{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://hudson.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=25&itemid=1753", "Hudson Urges Support of Concealed Carry Reciprocity", "2017-12-06", "2017", "2017-12", "Republican", "House", "NC", "Richard Hudson", "H001067", "hudson.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE \r\n\r\n\tDecember 6, 2017\r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tHudson Urges Support of Concealed Carry Reciprocity\r\n\r\n\tRep. Hudson\u2019s Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38) will be voted on later today\r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tWASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2013 Today, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson (NC-08), author of the bipartisan Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38), spoke on the House floor in support of his legislation:\r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\t\u201cFor every freedom-loving American who exercises their Second Amendment right, today is your day. For the 73% of Americans who support concealed carry, today is your day. For the 15 million concealed carry permit holders out there, today is your day. And finally to the single mothers out there who just want to protect themselves and their families, today is your day.\u201d\r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\t\r\n\r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tFull transcript\r\n\r\n\t\u201cLet me tell you a story. It\u2019s a story about an African American single mother with two kids, living in south Philly. After twice being the victim of muggings, she decides to go out and legally purchase a firearm to protect herself, gets trained with her weapon, and applies for a concealed carry permit. Sometime thereafter, she crossed the state line into New Jersey and at a routine traffic stop, did exactly as she was trained: handed her driver\u2019s license and concealed carry permit to the police officer and let him know that she had a pistol in her purse. What she didn\u2019t know is that the state of New Jersey doesn\u2019t recognize the concealed carry permits of their neighbor in Pennsylvania. And so this poor single mother, who has never had a brush with the law, spent almost 50 days in jail and was looking at 10 years in prison. Are you serious? We have to make sure that never happens again. \r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tThe other side today is going to argue that we\u2019re violating states\u2019 rights with this legislation, but Article IV, Section 1, the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution, says very clearly that every state should give the full faith and credit to the judicial proceedings and documents of every state and that Congress has the responsibility to determine how those documents will be recognized. That\u2019s why a driver\u2019s license is recognized in every state. That\u2019s why if I get married in North Carolina, but I move to Arizona I\u2019m not a single man again. They recognize that marriage. That\u2019s why divorce decrees are recognized in every state. The concealed carry permit should be recognized the same way. \r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tBut this is not trampling states\u2019 rights because states can still determine what can be carried, where it can be carried \u2013 they can set any kind of limits they want about how weapons are carried in their municipalities or states. For example if you visit the state of New York, they have a limit on the size of a magazine on a pistol \u2013 you\u2019ve got to follow that law. If they want to set restrictions about places where you can\u2019t carry \u2013 even with this legislation, that law would have to be followed. The states retain this right. Just like a driver\u2019s license. \r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tThe other side is also going to stand up and claim all kinds of doomsday scenarios about how we\u2019re \u2018going to increase crimes,\u2019 we\u2019re \u2018going to increase the number of weapons out there,\u2019 we\u2019re \u2018going to turn the cities into the Wild West.\u2019 I find it ironic that we\u2019re being lectured to by people from big cities with a lot of gun control measures, but have some of the worst crime in the nation. They\u2019re worried about people coming from other places where we don\u2019t have crime. I think that\u2019s ironic. \r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tBut the truth is over half the states already recognize permits from every other state. Nineteen states, in fact, already do this. States and municipalities, as I mentioned, retain the right to restrict where guns are carried in their communities \u2013 even under this legislation. And if you look at the empirical evidence, places where you have concealed carry \u2013 even constitutional carry \u2013 when you instituted this right, violent crime went down, gun crime went down. You\u2019ve seen less crime, not more crime. There\u2019s actually a study done in Florida and Texas and it showed that off duty police officers commit crimes more than concealed carry permit holders. Think about that. Police officers don\u2019t commit crimes very often, but even they commit crimes more than concealed carry permit holders. These are not the people we\u2019re worried about. These are not the violent criminals that we\u2019re worried about in our cities. \r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\tThis is a common sense measure that upholds our constitutional right. It makes sure that a law-abiding permit holder trying to do the right thing doesn\u2019t become a criminal simply because they\u2019ve crossed that line. And so for every freedom-loving American who exercises their Second Amendment right, today is your day. For the 73% of Americans who support concealed carry, today is your day. For the 15 million concealed carry permit holders out there, today is your day. And finally to the single mothers out there who just want to protect themselves and their families, today is your day.\u201d\r\n\r\n\t\u00a0\r\n\r\n\t###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://hudson.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=25&itemid=1753"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.2432513758540154, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}