Dallas Sheriff Joins Gabby Giffords’ Gun Control Group, Comes Out Against Concealed Carry

Lupe Valdez the sheriff of Dallas County, Texas, is a member of Gabby Giffords’ gun control group, and a solidly against concealed carry for law-abiding citizens on a national basis.

Like Giffords, Michael Bloomberg, and Bloomberg-funded gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, Valdez is calling for Congress to refuse to pass legislation that would make the concealed carry permit of one state valid in every state. Instead, Valdez likes the patchwork of concealed carry laws whereby a citizen is considered law-abiding in his home state but could face serious criminal charges for crossing a state border while carrying the very same handgun he carries every day as he goes about his business in his city or town of residence.

Writing in The Hill, Valdez said:

One of Congress’s top priorities is to allow the unrestricted concealed carry of firearms, which would undermine one state’s strong laws with another state’s weaker laws for carrying loaded, hidden guns in public.

This bill would make it easier for dangerous people, like stalkers and domestic abusers, to carry hidden guns in all 50 states. Under this bill, a victim could never feel safe or escape their accuser by going to another state. This bill also directly undermines the ability of law enforcement officers to effectively do their jobs and ensure public safety. 

There are quite a few inaccuracies in Valdez’s statement and–not surprisingly–they are the very same ones we have seen from Giffords and others who are affiliated with Giffords.

For starters, the national reciprocity legislation put forward by Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC-8) does not seek the “unrestricted concealed carry of firearms.” Rather, it simply treats concealed carry permits like a driver’s license; making them valid in every state. But concealed carriers will still have to abide by the carry laws of each state and those laws vary greatly. For example, in some states, you can carry your gun into a bar and in some, you cannot. In others, you can carry into a bar as long as you do not drink while other states even allow you to have a drink while carrying. Concealed carriers will have to know the laws of each state and abide by them.

Secondly, national reciprocity does not make it “easier for dangerous people to carry guns.” Dangerous people carry guns by choosing to do so, laws against it notwithstanding.

Think about it–if a law against dangerous people carrying guns were actually followed by dangerous people, our firearm-related homicide rate would be nearly zero right now. The problem is, laws like that have zero impact on criminals but they do make it harder for law-abiding citizens to be armed for self-defense. (Consider the fact that the Orlando Pulse was a gun-free zone. Such a designation did nothing to keep the attacker from entering with a handgun and a rifle but the gun-free designation did succeed in keeping law-abiding club goers unarmed and therefore defenseless.)

It is also interesting to note how Valdez describes concealed carry as the act of carrying “hidden, loaded guns in public.” That is a very ominous way of describing what our Founder Fathers would have called the exercise of the right not only to keep arms, but to bear them too.

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.