Below the Radar: S Con Res 40

Second Amendment Activist Protest Activism Take Action
Second Amendment Activist Protest Activism Take Action

United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Why might Second Amendment supporters want to push a fight over a piece of legislation that may have no chance of passing? Sometimes, it can be a way to gauge what elected officials think of our rights. That is the case with any concurrent resolution in this Congress, given the current landscape in the legislative branch.

Democrats generally hostile to our Second Amendment rights control the House of Representatives. Republicans, who have supported our Second Amendment rights, control the Senate. This means that much legislation is caught in the middle of a standoff – neither side can push through what it wants.

So, why are we looking at S Con Res 40? The thing is, this concurrent resolution, introduced by Senator Kelly Loeffler, can be used to clarify where your elected officials stand, particularly on the ability of Americans to exercise the “bear arms” portion of their Second Amendment rights.

While many states have enacted “shall issue” or “constitutional carry” laws, some still cling to the very discriminatory “may issue” standard – notably New York, New Jersey, and California. To date, these laws have been standing against court challenges, and these states are not likely to change those laws legislatively any time soon.

Loeffler’s concurrent resolution would put Congress squarely against “undue restrictions” on the carrying of firearms. The actual text is very strong, citing Federalist 46 and the text of the Second Amendment. If passed, this resolution would place Congress foursquare against the highly restrictive carry laws in place in the few “discretionary” issue states – which in many cases have been “non-issue” in the application of those laws.

But concurrent resolutions do not become law. If anything, they are a sense of where the entire Congress stands, just as House and Senate resolutions are where that portion of the Congress stands. But the value of a concurrent resolution doesn’t just lie in getting politicians to take a stand one way or another, although, in this case, it would be interesting to see just how they explain how the application of carry laws in New Jersey and California (among other places) wouldn’t fall under that standard.

In this case, the concurrent resolution would also be a means by which to help bolster other rounds of legal challenges to the discretionary issue laws. By placing Congress on record against them, especially in terms of “undue restrictions,” this resolution can make the next round of legal challenges more likely to succeed, even if that improvement is slight.

Second Amendment supporters should contact their Representative and Senators and politely urge them to back S Con Res 40. It is well past time to get Congress to voice its objections to discretionary carry laws.


About Harold HutchisonHarold Hutchison

Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.

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Xaun Loc

Of course that’s mostly what this is, just like the flurry of pro-gun and other conservative issue bills we have seen proposed this year by every Republican up for re-election. I will give a little credit to the handful of freshman Republicans in the House who were first elected in 2018 — but every other Republican who is now busily having his staff prepare press releases about the wonderful new bill he is introducing in Congress is a fraud trying to pretend he supports our rights! Where were all these staunch “pro-gun” Republicans in 2017-2018 when the Republicans controlled both… Read more »

MICHAEL J

Generally hostile to the 2nd Amendment? It’s always a democrat, they are the sworn enemy of anything Constitutional.

loveaduck

Not all, just most.

donfranko

Used to be just most, but now it’s 99% and that is ALL….