Arizona passes no permit concealed carry! Starts 7/29/10.

General General Discussion
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Arizona guys better start hounding your elected officials!!! http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/us/31arizona.html?ref=us

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona’s permissive gun laws gained national attention last year when a man openly carried an AR-15 rifle to a protest outside a speech by President Obama.

State Senator Russell Pearce of Arizona, left, says gun laws are only “handcuffing good people.”
Now, gun rights advocates are hoping for even fewer restrictions on where they can have a firearm. Among their top goals is to make Arizona the third state where it is legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Bills in the House and the Senate would also eliminate background checks and training classes for people to carry hidden guns.

“That’s sheer insanity,” said M. Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center. “If you remove the background check requirement, you’re literally writing a death sentence for law enforcement officers, family members, just people in the street.”

But supporters say criminals will carry concealed weapons regardless of the law, so gun restrictions affect only law-abiding citizens.

“All we’re doing is handcuffing good people, restricting their constitutional, God-given right to carry and perhaps their ability to defend their families,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican sponsoring the bill.

The bill comes a year after Arizona eased restrictions on gun owners, most notably giving people the option of carrying a weapon into a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol unless the establishment has banned firearms.

It also comes amid a national trend of states loosening gun laws. In 2009, states passed 47 laws easing restrictions, more than three times the number of new laws tightening them. Forty-eight states allow people to carry a concealed weapon; all but Alaska and Vermont require a permit.

In Arizona, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit is a misdemeanor. Mr. Pearce’s bill, and an identical one in the House, would make the permit and background check optional. It also would eliminate a required firearms safety class for permit seekers.

“It doesn’t make much sense why someone would have to go through a background check, training, etc., simply to carry their weapon,” said John Wentling, vice president of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun rights lobby group that is promoting the bill.

Police departments worry that making permits optional might encourage more people with bad motives to carry concealed weapons, said John Thomas, a lobbyist for the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police. It also could lead to more accidents by people not adequately trained, Mr. Thomas said.

“I’m not aware of any law enforcement agency or association that supports this bill as introduced,” he said.

House and Senate committees were scheduled to hear the bill last week, but the sponsors pulled it to try to address some of the concerns of law enforcement. A similar measure failed last year amid strong opposition from police agencies.

There would still be an advantage to obtaining a permit; carrying a gun into a bar or restaurant that serves alcohol would require one, and the permit would be valid in some other states. Permit holders can also buy new guns without a background check.

In all, Arizona lawmakers have introduced about a half-dozen bills aimed at loosening gun laws, including one making it legal to carry a gun in a public park without a concealed-weapons permit. Another would allow college faculty members with permits to carry a gun on campus.

The gun rights bills follow a string of new, less-restrictive gun laws passed last year. They were helped make possible by the elevation of Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, to replace Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who vetoed efforts to loosen gun laws until she resigned a year ago to join the Obama administration.

Ms. Brewer last year signed the bill allowing guns in bars; Ms. Napolitano vetoed a similar measure four years earlier.

Ms. Brewer also approved a law allowing gun owners to display a firearm if they feel threatened and another allowing them to keep guns in their locked vehicles while parked at businesses that ban weapons.

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Good for them! If we all had the same gun rights that I enjoy here in Vermont, the country would be a lot safer.:slight_smile:

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I AGREE WITH YOU 100%!!!

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“That’s sheer insanity,” said M. Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center. “If you remove the background check requirement, you’re literally writing a death sentence for law enforcement officers, family members, just people in the street.”

Why do these people never learn that criminals already carry guns??

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http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/02/03/20100203weaponbills0203.html Thanks 3CTactical!

Arizona has always held tightly to its legacy as part of the gun-toting Wild West and a protector of individual rights.

This year, the state’s Republican governor and a conservative Legislature may continue that tradition by giving Arizonans some of the least-restrictive weapons laws in the nation.

This session, state lawmakers have proposed more than a dozen bills on expanding rights to carry and use guns and knives.

The proposed laws would allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit, end requirements that guns manufactured and kept in Arizona be registered, and allow university professors to carry guns on school grounds.

