Category: Politics

The HPA and SHORT seem to have officially survived the Byrd rule. This is the Parliamentarian’s ruling on the Finance Committee’s portion of the bill, in which the HPA and SHORT are included. Neither were struck, nor are they listed under the “still under review section”:

Byrd Rule Violations Continue to Mount on the Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill”

Louisiana Lawmakers Make Major Improvements to State’s Carry Laws

Louisiana’s annual legislative session has officially drawn to a close, and lawmakers have sent a number of good bills to Gov. Jeff Landry for his approval, including several measures that will bolster the state’s carry laws.

HB 407, for instance, allows non-residents to apply for a Louisiana carry license, including a lifetime permit that won’t expire unless the licensee loses their right to keep and bear arms. While non-residents 18 and older who can lawfully possess a gun can carry without a permit in most places in Louisiana, the federal Gun-Free School Zone Act contains a provision that prohibits carrying within 1,000 feet of a school unless the individual possessing the firearm is “licensed to do so by the State in which the school zone is located or a political subdivision of the State”. In other words, permitless carry doesn’t apply in that location, and even if someone possesses a permit from a state that has reciprocity with Louisiana, that still doesn’t allow them to legally carry within that particular “gun-free zone.”

SB 101 also addresses this issue by specifying that, at least under state law, any person who has a valid concealed handgun permit issued pursuant to Louisiana statute, by a state that has reciprocity with Louisiana, or a person carrying a handgun pursuant to Louisiana’s permitless carry statute, can carry within 1,000 feet of a school without committing a crime.

Given that more than half the country no longer requires a permit to carry, that language desperately needs to be revised by Congress, but until then Louisiana lawmakers have at least provided visitors with a workaround.

The bill also declares that privately-owned vo-tech schools are not considered “schools” under Louisiana state law and are not subject to the provisions of the Gun-Free School Zones Act. As we’ve previously reported, this bill seems designed to finally put an end to attempts by the city of New Orleans to carve out the French Quarter from the state’s permitless carry law by declaring a police substation in the tourist-friendly neighborhood an educational facility by hosting one or two vo-tech classes.

HB 393, meanwhile, clarifies existing state law regarding carrying at or near parades or demonstrations. While those participating in these events are still prohibited from lawfully carrying a firearm, bystanders and spectators are free to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to embrace all of these pro-Second Amendment reforms, but Louisiana gun owners should still reach out to his office and encourage him to sign the bills into law. While they’re at it, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to contact the lawmakers who backed these measures to thank them for their efforts.

Congratulations to the Louisiana Shooting Association are also in order. President Dan Zelenka, the board, and individual members have done an outstanding job of bolstering the right to keep and bear arms in the Pelican State, for both residents and non-residents alike. This session shows the power that grassroots organizations can have, and the state’s gun laws will hopefully soon be even better than they already are.

North Carolina law states that when the legislature is in session, if a Governor doesn’t sign or veto a bill within 10 days, not including Sundays, it becomes law. The state’s legislature is in session until the end of July.

NC Gov. Stein signs 3 bills, waits to take action on guns or immigration

In a Friday morning event at the North Carolina Governor’s Mansion, Gov. Josh Stein hosted a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Council of State members to sign three bills into law.

Those bills overhauled who is in charge of investing state pension funds, allow licensed social workers to apply to offer services across state lines, and another that allows long-serving officers to continue working without forfeiting a “special separation allowance.”

Stein did not take any action on more controversial pieces of legislation the General Assembly sent him this week. Those include a bill letting people carry concealed weapons without a permit and a pair of immigration bills.

Continue reading “”

Constitutional carry bill clears NC legislature, sent to governor

The North Carolina House passed the Freedom to Carry NC Act on Wednesday afternoon along party lines, sending the permitless carry legislation to the governor’s desk.

In a 59-48 vote, the General Assembly moved one step closer to making North Carolina the 30th state to adopt constitutional carry. The bill allows individuals 18 and older to carry concealed handguns without a permit.

“This bill further ensures that Carolinians can exercise their Second Amendment rights, which include both owning and carrying firearms,” said Rep. Brian Echevarria, R-Cabarrus. “The absolute language of ‘shall not be infringed’ in our Constitution is the strongest prohibition on earth against any government action that would limit this right.”

