A few days before press time, several 2A personalities on X reposted a video from last year where President-Elect Donald J Trump, expressed his desire and support for a national carry permit reciprocity law. As most of us Second Amendment Radicals and armed citizens know, this basically means carry permits will be treated like driver’s licenses, which is to say a permit issued in one state will be good in the other 49, and hopefully DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the other far-flung possessions of the United States.

With the second term of Donald Trump on the horizon, this has been cited as one of the more lofty goals for the Second Amendment community with regards to the mercurial and controversial 47th President of the United States. Provided a reciprocity bill can get through Congress, it’s to be expected that Trump would hold true to his promise and sign it. It’s his second term after all, and a hard pro-2A victory would shore up the base in time for the 2028 federal electoral season.

However, as nice as it sounds, the devil would be in the details.

What would the pros and cons of a national concealed carry permit reciprocity law be?

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In an insane political comeback, Donald J Trump has pulled off the “Grover Cleveland” and secured a second term, non-consecutively, as President of the United States. As we know, he won a surprise victory in 2016, was unseated by the Biden-Harris regime in 2020, and despite the odds, clinched victory in the early hours of November 6th, 2024. Team Trump’s ground game was impressive in the sense that he also secured the popular vote, showing American discontent with the failures and arrogance of the Biden-Harris regime. To be fair, Trump got some lucky breaks along the way. Two assassination attempts didn’t hurt his campaign one bit.

Everyone likes a fighter, and Trump getting back up without missing a beat after getting grazed by a 5.56mm round played very well amongst the undecideds. And of course Biden’s complete collapse during the first debate didn’t hurt, either.

Trump being convicted of what amounted to technical fouls seemingly didn’t take the wind out of his sails, surprisingly. A defiant DJT railed against these convictions, perhaps appealing to the American population’s love of rebels.

On the other side, the Democrats made many unforced errors, such as championing Harris as the candidate, without much input from the Democratic voters. Disenfranchised Dems crossed party lines and voted for Trump. Additionally this boded well for Congress as well, with the GOP regaining control of the Senate, and control of the House.

Despite early predictions of another flame-out, Trump prevailed immensely, and by the evening following Election Day, Kamala Harris conceded the election.

Of course, Trump couldn’t have done this without a broad coalition of support. In an effort to shore this up, he reached out to key demographics populated by conservatives and moderates, including armed citizens and Second Amendment Radicals. Breaking from tradition, he even did a video address to the Gun Owners of America, a group that’s far more uncompromising on the Second Amendment than other more mainstream groups. In this address he promised to uphold and promote the values of the Second Amendment, among other things.

Now that he’s scheduled to become the 47th President of the United States, what can Donald Trump do for the Second Amendment?

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Recently, a friend of mine (yes, I have friends!) and I were having a discussion on the various state-level gun control and gun rights proposals working their way through the legislatures. As a background, this friend of mine does not own a firearm, but does generally identify and support liberty-minded causes and personalities. If I recall correctly, our conversation was started because of a notorious shooting incident somewhere, and his theory was that either the federal “assault weapons” ban would be reinstated permanently, or that half the states in the US would enact some form of a ban on their own. Erroneously, he thinks the states have the right to bypass the federal Constitution, but that discussion is for another blog.

Anyways, the conversation continued on amiably, but he left it with the (paraphrasing from memory…) statement of “I have no horse in this race, but you gun guys have to figure this all out before they start banning stuff. They banned AR-15s once, they’ll do it again!”

Yes but no. Outside of rabid gun-grabber circles, hardware bans don’t play well even in the vast middle of the electorate. However, what really got me thinking is the phrase “I have no horse in this race…”

Whether you own a firearm or not, you do indeed have a horse in the Second Amendment race. The right to keep and bear arms includes being able to purchase them, free of government meddling, at any time…

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For decades, the typical progressive talking point when firearms owners have ripped into gun control-promoting politicians is that “nobody is coming for your guns”. They point to a long line of fellow traveler Congresspeople, Presidents, and bureaucrats who have voiced gun control proposals, but have never explicitly mentioned confiscation. Some have, like when Senator Feinstein expressed a desire to have a mandatory confiscation law put into place, or when VP (and P candidate) Harris threatened to ban ARs via executive action within 100 days of her assuming office? But overall the public face of gun control is usually cloaked in platitudes and “safety”. They haven’t accomplished confiscation, not from a lack of trying, but from the fact that the core groups of Second Amendment Radicals and armed citizens push back, since today’s appeasement is tomorrow’s loophole.

However, after the notorious shooting incident in Georgia a few weeks back, and the second attempt on the life of Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, the mask has slipped a little bit more. The lunatic fringe feels a little more emboldened, especially since it’s a federal election year, and has actively called for the ban of private firearms ownership, and the confiscation of existing stock.

You may be wondering, if the unthinkable were to be ordered, what would happen in reality?

