Just as promised on the campaign trail, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General is now “modifying” reciprocity agreements to restrict carry in the Keystone State.
Pennsylvania residents who have Florida permits can keep them, but they will no longer be valid in Pennsylvania. More importantly, non-Florida non-residents with Florida licenses can no longer carry in Pennsylvania. If you are a Delaware resident who carries in Pennsylvania on the Florida permit, you’re no longer legal to carry here.
In fact, if I’m reading the press release and agreement correctly, there’s a good chance that Florida non-residents who may have been carrying on a Florida license in the last week have actually been carrying illegally. The new agreement went into effect last Friday, but the Attorney General did not post it or announce it until today.
It would be great if a lawmaker would float Constitutional carry while another at least floats a bill to get reciprocity out of the hands of the Attorney General. If she plans to abuse her authority, then take the authority away from her.
UPDATE: Interestingly, Philadelphia politicians from the AG’s party are trying to claim that reciprocity agreements are being completely dissolved:
Her decision to dissolve Pennsylvania’s reciprocal conceal carry license agreement gives law enforcement and prosecutors a powerful tool that will keep Pennsylvanians safe.
Does this mean that the modification is just a first step and that other agreements will actually be dissolved?
Easy for you to say
She doesn’t even know what the license is called. She’s using the term CCP, because that’s what FL uses, but nowhere in her announcement does she refer to PA’s license as an LTCF as PA law defines it. She should learn a little more about the laws pertaining to our rights before she further insults us by infringing them.
Why should she bother to learn her job? The doofuses in this state elected her even though they knew she had no courtroom experience because Bill Clinton or something.
Actually, I’m convinced that the ability to vote a straight party ticket is what son the election for her.
Hundreds of thousands of voters turned out specifically to vote for Obama, and many (especially in places like Philadelphia and Coatesville) were told that the only way to be *sure* their vote counted for the presidential election was to vote a straight party ticket.
I don’t see how you believe that one bit. If that was the case, she would have either slightly less or pretty much the same number of votes as Barack Obama. Except that’s not the case at all. Obama only got 2,990,274 votes. Kane managed to get 3,125,557. She got more than any other Democrat on the ticket. That’s more than 135k more than Barack and more than 104k more than Bob Casey.
The numbers don’t support your premise at all.
The real question is what normal voter turnout is compared to what we saw in 2012.
As I have said previously, voter turnout was significantly higher than normal in 2012. I normally try to vote close to nine in the morning, and my ballot number is usually seven or eight at the highest. Last November I voted just before eight in the morning and my ballot number was 69. Turnout was significantly above normal across the Commonwealth, and my contention is that a large percentage of the people who normally do not vote voted straight Democrat tickets.
My contention is that overall voter turnout was a function of Obama being on the ballot; had Obama not been on the ballot, the attorney general race may well have had a different result.
Voter turnout, for an accurate presidential year turnout model comparison, was down in 2012. In fact, it wasn’t just down from 2008, it was down even from 2004.
You may believe that the AG race may have been a different issue if we used a non-presidential election year model. But, there are a few fundamental problems with your assertion. One, you don’t know that. Kane outperformed Obama. That means she won many, many votes from people who voted for Romney. Two, the most important, you’re never going to have an AG race that doesn’t take place during a presidential race year. It’s always going to happen. You aren’t helping yourself if you just try to believe that maybe, somehow, we could possibly have one during an off-year election. It isn’t set up that way, and it won’t change without a fundamental change in the law.
This is really the ultimate in selectively cherry picking your numbers. Tom Corbett was re-elected AG during 2008 – a presidential election year – and elected during 2004 – another presidential election year. It’s the timing of the AG & other state row office elections every single time.
I love Pennsylvania and have lived here all my life, but I’m starting to get fed up with what they’re doing to my beloved Commonwealth. If we could just trim off the greater Philadelphia area and give it to New Jersey, everybody would be happier. The easterners hate us western PA hillbillies anyway, and the way they like to do things in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Bucks Counties doesn’t mesh well with the way we prefer things here in Armstrong, Clarion and Venango. Two totally different states.
This blog is run by an easterner who was born and raised in the greater Philadelphia area. There are still plenty parts of Western PA that still vote Democrat. That has to stop. The rest of the state now needs to understand that you need to start outvoting Philadelphia and the near suburbs. The far suburbs are not yet lost.
