Paul Ryan Ignoring National Reciprocity for 45th Consecutive Week

It is November 17 and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is ignoring national reciprocity legislation for a 45th consecutive week.

National reciprocity would treat concealed carry permits like driver’s licenses, making the license from one state valid in the other 49. Such a reciprocal system would allow law-abiding Americans to keep their handguns on their persons for defense of themselves and their families as they travel throughout the country.

Breitbart News reported that Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced national reciprocity legislation on January 3, 2017. His bill “would allow people with a state-issued concealed carry license or permit to conceal a handgun in any other state that allows concealed carry, as long as the permit holder follows the laws of that state.”

Hudson’s bill was greeted with great excitement by gun owners. After all, it came on the heels of an presidential election in which the candidate who was pro-national reciprocity won. On September 8, 2015, Breitbart News reported Trump saying:

The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving—which is a privilege, not a right—then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.

But the excitement has abated now that over 45 weeks have passed without Speaker Ryan taking up, or even mentioning, Rep. Hudson’s national reciprocity legislation. The most we have heard on the topic was Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) statement in early September, wherein he indicated that Ryan “didn’t think the timing was right” for legislation revolving around national reciprocity.

It is easy for the ruling class to drag its feet on legislation that allows the common man to defend himself and his family, and this is especially true when the ruling class enjoys around the clock, taxpayer-funded armed protection. The common man must provide his own protection and that is hard to do when Speaker Ryan and others in leadership ignore bills like the one put forward by Rep. Hudson.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.