Armed with Reason: the Podcast - Concealed Carry Reciprocity Legislation

How a looming Congressional bill defies common sense and the concept of states' rights

In this episode, GVPedia leaders Devin Hughes and Caitlin Clarkson Pereira discuss the details of the proposed national concealed carry reciprocity bill that is hovering in Congress — it’s recent emergence from within the gun lobby’s firehose of falsehood, its incongruity with the right’s usual adherence to states rights, and how we can combat the disinformation surrounding this lethal legislation.

You can listen to the podcast via our channel on Spotify as well as on YouTube, or read the transcription below.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION:

Caitlin: Hi everyone, thanks for joining us on the Armed with Reason podcast brought to you by GVPedia. In our last episode, we decided to take a look back at the 18th century as we were desperate to take a bit of a reprieve from present day. But alas, it is time to focus on a very real threat that is currently facing us here in the United States. This threat is National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Legislation. 119th Congress introduced the bill, HR 38, titled Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, in the first week of January.

At the date of this recording, the bill has 177 co-sponsors and is heading to the House Committee on the Judiciary. As proposed, this bill would create a national system of permitless carry which would undermine numerous state laws in law enforcement, enshrine irresponsible gun carrying as the standard, and cost lives. Given the severity of the topic at hand and the sense of urgency due to the makeup of the 119th Congress in general, Devin and I — although mostly Devin — wanted to share more about what exactly this means, and how it might be possible to push back against the passage of this bill. So Devin, hello.

Devin: Hello, here at the end of time.

Caitlin: Yes, as the world is ending, some days quicker than others. Can you talk a little bit about the nuances of this legislation because they make it a little bit hard to follow. Maybe give us a rundown of what Concealed Carry is, and what exactly the bill is trying to do.

Devin: Yeah, so basically it's not even clear that the bill itself knows what the bill is trying to do.

Caitlin: That feels very on brand.

Devin: Yeah, it's like one long carry-on sentence type thing that I'm not sure the authors intended for national permitless carry, but we're pretty confident that's what it is. So to back up, what is carry, concealed carry, and so forth? So there's generally two types of carry. There's open carry and concealed carry, and this is when carrying a firearm outside of the home. So this applies to public places. Open carry is when the firearm is completely visible. So if you see those really brave standup guys with an AR -15 on their back going to get a burrito at Walmart — for those reading the transcript, there should be like sarcasm italics or something there — that's open carry. And this bill really doesn't touch on that.

It does touch on concealed carry, which is when you have a weapon, usually a gun, and usually a handgun, concealed on your body. So underneath your clothes, let's say a purse, something like that. And for most of the past, like, hundred-plus years, most states had what was called "may-issue" or even "no-issue." So there's a bunch of states that just would not allow you to carry concealed guns in public. And these laws stretch all the way back to the 1800s and 1700s, where they just felt like who would need to carry a gun concealed? That's dishonorable type stuff — antiquated times on that.

Caitlin: Oh, honor. What is that?

Devin: Yeah, what is that? But then there's also may-issue, where you could get a permit to carry in public, but you'd have to get a license to do so, undergo training. And with may issue the police would have a say on accepting it. So even if you pass the background check and such, if the local police knew, for example, that, Hey, we've been out to this guy's house three times for domestic violence calls, and it never went through the system, this guy should not have a gun. They would be able to say, no, this guy should not have a gun. And so that was the standard until the 1970s or 80s.

And then you started getting right-to-carry laws, which basically meant as long as you passed a background check, and some amount of training — though the standards of training varied wildly — you could not be just denied by law enforcement. So it removed one standard of making sure somebody's responsible with the gun. And then those concealed carry standards or right-to-carry laws would be further weakened. Rather than 20 hours, it'd go down to 10; and rather than need to actually be able to hit a target, it's like, no, we'll just assume you're able to; or like being able to fire one shot to hit the target. Like the standards kept going down and down and down and down. And then around came permitless carry, which is a relatively new concept, although technically Vermont's had it since its founding, but Vermont's kind of a weird state anyway.

Caitlin: Yeah, ask Bernie Sanders.

