Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp came out last week in support of constitutional arry. While he could have offered support for any number of other measures, he focused primarily on permitless carry, which would be a significant leap forward for gun rights in the state.

Of course, as per usual, some people weren’t thrilled about that. They never are and they’re going to make sure their voices are heard, especially as the media tends to agree with those voices.

Now, Kemp is firing back.

Courtney Spriggs, a former law enforcement officer and volunteer leader with the Georgia chapter of Moms Demand Action said, “Permitless carry would put law enforcement officers like my husband in even more danger, but apparently, Governor Kemp and David Perdue would rather risk Georgian lives on political games than support law enforcement.”

In a one on one interview with WJCL, Gov. Kemp responded to these concerns. He said, “To me, this is a public safety issue. We’ve seen violent crime on the rise across the country. We’ve certainly seen that in our Capitol City in Atlanta. We’ve also seen a lot of inaction by a lot of local elected officials to tackle this issue as well as prosecutors across the state. People are expecting action and all this is doing is helping law abiding citizens defend themselves, their families and their businesses. The bad guys, they’re already going to get guns. They already have them. We’re trying to make sure its easy for Georgians to exercise their constitutional rights to carry a weapon and to protect and defend themselves.”

And while anti-Second Amendment types continue to claim that constitutional carry endangers law enforcement, we now have plenty of states who have already passed it to look at for evidence one way or another.

So far as we’ve seen, none of those states are seeing an increase in officers being injured or killed. Funny, that.

I mean, these people keep saying that every bit of gun rights expansion–restoration, really–will somehow lead to “blood in the streets,” and yet, when stuff passes, it never turns out that way. The media, of course, never holds them accountable for it, either.

Meanwhile, if we say constitutional carry will make things better and it’s passed, if things don’t immediately improve, they’ll jump all over it.

It should also be noted that the presence of a firearm is apparently insufficient probable cause to ask for a carry permit–thus highlighting further BS on the claim that constitutional carry would somehow endanger officers’ lives.

But I digress.

Kemp is right that with our current level of violence, people shouldn’t have to wait to get a permit to carry a gun. It takes time to get a permit, and while the legislature has capped how long that can be, it’s still not an overnight process. Further, Georgia is a permissive open carry state, which means you need a permit to carry either openly or concealed. There’s no mechanism to carry a gun without a permit lawfully.

Just because you can get away with it much of the time doesn’t mean it’s legal, and that’s an important point. Kemp’s support for constitutional carry matters a great deal because, frankly, this should have happened several years ago.

Well, now there’s a time to make it happen. While some in the legislature seem to prefer to kowtow to anti-gun sensibilities, the governor is putting his support behind this. Maybe this time, we Georgians will finally get constitutional carry.

It’s been a long time coming, assuming it happens.

As a Georgian, though, I’m not holding my breath until it actually passes.