The Gun Rights Absolutists Bringing Constitutional Carry to a State Near You

[HAB911]

The crusade for concealed guns in public with no permits began at a diner in Arizona. Now it's going national—with or without the NRA.


No-compromise gun activists are building momentum for state laws that allow firearms owners to bring their weapons into public spaces without securing the government permits or completing the proficiency training now required in most parts of the country.

Their efforts, which have already led to new laws and legislative proposals across a quarter of the United States, is wrapped in the language of high ideals: Advocates call their preferred policy “constitutional carry,” the idea being that the only authorization they need to take their guns wherever they please was extended by the Founding Fathers themselves.

The crusade seems to have begun around a table at a 1950s-themed greasy spoon in Arizona, where four frustrated gun advocates hatched a plan between bites of barbecue.

“We decided that the Constitution means what it says,” said Charles Heller, one of the men gathered around the table at the 5 & Diner that summer day.

https://www.thetrace.org/2017/02/constitutional-carry-gun-rights-absolutists/

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

1. Maybe not

The state neither issues nor requires a permit to carry a weapon on one's person, openly or concealed. This permissive stance on gun control is known in the U.S. as constitutional carry, since one's "permit" is said to be the United States Constitution. Vermont is the only state where this has always been the case (hence the alternative term Vermont carry). Vermont law does not distinguish between residents and non-residents of the state; both have the same right to carry permit-free while in Vermont.

The Vermont Constitution of 1777, dating well before the Bill of Rights to a time when Vermont was an independent republic, guarantees certain freedoms and rights to the citizens: "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the State – and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power." The Vermont Supreme Court established the right to carry firearms without a permit in its 1903 State v. Rosenthal decision.

[ileus]

2. Bad news is in my state of Va it's not going to pass.

My wife and I will continue to renew our "rights" every 5 years...