CCW State Law Comparisons - Page (table of contents, next page)

Introduction

In 1987, Florida enacted a concealed firearms law that established statewide uniform restrictions and requirements for the issuance of concealed firearm permits.

Ever since Florida enacted their law, concealed firearms laws have been hotly debated in many other states. To date, fourteen other states have debated and enacted similar laws. Today, a total of 43 states have some form of concealed firearm laws in effect with over 2.4 million adults qualified and licensed to carry concealed firearms within those states. There are only seven states remaining that totally prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms to all citizens regardless of need or qualifications.

At press time, there are two other states with concealed firearms laws pending in their state legislatures and the voters of Missouri will determine the issue by popular vote on a measure known as Proposition B in April of 1999.

During the debates over passage of these laws, it became apparent that there has not been any research performed that directly compares the various concealed firearm laws.

These laws provide various state and local authorities guidelines on how permits are to be issued to private citizens seeking legal permission to carry a concealed firearm and where they can and cannot carry firearms.

This work will attempt to analyze and compare the various state laws so the reader can compare the requirements of each state and accurately judge the leniency or strictness of each.

For the purposes of this analysis, only those 30 states that have what are commonly referred to as "shall-issue" laws in effect will be compared. [Shall-issue is defined as a law that establishes qualifications of applicants for permits and allows only very limited discretion to the issuing agents of the state on refusal.] Because of the vote in Missouri, the provisions of its proposed law are included in this comparison.

NOTE: Federal laws governing the possession of weapons and firearms may differ from state laws. As a general rule, federal laws will supercede conflicting state laws. Federal law may prohibit persons from possessing a weapon or a firearm even if they are not prohibited from possession by state laws.

The intent of this study is to compare the respective differences between the way state laws govern the possession and carrying of concealed firearms. Therefore, this comparison draws only from state laws. No impact is given to federal laws.

[COVER] [CONTENTS] [TITLE] [DEDICATION] [ABSTRACT] [INTRO] [METHOD] [HOW TO USE]
[BASICS123Chart] [CHECKChart] [PERMITTED WEAPONSChart] [PERMIT FORM12, Chart] [TRAINING12Chart] [QUALIFICATIONSChart] [PROHIBITED PLACES123Chart] [FL, TX and VA123]
[CONCLUSION]

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