Nevada bill would allow concealed guns without permits
By RILEY SNYDER – Associated Press
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) – Nevada Republicans are proposing a bill repealing the state’s requirement for a permit to carry a concealed gun.
Sen. Don Gustavson, R-Sparks, is leading a group of Republican legislators supporting SB 143, which was reviewed Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill would allow any person who legally owns a gun to carry it concealed without having a permit.
Gustavson and a parade of gun lobbyists said the bill would allow citizens who can legally own a firearm to avoid going through a costly and time-intensive process to apply for a concealed-weapon permit. Nevada already allows legal gun owners to openly carry a firearm without a permit.
“Most people who have guns know how to use them,” Gustavson said.
Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Nevada lobbyist Ron Dreher said the bill would increase the number of police frisks and present a security concern for police.
“It does put a lot more pressure on our law enforcement officers,” he said during the hearing. “The issues I see for officer safety are immense.”
Well, Nevada may soon become the sixth state to legalize Constitutional Carry. They tried passing a similar bill several years ago but it never made it out of committee. The fact that bill is garnering much more attention goes to show how far we have come on Constitutional Carry in just the last few years.
Sadly, we get the obligatory objection by the police on this issue. Seems like every time a state is considering Constitutional Carry, the police come out and speak out against it. The arguments are usually the same as presented here; “It puts more pressure on police, and will mean more frisks when dealing with the police.”
Other police departments and Sheriffs who support Constitutional Carry have debunked these claims by explaining that police are already trained to consider every person as being armed. Perhaps the police are just afraid that with enough armed citizens protecting themselves, some of them may be out of a job.
