Firearms community ‘fired up’ over court’s decision on concealed carry
Jun 11, 2016, 1:23 AM
There are at least nearly half a million people in Washington state that wouldn’t appreciate lawmakers in Olympia imposing a law that would make it more difficult to carry a concealed weapon.
The number of people with active concealed pistol licenses in the state exceeds more than 541,000, according to Dave Workman, senior editor at TheGunMag.com and communications director for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
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“I checked with the Department of Licensing … That’s half a million voters that aren’t going to react very well if someone decides to go to Olympia and tries to impose a discretionary show-cause kind of law in Washington,” he told Seattle’s Morning News.
What has pro-gun people worried about is the ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California that there is no constitutional right to carried a concealed handgun. The 7-4 vote upheld a California law that requires people to show good reason before they are given a concealed license.
For now, it doesn’t look like the ruling will impact Washington much, because Washington has a constitutional right to bear arms provision. Workman doesn’t know if lawmakers would ever try to change that provision, he says. What he does know is that the firearms community is “all fired up.”
“It is a fundamental civil right, recognized by the U.S. Constitution, and you shouldn’t need to provide a need to exercise a civil right,” Workman said. “Its not the Bill of Needs, it’s the Bill of Rights.”
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