woman gun open carry constitution
(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

By Rob Morse

We know a lot about people. We also know a little bit about gun owners and politicians. We run into trouble when some of what we think we know is wrong.

You’d think that making some gun owners take a firearms safety class would make everyone safer. We imagine that demanding we have a state license before we can carry a firearm in public would make all of us safer, too. We’d be wrong and now know we know it.

When we think about it, we discover that wisdom is about more than the truths we think we know.

Here’s where the trouble starts. We accumulate an amazing number of facts and then think we know how other people will behave based on that experience. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t.

We imagine that telling people to take a firearms safety class before they carry a firearm would make everyone safer. It turns out that disarming the good guys costs more lives than were saved by somehow inconveniencing criminals. All that’s accomplished is disarming the victims of crime rather than the perpetrators.

Our experience can give us wisdom or leave us with mistaken prejudices.

Having honest people carry concealed firearms in public is a good thing, a net benefit to society. It’s a fact that most armed individuals tend to avoid conflict rather than seek or create it. It’s a fact that armed individuals use a firearm to stop the life-threatening situations they can’t avoid.

About one out of 11 adults have used a firearm for self-defense. Across the US, about 45 hundred of us will defend ourselves with a firearm today. About one-out-of-a-dozen adults in public are carrying concealed. Yes, honest men and women go armed and protect themselves and their family. We don’t see it because concealed is concealed.

We imagine that mandating a permit for the privilege of carrying a firearm in public makes us safer because it disarms the belligerent spouse. But we forget that the same law also makes it harder for the victim of domestic abuse to armed herself. We imagine that gun laws somehow disarm criminals. In fact, criminals break those laws — it’s what they do, after all —  and don’t bother to apply for carry permits.

The sad fact is that our gun laws disarm more victims than criminals. Too often we create our “truth” by remembering only the facts that fit our prejudices.

We know that fewer people apply for carry permits when we make it more expensive and time-consuming. That’s a clear case where our own common sense is confirmed.

We know that crime and violence are real. Forget the “truth” we think we know from TV and movies. From the latest FBI data, we know that almost six thousand citizens of Nebraska are victims of violent crime each year. That number might be low because we’ve seen violence increase nationwide since that data came out.

We also know that more victims of violent crime can defend themselves if a carry permit is optional as in constitutional carry states. Enacting constitutional carry in Nebraska would save lives.

I ran the numbers. I looked at the crime rate and the number of Nebraskans who currently have carry permits. An additional 560 Nebraska citizens would be able to defend themselves with a firearm each year if a carry permit were optional.

That doesn’t mean that about 560 more people would shoot and kill their attackers. That’s very rare in defensive gun uses. The great news is that bad guys usually decide that attacking an armed woman is a mistake. He runs away, and we want more of that. To put it into perspective, 560 more cases of armed self-defense is over twice the number of lives lost on Nebraska roads each year. That’s a lot of lives that can be saved.

We might imagine that armed people could get in a deadly fight over a parking place if they’re armed, but despite the gun control industry’s most dire warnings and predictions, that never seems to happen.

We found out that individuals tend to feel the moral weight of being armed and want to do the right thing. They try to avoid conflict. A surprising fact is that people who legally carry a firearm in public are about the most law-abiding and non-violent group on the planet. Let me say that again another way; individuals who legally carry a firearm in public are more likely to obey the law than even the police. Maybe that fact fits with what you expected, and maybe it surprised you, too.

One little-known fact is that Nebraska citizens can already carry in public without a license by carrying their loaded firearm openly in a holster. Many of us would rather go about disarmed than carry a firearm for everyone to see it on our hip. We also have to be careful because some Nebraska cities have outlawed open carry.

The sad news is that leaving our gun at home means we have to face a criminal with our bare hands. That means more good guys get hurt.

We also discovered that individuals ted to take more firearms training classes when carry permits are optional. That sounds surprising, but only at first.