Devin: Yeah, so it started in a handful of states like Alaska, Arizona, and so forth in the early 2000s. Then in the mid-2010s up to present, it really exploded to where you only had a handful of states with permitless carry, and now more than half of states have permitless carry. And this means that you have to go through no standards in order to carry a firearm. And if you purchase that firearm in a private transaction, you don't even need to undergo a background check. So if you have the gun and aren't a felon, you can just carry around legally. And even if you are a felon, it's going to be harder for police to check because what's their probable cause on you? It's not you carrying the firearm.

So yeah, it's a real degradation of standards. And so now we get to national concealed carry reciprocity. In an ideal world wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. It's often compared to driver's licenses. But with driver's licenses, you still have standards everywhere. Like you have the six month period that's kind of probationary. You have your student license type thing. You have to drive with the adult. You have to pass tests...

Caitlin: Have to have insurance.

Devin: Yeah, there're all sorts of hurdles you have to jump through. And given that for most states, it's around the same, you have basically national reciprocity when driving because everybody's gotten through these standards. But with firearms, there are many states where there are no standards. And rather than institute a national standard like, Hey, to nationally carry, you need to be able to hit a target at 20 feet at least twice, and pass this multiple choice test, and have these classes, and whatever. It doesn't do that. It just says basically, if you're allowed to carry in one state and you're the resident of that state, you can carry anywhere else.

And this also undermines state prohibited purchaser laws. Because there are certain states, like I think Oklahoma is one of them where if you have a misdemeanor domestic violence or domestic violence restraining order against you, you're still allowed to have firearms. Whereas in a state with saner gun laws, like Massachusetts or California, you're not allowed to have a gun. But under this bill as written, if I'm in Oklahoma or a resident of Oklahoma, I can then go to California and carry as I please.

And there're also states, such as Virginia, which allow residents of other states to get their permit or license where they just have to answer like 15 questions online, print out their certificate, and bam, you're able to basically carry functionally anywhere now with that, because the police can't check; like it's written into the bill where there's no probable cause... laws. You have the piece of paper or just even say like, Hey, I have a driver's license from this state, they have to accept you carrying. And so it dramatically undermines the enforcement of those laws.

It undermines the safety standards of those laws, and basically means that whichever state has the lowest standards, that becomes the national standard. And that unfortunately is going to cost lives.

And to further continue this educational rant of sorts, there's been a lot of research on the move of states from may-issue and no-issue to right-to-carry laws. And there's been less research on the move to permitless carry. Of the modern literature since 2005, when the National Research Council basically did a shrug and like, The existing evidence doesn't tell us what we need to know on concealed carry. Academics since then, around 66% have found that weakening concealed carry laws increases violent crime — typically aggravated assaults, but also homicide.

Now at the beginning of this research back in the 1990s, you did have some studies finding that like, Oh, it decreases crime or has no effect. But as methods have improved and more and more states have adopted these standards, the evidence has decisively turned against it. And then here at GVPedia, we conducted our own analysis using CDC data for the three years before and three years after the state permitless carry. And we find in the three years after passage, while the national average will increase around 10%, the permitless carry states increased 27 % over those three years — this is for gun homicide rates. And this lines up with an analysis by The Trace that also found that a majority of states that pass permitless carry laws see their gun deaths and gun injuries increase using Gun Violence Archive data. And it also aligns with all the research showing that weakening concealed carry laws overall increases violent crime.

And the mechanism through which they do this is not necessarily that the people getting the concealed carry permits — when they actually do get permits — are necessarily committing those crimes. There's possibly some minor increase there, but a large part of it's due to those guns getting stolen, because we know from research that the more often people carry, the more likely they are to get their firearms stolen, which end up on the gray and black firearms markets.

And then, also through sort of people realizing that, Hey, more people are carrying guns, I need to carry a gun now to feel safer to protect myself against all the other people carrying guns. And there's an escalatory cycle there where let's say hardened criminals, to use a crude binary, which we know isn't the case, like there's a broad spectrum. But take a hardened criminal, if they think they're going to encounter people who have firearms themselves, they're not going to do what John Lott says and like, Oh, I'm not going to commit the crime. No, they're just going to make sure that they're more heavily armed. And that escalates.