Although the number of bills on the subject is not unusual, weapons-rights supporters believe this year - with a conservative governor, a Legislature sympathetic to their cause and more freedom to address issues other than the budget - may be their year to lift many limits. It also is an election year, and gun rights have always been a popular campaign platform among conservatives.

“Arizona is very gun-friendly, and we’ve made a lot of progress over the past probably 10 to 12 years,” weapons-rights lobbyist Todd Rathner said. “But, right now, the Legislature and the governor are favorable to a pro-Second Amendment agenda, so we’re trying to accomplish as much as we can.”

Weapons advocates are so optimistic about their chances this year that a knife-rights advocacy group hopes to use Arizona to launch a national effort to give state Legislatures exclusive authority over local governments to regulate knife use.

The efforts won’t be without opposition.

Sen. Meg Burton Cahill, D-Tempe, said some of the legislative efforts could hurt the state economically.

“These laws are not going to be seen as friendly to business, friendly to children and good for the economy of Arizona,” she said. “This is a very critical time, and we are turning people away from Arizona, making them more fearful of coming to the Wild West.”

Gun-friendly state

Then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed at least a dozen weapons bills that crossed her desk during her seven years in office, all of which would have loosened gun restrictions. In 2005, Napolitano rejected a bill that would have allowed patrons to carry loaded guns into bars and restaurants. In 2008, she also vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to have a hidden gun in vehicles without a concealed-carry permit.

In January 2009, Napolitano resigned to become U.S. Homeland Security secretary and Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer became governor. Lawmakers quickly proposed weapons legislation, and Brewer began signing it.

During her first year in office, Brewer signed a bill allowing loaded guns in bars and restaurants, as well as another that prohibits property owners from banning guns from parking areas, so long as the weapons are kept locked in vehicles.

Brewer has been a supporter of Second Amendment rights over her elected career, spokesman Paul Senseman said. He said having her as governor has helped the effort in the state over the past year.

“I think last year was very productive in terms of extending the protections of the Second Amendment,” Senseman said.

Brewer would not comment on specific legislation before it reached her desk.

“But it will be important that we continue to be judicious and responsible in enacting good protections for our Second Amendment rights,” he said.

Testing ground

Rathner said Arizona’s current political atmosphere is precisely why Knife Rights Inc. chose this time and this state to propose a bill that would pre-empt local governments from regulating knives.

Rathner for years represented the National Rifle Association in Arizona, but this year, he is lobbying for the national knife-owner advocacy group. Knife Rights, which Rathner said has a few thousand members nationwide, is based in Gilbert and was started in 2006.

“Guns have been pre-emptive for a decade, and there’s been no problem with it,” he said. “Knives are the next step.”

Rathner said about 10 Arizona cities restrict knives, including Phoenix. Phoenix outlaws carrying knives, except for pocketknives. If the bill becomes law, Phoenix’s ordinance would no longer be enforceable.

If successful, Rathner said, the group will push other states to pass the law.

Several Arizona cities oppose the bill, including Phoenix.

The Legislature

The gun measure likely to draw the biggest buzz proposes to no longer require people to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, is sponsoring the Senate version of the bill. He said his bill simply puts into law what Arizona and the nation’s founders always intended.

“If you are a law-abiding citizen, you have a right to carry,” Pearce said.

Whether they support the bills or not, legislators agree on one thing: Many of the bills have a good chance of becoming law.

Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said he has owned guns most of his life. He said that changing the concealed-weapon permit law moves Arizona in the wrong direction but that his opinion may not matter.

“If the Republicans want to push this through, we can’t stop it. They run the Legislature, they run the Governor’s Office,” he said. “I’m not sure the general public wants to go back to the day when people could walk into any saloon with a firearm strapped to their hip, but it seems like the majority party does.”

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, warned that nothing is a sure thing in the Legislature, particularly this year.

“The budget is casting such a gloomy cloud over everything that it’s hard to get a read,” he said.

However, Republican House Majority Leader Chuck Gray said Second Amendment rights also are a priority.