All Democrats, as well as two Republicans, Reps. William Brisson, R-Bladen, and Ted Davis, R-New Hanover, voted against the bill.

Rep. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort, praised the bill, noting it mirrors his own bill proposal that was introduced in the House earlier this year. The Senate passed its own version and sent it to the House for approval.

“This is a very good bill,” said Kidwell. “Most of you run a bill and it goes over to the Senate and they make changes and send it back,” Kidwell said. “In this particular case, the Senate just took the bill right after I wrote it, took it over there, put their name on it, and sent it back. So I do appreciate that they enjoyed that bill that much.”

Kidwell explained that the bill would allow North Carolinians to constitutionally carry a firearm without obtaining a permit from the government to exercise their God-given right to defend themselves.

Representatives debated the bill for roughly an hour, with Democrats speaking out against the bill. Democrats pointed to various statistics, such as a Stanford study that shows permitless concealed carry states face a 13-15% violent crime increase over the next decade.

Rep. Phil Rubin, D-Wake, pointed to West Virginia as the worst example, where firearm deaths surged 26% and gun homicides rose about 48% in five years, compared to 17 prior years, after repealing permit requirements.

“I know that there are profound, strong feelings on both sides of the aisle about the best approach for guns, but we don’t have to go this far,” he said. “I think this bill does not help the people that we represent because it is dangerous. It is unnecessary and it is deeply unpopular.”

Rep. Clark shared her own story of a childhood friend dying by suicide with a legal gun and another friend who was murdered. She urged lawmakers vote down the bill, arguing that the “bill goes too far.”

Countering what he called “cherry-picked” statistics, Kidwell said 83% of states with permitless carry have homicide rates below the national average, while 84% of states have lower violent crime rates than they did prior to permitless carry.

“It’s interesting information,” Kidwell said. “Where does that come from? Not some cherry-picked group. Not some organization that was already against firearms. That comes from the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. To me, that’s pretty amazing. 84% of states have lower violent crime rates in 2022 than they did before they had permitless carry.”

While Senate Bill 50 now awaits Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s signature, he has suggested a veto. With Stein’s expected veto, Republican leadership would need to secure a three-fifths majority in both chambers to override—a task that was easier during the last session when both chambers held supermajorities.

Senate Republicans hold a supermajority, but House Republicans are one seat short, meaning any override effort will require unified attendance and careful vote counting, as any veto override may hinge on attendance numbers.

Backer of Hawaii’s Failed ‘Assault Weapon’ Ban Won’t Bring It Back Next Year

Given the large Democratic majority in the Hawaii legislature and the state’s longstanding hostility towards the right to keep and bear arms, the demise of a proposed ban on the vast majority of semi-automatic rifles on May 1 was a welcome surprise for Second Amendment advocates.

Hawaii gun owners got even more good news this week when Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads, who was one of the leading proponents of SB 401, told Honolulu Civil Beat that he has no plans to revive the bill next session, calling it “a waste of time,” to bring it up during an election year.

That in itself is an unexpected twist, since Democrats have adopted expansive “gun-free zones” and other restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms in recent years. But according to Civil Beat reporter Kevin Dayton, further gun control efforts could be stymied by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats representing more rural parts of the state.

The ban on those guns was effectively blocked at the last minute by Democratic Sen. Lynn DeCoite, who said she wanted to exclude rural residents, subsistence hunters and conservation workers who use those weapons to combat invasive species such as axis deer and feral pigs.

Experts in firearms laws say the language DeCoite offered in her proposed amendment would have diluted the proposed restrictions in Senate Bill 401 so completely that the new law would have been largely unenforceable.

Senate Judiciary Chair Karl Rhoads, a leading advocate for the bill, said as much during the debate before the pivotal vote on the Senate floor. “This amendment creates a huge carve-out for the sale of assault weapons,” he told his colleagues. “If we pass it, it basically eviscerates the underlying bill.”

According to Republican Sen. Brenton Awa that was the whole point. “Essentially what this amendment does, if you don’t get caught up in everything that’s in it, is allows us to kill the bill,” he said.

None of the other senators bothered to argue with Awa, and minutes later he proved to be correct. The amendment passed 13-12, with Senate President Ron Kouchi from Kauaʻi casting the tie-breaking vote. He then announced the bill was shelved for the year.

