Why NRA Support of Forced Concealed Carry Reciprocity is Wrong

The NRA-ILA sent an email yesterday urging NRA members to call their Congressmen and Senators and ask them to support HR 822. That bill would force the states to recognize concealed carry permits from other states.

The NRA wrongly leads members to believe that this bill would be just like driver's license reciprocity. In fact, driver's license reciprocity is conducted in a completely different way with zero federal involvement. While HR 822 would force the states into reciprocity, states currently choose to join into a compact between themselves to recognize other licenses and, in some cases, report infractions to the license holder's state. With concealed carry, the states choose whose permits to recognize, generally based on similarities between training courses.

If the NRA was truly a supporter of the Second Amendment, then they would not be in support of this usurpation of states' rights. The continuation of "fighting" for measures such as HR 822 is why the NRA (and other "gun rights" organizations) supported Due Process incorporation of the Second Amendment, rather than the means of incorporation that actually protects the Right to Keep and Bear Arms that the Court even agreed had been wrongly neutered in Slaughter-House. After all, if the Court had removed the threat to the Second Amendment, the NRA et al would have no reason to continue to exist.

Rather than the NRA call for members to support an unconstitutional bill that has no relevant precedent nor basis Congressional power enumerated in the Constitution, members of the NRA should call for the NRA to support full restoration of the Second Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Support of HR 822 is support of an unconstitutional expansion of federal power.