With Neil Gorsuch Confirmed, NRA Focuses on National Reciprocity

2nd Amendment Jose Luis Magana AP
Jose Luis Magana/ AP
AWR Hawkins

With Neil Gorush confirmed and sworn in as Supreme Court justice, the NRA is now redoubling pressure on lawmakers to take up National Reciprocity for concealed carry.

Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC-8) introduced National Reciprocity legislation on January 3, the first day of the 115th Congress, and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

President Trump voiced support for national reciprocity early in the recent presidential campaign. On September 18, 2015, Breitbart News reported the release of a Trump position paper in which he said concealed carry is “a right, not a privilege.” He also said:

The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry.

The NRA is asking Congress to focus on National Reciprocity so the concealed carry permit of one state is valid in every state, which is exactly what Trump was talking about in 2015. And the NRA is pushing its five million-plus members to contact their Senators and Representatives and ask that National Reciprocity be passed now:

In the majority opinion for McDonald v Chicago (2010), Justice Samuel Alito described the right to self-defense as the “central component” of the Second Amendment. If that component stops at the end of your driveway or the border of your state, then what keeps the central components of other natural rights–speech, religion, assembly, etc.–from being compartmentalized and stopped in the same way?

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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