NRA reports Governor Brewer has signed the bill:
“This is a major victory for gun owners in Arizona, and I would like to thank Governor Jan Brewer, as well as the primary bill sponsor, Senator Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), for their leadership in working to improve the self-defense rights of law-abiding citizens in Arizona,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA-ILA. “Both Governor Brewer and state Senator Pearce have been strong supporters of the NRA. The NRA is also grateful to the legislators who voted for this measure making Arizona the third state in the nation behind Vermont and Alaska to offer its residents a constitutional carry option.
Clearly they’ve replaced Chris Cox with an impostor, because it’s a well known fact that NRA does not support Constitutional Carry. Dustin is pretty happy, and Arizona Riflemen has been checking out the hysteria, and notes an oddity with the current law.
Baby steps. This is why incrementalism will win. 20 years ago, this would have been unthinkable, but after years and years of CCW *not* transforming the state into a killing field drenched with the blood of orphans and grandmothers, public opinion shifted such that constitutional carry was even considered. It will happen elsewhere too if we can only drop this mindset that we have to get all the way there immediately or else we’ve sold out or failed.
(Crossposted at the AZ Rifleman Blog).
13-3112
A. A. The department of public safety shall issue a permit to carry a concealed weapon to a person who is qualified under this section. The person shall carry the permit at all times when the person is in actual possession of the concealed weapon and IS REQUIRED BY ANY OTHER LAW TO CARRY THE PERMIT. If the person is in actual possession of the concealed weapon and is required by any other law to carry the permit, the person shall present the permit for inspection to any law enforcement officer on request. (Emphasis mine).
In other words, if you’re carrying somewhere that is limited to permit holders and you have a valid CWP, you must carry it with you to be able to present it to a LEO if you are requested to do so. Seems fair enough.
It’ll be easy enough to “make the law consistent to reduce confusion” in a session or two and make the no permit restrictions/allowances the same as permitted.
I tend to think AZMike is right. The only way he wouldn’t be if there is another statute that was not mentioned in the bill, which separately requires a person holding a permit to have it in his possession even under circumstances where no permit was required before SB 1108 passed, e.g., in one’s own home or place of work.
I did notice an interesting quirk of the law both before and after SB 1108, though. Namely, that “no guns” signs are not enforceable against nonresidents unless the nonresidents actually saw them (or had actual knowledge of them for some other reason). In this case, ignorance isn’t just bliss; it’s an affirmative defense!