It turns out that we budget a few hundred dollars for our safety. We spend more of that money on training classes when the state isn’t taking our money to pay for a permit. Our neighbors are a lot like us. We want to know how to defend ourselves responsibly.. so we go to class and learn.

The problem we face is that some politicians think their “wisdom” is reality. They confuse their “truth” with the facts. They need our help to learn about gun owners and carrying a firearm in public. We have to educate them about constitutional carry.

You can contact your legislator here. They need our help to learn the facts and the truth.

 

This article originally appeared at Rob Morse’s blog Slow Facts and is reprinted here with permission. 

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41 COMMENTS

  1. Where as I do not disagree with anything said in this article. I find it quite interesting that if we are to discuss ‘the truth about constitutional carry’ then we should be discussing TRUTH.

    Too many people seem to think Texas now has Constitutional Carry. It does not. This misunderstanding and misinterpretation creates even more when it comes from sites like this, YouTube personalities, and assorted others seen as ‘in the know’. I suspect that the very same misguided ideas are taking place in other states as well. The entire 2A pro-gun community is so enamered by the thought of Constitutional Carry that anyone making law that does not require any kind of license automaticly becomes constitutional carry. This is wrong and NOT what that label actually is. You want to convince a liberal leftist of truth? Let’s start from within.

    • Generally criminals do not pay attention to laws but a law that blocks Constitutional Carry criminals pay attention to.

      With laws blocking concealed carry criminals know the odds of a crime being successful remain in their favor. With severe penalities for citizens who carry concealed without a government permission slip criminals will contine being emboldened and feeling safer than the average citizen-victim.

      BTW…Save the complaints about Texas when there are other states with zero Concealed Carry anything.

        • “I’m just lookin for some honesty here.”

          OK, here’s a little honesty for you –

          Those in California cities like LA and San Fran, and those living in New York city would be *ecstatic* to have the Texas carry laws in their state.

          The Russians have a saying that applies here : Don’t make wanting the best, to be the enemy of the good enough…

    • Constitutional Carry is defined as legal public carrying of a gun (by extension and inclusion ownership also), either openly or concealed, without a license or permit. Texas does have Constitutional Carry as of September 1, 2021. Key word here is “legal” as in granted by law to those eligible under the law as written/enacted.

      If Constitutional Carry is defined as only the 2nd Amendment as written and interpreted to be an individual right, no law of any kind with restrictions, if only the 2nd amendment applies without any qualifying factors or restrictions, if in the purest form that only the 2nd amendment applies and no law is enacted or can impede or infringe that, then no state has constitutional carry.

  2. Here is the author laying down the facts about perceived thinking vs reality and undermines his narrative with this tired and inaccurate trope.

    “We imagine that mandating a permit for the privilege of carrying a firearm in public makes us safer because it disarms the belligerent spouse. But we forget that the same law also makes it harder for the victim of domestic abuse to armed HERSELF.”

    Just stop the fallacy that all men are abusers and all women are victims.

    “Previous surveys have revealed near-parity between men and women in their rates of partner violence. But the most recent survey reveals a surprising shift: Men now are 31% more likely to be the victims of overall physical violence during the previous 12 months – 3.8% among men versus 2.9% for women (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2015 Data Brief – Updated Release, Atlanta, Georgia. 2018. Tables 9 and 11. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf ) ”

    Now a reasonable person would ask, what else has the article gotten wrong?

    • Yes that got my attention too.
      Some people I know were drunk, got in a fight, she stabbed him in the back with some scissors when he came out of the bathroom, he called the cops and they hauled him off to jail.
      I told him if you wouldn’t have been drunk they probably would have taken your side.
      He also got charged with kidnapping because he put her in a closet because she tried to leave with the baby in the car when she was so drunk she couldn’t stand up and he didn’t want the baby getting hurt.
      Cops are getting better on not always taking the womans side but when they role up its usually the guy that’s first in handcuffs.

      • My wife was on my right. We were walking and she raised her left arm to point at a colorful bird that had just flown by. Her engagement ring caught me just above my right eye. There was a lot of blood.

