Pelosi Lies Again, This Time on Concealed Carry

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – a Democrat completely misrepresented our nation’s gun laws to try and push their own flawed political agenda. This time around, it was House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who took to Twitter to whine about H.R. 38, better known as the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.

Pelosi did accomplish something remarkable with her tweet, though. She actually managed to get the left-leaning Washington Post to call her out for being wrong. The same Washington Post that accused VARight of “denying facts” for pointing out biased polls in favor of Hillary Clinton. We all saw how that turned out. Having to criticize Pelosi was certainly a bitter pill to swallow for the Washington Post.

Just how bad was Pelosi’s tweet about H.R. 38? Even if we grade her on a curve to compare what she said with the typical Democrat hysteria about guns, her tweet was still absolutely terrible.

Pelosi’s False Claims on Concealed Carry Reciprocity

In her tweet, Pelosi says that inviting violent criminals, domestic abusers and convicted stalkers to carry concealed weapons doesn’t save lives, but the House GOP voted to let them anyway by passing H.R. 38.

To call H.R. 38 an invitation to carry concealed weapons is asinine. The problem with what Pelosi said is that it misrepresents who will benefit from concealed carry reciprocity. The only people who H.R. 38 affects are those who have concealed carry permits, and all it does is extend their concealed carry rights to every state.

It won’t benefit violent criminals, domestic abusers, and convicted stalkers because federal law already prevents those people from owning guns. That doesn’t change if H.R. 38 becomes law. They’ll still be prohibited from owning or purchasing guns, which means Pelosi is flat-out wrong about what this act would do.

It doesn’t take anything besides a little common sense to see the flaws not just in Pelosi’s understanding of gun laws in the United States, but her logic. Does she really think that violent criminals are waiting for a concealed carry reciprocity law to pass before they use guns while committing crimes? There isn’t a point to a criminal getting a concealed carry permit in the first place. They don’t care about following concealed carry laws because they are criminals.

There are only two possible explanations for Pelosi’s tweet – she is deliberately lying to push her own agenda or she is misinformed about gun laws. The former seems more likely, but considering she once said that the First Amendment covers the right to bear arms, we can’t rule out the latter. Considering her unfortunate choice in profession, neither is acceptable.

Concealed Carry Reciprocity Is a Small Step in the Right Direction

Pelosi is far from the only person getting dramatic about concealed carry reciprocity, as several reporters have accused the federal government of trampling on state rights to set their own gun laws. This ignores the fact that the federal government already maintains a huge level of control over buying, moving and using firearms. It does everything from mandating background checks to defining the different forms of hearing protection people should wear at shooting ranges. Concealed carry reciprocity wouldn’t be the first time the government set a precedent with its gun laws.

What the act will do is make concealed carry a bit less convoluted for law-abiding citizens. Right now, if you have a concealed carry permit here in Virginia, you’re free to carry a concealed firearm in your car if you drive over to West Virginia, North Carolina or quite a few other states that honor your permit. But if you head north to Maryland, Delaware or over a dozen other states that don’t honor your permit, you could be charged with a crime.

The way concealed carry is currently setup is a mess. There’s no reason behind why a state will honor a permit from one of its neighbors but not another.

Critics have claimed this is unfair to states with stricter gun laws. We don’t make that argument when it comes to driver’s licenses, even though there’s certainly variance between how much training states require to get a license. If you have a license in one state, you’re free to drive throughout the country, because that’s the simplest, most effective option.

Concealed carry reciprocity is by no means perfect. It doesn’t fix the fact that many law-abiding citizens in blue states have no chance of getting a concealed carry permit, because their state’s laws don’t respect the Second Amendment. On a positive note, it at least restores gun rights that should have never been taken in the first place to some people.