Don’t blame Me. I keep voting to throw the bums out. I think your right about Philadelphia. The other 66 counties would love to ditch us if they could.
This idea has been floated many times, and I always make an effort to shoot it down.
Simply put, we have been largely successful in keeping the idiocy contained in NJ, but much of that has been due to the advantages of geography: There’s a river between PA and NJ.
Were we to allow NJ a foothold on our side of the river, their influence would expand until the entire commonwealth was consumed.
I think the only thing she can legally do is modify agreements to only recognize resident licenses, or to dissolve an agreement if the requirements are different. Of course, what she will do and what she can do are two different things.
Note that she had to sign a completely new agreement to remove the non-resident licenses. I’m wondering if that’s all she could get out of Florida.
And yeah, a constitutional carry law would be better.
Sebastian, What are the chances they’ll try to do away with reciprocity for VA and UT non-resident permits next?
I don’t know what she’s planning on doing. She won by a landslide, and she feels like she has a mandate. She is very very anti-gun-owner.
She didn’t win by a landslide though; People weren’t voting for her, they were voting for OBAMA. This is an important distinction to make.
She won by 14 points, that’s a landslide! Even if you look at pure vote tallies, she won FAR more votes than Obama won. As I said in your previous claim, the numbers don’t support your assertion at all. People did vote for her while not voting for Obama – and in huge numbers.
Voter turnout in 2010 was roughly 4,000,000 overall, voter turnout in 2012 was in excess of 5.5 million overall. These excess voters split roughly 2/3 Democrat to Republican. My contention is not entirely that she would have lost without Obama on the ticket, it is that without Obama on the ticket her race would have been significantly closer.
No serious political observer compares turnout models from non-presidential years to presidential years. It doesn’t matter who is on the ticket for any party, turnout is always higher in presidential years.
These are the PA numbers back to 2000, and even the highest non-presidential turnout year is still more than 800,000 fewer votes than the very lowest of the presidential turnout years:
Presidential Elections
2012 – 5,742,040
2008 – 5,995,137
2004 – 5,765,764
2000 – 4,912,185
Off-Year Elections
2010 – 3,987,551
2006 – 4,092,652
2002 – 3,581,989
There is a reason terms like “off-year elections” exist. You cannot compare the two directly because every single state in the union sees higher turnout during presidential elections. For many people, it’s the only time that they even pay attention to any political issue.
Does this mean my resident Idaho permit is still valid in Filthadelphia?
Yes, your resident Idaho permit still stands. Right now, it only seems to be Florida and the new restrictions are applied to all non-Florida residents.
Really. Just Florida. That’s stupid. And I wager there could be some question into whether treating two states differently for identical things is legal. I mean wasn’t that the point of the commerce clause. To ensure stud like one state accepting drivers licenses of only some states but not all?
This is going to be a mudfest. One that I would not be opposed to a large representation of open carry rifles at a protest if she tries to dismantle ALL reciprocity.
In this particular case, she’s not treating them unequally. A resident of Idaho may carry on an Idaho permit and a resident of Florida may carry on a Florida permit. What she changed is the ability of an Idaho resident (using our same examples) to carry on a Florida permit.
Can a Floridian carry on a Idaho permit? If so than it is. If its a ban on all non-residency permits. Than its applied fairly. But if not. I’d think that’d fall into Constitutional question.
Creeping communism in PA. Is everyone going to wind up moving to Texas??
Hell no.
It’s too hot there, and it’s far too close to Mexico.
The biggest argument in favor of such a move is also the largest argument against such a move: The military has recent experience fighting in that type of environment.
Were I to move, I’d probably choose somewhere in the ‘American Redoubt.’
You seem to think the US military hasn’t just spent over 11 years fighting in a place a lot more like the “American Redoubt” — spare us that moronic Rawlesian name, please — than than Texas.
Wow, you failed at political science and math, and now you’re failing at geography and world history.
“You seem to think the US military hasn’t just spent over 11 years fighting in a place a lot more like the “American Redoubt†than than Texas”
Certainly the military has spent over a decade in some of the harshest terrain in the world. However, you have to ignore two things to assume that would translate into them slaughtering U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.
First, the vast majority of the U.S. military (or at least the portion that has actually fought on the ground for the last decade) is on our side*.
Second, our military hasn’t really been able to pull off a decisive victory in Afghnaistan. The terrain has been a big part of that. There’s also the whole “hearts and minds” thing, which plays back into the first point.
