All but one state I drove through honors my FL CCW license - why not SC?

A

azurefly

Moderator
States that honor reciprocity with Florida's Concealed Weapons License

Funny how it was AFTER my recent trip that I checked to see which states would not bust me for carrying. Of all the states on a Florida-Virginia trip (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia), only South Carolina does not offer reciprocity to my Florida-issued license.

Why is that?

Can anyone inform me as to the status of CCW in NC, and why they don't recognize FL's license? Is SC a shall-issue state? I know that some states refuse to honor licenses issued in states that have more lenient licensing requirements...


-azurefly
 
SC and FLA

From my understanding about SC is the state does not feel FL. has a good enough training program for the CCWP. You can check on packing .org or the ATF's sites for what SC requires for there CCWP. If I'm not mistaken there course is 8 hours and a bit more intense than FL's
 
Maybe they should take some of the money they spend on CCW training and put it into a stop-smoking campaign! I was at the Iron Skillet restaurant off I-95 (don't remember what exit) and there were like 9 people smoking right there at the restaurant tables at 11 o'clock at night! Sheesh! I know it's always been a tobacco state and all, but you'd think that the state pays people money to smoke, from how popular it is.


Florida pretty much has "no" training for CCW. You take an afternoon course on the legality of CCW and the use of a firearm, but no practical range time is required. I think it's petty that SC won't recognize FL's license, though. If there were stats bearing out that Florida's CCWers were having problems being safe and legal, I could understand it. But we are just as good and safe, I'm sure, as those in SC.


-azurefly
 
A DD-214, an NRA pistol course, even another state's hunting class satisfies the "training" requirement. It just prevents someone who doesn't know what a handgun is from getting a ccw. That's about it. (Aside from the background check, of course.)

Don't forget, in FL, it's a CW(eapon)L, not a CH(andgun)L, so there's no particular reason why it should require firearms training. Someone might conceivably want to get a FL permit simply to be allowed to carry a CRKT hissatsu or something like that. (Of course that only applies in FL... most other states with reciprocity wouldn't accept a FL permit as a license to carry a 7" knife.)
 
CCW in SC

Just to add another note. It's been awhile matter of fact, obtained my CCW in 1993, anyway to the point. The wife took her class in November and as part of the training they require the applicants for the coarse hit 6 out of 8 on paper. The gun show at the Ocean Center was charging $ 185 to do it all from the class to prints and filling out the paper work and also included a trip to the local range to show your quailifacations with a firearm. maybe it's something new pertaining to the range part of it. The $185 wasn't to far out of line. All totaled the wife spent $ 170 to get it all done.
 
The core of the problem here is that in many states, gun owners BLEW it big time. They simply told their legislators that they wanted a "shall issue" law. Well, the legislators delivered. THE DEBATE STARTS with demanding Vermont/Alaska carry. That's where we SHOULD have started. State gun groups should demand nothing less, BUT in the course of negotiations, still be flexible. In many states, gun owners are so desperate for ANY "shall issue" law, that they end up with total disasters like New Mexico's original law. You end up with high fees, long training requirements, no reciprocity, short expiration dates and on and on. The argument has always been "well, we can 'fix' it later." Really? South Carolina still apparently doesn't have basic constitutional reciprocity (you know, that "full faith and credit part"). South Carolina's training requirement of 8 hours needs to disappear altogether (after all, criminals don't take classes on how to "safely" hold their guns sideways :D )
 
Full faith and credit is a broken concept. It doesn't apply in this case because concealed weapon carry is a crime, and FF&C cannot be used to require states to adopt identical criminal laws, or to make certain crimes only apply to certain people. That would probably be an equal protection violation. For instance, when you drive in another state, the license is valid, but you still have to obey local traffic laws even though there's no way for you to know them unless you're a rule freak and memorized the state's driver's handbook before you entered the state.

FF&C applies mainly to criminal and civil court judgements. It's just as broken in respect to those as it would be if it applied to CCW. If you get arrested and convicted (hypothetically) for carrying a 5" fixed-blade in California, you have a criminal record as far as Texas is concerned, even though TX is perfectly okay with its citizens carrying around 5" knives.
 
