It’s become a tradition to have Armed American Radio host Mark Walters as the first Cam & Co guest of the new year, and 2024 is no exception. We’ve got a wide-ranging discussion on today’s show featuring a few of Mark’s predictions for the next twelve months, from the Supreme Court to the court of public opinion, and I encourage you to check out the entire conversation in the video window below.

We already know that the Court is going to give us at least one ruling in a Second Amendment case, since oral arguments in U.S. v. Rahimi took place just a few months ago. SCOTUS has also granted cert to two other 2A-related cases, including a challenge to the ATF’s administratively-imposed ban on bump stocks that took place during the Trump administration, but Walters thinks this is likely to be the year that the nine justices finally weigh in on an “assault weapons” ban. There are multiple challenges pending in federal courts across the country, but Walters believes the lawsuit taking on Maryland’s ban is the most likely vehicle to overturn these bans nationwide. SCOTUS has already granted cert to Bianchi v. Brown but vacate the lower court decision upholding the ban and remanded the case back to the Fourth Circuit for further review shortly after it decided Bruen. It’s now been almost thirteen months since a Fourth Circuit panel heard oral arguments in Bianchi, and depending on when the panel’s decision is issued and what they have to say the case could quickly be appealed to the Supreme Court. If the ban is upheld the plaintiffs can take their appeal directly to SCOTUS, but if Maryland’s ban is overturned Attorney General Anthony Brown may decide to seek an en banc review in order to keep the case away from the Supreme Court until after the 2024 election, under the theory that Democrats might be able to pack the court full of anti-gun justices if they keep control of the Senate and the White House.

Mark also predicts we’ll at least two more states will adopt Constitutional Carry this year; calling passage a “lock” in Louisiana after Republican Jeff Landry won the governor’s race last year as a vocal proponent of permitless carry. Walters is also bullish on permitless carry legislation making it to the desk of South Carolina Henry McMaster, despite the struggles the measure has faced in the South Carolina Senate in recent years. North Carolina is another potential pickup, but Walters is concerned that the Republican supermajority in the legislature may not want to make permitless carry an election-year issue.

While Walters calls himself an eternal optimist, he admits that he foresees some challenges for gun owners in the months ahead. With Democrats from Joe Biden on down running on a prohibitionist platform of banning commonly-owned firearms and prohibiting guns in as many publicly accessible places as possible, Mark anticipates that exercising our Second Amendment rights is going to become even harder and more legally dangerous in states like California and New York, and he expects the Supreme Court to continue to be reluctant to intervene on an emergency basis, even when there are some egregious infringements taking place.

There are two Americas when it comes to our Second Amendment rights, and with both sides fighting for control of the federal government in 2024 the stakes have never been higher. I appreciate Mark joining me on the show today for the first of many discussions over the year, and I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation this upcoming Sunday night on Mark’s monstercast, which you can listen to right here.