Alabama residents found themselves carrying a gun without a permit on Sunday.
The change, implemented through a state law approved last year, marked a major milestone: Half of America’s 50 states now allow people to carry guns without first applying for a permit.
Thirteen years ago, only two states – Vermont and Alaska – granted its residents the unrestricted right to bear arms, relying on the second amendment to the Constitution as a general license for all.
Since 2010, however, nearly two dozen states have followed suit, with 11 of them passing license-free travel laws in the past three years alone.
The growing movement has won victories in state legislatures with remarkable speed, drawing cheers from gun rights advocates and raising fears among reformers that the changes will lead to more guns on the streets and possibly more violence.
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“If you’re a law-abiding citizen, you should be able to fully exercise all of your constitutional rights,” said Andi Turner, legislative director of the Texas Rifle Association. “Now half the states of the Union recognize it.”
Licensing systems generally require applicants to demonstrate the safe handling of firearms and demonstrate knowledge of often complicated matters. gun laws and the use of lethal force.
“The last decade has seen a very concerted effort by the corporate gun lobby, particularly the NRA,” said Nick Wilson, a gun violence researcher at the Center for American Progress. It was a very successful campaign for the gun lobby. It helps their bottom line… But it’s very concerning for anyone concerned about public safety.
The state law changes join two other trends that bode well for gun advocates. First of all, the covid-19 pandemic triggered a unprecedented sales growth. And second, people of color and women have made up a larger share of buyers, diversifying a gun-buying public that has traditionally skewed male, white, and conservative.
Gun violence has also increased since the start of the pandemic, with gun deaths increased by 20% from 2019 to 2021according to a recently published study by JAMA Open Network.
With major gun reforms such as assault weapons bans or universal background checks stalled in Congress, the spate of state laws is a setback for the reform movement, which sees the trend as a threat to public safety .
Sociological studies tend to show that, in general, increases in gun ownership are based on increases in violence.
“It’s no coincidence that states with very lax policies on guns in public have higher gun death rates,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel of the Giffords Law Center, a nonpartisan reform group.
Over the past five years, researchers have increasingly shown that loosening gun restrictions are also associated with problems like gun theft and traffic accidents, according to Stanford law professor John Donohue.
Allowing more people to carry guns also hinders police work, Donohue said, in part because it increases gun theft and accidental shootings and in part because the increased risk of being shot reduces police effectiveness.
“One of the unintended consequences of putting more guns on the street is the degradation of police performance,” Donohue said. “You see clearance rates for all crimes go down as states move in the direction of allowing more people to carry guns.”
Estimating the number of states with unlicensed carry laws may overstate their coverage, Skaggs noted. They tend to be small states with rural populations, while larger urban states like California and New York tend to favor a more restrictive approach to firearms.
Just over a third of Americans live in the 25 states that allow license-less carry.
And just as gun rights groups have made rapid progress with carry-free laws in red states, liberal-dominated lawmakers have pushed for countermeasures.
New York tightened its gun restrictions after last year’s mass shooting in Buffalo. Delaware enacted a statewide assault weapons ban last year. A campaign measure passed last year by Oregon voters requires a permit for all gun purchases and limits magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, though the law is bound by the courts.
But the Supreme Court’s landmark, heavily conservative decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Co. v. Bruen, last year, and her. harder for state legislators to keep people from carrying weapons. The ruling struck down a New York law that required concealed firearm license applicants to demonstrate a specific need to carry a firearm.
However, the ruling stayed pending the revocation of firearms permits.
“The opinion made it very clear that there is nothing in the Constitution that justifies carry without a permit,” Skaggs said. “”Constitutional bearing may sound good with alliteration and the way it rolls off the tongue, but it is fundamentally false and misleading. Guns in public have always been significantly regulated.
Still, Bruen’s decision could have a major impact on gun debates across the state, according to Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade group.
“It’s likely that left-wing and right-wing states will become more polarized,” Oliva said. “And you’re going to keep seeing them go to court and say, ‘What’s the truth here?’ And if the truth follows what Bruen found out, they will find that assault weapons bans are unconstitutional, magazine restrictions are unconstitutional, age restrictions and background checks on ammunition purchases are unconstitutional.
License-free carry states could become the majority later this year.
Delegate Virginia Marie March (R) previously submitted a constitutional deed of transfer in November for this year’s legislative session. However, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to make the issue a priority when Florida lawmakers meet in April.
In Nebraska, an unlicensed carry bill failed to pass a filibuster in the state Senate last year by two votes. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) plans to try again this year.
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