Reed has repeatedly pointed to the statute as the cause of Montgomery's crime spike, while calling on the legislature to adopt "common sense" gun control laws. But in an op-ed in the Montgomery Advertiser, state Rep. Allen Treadway says it's local leadership, not permitless carry, that's to blame.

This problem didn’t magically appear when constitutional carry was implemented in 2022. Montgomery had 77 homicides in 2021 and 68 in 2020. However, it is worth noting that the city averaged 38.5 homicides per year in the four years prior to Mayor Reed taking office in November 2019.

It’s easy to see that the Legislature didn’t cause this mess – local leadership did. You can’t expect your police force to be successful when it’s had a revolving door of police chiefs.

You can’t expect your city to be safe when the culture within the police department runs off good officers.

And you can’t expect people to believe this is anyone’s mess but your own, Mr. Mayor.

If Constitutional Carry were to blame, we'd expect to see a rise in violent crime and homicides in more than half the country, given that there are now 29 permitless carry states. Instead, many cities in Constitutional Carry states are seeing the number of murders plunge this year. 

• -33% in Cleveland, Ohio
• -35% in Columbus, Ohio
• -28% in Kansas City, Missouri
• -30% in Miami-Dade, Florida
• -33% in Jacksonville, Florida
• -26% in Fort Worth, Texas
• -20% in Dallas, Texas

To name just a few. Of course, there are cities that don't have Constitutional Carry laws in place that are seeing significant declines as well, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Newark. Some cities in Constitutional Carry states saw homicide levels drop last year, but are seeing a rise in murders in 2024, including Oklahoma City and Tulsa. 

Violent crime is, generally speaking, driven by local factors and disproportionally committed by a small number of offenders. Treadway pointed out in his op-ed that lawful gun owners "aren’t the ones firing off 1,000 rounds over a disagreement at a party", and he chided Reed for overseeing a police force with one of the "worst attrition rates" in the state. He also took Reed to task for claiming that the Constitutional Carry law prohibits police from determining if someone is carrying legally or unlawfully; an assertion the lawmaker calls "totally false". 

When we passed the constitutional carry legislation, the Legislature also passed a bill creating the Firearms Prohibited Person Database – the first in the nation. This tool enables law enforcement officers across the state to learn of a person’s inability to possess a firearm when running suspects’ information after making contact. I wonder if Montgomery PD is even utilizing this new law to protect citizens and police officers.

Back when concealed carry permits were still required, law enforcement relied on an antiquated system to track these permits that simply did not work as it should.

The first issue with the former system was that law enforcement had to contact the issuing authority to verify the permit’s validity, which was almost impossible to do outside of regular business hours. It wasn’t like verifying someone’s driver’s license – permits were issued by the counties and often had no security features.

The biggest and most dangerous issue that this new law solved is that we had no way of nullifying someone’s permit if they were convicted of a crime that prohibited them from owning or carrying a firearm.

For instance, if an individual is convicted by our courts or receives a protection order, they lose their right to carry a firearm under federal law. Prior to the Firearms Prohibited Person Database, we had no way to track this from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Reed has already responded to Treadway's op-ed, but to be honest he mostly bloviated about the supposedly fine work he's done as mayor to improve public safety. He also accused the legislator of making a "baseless personal attack" against him before engaging in one of his own.

I want people to remember that the man who boasts of his law enforcement background in any conversation is the same man who voted for permitless carry, against the pleading of every law enforcement group across the state. I would think that a man with his law enforcement background would understand that this law paired with person-to-person purchases robs officers on the street of the reasonable cause they once had to check whether a person is allowed to carry a weapon at all.

Instead, he slinks away from his culpability for the recklessness of his legislative actions and increase in shootings so as not to offend gun manufacturers. He’d rather defend them than the lives of friends and family affected by gun violence.

Treadway, it should be noted, didn't mention gun makers in his op-ed, much less defend them. And it's utterly shameless for Reed to wave the bloody shirt and proclaim that Constitutional Carry is to blame for Montgomery's crime woes when there are plenty of cities around the country that also have Constitutional Carry laws in place and are seeing dramatic reductions in violent crime overall and homicides in particular. Instead of spending time crafting an anti-gun word salad, Reed would be better off studying what these other cities are doing right. Maybe that would help him figure out what he's doing so wrong.