#Permitless carry

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[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Alabamians woke up Sunday with the right to carry a gun without a license.

The change, implemented by a state law passed last year, marked a major milestone: half of America’s 50 states now allow people to carry handguns without first seeking a permit.

Thirteen years ago, only two states — Vermont and Alaska — allowed its residents the unfettered right to carry a gun, relying on the Constitution’s Second Amendment as a blanket permit for all.

Since 2010, however, nearly two dozen states have followed suit, with 11 of them passing permitless carry laws in the last three years alone.

The growing movement has chalked up wins in state legislatures with remarkable speed, drawing cheers from gun rights advocates while raising fears among reformers that the changes will lead to more guns in the street — and likely more violence.

“If you are a law-abiding citizen, you should fully be able to exercise all of your constitutional rights,” said Andi Turner, legislative director for the Texas Rifle Association. “Half the states of the union are now recognizing it.”

Permit systems generally require applicants to demonstrate safe gun handling, as well as show knowledge of often-complicated gun laws and the use of lethal force.

“We’ve seen in the past decade a very concerted effort by the corporate gun lobby, especially the NRA,” said Nick Wilson, a gun violence researcher at the Center for American Progress. It has been a very successful campaign for the gun lobby. It helps their bottom line… But it’s very concerning to anyone worried about public safety.

The state legal changes have dovetailed with two other trends that auger well for gun advocates. First, the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed an unprecedented surge in sales. And second, people of color and women made up a larger share of the buyers, diversifying a gun-buying public that has traditionally skewed male, white and conservative.

Gun violence has also spiked since the pandemic began, with firearm deaths jumping 20% from 2019 to 2021, according to a recent study published by JAMA Network Open.

With big-ticket gun reforms like the Assault Weapons Ban or universal background checks stalled in Congress, the spate of state laws marks a defeat for the reform movement, which views the trend as a public security threat.

Sociological studies tend to show that increases in gun ownership generally track with increases in violence.

“It’s no coincidence that in states with very permissive approaches to guns in public, you have higher rates of gun death,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel for the Giffords Law Center, a nonpartisan reform group.

Over the last five years, researchers have increasingly shown that loosening restrictions on carrying handguns is also associated with problems like increased gun theft and road rage incidents, according to Stanford Law professor John Donohue.

Letting more people carry guns also impedes police work, Donohue said – partly from upticks in their caseloads of gun thefts and accidental shootings and partly because ramping up the risk of getting shot reduces police efficiency.

“One of the unintended consequences of putting more guns on the street is degrading police performance,” Donohue said. “You see clearance rates for all crimes drop when states move in the direction of letting more people carry guns.”

Tallying the number of states with permitless carry laws can exaggerate their reach, Skaggs noted. They tend to be small states with rural populations, while larger, more urban states like California and New York tend to favor a more restrictive approach toward firearms.

Just over one-third of Americans live in the 25 states embracing permitless carry.

And in the same way that gun rights groups have made speedy progress with permitless carry laws in red states, liberal-dominated legislatures have pushed opposing measures.

New York tightened its gun restrictions after last year’s mass shooting in Buffalo. Delaware enacted a state-level Assault Weapons Ban last year. A ballot measure passed last year by Oregon voters requires a permit for all gun purchases and restricts magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, though the law is tied up in the courts.

But the conservative-stacked Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Co. v. Bruen case last year has also made it harder for state legislatures to keep people from carrying handguns. The ruling struck down a New York law that required applicants for concealed handgun licenses to demonstrate a specific need for carrying a weapon.

The ruling stopped short of scrapping permits for carrying handguns altogether, however.

“The opinion made very clear that there’s nothing in the Constitution that requires permitless carry,” Skaggs said. “Constitutional carry may sound good with its alliteration and the way it rolls off the tongue, but it’s fundamentally untrue and misleading. Guns in public have always been significantly regulated.”

Still, the Bruen decision could have major impacts on state-level gun debates, according to Mark Oliva, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry trade group.

“Left-leaning and right-leaning states will probably become more polarized,” Oliva said. “And you’re going to keep seeing them go to the courts and say, ‘what’s the truth here?’ And if the truth follows what came out of Bruen, they’re going to find assault weapons bans are unconstitutional, magazine restrictions are unconstitutional, age restrictions and background checks for ammunition purchases are unconstitutional.”

States with permitless carry could become the majority before the year’s end.

Virginia Delegate Marie March (R) pre-filed a constitutional carry bill in November for this year’s legislative session. However, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants the issue prioritized when Florida lawmakers reconvene in April.

In Nebraska, a permitless carry bill failed to break the threshold for overcoming a filibuster in the state Senate last year by two votes. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) plans to try again this year.

[funcoolchickie]

We do not need permitless carry anywhere in America!!! 😠😠

#Louisiana #PermitlessCarry

[meandmybigmouth]

[thefirearmfirm]

The Right to Carry In Florida: Concealed Carry License Vs. Constitutional Carry

[kp777]

More than half of U.S. states allow permitless carry of concealed guns after Florida bill becomes law

[tomorrowusa]

The GOP-controlled Florida legislature is considering a law to make it easier for psychos to run around the state with guns. 

Gun rights advocates passed a major milestone Friday in their drive to get a permitless carry bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis for his signature.

The Florida House approved HB 543 on a mostly party line 76–32 vote, with one Republican, Rep. Vicki Lopez of Miami voting with 31 Democrats in opposition.