“Most of the gun issues are going to be looked at to make sure they are written correctly, but we will be very favorable toward the rights of the people,” Gray said.

The largest hurdle these bills face this year, as in past years, is likely opposition from law-enforcement groups. The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes Pearce’s bill.

“If enacted, (the bill) will take Arizona back to Wild West carry, with no consideration for officer safety,” association lobbyist John Thomas said.

Only nine states have fewer gun restrictions than Arizona, according to a scorecard released last year by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-restriction advocacy group.

If some of the legislation is passed, Arizona will likely move lower on the list.

“You have no laws meant to reduce gun violence and protect the public, and you have an active gun lobby there that wants to do away with even the bare threshold of laws you do have,” said Ladd Everitt of the Washington, D.C.-based national Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Two bills, one to allow concealed weapons without a permit and the other to exempt guns made and kept in the state from federal regulation, each has more than a dozen legislators backing them. If passed, Arizona would be only the third state in the nation to allow either of the looser restrictions.

Everitt called the proposal to no longer require a concealed-carry permit “crazy.”

“You would have dangerous individuals and criminals carrying weapons in public,” he said.

Pearce said he thinks the legislation will help make Arizonans safer.

“When you have restrictive laws, the only people you restrict are the good guys,” he said. “I’ve never been afraid of a good citizen.”

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“Arizona is very gun-friendly, and we’ve made a lot of progress over the past probably 10 to 12 years,” weapons-rights lobbyist Todd Rathner said. “But, right now, the Legislature and the governor are favorable to a pro-Second Amendment agenda, so we’re trying to accomplish as much as we can.”

“When you have restrictive laws, the only people you restrict are the good guys,” he said. “I’ve never been afraid of a good citizen.”

I would really love to retire and move to Arizona.

Only about 20 more years to go:)

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I’m looking at moving there within the next few years. If this passes and they get a Vermont style CCW I’ll be moving there ASAP. Hopefully this’ll trigger a landslide of positive legislation.

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like criminals with felony records can buy guns anyway ?
OH I know they break into the nice guys house and steal them !!!

I guess they never learn cause its like telling your dog not lick and sniff other dogs privates they just dont listen !!!

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Apu: “Where’s a gun-toting lowlife when you need one?”

Snake: “Sorry, I was in the can.”

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Had to Google that… the Simpsons are great :cool:

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My feelings are mixed on the elimination of certification for concealed carry. For the sake of context, I am a sixth generation Arizonan, basically lifelong gun owner and a CCW holder who carries daily. I am proud of AZ’s long history of supportive gun legislation. So what is my problem??

Education. Carrying concealed in public comes with some heavy responsibilities that affect us all, as I assume most everyone on this site would agree. There are many details with regard to justification for a shoot, consideration of the safety of others in the area, (including LEO responding to the situation), basic safe handling of a firearm under duress etc that are not necessarily given to common knowledge, especially for new or first time gun owners. So where and how does the average new shooter get this valuable information to carry responsibly and safely if not from their CCW certification class? I have 35 years of gun ownership and shooting experience and still learned a lot from the class. Some of it I remind myself of daily as I go about my business with pistol in tow. It’s nice to think that anyone who chooses to carry in public would take the time to learn and practice these responsible skills, but I doubt that would be the norm.

When I did my CCW cert about half of the participants in the class had never shot a gun before in their lives. Some had borrowed a pistol for the class and a few had bought a new pistol for the class. I’m not exaggerating one single bit when I tell you that the instructors had to literally show them how to load rounds into the magazine and then insert the mag into the weapon. These folks had no clue about trigger or muzzle discipline and there were several of us who stepped back from the line a time or two because of the loose nature of their gun handling. The instructors were very patient but somewhat short-handed for the given task and time-constraints. Some of us even stayed over time into the dark in order to teach these folks the most basic of safety practices and to help them as they tried to get rounds on paper from 7 feet away. My hat was and is off to the instructors for their commitment to public safety. However the idea of these folks indiscriminately carrying in public makes me want to don armor! Now envision them without the benefit of experienced instruction…

I applaud anyone who wants to arm and protect themselves from the predatory slime out there. At the same time, I do think that there needs to be an education that precedes public carry and potential display of a lethal weapon in that public arena. For those of us that have been learned and have grown up with safe handling practices this may be a non-issue, but from my experience true seasoned shooters represent a minority of the current gun owning public. I think that there does need to be some training/certification that is required if you want to shoulder the responsibility of public carry… and I encourage every law abiding citizen to get that training/cert.

