The total number of permits to concealed carry firearms in the USA is at least 19.48 million, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center report, Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2020. Add in people who legally carry in the 17 Constitutional Carry states that do not require permits in all or almost all of their state (AK, AR, AZ, ID, KS, KY, ME, MO, MS, MT, ND, NH, OK, SD, VT, WV, WY) and the number clearly becomes much larger. The CPRC report also shows that the growth rate for permits by women continues to be much greater than for men; Florida is the state that has issued the most concealed carry permits at 2.14 million; and that permit holders are supremely law-abiding. All states now allow concealed carry, although permit rules vary widely between states.
“It was the biggest gathering of gun rights activists in the world,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), in the aftermath of the 35th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference 2020 (GRPC), held September 19-20, 2020 entirely online for the first time in history.
The event was viewed by well over 300,000 gun rights activists across the country on multiple platforms, and more than 4,100 people pre-registered for the event, which shatters all previous records, Gottlieb reported. He said it would be impossible to get an exact count of all the people who watched because several groups held “Watch Parties” attended by many people watching the program on large screens. What’s more, he said the GRPC program, which appeared as a live Facebook event, is still being viewed, either in its entirety or in segments, which may be found by visiting the SAF website or YouTube.
The two crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and riots in cities across the USA have been the catalysts for nearly 5 million (a record number in one year) Americans purchasing a firearm for the first time in the first 7 months of 2020—up more than 70% over the same time span in 2019—according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The following video is a lunch talk given by Dr. David Yamane, professor of sociology at Wake Forest University, to the National Firearms Law Seminar in Indianapolis, IN, on April 26, 2019. In this video, professor Yamane talks about his journey from being a card carrying liberal college professor to being a card carrying liberal gun owner, and the lessons he’s learned about gun culture along the way, such as
Articles have appeared on the internet by people surprised by their own newfound interest in exercising their Second Amendment right:
In The Atlantic, David French describes why he concealed carries a defensive weapon: “It starts with the consciousness of a threat. There are evil men in this world and sometimes they wish you harm. With the consciousness of a threat comes the awareness of a vulnerability. The police can only protect the people you love in the most limited of circumstances (with those limits growing ever-more-severe the farther you live from a city center.) You want to stand in that gap….”
In his article, It Took a Pandemic for Me to Finally Buy a Gun…or Two, Patrick Buchanan says, “At the age of 55, I had yet to ever fire a single weapon….I never had a problem with the 2nd Amendment. The sad truth is, I never gave it much thought at all….COVID-19 provided a profound jolt to my gun ownership sensibilities….I now understand the strong feelings regarding 2nd Amendment rights….I can see why banning guns and restricting rights is not the solution.”
A new gun owner writing on Reddit says, “Now I’m suddenly questioning my previously strongly held political beliefs as I used to favor strict gun laws but now I see that as an uniformed opinion that was not based in reality….”
Another article describes how “Scott Kane, a former supporter of gun-control measures and AR-15 bans, is frustrated by the arduous process [of buying a firearm] that has denied his family a sense of security. The pandemic has made the soft-spoken software engineer an unlikely Second Amendment supporter….”
SemperVerus encourages you to take the Second Amendment seriously.
Invite SemperVerus to present its 5 life-changing success-generating components—prepare, aware, be, know, do—to your organization to inspire and motivate your members.
Podcast host Pat Flynn, in a Fast Company article, suggests 3 ways to to keep yourself on track to accomplish that:
Manage distractions by setting 5-6 alarms on your phone to sound at random during your workday. When they go off, ask yourself if what you’re doing at that moment is productive or unimportant.
Perform “just-in-time learning” where you only consume educational content that has to do with your current priority (not a future idea). It should be relevant (related to the next most important milestone along your prioritized project’s path) and actionable (can be put into action in the next week or two). Otherwise, set the information aside to read at a later time.
Delegate 10% to 20% of your time per week to “scratch the itch” you have that’s a dream idea or brainstorm, but not yet a priority. That 20% is your reward for being focused and productive the rest of the week.
Invite SemperVerus to present its 5 life-changing success-generating components—prepare, aware, be, know, do—to your organization to inspire and motivate your members.
