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Every Picture Tells A Story, Part XII

April 9, 2021 by 2 Comments

And now for some good news!

Yesterday, Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) signed SB 0765 which provides for permitless carry of handguns in Tennessee for all legal adults over the age of 21 and for members of the military ages 18 to 20. This makes the Volunteer State the 20th state to adopt constitutional or permitless carry. It should be emphasized that this only applies to handguns and not to long guns. The law goes into effect on July 1st.

There is one change made in this version of Every Picture Tells A Story over the previous editions. One of the criticisms of the earlier versions is that they went by what the law said and not what was actually happening on the ground. Thus, in the past, we counted Hawaii as “may issue” as the law specified as opposed to “no issue” which they are in fact. As of today, no private citizen has been issued a concealed carry permit in the state of Hawaii which is, in itself, shameful.

Rob Vance calculated the percentage of the US population that lives under each carry regime.

  • No Issue (HI) — 0.4%
  • May Issue (CA,DC,MD,MA,NJ,NY,RI) — 27.0%
  • Shall Issue — 55.7%
  • Permitless — 16.9%

While the state of Indiana punted on constitutional carry, it appears that bills are advancing in both Louisiana and South Carolina to adopt some form of permitless carry. What happened in Indiana is similar to what happened in North Carolina a few years ago. Top Republicans in the State Senate decided not to go forward with it after the State House had passed the measure. In North Carolina, Sen. Majority Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) was fearful of losing his super-majority. He lost it anyway.

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2 thoughts on “Every Picture Tells A Story, Part XII”

  1. I could make the argument that NJ should be counted as no issue as well. The only people with carry permits require them for their jobs, armed security, FFL holders, etc. No one has gotten one because “I need to protect myself from an ex-boyfriend/souse or because their store has been robbed multiple times.

  2. Unfortunately, this law brings a lot of caveats, and needs much improvement to become a true CC law.

    Tennessee has had a feckless Republican supermajority for a decade or so, but their are not enough conservatives to push through a true CC law.

    I am glad we have gotten this far, though.

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