This one’s going to be a little longer than normal, but if you’re a police officer this is information you want to know.<\/p>\n
LEOSA is the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act, otherwise known as H.R. 218. It was signed by President Bush to consolidate a patchwork of laws and regulations that varied state to state. It allows police officers to carry a concealed firearm in other states, even where there’s a contrary law. Even where there’s a law saying you can’t carry concealed in Chicago or D.C. without their permit.<\/p>\n
Here’s the language:<\/p>\n
\nLEOSA mandates that all active and retired law enforcement officers be able to carry a concealed firearm anywhere in the United States, subject to certain conditions, overriding most contrary state and local laws. LEOSA provides that notwithstanding any other provision of the law of any state or any political subdivision thereof, a qualified law enforcement officer or qualified retired law enforcement officer may carry a concealed firearm that has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, so long as the individual also carries the requisite identification.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So this is a concealed carry law. And it’s very, very powerful.<\/p>\n
Who qualifies as an active officer under LEOSA?<\/h2>\n
The rules are pretty easy if you’re active. You’ve got to be a sworn officer and you have to have the lawful authority to make an arrest.<\/p>\n
Does that mean you actually make arrests? No. You could be a chief somewhere who hasn’t made an arrest in 20 years and you obviously qualify. Sometimes you’ll have prosecutors who have statutory arrest powers. Corrections officers who have statutory arrest powers, and most of them do. Prison guards and so forth.<\/p>\n
So you’ve got to have that statutory authority to make arrests, and we’re not talking about citizen’s arrests here. You have statutory authority to make arrests on behalf of the state, and you have to be in good standing.<\/p>\n
All you really need after that is the ID card.<\/p>\n
If you’re a cop in Texas and you’re going to visit family in Chicago, you take your gun and your ID card. You don’t necessarily need the badge, though it’s probably a good idea. You have your ID card with you, you go to Chicago, you carry concealed, and we go from there.<\/p>\n
Where does LEOSA not let you carry?<\/h2>\n
A few restrictions you’ve got to know.<\/p>\n
Government buildings.<\/strong> This does not give you lawful authority to carry concealed in government buildings. Go into the post office, and I don’t know if you know this, but carrying a gun concealed in a post office, in the parking lot or inside the building, is a felony. LEOSA doesn’t allow you to do that. It does not eviscerate that law. It does not allow you to carry in city buildings, and it does not allow you to carry in federal buildings.<\/p>\n
Private property where you’ve been told not to.<\/strong> It doesn’t allow you to carry contrary to a private person saying you’re trespassing<\/a> with the firearm. If you walk into a building and it says no firearms, this permit does not give you the authority to ignore that sign.<\/p>\n
I’ll be honest with you about where I land personally: if I’m carrying concealed and I walk past a sign, and somebody comes up and says hey, we don’t allow concealed carry here, I leave. That’s the rule, and that’s what I do. But that’s my own call to make, and the law here is what it is, the sign wins.<\/p>\n
Everywhere else is open.<\/strong> Officers can carry anywhere that isn’t a government building or private property that’s told you no. So if a state has a law saying no concealed carry in a park, well, that’s not a government building and it’s not private. The off-duty officer can still carry notwithstanding those laws.<\/p>\n
That’s how powerful this is.<\/p>\n
What do retired officers need?<\/h2>\n
Retirees have to comply with a few extra things.<\/p>\n
At least 10 years of service.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Qualify every year.<\/strong> They have to qualify annually in a firearms training program, within the last 365 days.<\/p>\n
Active duty officers just have to comply with state law. If the state has requirements, and I’m sure they all do, you qualify under those. But strictly speaking, LEOSA doesn’t really talk about it. So in my view, if an officer is active duty and has missed their qual and is technically out of compliance with their state firearms requirement, they can still carry under LEOSA.<\/p>\n
Not the retiree, though. The retiree has to have qualified within the last 365 days.<\/p>\n
That qual is different by state. Nevada is an easy one. Some are a little harder. I qualify in Washington state, it’s about a 25-round course, nothing crazy.<\/p>\n
One side note worth knowing: a lot of police departments will qualify these retirees for free. My local department does.<\/p>\n
What firearm does LEOSA cover?<\/h2>\n
You can carry a firearm that was manufactured or transported in interstate commerce. Most guns were. The gun in your possession was almost certainly transported in interstate commerce.<\/p>\n
I suppose we could have a debate about a cop in Georgia carrying a Glock that was made in Georgia, since that gun never left the state and was never introduced into interstate commerce. But if you buy a Glock made in Austria, obviously that’s covered, because the statute includes foreign commerce.<\/p>\n
I’ve never seen case law that dives into whether an officer is carrying a gun made in the same state they’re from. But if you want my advice: if you do have a gun made in your own state and you’re going to travel outside the state with it, it might help you to carry one that was clearly made elsewhere. Maybe I’m being silly there.<\/p>\n
The statute covers a firearm, excluding a silencer or a machine gun. I shouldn’t be too restrictive about it, I don’t think you’re going to conceal an AR-15, but the word is firearm.<\/p>\n
Does LEOSA cover magazines?<\/h2>\n
No. And this is the one that gets officers in trouble.<\/p>\n
LEOSA does not cover magazines, because a magazine is not a firearm. It’s a part of a firearm, the same as sights and lights and grips. Those individual parts, in and of themselves, are not defined as firearms. So LEOSA doesn’t reach them.<\/p>\n
Which brings up the practical problem. If you’re going to a state with a magazine restriction, say you carry a Glock 17 that holds 17 rounds, and that state only allows 10, I’ve got bad news for you. I think you’re breaking the law.<\/p>\n