Many jurisdictions have established arrangements where they recognize or honor permits or licenses issued by other jurisdictions with comparable standards, for instance in regard to marriage or driver’s licenses. This is known as Reciprocity and is based on U.S. Constitution “full faith and credit” provision.[53] Due to the nature of gun politics, reciprocity in regard to weapons carry permits or licenses has been controversial.
Reciprocal recognition of concealed carry privileges and rights vary state-to-state, are negotiated between individual states, and sometimes additionally depend on the residency status of the license holder.[54] While 37 states have reciprocity agreements with at least one other state and several states honor all out-of-state concealed carry permits, some states have special requirements like training courses or safety exams, and therefore do not honor permits from states that do not have such requirements for issue. Some states make exceptions for persons under the minimum age (usually 21) if they are active or honorably-discharged members of the military or a police force (the second of these two is allowed under Federal law). States that do not have this exemption generally do not recognize any license from states that do. An example of this is the State of Washington’s refusal to honor any Texas CHL as Texas has the military exception to age.[55]
Florida (Resident), Michigan and Missouri hold the widest reciprocity of all the states in the U.S. with the number of other states honoring their permits at 37,[56][57] followed by Oklahoma at 36, Alaska at 35[58] then Florida (Non-Resident) and Utah at 33;[59][60] Both Michigan and Missouri, however, do not issue permits to non-residents, and some states that honor Utah permits do not extend that to include Utah’s non-resident permits. Also, effective May 10, 2011, Utah requires that non-resident applicants, who reside in states that have reciprocity with Utah, must first obtain the CCW permit from their state of residence before applying for the Utah permit.[61]
Although carry may be legal under State law in accordance with reciprocity agreements, the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act subjects an out-of-state permit holder to federal felony prosecution if they carry a firearm within 1000 feet of any K-12 school’s property line.
