I’m heading North for Thanksgiving weekend with the family in Maine. Try as I may, I won’t be gun free, actually rather than my standard light carry gun (Holidays have lots of hugging, unless people are expecting it a shoulder holster surprises them, and such things are conversations for other days) I’m bringing a bunch of guns because Tomorrow Jay, Wally, Sci-Fi and myself will be sending rounds downrange at Wally’s club.
Also Joan Peterson’s post I’m referencing is talking about the horrors of HR822. I’ll point out I’ll be driving a little over 100 miles, and in that time I’ll be using THREE carry permits to lawfully carry. New Hampshire doesn’t require training, Massachusetts and Maine require NRA basic pistol certification as “Training”, so to get my Maine permit I just mailed my Massachusetts certification certificate with my application form.
Meanwhile I’ll be using just my Massachusetts driver’s license. I’ll also note that to get my Mass DL all I needed to do was hand them my Maine DL and hand them money.
While I took driver’s ed to get my learner’s permit, the only “Training” required to get my Maine DL was a 15 min drive through the outskirts of the city of Portland. Also the atmosphere of my driving test was pretty lax. On the parallel parking section I got off to a bad start and was getting ready to pull out and take one of my Mulligans (I forget but you’re given 2-3 attempts to properly park so long as you don’t hit the cones or the curb) but the examiner stopped me and gave me a few hints to get things going the right way. I still think I was a hair far from the curb when he opened the door, but I passed anyway.
That was 15 years ago, and if I keep at this rate (no major moving violations) I’ll never have to take another official driving test again.
Of course auto accidents are infinitely more common than concealed carry mishaps. And that goes for states that have no requirements for a carry permit (or no permit at all) to the most rigorous states out there.
Its simply a solution for a problem we don’t have…but it DOES cost a lot of people a lot of money (Just for Today NH Non-Res is $100 for 5 years, Maine is $80 for 5) and can greatly impede people’s ability to move freely about the country. You can’t travel from Gun-Friendly Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire to gun-friendly Pennsylvania, or Virginia without crossing gun-unfriendly New York…and even tho upstaters can get the right to carry, no Non-residents of New York may carry in the state, as they don’t issue non-resident permits. Massachusetts is close behind, they issue non-resident permits for $100, and its more-or-less a shall-issue permit. Doesn’t sound to bad, right? Well its also good for ONE YEAR. That’s a sham!
The current system makes no sense and needs to be fixed!
