|
Edited on Wed Oct-01-03 12:20 AM by happyslug
Basically, a permit to carry is permission from your state (or County or City whatever issued the Permit) to carry an otherwise illegal item.
The Full Faith and Credit clause (FFCC), on the other hand, has been one of the most hated of all clauses in the US Constitution. Technically it can be used to force ALL states to comply with a law only one state wants (for example the recent ruling on Gay Marriage in Vermont). Given this ability the Courts have had problems with it from the first day of Ratification of the Constitution. Mark Twain in "Huckleberry Finn" mention the FFCC when Huck's father complains how a free black man can operate in Missouri for three months before Missouri could sell him into slavery. (In Missouri from 1820-1865 it was illegal to be a free black. If a black man from another state went into Missouri, Missouri had to give Full Faith and Credit to the fact the Black was a freeman in his home state. Missouri could not grab him and sell him, as permitted by Missouri law of the time period, till he was a resident of Missouri, i.e. after three months in the state.) Missourian hated to have to wait to sell such free blacks but had to under the Full Faith and Credit Clause(FFCC).
This dislike of the FFCC grew after 1865 and the raise of Labor. It increased after the Palmer raids of 1919. Why should we give FFCC to such CCW when we would NOT have granted such a CCW? The Courts started to view the "Police Power" as excempt from FFCC and since CCW was issued by Police Departments, the FFCC did not apply. The Court’s rationale was simple, a CCW was HOW you operated in the State it was issued in, it was NOT a property right for example a Marriage License, or Deed, or Will etc (The Supreme Court has always preferred to deal with property rights more than any other right). Since without a CCW, it would have been criminal to carry a pistol, a CCW was NOT a property right but a police regulation and as such NOT under FFCC.
Around the same time period (1900-1920 when most state’s laws as to firearms first appear on the books) there seem to be a similar move as to Automobiles, but since more rich people owned cars than poor people, the State Legislatures decided to recognize each other licences and regulations of Automobiles. This was expanded by the Federal Government during WWI and during the 1920s as an alternative to the railroad system. The Federal Government again expanded its role as to the Automobile during the Great Depression and WWII. Since the passage of the Interstate Highway Act under Eisenhower, for all practical matters operations of Vehicles on Public Roads have been a Federal matter. You will hear that it is a "State matter", but when push comes to shove, the Feds get their way. The states want the Federal Highway Money more than they want to retain the ability to regulate automobiles. Thus the Courts do sometime mentioned the FFCC when hearing cases involving Automobiles, but given the almost complete regulation of Automobiles by the Department of Transportation, the states have very little maneuver room to do anything the Department of Transportation does not let them do.
As to firearms, no such Federal Agency has stepped in to do the same for Firearms, thus the Courts view Firearms possession as a “Police Matter” and as “Police Matters” are reserved to the states, each state may or may not recognize another state’s CCW. Now the GOP has said they would pass a requirement that all states recognize all other states CCW, but this seems more as a way for the GOP to raise money and votes than to actually pass such a bill. The NRA would like to have such a law passed, but the GOP just likes the votes and money its produces saying they want to pass it.
|