Las Vegas shooting survivor Dan Watkins appeared on the December 7 airing of Fox & Friends to stress his conviction that national reciprocity for concealed carry is long overdue.
Watkins stressed the fact that he travels often for work in California, Nevada, and Arizona, and has thought again and again of the benefit he could derive from being able to keep a handgun with him for self-defense. He said the Las Vegas attack highlighted the vulnerability he feels from being unarmed.
Host Steve Doocy conversed with Watkins, who said he is “on the road a lot,” but the rules in California “don’t make it easy” and the concealed carry relationship between California and bordering states is non-existent. Because of this, even if he got a license in Nevada he would be forced to disarm before entering California.
Watkins revisited the Vegas shooting, saying, “Had I been able to carry and the shooter was on the ground, it would have been nice to have had [the ability to carry] to protect myself and my family and those around me.”
Doocy then brought up Democrat arguments that national reciprocity will lead to more crime and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), sponsor of the reciprocity legislation, said, “Facts are a tough thing and facts just don’t bear out the doomsday scenarios that Nancy Pelosi and others try to portray. There are 12 states out there that have constitutional carry, which means you don’t have to have a permit to carry as long as you’re not federally prohibited from having a firearm, and in those states, once they introduced this freedom, crime went down.”
Breitbart News reported that Minority House Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded to the December 6 House passage of national reciprocity by claiming Republicans are seeking a way to arm “violent criminals.” She missed the fact that violent criminals are already armed. National reciprocity is about ensuring that law-abiding citizens can be armed to shoot back.
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 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.