Anti-gun group claims there is no "constitutional carry"

AP Photo/Ted S. Warren

Constitutional carry is kind of a useful metric. If a state passes such a measure, they tend to be pretty pro-Second Amendment. They’re unlikely to impose universal background checks, assault weapon bans, or other petty tyrannies upon the people of that state.

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Because of that, it’s unsurprising that gun control groups oppose such measures. After all, if a pro-Second Amendment group likes it, it’s a good bet gun control advocates won’t. Such is the way of nature, apparently.

But while gun control activists are entitled to their own opinions, they’re not entitled to their own facts.

Newtown Action Alliance, however, thinks they are, apparently. Why else would they tweet this:

On two points, they’re right, even if accidentally. First, it is a made up term. All terms are made up, including gun control, “gun safety,” and all the euphemisms the like to make up to hide their agenda. Addtionally, They’re right that the Constitution doesn’t give anyone the right to carry a firearm without a permit, without training, or anything of the sort.

That’s because the Constitution doesn’t grant rights. It recognizes and protects certain rights, though it acknowledges that other rights exist. Among those rights is the “right to keep and bear arms,” stating that such right “shall not be infringed.”

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Bearing arms, besides being the name of the bestest site on the Second Amendment ever, means having guns on one’s person. That means the Founding Fathers clearly intended for us to be able to carry arms.

Training requirements, permitting requirements, and pretty much anything else Newtown Action Alliance wants also counts as an infringement on that right. Even if you think they’re minor infringements in the grand scheme of things, they’re still infringements just the same.

So the term “constitutional carry” means that these laws seek to return us to the standard our Founding Fathers originally intended. Had they wished for people to be restricted from carrying guns at certain times or certain places, they would have said so.

They didn’t.

While I get that Newtown Action Alliance isn’t a fan of constitutional carry, I’m happy to report that their opinions on the matter are largely irrelevant. Especiall in light of what AWR Hawkins reported over at Breitbart when he covered this nonsense.

Newtown Action Alliance followed the tweet with another, asking gun controllers to urge Florida’s legislature to oppose the constitutional carry bill, suggesting the bill “will increase FL homicide and violence crime.”

On December 29, 2022, the Maine Wire noted that crime fell in Maine after the state abolished its concealed carry permit requirement in 2015.

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He also noted that according to FBI data, that drop continued right up to 2020.

If constitutional carry were to increase homicides as Newtown Action Alliance claims, why didn’t it in Maine?

Not that such things matter. These are people who appear to have taken the phrase “shall not be infringed” to mean “infringe at will.” It’s unlikely they’re remotely interested in the drop in homicides in Maine after they passed constitutional carry.

Which is a shame, because if nothing else, such an attempt would be among the finest comedy we’re likely to see in our lifetimes, possibly eclipsing Blazing Saddles as one of the most hilarious things in human history.

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