Paul Ryan Ignoring National Reciprocity for 43rd Consecutive Week

It is October 31 and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is ignoring national reciprocity legislation for the 43rd consecutive week.

National reciprocity was introduced by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) on January 3, 2017, and law-abiding citizens have been waiting for Congress to take up the measure ever since.

The wait is fast-approaching a year, yet Ryan remains mum on the legislation. President Trump signaled that he wanted national reciprocity early in his campaign. Breitbart News reported Trump’s conviction that “concealed carry…is a right, not a privilege.” He used a September 18, 2015, policy position paper to explain his support of national reciprocity, saying:

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, which is a right, not a privilege.

But Ryan’s only statements on national reciprocity to date were those he spoke to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) after the June 14, 2017, Alexandria attack. Ryan told Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) that “he didn’t think the time was right” for legislation revolving around reciprocity.

Therefore, while Ryan enjoys taxpayer-funded armed security wherever he goes, the common man struggles to navigate the patchwork of concealed carry laws that currently vary from state-to-state in the U.S. In other words, Ryan enjoys the benefit of good guys with guns no matter where he is while good guys who happen to be commoners with concealed carry permits might not even be allowed to use a handgun for self-defense in a bordering state.

Making matters worse, Ryan is ignoring national reciprocity at a time when numerous Democrats have been forced to flee gun control in order to have any chance of being reelected during the 2018 midterms.  On October 19, just over two weeks after Democrats undertook one of their biggest gun control pushes ever, Breitbart News reported that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged his colleagues to drop gun control for the time being. The Hill reported that Schumer became concerned about what pushing gun control might do to Democrats who are up for reelection; particularly Democrat Senators in red states.

So we have a President who wants national reciprocity, millions of concealed carry permit holders who want it, and a number of Democrats who will have to support it in order to get reelected. Yet Ryan is frozen in place.

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