By Aron Solomon – Special to DESIBUZZCanada

It is fair to say that people outside of the United States are often quite surprised when they learn how easy it is to obtain a permit to legally carry a gun. But when they find out how many states don’t even require a permit to legally possess a gun, they are shocked. How many of these concealed guns are carried each day and how this is legal is a journey that defies logic.

The phrase "constitutional carry" reflects the view that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not abide restrictions on gun rights, including the right to carry or bear arms.

The U.S. Supreme Court had never extensively interpreted the Second Amendment until the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.  Prior to this, laws governing the right to carry a gun were fairly makeshift, yet in Heller the Court found that self-defense was a "...central component of the 2nd Amendment" and D.C.'s ban on carrying handguns was deemed illegal.

So after Heller, we are left with an interesting issue  in the United States: Federal law does not restrict the open carrying of firearms in public, although specific rules may apply to property owned or operated by the federal government. So this is a legal issue left to the states and the trends are very troubling in a nation where gun violence is so rampant that there is a palpable desensitization to its effect. 

A 2019 gun violence study shows a significant increase of 13-15% in violent crime rates in states with weak concealed carry permitting laws than in states with strong permitting systems. Yet here is the long list of states that do not require a permit to carry a loaded concealed firearm for any person of age who is not prohibited from owning a firearm:

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa (as of July 1), Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota (residents only; concealed carry only), Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee (residents only; handguns only; as of July 1), Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

As of this week, we can add Texas to that list. The Republican-dominated Legislature approved the measure Monday, sending it to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has said he will absolutely sign this bill into a law effective this September, even over the objections of law enforcement groups who say it would endanger the public and police. 

Yet with all of this talk about the Second Amendment, how about the First Amendment?

It seems like common sense that allowing people to carry openly visible guns in public can turn situations bad very quickly. “Constitutional carry” can turn arguments fatal, and in the United States today, people carrying guns are actually suppressing the same First Amendment speech of others to which they claim to advocate. 

David Gelman, founder of the law firm Gelman Law, LLC, practices law in a state that doesn’t have open carry. 

“Sometimes the intersection between the Second Amendment and the First Amendment can be a dangerous one. There is plenty of evidence to show that the open carry of a firearm can be used to intimidate and threaten others. The trend to have even more states adopt permitless carry is certainly a troubling one.”

Yet despite overwhelming evidence that openly carrying firearms endangers public safety, the trend among states is to weaken the regulation of visible guns in public. For those who are even casual observers of the United States, the gun violence statistics are too much for the mind to process. 

The Gifford Center was named after Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, herself a victim of gun violence while serving in Congress. Her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, is now in Congress in a state, Arizona, that does not require a license to carry a firearm. What Arizona does is still license people to carry a gun so they can legally take that gun into states that have registration requirements. Contrast this with Vermont, where there has never been any way to license a gun (the term “Vermont Carry” is synonymous with Constitutional Carry and speaks to the history in Vermont and neighboring states New Hampshire and Maine of allowing permitless carry. 

Parenthetically, New Hampshire’s state motto is “Live Free or Die.” which not only perfectly frames this permissive gun culture but in the United States is far too ironic and prescient for the tastes of many observers. 

So where do we go from here? Probably to a much darker place. 

America’s National Rifle Association (NRA), which should have been ground to a fine powder, is rapidly reorganizing and re-energizing after its bankruptcy scandal and preparing to incorporate in Texas. A new Republican “Red Wave,” (again, the irony is not lost here for international observers) similar to what propelled Donald Trump to the 2016 Presidency, is palpable across the nation. We are just over a year from the midterm elections of 2022 and the US political machine gears up in just two years from now for the 2024 election in which most experts are deeply divided in their opinions as to whether President Biden will not run for a second term. 

This is all a stellar foundation for disaster. A 2015 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that 9 million US adults carry loaded handguns monthly, while one-third of these gun owners carry loaded handguns every day. The number would more than likely be significantly higher today, leaving a nation with a massive spike in mass shootings primed for more. Whether, like our current global health pandemic, there is some panacea, or whether America’s herd immunity to gun violence will simply be a lot more death, remains to be seen. What is certain is that guns will be one of America’s hottest political issues for the remainder of President Biden’s first term, as well as an issue that may be soon ripe for further review by the nation’s highest Court. 

About Aron Solomon

Aron Solomon is the Head of Strategy for Esquire Digital and an adjunct professor of business management at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. Since earning his law degree, Solomon has spent the last two decades advising law firms and attorneys. He founded LegalX, the world’s first legal technology accelerator and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the world’s leading legal innovators. His work has been featured in TechCrunch, Fortune, Yahoo!, ABA Journal, Law.com, The Boston Globe, The Hill, and many other popular publications.