By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
Special to Liberty Park Press
Times are good and possibly getting even better for those who value guns, gun rights and the Second Amendment.
The changes brought by President Donald Trump are simply stunning. In just one year we went from an ATF that targeted individual gun owners for imaginary crimes to one that’s focused on arresting real bad guys with illegal guns.
Constitutional Carry, known by the other side as permitless carry, is growing. Today, 29 states allow law-abiding adults to carry firearms without a state permit, and the number is expected to grow.
So, it’s understandable that those who want to restrict and subvert the Second Amendment are getting desperate. In fact, they’re willing to try almost anything to restrict access to firearms while President Trump is in office. It’s as if they never even heard of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Enter the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
These egg-headed goons want to roll back the clock to the late 1980s. Their just-released “Public Carry Permitting: Model Policy Guide” is pretty much what some states offered decades ago. It’s laughable—a trip back in time. Nowadays, it’s likely too restrictive for even the bluest of blue states.
Of course, the Center begins their report with lies—absolute deception—about guns, gun owners and gun rights.
By citing previous data from their own inaccurate reporting, they specifically target Constitutional Carry. It’s a hard sell, obviously, but they need to make a case for returning to the decades-old permitting system. They even support “may issue” rather than “shall issue” laws, which Bruen effectively killed.
Their allegations against Constitutional Carry are incredibly skewed and are not based on data or any hard facts.
“There are several hypotheses for the increase in violence associated with deregulation of public carry. Some scholars have argued that deregulation leads to increased carrying of guns in public places, meaning that interpersonal conflicts may be more likely to turn violent. One 2025 paper sought to examine what factors could be driving increases in violent crime and found that states that deregulated public carry saw large increases in gun theft and decreases in the rate of law enforcement clearance of violent crime,” the report claims.
Any attempt to subvert the Second Amendment needs a lot more than “several hypotheses” and scholarly arguments.
The Policy
The model policy recommendations are laughable.
It advocates for state permits that are obtained through a rigorous application process, which includes in-person visits with law enforcement, fees, fingerprinting requirements, a background check and even more. There are requirements for a written test and a live-fire qualification. The Center states that scores under 80% should fail the written test and 70% or lower fail the live-fire qualification.
The background check requirements are lengthy: “Background checks during the public carry permit application process should be comprehensive, including at least NICS indices, NCIC, III, and any available state and local public safety databases that may contain information on disqualifying prohibitions,” the policy states.
The authors believe permits should be denied for even non-violent misdemeanors discovered during the background check, including a DUI within five years.
Reciprocity, the model states, should only be granted to other states that are “at least as rigorous” as this policy outlines. Visitors from states without a similar policy would not be allowed to carry.
Permit renewals are required every five years, but the permit holder must once again take and pass the written test and the qualification course.
Anyone caught carrying a firearm without a permit should be arrested, the Center claims: “There should be penalties for carrying a firearm in public without a valid public carry permit, and these penalties should escalate after the first offense.”
Data from throughout the permitting process should be given to a host of organizations, including anti-gun groups.
“Data like these are crucial for state lawmakers, law enforcement, and researchers. These data will help identify how state laws and practices are affecting violence and whether there are any concerns about implementation related to costs, equity, or administrative burdens,” the policy states.
Alexander McCourt, PhD, JD, MPH, is the main author of this policy. He is well known for his work against guns and gun rights.
“Dr. McCourt serves as Assistant Director of the Center for Law and the Public’s Health and Core Faculty in the Center for Gun Violence Solutions,” his overview states. “Much of his work has focused on areas of public health law, including firearm policy and violence, opioid policy, transportation policy, and emergency preparedness.”
Dr. McCourt has written numerous anti-gun reports, including The Association Between State Minimum Wage and Firearm Homicides, 2000-2020, Variations in State Laws on Mental Health-Related Firearm Prohibition, State Reporting Requirements for Involuntary Holds, Court-Ordered Guardianship, and the US National Firearm Background Check System, Doucette et al. Respond to “Concealed-Carry Firearm Policies, The association between permit-to-purchase laws and shootings by police, Effects of Comprehensive Background-Check Policies on Firearm Fatalities in 4 States, Impact of Changes to Concealed-Carry Weapons Laws on Fatal and Nonfatal Violent Crime, 1980-2019 and Officer-Involved Shootings and Concealed Carry Weapons Permitting Laws: Analysis of Gun Violence Archive Data, 2014-2020.
The last report involving Dr. McCourt’s analysis of data from the Gun Violence Archive is curious. We have written dozens of stories that show how the GVA’s data is made up and extremely unreliable.
You have to wonder whether Dr. McCourt knew the data he was analyzing was faulty, or whether he even cared.
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