This diary recounts my 4500-mile road trip from Delaware to Oklahoma to Colorado to New Mexico and back, with additional overnight stops in Indianapolis and St. Louis MO. The main point of this trip, other than the driving itself (which I enjoy greatly), is to spend a few hours at the shooting range with one of my oldest friends in Colorado, and to work for a couple of days in Albuquerque. I have concealed carry permits valid (or mostly so: see Illinois) in every state I'll pass through, so this diary will highlight the challenges of navigating the crazy quilt of state laws that "control" guns in this country.
This is NOT a diary about whether carry permits should exist. I do not argue either way in this diary: I am describing the process of traveling while armed and obeying the laws. Even if you are entirely opposed to concealed carry or even to private ownership of firearms, this diary is an attempt to improve understanding of the rules that the tens of millions of Americans with carry permits, or who live in "Constitutional Carry" states, must follow or risk prosecution. I won't call out the usual anti-RKBA trolls by name: we all know who they are. I do not plan to respond to them, other than to identify them as trolls when they show up. Let's hope they will follow the DBAD rule.
At the end of this diary, I propose a suggestion that might please both sides of the concealed-carry argument; the merits of that proposal are (obviously) fair game for discussion here.
And now, the boilerplate:
Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a DKos group of second amendment supporters who have progressive and liberal values. We don't think that being a liberal means one has to be anti-gun. Some of us are extreme in our second amendment views (no licensing, no restrictions on small arms) and some of us are more moderate (licensing, restrictions on small arms.) Moderate or extreme or somewhere in between, we hold one common belief: more gun control equals lost elections. We don't want a repeat of 1994. We are an inclusive group: if you see the Second Amendment as safeguarding our right to keep and bear arms individually, then come join us in our conversation. If you are against the right to keep and bear arms, come join our conversation. We look forward to seeing you, as long as you engage in a civil discussion.
My route will take me through the following states, in this order:
Delaware (starting point)
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Ohio
Indiana (overnight stop in Indianapolis)
Illinois
Missouri
Oklahoma (two nights with family)
Kansas
Colorado (three nights)
New Mexico for work (two nights)
Texas
Oklahoma
Missouri (overnight stop just outside St. Louis)
Illinois
Indiana
Ohio
West Virginia
Pennsylvania
...and back into Delaware.
I printed current summaries of the gun laws from every one of these states, and put them in a 3-ring binder. I do this every time I take a long road trip to the South or West. We used to travel to Oklahoma almost every year, and this notebook -- updated each time right before departure -- has been an invaluable reference. As with all the other trips, I've used the site's links to the state laws themselves to verify the text in the summaries, and reviewed any confusing parts with my attorney. (I fix his computers, so I get these extremely valuable consultations at no cost).
If I didn't have carry permits, I'd still be able under Federal law to transport my firearms in the trunk, unloaded. I will be transporting some unloaded guns back there, but my carry gun, a 10mm Glock 29, will be either holstered or locked in my steel center console. I carry this particular firearm because, out of all my guns, I shoot it the most accurately. I've taken extensive training with it, and I know it well. It comes with two 10-round magazines, and will also accept the 15-round mags that came with my larger Glock 20; since they are legal in Colorado, I'm bringing a few of them along.
I also brought my 9mm Glock 43, one of Glock's new models that I want to explore further at the range. Just for fun, I've also packed my Saiga-12, which is a semi-automatic Russian hunting shotgun, and half a dozen 8-round magazines for it that are also legal in Colorado.
I started the trip by jogging north up to US Route 30 in Pennsylvania, heading west to Lancaster, and taking a state highway up to the Turnpike. Pennsylvania does not recognize my Delaware CCDW permit, so my non-resident PA License to Carry Firearms is needed to carry here. I made good time, passing south of Pittsburgh before 11 AM. I did stop at a Turnpike rest area, checked my notebook to make sure it was OK to carry there, and used the rest room.
As I approached the West Virginia line, I say a silent thanks to the late Beau Biden...
