DECENTRALIZE GUN LAWS
Gun rights advocates need caution in pushing federal control over state gun laws
With a Republican in the White House, the anti-gun-control lobby smells a bit of blood in the water.
Now is the time, they suggest, to pass national gun-licensing reciprocity laws forcing gun-restrictive states to recognize permits issued by gun-permissive states.
The way this is phrased sounds nice and totally unobjectionable: this bill sounds like it’s just saying people should be left alone.
The problem, however, is that the drive for mandated reciprocity is essentially a drive to increase federal involvement and federal control in the realm of gun policy.
Schmidt is right in the sense that, of course it should never be a crime to defend one’s self. The question remains however: should the federal government be the agency that guarantees that right? Should the feds have the power to overturn state and local laws that limit gun ownership?
This issue can be addressed from both a legal and Constitutional standpoint, and from a general philosophical decentralist view.
The Constitutionalist View
Suzanne Sherman at the Tenth Amendment Center has already weighed in against the idea on Constitutional grounds, based on two main arguments:
- Reciprocity laws are compacts made among the states, and are not imposed by the federal government.
- The Bill of Rights Doesn’t apply to the states.
On the first matter, Sherman notes that the proposed legislation would impose reciprocity on the states. This, Sherman notes, is a departure from what we usually mean by reciprocity, which denotes compacts that two or more states have voluntarily entered into.