Why is this happening now? On the most simple level, these laws have passed because lawmakers and constituents at the state level have advocated for them. Moreover, whatever opposition exists among interest groups and the public has been insufficient to block their passage.
On a deeper ideological level, increased ease of concealed carrying is likely the result of a growing feeling among much of the public that they need increased access to firearms for self-protection. In other words, the spread of constitutional carry points to a growing sentiment that state and local authorities are insufficient to provide a reasonable expectation of safety from violent crime and that private self-defense is therefore more necessary now than in the past.
Moreover, many of these laws expanding concealed carry have been passed over local law enforcement’s objections.
Laws Passed over Police Opposition
Although many individual police officers support nearly untrammeled gun ownership for law-abiding citizens, many others do not. In Alabama’s legislative battle over permitless carry, for instance, “the bills have been roundly criticized by police and gun control advocates, who argue that removing permits poses a safety risk to citizens and officers.” The head of Alabama’s Sheriff’s Association wants to change the Second Amendment to ban concealed carry altogether. And elsewhere, “some of the loudest opponents of permitless carry laws are the police. They spoke out in Indiana, Texas, and Kentucky but that didn’t stop lawmakers from passing ‘constitutional carry’ laws.” In Georgia, many law enforcement officers voiced their opposition to concealed carry, much to the delight of the state’s Democratic Party. In Ohio, constitutional carry has been opposed by the Fraternal Order of Police—the public labor union that provides free lawyers to abusive and incompetent police officers. Even in Republican-controlled legislatures—where professed support for police runs high—police efforts to quash expanded concealed carry have failed repeatedly.
Not true, all those people are just showing off for show. And every one of them is gonna have their guns taken from them because only conceal carry people are capable of weapon retention and responsible carry.
Over the past 30 years Tennessee has morphed from open carry May Issue to Constitutional Carry. There’s been opposition from both gun owners and law enforcement along the way. All the fear-based opposition arguments have proved wrong over time.
When so-called Guns in Bars was passed (legalizing gun carry in bars) several guys at the rifle club thought it was crazy, predicting widespread drunken shootouts in bars.
When it became legal to carry loaded guns in cars absent a gun carry permit, there was an array of objections from law enforcement predicting everything from out of state criminals driving to Tennessee to commit crime with guns to police being gunned down on the highway.
Many Tennessee gun owners cringed at the idea of Constitutional Carry allowing people to carry absent state mandated training, predicting widespread accidental shootings and other events due to misunderstanding law.
Despite all the handwringing and predictions of doom, law-abiding Tennesseans are doing just fine exercising their God-given and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
To be clear, the Alabama Sheriff’s Association was only concerned because it eliminates an income stream for them. Once some grants were promised, they STFU. If they were concerned in the least about public safety, a current Alabama CPP could be used in leiu of instant check. It can’t because sorry ass sheriff departments were charging for shall issue permits and issuing them without conducting background checks.
Al Sheriffs Assn also protested shall issue.
No, I don’t trust the government in case that was not obvious.
We lost the ability to use our cpl as a bypass a few years ago because the Michigan State Police was giving people that aren’t allowed to posses a gun a CPL.
Another reason I trust the police even less than law makers.
I think you’re confusing “open carry” with “constitutional carry.” Constitutional Carry doesn’t presuppose Open Carry, but I think in most cases does generally allow for it.
I personally don’t open carry out of respect for mores and the fact that most private property even in Oklahoma is non permissive in that regard, but I do fully advocate for open carry being legal and respected by the authorities. My daily mode of carry is a G19 OWB with an unbuttoned shirt over a T shirt (replace shirt with jacket for those three months out of the year we actually wear jackets here). That can lead to printing and the occasional wardrobe malfunction if the wind blows my shirt open, and I like not having to worry about being cited in those events, as was the case prior to my state passing open carry laws.
I also believe in the potential for open carry as a widespread practice to deter crime. I would even advocate for the normalization of long gun carry. Yes, that does represent a tactical disadvantage to the person doing it, but I think the net gain for society in general would be well worth the minor risk to individuals if enough people started doing it.
First part, most people only owned long guns which they opened carried along with various other items like knives.
Second part, they didn’t make 2" subcompacts back then. Have you ever seen a Revolutionary era handgun?
But most important, the CONSTITUTION makes no distinction about the manner in which you “bear arms.” Please don’t peddle nonsense.
When we use words today like “open carry” and “constitution carry” and “conceal carry”, those are recent terms people made up in order to establish degrees of INFRINGEMENT. None of those words meant ANYTHING when the Constitution was ratified.
It’s sometimes sad to consider how much we’ve lost. Someplace in my grandparents house is a picture of my Dad and his brother when they were about 12 in the 1950s walking down the sidewalk with slung a slung M1903 and a M1917 and a backpack of 30.06. They would walk approx. 4 miles through the downtown business district to the edge of town which is where the local shooting gallery was.
Nobody worried about their tactical defensive posture. From time to time a passerby would comment “You boys gonna go do some shootin?” just to make polite conversation.
When they arrived, there were usually half a dozen or so other kids shooting various firearms. The police would usually show up as a regular stop just to make sure everyone was shooting in a safe manner AND to make sure people were picking up the cans and bottles they were shooting and were putting their garbage in the garbage cans.
A few times they walked through town with a M1911 in a military flap holster on their belt.
They bought both guns themselves at the local Montgomery Wards with money earned from their paper routes and they rode the guns home on their bicycles.
This would be the EQUIVALENT of a couple middle school kids today, walking into a sporting goods store and buying a AR and an AK and then riding home with them slung on their backs on bicycles and then walking through town to a homemade shooting range that somebody made with a bulldozer on the edge of town so that anyone could come shoot cans and bottles.
I think we have a real chance of reclaiming those days. Your anecdote hits not only on the loss of gun rights, but the loss of our freedoms that starts when we’re kids. I think my generation especially is becoming very aware that we were raised by the system like cattle for the slaughter, and we’re not appreciative of our parents and teachers for it.