As I explained to Mr. Biden when we met in the fall of 2010, we used to stop along the highway in western PA, unload and case our firearms, and lock them in the trunk before crossing into WV. Mr. Biden's work to expand concealed-carry reciprocity, which established new reciprocity agreements with West Virginia and other states, had made this dangerous procedure unnecessary; I got to thank him personally for helping us enjoy a simpler & safer trip. As I phrased it, "Some soccer mom calls 911, and my wife and I end up face-down on the Turnpike." He seemed genuinely pleased that his work was appreciated.
I'm not in West Virginia long -- less than 15 miles -- and then I cross into Ohio. My Delaware CCDW is valid here, and I'll be relying upon it until I come back through Pennsylvania on the way home. Ohio has an, um, interesting concealed carry laws, and one really needs to read and understand Ohio Code 2923.126 before entering the state while armed:
If a licensee is the driver or an occupant of a motor vehicle that is stopped as the result of a traffic stop or a stop for another law enforcement purpose and if the licensee is transporting or has a loaded handgun in the motor vehicle at that time, the licensee shall promptly inform any law enforcement officer who approaches the vehicle while stopped that the licensee has been issued a concealed handgun license and that the licensee currently possesses or has a loaded handgun; the licensee shall not knowingly disregard or fail to comply with lawful orders of a law enforcement officer given while the motor vehicle is stopped, knowingly fail to remain in the motor vehicle while stopped, or knowingly fail to keep the licensee's hands in plain sight after any law enforcement officer begins approaching the licensee while stopped and before the officer leaves, unless directed otherwise by a law enforcement officer; and the licensee shall not knowingly have contact with the loaded handgun by touching it with the licensee's hands or fingers, in any manner in violation of division (E) of section 2923.16 of the Revised Code, after any law enforcement officer begins approaching the licensee while stopped and before the officer leaves.
Personally, I do not find this a particularly onerous requirement: tell any law enforcement officer that you're armed, don't touch your gun, and follow their instructions. In many states, including most of this trip, a person legally carrying a concealed firearm is
not required to notify a police officer of that fact during a traffic stop... but we always have, and always will, hand over our carry permit with our driver's license when stopped. We do this because my small business has a lot of current and retired police officers as customers. I have asked each of these customers how to behave while armed in a traffic stop, considering that I am not required to notify in Delaware; every single one has answered that I should notify the officer immediately (handing over the permit with my license is "immediate" enough). As a Wilmington patrol officer explained to me, calmly and succinctly, "If your gun is a surprise to me, I'll blow your fucking head off."
In Ohio, one could interpret the law quoted above to mean that our usual practice is not adequate to "promptly inform any law enforcement officer who approaches the vehicle while stopped that the licensee has been issued a concealed handgun license and that the licensee currently possesses or has a loaded handgun." My wife and I agree that, if we are stopped by police in Ohio, we will do the following:
--Open all the windows and shut off the engine.
--Put our empty hands outside the windows in plain sight.
--Announce to the officer before (s)he reaches our car that we are doing this because we have carry permits and firearms.
So far, it hasn't happened... but, when traveling with firearms, it's important to know the law... have a plan... and review the plan (and revise it as needed) before each trip in case the laws have changed. Failure to plan for such contingencies could result in arrest, serious injury, or death.
After a long drive through Ohio, a fuel stop, and a couple of rest areas (I carried in both of them), I made it into Indiana. I was taking it easy for this part of the trip, so I stopped for the night in Indianapolis. It was early, so my wife urged me to go somewhere and do something. I don't drink, and I have a gastric band so a big steak dinner isn't possible, so I found a Barnes & Noble in a nearby mall and bought an Eisenhower biography.
It was a rough night at the Marriott: drunks in the next room woke me up before 3 AM. I certainly wasn't going to risk a confrontation with anyone in a strange town, so I got up, got dressed, told the staff at the front desk about the drunks on the way out (which got me a 50% discount... not bad) and drove on toward Oklahoma. I made sure I had enough fuel (and limited my fluid intake) to pass through Illinois without stopping.
