This sort of thing is the result of a permitting policy called may-issue. Basically it means the party that issues permits, usually the local sheriff or police department, can deny a concealed carry application for any reason. States adopt this policy as a way of punting CC policy making down to the local level.
In practice the may-issue policy has repeatedly proven to be an irresistible opportunity for graft. Despite this some states continue to maintain may-issue policies, including California and New York.
This is exactly right! When there's no clear set of criteria for a permit and people get denied for this or that or maybe no reason at all. Just try getting a (unrestricted) LTC in Boston, near impossible -- unless you "have friends". This is how LTCs (License To Carry) work in Massachusetts, it's city by city dependent on the Chief of Police.
The criteria should be clear and contestable in court. Like it or not, it's a constitutional right and the law should be "shall issue" (unless good reason not to -- and I'm all for reasonable "good reasons not to").
I say this as a big proponent of the right to self defense on a personal level, the current legal view is that, gun possession in the public square is not a right, it is a privilege, one that can be revoked as seen fit by the government. What is a right, is to keep and bear arms, this means one can maintain possession of their arms without fear of confiscation on their personal property or property in which they have expressed approval of the private owner.
This is why even as far back as the early 1800's it was not uncommon for local sheriff's to mandate a leave your guns at the sheriffs post at the edge of town policies. Yet, the local barkeep could still have a shotgun under the counter. Town was the public square, where the local bar, while a public establishment, was a private proprietorship.
Many of these type of rights extend from the pre-US castle doctrine laws which summed up shortly basically conferred the concept, that a person is king of their castle, the states rights should be significantly curtailed, when it comes to a personal private property. More modern day utilization tends to just boil it down to self defence, in ones private property, but historically it held a view which helped shape many of the personal liberties that were incorporated into the Bill of Rights.
Since nearly the foundation of the USA public possession has always been seen as a privilege extended by the state. In earlier times this was generally pathwork local law and the local sheriff view of guns carried in their town. Now it is generally more formalized via a state based licencing scheme.
A good read on rulings that imply it is a privilege:
Converse to the last paragraph though is that while precedence and the lack of challenges early on to public restriction lead to the concept of public possession being a privilege, the subject is now in modern day being battled out in the courts, and there have been some rulings ignoring history policy precedence
With all that being said, may issue is fraught with corruption and unnecessarily restrictive, in my state we have a shall issue and it works well, especially coupled with our strong castle doctrine laws. So well, that at the entry of my state an anti-gun group put up a billboard that said "Visitor's Warning - Florida residents can use deadly force". The billboards actually has the opposite effect than the group had intended so they removed them.
I would be a proponent of each state going to a shall issue system and extending the public privilege to a national recognition and reciprocity system, much like the state's driver licence systems are. That being said, it's fairly consistent that the state has almost since the beginning seen public possession as a privilege extended and not an absolute right.
A good read on the subject and precedence for public gun carry, from a purely historic perspective is this article:
on a completely tangential rant, class 3 FFL transfers, require a sheriff's signature and are just as rife with corruption and cronyism. I used to live in a county where the local sheriff was very vocal about the fact that he would not sign for class 3's, yet every deputy or buddy, cousin or uncle had one. I would love to see the local law enforcement sign off requirement, for Class 3 be removed and rather just make it a duty to inform local law enforcement that one is in possession of a class 3.
> gun possession in the public square is not a right, it is a privilege, one that can be revoked as seen fit by the government.
Right or privilege, it should not be conditioned by bribes. And when a LEO is involved in a bribery case their punishment should start at several times that of the other (non-authority) person because it seems like that right/privilege comes at the end of extortion.
No argument there, I am not a fan of may issue, just ban public carry for everyone in those states and let the chips fall, but the connected don't like it when their bodyguards can't carry guns. In essence it is a ban for only a certain class of people.