        Over the years, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that story about how she hit me so hard that I bled and needed stitches. She does not like when I tell it.

      • That is, unfortunately the truth.

        Eons of our years ago, when our state and city enacted modifications to domestic-violence statues adding ‘primary aggressor’ categories to them, the vicious cycle began. In essence, one can translate ‘primary aggressor’ not as being the one who starts the fight, nor the one who strikes first, but the one who’s assumed to be bigger and stronger–no matter what actually happens. I named it the ‘One Penis Rule’; As we were ordered to arrest the ‘primary aggressor,’ and never both, although both were equally involved and ‘in there swinging,’ it was obvious that if one participant had a penis, that was the one to arrest, no matter what.

        And nothing has become any better.

        • That is certainly how the military (and other jurisdictions) interpret rape laws, particularly with regard to alcohol.

          When a man regrets sex with a woman he never would have slept with while sober, it’s beer-goggling, and it’s his fault.

          When a woman regrets sex with a man she never would have slept with while sober, it’s rape, and it’s his fault.

          If they both drank, his drunkenness is a factor in aggravation – further evidence of his irresponsible, predatory nature. Hers means that she was incapable of responsibility for adult choices, and proves it was rape. Any suggestion that one standard of free moral agency should apply to all humans is “re-victimizing the victim”. Whatever it takes to make him pay for the crime of possession of a penis.

    • A reasonable person might also remember that men are *much* more effective than women at delivering physical violence. The rate of incidence may be near parity, but the results of the incidents aren’t going to be.

      A reasonable person and skilled persuader will also ask himself questions about the biases and expectations of the audience. Whether intentionally or not, the author made a good choice in sticking with what people “know” about domestic violence. Instead of sidetracking the argument with a claim that, although accurate, will immediately strike the audience (politicians and others who haven’t thought the idea of constitutional carry through)as wrong, it bolsters his case with a simple appeal to emotion via something they already know and feel to be true.

      • The example of physical abuse. As my wife pointed out to me. Women are aware that an unarmed male is capable of killing a woman bare handed and if the woman has no weapon she’s a victim. I’m six one. She’s five foot. And I have a hundred plus pounds on her.

        Does that mean women can not be abusive? Of course not. But all most men have to do is squeeze for a short time and the woman is dead.

        • When our eldest some eventually grew taller than Mrs. Haz and gave the expected and overly aggressive “oh yeah?” challenge to her one day, she didn’t skip a beat as she closed the distance between them, looked up at him right in the eyes, and said “don’t ever think your height will give you advantage over me, because all I have to do is grab your nuts and squeeze, and then you won’t be taller than me anymore, buster.”

          Our boys grew up to respect their mother.

      • Ing,

        A reasonable person might also remember that women are *much* more effective than men at delivering..emotional.. violence. The rate of incidence may be near parity, but the results of the incidents aren’t going to be.

        And actually no, the author made a poor choice in a commentary with the title “..the truth..”.

        Can you imagine a witness in court, who was caught lying saying to the judge and jury “…I didn’t want to sidetrack the argument with a claim that, although accurate, will immediately strike you as wrong, because the emotional appeal bolsters the prosecution/defense claims”?

        In that situation you have completely lost credibility and any further statements will be viewed (rightfully) as suspect and/or as lies.

        However, it is nice that you penned a long paragraph on the benefits of Machiavellian persuasion, but how about we stick with the truth?

        Mkay?

        • You are correct in all the facts, but unfortunately, you’ve completely missed the point of the conversation.

          Imagine that you and a couple other 2A advocates are sitting at a table with local politicians whose support you need. One of your companions has written some talking points — and instead of engaging the people who will vote on your rights, you start going off about how paragraph #9 fails to acknowledge how violent women really are.

          If you enjoy losing credibility and failing to influence people, by all means continue being that guy.

          Mkay?

        • “Imagine that you and a couple other 2A advocates are sitting at a table with local politicians whose support you need.“ Let’s start by imagining it’s just us talking for now.

