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ralewis wrote:I hope it passes so I can drive the 11 miles thru Maryland on I81 on the way to PA. :) If all this gets us is the ability to carry (with a license from your home state) in a car, that would relieve an enormous inconvenience for me personally as I drive in NY, NJ, MD every summer when visiting family. I'd even be happy to comply with the non-sensical hollow point prohibition in NJ.

I'm skeptical about passage in the Senate, but maybe they can throw in an incentive to protect endangered cockroaches or something in a few BLUE states and get a few Dems to vote for it...

As I understand it, some of the Dems are from districts and States where such a vote could weigh heavily in their re-election. It seems that getting bills like this to the floor, where this is a vote on the public record, is a good step toward passage. I share your MD problem as we have relatives in PA and have the same issue on that short amount of road out of a 1,500 mile trip. I have no hope that NJ or NY are going to comply even if reciprocity does pass. They will go the sanctuary cities route and defy Federal law. I lived in NJ for a while. The politics there run deep and in the wrong direction.

For RVs, the Feds have almost forced the States into adapting a fairly universal set of special license standards based on weight of 26,001 pounds for a sell-contained RV or 10,000lbs for a towed one. As could be predicted, CA is the odd man out. I point this out because they are all State standards which conform because the Feds tied them to highway funds, I believe. I can drive my RV even in Canada on my TX license even though Canada has much tougher standards for additional training on vehicles with air brakes. That, too, was a Federally driven initiative. In contrast, the requirements for towed things are all over the map because the Feds did not set standards. In Texas, I can tow my boat up to 4,500lbs without supplemental brakes while other States have limits as low as 1,500lbs. I've driven our RV in most of the lower 48 States with a towed car and never had a problem but it is more because States seem to not want to pick on RV tourists than because I'm in compliance with the respective State towing laws.

At a minimum, if full reciprocity cannot be passed, FOPA should be expanded to include concealed carry on Interstate highways. Illinois is much better than NJ, NY and MD in that regard. I can have my concealed gun loaded in my vehicle as long as it remains there. NJ, NY, and MD would arrest me if it were discovered. It is well understand that many (most?) RVers travel armed and I suspect that it is a little like the towing requirements that the local law enforcement doesn't hassle them more. While there have been exceptions of drug running seniors in RVs, mostly RVers are accepted as the more law abiding citizens. It is a political problem that gun owners with similar reputations are not accepted in the same way.