That vote was a strikingly rare example of Senate Democrats joining with their Republican colleagues to muster a majority. It also suggests Hawaiʻi’s longstanding political consensus on firearms may be fracturing as senators from mostly rural districts join forces with a handful of Republicans to push back on the issue.

Dayton’s full piece details the “convoluted” politics that led to the defeat of SB 401 and is well worth a read. The big takeaway is that while Hawaii isn’t going to adopt Constitutional Carry or other pro-2A measures anytime soon, there does appear to be a growing reluctance to pass the kind of sweeping gun controls that groups like Everytown have been lobbying for.

SB 401 had the support of anti-gun groups, as well as the backing of Gov. Josh Green. And DeCoite’s amendment would likely have been defeated were it not for the “yes” vote by Senate President Ron Kouchi. The Democrat told the Civil Beat that he supported the carveouts because he represents a “large hunter and fisher group on Kauaʻi, and they are putting food on their table as part of the subsistence in meeting some of the challenging economic times.”

Kouchi also expressed concerns that the magazine ban portion of SB 401, which contained no grandfather clause, would have turned constituents into felons for keeping ahold of the magazines that they had lawfully purchased.

While I’d much rather Kouchi and DeCoite oppose a gun ban on principle instead of citing concerns about invasive species and the impact on subsistence hunting, at the end of the day they were still responsible for defanging and defeating a top priority for the gun control lobby this year; not only in Hawaii but across the country. I certainly hope this is the start of a new coalition that will defend the right to keep and bear arms in what’s traditionally been hostile territory, and that this is just the first of many gun control bills to get swatted down by a bipartisan group of Hawaiian legislators.

New Poll Has Bad News for Anti-Gun Democrats

As recently as 2010, a quarter of Democrats in Congress were “A” rated by the National Rifle Association. But over the past fifteen years the gun control lobby and Democratic leadership have purged the party of Second Amendment-supporting politicians. Oh sure, Kamala Harris claimed to own a Glock, even though she backed San Francisco’s ban on handguns when was the city’s District Attorney.

Despite his support for “red flag” laws, bans on modern sporting rifles, and support for depriving young adults of their right to keep and bear arms, Tim Walz was billed as a Democrat that gun owners could get behind because he owned a shotgun and like to shoot clays. Those pathetic attempts to portray the 2024 Democratic ticket as friendly to Second Amendment supporters were abject failures, but the party hasn’t learned any lessons from their disastrous performance last year. Instead, they voted to put gun control activist David Hogg in a leadership position at the DNC, introduced bills banning almost every semi-automatic rifle and shotgun on the market, and are now trying to ban the sale of Glock handguns in states like New York and Illinois.

So how’s that working out for them? According to a new YouGov survey, not well at all.

A new YouGov survey asked Americans whether they think the Democratic Party or the Republican Party does a better job handling each of 20 issues. Both Democrats and Republicans have changed their views since last year on several key issues. For example, Democrats are less likely now than they were in August 2024 to say the Democratic Party does a better job at handling guns (69%, down from 80%). Meanwhile, Republicans are less likely now than they were last summer to say the Republican Party does a better job handling inflation (80%, down from 87%).

On the question of who does a better job of handling “guns” as an issue, 36% of all survey respondents picked Republicans, 31% picked Democrats, 16% said they were about the same (which is flabbergasting to me), and 16% said they were unsure. YouGov says that’s the one issue where there’s been “notable” movement among the American electorate, which should be ringing alarm bells for Democrats across the country.

I doubt it will, though. The YouGov survey shows more than 2/3rds of Democrats still believe their party is better on the gun issue than Republicans, and even though that number has plunged from 80% to 69% in the past year, the gun control lobby is so entrenched within the party itself that it will take a lot more than one survey and one terrible election cycle before we could start to see any genuinely pro-Second Amendment Democrats running for Congress or statewide office.

I’d love to see both major political parties embrace and support our Second Amendment rights, but I just don’t see that happening in the near future. Some Democrats might try to disguise their animosity towards the right to keep and bear arms by dropping their attempts to ban gas-operated semi-automatic rifles and shotguns until the 2026 election cycle is over, but there’ll be plenty of others in the party who will continue their crusade to turn a fundamental civil right into a privilege subject to the whims of anti-gun politicians.