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The thing that people are overlooking is that right now, any future amendments that would be made to this should it become law can be done now without the bill going any further. The way it works an anti-gun senator or representative could decide right now to write a bill, or amend an existing one, so that the federal code would be ammended (should the bill pass) to the effect of "All licenses for concealed carry that will be used with handguns that have been a part of interstate commerce must have mandatory mental health testing requiring the license holder to be in perfect mental health." At this point every concealed carry license becomes invalid and unable to be "adjusted" to make it valid because no one can be in perfect mental health. So we should go ahead and try to make the progress we want NOW while we can, we just have to be careful not to let our own efforts to be used against us.

I am certain the NRA has the same concerns as we do, and thanks to the NRA we have the ability to fight efforts to sabotage this bill. I would like to see national reciprocity but I will call for the bill to be killed should it be butchered in an unacceptable manner, just like I suspect the NRA would. Right now this bill looks to be a good thing, there is potential for bad things to be added and I promise that before it is over there will be attempts to do so. With that said this bill on it's own has minimal odds of becoming law because the White House will most likely veto it, as an amendment to a bill the president feels he can't live without we have a chance to get what we want. My thoughts on this particular bill go further than that, but I'm enjoying stirring the pot too much to give all my thoughts away right now.

Should standards be inserted into the bill I believe they should be minimum standards, eg minimal background check (think NICS check, one that qualifies for a 5 year NICS exemption would be encouraged), minimal proof of proficiency (Hunters education would suffice), minimal safety training (Once again Hunters ed would suffice), and be able to purchase a handgun from an FFL (or be current active duty military). At this point you should have standards that are well within reach of every state, in fact almost all states that issue a license would exceed these standards already.

The real issue is that Congress does have the constitutional authority (article IV, section 1) to pass this law, and the gun grabbers do not like it. They also have the implied authority to set minimum standards in order for licenses to be recognised under this law. What I am afraid of is an amendment to the bill that would require stuff like getting your local sheriff to sign off on your license (effectively making all shall-issue states into may-issue), requiring "mental health screening", renewals every year, listing permitted firearms on the license (make/model/serial), forcing all license holders to qualify with say 1000 rounds per firearm, a federal tax stamp, require liability insurance, and so on. There is a lot of potential damage that can be added to this bill, and we have to be ready to kill it should it get a poison pill. While the gun grabbers are screaming bloody murder over this bill right now, they are also planning to amend it and make it something useful to them.