Actress Sarah Wynter has warned that Republicans’ push for national reciprocity of concealed carry permits will mean the blind and mentally ill will be carrying guns.
For those unfamiliar with the term, national reciprocity is legislation designed to fix the horrendous patchwork of laws that allow citizens with concealed carry permits to carry a gun for self-defense in their home state but force the very same permitted, law-abiding citizens to travel defenseless in numerous other states. National reciprocity would treat concealed carry permits like a driver’s license, so that a permit to carry from any one state would be valid in every state.
Wynter — perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Goliath, The Good Wife and Californication — suggests this about arming the blind and mentally ill.
Besides being an actress, Wynter is a member of the Michael Bloomberg-funded gun control group Moms Demand Action. She told Huffington Post:
Congress just introduced a very dangerous bill called Concealed Carry Reciprocity that would allow all 50 states to permit stalkers, domestic abusers to carry hidden loaded guns in public – even the blind or mentally ill. We are encouraging people to call their constituents and vote no.
Two things need to be pointed out before moving on: First, the mention of the blind and mentally ill is a straw man argument; it’s a distraction that allows Wynter to claim to support the Second Amendment and gun owners–she claims both in the HuffPo piece–while also opposing legislation that is designed to allow law-abiding gun owners to carry their firearms in more states for self-defense.
Secondly, as with many gun control arguments, Wynter’s argument is tinged with just enough truth to give her plausible deniability. In other words, people with severe vision impairment can still legally use guns for self-defense and face no prohibition against obtaining a permit to carry in states like Georgia and others.
Why shouldn’t a person with visual impairment be able to use a gun for self-defense? Are they not made vulnerable by their impairment?
And ask yourself this question: How many news stories have there been about visually impaired concealed carry permit holders just randomly opening fire or being involved in an unjustified shooting?
The scenario suggested by Wynter leads people to believe that national reciprocity is about creating a society where blind people are literally walking around with guns. And it is really no surprise that she would make such a ludicrous suggestion, once you consider some of the other claims she makes in the HuffPo piece.
For example, she claims there have been “220 school shootings” since 26 people were shot and killed on December 14, 2012, in the gun-free zone at Sandy Hook Elementary. Newsweek recently reported the FBI shows there have been but four mass school shootings since April 20, 1999, and Sandy Hook was one of the four.
Moreover, Wynter claims universal background checks are the crucial, missing link for gun control efforts at the federal level. She did not explain that states that have universal background checks–California, Colorado, and Washington state–have also witnessed some our nation’s more heinous firearm-based attacks in recent years. Moreover, she did not touch on the fact that France has universal background checks, yet firearm-based terror attacks killed 142 innocents in Paris in 2015 alone.
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.