Probably not a popular opinion but that is how I feel about it. :cool:

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That’s it, I’m moving. I was back and forth on whether I could stand the heat of AZ, but this makes it easier.

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I actually think your views are shared by many (though I disagree & would prefer the entire US have “Vermont” style carry laws).

I grew up in MD where permits are virtually NEVER granted. I have asked many Marylanders 2 questions:

I first ask: 1) Would they like Maryland to adopt “shall issue” as have many states? The answer is always “YES!”

Then, I explain to them just how easy it was to get my CCW permit in VA (here, you can simply present your military discharge document, or take an online course, or present the course cert from a 4 hour NRA basic pistol class I took in New York with no range requirement). We do not have specific requirements as to what qualifies as “training.” It CAN be quite simple/short.

  1. I then ask: would they want MD to adopt the same “shall issue” law as VA??

At this point, most of them do NOT feel comfortable with, as they put it: “making it THAT easy to carry.” Their rational is that more training is required. Since they do not have any experience with concealled carry, they have no basis for understanding what works, and what does not. I believe Vermont’s system works just fine, and I’m not too bothered by VA either. My Maryland friends, however, seem horrified by the prospect of Vermont’s laws coming to MD. And these are gunowners!

And I agree that more training IS required. It is not possible to over-train when trainign to protect the lives of your family or yourself. I only object to letting the STATE decide that issue over the individual citizen deciding for her/himself.

Were those folks in your class unprepared? Perhaps, but they still own guns. If we are, as a nation, going to recognize people’s rights to own guns, we ought to recognize their right to carry - with all that brings with it. The answer is get more folks to learn basic safety & train. Governemnt restrictions are not the answer.

Thank you for sharing your views. Good discussion.

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“For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.” - SCOTUS, Dred Scott decision

At least the courts knew what rights they were screwing people out of back then, instead of pretending they didn’t exist.

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Great quote!

Buckaroo

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good points and agree

I think its tough I take driving seriously my dad used to race cars I raced MX and had a factory ride was in the nationals etc… I also did road racing and grew up in a hardcore car family
yet many get a license and still cant drive and cars kill a ton of people way more than guns ? I am more afraid of getting in a accident here then shot by someone

not justifying just saying :slight_smile: there are those that will take the class and not remember anything and not care a few hours wont stick in their heads if they have the give me my permit get done with this !!!

or those that take it serious and will want to learn more

I agree its a slippery slope or double edge sword for sure about more people carrying ?

I try to think education is the key thing but sadly some dont want it dont care as they are smarter than all us and those are the ones like you said that might make things backfire ? on us good folks

but I also wish to get a car license we would all have to take a really strong test and really know how to drive and have to get re-qualified every ten years or something ? but that wont happen

like you I have mixed feelings and posts like yours or others saying make it free make me keep thinking more :wink:

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AZ News video on the subject: http://www.azcentral.com/video/64575047001

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http://www.azdailysun.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_4b5d4e68-1dc1-5f16-b868-72461b6df370.html

Who knew that state Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican, had such disregard for the principle of local control?

But when it comes to guns, Pearce and most of his GOP colleagues in the Senate know better than local police, university officials and elected city councils. The fewer regulations and the more law-abiding citizens who carry loaded weapons, the better – end of discussion.

If Pearce were equally committed to the same stiff prison terms for using a gun in a crime as he is for using drugs or using an undocumented alien to mow your lawn, then his “open carry” philosophy might seem at least consistent. After all, law-abiding citizens should have nothing to fear from penalties for criminal gun use, should they?