And we even see this not in terms of people with criminal proclivities. But just standard people across the country where, particularly today with all the chaos, where people don't feel safe, and they equate the gun with safety and think that, Oh, well, the right wing or Proud Boys or others are armed, I should be armed too. And it's an unfortunate mistake, but it just shows how well gun lobby propaganda has seeped through. And to tie it back to concealed carry reciprocity, this is sort of the epitome of gun lobby propaganda. And unfortunately, it has a lot of co -sponsors, and with today's political climate, who knows where it's going to go.

Caitlin: Yeah, when you think about if you have your gun on you and you're out and about in public, particularly if you are in your car at any point, which unless you're living in a urban area where it's easy to walk around, you're probably going to be in your car. The irony of having stickers all over your car that say like proud NRA member. or here in Connecticut, we have the CCDL, right? With the logo of a gun on it. I mean, you might as well have a post-it note on your driver's side window that says like, I just got my check and cashed it at the bank and it's on the front seat. So certainly there's statistics to back this up, right?

But even common sense says if you have your gun out of the house with you, that there's more chance of something happening to that gun that is out of your control. We're not even talking about like the safety component or the safe storage component for a minor who might get your gun; or as we've talked about before like your dog accidentally stepping on it and discharging the gun. True story. But just the simple fact that you have something in your vehicle that is worth sometimes quite a bit of money and you have identification all over your car pretty much telling somebody who might be interested in breaking into it that there is something of value here. And value not only for the monetary reason, but just like you said, the criminal component, right? If somebody is trying to stockpile because they might be participating in something that might result in them having to use a gun, the more they have, the more access they have, the better they are to handle that situation.

Devin: Yeah, and those guns — I mean, more than 200,000, potentially up to 400,000 guns are stolen every year in the U.S. from private citizens. And those guns basically go awash on the streets to where if somebody's not able to legally purchase a gun, well they're able to do a private sale — and given the lack of regulations around private sales and the lack of identification for guns or tracing, because the ATF has been and continues to be gutted — you're basically getting a small, compact, untraceable item worth money and increases lethality. And certain people are interested in that additional lethality. So it's kind of created a perfect storm for an object that will have value and is largely untraceable. And when you put stickers up, like there's this whole concept that John Lott — who I've now mentioned twice, but concealed carry is his whole thing — like he'll say, not even the most hardened gun control advocate would put a sign in their front yard saying it's a gun-free zone. I'd much rather have that than a sign advertising I have guns because the guns are an inducement.

And this was shown in a early 2000 study by Dr. Philip Cook, where it's like, no, more guns lead to more gun thefts. And they could just wait 'til you leave and then go in. And there's two personal stories I have with that. One was my grandmother back in the, I think it was 1980s or something, decided she needed a gun for self defense, got a like Smith and Wesson special or something like that, and would keep it in a cabinet somewhere. And one evening when she was out somewhere else, her house was broken into. And now my grandmother lived like a Spartan; like the TV even at that point was a decade plus old; like just nothing of value really that somebody would want except for the gun. And so when she returned, she discovered her house had been broken into, nothing was stolen except for the gun that she had bought to protect herself against such scenarios. And then another more recent case was a neighborhood in Oklahoma where they had a rash of car break-ins. And what happened was this pair of thieves went basically down the block on cars that were largely unlocked, would go in, go into the glove compartment, find they had a gun. And they got like a dozen-plus guns from this just going down the line because it's like, Oh, this is a neighborhood with a lot of gun owners. They're not storing their guns responsibly. Easy money. And then those guns end up in even worse hands and produce lethal outcomes. And with concealed carry reciprocity, those type of low standards and irresponsible behavior unfortunately become the norm and will only lead to more violence if it is passed.

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Related: The Defensive Gun Use Lie and the Gun Lobby’s Firehose of Falsehood

How decades of shoddy research, lax academic oversight, marketing, and outright lies fatally warped America’s gun culture

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Caitlin: Right, and just the concept of reciprocity is ironic to me in a country where we often hear states’ rights and smaller government, which obviously stem back from when the Constitution was being written, and slavery, and all of these components that are part of the history of the United States that unfortunately make us who we are today. So if it is states’ rights — I live in Connecticut in a state that Gifford's Law Center historically gives an A or A minus in our rating based on a bunch of different things, but a big component is the laws that we have to protect people from gun violence. So we have universal background checks, and we have strong concealed carry laws and gun licensing; and the states around us, New York and Massachusetts, you know, they mimic some of these laws in the grade as well. I don't live in Alaska. I don't live in Wyoming. I don't want to live in those places. And one of the reasons is because I know there's none of those things exist when it comes to laws.

