As of right now, 29 states have permitless carry in some manner. North Carolina is looking at overriding the governor's veto, which would make it the 30th, if they're successful. Gun rights are on the ascendency, at least for now.
But some states are completely lost at this point in time.
It's not that they can't be retaken; it's that there's absolutely no ground holding at the moment, and an extreme amount of effort would be required just to gain even modest gun rights restoration.
I thought about this when I saw this report out of Connecticut.
Gun control advocates in Bridgeport say they’ll keep pressure on state and federal leaders, even though they’re facing huge challenges in the Trump administration.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) said gun violence prevention has been stalled with President Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress. Himes said now, they’re just trying to preserve the current gun violence prevention measures.
“We're playing a fairly grim game of defense. Even though I’m a federal official, I obviously hang out with state legislators and the governor and others. There’s still more we can do in Connecticut, too," Himes said.
Himes was one of several policymakers and community leaders who met in Bridgeport for a panel roundtable hosted by Connecticut Against Gun Violence (CAGV). In addition to the current federal legislative climate, the group spoke about the challenges in sustaining progress and strategies for community-led violence prevention.
CAGV Executive Director Earl Bloodworth said the organization has worked with city partners in the last few years to establish a Community Gun Violence Prevention blueprint for Bridgeport. Now, Bloodworth said the Department of Public Health has granted additional funding for the organization and its partners.
This is normal in Connecticut.
While there are pro-gun voices, the truth is that they speak into the void for the most part. No one except other gun rights advocates is listening. The media isn't. The lawmakers aren't. The elected representatives can work hand-in-hand with anti-gun activists without any fear of repercussions, simply because there's no threat to them for doing so.
Connecticut is effectively lost, as are a lot of other states that you can name. New York, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and so on.
I mean, look at what happened in New Jersey recently. Republican local lawmakers, who one would imagine are pro-gun, are defending collecting fees for permits after numerous other communities started giving it back to people who got carry permits. They defended it because there's no risk for them in doing so.
Because New Jersey is effectively lost.
The trick, though, is that as I said earlier, they can be taken. We can gain ground there and restore gun rights. It's just such an uphill fight that most of us don't really have a clue where to start.
But I will say we're seeing some great ideas coming out of New Jersey. I think these efforts, which start at the local level, can have long-lasting effects and have a far-reaching impact in the long term.
Yet sooner or later, we're going to have to do something about these legislators who are so comfortably cozy with anti-gun advocates, who don't even blink at the idea of curtailing our rights, who brag about their desire to do so. If they bragged about trampling religious liberties or free speech, they'd be destroyed, but guns? That's always different.
It shouldn't be, and that needs to be the goal.
Until we can get to that point, states like this are lost to us. It's beyond time to kick in the door and change that. The trick is to figure out exactly how, especially if what we've seen in the Garden State turns out not to be the way forward.
