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Q. What is a "carrying concealed weapons" (CCW) permit?
A. A CCW permit allows an individual to carry a loaded, hidden handgun in public. Thirty-five states force law enforcement to issue permits to carry a concealed handgun in public to anyone who meets certain minimum legal standards. This means that law enforcement officials are forced to issue a permit to carry a handgun even if they have misgivings about the person's ability to be responsible with it in public. This type of law is known as a "shall-issue" law because the police are told they shall issue the permit. "Shall issue" laws strip law enforcement officials of their ability to deny permits even when they have legitimate concerns about the applicant and also strips them of their judgment of how best to protect public safety in their jurisdictions.
Ten states give law enforcement discretion in issuing permits. In these states, law enforcement "may" or "may not" issue a permit and are known as "may-issue" states. Four states do not require a permit to carry concealed handguns in public while one state forbids the carrying of concealed handguns.
Click here to to determine the law in your state.
Q. Is a "permit-to-carry" (CCW) the same thing as a "permit-to-purchase or possess" a gun?
A. No. Many more states have systems in place for permitting gun owners to carry concealed handguns in public than have systems for a "permit to purchase." If a state has both a "permit-to-carry" and a "permit-to-purchase/possess," each permit usually requires a different process. There are, however, more and more "shall-issue" states in which CCW permit holders are exempt from Brady background checks. In these states, the CCW permit acts like a "permit-to-purchase." The Brady Campaign opposes this exemption and believes that a Brady background check should be conducted on each and every gun purchase.
Q. Why is the Brady Campaign opposed to more people carrying concealed weapons in public?
A. Allowing untrained, or under-trained, persons to carry loaded hidden handguns in public puts people at risk of being killed or injured, intentionally and unintentionally. It also makes it harder for law enforcement to identify the real perpetrators during a shooting. Allowing more people to carry concealed handguns in densely populated cities, on crowded subways, buses and sports stadiums, is a recipe for disaster.
Q. I heard there was national carrying concealed weapons legislation introduced? Was it defeated?
A. Yes. In 2009, the U.S. Senate rejected national legislation that endangered public safety by allowing carrying of loaded, concealed firearms outside a person's home state, even by persons legally barred from possessing guns in the state where the carrying occurs. The national legislation would have forced states with stronger carry concealed weapons permit systems to allow people to carry firearms who come from states with weak systems. The bottom line is it would have meant the lowest common denominator for all states. We applaud those Senators who stood firm for the public's safety and rejected the gun lobby's dangerous legislation.
However, there is current federal legislation seeking to force law enforcement to allow virtually anyone to carry loaded hidden handguns in public.
Q. Have gun owners always been allowed to carry concealed handguns in public?
A. No. The carrying of concealed weapons was prohibited or severely limited in most states prior to the 1990's. Until that time, local law enforcement officials were allowed to take into account a history of violent behavior or mental instability when deciding who could have a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public ("may-issue").
In reaction to the passage of the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Ban in the early 1990's, the National Rifle Association (NRA) launched a campaign to strip law enforcement of their discretion and force them to issue permits to virtually anyone not prohibited by federal law from owning a gun. The gun lobby's strategy resulted in thirty-five states adopting "shall issue" laws. Now, in many states, the NRA is extending its campaign to allow carrying of guns in schools and workplaces (places that are sometimes exempted in CCW laws).
Q. Does law enforcement support having discretion to issue permits?
A. Yes. Almost every major law enforcement organization - including the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and the International Association of Chiefs of Police - thinks law enforcement should have discretion over the carrying of concealed handguns in public.
Police chiefs know the dangers of people carrying guns in densely populated areas, on crowded streets, on buses, in subways, in sports stadiums and other places in which many people gather. This is why the vast majority of police chiefs throughout the country have opposed the gun lobby's "shall issue" laws. Urban areas of states have far different public safety needs than rural areas.
Police officers know how difficult it is to appropriately and legally use a gun in self-defense. Self-defense situations require extraordinary judgment under intense pressure. That is why the use of force is one of the biggest areas of training and continuing education for law enforcement.
Police also know that their own weapon can be used against them. In 2003, one-fifth of law enforcement officers shot fatally had their own or their partner's gun used against them (Adame, 2004).
Finally, permissive laws on bringing loaded and concealed handguns into public make law enforcement's job harder. Under these laws, police officers must assume that everyone is carrying a firearm and is willing to take the law "into their own hands;" every verbal confrontation, at a bar, in a restaurant, at a traffic stop, could become a potential gun battle.
Q. Are there examples of permit holders causing harm to themselves or others?
A. The gun lobby claims that only "law-abiding citizens" receive carrying concealed weapons licenses, and that because licensees are "law abiding," having more people carrying loaded, hidden firearms will make society safer. Both claims are patently false.
Click here for examples of crimes and misdeeds by CCW holders.
Q. Is the public in favor of people carrying guns in public places?
A. No. The public is overwhelmingly against allowing regular citizens to bring their guns into public places like sports stadiums, college campuses and bars.
Survey research shows that after being told that any permit holder could bring a concealed gun into public places, 68% wanted permits to be restricted to private detectives and others with a special need to carry a gun in public ("may issue") (Smith, p. 5).
Opposition is even more intense when people are prompted to think about specific public places, as documented by a national study of attitudes:
Do you think regular citizens should be allowed to bring their guns into:
- Sports Stadiums? 95% said no.
- College Campuses? 94% said no.
- Bars? 93% said no.
(Hemenway, Table 2, p. 283).
Q. Who feels safer when gun owners are allowed to bring guns into public?
A. Lax laws on carrying concealed weapons appear to make only a very small group feel safer: respondents who had carried a gun on their person in the previous month (Hemenway, p.283).
Tellingly, 63% of people who live in homes with guns but don't own one personally (for example, women with husbands who own guns) would feel less safe if more people began to carry guns (Hemenway, p. 283).
Among non-gun owners, 75% would feel less safe if more people began to carry guns in public (Hemenway, p. 283).
Q. What can I do?
A. Click here to sign up for our action alerts to stay informed and involved. We would not have defeated the national carrying concealed weapons legislation without calls from our members and activists to their U.S. Senators.
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Sources
Adame, Jaime, "Police Killed With Their Own Guns," Gotham Gazette, Sept. 2004.
Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2005," Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (November 2006) NCJ 214256.
Cook, Philip J., and Jens Ludwig, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," National Institute of Justice Research in Brief (May 1997) NCJ 165476.
Hemenway, David, Deborah Azrael, and Matthew Miller, "National Attitudes Concerning Gun Carrying in the United States," Injury Prevention 7(2001):282-285.
Smith, Tom, Public Opinion on Gun Control, "Concealed-Carry Laws and Practices," Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago (December 2003):5-6.
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