The measure, and its Senate companion, SB 150, does away with background checks, training, and fees for a concealed-carry weapons license. The Department of Agriculture has issued more than 2.66 million CWLs.

“This bill simply allows Floridians to conceal carry without red tape and expense. Florida will not come between you and your freedom to protect yourself anymore,” said Rep. Chuck Brannon, R-Macclenny, who has sponsored the measure the past two sessions.

So the same week as the tragedy in Nashville, Ron DeSantis’s rubber stamp legislature wants to make it easier to conceal guns than to conceal books about real US history.

March for Our Lives, a gun regulations group formed after the Parkland shooting, demonstrated against both bills Thursday in Tallahassee.

David Hogg, a Parkland survivor who emerged as a student spokesman after a gunman turned the school's hallways and classrooms into a killing field, blamed DeSantis' political ambitions for this year’s effort to loosen gun regulations.

“DeSantis and his billionaire backers are willing to hand over our lives for whoever will fund his campaign, even if the cost is Floridian blood,” he said.

As I like to remind readers, it’s necessary to keep an eye on your state government – particularly the legislature. A lot of MAGA mischief can go on in the legislature which people don’t find out about until it’s too late.

The first step is to discover who exactly represents you in your legislature.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A bill that would let people carry concealed firearms without a permit and without training passed out of the House on Friday, putting the bill just a step away from the Governor’s desk. The legislation lets people who are otherwise qualified to purchase and carry a firearm avoid the permitting process to conceal carry their weapon.

Rep. Chuck Brannan, R-Macclenny, said the bill was about removing red tape, and that “Florida will not come between you and your freedom to protect yourself anymore.” The legislation passed 76-32.

Despite intense lobbying, the legislation does not open the door to allow people to openly carry their guns in public — a point of anger among pro-gun advocates who say the bill does not go far enough in protecting Second Amendment rights.

Rep. Mike Beltran, R-Riverview, briefly filed an amendment earlier this week that would have allowed for open carrying in certain kinds of holsters. But he withdrew it the next day. On the House floor, he spoke at length about why he believes open carry would be a good move.

Beltran said in a text that the amendment “was and is good policy but unfortunately this is not the right time or the right vehicle.”

“I’d prefer to pass this legislation and lock in what we can, and then see what we can accomplish later,” Beltran wrote.

House Speaker Paul Renner said he supports open carry, but said there’s concern among his caucus and in the Senate about the issue. He said he and Beltran discussed the amendment and identified some problems that would have made things “worse, not better,” which were flagged by the National Rifle Association.

“There are a lot of things I don’t get as Speaker that I want, and I’m very very happy that this bill moves us forward, expands rights in a way that are material and important,” Renner said.

Luis Valdes, Florida director of Gun Owners of America, said in a statement that the permitless carry bill is a step in the right direction, but said it isn’t “constitutional carry” like Gov. Ron DeSantis promised last year.

“Governor DeSantis promised Floridians that we’d get constitutional carry and the Republican supermajority is failing to bring that,” Valdes said.

Members of pro-gun groups speaking out against the bill found themselves strange bedfellows with gun safety advocates, who argued the removal of an additional background check and the training requirement made the public less safe.

An amendment to require training was one of more than a dozen amendments put forward on the permitless carry bill, nearly all of which were sponsored by Democrats, and nearly all of which failed.

Brannan, the sponsor of the bill, said he thought training was important, and pointed to $1.5 million in the bill allotted for it, but said he did not think it was “the nanny government’s job” to mandate it.

Democrats also argued the bill would increase the risk of profiling, and would acutely impact Black communities.

One of the amendments, from Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, would allow people to carry firearms into meetings in the Legislature. Legislative meetings are one place, along with courthouses, polling places, and a handful of other designated areas, where Florida law prohibits people from carrying firearms, concealed or otherwise.

Eskamani said “if the majority party thinks guns make us more safe, we should strike this.” Republicans voted the amendment down.

Another amendment by Eskamani would have created an avenue for people to put themselves on a voluntary do not sell list, which they could remove themselves from later. Eskamani said it was designed to help protect people contemplating suicide.

During the debate, Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby, D-St. Petersburg, told legislators that in 2021, she attempted suicide with a gun and later checked herself into a mental health facility.

“At the end of the day I don’t see the harm in this type of amendment if it can save someone’s life like mine,” Rayner-Goolsby said.

The amendment failed.

Alexis Dorman, a 19-year-old volunteer with Students Demand Action, said she expected that the bill would pass because of the Republican supermajority, but said she was surprised by the speed at which it moved. By the first week of Florida’s legislative session, the bill was through all of its committees in the House and Senate.

“The youth in our state today are going to grow up around people who can legally carry a firearm without any proper training, and that’s really scary to think about,” Dorman said.

The permitless carry legislation is also available for a vote on the Senate floor, but hasn’t yet been scheduled.

HOW TO GET HELP

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat with someone online at 988lifeline.org.

[bookinit02]

ventured outside during a thunderstorm tonight (no, i didn’t know it was storming, no i didn’t want to go back inside) only to find that the gun shop directly across from my apartment has been replaced by… a Cookie Shop

[daylighteclipsed]

bruh usa gettin scarier every day man

[harvey-guillen]

Yesterday was an interpretation of Andy Sachs from The Devil Wears Prada

Today, my local voting look, somewhat accidentally Rosie the Riveter inspired. The minute I added the headband I knew!