The U.S. House of Representatives gave the National Rifle Association exactly what they wanted for Christmas this year: a vote on their favorite bill to weaken our nation’s gun laws.
Even in the wake of two of America’s deadliest mass shootings, and despite the fact that the number of people killed with guns spiked to 38,000 last year, the House passed the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, a bill that makes our communities less safe by permitting more dangerous people to carry concealed guns in public.
Given the severity of our nation’s gun violence epidemic, we should be outraged that the House ignored the will of voters who are eager for Congress to do something to save lives. But we shouldn’t be surprised.
After pouring record-breaking amounts of money to help elect President Trump and this Congress, the lobbyists representing the gun industry were hungry for payback. At the NRA’s annual meeting earlier this year, President Trump promised: “You’ve come through for me, and I’m going to come through for you.” And you better believe the gun lobby plans to hold him to his word.
For decades, the gun lobby has been working to chip away at state gun laws, making it as easy as possible for more people to carry more guns in more places. If President Trump signs concealed carry reciprocity into law, it would be the biggest undermining — or elimination — of our nation’s gun laws in history. All states would be forced to accept concealed carry requirements from every other state, in many cases, undermining existing state laws that have been carefully established to protect public safety. The problem is, in some states the laws for who can carry concealed guns in public are dangerously lax. In fact, 12 states do not require any permit, background check, or training to carry a hidden, loaded gun in public places.
On the other hand, California has some of the strongest gun safety laws in the nation. We prohibit domestic abusers, dangerous felons, and convicted stalkers from obtaining concealed carry permits — something not every state does. And it’s for that reason that our state does not allow people with a concealed carry permit issued by another state to carry concealed here. That would all change if the concealed carry reciprocity becomes law. California would be forced to honor permits from all states, even if their standards are weak or nonexistent.
When you think about what this law would mean for California’s communities, it’s outrageous that every single Republican in and around Orange County voted in favor of concealed carry reciprocity, including Reps. Ed Royce, R-Yorba Linda, Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Beach, and Darrell Issa, R-Vista. These members traded laws that protect your public safety for political donations that all together totaled more than $62,000 in 2016 alone.
Your representatives gets cash, but what does it cost you?
For starters: your public safety. Researchers at Stanford found that states with weak concealed carry laws had substantially higher rates of aggravated assault and homicides.
It also erodes critical protections for victims of domestic violence. A recent survey from the National Domestic Violence Hotline found that nearly 25 percent of victims who reported being threatened with firearms by an abusive partner said they carried a concealed gun. Twenty-three percent of victims threatened with guns said the abuser crossed state lines with that gun to further the abuse. This bill would take away the ability of victims to take refuge in states with stronger laws.
Would you want your state assemblyman to go to Sacramento and repeal your public safety laws? That’s exactly what your members of Congress are trying to do.
“Representative” is a term we use intentionally for those we send to Congress. With a majority of the public and law enforcement opposed to concealed carry reciprocity, it’s not difficult to understand that California’s delegation should be aggressively opposing this bill. We expect elected officials to provide for our basic security. When politicians put Trump’s agenda and gun lobby cash ahead of your safety, they’ve been in Washington too long.
Election Day is less than a year away, but it can’t come soon enough.
Peter Ambler is a resident of Oakland. He is the executive director of Giffords, the gun violence prevention group founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Navy combat veteran and retired NASA astronaut Captain Mark Kelly.
