As of five o'clock this past Friday the 17th of August 2007, Pennsylvania and West Virginia now have a signed concealed carry reciprocity agreement. The posted agreements will soon be uploaded to the relative websites for both states attorneys general.
I have been working for months with Jim Mullins, President of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League, and representatives of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office to bring this to fruition.
Other threads have mentioned that there was a holdup or glitch in the law with some surmising that the problems related to a mandatory training requirement. This could not be further from the truth! The difficulties surrounded the West Virginia requirement for a method of verification for law enforcement when encountering an out-of-state resident who is carrying a concealed firearm.
The problem mentioned above was settled/corrected in House Bill 1717, Act 66 of 2005, (another 'poorly' understood bill) and required the Pennsylvania State police to set up a 24/7 law enforcement only LTCF verification phone number. Unfortunately the Pennsylvania State police failed to notify the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office that this procedure existed and was operational. Since I was involved with this legislation (HB 1717) I was able to easily solve this problem with both attorneys generals offices. It is important to point out here the difficulty of dealing with certain bureaucracies within the Pennsylvania State government and one of them is the Pennsylvania State police under Governor Ed Rendell.
In retrospect here I should also point out that there are a small number of gun owners who have a predilection for jumping to 'uninformed' conclusions and assumptions, and engaging in conduct that is not only harmful to the public discourse of these issues but it is unfair and demeaning to those who contribute thousands of hours of their own time in reading legislation, contacting representatives, and all the myriad of small but essential details that work to make our freedoms less restrictive. The only way we are going to become effective, truly effective, is if we all work together and pool our collective experiences into shaping public policy.
In closing I want to thank all of the members of the coalition that work so hard to advance our pro-gun legislation and to stop the anti-gun legislation from seeing the light of day. My special thanks go out to Harry Schneider of the Pennsylvania Sportsmen's Association and Melody Zullinger of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs whose hard work over the last few years has made possible the extension of these agreements into Virginia and West Virginia as well as the others soon to come. I also want to thank Mike Stollenwerk of the Virginia citizens Defense league for his hard work on these issues as well.
I would ask that all of you consider sending some note of thanks to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett for his help in sorting out these legal hurdles that required to be surmounted to arrive at this agreement.
Yours in freedom,
Kim Stolfer
ACSL, Legislative Committee, Chairman
www.acslpa.org
FOAC, Chairman
www.foac-pac.org
PSA, Legislative Committee, Vice-Chairman
I have been working for months with Jim Mullins, President of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League, and representatives of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office to bring this to fruition.
Other threads have mentioned that there was a holdup or glitch in the law with some surmising that the problems related to a mandatory training requirement. This could not be further from the truth! The difficulties surrounded the West Virginia requirement for a method of verification for law enforcement when encountering an out-of-state resident who is carrying a concealed firearm.
The problem mentioned above was settled/corrected in House Bill 1717, Act 66 of 2005, (another 'poorly' understood bill) and required the Pennsylvania State police to set up a 24/7 law enforcement only LTCF verification phone number. Unfortunately the Pennsylvania State police failed to notify the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office that this procedure existed and was operational. Since I was involved with this legislation (HB 1717) I was able to easily solve this problem with both attorneys generals offices. It is important to point out here the difficulty of dealing with certain bureaucracies within the Pennsylvania State government and one of them is the Pennsylvania State police under Governor Ed Rendell.
In retrospect here I should also point out that there are a small number of gun owners who have a predilection for jumping to 'uninformed' conclusions and assumptions, and engaging in conduct that is not only harmful to the public discourse of these issues but it is unfair and demeaning to those who contribute thousands of hours of their own time in reading legislation, contacting representatives, and all the myriad of small but essential details that work to make our freedoms less restrictive. The only way we are going to become effective, truly effective, is if we all work together and pool our collective experiences into shaping public policy.
In closing I want to thank all of the members of the coalition that work so hard to advance our pro-gun legislation and to stop the anti-gun legislation from seeing the light of day. My special thanks go out to Harry Schneider of the Pennsylvania Sportsmen's Association and Melody Zullinger of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs whose hard work over the last few years has made possible the extension of these agreements into Virginia and West Virginia as well as the others soon to come. I also want to thank Mike Stollenwerk of the Virginia citizens Defense league for his hard work on these issues as well.
I would ask that all of you consider sending some note of thanks to Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett for his help in sorting out these legal hurdles that required to be surmounted to arrive at this agreement.
Yours in freedom,
Kim Stolfer
ACSL, Legislative Committee, Chairman
www.acslpa.org
FOAC, Chairman
www.foac-pac.org
PSA, Legislative Committee, Vice-Chairman
