The Senate gave preliminary approval to legislation that would make Arizona the third state, after Alaska and Vermont, allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
The Senate approved the measure in a voice vote, setting the stage for a formal vote in the Senate. Passage would send it to the House.
The measure would make it legal for U.S. citizens 21 or older to carry concealed weapons in Arizona without permits now required.
Currently, carrying a concealed weapon in the state without a permit is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.
Looks good, but we’ll see how it does on a formal vote and then in the house. But this is pretty far along in the process.
This makes me look much more favorably at retiring in Arizona!
It could have been a great bill but a lot of the good parts were removed to keep CCW training organizations, the police, and bureaucrats happy. Now I’m officially ‘meh’ on it. It still requires training to get a CCW (unlike PA), you still can’t carry at the DMV, and my brother (who just turned 18) can carry a handgun openly on the streets but can’t carry into his truck because then he would be ‘concealing’ it thanks to this bill.
It’s funny that when Napolitano was in charge the legislature went all-out and had a great constitutional carry bill in the works (no training req’d, CC@18 years) but now that we actually have a pro-gun governor they’re being sheepish.
Same thing with campus carry — they are only thinking of allowing full-time (read: leftist) profs to carry, not adjuncts, researchers, staff, students, or visitors.
Get with it folks! If you can’t fix the budget then at least get permitless carry and campus carry right!
Once you have something, you can fix it. We didn’t get AK carry overnight. The perfect is often the enemy of the good.
Get a foothold then strip out the stuff you don’t like piece by piece.
AK carry in Alaska that is. It took almost 15 years to get from no state preemption for CC (no permits available at all) in towns to where we are now and AK is/was at least as “gun friendly” as AZ.
As for the CC training req., once you have permitless carry you typically want training left on the permit or else you won’t be able to get reciprocity with a lot of states (look at AK’s reciprocity list versus PA’s). That’s why AK carry is “better” than VT in practice.
You just need to now make the laws for carry by residents the same with or without permit, OC or CC, given whatever age restriction might exist.
That’s mere modification once the base bill passes, simple amendments tagged onto other “must pass” legislation and is usually easy to justify as merely “making things consistent”.