My wife and I drove a Harley Davidson cross country from D.C. to L.A. for our honeymoon with a gun the entire way. This might not seem like a remarkable statement, unless you understand the need for national reciprocity.
Planning to drive cross country on a motorcycle with a GPS is certainly easier today than it was for the old grizzled bikers of yesteryear. That said, the GPS does not know which streets to avoid for safety, so I decided to get my concealed carry permit to make sure I could protect my wife in the event we ended up in a bad situation. I scheduled classes to apply for enough permits for D.C., Utah, and Virginia. This was not a cheap or fast process. In fact, I was only approved for my Utah permit by the time we left.
On our first day we drove from D.C., which had no concealed carry, to Maryland, which had no reciprocity, to Pennsylvania, which honored a Utah non-resident permit at the time (they no longer do). We then drove to Ohio, where we got pulled over for speeding. Luckily, I had reviewed my handy spreadsheet at a recent pit stop and knew that my Utah license was recognized in Ohio. I had also read up on the laws and knew that Ohio requires you tell the officer immediately you are armed.
So, after the officer explained why he had pulled me over I said, “I’m a licensed concealed carry permit holder and I am currently armed. How would you like to proceed?” He was not at all thrown off by it, took my license, gave me a ticket, and sent us on our way.
We had some interesting states where you could carry in state parks, ‘No Guns’ signs did not carry the force of law, but a park ranger posted the signs anyway. I pulled my spreadsheet of state laws again, and could not make heads or tails of that one.
We bounced from state to state and pretty much were able to carry concealed in every one accept Illinois without interruption. Finally, we arrived in the land of California, where we had to lock up the gun in a gun case for the duration of our stay.
When we got back to D.C. we learned they had declined to issue my permit because I had not supplied a “good reason,” which was required at the time. Civil rights attorneys apparently are not all fans of the Bill of Rights because I could not find one to sue D.C. for me. A friend ended up knowing a group of attorneys eager to take my case. All told it took 90 days to get denied by D.C. the first time, then about two years to fight them in court, and now I should finally have my permit in December 2017 (or maybe January 2018).
It should not be this difficult for law-abiding citizens to travel and keep a gun with them for self-defense. We need national reciprocity now.
Matt Grace was the plaintiff in Grace v DC and is a guest columnist for “Down Range with AWR Hawkins.”
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