National constitutional carry legislation introduced

Saying that multiple states and local governments have enacted gun control laws that are inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) recently introduced a national constitutional carry bill to protect the right of citizens to carry firearms publicly throughout the country.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin-07) is one of 20 original co-sponsors in the House.

“I’m fortunate to live in a state where people are free to exercise their right to keep and bear arms without begging the government or paying a fee,” Massie said in introducing the legislation. “Unfortunately, not every American enjoys the same right to carry firearms in public because some states and localities infringe upon this right through a variety of criminal, civil, and regulatory penalties.”

The criminalization of peaceable, public firearms carry is repugnant to the original meaning of the Second Amendment, Massie’s bill states.

By prohibiting state or local restrictions on the right to bear arms, Massie says his bill would uphold the original purpose of the Second Amendment — to ensure the security of a free state, while safeguarding individual liberties against government infringement.

The bill embodies two major provisions. The first would prohibit any state or political subdivision from imposing criminal or civil penalties on eligible individuals carrying firearms in public. The second would invalidate any existing state or local laws, statutes, regulations, or local restrictions that criminalize, penalize, or otherwise dissuade the carrying of firearms in public. 

In addition to covering all 50 states, the bill would apply to the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other territories of the United States to ensure that residents of all U.S. jurisdictions enjoy consistent protection of their Second Amendment rights, Massie said.

The text of the legislation cited multiple court cases that Massie says confirms the constitution’s guarantee of a pre-existing right to self-defense as well as the right of individual American citizens to “keep and bear arms,” and that those rights shall not be infringed upon.

In District of Columbia v. Heller, for instance, the Supreme Court confirmed that ‘‘[t]here seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms,” according to the legislation.

Then, too, the bill text continues, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment fully applicable to the states.

“Four justices concluded that the rights protected by the Second Amendment are fundamental to the nation’s scheme of ordered liberty and deeply rooted in this nation’s ‘history and tradition,’ and therefore incorporated to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the bill states. “Justice [Clarence] Thomas agreed that the rights protected by the Second Amendment are both ‘fundamental’ and ‘deeply rooted’ and, as such, are enforceable against the states under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause.”

Finally, the bill pointed to the Supreme Court’s recent acknowledgment in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the individual right to carry arms outside the home for self-defense.

“Further, the court reiterated that the Second Amendment’s otherwise ‘unqualified command’ only accommodates laws that are ‘consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,’” the bill states.

Support

A number of gun rights organizations immediately endorsed the legislation, including the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) and the American Firearms Association (AFA).

Leaders of those groups pointed out that most states, covering nearly half the U.S. population, already have constitutional carry in place.

“Currently, 29 states have adopted constitutional carry laws, yet contrary to the warnings of gun control advocates, there’s no evidence of rampant violence or ‘wild west’ scenarios,” Hunter King, director of political affairs for NAGR, said. “Instead, crime rates either remain stable or show a decline. With numerous states affirming citizens’ rights to bear arms without excessive government regulation, it’s about time Congress follows suit.” 

Constitutional carry is the simple concept that anyone who is a law-abiding gun owner can legally carry a firearm, open or concealed, without a government permit,  said Dudley Brown, the NAGR president.

“This is the only bill that will ensure all law-abiding Americans can enjoy real constitutional carry without being subjected to outrageous New York-style permit regulations, expensive fees, or ATF intervention on the right to carry,” Brown said.

Brown said those already living in constitutional carry states can legally carry a firearm without having to pay fees, fill out forms, or wait for government permission to do so and Massie’s bill would simply extend those same rights to citizens living in other states.

“Thomas Massie is a gun rights champion, and we support the real Constitutional Carry bill 100 percent,” Brown said. “The right of law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm to protect themselves and their families has been chipped away by gun control zealots for decades. But just in the last 10 years, grassroots efforts by NAGR members have gotten constitutional carry passed in over two dozen states, and it’s time all 50 states enjoy the same freedoms.”

The NAGR is collecting petitions to send to Congress in support of the legislation.

Patrick Parsons, the executive vice president of AFA, said gun control activists have preached doom-and-gloom about constitutional rights for a decade-and-a-half but have been proven wrong.

“For the past 15 years, anti-gun liberals have told everyone that states passing constitutional carry would experience violence like we haven’t seen since the ‘wild west’ days,” Parsons said. “Twenty-nine states have proven them wrong, all while gun-control strongholds like DC, Chicago, and California have descended into violence and deadly chaos. AFA is proud to support Congressman Massie’s efforts post-Bruen to help restore Second Amendment freedom to those across the country currently being deprived by their tyrannical governments.”