*I certainly woudln’t pretend to know a statistically significant sampling of the U.S. military force, but those I have spoken with were almost universally in favor of the original intent of the U.S. Constitution. The fact that many national guard units refused to comply with orders that they disarm the citizens in the post-Katrina greater NOLA area would seem to imply that this view is widespread in the military as a whole.
So any idea if she is going to do the same with non-resident UT licenses? I’m going to be in PA for a week in March on business and was planning on carrying. What website will have the current reciprocity agreements?
Your guess is as good as mine as to her next move.
What’s hilarious about this is that the non-residents using a Florida license (which included some sort of training requirement) will still be able to get a Pennsylvania license (which requires just a background check).
I support states’ rights when it comes to gun permits. A resident of Pa should get a PA permit if they want to carry concealed.
If the problem is that Philadelphia County does not follow PA law for issuing gun permits, go to court about it, but don’t try to con me or anyone else into thinking that Pa should somehow be honoring a permit to carry a gun for a PA resident that is issued by some other state, particularly when that person can not qualify for a properly issued PA permit.
A lot of the people who get denied permits in Philadelphia get denied for good reason. Owing thousands of dollars in traffic and parking tickets does not make one a person of good legal standing. Pay your fines like true law abiding citizens and then you can get your permit.
As I understand it, the PPD has a standing policy that anyone who is the victim of a crime like having their home broken into and a gun stolen automatically has their license revoked. Their policies are not good for determining the character of a person.
Your premise that the simple solution is for someone to bear the financial burden of fighting an entire city/county government in court isn’t reasonable, especially when you’re talking about a city that illegally and purposefully published personal details of people who had the audacity to challenge their denials.
Parking tickets? Do they deliver those to your door, notarized? What a chickenshit reason to deny someone a carry permit.
I think you don’t know what you are talking about. Let’s see you try to spend thousands of dollars trying to make Philly follow the law. And its not just one person- MANY people have to do that.
PA SHOULD honor any and all permits from another state- just like a drivers license. Who cares where they live- if the state that issued it is satisfied enough that they will let the carry in their state, why should another state care?
And parking tickets? Really? That’s a valid reason to deny a person the right to have a tool to defend themselves? You are twisted.
Come to think of it, do you work for the PPD?
“States Rights” is a refuge of scoundrels. States do not have rights. People have rights. States only have powers.
“PA SHOULD honor any and all permits from another state. . .”
Actually PA should eliminate permits, institute Constitutional Carry, and respect the rights of everyone from every state, even if their own states don’t.
Well I can’t disagree with you there. I say go for Constitutional Carry, and take that as the compromise if we must.
I don’t think that constitutional carry isn’t politically feasible in PA, even under the most optimistic circumstances. However, introducing it could freak out the AG enough to back off of her anti-carry campaign. More importantly, if someone else took up a measure to pull reciprocity control out from under her and make the state shall issue, then that will seem like a very reasonable bill to those who are largely with us, but might not be on board for sticking their necks out on constitutional carry.
No, Pennsylvania should enact Constitutional Carry, but retain permits. Permits could have a slightly higher requirement (training, etc). And but would be Federally mandated to be recognized by all states, just as we do driver’s licenses.
That way we don’t wind up like Vermont. Where you have Constitutional Carry, but can’t have permit reciprocity.
I don’t care whether you have $1 or $1000 in unpaid fines, that is NOT good cause to take away someone’s ability to defend themselves in public.
The people who are getting denied in Philly are getting denied for arbitrary reasons. They are law abiding and qualify for a permit under PA state law.
If you don’t like the laws, get them changed. If you think people should not have to pay parking tickets, get the law changed. But if you want to try to claim that PA must honor a gun carry permit issued to a PA resident by another state when that person can not qualify for a PA permit then you have no real point to make. You think it is OK for some people to violate the law and still get a carry permit? Well, you’re entitled to your opinion, but you are, not entitled to a LTCF in PA if you do not follow the law. What is chickenshit is some people not paying their parking tickets because they think that the laws of this State do not apply to them. That is chickenshit and no, their law-breaking ass does not get a PA LTCF. Too bad. Obey the laws and pay your fines.
