The ability “to keep and bear arms” is a guaranteed right for Americans but the freedom to carry a gun has been limited by laws in recent years.
“It is pretty much the only right I know of, spelled out in the Constitution, that you actually have to pay for,” said Aaron Green, a manager at The Sound of Freedom USA, a firearms retailers and shooting facility in Ozark.
In Missouri, if you want to carry a firearm (but conceal it underneath a coat or in purse), you have to pay $200 or more to obtain a permit and go through a gun training course.
“That $200, with unemployment where it is at, that is quite a bit of change to pay to use an unalienable right,” said Green.
State Rep. Eric Burlison, R – Springfield, introduced legislation that would do away with the concealed weapon-carry laws. If the idea becomes a reality, anyone who is legally allowed to own a gun can freely carry it — in the open or hidden — without a permit.
Last summer, Missouri voters approved Amendment 5, a measure protecting gun ownership. Last month, in one case, a St. Louis judge ruled Amendment 5 said the state law prohibiting felons from owning firearms is unconstitutional. Burlison says, likewise, he believes Amendment 5 invalidates the concealed/carry laws.
Those supporting concealed/carry say it is about safety and preventing crimes; gun rights supporters shoot that argument down.
“Your criminals aren’t worried about it anyway. They never have been,” said Green. “They are carrying illegal guns that they obtained through theft or any other illegal means and an extra charge on the books doesn’t mean much.”
There would likely still be a need for permits for those Missourians who travel with their guns to states that would still have those control laws on the books.
Texas, Nevada, and Kansas are other states considering repealing their concealed-carry laws.
Burlison’s proposal would not remove a requirement for a concealed-carry permit at a school or place of worship.
Copyright © 2015, KY3 News
Lawmaker wants people to be able to carry concealed guns with no permit
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