If an American has gone their whole life without a felonious run-in with the law, should the state or city they live in be given the subjective authority to deny them their Second Amendment rights for no reason? The answer is obviously no. All law-abiding Americans should be allowed to exercise their rights without interference. No one would expect the state to license free speech. Why is the Second Amendment different in interpretation than the first?
Thanks to the efforts of the NRA and other gun rights organizations, and the common sense of state legislators, half of America’s states now protect the rights of citizens to carry firearms with constitutional carry laws. At America’s 1st Freedom, Dave Kopel and Alexander Adams discuss the NRA’s ongoing efforts to explain the benefits of constitutional carry to legislators. They write:
When it becomes clear that a popular change in state law does something fundamentally good for citizens’ freedom without doing harm, it becomes much easier to get legislators to do the right thing. This is part of the reason for the quick spread of constitutional-carry laws, which now cover half of the states, as of press time. (A state is “constitutional carry” if a law-abiding adult who can legally possess a handgun does not need a permit to carry that handgun concealed for lawful protection.)
Another part of the reason for the fast spread of constitutional-carry legislation is the NRA Institute for Legislative Action’s (ILA) team, which has worked across America to bring the facts to state legislators. They have been so effective that a majority of state legislators in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Ohio most-recently opted to get their state’s bureaucracies out of the way of their law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
An underlying reason this has been an effective push is the basic fact that law-abiding American citizens are not problems that needs to be solved. Despite what the Biden administration argues, armed citizens help to keep individuals safer. Nevertheless, each time a constitutional-carry law comes up for debate, gun-control groups argue that getting the government out of the concealed-carry-license business will result in “Wild West-style shootouts” on the streets. But each time these laws pass, the data clearly shows that doesn’t happen.
This has been a big change from a few decades ago when Vermont was the sole state with constitutional carry. The term “constitutional carry” comes from legal history; when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, constitutional carry—either open or concealed—was lawful in every state.
Action Line: This year alone, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, and Indiana have adopted constitutional carry laws. That brings the total number of states to 25. If you haven’t already, get your gun and your training, now. Click here to sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, and I’ll let you know when more states join the constitutional carry revolution.