And so all of a sudden the decisions that have been made over decades in the state legislature in Hartford become irrelevant if you're going to put laws into the books at the federal level that would, excuse the pun, trump, what we had come up with and what's been on the books here in the past.

Devin: Yeah, and it's kind of weird because I have mixed feelings about the whole state's rights-based argument, particularly given like how they've historically been used. But we do have a history in the United States of where the federal government will pass laws either to regulate like interstate commerce or something else, where it's pitting a national standard on the states sort of thing. But that's not what's happening here. It's picking the worst state laws and saying, this now applies to everybody else. So it's not even necessarily, well, I mean, in this case, it would be the federal government infringing on the public safety of states with actual responsible laws.

But it's more like the worst state infringing on states that are responsible. And to use the car analogy again, it'd be like the state that decided, Alright, we're not going to have any standards, anybody of any age can drive a car, doesn't matter, you can drink and drive, whatever you want to do is fair game. What a fantastic idea! Anybody who gets a license ,where you don't even have a have to have a license to drive, we're now adopting Oklahoma standards, which are zero. And then would that make you feel safer? Would that enshrine responsible driving? It's like, no, no sane person would adopt or even consider adopting that because it's on its face ridiculous. And yeah, the same here — on its face ridiculous.

We know it's going to cost lives, and it's the opposite of responsible gun ownership. And like with the higher standards that many states have, responsible gun owners are already meeting and exceeding those standards. So all you're doing by lowering the standards is making sure that the most irresponsible people are going to be out there and carrying firearms.

Caitlin: And it wasn't all that long ago that the federal government said, if you don't have a drinking age of 21 in your state, we're not gonna provide funding for your highways. So, and certainly I don't recall all the details of how long states had to get to that point, but it certainly wasn't overnight. And there was a task they were assigned with — this is gonna be your drinking age, and if you don't comply, you're going to lose money for it. But it was meant, as you said, to create a safer environment for everybody, right, based on drinking and driving and a bunch of high schoolers and college kids either tragically dying in car accidents or tragically killing other people in car accidents.

Devin: It does remind me, there's even like the article from, I think it was like in the 1980s when this was all being debated, it was like, I'm responsible when I drink and drive; the standards shouldn't apply to me. Which now is, again, facially absurd. And to put this bill in that sort of context, it'd be like you have a state that moves the drinking age to zero, Has no penalties for drinking or driving, or getting drunk, public intoxication, whatever, all fair game. And then Congress going, yes, we want that.

Caitlin: Yes. That's the solution. Right.

Devin: Yeah. And also having that same government push out, Oh, well, actually, heavy drinking makes you safer at the same time. Like that's the level of absurdity that we're at with this overall concept and bill in particular.

Caitlin: Speaking of absurdity, well, we have gone down this rabbit hole, the firehose of falsehood in previous episodes. Just specifically when it comes to concealed carry reciprocity legislation, how do you think disinformation has contributed to the introduction of this bill?

Devin: Well, in terms of the introduction support, I think it's close to everything. I mean, if you had representatives and senators across the board realizing that like, Hey, this enshrines irresponsible gun ownership, it's going to increase gun thefts and injuries, and make everybody less safe. If that was the baseline of agreement, I don't think there would, there might be a couple of supporters, but not 177. It's not necessarily that these people or the supporters think like, Oh, it's going to do terrible things but I support anyway. They actually think it's the right thing to do, and are incorrect in that.

Now, part of what concerns me today — and this is even broader than the concealed carry bill — is we are seeing the effects of a firehose of falsehood campaign across all the subjects, with Elon Musk tearing through federal agencies and just blatantly lying about uncovering fraud and such, where it's just like that's not remotely true or it was already reported earlier. Like we're seeing that where the media, what's left of it, is scrambling to find out like, No, we're not sending $50 billion worth of condoms to Gaza. Like one, you have the wrong Gaza, two, that's not what's happening here, and three, condoms are important to prevent the spread of STIs. Like, so many different levels of ignorance, incorrect, and just not caring at all about factual accuracy. And then just bombarding with all of this and moving faster than anybody else can keep up. That's a major tenet of the firehose of falsehood.

