Constitutional carry (sometimes called Vermont carry) is a political and legal term used by gun rights advocates to describe jurisdictions where no license is required for either concealed carry and open carry of weapons. These include firearms, such as handguns (pistols and revolvers) and long guns (rifles and shotguns), knives, and any other form of hand-carried weapons.
The appearance of the word "constitutional" in the phrase refers to the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which sits at the heart of all debate about gun usage in the United States:
“ | A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. | ” |
In practice, a "constitutional carry" law would be one that allows either the concealed or the open carry of firearms and prohibits police from stopping someone based merely on the fact the person is carrying a firearm.
Constitutional carry means that the carrying on one's person or in/on one's vehicle of firearms, concealed or not, is generally not restricted by the law. A constitutional carry state is a "free state" from a gun law perspective (see "Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms"). However, this should not be confused with the use of "free state" by libertarians who use that phrase to advocate for political migration to achieve political power.
The legal term "constitutional carry" describes the Bill of Rights legal interpretation that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution allows/permits no regulations or restrictions on gun ownership (e.g. "Shall not be infringed", in the Second Amendment). In actual practice, the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision undercuts the descriptive power of the phrase "constitutional carry" because the opinion suggests that some state or city-county government controls may be allowed, at least as to certain types of weapons. The decision was limited to the possession of firearms in one's home.
According to the "uniform crime reporting statistics" of the FBI, as reported by the NRA,[1] handgun murders decreased in Alaska, Arizona, and Wyoming after those states enacted Constitutional Carry laws in 2003, 2010, and 2011, respectively.[2][3]
By 2017, twelve states has constitutional carry rights,[4][5] and that number expanded to sixteen by March 2019.[6][7]
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Categories: [Constitutional Carry] [Legal Terms] [Bill of Rights] [Self-Defense]