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Why should a permit be needed to exercise a constitutionally protected right?

“..What if every gun in the USA required a permit that had to be renewed each year at considerable cost and trouble? Would that be an effective form of gun control?”What if every voter in the USA required a permit that had to be renewed each year at considerable cost and trouble? Would that be an effective form of stopping voter fraud?What if every internet-connected-device in the USA required a permit that had to be renewed each year at considerable cost and trouble? Would that be an effective form of stopping hate speech?What if every church in the USA required a permit that had to be renewed each year at considerable cost and trouble? Would that be an effective form of stopping religious radicals?….. if it’s good enough for one enumerated right it should be good enough for all of them.

In a very real sense, the gun rights movement has.We have returned gun ownership - and carry - to being the normal thing it was throughout the United States through most of its history, and still was, in most of the country until the sixties.It started with Marion Hammer, in Florida, in 1986.This is where we were:Throughout most of the country it was impossible to legally carry a concealed firearm for self defense. And in most of the rest you could be denied without cause - which usually meant only the politically connected could obtain a permit.Florida passed the first modern shall-issue permit law in 1987. And one-by-one, other states began to follow.The majority of the population of the U.S. now lives, and for many years has lived, in jurisdictions where ordinary citizens can legally carry firearms, and commonly do.And the number of people with carry permits has been growing rapidly, even as more and more states remove their permit requirement, allowing anyone to carry.New Study: 17.25 million concealed handgun permits, biggest increases for women and minorities - Crime Prevention Research CenterDespite the expectations of many after the 2016 elections, the number of concealed handgun permits has again increased. In 2018, the number of concealed handgun permits soared to over 17.25 million – a 273% increase since 2007. 7.14% of American adults have permits. Unlike surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer some personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really “hard data” that we have on gun ownership across the United States. Still, an even larger number of people carry because in 14 states people don’t need a permit to carry in all or virtually all those states.Among the findings of our report:Last year, despite the common perception that growth in the number of permit holders would stop after the 2016 election, the number of permits grew by about 890,000.Outside the restrictive states of California and New York, about 8.63% of the adult population has a permit.In fifteen states, more than 10% of adults have permits, up from just eleven last year.Alabama has the highest rate — 22.1%. Indiana is second with 17.9%, and South Dakota is a close third with 17.2%.Four states now have over 1 million permit holders: Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas.Another 14 states have adopted constitutional carry in all or almost all of their state, meaning that a permit is no longer required. However, because of these constitutional carry states, the nationwide growth in permits does not paint a full picture of the overall increase in concealed carry.Permits continued to grow much faster for women and minorities. Between 2012 and 2018, the percent of women with permits grew 111% faster for women and the percent of blacks with permits grew 20% faster than for whites. Permits for Asians grew 29% faster than for whites.Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at one-sixth of the rate at which police officers are convicted.People talk about Heller and McDonald as if they were body blows to the gun control movement - and they were.But the twenty million people who laid out their own money for training, firearms, and permit fees, so they could carry for their own protection, matter more. The shall-issue movement has created an activist constituency for gun rights - and as long as voting still matters, that matters.