But Pearce and his allies aren’t willing to go down that road – draconian penalties, he has told Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, would entrap legal gun owners and discourage them from toting a gun.

The idea is that if everyone is armed, criminals will be less inclined to use guns for fear of being gunned down themselves.

So the Senate has passed Pearce’s bill that allows anyone to carry a concealed weapon – no background checks or training required. Ironically, the bill includes an unfriendly amendment that requires proof of citizenship to buy a gun at an unregulated gun show – just like the proof Pearce wants from someone seeking a job along the roadside. Pearce has vowed to fight the requirement at gun shows as unnecessary and intrusive, even though it applies to all federally licensed gun dealers.

One state without concealed carry requirements, Alaska, at least requires the gun toter to notify an approaching police officer that he is armed.

Pearce called the notification clause just another “trap” for law-abiding citizens.

POLICE STRENUOUSLY OBJECT

Local police have testified strenuously against the bill. If citizens are going to be armed, at least have them trained in how and when to shoot a gun, they say. That way, police can know that when they respond to an incident of violence, the only people with guns will either be vetted and trained in how to use one or a criminal.

Further, say police and researchers, most situations involving violence stem from domestic disputes and arguments involving alcohol between people who know each other. Neither party in these types of cases should have guns. And they certainly shouldn’t have them unless there are severe penalties for misusing them – penalties, as noted above, that aren’t on the books in Arizona.

As for prosecutors, they note that now that the burden in Arizona is on them to prove that the shooter was not acting in self-defense, there is all the more reason for the shooter not to leave any victims as living witnesses.

Meanwhile, the state budget for the current year is still out of whack, and next year the hole is even bigger. Does Pearce really think that increasing the possibility of felons carrying concealed weapons undetected and with impunity is more important than balancing the state budget?

PROFESSORS BECOME TARGETS

Apparently Pearce did not get the word out to his Senate colleagues that he is pushing to eliminate the concealed carry permit and training system. One of them, Sen. Jack Harper, has been busy crafting a bill to force universities to let faculty members with permits carry concealed weapons – the better, apparently, to fend off attacking intruders.

The result, however, is likely to be less safety for the instructor, not more. A gunman bent on killing people will go first for the one person likely to get in his way. And if the killer has already selected her targets, as occurred recently during a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama, the element of surprise combined with a semiautomatic will trump the ability of most professors to get off even a single shot.

What makes the imposition of Harper’s proposal on a college campus seem so onerous is the assault it represents on the very notion of the academy and the host community that supports it. Universities are committed to the pursuit of knowledge for the common good, a malleable concept reached largely by melding individual rights onto broader community goals. It’s about interdependence and resolving disputes through negotiation and compromise, not deterrence based on the threat of violence. It’s also about teaching the responsibilities that come with rights, a lesson that Second Amendment zealots appear to have missed.

RIGHT TO BEAR MUZZLE-LOADERS

Falling back on the supposed absolutes found in the Bill of Rights might sound simpler – if we all lived in the late-18th century. But the right to bear arms in public referred to muzzle-loaders taken up in defense of country. How that applies to carrying high-powered rifles down the streets of crowded, 21st-century cities is known mainly to the NRA and few others.

Granted, there are bad guys in the world with a litany of complaints about injustice and inequity who are prepared to use lethal force to settle their scores. We defend ourselves and our country against the tyranny of such hatred and violence with armies and homeland security forces.

Likewise, those criminals among us with their own set of anti-social grievances need to know there are highly-trained police agencies prepared to catch them and a justice system ready to put them away for a long time if they use guns. The latter, however, won’t be accomplished as long as the Second Amendment continues to be defended with absolutist nonsense. And arming a bunch of amateur civilians in place of passing gun laws with teeth sends up the white flag of surrender in the battle for a civil society governed by laws, not force.

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Irish, whoever wrote that last article is a fucking idiot.

Jay

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I don’t always agree with everything that’s written in an article I post. Sometimes I do it to show the other sides opinion and other times it’s to bump the thread back up to the top and show the progress of the bill, which is the case here. Have a good day.