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Almost two months ago on Saturday July 13th, 2024, the 45th and potentially the 47th President of the United States, Donald John Trump, was the target of an assassination attempt at a highly-attended rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooter, one Thomas Crooks, used an AR-15, purchased by his father around 11 years ago, to make an attempt on the life of Trump. With a volley of shots, Crooks narrowly missed the Republican nominee for President, grazing his ear. Unfortunately a dedicated fan of Trump’s, firefighter Corey Comperatore, was struck and lost his life as a result. Moments later, law enforcement on the scene neutralized Crooks before he could cause further damage. In the surprising chaos following the shooting, Trump rose from the phalanx of his protective detail and shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”. The iconic photo says it all.

Of course, we all know about the ensuing debate as to why it happened and how it happened. Since this is a Second Amendment blog, I’ll leave the speculations about the obvious security failures to the hive mind on X.

Anyways, it only took about an hour before the usual suspects blamed Trump’s own gun policies (wait, he passed pro-2A stuff in his first term?) for the situation. That, with a dash of progressives wishing Crooks had “aimed better” added some fuel to the fire, leading to speculations that Donald Trump, known for being mercurial in his speech, would make statements supporting gun control…

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When the NYSRPA vs Bruen case, usually just referred to as Bruen, was resolved in the favor of the New York State Rifle And Pistol Association by the Supreme Court of the United States, it was cause for celebration in the community of Second Amendment Radicals and armed citizens. Finally, after over a decade since the Heller decision, which affirmed the Second Amendment as an individual right, there was federal-level movement on 2A in a positive way. In a nutshell, Bruen determined that governments could no longer impose arbitrary and vague conditions on the right to carry a firearm in public. The days of may-issue firearm carry permits were at a close. Permits could no longer be denied just because the issuing authority was having a bad day, hated the race of the person requesting one, or hated guns in general. Permits had to be issued within a clear and simple framework, not connected to finance, the person’s situation, i.e. “good reason”, and so forth. On the books, every state in the Union is now at least shall-issue, with the majority of states being some form of permitless carry as of August 2024.

More importantly, Bruen also established a new metric for firearms laws in the US. Any law on the books, or proposed law, must meet a requirement of historical tradition in order to be consistent with the Second Amendment. For example, laws that prohibit adults between the ages of 18 and 21 from purchasing or carrying a pistol are no longer considered valid post-Bruen, with several state laws restricting the carry of a pistol to those over 21 having fallen in recent months. When the nation was founded, there was no codified age requirement for someone to carry a pistol, thus laws restricting that are now commonly considered repugnant to the Second Amendment…

With the Bruen test in place, an obvious target of course would be the National Firearms Act, aka the NFA. The infamous law heavily restricts and taxes all the fun stuff. Machine guns, short-barreled rifles & shotguns, silencers, and things that really go boom. As there were no restrictions on action, accessories, and barrel lengths of firearms during the time of the founding, the NFA should be invalid under Bruen, and thus subject to repeal, right?

Yes, but the devil is in the details…

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It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a movie review, but after much encouragement from outside sources, I decided to go ahead and dissect another film from the perspective of a firearms autist. This time around, I picked the somewhat-controversial Alex Garland dystopian thriller, Civil War.

The run up to the film had the Second Amendment Radical community abuzz. The trailer, though scant on details at the time, featured a fair amount of firearms-centric action, as well as some iconography we’re all familiar with in the scene, such as Hawaiian-shirt clad fighters, meme-ish looking characters, and hints towards some unidentified armed combat in progressive “havens” such as New York City.

Of course since both director Garland and A24, the studio responsible for bringing this piece to life, are both part of the Hollywood machine, us in the community weren’t expecting a piece sympathetic to the side of freedom and fun…

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A few days ago, occasional liker-of-my-posts-on-X and big-time 2A type Mrgunsngear posted a rather astounding video on X depicting a supposed new recruit to the US Army running a rifle for the first time. Now, for the benefit of the doubt, I will say that it’s a little hard to tell whether this is legit footage from a training exercise, or if it’s just someone cosplaying, thinking they know what they are doing, or trolling for likes and engagement. Not to deviate from the subject but I tried to see if the rifle in question had the third pin, etc. Compression sucks. Anyways, as you can see, the subject of the video is exhibiting remarkably poor marksmanship skills and firearms handling. They learned that from somewhere, or thought that was a good idea somehow…

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Chances are, most of your firearms are the same color scheme as they were when they left the factory. Your black rifles are black, your GLOCK 45 is a dark grey, and even your trusted Mossberg Cruiser shotgun is a dull grey parkerized finish.

Your weapons are black because it’s the most cost-effective finish that kind of applies almost everywhere. It’ll hide the day-to-day wear well, and also kind of blend into most environments. However, most of the time, a black rifle can easily be spotted, even if you yourself aren’t easily spotted.

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It’s 0300. 3 AM. There’s rattling at the door, maybe the sound of glass breaking. Your motion-sensing surveillance system is screaming alerts at your phone. The door finally gives way, the window is breached. Your alarm system goes off, but you’re already popping open that biometric safe next to your bed. Grabbing that well-maintained 9mm pistol, you’re directing your significant other to grab their own sidearm and protect any vulnerable people, i.e. elderly relatives, children, in the home. Your job is to assess and engage the invaders. Thankfully you have some knowledge of their whereabouts already. They’re looking for an easy score in your living room. As you round the corner, one is helping themselves to your PS5, while the other is standing watch, gun in hand…

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