Last week, Brian Kemp, Republican governor of the State of Georgia, signed a law enacting a policy
its supporters call “constitutional carry.” Under constitutional carry,
also called permitless carry, Georgia residents are entitled to carry concealed handguns
without a permit. Does that sound like just . . . deliriously irresponsible gun policy? It should,
because it is, but it gets worse: Georgia is the twenty-first state to enact such a law,
according to a fact sheet by Everytown for Gun Safety. That’s twenty-one states
out of fifty! That’s forty-two percent of the states where people are legally entitled to
carry concealed handguns with no license, no safety training, no background check.
Ya got a handgun? Ya wanna take it with you to the mall? Go ahead! Why? It doesn’t matter
why — the fact that you want to is all the reason you need! Welcome to Georgia!
And Alabama! And Texas! And Alaska! And Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming,
Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, West
Virginia — there’s a surprise, huh? — Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine, those last three proving
that ludicrously permissive gun laws are not just for rednecks, thank you very much!
It actually gets even worse than that. These past few years, gun-related deaths in the United
States have been on the rise. The numbers were horrifying before, but in 2020, according to the
Gun Violence Archive, there were forty-three thousand six hundred sixty-four gun deaths in
the United States, an increase of more than four thousands from the year before. And last year,
there were forty-four thousand nine-hundred seventy-five gun deaths in the United States,
which is over a thousand more than there were in 2020!
So, gun deaths have been a major problem in the United States for many, many years. The
problem has recently gotten even worse. And the solution being offered by these right-wing
firearm fetishists is to make it even easier for more people to carry guns around in public! This
is like trying to reduce automobile-related deaths by getting rid of drivers licenses and seat-belts!
Except, it’s not exactly like that — Republicans aren’t passing these laws because they think
they’ll reduce gun-related deaths. They don’t give a shit about gun-related deaths! They never
have. They’re ghouls. They’re fucking ghouls. There could be twice as many gun-related deaths
this year — there could be ten times as many — it wouldn’t make a difference. They don’t care.
But! Incredibly — or should I say expectedly? — it gets even worse.
Because according to surveys conducted by Everytown for Gun Safety, and researchers at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Center for Gun Policy and Research, respectively,
eighty-eight percent of Americans think a permit should be necessary in order to
carry a concealed gun in public, and eighty-three percent of gun owners and eighty-three percent of
Republicans think there should be higher safety standards for people to carry concealed firearms.
So, not only are these permitless carry laws reckless and counterproductive to
solving this country’s gun death problem, the overwhelming majority of Americans — including
the overwhelming majority of gun owners and Republicans — don’t even
want them! There is no excuse for any of this! Not even a bad one! Not even
“well, it’s what the people want” — because it’s not! It’s not what the people want!
If it’s not what the people want, and it doesn’t make, ya know, sense at all,
why are mostly Republican controlled legislatures and governors all over the country
doing this? Other than the fact that, as I already mentioned, they are ghouls who do
not give a shit? They’re doing it because it appeals to their base of fearful, ignorant,
gun-stroking shitheads with persecution complexes, and because nobody is really trying to stop them.
Included in “nobody”: that eighty-three percent of Republicans and gun-owners who say they’re not on
board with this. And my question to those people is: where the fuck are you? You’re willing to tell
a pollster that you oppose permitless carry, but that’s as far as you’ll take it? When someone asks
you if you support higher safety standards and requiring a license in order to carry a concealed
firearm, you say yes, absolutely you support that. But come election day, what? You don’t bother to
vote? Or worse yet, you vote for people who are going to continue to let the gun lobby set policy?
So, if that’s the case — and I kinda think it is — let me ask you another question:
what fucking good are you? Because here’s the thing: if you say you support
safety standards and licenses to carry a firearm, but then you vote for people
who don’t support those things . . . you don’t support those things, either. If you
really believe we need more sensible gun laws in this country, then act like it. Vote like it.
“Oh, but Steve, that’s not where the Republican party is at right now — if a Republican
supports those kinds of gun laws, who are they supposed to vote for?”
That’s easy: Democrats. They’re supposed to vote for Democrats — specifically, for Democrats who
agree with them that we need better, safer, stricter gun laws. And by the way, that goes
for Democrats, too: you want better gun laws, vote. Vote for people who will make it happen.
When people are running for office, running to represent you in your state legislature,
in Congress, tell them you support things like license requirements to carry guns.
Tell them if they want your vote, they’re gonna have to work to make it happen.
Answering “yes” in a poll accomplishes nothing. Voting, and pushing our elected representatives
to do that right thing can accomplish something, if we do it, if we push hard enough.
So, don’t get me wrong — I’m mostly mad at the Republican elected officials who are actually
writing and passing these laws, and the gun lobby to which they are shamelessly loyal. But, I’m also
pissed at the people in this eighty-three percent, because those elected officials and that gun lobby
couldn’t do what they’ve done if the people in that eighty-three percent actually cared enough
to stop them. The people who make these laws have no excuse for the things they have done.
And, the members of that eighty-three percent of Republicans and gun owners
who oppose things like permitless carry have no excuse for the things they haven’t done.