The meme of the day comes from “JoshuaGraham45” on Reddit. It was posted to the r/gunmemes subreddit.
The comments point out that this meme is too civil. Beyond saying you are “brainwashed”, you would be accused of having a small penis, are a “bigoted Republican who supports child murder”, are a tool of the NRA, etc.
The longest running series on this blog has been Every Picture Tells A Story which has been a collaboration between Rob Vance and myself. It started in October 2011 when Illinois was forced by the 7th Circuit to adopt concealed carry. I said at the time that shall-issue concealed carry was the new norm. The new norm now is permitless or unlicensed/unrestricted carry.
With the Bruen decision, we had to re-do the graphic as may issue was now off the table. At the time the graphic below was done, the formerly may-issue states had not begun to change their law to implement it with “all deliberate speed.” I am now calling this Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 1. The numbering pattern of academic journals seems to be the most appropriate way to signify the evolution over time.
Of course, we now have states like New York that want to search years and years of your social media and other states like Maryland who want to expand the number of places you cannot carry. In essence, they are non-compliant with the Bruen decision. Eventually, one hopes the Supreme Court will slap down these states that are thumbing their nose at the Court.
In the meantime, here is Every Picture Tells A Story, Vol. 2, No. 2, which reflects the adoption of unlicensed concealed carry by the state of Florida today. I hope that this will change soon with the addition of Nebraska and perhaps one, if not both, of the Carolinas.
Rob added these stats to accompany the graphic:
| 26.8% | Non-compliant with 2nd Amendment per Bruen (CA,CT,DC,HI,MD,MA,NJ,NY,RI) |
| 0.0% | No Issue |
| 0.0% | May Issue goes away Post-Bruen |
| 30.6% | Shall Issue (CO,DE,IL,LA,MI,MN,NC,NE,NM,NV,OR,PA,SC,VA,WA,WI) |
| 42.6% | Unlicensed concealed carry |
Almost three-fourths of all Americans now live in a state with either unlicensed concealed carry or shall-issue concealed carry. I never thought I’d see this when I started the blog in 2010 as only 48 states had any form of carry back then.
Rob Vance and I have been doing the Every Picture Tells A Story series for over ten years. It started when the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals forced the State of Illinois to adopt concealed carry. Fortunately, it ended up as shall-issue carry. It wasn’t perfect and still isn’t. However, it was better than the regimes in May-Issue states like New York, California, etc.
Now, with the Supreme Court’s ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen which tossed the “good cause” requirement, the remaining May-Issue states will have to adapt their laws to comply. The attorney generals of both California and New Jersey have already issued directives saying that the “good cause” requirement is null and void. While I expect these states to react to this like the Southern states did to Brown v. Board of Education – that is “with all deliberate speed” – shall-issue and permitless carry will be the order of the day.
This is what the the US will look like at the beginning of 2023. The updated graphic by Rob is below. You will note that No-Issue and May-Issue has gone to zero.
I fully expect the current May-Issue states to adopt onerous and expensive training requirements, extended mental health checks that may include an evaluation by a psychologist or psychiatrist, liability insurance, marksmanship qualification standards, and the list goes on. This will be in addition to the cost of purchase permits for handguns which are quite expensive if you live in New York City. All of these requirements will lead to more litigation and more delays. If the lower courts abide by Justice Thomas’ opinion which throws out intermediate scrutiny, then these will be resolved in our favor. Indeed, if the more liberal judges applied the same standards that they used pre-Dobbs for abortion to carry, we’d have nationwide permitless carry.
by