As a matter of principle, I will contest any attempt to frame the right to carry on one's person a weapon into the same vein as a driver's license. It is an explicitly granted right. If you look at how traffic enforcement has worked out (in spite of the fact we still play it up as a privilege), senior citizens and the disabled are still at a major disadvantage in mobility in their more enfeebled years, and no semblance of lessening of the regulations of any option to move around ever becomes apparent. It is also utilized as a significant source of revenue generation as particularly notorious small towns are well known for changing up speed limits ob chunks of major roads they straddle just for the bump in revenue.
It is also notable, that gun control also fell under that same set of "State's rights" contributing to the original Civil War, and to hell with the well soap boxed dolts who insist that the only issue the Civil War was predicated on was Slavery. It wasn't. It was only indirectly so because the framework for expansion of Slavery was seen as falling under the banner of State's rights at the time, just as much as gun control itself was also seen as falling under State's rights. It's not a dog-whistle, it's what it bloody was.
Tangent aside, it basically boils down to the fundamental division of "rural v. Urban" in the United States, and to be frank, I side with the ruralites. Just because a bunch of people gather together in one place should not generate some emergent privilege that everyone loses an explicitly granted right except law enforcement. Period. Gun control almost universally arises out of some group being uncomfortable with another group having guns, and the group that's uncomfortable tends to be fine and dandy letting the authorities strut around with them, and would be unlikely to carry anyway; much like how pro public-transit folk seem to be more than okay with onerous vehicle regulation, but balk when the same laws or tenets are applied to them. Better to just not throw anyone under the bus at all.
Call me a yokel if you want. I've seen too much flung in the way of wrapping up other folk's rights in my lifetime in the name of public safety with no signs of a return in sight. Until I see some loosening up, or some honest give and take, I"m in the "not one more inch" camp.
I am not your opposition on this, just stating how the law currently looks at it, and citing the precedence that has been cited before, specifically gun control in the wild west. That being said, I am OK with it being a privilege if it were a universal shall issue. I would prefer that it be decided that it is a universal right, but I am ok with either outcome. I am not a fan of may issue as it tends to be a privilege that only well the privileged gets to enjoy.
With all that being said, I see magazine capacities, foregrip bans, scary gun cause it is plastic and black and those kind of rulings as a direct affront to the 2A because they apply to stuff in my home, I would be a felon if I lived in those states, literally one day I would be legal and the next I am a felon. With no recourse, even the Automatic Weapons Ban in the 80's allowed for the FFL 3 classification and the tax stamp to keep the weapons one already owned and while I am not advocating for a grandfathering of reasonable capacity magazines, and black rifles I am citing that in the AWB there was at least a path to keep your existing stuff legal.
You seem much more level headed and well informed than most of the people arguing gun ownership on either side of the issue. I'd just like to point out a small thing, that by calling the automatic weapons ban in the 80's the "AWB" you are conflating terms between the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 (known as FOPA) and the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 (known as the AWB). People are generally confused between the legal definitions of "automatic weapon" and "assault weapon". I find it useful to be very specific about which you are discussing to avoid confusion and petty arguments about terminology that can keep the discussion from moving forward.
You are right I got my facts confused, meant to say fully automatic weapons ban. I apologize for the misinformation, I misspoke on automatic/fully automatic and I know that is a huge issue of contention so it was an unacceptable slip, as well I should have looked up the actual laws name. Again I apologize for misleading information and thank you for clarifying the information for people.
I believe that I am level headed (at least I like to believe that I am), because I am first and foremost a pacifist but I acknowledge the logic that if someone is trying to harm you, you have a right to not be harmed. I respect devout pacifist and totally understand their logic, that the principle of pacifism is more important to them than self defense because violence flows from a few wells, fear/insecurity, despair/desperation, anger and jealousy. They believe to neutralize violence you are not violent against those that are in one of those states, rather one should be merciful on their them due to their torment, and that mercy is show in love for them and all people. I honestly admire that level of pacifism but don't know if I can ever get there, I get it, I accept that these are the primary drivers of violence but it's hard to be that principled and understanding while standing down the barrel of a gun. As VanZant so aptly put it in "gimme 3 steps", "Well it ain't no fun staring straight down a 44". I may be able to in a situation involving only myself, but with my wife and kids I just cannot see myself getting there. Thus I only carry a firearm when I am with my family. I used to be anti-handgun when I was young and would have been fine with a ban on them. It was not until later in life that I realized that people will literally, pick up a stick and kill someone else, so while handguns primary purpose is human on human violence, I realize that it is just an object and ascribing the violence to the object only blurs what we all need to fix as humans and that is man's inhumanity to man.