          “One of your companions has written some talking points” containing factual falsehoods that promote stereotypes and piss even your own allies off “— and instead of engaging the people who will vote on your rights” half-cocked, you correct your colleague / get your shit together when it’s just us talking, then engage the unconvinced with the facts on our side.

        • Yes, it’s just us talking. Fine. Notice that I’m not disagreeing with the facts.

          I am disagreeing with this fixation on it, as if the fact that women perpetrate domestic violence is going to make anyone outside our little constitutional-carry choir feel better about joining.

          If you want to come off as a sperg who probably hates women and shouldn’t be trusted with guns, talking about violent women is a perfect way to do it. No one wants to hear it, and they’ll hate you for talking about it. It’s not a logical reaction, but the fact is, it will happen.

          Among ourselves, fine, let’s discuss these facts. When talking to people we need to persuade, let’s not. That’s my point.

        • Ing,
          Agreed with your final statement. I didn’t see Other Facts’s post as “Let’s rant to others about female abusers” at all, but rather “Let’s not make our statements to others imply all abusers are male.”

    • That line jumped out at me too, but more for the simple irrelevance of “carrying in public” to the ability to harm people who live in the same home.

    • It seems to happen often on TTAG, in that, articles are nit picked for some personal peeve to complain about while blaming the author. This article is not about spousal abuse be it male or female and making a big deal about “female” in the article vs “male” is missing the point of the article. which is “Nebraska Politicians Need to Hear the Truth About Constitutional Carry”.

      • I think they know the truth about constitutional carry, what they hear and what they hear doesn’t matter

  3. It just dont seem right that Nebraska isn’t a constitutional carry state. Working construction in the midwest I’ve always brought along a firegunm, Nebraska was one of the states I was nervous about being caught with a concealed gunm.

  4. The Powers That Be don’t give two sh*ts about public safety. If nothing else has been made clear over the last two years, that has. “Public safety” is just another wedge to drive into the population.

    The only safety they care about is their own. They want to be able to pass tyrannical laws with no pushback. If they don’t know who has the guns, they can’t do what they want.

    It really is that simple.

    • Righteeoh. Up in Canada we KNOW who have the guns, and it ain’t the truckers. Right now a SERIOUS game of chicken is being played out. The bullies who would control everyone DO have the guns, if not on their persons, at least ready to hand on the persons of their hired minions. May 2020 the citizens had to surrender their wea[ons with few exceptions. Therefore now the ones in power know they will remain there. They think…. They forget that the one who has nothing more to lose will NOT be controlled. So they somehow convince them to get their rigs out of the wy so “life” cn return to “normal” again. no, not gonna nappen. They MAY get them to move the million tonnes of heavy equipment ont of the way… but most will simply park them somewhere else. And STILL not be using them to carry goods. The military are not going to be able to move enough stuff to make a difference to anyone outside the present Good Ol Boy crowd now making the threats. Gummit tried having the big tow trucks haul away the rigs. The tow companies told them to go pound packed snow. HOW long can Canada’s elites survive when the trucks continue to NOT haul their goods? Gummit may well get cocky because they KNOW the truckers, almost to a man, are not armed. At least not with firearms. The elites also forget that those large heavy rolling oieces of equipment can do a LOT of damage. with a skilled operator. I believe that if the truckers were armed, as our US guys are, this would have been settled favourably at least a week ago.

      • Tionico,

        The real question is, “How long does a generalized trucking strike have to last in order for Canada’s Ruling Class to start feeling enough pain to give-in to the public’s demands?”

        My intuition tells me a VERY long time–as in several months and maybe even indefinitely. Remember, the Ruling Class has mountains of cash and can easily afford to pay for private shipping of whatever they want.

        Of course that private shipping would most likely have to occur in smaller trucks like the trucks that local appliance or furniture companies use to deliver their products. Nevertheless, just one of those “small” trucks can carry a LOT of cargo. And a small fleet of those “small” trucks can easily keep the Ruling Class incredibly comfortable for a very long time at an inconsequential (to the Ruling Class) cash expense.

