HR 38

Brian Fletcher and family, from NJ.com article linked to below

Imagine the following scenarios:

• You are going to a concert. No video recording is allowed. Earlier that day you were at Chuck e Cheese for your daughter's birthday party, and forgot to take the camera out of your bag. One of the concert personnel catches a glance of the camera as you are getting your money out, and you are successfully sued for five million dollars for intellectual property theft.

• You are getting gas, and absentmindedly light up a cigarette. You are immediately arrested and after a month in jail and a lengthy and expensive trial are sentenced to prison for arson and attempted manslaughter.

• There is a pair of nail scissors in your carry-on bag when you check in at the airport. You are arrested, charged with attempted murder and terrorism, and face years in prison with no possibility of parole.

Ridiculous? Of course. In reality the person with the camera is asked to disable it or check the bag. The smoker is told to put out the cigarette (and even if he refuses is fined, not imprisoned). The nail scissors are removed and the owner can either put them back in their car, mail them home, or discard them. You don't prosecute someone for merely being able to commit a crime when they haven't actually committed a crime and they have no intention to ever commit a crime.

But that sort of harassment is exactly what happens to gun owners all the time.

• Shaneen Allen was a mother of two and a nurse in Philadelphia. She drove into New Jersey to arrange a birthday party for her son, and mistakenly brought her legally owned and carried gun, secured in her purse. At a routine traffic stop she showed the officer her weapons license, and informed the officer that there was s gun in the car, as is the law in most states. She was sentenced to three years in prison without the possibility of parole. After public outcry that was reduced, but she still had a felony charge, which would prevent her from working as a nurse and take away her rights for the rest of her life. Governor Christie was able to pardon her, but not until she had spent months in jail awaiting trial, spent thousands in legal fees, lost her job and lost custody of her children.

• Brian Fletcher was a lineman from North Carolina, who traveled to New Jersey to help with disaster relief after superstorm Sandy. He had a legally owned gun in his vehicle for protection. He also showed police his weapons license and informed them of the weapon. He was also arrested, convicted and sentenced. He too was eventually pardoned by Governor Christie.

• Raymond Hughes was a corrections officer in Pennsylvania who took his wife to dinner and a concert in New Jersey. On the way home, they were hit by a drunk driver and had to be hospitalized. He informed police that he was a law officer and he had a gun, and asked them to secure it from the damaged vehicle. Because PA corrections officers do not have "statutory arrest" powers under PA law, New Jersey did not consider him a law enforcement officer and prosecuted him for felony gun possession. After public outcry charges were eventually dropped.

I would like to say that these are the only three cases, but New Jersey has, according to gun rights lawyers, over a thousand people currently serving prison terms for being in the state with a gun that they own legally, and that they had no intention of using for a crime. These cases are significant because of their notoriety. And although in these three cases the citizen was eventually freed, it was not without spending tens of thousands of dollars, losing months or years of their lives, and massive public awareness campaigns, and ultimately depended on Chris Christie being governor. Under our next governor, Phil Murphy, these people would be rotting in jail (not just in my opinion, Murphy has said as much).

Multiple that number by eleven states who have such laws - California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington D.C. and you can imagine the magnitude of the problem.

This week the house passed HR 38, the "Concealed Carry Reciprocity" bill, which does three things.

• It creates a study to address the issue of bump stocks (like the ones used in the recent concert mass shooting in Las Vegas).
• It removes immunity from legal consequences for states and agencies that do not report violent criminals to the NICS system (the National Instant Criminal Search system is what is used to identify people who should not be allowed to purchase guns).
• It treats weapons licenses the same way as other state issued legal documents (marriage licenses, birth certificates, drivers licenses) so that states must recognize gun licenses issued by other states. This would address some of the issues above.

It does NOT (as some are claiming)

• Allow criminals to possess guns.
• Allow legal gun owners to violate state laws regarding firearms.
• Allow people to have guns in schools.
• Allow people to carry a gun who cannot otherwise carry a gun.
• Create a "public safety crisis." This law does not protect anyone with criminal intent.

Soon the Senate will take up bill S 446, the "Constitutional Concealed Cary Reciprocity Act" which is the corresponding similar bill in the senate. This bill does not address bump stocks or the loopholes in the NICS system fixed by HR 38. Please contact your senators and ask them to support S 446 and adopt the language of HR 38.

Posted in: America,Constitution,Government,Guns