HB308 removes all off-limits areas for CHL's except for those created by federal law. While HB195 would repeal the need to get a CHL to carry a handgun, it has absolutely no chance of passing this session. This was true even before OCT and OCTC poisoned the issue.WCDUB wrote:Mr. Cotton,I am confused. It seems to me that HB 195 provides for carry,open or concealed,without a license,that is,
constitutional carry. This is an important issue to me. Does HB 308 also provide for constitutional carry?
I know the term "constitutional carry" is the term in vogue, but in my view it's both inaccurate and inadvisable to use it. While I and millions of Americans believe the Second Amendment protects the right to own and carry firearms without a license or other governmental approval, the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet issued such an opinion. By all indications, the SCOTUS is not going to hold that unlicensed carrying is mandated by the Second Amendment. Dicta in Heller indicates that to be true. Recently, the SCOTUS refused to hear a New Jersey case that had challenged the "special need" provision in New Jersey's "may issue" statute, leaving an appellate court ruling in tact. If the SCOTUS wouldn't even overturn a "may issue" law, there's no reason to believe that it would overturn all licensing statutes.
Claiming a constitutional right that the SCOTUS has refused to recognize (as opposed to ruling against) hurts one's credibility. It's like the anti-gun groups claiming that the passage of concealed carry in Texas in 1995 was going to lead to murders on a Biblical scale. This is why I always refer to "unlicensed carry" rather than "constitutional carry." I realize that some people use "constitutional carry" as a term of art, but I don't have that luxury. I have to testify on bills and talk with folks in Austin and I cannot overstate our case, as I would surely be asked to show them the SCOTUS case that supports so-called "constitutional carry." That's what I'd do if I were on the other side of the issue.
Chas.