Bob Irwin highlights the latest self defense and other shootings of the week. Read them and see what went wrong, what went right and what we can learn from self defense with a gun.
USA –-(Ammoland.com)- Firearm scientist John Lott’s released a new report 07-20-2017 on concealed carry in the United States, with an updated estimate of more than 16.3 million legally licensed armed citizens.
It shows that a growing number of Americans are taking responsibility for their own safety.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb commented, “John’s report comes at a critical moment when Congress should be discussing national concealed carry reciprocity legislation that was introduced in January.”
The current proposal for this has 200 co-sponsors.
The 61-page report shows increased concealed carry from 2007 through 2015 coincided with a decline in the national murder rate, from 5.6 to 4.9 per 100,000 population.
Comment:
National Constitutional Carry seems a better idea. Asking Congress to regulate CCW’s might come back to bite gun owners in a few years!
If national reciprocity passes, I do not believe that CA, NY, NJ, VA, HI and several others will comply.
States opposed to honoring outside permits will sue under states’ rights theories and get an immediate injunction from some liberal judge in their state.
Until the lawsuits reach the United States Supreme Court, there might be lots CCW holders finding themselves in violation of conflicting laws. There will be years and years of expensive litigation.
The alternative, Constitutional Carry, will have the same fight but will prove a bit easier to defend as the constitution actually says citizens have a right to keep and bear arms.
National reciprocity will certainly provide full employment for lawyers on both sides.
It’s just an opinion, don’t shoot the messenger.
Bob Irwin, Las Vegas
About Bob Irwin
Bob is retired after 30 years of ownership of The Gun Store & Indoor Range in Las Vegas. He continues his 2A issues show “Fired Up with Bob Irwin” on YouTube and on KSHP 1400 AM radio (Sunday mornings at 9 a.m.) As a firearm instructor of Concealed Firearm Applicants, Armed Security Officer and Law Enforcement Academies over his career, Bob appears frequently as an expert witness for firearm & use of force cases in Federal, State and local courts.
All you guys commenting here are spot on. But I live in New Jersey where just possessing a magazine with hollow point bullets will get you mandatory minimum of 5 years in states penn with no possability of parole. Big words from some patriots out there but when your entire life and your family are on the line it’s not so easy to excersize a right that has been stolen by the tyrants. There are 9.8 million people here but 2,000 have CCW permits ask yourself. Is it worth it to stand up and get kinetic? One might as well… Read more »
Steps, one at a time. The Dred Scott case had the Supreme Court listing the rights that black people were not entitled to have, just everybody else. The right to go armed, singly and in company, to cross state lines adn visist as long as they wanted, the right to a speak on politics… The Declaration is NOT A LAW that can be enforced but it does provide a guide to what the laws mean. Constitutional Carry would be nice, but National Reciprocity is not concealed carry regulation, it is enfocement of te 14th Amendment. “No State shall make or… Read more »
We need NEITHER, we need the ENFORCEMENT of the Declaration of Independence and the PROTECTION under the Constitution. We DO NOT need new laws that transfer more power and authority from us, We the People, to the governments, both state and federal. Substituting one form of government tyranny for another still leaves us suffering under the hands of tyranny. The ONLY authority given, by consent, to the governments, is to SECURE our Rights, and that includes our FUNDAMENTAL Right to KEEP and BEAR ARMS (plural). Not to dictate who shall have permission to exercise their Rights, {(except by the Fifth… Read more »
Enforcement of the Declaration of Independence??? Do you mean the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution?
The Declaration of Independence is the foundation upon which the Constitution is written. The DoI clearly states “We hold these truths to be self evident … That they(We the People) are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights … That To Secure These Rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” Ignoring these self-evident truths, the true relationship between our Creator endowed Rights and government authority, removes the foundation upon which our Constitution was built and thus allows “men”, tyrants, to rule over us and over our God-given Rights without our… Read more »
@CTK9, Isn’t it amazing how many modern people these truths are not self evident to? The impotency of our educational system is outrageous!
One small refinement. It is not quite correct to say that every Right enumerated anywhere in the Constitution is an endowment by our Creator (whomsoever she may be). It would be more correct to say that some such Rights were humble men’s attempt to express a Creator-endowed right to be honored and guaranteed by government. Other Rights might not have crossed the Creator’s mind; but men saw fit to make a purely political decision that they ought to be guaranteed by government. To illustrate a candidate case for the latter, the first Right found in the Constitution is to be… Read more »
Register to vote in the primary in your state. Vote for a real constitutional conservative candidate. Then we can replace these turds that keep getting re-elected! Its better than having to fight a war to take back our nation.