That is the questions being proposed, and to be honest I am a 2A person, I would like it to mean bare in public for non criminals but that is not the current ruling or historic rulings by the supreme court. As it sets bare means you can pull out your gun and use it as part of a state sanctioned militia (don't really exist anymore) or as the most recent ruling specified, in self defense. What is not "legally" clear is "where". Well it is legally clear, the only place right now you have the right is on your private property, or property you have been given permission to possess a weapon on. In states if you have a CCW or they have other carry laws, you are afforded the privilege of being able to bare in public and common property with some restrictions. Again this is not my definition, this is what they have ruled.
And that is the current arguments being made, as their is the implication that by the preamble about the state needing the people to be armed to supply the militias if needed, that if they were called into the militia they would almost certainly not be baring arms on their property. We also have to take into account history, and historically the government did not strictly control open lands they were considered open lands or communal so pre-1900's carry laws being what they where, generally only applied to entering and leaving town, pretty much everywhere else no one has beef with someone having a gun. Times have changed, federal uninhabited land is shut off from the people for the most part and rights generally don't extend there anymore, as well town is a whole lot bigger now. These are arguments being made in support that the framers actually meant the right was "in public"
It's not a matter of what I think it means, it's a matter of what the supreme court thinks it means. So far they have been a mixed bag, the inherent self defense ruling was good but honestly should have been a no brainer. Given that one of the founding fathers was killed in a dual, and duals up until the 1900's where pretty much considered mutual self defense.
I think the ninth court hosed the decision on the Federal Assault Weapons Ban as this directly affected guns of similar features but different looks one could own or features that could be placed on guns. None of that really bothered me as a Browning BAR 300 win-mag with a modified magazine for high capacity would absolutely dominate the battlefield, but the key there is the precedent because by being able to ban pieces of the gun (because they only recognize the receiver as the legal gun), they have set the path for the current bans on magazine capacity and that is concerning because if it stands based on precedent, the 7 round magazines restriction, can legally be reduced to 1 round magazines, in effect only legalizing single shot weapons and while I know in the movies and video games, everyone dies from the first shot, the reality is a higher percentage of people survive shoutouts than die from them, even after receiving multiple gunshot wounds.
"This is why even as far back as the early 1800's it was not uncommon for local sheriff's to mandate a leave your guns at the sheriffs post at the edge of town policies. Yet, the local barkeep could still have a shotgun under the counter. Town was the public square, where the local bar, while a public establishment, was a private proprietorship."
I wish people had a better sense of this earlier social arrangement.
It was the most conservative of approaches to gun possession and was imposed by the town elders who wanted to regulate and order behavior in the public sphere.
Now we find ourselves in bizarro world where firearms politics are exactly flipped: a free wheeling "let-do" policy is championed by "conservatives" and a highly regulated policy is championed by "liberals".
In reality, a historical perspective shows us that the ownership of modern weapons by average citizens is off the charts liberal. That is absolutely where it sits on a political spectrum of rights. It is, historically, the prerogative of the most conservative and reactionary interests to prohibit/restrict arms.
All that to say: I prefer the conservative approach. I, too, was very young once and very excited to exercise my rights and privileges ... I open-carried regularly, had a CCW, etc., and the result was a lot of discomfort and bad feelings. Carrying a firearm is a provocative act and it makes sense that conservative actors in a community would try to keep that at bay.