Tyme, as a Floridian with a license that reads "CONCEALED WEAPON OR FIREARM LICENSE," across the top of the actual license, why is it illegal to carry a concealed weapon? Merry Christmas
 
Full faith and credit is a broken concept. It doesn't apply in this case...
Click to expand...

Oh, full faith and credit very MUCH applies in this case.

Article IV Section 1 reads:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given [as opposed to may be given] in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of ever other State.

Issuing a permit to carrying a weapon (itself not legal under the 2nd amendment and MOST state's constitutions that say shall not be infringed) is no different than issuing a marriage license. If MassaHOLEchusetts has to honor my marriage license and commercial driver's license if I'm unwise enough to move there, they have the same obligation to honor my carry license. A license is a license. If they don't want to do that, then they need to change their state constitution and secede from the union.

If issuing a quasi legal carry "permit" (when one isn't needed in most states, new judges are) is not a public act and/or a public record, then the english language has been altered under all our noses.

Saying that since carrying without a license in some states is a crime somehow would force states to have the same criminal laws if they gave full faith and credit, is legal doubletalk. Those same states make it a crime to not have a commercial drivers license before driving to the grocery store, which makes the full faith and credit of another state's commercial drivers license even more necessary. If CA and MA played this game with drivers licenses, and started throwing people in jail for having an Arizona drivers license like they would for carrying in CA with an AZ carry permit, this would be easier to see.
 
tegemu, I don't believe I said that. I said that your FL CWL won't let you carry a hissatsu in Georgia, even though you can carry one in Florida.

MPA, okay, maybe FF&C does apply. So if a state grants a license that allows the permittee to commit assault, other states have to recognize it? It seems like you're making a good argument for why driver's licenses should not be recognized by other states. After all, driving without a license is a crime, not a civil issue.

Driver's licenses are recognized because it's practical; there would be general outrage if you had to have a DL from every state you plan to drive through. CCW holders are happy enough that they got to pay for their right to carry concealed. Most would rather not complain that getting permits for multiple states just for a trip is not only unreasonable, but it's sometimes impossible.

FF&C is just a clause that nobody cares about. Keeping the people pacified is what matters. If a license is so universal and so common that not recognizing it out-of-state would cause serious political problems, it'll be recognized. Otherwise, the FF&C is just window dressing.

Are DL's recognized because of the FF&C clause, or are they universally recognized for some other reason?
 
After some cursory investigation, it seems that DL's are not reciprocal because of FF&C. Only court decisions and exclusively-civil court-issued documents fall under the FF&C clause. Even marriage licenses only fall under FF&C if they're sufficiently similar to local laws. Anything related to exemption from criminal law is different. DLs, CHLs, professional licenses, they're all exempt from FF&C recognition, because they don't recognize something intangible like marriage or a criminal record, but rather represent an exemption from laws covering ordinary people, laws covering actions or possession of various things.
If DL's were truly subject to FF&C, there probably wouldn't be a requirement for someone to get a new DL aftering moving to another state. After all, you don't have to get a new marriage license if you move.
 
I have always liked the Full Faith and Credit clause applied to CCW licenses, but I do see that its application has its flaws.

We like to argue that the 2nd Amendment can't be about the national guard because the national guard hadn't even been created when it was written.

How can we argue that the FF&C clause pertains to CCW licenses, when the notion of CCW licenses was also never heard of at the time the Constitution was written? I don't know if the government required any kind of license for ANYTHING at that time... You certainly didn't have to go appeal to the .gov to get a license to go into business, did you? Or to travel by horse and buggy. When airplanes first appeared, no one governed who could fly them, or when or where.

I hope someone has info and background on the idea of government licensing citizens to do or have certain things. I'd like to know when that notion appeared on the landscape of public rights. I'll bet it's a 20th century thing, exclusively.

So I don't see how the FF&C clause could really apply to licenses issued by governmental agencies, despite the fact that I really would love to club them with that.


-azurefly
 
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