Illinois used to be a state that neither issued nor honored carry permits, until a court decision forced them to at least marginally recognize the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. For folks passing through the state with carry permits, the rules are simple: we can carry in our vehicles, but we must lock up our guns before we step out of the car. I complied with that by
not stopping the car.
Then, I passed through Missouri (buying gas and using the bathroom along the way) and got to my stepmom's house in Broken Arrow in early Saturday afternoon. It was a pleasant visit, albeit brief: I was back on the road at 6:15 Monday morning. The notebook came in handy as usual, enabling me to check the gun laws before using rest areas in Kansas and Colorado. I reached my friend's house in suburban Denver before 5 PM.
We stayed up late talking, then got up at 3:30 AM for the first day of dove hunting season. I couldn't hunt because I didn't have a license, which was OK because I didn't really want to shoot at an animal, but I enjoyed going out on the recently-flooded riverbed and watching my friend's dogs frolic around as we waited for the doves to show up (they didn't). I left my firearms behind, as the rules on concealed carry while (not) hunting on state land were a bit unclear in my printed documentation. Better safe than sorry.
(And no, although I grew up in the 1970's and I was in Colorado, I didn't indulge. It might have been nice, but I work for a company that might require a drug test at any time).
The next day, we went out to a great shooting range in the mountains, and had lots of fun for about three hours. I welcomed the practice with my carry pistol, and shot enough rounds through the Glock 43 to be certain that it shoots a bit left of aiming point... I need to invest in a Glock sight tool, now that I own three of them. The
Saiga-12 is a delight to shoot... even though it really devastated my shoulder (and the wooden backers that held the targets), it was well worth it.
Thursday at 0-dark-thirty, I drove on down to Albuquerque to work for a few days. Knowing my company's rules about firearms, and New Mexico law, I had planned my lodging carefully. I checked in at the hotel about 600 feet from our offices there, left the car parked with my firearms locked in the trunk, and walked to work... thus complying with the"no firearms on company property" rule and avoiding the resulting need to leave guns in a hotel room.
The hardest part of the trip was the Labor Day weekend, because my annual 'holiday coverage' shift was... Labor Day, 7am to 7pm. This required me to drive home from Albuquerque in two days, with no margin for error. The trip was mostly uneventful, except for the speeding ticket in OKC...
I knew before I entered the state that I was legal to carry there, and I behaved the way I would anywhere else: I kept my hands in plain sight, had easy access to my license, registration, and proof of insurance, and handed over my carry permit with the other documents. The officer was polite and professional, and did not appear surprised or disturbed that I was armed (hey, it is Oklahoma, after all). He did take a few extra minutes to verify that the carry permit was valid... no problem there.
I got home about 11 pm Sunday night, quite a bit the worse for wear: I was too tired to even finish this diary until about a week later.
So, what's the Modest Proposal about concealed-carry reciprocity?
Well, I don't favor a Federal law that simply requires every state to require every other states' permit. There are a few states that don't require permits, and others (e.g., Pennsylvania) that have no training requirement before issuing one. I doubt that such a simple law will ever pass both houses of Congress and be signed by President Sanders.
Instead, I propose something similar to what the Federal Government does with other state-run operations (like the "enhanced driver's license"): set minimum standards for a resident carry permit that would be honored by all 50 states, and allow the states to decide whether to provide their card-carrying citizens with credentials adequate to enjoy this reciprocity.
This would not interfere with "constitutional carry" states that don't require permits: they could still allow unrestricted concealed carry, and they could offer permits to their citizens that met the standards and allowed them to carry elsewhere. It would encourage states like Pennsylvania to tighten their standards... heck, their citizens would probably demand it.
Those who oppose concealed carry, realizing that it is not going away anytime soon ever, should jump at the chance to encourage serious training requirements in the states that currently have none.
Those of us who carry, even if we were from such states, should be glad to find a reasonable way to gain national reciprocity that would not interfere with the local laws we live under now.
And, if you have read this and still think "Guns are bad! They should be banned, confiscated and destroyed!" remember that even trying to pass such laws will put more Republicans in power -- it's happened before -- and each Republican in Congress will kill more people than guns do.