One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises since he first announced his first presidential run in 2015 was national concealed carry reciprocity. It’s a great idea because reciprocity can be difficult to untangle.
For example, here in Georgia, we have constitutional carry, but I still pay for a concealed carry permit because of reciprocity and because it makes a gun purchase a little quicker. Georgia has reciprocity with 32 other states, but seven of those states only allow people over 21 to carry with a Georgia permit. I’m sure carry permit holders in other states understand how complex all of this is, too.
“The issue is that reciprocity is a state-by-state thing, where some states will accept some states' permits but not others,” explains my Bearing Arms colleague Tom Knighton. “It creates something of a confusing mess, one that's easier to navigate thanks to the internet, but only if you know you need to be aware of things.”
During Trump’s first term, the House passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, but it died a natural death in the Senate.
"An NRA pet project, this legislation would force states with more stringent gun standards to comply with looser regulations in other states, risking our public safety and making it more difficult to enforce state laws that save lives,” said the Democratic National Committee at the time, which wasn’t quite true because the NRA favors nationwide constitutional carry.
Reciprocity is a good step toward constitutional carry, and it’s most likely the best first step because some states will fight any gun rights tooth and nail. But, as Trump said last year, “Your second amendment does not end at the state line."
Flashback: Georgia General Assembly Passes Constitutional Carry Law
Newsweek contrasts the Trump approach to gun issues with the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ vision:
President Joe Biden enacted various policies to try to stem gun violence throughout his presidency. Trump has promised to undo them.
"In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment—the attacks are fast and furious—starting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House," Trump told a meeting of NRA members in May.
Kamala Harris, by contrast, ran on a campaign of tightening gun control, including introducing universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.
Trump has signaled that he intends to loosen gun control laws through executive action and replacing Steven Dettelbach—branded by the President-elect as an "anti-gun fanatic"—as head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
With a GOP Senate majority and a slim GOP House majority, Trump may not need to do anything via executive order. A legislative solution is more likely now than ever. And naturally, the gun grabbers are apoplectic.
"Trump's vision for America: Guns everywhere, for anyone, with no questions asked," wrote those bastions of reason at Everytown for Gun Safety in an Instagram post last month. After all, God forbid we get to exercise our constitutional rights.
Knighton explains how national reciprocity won’t create the nightmare scenario that the gun grabbers want you to believe will happen:
The doomsayers have been claiming that requiring California to accept Georgia's concealed carry permit—a more restrictive state having to accept one from a less restrictive state—will make California less safe. However, if national reciprocity happens, what we'll see is...nothing. Nothing at all.
There aren't enough people traveling to California and wanting to carry guns for armed citizens stopping criminal actions to show up in their statistics, so what we'll see is a big old nothing at worst.
But that nothing is enough.
If the anti-gunners are going to go on and on about how it'll make these more restrictive states less safe, only the violent crime rate isn't impacted in the least, then it proves they were wrong. It's just that simple. While the media won't talk about it, the evidence will be there for anyone who wants to look.
That’s why legislation that allows permit-holders to carry nationwide isn’t just a win for Second Amendment rights. It could also help people in more restrictive states see that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens aren’t so bad after all.
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