President Donald Trump said he's working on right-to-carry legislation. That's fantastic news for all Americans, even if they don't think it's fantastic news.
Unfortunately, the media keeps pushing a narrative that argues otherwise.
I don't expect much out of Newsweek, of course, and I'm unsurprised that their look at the proposal isn't necessarily flattering to gun rights. It never will be, unfortunately, and while they did include some comments from the NRA by pulling them off X, there's a bit in there that simply cannot be ignored.
Why? Because it's the line they keep trying to sell, all without any critical thinking applied.
Dr. Iain Overton, the executive director of Action on Armed Violence, a United Kingdom-based research organization that studies global armed violence, told Newsweek the proposal would likely increase the number of firearms carried in public while limiting states’ ability to enforce their own safety standards, effectively requiring stricter states to recognize permits from jurisdictions with weaker rules.
He warned the public safety implications were "straightforward," adding: "Increasing the number of firearms carried in public spaces raises the risk that everyday disputes, domestic violence incidents, road‑rage encounters and other conflicts become lethal."
Overton said research generally does not support claims that more permissive carry laws improve safety, and pointed to international evidence showing most high‑income countries have reduced gun violence through tighter controls rather than expanding carrying rights.
Alright, let's break this down, because I find it funny that Newsweek went to a UK organization to get a quote. I guess they thought it would sound less partisan if it were an outsider or something.
The fact that this is a guy from a country that has few guns, but plenty of rape gangs running around. We have a lot of guns and few rape and grooming gangs on the loose. Just sayin'.
Plus, let's understand that Overton isn't a researcher. He's a "journalist" who is just as biased as the hacks who wrote this piece. The fact that he's heading a "research organization" should tell you an awful lot about how much you should trust The Science from any such organization.
Still, he's not saying anything we haven't heard before.
Research doesn't support claims that permissive carry laws improve safety? Well, the research on the subject generally sucks, as we've highlighted before. Even the left-leaning RAND, which evaluates gun research annually, has found that pretty much all of it sucks.
Moreover, while his "public safety implications" are typical from the anti-gun jihadists, we've run the most significant experiment in American history since the Bruen decision crushed "may issue" permitting once and for all. The results seem to be that, at worst, more guns being carried has no negative impact on public safety. Since this experiment also happens to coincide with the greatest drop in homicides in American history also seems significant.
Additionally, other high-income countries are not the United States. Historically, our "non-gun homicide" rate is higher than those countries' total homicide rates. As such, whatever happens in those countries has minimal application to what may happen in the United States.
Nor does Overton note that when those so-called gun homicides dropped, things like knife homicides went up. It's almost like people who want to kill others still kill others; they just flip to a different tool.
Look, for all the doom and gloom from this bunch, you'd think they'd at least come up with some better arguments than the long-debunked nonsense they keep trying to push onto the American public.
I don't blame Overton. He's an "investigative journalist" who found a sweet gig where he doesn't feel like he has to pretend his biases don't exist. He gets to be as anti-gun as he wants, and people like the knobs at Newsweek will eat it up.
But it's an affront to the American people to keep selling lies and nonsense as if it's authoritative fact.
Then again, with the mainstream media, what else do they even know how to do anymore?
