number of weapons out there,’ we’re ‘going to turn the cities into the Wild West.’ I find it ironic that we’re being lectured to by people from big cities with a lot of gun control measures, but have some of the worst crime in the nation. They’re worried about people coming from other places where we don’t have crime. I think that’s ironic.
But the truth is over half the states already recognize permits from every other state. Nineteen states, in fact, already do this. States and municipalities, as I mentioned, retain the right to restrict where guns are carried in their communities – even under this legislation. And if you look at the empirical evidence, places where you have concealed carry – even constitutional carry – when you instituted this right, violent crime went down, gun crime went down. You’ve seen less crime, not more crime. There’s actually a study done in Florida and Texas and it showed that off duty police officers commit crimes more than concealed carry permit holders. Think about that. Police officers don’t commit crimes very often, but even they commit crimes more than concealed carry permit holders. These are not the people we’re worried about. These are not the violent criminals that we’re worried about in our cities.
This is a common sense measure that upholds our constitutional right. It makes sure that a law-abiding permit holder trying to do the right thing doesn’t become a criminal simply because they’ve crossed that line. And so for every freedom-loving American who exercises their Second Amendment right, today is your day. For the 73% of Americans who support concealed carry, today is your day. For the 15 million concealed carry permit holders out there, today is your day. And finally to the single mothers out there who just want to protect themselves and their families, today is your day.”
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