Franks legislates like a drunken sailor packing heat

by David Safier

It's a jaw-dropping twofer for Trent Franks, and the second jaw-dropper is worse than the first.

Earlier, Franks said during a House Judiciary hearing on the National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act, "In Arizona sometimes to gain office you have to have shot someone." He immediately said, "I'm joking, of course." Which, I suppose, should make Arizonans who are still grieved by the January 8 shooting at Giffords' Congress on Your Corner feel less outraged by Franks' statement.

Now, Franks has offered a new version of the Reciprocity Act (otherwise known as the "Packing Heat on Your Street Act") making it even worse. In its earlier form, the bill would allow people traveling to another state to follow the gun carry laws in their own state. So if your state says it's OK to have a gun in a bar, other states have to allow you to carry in their bars as well.

According to a Brady Campaign Media Release:

Before Thursday, the proposed legislation, sponsored by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), undercut the authority of individual states to set their own rules for concealed carry by allowing anyone with a concealed carry license from any state to carry into other states in defiance of the training requirements or other limitations imposed by that state on its own residents.

But the Franks Amendment forces states to recognize the concealed carry licenses of non-residents, even if they are ineligible to possess a handgun in the state where the carrying occurs.

For example, under Tennessee law, Tennessee residents with concealed weapons permits may be prosecuted for violating the State's law prohibiting handgun possession by persons 'while under the influence of alcohol.'

The Franks Amendment would make that prohibition unenforceable against someone with a concealed carry permit visiting from another state, who is caught in possession of a gun in Tennessee while intoxicated.  The prospect of a concealed weapon permit holder being arrested while armed and intoxicated is hardly fanciful, since the state legislator who championed Tennessee's law allowing guns in bars was arrested this week for possessing a handgun while under the influence.

The Judiciary Committee also defeated an amendment offered by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that would have limited the damage done by the Franks Amendment by at least allowing states to prevent out-of-state gun carriers from carrying concealed if they had been convicted of a misdemeanor sex offense against a minor.  Incredibly, the Nadler Amendment was defeated.