10th Amendment vs. 2nd Amendment: They Both Matter

Yesterday the Senate voted down an amendment that would allow citizens with concealed carry permits to use their state-specific permit to carry firearms in all 50 states. Currently, laws regarding concealed carry permits are left up to individual states, and not all states recognize concealed carry permits from other states. For example, I have a concealed carry permit for the state of Georgia. The state of Alabama recognizes this license and will allow me to carry a weapon in that state, but the state of South Carolina does not. See here for the full reciprocity map.

The issue here is that some states have different laws than others on obtaining a firearms permit, some more and some less stringent. For example, in Georgia you have to go to your county probate court, apply for the license and a background check, get fingerprinted at the police department, and you get your license a few weeks afterward. In South Carolina you must do the same things, but you must also take a firearms course (something I agree with - if you have to take a test to get a drivers license you should sure as heck have to take one to carry a gun!). Therein lies the issue.... Georgia laws are a bit more relaxed than those of South Carolina, and in some states they are even more lenient. South Carolina doesn't want people who don't know how to use a firearm with legal concealed carry permits from other states carrying one within it's borders. This makes perfect sense.

It was recently ruled unconstitutional for a state (or the District of Columbia) to deny a person their right to possess a handgun. A year ago, in the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that Washington D.C.'s handgun ban was unconstitutional. Left up to the individual states, however, are the specific laws pertaining to how one may obtain a firearm. Yesterday's Senate vote addressed those laws. The Senate voting down the amendment is not a violation of the Second Amendment, because citizens are still allowed to carry guns in all 50 states. The real issue concerning this piece of potential legislation was the Tenth Amendment. It states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That a state should be required by the Federal Government to honor another state's more lenient gun permits is a violation of the Tenth Amendment, because the Constitution does not give the Federal Government the right to regulate firearms.

That's part of the beauty of living in America and the genius behind the Founding Fathers' framing of our government. The Federal Government's power is limited (or at least it should be.... in reality we could find hundreds of violations of the 10th Amendment). An individual state might be able to restrict you from doing a certain activity, but another state may not. If you don't like a particular law, and there is another state that doesn't have it then you can move. If the Federal Government had more power, however, we would all be stuck with the same laws. This is how our government was designed to work. This is true Freedom as the Founders intended.