Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill yesterday evening that makes her state the 22nd one in the country to guarantee the constitutional right of citizens to keep and bear arms without a permit.
Alabama House Bill 272, which goes into effect in January 2023, ensures that law-abiding Alabamians are able to exercise their right to carry firearms without having to wade through the administrative red tape that comes with the requirements of having a permit.
The House passed the bill with a roll call vote of 65 Y to 37 N last month, and then sent it to the Senate where it was passed with a vote of 23 Y to 6 N, yesterday. From there, it went to the governor right away.
Within hours of conferees delivering a final version of the legislation to her desk, Gov. Ivey signed the bill into law.
The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) lauded the action by Gov. Ivey, sharing in a statement that the “NRA thanks Gov. Ivey for her signature on this historic bill to empower more law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their families against violent criminals.”
Such swift action by Gov. Ivey is in stark contrast to what is going on in Indiana, the state that is most likely to become the next — and 23rd overall — state with constitutional carry in place.
However, Indiana’s Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, is dragging his feet in signing his state’s permitless carry bill. Hopefully not for long, as Hoosiers deserve the same unfettered constitutional rights as their neighbors.
In a separate press release, NRA-ILA encouraged activists in Indiana to “contact Gov. Holcomb and ask him to sign House Bill 1296 into law.”
The Crime Prevention Research Center released a study last month highlighting the positive effects that states with constitutional carry laws see in the years after such laws are passed. An analysis released by Professor Carl Moody at the College of William & Mary debunked gun violence research firm GVPedia which claimed that “states that pass a Permitless Carry law suffer from a 22% increase in gun homicide for the three years after the lawʼs passage, more than doubling the 10% increase for the country overall in the same time period.”
In addition to Alabama and Indiana, Georgia, Nebraska and Ohio are all making moves this year to become permitless carry states. If all the bills pass and are signed into law, the total number of states with such legislation will be 26, officially surpassing the halfway mark for all of the states in the Union.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Victoria Snitsar Churchill is a proud immigrant and naturalized U.S. citizen with a decade of experience in grassroots politics and community organizing.
Her writing has been featured in many online publications, including Campus Reform, The Daily Torch and The Daily Signal.
As an undergraduate at the University of Kansas, Victoria appeared in media outlets such as CBS News, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, The Blaze and NRATV.
Victoria is also a former NCAA D1 student-athlete and Kansas College Republicans State Chair.
After moving eleven times in six years, Victoria resides in Arlington, Virginia and enjoys overpriced brunch on Sundays with her husband.
Yay!!!!!
Our governor in Indiana is a poor example of a conservative. He more or less inherited his post when the previous liberal governor left to be the president of a university. He more or less followed the leader with the surrounding governors to deal with COVID. He is almost a life-long politician and pretty much a good old boy in the Republican party. It would surprise me if he signed off on this bill or let it default into law because he does not think it is a good idea and lots of the usual special interests have his ear. Meanwhile Indianapolis is setting records for homicides and one congressional district elects a commie to the House every couple of years. If he does sign off on this I’ll have to write something better about him but that’s how I see it now.