While calling for a national carry LAW wasn't the point of the article, and digging into the nuts and bolts of a national carry LAW wasn't my point in starting the thread, I'll comment a little on that:
some states would end up more restrictive than before the law was passed. Of that, I am certain.
Zactly. And my state is one that would almost certainly lose rights.
Without knowing what's exactly ever going to come to the table it is hard to say what COULD happen, but there's no compelling reason to think any state would ever be forced to tighten its requirements for carry -- or even to HAVE any requirements for carry.
A federal law could look like a number of things.
1) It could say, "states shall give full faith and credit to the process by which every other state recognizes its citizens' ability to carry a firearm." That doesn't require anyone change anything at all. If you can carry in your home state, you can carry in any other state. (As Kentucky and some others do now.)
2) It could say, "States shall give full faith and credit to the carry permits of states that issue a carry permit." Ok, sorry Constitutional Carry states. If your citizens want to carry in other states, you'll have to offer them SOMETHING as a credential, if you care. No state forced to do anything at all, but five or six states faced with the choice of whether to offer their citizens a sort of "out-of-this-state carry permit" -- which some of them already do. Don't want to add this element to your state's laws? Don't recognize your authority as a state government to make any declaration about a citizen's right to carry a gun? Fine! Your citizens won't have what's needed to take advantage of this new law, but they are no better or worse off than before.
3) It could say, "States shall give full faith and credit to any other state's carry permit IF that permit meets the following training and background checking requirements..." Ok, sorry Constitutional Carry states, and states like PA or others which don't require training. No state forced to do anything at all, but a lot of them COULD choose to increase their requirements, or could choose to offer a supplemental level of "enhanced" permit to meet that requirement, or could just choose to ignore the matter and carry on as before. Don't want to increase your state's licensing requirements? Fine! Your citizens won't have what's needed to take advantage of this new law, but they are no better or worse off than before. If any of their citizens want to take advantage of the federal law, they'll have to make some other arrangement on their own, like getting a UT permit or whatever so they meet the federal standard.
4) It could say, "There will be a federal universal carry permit established, and to obtain that universal ability to carry, the citizen must apply to the FBI (or BATFE, or whomever) on form 5320.666 and establish his or her
bona fides...The following requirements must be met." That would make it so no state had to change anything at all about its own carry requirements. Nothing. All on the federales to handle the permitting and training matters. A state's citizens can obtain that federal permit, or not, and it doesn't change anything about that state's system.
What I DON'T see happening is any possibility of the federal government FORCING a state to change its requirements. That would be completely unnecessary in any of the likely scenarios I've listed. Why would they even wade into that fight? Why go to battle with 50 different opponents over a question of federalism when they can simply say, "These are the requirements we establish (if any). Meet them if you want to participate"?
As we've seen with interstate highway issues and speed limits, states really don't seem to have much of a problem telling the fed.gov where to stick their ideas for tightened limits and restrictions.
So I find the idea that states would "lose rights" or "become more restrictive" far from a certainty, and almost the least likely possibility.
