After the MORE button: the official press release from the New Mexico Department of Public Safety re: the termination of The Land of Enchantment’s concealed carry reciprocity agreement with Utah. Let me save you some reading-between-the-lines time. Firearms trainers from Utah (and Florida) have fanned out across the country, offering concealed carry courses to non-residents (including states without reciprocity, like New York). At the end of the four-hour-ish instruction, the educators give qualified attendees the magic piece of paper: a Utah concealed carry permit. They’re then good to stow in 17—sorry, 16—states: Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and Wyoming. What’s wrong with that? As far as I’m concerned, nothing. But Utah’s freelancers are taking food off the table of firearms instructors in New Mexico, who argue that the roving Utah instructors’ standards are below New Mexico’s. Really? TTAG will call New Mexico DPS on Monday to ferret out their exact justification. Much merriment is sure to ensue.
Santa Fe—Effective immediately New Mexico will no longer recognize concealed carry licenses issued by the State of Utah for the purposes of reciprocity in New Mexico, as the requirements for licensure in Utah do not meet the standards required in New Mexico statute. Rules governing the concealed carrying of weapons and issuance of licenses require that training and other provisions be as stringent or substantially similar to New Mexico requirements.
Questions concerning licenses obtained from Utah by New Mexico residents have made it necessary to reevaluate which states will be recognized as valid in New Mexico.
“We’ve had situations where certain concealed carry instructors in New Mexico solicit clients with the promise that if they train here and obtain a Utah license, which entails significantly less training than does a New Mexico license, it will qualify here,” said Department of Public Safety Secretary John Denko. “This is incorrect, and is nothing less than an effort to circumvent New Mexico concealed carry requirements which are designed to protect the public safety while honoring individual rights under the Second Amendment of the constitution.”
The state will also review the status of eighteen other states currently recognized on an informal basis, with the intent of entering into written agreements with these states to ensure compliance with New Mexico law. These states are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wyoming.
New Mexico currently has a written reciprocity agreement in place with Texas; the status of this agreement will remain unchanged.
A lot of the roving instructors aren't even from Utah. Perhaps NM is seeing a potential income stream that UT is getting from the applications? Not sure but Robert will get to the bottom of this. And think just two weeks ago buddy you knew nothing of the Utah scheme!
Your missing some information here.
You need to go to the Utah class. In our class our instructor also covered the differences between the laws in new mexico and utah.
Then you have to get finger printed, mail in your application to utah and they do a federal criminal background check.
The only difference has to do with the amount of money charged and the class hours.
Have to agree with Brett, I think it is seen as yet another cash cow the Land of Enchantment saw it was missing out on (btw, I'm from there)
Cool. N.M. wants to keep the ratio of armed criminals vs. armed law abiding citizens from swinging too far against criminal elements. Just the gov doing its job. ROFLMAO.
Seriously guys, try to keep your bias a little more under control. Look up the requirements for Utah's "weapon familiarity certificate" compared to New Mexico's training requirements – it's not a coincidence that everyone wants to get their license in Utah: the course is much easier and quicker.
Maybe there's something going on here that shouldn't be but if you actually exercise some critical thinking instead of just a knee-jerk "anything that restricts gun carrying is necessarily evil" attitude you'll notice that NM's explanation is not untrue or unreasonable.
It's no surprise that American politics is such a mess when people can only think in black and white.
About ccw resporsity changes with Utah with New Mexico, any chance this may change in future? I carry both Utah (non-res), and Virginia home state. Does my VA permit still Work as I will be traveling to NM soon?
Umm JW, ther eis no significant difference in difficulty between the Utah & NM course. One requires firing off a few rounds and the other does not. that is not a big difference in itself.
You may be shocked to learn, but most gun owners actually do shoot their firearms, JW, and shooting off a few more rounds is not that big a deal.
This is clearly an attempt to show some sort of victory to the anti gun crown in NM, and to also have a small increase in revenue in NM, though I bet you the number of folk with utah ccw an without NM ccw in NM are very very small. It's just a bone to throw to the left as the supreme court hammers down again and again on their most cherished anti gun axioms and dogmas (you know that guns are evil, etc etc).
It won’t be long before we will all NEED firearm’s to protect what little we have left. It will be the have’s against the have not’s and believe me…they will kill you to get what they want. I know alot of people will think Im one of those nuts who thinks the new world order will come and get us….BUT like it or not, the time has come, if you want to protect your family you better get prepared both mentally and physcally to do whatever is neccessary to take care of your family.
I agree that there is more to this than meets the eye. Poorly defined problem begats a poorly defined solution. I bet the problem as it is defined by the statement is less than fully transparent. Either way, I have CCW permits in two states and cannot legally carry concelaed when I visit the fair land of enchantment any longer due to this decision. Good thing NM is an OPEN CARRY state as well.
I got my Utah non-resident permit about a year ago and they would not issue me one with out my state of resident carry permit. This was a recent change to their procedure because of Texas saying they would not recognize Utah. Reason was Utah was a lot cheaper and easier than the Texas permit, so Texans not being dumb would get the Utah non-resident permits.
I had to send them a copy of my Wyoming permit to get the Utah permit.
Here is what I don’t understand, why are they not honoring UT but they will honor CO? Utah does not have a live fire requirement which according to
http://www.dps.nm.org/index.php/nm-concealed-carry/reciprocity-agreements/
you must have. Plus there is no written requirement for the CO permit. So why is CO okay but UT isn’t. Both states have 4 hour classes and both states have no live fire requirement and both states, to the best of my knowledge as far as UT is concerned, there is no written test… so what gives?????
Nailed it.
I don’t live in NM or UT, but I have a UT license. I may only rarely travel to NM, but would like to be legal to carry while I’m there. This is pretty crappy on the part of NM and I agree it’s just another bite out of our rights by the gun haters.
This not recognizing Utah is sad, because I have had a permit for some 20 years in Utah and am from here and know very well how to handle fire arms. Now I may have to stay away from New-Mexico!?
Rob
You and me both no more travel to NM
Just because I travel from my home state to one that does not honor my permit, should not mean that my right to the necessary means (firearm) of defending myself or my family ends at my state’s birder. The bad guys don’t care about state borders, so what right do legislators have to Intentionally put me at a disadvantage? Simply put, those legislators don’t give a damn. They believe self-defense is a privilege, not a right.
Reciprocity, how childish; Let’s get it together people. You don’t accept our permit, so we won’t accept yours. Don’t we still have a 2nd Amendment?
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