We already have “constitutional carry” – or we should have everywhere in OUR constitutional republic. The operative clause of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the entire land (see: Article VI, Clause 2), clearly dictates that: “… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This means that the states cannot subvert or supersede that right with inferior statutes or codes. Our problem is that modern politicians, since 1934, have overstepped their limited authority and have usurped OUR “secured” constitutional guarantee to freely ‘keep (own) and bear (carry)… Read more »
WHERE I is the “LIKE” button?
To keep and bear arms – this is a God given right which people who became complacent let the government under the guise of for the public safety violate by infringement. Now we have the Sucker Mom’s, and other various Snowflakes out campaigning to restrict our right even more. I am licensed and have every right to carry, regardless of what Johnny Law says, but it makes life easier if you are in compliance with the law. Unfortunate but the facts. When you break it (the operative statement of the 2nd Amendment) down it means We the People have the… Read more »
Very well said and as accurate and true as anyone can write.I all so believe in constitutional rights and our 2nd Amendment, we as American’s should all just take back our right and carry our weapon’s as we see fit to protect our families and ourselves in these dangerous time’s.
Why not both?
By agreeing to their “licensing SCHEME”, you are voluntarily waiving your guaranteed rights and to be subject to their unlawful CODES they like to call “law”. You waive your immunity and subject yourself to their “scheme”. I’ll just leave at that.
See I’m against Constitutional Carry because as one swipe of pen it can be given to use it could be taken away with a swipe of pen if the wrong person becomes POTUS. Enforce national reciprocity instead.
No one can,with the swipe of a pen, eliminate a constitutionally protected right. It takes 2/3 of both houses of Congress and the acceptance of 2/3 of the state’s for an amendment to the Constitution.
Correction: 3/4 (75%) of the states are needed for the ratification of a constitutional amendment.
at present, there IS no “national reciprocity”. And the very term “reciprocity” infers that permission from one’s state of residence to enjoy our right to arms is first necessary BEFORE some other state must “recognise” it. Thus even a reciprocity law does not cure states like California, New York, New Jeresey, Massachussetts, Connecticut, Maryland, which adamantly deny their residents the rightful exercise of an inalienable RIGHT that is not conferred by the Constitutioin, but predates and is independent of that document. It is merely named and redognised by that document. No, a return to the original intent of that Second… Read more »
I live in MD. One version of National Reciprocity (the House version, I think) provides that every state must honor the concealed carry licenses issued by any other state. Some states currently will issue carry licenses to residents of other states. Such a license wouldn’t do me much good now, as a MD resident, unless I happened to spend a lot of my time in that other state. With the passage of a “strong” natl. reciprocity law, I could get a carry license from another state & my home state of MD would have to honor it, even though I… Read more »
The current proposal for this has 200 co-sponsors.” Actually up to 208, unless I’ve been lied to by the official US Congress website…which actually doesn’t sound so farfetched. On a more substantive note, there’s an overstated understanding of sponsorship, that it’s interchangeable with “support” and is an accuate barometer of a bill’s chance of actually becoming law. The only true measure of that is the number of people actually signalling that favor by vote, and there’s not only no telling of when that will happen, but no indication of what those co-sponsors are doing to even reach that stage. I… Read more »
They have absolutely ZERO LAWFUL POWER TO use enumerated power, including commerce, to violate, or in the this case even “infringe”, on our constitutionally “secured” liberties under any circumstances – including so-called “national security.”
VA will not comply!?! VA already recognizes the permits from all other states.
So does Oklahoma!
My opinion is that we PotG need to decide whether we prefer: progress; or, perfection. Yes, ideally, in a perfect world, we would like perfection and we would like it now! Yet, realistically, those of us who are sober recognize we aren’t going to get perfection now; nor, are we likely to get it ever. So, we had better figure out how to achieve progress; incremental recovery of our rights. We ought to convene a study by our Constitutional lawyers to figure out which tactics toward inter-state carry would stand-up to the inevitable counter-attack. By way of illustration: intER-state carry… Read more »
That’s what I was going to SAY! The 2nd amendment IS Constitutional Carry!!
@RVT, You are correct, sir, and we need to pick new republicans to get the job done.