Alabama Advances Constitutional Carry, Sanctuary State Bills

(AP Photo/Philip Kamrass, File)

I’ve said before that constitutional carry, also called permitless carry, is kind of the Holy Grail of pro-gun laws. If a state can pass that, they’re about as pro-gun as you can get and any gun control really remaining is likely to be repealed in time.

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Now, a case can be made that the same applies to sanctuary state measures. After all, if a state dislikes gun control that much, just how long until their own gun control laws get dismantled?

Well, it looks like some in Alabama couldn’t decide which direction to go, so they’re covering all the bases.

Two gun measures aimed at loosening permit requirements and prohibiting enforcement of federal gun laws or presidential executive orders, advanced out of an Alabama House committee on Tuesday.

But both measures are opposed by law enforcement, and some are skeptical either will advance out of the full Alabama House during the waning days of the 2021 session.

One of the measures, HB405 or otherwise referred to as “constitutional carry,” was also criticized for potentially undoing components of legislation – HB308 – that Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law last week that allows people to purchase lifetime permits to carry concealed handguns.

The other measure, SB358, is the referred to as the Alabama Second Amendment Preservation Act and establishes civil penalties against local officials who enforce federal gun laws.

Both were approved by the Alabama House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, which the gun control group Moms Demand Action labeled the “House Public Danger Committee.”

Said Rhonda Pendleton, a volunteer with the Alabama chapter of Moms Demand Action, “between ignoring law enforcement concerns about people carrying guns in public without a background check and trying to punish police for doing their jobs, these hypocritical lawmakers have gone back on their clearly-empty promises to support law enforcement.”

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Except, they haven’t gone back on any promises.

Supporting law enforcement doesn’t mean you just pass what the police want. You sometimes have to pass things that they may not think will help them.

For example, more law-abiding citizens being able to carry guns may concern law enforcement, but what we haven’t seen in any of the states that have passed such measures is any uptick in violent crime or even issues with police being unable to catch criminals with guns. They manage it just fine in the more than a dozen states that already have these laws.

But armed citizens can help protect one another and police in many instances. Even if the cops don’t like it, it doesn’t mean it’s not supporting them.

Plus, it should be noted that the law enforcement opposition to these measures comes from groups made up of the political arm of law enforcement, such as the Sheriff’s Association, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the thinking of the average cop on the street. Political animals in law enforcement often reflect the views of certain constituencies, but not necessarily what the rank-and-file officer actually thinks.

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So I take “law enforcement opposition” with a grain of salt, as should you.

 

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