And the firehose of falsehood will be coming, and, well, I mean, It has been implemented by the gun lobby for the past 50 years, but it's going to be coming at the gun violence prevention space with a force of magnitude that we have not seen before. And unfortunately, I don't think that we, as a movement, are ready for that. There's often talk about, Oh, we don't wanna give a certain bill oxygen, or like, we don't wanna platform this person or that person. if we just ignore it will die quietly and go away. Like, that has never been true, is especially not true now, when you have the United States president, the most powerful person in the world — which is scary — being able to broadcast, and the richest man in the world who owns his own megaphone in the form of what used to be called Twitter, who can blast things out. And we saw this during the election with claims about crime that were objectively false, that were pushed out to millions upon millions of people.

And when that attention turns to the gun violence space, we can't just pretend that it's going to go away, or that if we even repeat some of the falsehoods in order to inoculate people against them — providing like, Hey, here's what people are saying that's false and here's why it's false — there's this fear that, Oh, there'll be a backlash effect. But there isn't if you do it properly. And just throwing out one's own facts against them at best is going to cancel each other out. And nobody in our space has as large a megaphone as those pushing the falsehoods currently.

And so you have no choice but to confront it head on and in a disciplined, measured way, making sure that it's fact-based, but also rapid, consistent, and countering the falsehoods wherever they may appear. And we're just not doing that.

And there have been recent articles where it talks about various minority communities buying guns to protect themselves, which is understandable. That fear is understandable, and nothing we say should undermine that fear. Getting a gun is not the answer to that [though]. It's only gonna make those communities less safe, result in more deaths and injuries. And the buying of guns there is not only making those communities less safe, it's empowering the very forces that are attempting to make those communities less safe. Like if you look at the boards and companies that are pushing firearms and the firearm messaging out, do they look like the minority communities that are claiming to be like, Oh, look at how great.

Caitlin: Looking to protect you? Yeah, no, that's definitely not them.

Devin: Yeah, that they look like older versions of me.

Caitlin: No offense to older Devin, but yes.

Devin: Yes, no offense to me in 20, 30 years, but like, yeah, it's just buying into a system that in a way is a security racket. And probably what, five, 10 episodes ago, we had Dr. Ieva Jusionyte on to talk about Mexico and the cartels. And there are startling similarities between what the cartels do and what the gun lobby does. The cartels will go into a place, cause chaos, and then tell people, Hey, look, there's all this chaos around. You should pay us to protect you from this chaos. It's like, well, who caused the chaos here?

And the gun lobby's basically like, Look at all those people out there with guns that might harm you. You should have a gun. It's like, well, who supplied those guns in the first place? And so it's merely perpetuating a cycle of making people less safe than protecting oneself.

And there are many different alternatives to promote safety that won't buy into this cycle and will also keep you safe — like investing in home security, getting a dog, taking various forms of martial arts. Oftentimes the gun lobby likes to say, Well if you have like a guy who's 6'3" and 300 pounds or wherever, what's a poor woman to do who's 5'2" and 100 pounds? It's like there are martial arts out there and self-defense classes where if that guy isn't a black belt or something, you're going to have him on his in like two to three seconds. There're entire disciplines out there designed to solve that, and in those encounters there's this assumption that a gun is like a magic wand; and it's like, Oh I have it and all the problems will disappear. No, you're most likely introducing a lethal weapon into a wrestling match, and that's going to have even worse consequences.

So there's a lack of understanding and thinking through the actual self-defense scenarios. There's the buying into the gun lobby's firehose of falsehood that guns make people safer. Until we address those central myths and ideas, we're unfortunately I feel going to keep losing, because if a majority of Americans as they currently do think guns make you safer, any efforts designed to improve public safety are going to be like, Well, it might make me less safe. It's like, no, that's not the case.

And so there needs to be a large scale focus on education because also quite frankly, what else do we have to do right now? We don't control the president, we don't control the White House, we don't control the Senate or Congress or the courts. Like there is no center of power right now. So what can we do in that case? Like we can't wait for the cavalry to arrive, we are the cavalry. And part of that is educating ourselves and those around us on these issues, and moving the needle in that way to when there are new elections, to where the public has a better understanding of these issues. And the baseline for this is unfortunately close to zero.