I wish people had a better sense of this earlier social arrangement.
I think some of that has to do with the everreal presence of government in today's day and age. In the wild west, well it was the wild west. Other than the long arm of the law there was very little government or regulation, people did not feel the need that the founding fathers did. In all reality they were pretty free.
Contrast that with today and we have moved more and more issues to the federal level, we have pretty much abandoned the republic for an empire and now we are pushing social issues and regulation to a federal level. This does not end well, it never has.
When we has 50 strong independent governments that had more to do with peoples day to day lives and the federal government just stepped into the states business or rights issues, people had 50 shots at finding a representative government. Not so today, as more and more, the states (governmentally) look like cookie cutters of one another. I think this has set the "all or nothing", "I am not giving one inch" mentality that pervades discussion today, on almost every subject and it is coming from both sides. At a certain point, one side or the other is going to believe they need to stand up to federal government, because they no longer have a representative government and the ones that have guns tend to be of the mentality that those chickens are coming home to roost for their side.
The thing is that liberalism is now basically the only mainstream political philosophy in western countries. "Conservatives" and "liberals" are arguing over different aspects of liberalism.
Sorry, I caught this comment late, but I agree I consider myself an enlightenment era liberal. Most people today peg me on the conservative spectrum, which is not true both parties have been in lock step on the real issues and squabbling it out on "emotional" issues. This is the reason that Clinton doubled down on Regan's/Big Bush's foreign policy and Little bush -> Obama progressed similar domestic controls. They honestly don't fight about anything they care about, just trigger issues, like sectional rights, the second amendment, abortion. I call them trigger issues, as they serve to divide people but honestly they could care less which way the chips fall on those issues which is why they never get resolved, but just keep getting stoked by the politicians.
To be honest even classic liberalism is dead, both are progressives when it comes to free trade, and unification of regulations across the globe.
> Like it or not, it's a constitutional right and the law should be "shall issue" (unless good reason not to -- and I'm all for reasonable "good reasons not to").
I believe the state of the law is that either concealed carry or open carry must be available. They can't both be may-issue, but one can be if the other isn't.
And I tend to agree that that's enough to satisfy the argument "it's a constitutional right".
>States adopt this policy as a way of punting CC policy making down to the local level.
They implement it as a wink and nod end run around the 14th amendment. The whole purpose is so that the states can play dumb when the towns "accidentally" install sheriffs/police chiefs who turn out to be racist and deny all the irish/blacks/latinos their rights.
No, this has American politics inside out. Red states are typically shall issue and blue states are typically may issue. To the extent that it's about introducing discretion as an means to accomplish a specific policy objective by stealth, that objective is gun control, not racism. An end run around the 2nd amendment, not the 14th.
Rights are for everyone. Government privileges always end up favoring particular groups for personal or political reasons. To demote a right to a privilege is to prefer this kind of favoritism over equal protection of the laws.
If "blue" states just didn't like guns, then they would simply ban all CCW permits. But they do like guns -- as long as the "right" kind of people have them and the guns look the "right" way.
Agreed that rights are for everyone, equally applied. It only has to do with it insofar as the conditions he mentions: red states tend to be shall issue, blue states tend to be may issue. If you doubt that's true, look at this map:
Now, that map is 18 years old and things may have changed a little since then, but I doubt it's changed much. This is why, as mentioned above, "may issue" is ripe for graft and corruption.
Army and Navy laws, Cruikshanks v. US, point systems for handguns, gun control in CA are irredeemably motivated by the fear of giving black men the means to defend themselves and their rights.
The 1967 Mulford Act originated in California with the goal of disarming BLack Panther Party members to restrict their (lawful) armed patrols of Oakland neighborhoods.
It was introduced by a Republican, garnered bipartisan support, and enacted by (then governor) Ronald Reagan, with support from the NRA, with the espoused claim of "not harming a single honest citizen."
