Passing Concealed Handgun Bill a Failure of House Leadership

As one of Congress’s most vocal advocates for reducing gun violence, I wish to express my disappointment with the House leadership and many of my colleagues after the passage of H.R. 822, the National Right to Carry Reciprocity Act.

The bill forces states to recognize the concealed handgun permits . It’s the wrong bill to pass when it would hurt public safety and does nothing to help the country’s top priority, jobs and the economy.

This bill is a gross violation of both states’ rights and public safety, as well as a gratuitous gift to the powerful gun lobby when states already have the option to do what this bill mandates.

With the White House getting shot at with an assault weapon and the nation demanding that Congress focus on creating jobs and helping the economy, the last thing we need right now is another gun proliferation bill, which does nothing to protect American citizens or help them pay their bills.

I hope that more rational heads will prevail in the U.S. Senate, or in the White House where Senator Lautenberg and I have asked President Obama to issue a veto threat to this unnecessary and dangerous bill.

I have proposed an amendment to H.R. 822 that would have required states to proactively opt-in to the agreements called for in the bill by passing state law.  The amendment would have restored the law to its current status – currently, states have the option to enter reciprocity agreements for handgun permits should they choose to, and states have the right to set the standards for who should carry a concealed handgun on their streets. The amendment failed despite bipartisan support.

Last week with Senator Frank Lautenberg, I urging him to issue a veto threat to H.R. 822, an action that could help stop the dangerous and unnecessary bill in its tracks:

We strongly urge you and your administration to make clear your opposition to, and issue a veto threat for H.R. 822. Passing H.R. 822 would jeopardize public safety and would be an insult to states like New Jersey and New York that purposefully have strong gun ownership laws.  In a country with almost 300 million guns, we need to be strengthening our gun safety laws, not weakening them.

Last month I wrote to every governor in the United States warning them of the threat to both public safety and states’ rights posed by H.R. 822:

This policy removes the ability of your state to pass laws or regulations regarding armed visitors to your state and forces the citizens of your state to honor the policies of the government of another state over whom they have no electoral control or remedies for addressing ill-advised policies.

 is the representative of New York’s Fourth Congressional District. She was first elected in 1996.