Monday, May 25, 2015

CCW in PA

The latest regime in Pennsylvania no longer accepts CCW non-resident permits.  In other words, if you live in Maryland, you can only carry in PA if you have a Maryland CCW.  I have a Virginia non-resident permit.  So, no conceal carry for me north of the border anymore.

The word is, PA officials think folks are getting rejected from getting a Penn. permit and are getting a Florida or Utah one instead.  As if it is easier to get those permits than it is to get a Pennsylvania permit.  It isn't.  If you can't get a Penn permit as a Penn resident good luck getting a permit anywhere else. 

Anyhoo, MBtGE has a Virgina resident permit.   And there is no restriction on him carrying TWO pistols in Pennsylvania.  And if I am going a trip with him to PA and one of his extra pistols finds his way into my separate hotel room while we try to sleep in a sketchy Super 8 motel on the crystal meth and hooker side of town... that's ok.  As long as I don't carry it outside of the room. 

4 comments:

Sean D Sorrentino said...

If you spend any significant amount of time in PA, get a PA non-res permit. They aren't expensive and have no training requirement. I got mine in Erie.

US RKBA said...

Not to be a stick in the mud here, but your link takes you to hangunlaw.us; on the actual PA site, I see at least one state without a “resident” requirement which issues non-resident permits. I think there are 2 states that issue non-resident permits which have valid agreements with PA that do not have a residency requirement, possibly a 3rd. The 3rd has an ambiguous extra requirement that does not mention “resident”

I agree that the trend has been under the Kane (AG) regime to re-negotiate agreements that establish a residency requirement - seen on at least Florida, AZ and a few more, the link here
https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/Media_and_Resources/Firearm_Reciprocity_Agreements/

shows the current agreements. I’ve heard that these “re-negotiations are legally suspect, however so long as the 2 willing partners in the negotiations “agree”, there’s little that can be done.

Perhaps “the word” from handgunlaw.us hasn’t made ti to the AG’s office yet?

Sean is right though, get a PA non-resident permit, but there is some information you should know. It’s inexpensive as permits go, but the application asks for personal references and asks for an employer contact. They have a 100% contact record for my applications - personal references and employer. Fortunately, they’re not disclosing why they are contacting the employer, but you should be aware of this.

I’ll go one step farther and suggest that even if you spend a little time in PA, or possibly spend some time in PA, the permit is worth it for shenanigans like this with the “Kane regime”.

Also, the PA reciprocity agreements re-negotiated by AG Kane are “one way” resident requirements. That is to say, I saw some that PA required the permit to be a resident permit, but the “reciprocating” state did not have a resident requirement.


Anonymous said...

Sean,

You can only apply for a non-resident Pennsylvania permit if you already hold one from your home state...so those of us that travel to PA from Maryland, or DC, or New York, or New Jersey are out of luck with that tactic. Thankfully I have a permit from a state with reciprocity (and that doesn't require me to be a resident of that state), but not everyone is so lucky.

Mike W. said...

There is a chance that this might change back the other way in PA, since the major reason that all of the non-resident permits got invalidated was bloomberg hack PA AG Kathleen Kane.

It'd be nice if AZ, FL, UT or hell, any of them were reverted back to having reciprocity with PA. I can think of one non-resident permit I hold that is still good in PA. I think they didn't invalidate that one because the issuing state has since made new permit applicants hold a home state permit.

And keep in mind that, outside of cities of the 1st class (Philly, Pittsburgh) you can car carry as long as you have a valid permit from *any* state, and of course open carry is legal.