Like very few people still are aware that guns are the number one killer of kids and teens in the U .S. Most people don't know that a firearm in the home doubles your risk of homicide, triples your risk of suicide. They don't know that weakening concealed carry laws actually increases crime. Like the baseline for additional knowledge to people, like we don't have to take all that many steps, and we can have conversations with our loved ones and friends, some of whom might be considering getting a firearm right now. It's not just people wearing red hats that you have to have conversations with. There's a broad range of people to engage, educate, and then be able to mobilize on this issue.

And we do kind of have an opportunity for the next two years to engage in this sort of education of what's happening, why it matters, what the myths are, how best to refute them. And then from that baseline, emerge hopefully with a bit more strength, because right now the strength rating is zero.

Caitlin: I have so many thoughts. First of all, I want to be clear that we're certainly not doing any victim blaming on particularly like, you know, women who think, I should go buy a gun because I need to protect myself. As a woman, if you aren't empowered with all of the knowledge, which I don't blame any woman for not being empowered by all the knowledge, especially if you're responsible for tiny humans, and paying the bills, and all sorts of these other things. I'm certainly not going to put that on them, but these are widespread systemic issues.

So it goes back to this, like, we have to arm our young ladies with pepper spray and self -defense classes. Like, no, we have to teach our young men, like, not to be giant assholes and treat women poorly in whatever form that takes, right? From verbal abuse, to domestic violence, to sexual assault at fraternity parties or whatever the stereotype generally is. Unfortunately, these are much bigger conversations that people spend their doctoral dissertations trying to unpack. But I mean, we're at the point in this country where Marjorie Taylor Greene is screaming about how federal employees do not deserve their paychecks -- and she is a federal employee, and her paycheck comes from the federal government.

Devin: Yeah. Or like, was it Nancy Mace or somebody else who's like, you cannot trust the government. It's like, but you are the government.

Caitlin: Right. That is how far we are separated from reality, how insane the gaslighting has become. And while in some ways, as the 1980s TV commercial preached, knowledge certainly is power. But also some things are put out into the atmosphere — for example, vaccines causing autism — which then are 100 % debunked. And the lead researcher loses his medical license on multiple continents, because he has just so egregiously botched this fake study that has led children to die from not getting certain vaccines over the years. And people know this, and they still choose to believe the fake study.

Devin: In that case, like, I don't know if they actually like, I mean, definitely people in the medical profession. But there're a lot of people who probably don't know the origins. Or when they find out about it, it's already too late and they've gone down to make conspiratorial rabbit holes to the point where...

Caitlin: ... they believe the initial, but they're skeptical of the response, because the initial one had time to like grow a mind of its own on YouTube or Discord or wherever. And that's what their brains telling them is the reality, and the mistruth is the response that's credible like not the the initial study being put forth, right? But again, it's like sociology and psychology and all sorts of other fun things.

Devin: Yeah, and I think like that kind of also shows like the whole idea behind treating these false ideas like a virus. Like once somebody already has the measles, to use something scarily topical, like vaccinating somebody once they have the measles actively, you're not gonna stop that person from having the measles. You needed to vaccinate them a decade ago, or a year ago, or any time before. And once the firehose of falsehood seeps into various communities or people, you can get to a point where it's too late. Now, I don't think that's with the majority of people in any case, like there's always going to be 10-20% of the population that you're not gonna be able to convince of anything. But there's a large portion of the populace out there that's still persuadable.

And I do think it's important to note that like all of this should not be blaming the people who do pick up guns for self-defense. The firehose of falsehood is widespread and overwhelming, and pushes out a lot of material, and gets people to think that unless they're inoculated against it, that firearms will make them safer. Like it's not their fault for believing that. It's on us as a movement in society more broadly to push back against those false narratives.

And when countering the firehose of falsehood, it's about the ideas themselves, not necessarily the people who are carrying those ideas or unintentionally pushing on the disinformation and misinformation. It's looking at the root cause, like the source of that disinformation, as well as the idea itself, and being able to refute it without placing blame anywhere except for the root cause, the root sources of that firehose of falsehood.