Bitter, I must respectfully disagree with you about the court challenge for having a denied or delayed permit application in Philadelphia. Yes, I most surely do believe that if someone’s rights under State law are violated then yes, they most certainly do need to take the issue to court. That is the venue where a civilized society settles these kinds of issues. And, respectfully, I continue to be unconvinced that PA should honor a permit issued to a PA resident by some other state. That is baloney.
Hey, how about this- maybe Philly should respect the law as written first. Then we’ll talk.
Nobody was violating the law there, buddy. IT WAS LEGAL, until Kane stupidly changed it. What chickenshit people like who wan to deny a person a right because of silly parking tickets.
And what is balony is your logic. You are asking thousands of people to go to court EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE TO! What kind of craziness is that. And what is even balonier is denying a person who was a VALID permit from another state. Who cares where they live?
Are you married to Kane?
Either that or he has a vested interest in collecting parking fines. I’m about 1000 miles away, does Philly have a private parking company
scamcontract like Chicago and other single party cities?Heh. It always amuses me, though darkly, how upset people get the first time they realize that no one in America has any more rights than they can afford to try to prove in court. I mean, gee, that’s not what our civics books said, right?
I began to get an inkling the first time a judge said to, “Shut the fuck up, you’re guilty. And if you think you can do something about it, post twice the amount of the fine as bond, get yourself a lawyer — which I’m sure you can do — appeal it.”
I did, and I won. And it only cost about twenty times the fine involved.
Man, you sure do love those LTCFs, don’t you?
And denying them for parking tickets — and what other summary offenses? Permits as merit badges for good citizenship and right-thinking?
How would you say that in German?
Mr Trevor Trollpherd,
Why Pennsylvania has a pre-emption law. Yet numerous mayors at the urging (& funding) of Bloomberg have tried passing gun legislation themselves in violation of Pennsylvania law.
I wonder if your same sense of obligation to the law applies? Should these individuals be allowed to continue as mayors? Or be removed from office for deliberately breaking Pennsylvania law.
I’d love to see you answer…
***
Our courts ceased being civilized or reasonable long ago. They’re mostly just beauracratic fund raising machines.
What is chickenshit is that Trevor believes civil liberties can be denied for overdue library books.
Fuck you Trevor.
If any org is exploiting a loophole, it’s the PPD. The character and reputation clause was never intended to be used as a way of denying people their rights based on traffic and parking tickets. We need to close the “character and reputation” loophole ASAP. But first I need to get a Utah permit…..
“The character and reputation clause was never intended to be used as a way of denying people their rights. . .”
I disagree with you there. That is exactly what they were intended to enable. Weasel-words in law, imprecise and subject language, are deliberate tools to make us believe we are being granted rights, while all the time it is intended they can be shut off like a spigot for the convenience of government any time it is expedient to do so.
Our responsibilities to The State are always rigid, or ratcheted upward. Our rights are always open for discussion, and subject to “reasonable” limits.
Something to remind people of: Florida’s reciprocity is “you take ours, we take yours”.
I see lots and lots of Pennsylvania plates here in the winter. While I’m sure our Agricultural Commissioner wouldn’t mind the extra money from PA residents getting non-resident permits here, I’ll bet there’s a lot of folks who’d rather just have their “home” permit work both places.
What is the source of her authority to enter into a reciprocity agreement? And what authority does that grant her to rescind it, especially if nothing has otherwise changed? Is it absolute? Does Pennsylvania have anything like a Administrative Procedures Act which lays out the standards for taking action to ensure its reasonable and not simply an arbitrary decision?
The legislature gives the AG authority to sign reciprocity agreements. As for whether or not she has authority to up and change them when nothing about the qualifying requirements has changed with the other state, that’s a reasonable question. I believe Sebastian said there is a local lawyer looking into that kind of challenge.
Probably Joshua Prince.
She is the State Attorney General. They have the power to make Reciprocity agreements.
Get rid of mandatory CCW. Make CCW a convenience for traveling to other states, like it is here in WY.
Deny Philadelphia the authority to do squat, and set minimum personal liability amounts for cops who can’t get the message.
And since you can’t use your out of state CCW in PA, open carry. Be sure to tell the cop that the state attorney general requires you to open carry to stay lawful.
Your legislative ideas aren’t politically feasible in Pennsylvania. Your advice will get someone headed to Philadelphia arrested.
And since a CCW / LTCF permit is needed to conceal OR open carry in Philadelphia all that will do is get you arrested and charged with a crime.