        • It all depends on whether the public blames the truckers or the politicians. If the truckers can keep up the strike, that is.

  5. I used to live in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s the usual situation in a mostly rural state with one or two large cities. Most of the state is pro-gun. Lincoln, the capitol and site of the top state university, and, to a lesser degree, Omaha, the largest city, are anti-gun. Greater Omaha and Lincoln together have a population of 900,000 out of a state total of not quite 2 million. Since representation in state government goes by population, you can see how hard it is to enact reasonable (from our point of view) gun laws. There are too many antis in key positions. When something good does get passed, it takes a united effort by the rest of the state and, even then, the result is less than it should be. Nebraska did not enact concealed carry with a permit until 2009. It is not stand your ground and there is no immunity for self defense.

  6. It’s kinda cute and ironic to think that this post could get the author disappeared under current US law and regulation.

    Don’t believe it?

    https://www.dhs.gov/news/2022/02/07/dhs-issues-national-terrorism-advisory-system-ntas-bulletin

    “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors. These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence. Mass casualty attacks and other acts of targeted violence conducted by lone offenders and small groups acting in furtherance of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances pose an ongoing threat to the nation.”

    Using mis, dis or malinformation in a manner determined by DHS is now de facto terrorism under their own rules.

    “Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.

    https://www.cisa.gov/mdm

    Combine that with the 2012 NDAA’s authorization to indefinitely detain you without warrant, trial or notification to anyone else and you can now be gulaged for speaking the truth in America if that truth is determined by an *authority* to be misleading. Court? LOL, how you gonna get in front of a judge when they blackbag your ass?

    Or maybe the just SWAT you and mutter something about terrorism and drugs to the media.

    • strych9,

      A sad state of affairs indeed.

      Pro-tip:
      Always keep psychological projection in mind when reading/listening to ardent Progressives–they are virtually guaranteed to be doing whatever they accuse their political enemies of doing.

      • Well look at that, your pro-tip Uncommon was spot-on. Almost like he was out to prove your point.

        dacian (an ardent Progressive) writes below “In conclusion only a fool or a demented paranoid…nut case…insanity and total ignorance…”

        It’s absolutely spooky how their brains are hard wired to project their fears, inadequates and sins.

        dacian summed himself up quite well.

    • The only surprise is that it took the government 20 years after the so-called Patriot Act to get to this point.

  7. “When we think about it, we discover that wisdom is about more than the truths we think we know.”

    Wisdom is knowledge, experience, and a willingness to question established “facts” when a credible claim suggests that a “fact” may be wrong.

    “The problem we face is that some politicians think their ‘wisdom’ is reality. They confuse their ‘truth’ with the facts.”

    No, the problem that we face is thinking that most/all politicians are honorable and selfless servants who are intensely interested in our best interests–rather than selfish S.O.B.s who are intensely interested in their own interests.

  8. quote———–Having honest people carry concealed firearms in public is a good thing, a net benefit to society————quote

    Wrong!!! An armed society is a much more violent one. This is why other countries do not have people shooting at teach other in road rage incidents or shooting it out over a simple parking space. This is one of the major reasons many nations outlaw the ownership of handguns as the naked ape is a violent creature hell bent on sadism and violence and murder.

    quote————-About one out of 11 adults have used a firearm for self-defense. Across the US, about 45 hundred of us will defend ourselves with a firearm today.————quote

    Another of the usual Far Right falsehoods not backed up by studies on violence. Most people who are killed by guns are killed by people they know and usually by people living in their household.

    More guns do not stop crime

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/

    Do more guns make us safer the Science says no according to a Harvard Study

    https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-make-us-safer-science-suggests-no/

    In conclusion only a fool or a demented paranoid far right nut case would not want people trained in gun safety and the knowledge of a States laws as to when you are legally allowed to shoot or not shoot someone. This is why Constitutional carry is nothing more than Far Right insanity and total ignorance.

  9. If guns created crime, we would all be dead!

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