CWP Information

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Montana Reciprocity History For your general information, let me outline our history in quest for reciprocity with other states. In 1995, we (MSSA) advanced a bill in the Legislature, which I wrote, authorizing the Governor to negotiate and conclude CWP reciprocity agreements with other states with laws similar to Montana's, and requiring the Governor to appoint a Governor's Advisory Council to pursue reciprocity issues. The bill passed, and I submitted a list of names to the governor for the Council. The Governor appointed everyone on my recommended list (a sheriff, a chief of police, two legislators, two folk from gun groups [including myself] - all gun-friendly), and a basically pro-gun county prosecutor. We (the Council) worked hard for a year to come up with a proposed scheme and criteria for reciprocity, which included an "Interstate Compact", a device which states could sign on to, whereby each state would automatically gain reciprocity with all states already in the pool (Compact) (like the Interstate Drivers License Compact). We sent the results of our long, hard work to the Governor, and he rejected it out of hand, and declined to say what sort of CWP reciprocity scheme he would accept. So, in 1999, we redirected with a bill to repeal the previous attempt at reciprocity that depended upon the cooperation of some state official (the Governor), and replaced that with language that simply recognized permits from other states where the issuing state is required by state law to conduct a criminal records background check prior to CWP issuance, and where the permittee has the permit in their possession, and the permittee also has some official photo ID in their possession, whether the CWP or other. The states whose permits Montana recognizes are listed on our MT Department of Justice site at: http://www.doj.state.mt.us/ls/weaponslist.htm To aid Montana CWP holders travelling out of state, we were aiming for those states which have the type of laws which state "we'll recognize yours if you recognize ours". There are about a dozen such states. However, we do not yet have a good list of, and documentation for, what states recognize Montana permits. That's why we need your help in building and documenting this MSSA Website CWP page. Thanks.