In 2024, South Carolina became the 29th state to implement Constitutional Carry, permitting citizens legally allowed to possess firearms to carry a concealed handgun without paying a fee or obtaining a license and without fear of being arrested or prosecuted for doing so. If we are being honest, instituting Constitutional Carry is more of a reaffirmation of that state’s commitment to the country and its citizens while giving them back a right that should have never been taken away in the first place. Don’t get me wrong. I support every state that no longer requires a license or collects a fee for Americans to exercise inalienable rights, but let’s call it what it is. Naturally, applications for permits and renewals have declined significantly, as they should, but leave it to the whiny, anti-Second Amendment Bloomberg-founded skinny jeans-wearing, pinko betas at Everytown for Gun Safety to cry about simple math. 

What are the benefits of applying and paying for a concealed carry permit when one isn’t needed to exercise that right in your state? You might think there is zero reason, but traditionally, that has not been the case. One benefit has been permit reciprocity in other states. Another, depending on which state you live in, recognizes the vetting process behind the permit and allows you to purchase firearms without undergoing a NICS background check, eliminating possible hassles and delays associated with the easily overwhelmed .gov system.

With 29 Constitutional Carry states as of 2024 and not all of those states recognizing the permit’s vetting process as a reason to skip your next NICS check, there is less incentive to ask permission or pay for your rights. Not only is this a good thing for law-abiding Americans, but it could be a tool to chip away, as does the left, but in the opposite direction. As the right to bear arms is a natural law codified in the United States Constitution, you must provide some logical incentive to seek a permit, like skipping the NFA process and allowing the purchase of suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and machine guns as one would purchase any firearm. Whatever the incentive there must be one, otherwise crying about application numbers is like complaining that I won’t pay for rental insurance at the counter when my personal insurance company already covers it. 

Let me add a quick note on the permit reciprocity argument. Do yourself a favor and pull up a Constitutional Carry and a reciprocity map side by side. Now look at the states that offer unrestricted reciprocity vs those that have Constitutional Carry and you’ll get a good laugh as the pattern emerges. Thank me later. 

In Nebraska (passed in 2023), during the first 11 months of 2024, the state received less than half the number of applications compared to the same period a year before, with 1,690 people asking for permission vs. 4,002, and four times lower than the 6,939 applications in 2022, according to State Patrol administering the program. These numbers do not include the approximately 5,000 permit holders who allowed their permits to expire.

“Make no mistake: Communities suffer when states go ‘permit-less.’ Permits increase safety by requiring applicants to complete safety training, a criminal background check and other steps such as live-fire instruction.” says Sarah Burd-Sharps, senior director of research at Everytown.

No, Sarah, you’re just too stupid to see the logical fallacies in your argument. Individuals who typically apply for a permit seek to abide by the law even when it violates their Constitutional rights. I’d call that a pretty big commitment to law-abiding behavior, even when the government doesn’t lead by example. In contrast, those who intend to cause harm to others usually don’t ask permission to bear the tools associated with carrying out their plans. Additionally, you assume that people who do not obtain permits also don’t go to the range, train, or take courses to become safe and proficient with their firearms. Stop lobbing me easy ones, you dolt. I can do this all day. 

Nebraska Senator Tom Brewer sponsored the Constitutional Carry law in his home state and says he has seen no statistics showing an increase in gun safety issues since going “permit-less.”

I’m proud to live in a Constitutional Carry state, and I avoid states that aren’t like the plague. It wasn’t always this way for me, and it took effort and grit to leave a place only masquerading as part of America to make a better life for myself. Some of the sacrifices to get here still sting, but I wouldn’t go back for any amount of money, and I encourage others to consider doing the same when I hear of their ongoing struggles in places like California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, and others. America did not come easy, nor without sacrifice, yet those who endeavored understood that freedom had to be the foundation on which the country stood and the hill which its protectors would be willing to die upon.