Two months after the worst mass shooting in American history left 58 concertgoers dead, the U.S. House finally did something on guns: A committee approved a horrifying bill allowing concealed-carry permits minted anywhere in the country to work everywhere in the country.
If this disaster passes and gun safety statutes are brought down to the lowest common denominator coast to coast, lives will be lost. It’s that simple.
In 38 states, gun owners must get permits to carry concealed weapons in public, with a range of different vetting, sometimes very loose, applying. In the remaining 12 — mostly rural places like Alaska, Idaho and Kansas — no permits are required at all.
Concealed carry reciprocity would in one fell swoop explode all those distinctions. And places like New York would be powerless to stop their residents from getting a weapon and permission to carry elsewhere, then bringing it in state.
That would make the lives of New York cops a living, or quite possibly dying, hell.
And it’s all brought to you by Republicans who are supposed to hate crime and love states’ rights. Everything they ever claimed to care about is subservient to the worship of firearms.