Arguably, 1967 is not today, but even to people like myself, who try my absolute damnedest to look for non-racial motives where others ascribe racially motivated malice, it looks like it was just designed to disenfranchise Black Panthers of the same 2A right as their white peers.
"Throughout the late 1960s, the militant black nationalist group used their understanding of the finer details of California’s gun laws to underscore their political statements about the subjugation of African-Americans. In 1967, 30 members of the Black Panthers protested on the steps of the California statehouse armed with .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns and .45-caliber pistols and announced, “The time has come for black people to arm themselves.”"
...
"The display so frightened politicians—including California governor Ronald Reagan—that it helped to pass the Mulford Act, a state bill prohibiting the open carry of loaded firearms, along with an addendum prohibiting loaded firearms in the state Capitol. The 1967 bill took California down the path to having some of the strictest gun laws in America and helped jumpstart a surge of national gun control restrictions."
Nearly all gun control measures in the US are rooted in racism. Some in Jim Crow, some in other eras -- but most of them were to ensure that the "wrong people"* couldn't protect themselves.
There's two answers to this, that both have a bit more nuance than I expect HN to be okay with.
One is that the AWB wasn't a racist provision of the overall bill. The gun control measure was not rooted in racism.
The second is that the bill as a whole wasn't "rooted" in racism. It certainly was a bad bill that had terrible consequences, and we should undue a lot of the damage it did, but the intent of the bill was, in part, to help the black community (and it had support from many people in the black community at the time). Horribly misguided in hindsight though.
The crime bill was designed to stop the "super predators" (to quote two democrat presidential candidates). It was a racist depiction of black men. It included a provision to outlaw scary black guns. You can't really divorce the two and pretend they're not related.
I call BS considering 99% of sheriffs are locally elected officials. They aren't "accidentally installed".
On a side note, the nice thing about sheriffs being elected is they don't have to listen to a god damn thing the state tells them to do (within confines of law obviously). They work directly for the people of their community.
Exactly. In NYC retired cops can't even get them, but bodyguards of the rich can. Not to mention all gun laws are infringements of the second amendment.
Why would retired police have special access to this sort of permit? The entire justification for it is that their dangerous job necessitates special privileges. That justification doesn’t apply to retired people. It may apply to actively employed private security, I don’t know. At least the reasoning makes sense, though.
If you've been an LEO for 10 years or more there's a federal law that allows you CCW anywhere (without a specific permit, just some ID that affirms your LEO status).
So much for equal rights, some I guess are more equal than others!
You are referring to the LEOSA Laws but even they are problematic as a former LEO could be arrested for having a magazine that holds more than 7 rounds.
Good question. I believe if anyone would be qualified for a permit, it would be them. Not that they should receive special access. The current system isn't based on qualification, but on privilege.
"The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) is a United States federal law, enacted in 2004, that allows two classes of persons—the 'qualified law enforcement officer' and the 'qualified retired or separated law enforcement officer'—to carry a concealed firearm in any jurisdiction in the United States, regardless of state or local laws, with certain exceptions."
The 2nd amendment does not require "need". The whole "may issue" concept is broken. Why doesn't California have a reciprocity policy like most other states? Not only can I not carry there, I cannot even bring the gun I have in my pocket right now into the state because it's not "approved" there.
The issue, is that we have not even got to the CCW "need" part. The issue is they are still battling out is: is public carry a right or a privilege? Currently the state views it legally as a privilege, per the last supreme court ruling, thus at the moment it does not fall under the purview of the 2nd amendment. And can be restricted not unlike a drivers licence as driving is a privilege. If that changes, then all states would be restricted from placing any requirements on the public possession of weapons. The problem is there is a lot of precedence dating back to at least the early 1800's on the restrictions of carrying in public. See my post above for details on the right vs privilege of public carry.