Caitlin: Yeah, I mean, you pretty much answered the last question I had for you already, which was what do you think is the best way to prevent the legislation from passing? So pushing back against the firehose, right? The inoculation, right? Getting to people before they're indoctrinated into whatever the flavor of the week is, in this case, specifically, concealed carry.

Devin: Yeah, and also not pretending that the bill doesn't exist. I mean, it has a lot of co-sponsors. Now, is it likely to pass the Senate with the necessary 60 votes? Probably not, but we can't rely on the filibuster. Like, we don't know what's going to occur there, or if, there's just silence, there might be enough Democrats who decide to roll over on the issue.

Caitlin: We had 10 Democrats vote in favor of the censure yesterday for representative Green. So the world is extreme. I mean, unpredictable is an understatement, but until somebody says this is how I'm voting either for or against and goes up and casts their vote, there's no safe assumption that we can make.

Devin: And we can't necessarily control what the filibuster is going to be, or necessarily even how people vote. We can control what we say, who we say it to, and how we say it in terms of presenting the facts and data clearly, showing why these ideas are wrong, and how they impact people. And going in a space of not blame, but education. Now, once somebody's seen all the facts and data and had that conversation, and then they're like, Yeah, I'm still voting for it, then it's like, okay, that person's not reachable at this time. There're hundreds upon hundreds of other people who could very well be reachable.

And if everybody who listened to this or subscribed to Armed with Reason have like just a handful of conversations — not with people within the movement, but people they know who aren't activated on this — and talked about the defensive gun use myth and inoculating people against these ideas, and then those people could help inoculate others, that's going to be far more powerful then even like a single call to a congressperson's phone who's already ringing off the hook with everything. Calling your congressperson can still have an impact particularly in terms of the tally.

Caitlin: Yeah, please don't stop calling your congresspeople!

Devin: But also have conversations with people who, like, you don't have to go out find the nearest person with a MAGA tattoo or whatever and chat them up, but like we still have friends and family and even people on the left who are considering getting guns in these troubled times, and we need to start having those conversations and showing what the evidence is. Because if we don't, we won't have to worry about getting like a majority of the country because we won't even have a majority of people left of center. And like once that happens, then the firehose of falsehood is too firmly ingrained. So like this is not necessarily our last chance, but it's getting close.

Caitlin: Some days it really feels like, okay, can't get any worse. It's either gonna get better or it's gonna cease to exist. And somehow, I guess for better, it keeps getting worse. I don't know. I mean, sometimes I'm like, can I make a motion for secession? But you know, that's not my job.

Devin: Yeah, motion for asteroid.

Caitlin: Before that, yeah. You made mention of conversation in your last statement, which is a really good segue into the final point I'm going to make of this podcast, which is on March 20th, you are going to be hosting the second what we're calling "Open Office Hours" on Zoom. And the way that you receive the invitation and the link for this is to be a paid subscriber on our Substack [Armed With Reason].

So we have decided to put forward these opportunities to have these really casual open conversations to ask questions related to something in the gun violence world maybe that is of specific interest to you for whatever reason, or if you're a part of the movement from the activist side, or you're a staffer somewhere and there's legislation that's brewing — this is the perfect opportunity to ask some questions of Devin and to get some one-on-one time to have those chats. So this is my sales pitch of the podcast to jump on our Armed With Reason Substack. And of course we welcome any new subscribers, but if you become a paid subscriber, that is what allows you to get the invitation to join us for these Open Office Hours.

Devin: It's like getting a cup of coffee with me, but even better because it's via virtual and you can always turn me off, if I get too annoying.

Caitlin: So the plan right now, loosely, is to do these once a month. It's just one of our subscriber perks, because we just appreciate the folks that are paid subscribers, and we want to make sure we're offering some opportunities to those of you who are investing in us and the movement. So any final thoughts here, Devin?

Devin: I think that's about it. And if the world doesn't end between now and the 20th, I'll definitely see people then.

Caitlin: Yes, absolutely. Well, thanks for chatting about concealed carry. And I have a feeling this is not going to be the last time that we chat about this this season on our Armed With Reason podcast. So we will keep an eye on all of this. And hopefully we have something to celebrate at the end. Only time will tell.

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Photo by Felipe Jiménez; via Pixels.