Anti-Gun Activists Don’t Want You to Know This: Constitutional Carry Law Leads Maine to Be Named ‘Safest in the Country’

When facts do not support your argument, emotional appeals work best for turning opinions in your favor. That is why anti-gunners are blaming firearms, rather than societal issues, for recent mass shootings and gun violence.

Terms like “weapons of war” and “assault rifles” sound really scary and suggest the potential for widespread carnage. Aside from someone who actually knows firearms, who wouldn’t oppose that? Might be why a recent study showed about 60 percent of those polled said they are fearful of being in a mass shooting.

With ignorance and scare tactics driving many people’s opinions of firearms these days, they should find solace in Maine’s 2015 Constitutional Carry law. That law enables Maine residents of legal age to carry a concealed firearm without a permit.

Anti-gunners used the typical scare tactics to oppose the law while it was debated. They said public safety and children’s safety would suffer, and criminals would roam the streets armed to the teeth. None of that happened.

Instead, US News and World Report’s public safety rankings places Maine as the safest in the United States. Coming in second is Vermont, and New Hampshire in third. The fifth-safest is Idaho. Those states also have constitutional carry laws in effect. US News and World Report based on its findings on crime data, which affirm the common sense of constitutional carry laws.

Many other of the top-ranking states on US News and World Report’s safest states list have shall-issue CCW laws in place. About the only anomaly is New Jersey, which ranks as the fourth-safest state and does not have shall-issue concealed weapons permits or constitutional carry laws in effect.

New Jersey only has about 1,000 active CCW permits. That shows it is virtually impossible to legally carry concealed in New Jersey, which is what many would prefer at the national level.

Anti-gunners, on the eve of a potentially pivotal election, are pressing hard with the scare tactics. They prey upon the general ignorance of firearms among a growing number of those who have no real experience.

Anti-gunners portray gun owners as white supremacists. The San Francisco City Council recently voted to name the NRA a “domestic terrorism organization” to prevent anyone supporting or doing business with the NRA from doing business with city-run entities.

Constitutional carry shows that is not the case. Shall-issue CCW laws do, too. Many of the states deemed safest have shall-issue CCW laws in place, in addition to those with constitutional carry. About the only anomaly is New Jersey. States with high rates of gun ownership and that fully support law-abiding residents carrying openly or concealed without a permit are among the nation’s safest.

Evidence of the sanity of arming law-abiding citizens, rather than stripping them of their arms, would seem overwhelming. Were the subject “climate change” instead of constitutional carry, such reports would be used to affirm the safety of firearms. It also would affirm people who take the time to learn and use firearms are more likely to be the kind of people you want as your friends and neighbors.

Firearms promoting public safety, though, does not fit the political narrative anti-gunners are pushing. They single out the NRA as a “domestic terrorism organization,” when it simply is advocating for number two on the Bill of Rights. For Anti-gunners, the NRA epitomizes gun owners in general, and they don’t want anyone thinking nice things about gun owners.

Labeling gun owners as mentally deranged racists just moments away from committing a mass shooting is what anti-gunners want people thinking heading into the 2020 election cycle. They use equally scary tactics to make you think man royally has screwed up the climate, any strong storm is the worst ever to occur, and plastic straws are about to destroy the world. Emotional appeals make compliant lemmings of ignorant people.

Fortunately, reality, though, is far, far different, and constitutional carry affirms law-abiding gun owners are beneficial to society. They are your friends, neighbors, and respected members of local communities across the nation. Yet, exercising your constitutional right to bear arms has become a political divisive issue charged by raw emotion.

While mass shootings are occurring at an alarming rate, they mostly are not happening where the local population embraces the Second Amendment and firearms in general.