To be clear, the argument that is being played out is not on owning weapons, that has been decided. The argument that is being played out is does the spirit of the 2A incorporate a conferred right to carry in public. History and precedent dating back to the early 1800's says it does not. But there is that tricky "bare" part in the 2A as the spirit of the law would assume that they were not just protecting the right to "bare" them on one's own private property, given the pre clause about people needed to be armed so that the militias had a good supply of armed men, to ensure a free state.
On a related note, I see magazine restrictions as a more direct affront to the 2nd amendment. If they stand, then it can be abstracted to the amount (any amount) of ammunition can be restricted, which means the most restrictive states can and will outlaw everything, but single shot weapons to comply with the letter of the 2A rather than the spirit.
Restricting CCWs in a manner that would absolutely not fly for free speech, voting, or some other right isn't the issue. The issue is that some states have set up discretionary license issuing schemes that in practice violate the 14th amendment.
I don't disagree that the may-issue / shall-issue is a 14A as people are not getting equal protection under the law. My GP post was addressing the issue that many are under the impression that the 2A is interpreted as a universal right to have a gun anywhere at any time and that we are are still legally addressing that question. The 14A is important but secondary to that question. If it is decided that public carry is a 2A right then this 14A issue disappears but if it does not just like speech it is subject to reasonable restrictions, I cannot have a nuke, I cannot have bio weapons, I cannot have destructive devices, these don't make sense to extend to privileges. Public carry for the reason of self defense, does. As I said, if they go to a will-issue like FL and TX and universal reciprocity like the drivers licence system. I have no problem with the interpretation remaining that it is a privilege. It is not an unreasonable infringement on the 2A.
There are restrictions on free speech in public, I cannot yell fire into a crowd, I cannot incite a riot, I cannot tell people to vote for Jo Jorgensen while I am waiting in line to vote. Same with voting, I cannot vote twice even if my freedom of expression wants to.
This issue at hand is with those rights, they do not logically make sense to extend the spirit of the law via allowing some of those prohibited things via privileges.
This is why the 5th is such a good parallel, because I have an inherent freedom of movement but I don't have an inherent right to do it via the public roads, using an automobile. I have the privilege to do so via a licence. Now I can own an auto, I can offroad all over my property, that is my right but as soon as I hit the public pavement it becomes a privilege.
going back to the first, I can yell fire in my house all day long that is my right, but if I pick up the phone and utilize the public networks via dialing 911 and yell fire it is a very different situation. Again, it just does not make sense for the 1st to have some of it's limitations extended into privileges.
My overarching point is the 2A issue is not settled, many tend to take one stance or the other, but it is very much in flux, that will decide if the 14A issue is really a moot point.
That's not actually correct, it says "arms", not "some arms". If you take guidance from the "militia" part (possibly dubious, as it's generally interpreted as a preamble), a militia, in a current defensive war, would require anti-tank and anti-aircraft rockets and missiles, at the very least. The problem with that is, in Heller, the militia is not really part of the test anymore. You might be able to argue against suitcase nukes, and they don't really have a defensive or targeted offensive purpose, and are only really useful for terrorism.
The clear intention of the second amendment is that the citizens have the right to have and carry around anything that would be needed to wage war at the highest level, in order to defend themselves from anyone including the government. Just as the founding fathers had very recently finished doing.
You are clearly correct. All constitutional scholars seem to agree on this. The founding fathers were very concerned about the possibility of future tyranny from government they were crafting. Ensuring that the citizens had guns, and limiting the power of the government were both ways to prevent such tyranny. It's a shame that more people do not understand the mindset of the founding fathers. (Not to imply that they all had a common view on this. There was much disagreement and negotiation.)
>Why would retired police have special access to this sort of permit?
Ask New Jersey. They explicitly allow retired LEO to have CCP. Meanwhile the law is so complicated and it's so unusual for even security guards to get a CCP that they sometimes get arrested anyway even with the permit: https://reason.com/2020/03/10/new-jersey-security-guard-arre...
In practice the may-issue policy has repeatedly proven to be an irresistible opportunity for graft. Despite this some states continue to maintain may-issue policies, including California and New York.