By Gary Blackburn
Senate Bill 5 has been introduced by Sen Gerald Allen and House Bill 405 by Rep. Sorrell, co-sponsored by Rep. Kiel and 23 other House Representatives, has also been introduced. These Bills, if passed into law, will rescind the requirement to have a permit to concealed carry a handgun or to carry or have a loaded handgun in a vehicle. Currently, if you do not have a permit you are required to unload and store the gun out of reach of all the people in the vehicle, not much help in a dangerous defensive situation.
The Bills will not make any changes to who is forbidden by law to carry or possess. Permits would remain available for those that have a need for one such as travel to other states. Actually most gun-owners {One Million+ permit holders in Alabama} would continue to purchase a permit so as to be legal to carry in the other 32 states that have reciprocity agreement with Alabama. We simply want our State to follow the US Constitution’s 2nd Amendment and not “Infringe” on our right.
At this time at least 17 states have no permit requirement with probably a couple more expected to pass as I write this. Nothing bad has come from this in any of these states.
The people of Alabama recently voted overwhelmingly a change to our State Constitution making our “right to keep and bear arms” a “fundamental right”. [See Section 26] Also, any restrictions of this right must meet “strict scrutiny”.
We’ve been trying to get this passed for several years. Our opposition has been from The Alabama Sheriff’s Association and the County Commissioner’s Association. We believe it is because of their perceived loss of funds. In other states that have passed this law the permits issued have increased in number. The number of gun owners have increased by the millions in the last year and so are permits.
The ASA claims no permit requirement would make the Sheriff’s and their deputy’s job more dangerous. We disagree. We do not want our LEOs in more danger. BamaCarry, Inc. supports our law enforcement officers and we hold them in high regard. We know they are trained to approach a situation such as a vehicle stop as being a possible dangerous event. This training would not change because of a change in the permit law nor would this change bring any more danger upon these LEOs. The people in a vehicle that has been pulled over by Alabama LEOs will do whatever they do and the LEO will handle it in the manner he or she has been trained no matter if the people have a particular piece of paper or not.
Permit laws only affect the law abiding citizen; Bad guys don’t care about the law or permits. Bad guys do bad things; permits are not even a consideration for them. These Bills if passed will bring Alabama in line with the Constitution of The United States and put our state government more in the favor of its’ people and the people across the U.S. will have more respect for our state.
We also have HB157 and SB 157 introduced. We ask for your support for these Bills. We feel they are very important to the freedom of our great citizens of Alabama. These Bills are to keep the Feds out of our Alabama gun rights via the 10th Amendment.
(c) All federal acts, laws, orders, rules, and regulations, whether past, present, or future, which infringe on the people's right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution shall be invalid in this state, shall not be recognized by this state, are specifically rejected by this state, and shall be considered void and of no effect in this state.
All of these Bills can be read at
http://www.legislature.state.al.us/aliswww/default.aspx
Please support and help by contacting Reps and Senators in Montgomery and letting them know you want these bills passed.
Thank you,
Gary Blackburn,
County Group Leader for www.BamaCarry.us
BamaCarry/FranklinCounty on FaceBook
3 replies on “Permit Requirement to Carry a Pistol Is Not Needed”
Good article Gary!
Excellent article!
Excellent article! I have been in touch with my state leaders.