On March 12, West Virginia’s House followed the state Senate’s lead and voted to rescind the requirement for a permit to carry concealed, creating an environment where the Second Amendment is your concealed carry license. But Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) came out against the move, saying he supports the right to bear arms but only for those who have gone through a government training program and acquired the license to do so.
In other words, according to Manchin, the Second Amendment is not a sufficient carry license.
The Huffington Post reported Manchin’s exact words, where he used “gun sense”–the same phrase Moms Demand Action often uses–to explain himself: “In West Virginia, we believe in gun sense, which is common sense, and it only makes common sense for concealed carry applicants to receive proper training.”
Manchin went on to “commend” legislators, who voted against freeing West Virginians by taking the burden of an application and licensing process off their backs.
Alaska, Arizona, Montana, Vermont, and Wyoming all allow concealed carry without a permit. And contrary to what Manchin suggests, murder rates fall when people are free to exercise their Second Amendment rights without going through a government-sponsored licensing process.
According to the Idaho Statesman, the murder rate in Alaska fell from an average of 7 people per 100,000 for the years 1993-2003 to 4.6 per 100,000 once a concealed license requirement was removed. Arizona’s murder rate fell from 7.4 per 100,000 with a permit to 5.8 per 100,000 without, and Wyoming’s rate fell from 2.6 to 2.4.
Yet Manchin has cast his lot with the gun control crowd once again.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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