To use a very bad hunting pun, the action taken in Utah may be a bit of overkill.  We need to ensure that criminals, terrorists, or illegal aliens do not own firearms.  But this overall ban probably goes too far.

W. Clark Aposhian, the Chairman of both the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification (Weapons Board) and the Utah Shooting Sport’s Council and also a Certified Utah State Concealed Carry Instructor, broke down the issue for us when he said,

“Utah Statute 53-5-704 does not affirmatively allow for non US citizens, residents or not, to apply for a Utah Concealed Carry of Weapon’s Permit (CCW). It does give certain criteria regarding age and lack of criminal history and it refers back to Federal Law regarding the ability to “Purchase and Posses” as a requirement to obtain the permit.â€?

He pointed out that in a day and age when terrorism is foremost on our minds, the need to maintain security, especially domestically, requires that we not overlook the possible criminal intent of a foreign national.  Clark went on to say, “couple that intent with a Utah concealed weapon permit and that should surely raise some red flags. But, if we can in fact check a person’s criminal history just as we do for residents of other states that Utah issues permits to, then there should be some ability for lawful self-defense for those people while visiting the United States.â€?

As Clark pointed out to me, there is currently only one country that has signed a reciprocal agreement with the United States to share complete criminal histories.  That is Canada.  If this system could be expanded, it would greatly enhance our ability to check foreign nationals before they enjoy the Second Amendment rights we all hold so dear.  We currently check backgrounds for Visa applications.  This process may be a good start to such a system for firearms purchases.

I agree.  So long as a foreign national can be checked the same way an American citizen can be checked, there should be no reason, barring the issues I mentioned above, that they should not be permitted to obtain a concealed carry permit, lawfully.  We Utahns vigorously defend the individual nature of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.  But as the Amendment says and as Clark points out,

“The right to Keep and Bear Arms for lawful self-defense, properly regulated as in this case with a criminal history check, should be afforded to “the People” as are other rights afforded to anyone legally within the borders of the United States, Citizen or not.  I do think that until technology, along with the cooperation of other countries, gives us the ability to affirmatively verify a person’s criminal history, or lack thereof, we should restrict CCW applications to people from only those countries to which we have access to the recordsâ€?

I agree that until the day comes when we can affirmatively check the criminal status of a foreign national, Utah and other states have legitimate public safety concerns and should restrict concealed carry permits to US citizens and those foreign nationals whose criminal backgrounds we can verify.  Using the system currently employed for Visa applicants would present an interesting possibility.  But as we have all heard too many horror stories of the federal government’s inability to track visitors, students, and others entering the country, and we would have to verify any system we employ would work properly.  But those assurances must be demonstrated before we could move forward with such a program.  We cannot afford to put the cart before the horse.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 9:55 am and is filed under Homeland Security, Politics .