National reciprocity for concealed carry would be the greatest guns rights boost since the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791.
This is because the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment would recover their fullest expression to date via national reciprocity.
The Second Amendment did not create a right or any particular body of rights. Rather, it was put in place to protect rights that pre-existed in nature, rights that were given by God rather than created by government. (Government cannot create rights, only privileges). Breitbart News reported that Thomas Jefferson used the Declaration of Independence to make clear that the rights we have via nature are “unalienable,” which means they part of the very fiber of our humanity.
In other words, the fact that we were “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights” means that any attempt to separate us from those rights is tantamount to separating us from our humanity.
But the left has no respect for Jefferson or the rights he described, which include the rights protected by the Second Amendment. The myriad restrictions on the right to bear arms stand as proof of this.
For example, in states like California, a resident cannot even bear arms unless he convinces the government he has a “good cause” to do so. Similar rules exist in New Jersey. Moreover, California issues carry permits to residents who demonstrate “good cause,” yet further controls the number of armed law-abiding citizens by refusing to recognize a permit to bear arms from any other state. Illinois does the same thing. These kind of laws, combined with strict gun controls in states like New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and elsewhere, mean the exercise of the rights hedged in by the Second Amendment has become increasingly difficult. In some situations a concealed carry permit holder cannot legally bear arms in the bordering state.
Rep. Richard Hudson’s Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 (H.R. 38) will correct this by treating concealed carry permits like driver’s licenses. In other words, a permit from one state will be valid in the other 49. This frees the common man from the cumbersome and often confusing patchwork of concealed carry laws in place around the nation.
Hudson’s bill is expected to come to the House floor for a vote on Wednesday. It represents the greatest gun rights opportunity since 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified.
AWR Hawkins is an award winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for the Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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