In additional to Tiffany, the original cosponsors of the National Constitutional Carry Act include Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK), Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX), Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), Rep. Nathan Moran (R-TX), Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), and Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX).

Ohio study

At least one study has affirmed a positive outcome after enactment of constitutional carry legislation.

In a study released earlier this year, the Center for Justice Research, a partnership between the office of the Ohio attorney general and Bowling Green State University, examined pre- and post-outcomes after Ohio’s permitless carry law became effective in June 2022. The group was commissioned to explore the relationship between permitless carry and crime involving a firearm before and after the enactment of the law in the eight largest cities of the state. 

The study, authored by Melissa Burek and Julia Bell, considered crime incidents involving a firearm, validated gunshot detection incidents, and the impact of the law on law enforcement from June 2021 to June 2023.

Among the study’s findings, results from a trend analysis indicated a significant decrease in crime incidents involving a firearm for Akron, Columbus, and Toledo, and across all eight cities combined from June 2021-June 2023.

Most cities’ crime rates decreased after the permitless carry law (PCL) was enacted, though rates in Dayton and Cincinnati increased slightly.

“Toledo, Parma, and Akron each experienced an average of 19 percent decrease in summed rates of crimes involving a firearm post-PCL,” the authors wrote. “Based on data from June 2021-June 2023, the enactment of the PCL does not appear to have any appreciable effect on law enforcement injuries or deaths by firearm in the cities of interest.”

In addition, data on gunshot detection technology for Toledo and Columbus also captured a decrease in validated crime incidents post-PCL by 23.2 percent and 20.6 percent, respectively.

“Increases in crime rates in the spring-summer months appear both before and after the PCL went into effect for most cities, but this observation could be due to the influence of other factors such as time of year or structural population characteristics,” the authors wrote. “This slight acceleration in crimes involving firearms was also temporary.”

In sum, the authors concluded, their observations of the trends pre- and post-PCL led them to surmise that, to date, the effects of the PCL were minimal on crime rates involving firearms, number of shots detected, and law enforcement officer injuries and deaths and generally showed a decrease. 

“To assess whether these decreases were significant, we conducted a trend analysis,” they wrote. “Results indicated a significant decline in crime incidents involving a firearm for Akron, Columbus, and Toledo, and across all cities combined from June 2021-June 2023. When comparing the average number of crime incidents involving firearms in each city and then compared pre- and post-PCL, the results showed that four cities significantly differed before and after the enactment of the law.”

Those were Columbus, Toledo, Akron, and Parma.

Ohio attorney general Dave Yost said the study was not intended to downplay what he called the very real problem of crime in many neighborhoods in Ohio cities.

“You don’t need a research team to see that gun violence destroys lives, families and opportunity,” Yost said. “The key takeaway from this study is that we have to keep the pressure on the criminals who shoot people, rather than Ohioans who responsibly exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

Last year, mayors of several large cities blamed crime in their local communities on the change in state law – comments that were the impetus for the study, Yost said.

“I genuinely did not know what the study would find,” he said. “I thought it would be useful either way.”

The study, which explored the relationship between permitless carry and crime involving firearms in the state’s eight most populous cities, demonstrates that the law change is not the problem, the attorney general said. 

There are critics of constitutional carry, including the Giffords Law Center. In a February 2023 report, “The Truth About Permitless Carry” the group touted anecdotal evidence, citing the death of a father of three in Texas in a parking lot argument after a permitless carry law was passed, and the death of a teen in Georgia in a grocery dispute after that state’s law was passed.

The group proclaims that permitless carry laws remove important protections, such as background checks for those wishing to carry guns, and said “studies show that weakening public carry laws is associated with a 13–15 percent increase in violent crime rates, as well as an 11 percent increase in rates of homicides committed with handguns.”

However, critics have aggressively criticized the  scientific soundness of some of those studies. For instance, John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center and Carlisle Moody of the College of William & Mary Department of Economics, criticized the 2017 study showing an 11-percent increase in rates of homicides committed with handguns.

Lott and Moody accused the researchers — Michael Siegel et al., “Easiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States,” American Journal of Public Health — of mischaracterizing the published literature, misstating the statistical significance of its results, and excluding critical data.

For example, Lott and Moody said the researchers made no attempt to “to account for the huge differences in shall-issue laws. In Illinois, it costs at least $450 to get a permit. In Pennsylvania, it is $20.” 

They also observed that the authors threw out observations for states that no longer require a permit for concealed carry.  

“This is particularly strange given that the paper indicates that more liberal concealed carry regulations increase homicides,” Lott and Moody wrote. “If this were true, these states should be particularly dangerous.” 

When those observations were included, they wrote, statistical significance disappeared.

Richard Moore is the author of “Dark State” and may be reached at richardd3d.substack.com.