I have a controversial opinion about constitutional carry that makes some people uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.
Now, I’m absolutely in favor of nationwide constitutional carry for legal reasons: the Second Amendment gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms.
While the legal basis for supporting constitutional carry has its controversies in the minds of some anti-2A people, it really shouldn’t. The Constitution says what the Constitution says.
My controversial opinion about constitutional carry doesn’t have anything to do with the legal argument for it, though. It has to do with self-defense. You may be asking, “What’s so controversial about self-defense?” And it’s a valid question.
Self-defense shouldn’t be controversial to anyone, and, in my opinion, only irrational people think that a person shouldn’t be able to defend themselves from violence and the threat of violence.
Where the controversy comes in is what would happen in the first two weeks or so after nationwide constitutional carry goes into effect.
Watch the short video below shared by the Crime Prevention Research Center’s John Lott to see an example of defensive gun use. I think the video shows what that first two weeks of nationwide constitutional carry will be like for many people. Warning: NSFW due to language and violence in the video.
Do you see what those first couple of weeks of nationwide constitutional carry would be like?
It would be two weeks of criminals continuing to do the horrible things that they’re doing now. Except that after nationwide constitutional carry is in place, you’d hear lots of exclamations like, “Jesus Christ! Does everyone have a f@#king gun?!?” Followed by a flurry of gunfire.
Within about two weeks, I think that dumb criminals would win their Darwin Awards by removing themselves from the gene pool (some people would find this removal from the gene pool controversial), and the smart ones would look for safer lines of work. Like getting jobs or starting legitimate businesses. I suppose some may find that controversial, too.
After that two weeks, though? I think that we’d have a much calmer, safer country because criminals and would-be criminals will be walking around wondering if everybody has a gun and deciding to not take the chance of committing a crime. And that’s a good thing.
Because I think that criminals should be scared of the law–abiding and not the other way around.
