Hi, I've been away from the board for a while, but I've come back because I have a question.
(I tend to write long posts, so if you don't want the boring story just skip to the end.)
In my political science class, the instructor told a story of how he was carjacked while visiting his brother in Los Angeles. He said that he had a weird feeling that something wasn't right and when he turned around the carjacker struck him with something in the head (he has a long scar along his forehead).
After the story, during a break another student came up and made a joke to the professor about since he was an Alaskan, why didn't he turn around gun drawn when he felt something was wrong and shoot his attacker (the way he said it was actually kind of funny, I just can't remember his exact words).
The conversation turned to guns and resisting the attacker, and another student commented that if he would have shot the man, despite the fact that he was being attacked with a weapon, he probably would have gone to jail. I then commented that since he was visiting Los Angeles, he probably would have been arrested for just carrying a gun.
I then got into a discussion with the student who made the joke. What I understood of his argument was that only recently did states start to issue licenses to carry concealed weapons, and before that was no law restricting ordinary citizens from carrying firearms.
My contention was that the first law requiring people to have a license to carry firearms was New York City's Sullivan Act in the early part of the 20th century. It was copied fairly quickly by the majority of the states. This type of licensing system is also known as may-issue, meaning that the granting of licenses was up to the discretion of some official, usually the sheriff, on a case-by-case basis. Then in the 1980's Florida became the first state to enact a shall-issue type of licensing system, under which if a person met a certain list of specific criteria the government had to give them a license to carry a concealed firearm. The majority of states have since adopted shall-issue concealed carry laws. California, however, is still a may-issue state, and in LA it is very hard to get a license, and I think it is highly unlikely they'd let a visiting Alaskan carry a weapon.
We both said we'd do further research.
(I didn't go into quite as much detail during the actual discussion.)
So, I wanted to know if I was mostly correct. If not, please tell me so I don't have to spend a lot of time doing research. If I am, could you please point me to some good sources on California and LA concealed carry laws (both past and present).
Thanks.
(I tend to write long posts, so if you don't want the boring story just skip to the end.)
In my political science class, the instructor told a story of how he was carjacked while visiting his brother in Los Angeles. He said that he had a weird feeling that something wasn't right and when he turned around the carjacker struck him with something in the head (he has a long scar along his forehead).
After the story, during a break another student came up and made a joke to the professor about since he was an Alaskan, why didn't he turn around gun drawn when he felt something was wrong and shoot his attacker (the way he said it was actually kind of funny, I just can't remember his exact words).
The conversation turned to guns and resisting the attacker, and another student commented that if he would have shot the man, despite the fact that he was being attacked with a weapon, he probably would have gone to jail. I then commented that since he was visiting Los Angeles, he probably would have been arrested for just carrying a gun.
I then got into a discussion with the student who made the joke. What I understood of his argument was that only recently did states start to issue licenses to carry concealed weapons, and before that was no law restricting ordinary citizens from carrying firearms.
My contention was that the first law requiring people to have a license to carry firearms was New York City's Sullivan Act in the early part of the 20th century. It was copied fairly quickly by the majority of the states. This type of licensing system is also known as may-issue, meaning that the granting of licenses was up to the discretion of some official, usually the sheriff, on a case-by-case basis. Then in the 1980's Florida became the first state to enact a shall-issue type of licensing system, under which if a person met a certain list of specific criteria the government had to give them a license to carry a concealed firearm. The majority of states have since adopted shall-issue concealed carry laws. California, however, is still a may-issue state, and in LA it is very hard to get a license, and I think it is highly unlikely they'd let a visiting Alaskan carry a weapon.
We both said we'd do further research.
(I didn't go into quite as much detail during the actual discussion.)
So, I wanted to know if I was mostly correct. If not, please tell me so I don't have to spend a lot of time doing research. If I am, could you please point me to some good sources on California and LA concealed carry laws (both past and present).
Thanks.
