Georgia joined a handful of other states allowing concealed carry, including Vermont, where no license is required; New Hampshire, with a 1923 law; Washington, which made issuance almost mandatory in 1961; and Connecticut, where in 1969 a Handgun Review Board was established to minimize arbitrary denials.
The Indiana Sportsmen's Council, assisted by the NRA-ILA, passed a mandatory issuance law in 1980, then had to sue the state police and other agencies and elected officials into compliance.
A trend started, with CHL laws passed in Indiana in 1980, Maine and North Dakota in 1985, and South Dakota in 1986.
The fight was tough, but the Unified Sportsmen of Florida succeeded. The dire Predictions? A year later the president of the police chiefs association, who had opposed the bill, was asked if he had kept track of all the problems the law caused. "There aren't any," he said.
Also in 2003 Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri passed shall-issue laws. Kansas and Nebraska went shall-issue in 2006, with Kansas having to override their governor's veto.
Alaska amended its carry law in 2003 to join Vermont by allowing no-license concealed carry. The state still has a shall-issue CHL for purposes of reciprocity and NICS check exemption.
Gun owners in Wisconsin had a long road. Concealed carry legislation passed their assembly in 2004, 2005, and 2006 but they have been unable to override a veto. They were one vote short in 2006.
Then the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in, first with District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, confirming an individual right to keep and bear arms. In 2009 McDonald v. Chicago applied that principle to the states.
Congress passed two laws, one expanding concealed carry in national parks, and the other allowing firearms to be checked on Amtrak trains. They went into effect in 2010.
Arizona passed a no-license carry law in 2010, like Alaska retaining their shall-issue CHL. Iowa also made its CHL truely shall-issue, effective January 1, 2011.
In 2011 Wyoming passed a law allowing unrestricted carry for residents, which went into effect July 1. They retained shall-issue CHL. Also, Wisconsin elected a new governor. He signed their concealed carry law in 2011, and it went into effect November 1.
In Illinois state legislators voted 65-32 in favor of a shall-issue CHL. Unfortunately the state requires 71 votes to pass legislation restricting local communities' regulatory power, so Illinois remains the only no-carry state. Passing CHL laws was never easy.
The current concealed carry status, as of 2011, is forty-one shall-issue states, four unrestricted carry states (three also shall-issue), one state with concealed carry banned, and eight with restrictive discretionary carry.
The first Texas law against concealed and open carry was "An Act to Regulate the Keeping and Bearing of Deadly Weapons, Law of April 12, 1871, ch. 34, §1, 1871 Tex. Gen. Laws 25" passed as part of the Reconstruction. That law was not substantially modified until 1995.In many ways the Texas process was typical. The push started with proposed laws in 1983, 1985, 1987 and 1989 (the Texas Legislature meeting only on odd numbered years). The 1991 attempt came closer to passing, but failed to gain enough support in the legislature, and was amended to death.
The People did. I really think the popular support for the law caught the media by surprise. Then the Governor, Ann Richards, weighed in with the news that she would veto any CHL law the legislature passed. Politically, that should have been the end, but popular support would not let the bill die. Trying to find something the governor would sign, the 73rd Legislature ended up passing a law that only called for a statewide referendum on CHL, not authorizing anyone to actually set up any program. Governor Richards vetoed it anyway, saying that the people of Texas didn't need to vote on something like concealed carry.
Throughout the long struggle to get a concealed handgun law passed for Texas there were a number of people who risked their political lives to accomplish what many thought might be an impossible task. Two stand out.
One is Texas Senator Jerry Patterson, who sponsored and shepherded a number of the bills, including the successful 1995 effort and the equally important 1997 revision. He happens to be a classmate of mine from Texas A&M University, Class of 1969.
The other is Suzanna Gratia, who rose from the tragedy in Killeen to provide essential testimony at a critical time. As Suzanna Gratia-Hupp she become a Representative in the Texas Legislature and served several terms, always speaking up for gun owners.
The law went into effect September 1, giving the Texas Department of Public Safety about three months to write all the procedures, design the paperwork, and train enough Qualified Instructors to teach the required course DPS wrote. They did it.
About 2,000 newly-minted Qualified Handgun Instructors began teaching the ten to fifteen hour CHL new-license class September 1, facing an initial flood of about 200,000 applicants. The new concealed handgun licensees started legally carrying January 1, 1996. It was somewhat anticlimactic, as the predicted bloodbath failed to materialize.
There was an initial surge in "No Handguns" signs on businesses that had been convinced the knuckle-dragging CHLs would invade in their camo clothing, tromping through stores in muddy boots spitting tobacco everywhere and running decent customers away. Instead, it was the decent customers who politely informed store owners that unless the signs came down their business would go elsewhere. Six months later "No Handguns" signs were an endangered species.
The most significant legislation attempted to change the definition of "travelling" to allow unlicensed carry in a personal vehicle. However, this law proved to be controversial, with several district attorneys claiming that it failed to actually accomplish its aim.
Bills insuring licensee privacy and allowing concealed carry on LCRA property failed to pass, as did a bill prohibiting concealed carry in school parking lots and an "assault weapons" ban. Also failing was the first attempt at restricting employer gun bans in parking lots.
The Legislature revisited car carry, restoring the "travelling" rule to its former state and including a private auto as "premises under the control," solving the problem. A Castle Doctrine bill removed the retreat requirement and limited civil liability. Other bills passed that make the renewal class valid for ten years, finally allows concealed carry on LCRA property, and prohibits seizing firearms during a disaster. A bill that would have prohibited carrying in school parking lots passed, but was amended so it just prohibited exhibition of firearms. An employer parking lot bill also failed, as did one that would have expanded the no-guns area of an airport.
Bills that passed included one creating a defense for improper 51% signs, removing the suspension penalty for failure to display to law enforcement, expanding interstate purchase of firearms, and simplifying instructor and student paperwork.
Other new laws legalize the carring of handguns in boats the way they are in autos, allow foster parents with CHLs to carry in their cars, and protect shooting ranges.
