With the high court’s latest ruling on same-sex marriages, some contend the decision could lead to increased gun rights, specifically national CCW reciprocity, by using the same argument.
Friday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and recognize those sanctioned by other states.
“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the landmark decision that arguably made same sex marriage a reality in the 13 remaining states that continued to ban the practice.
With similar logic applied, gun rights advocates argue that the nation’s patchwork of firearms laws governing the concealed carry of handguns are now circumspect under the same guidelines. In short, they reason if marriage equality is guaranteed from state to state, then so should concealed carry rights.
“To paraphrase what Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy said about same-sex marriage,” noted Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb in a statement Friday, “no right is more profound than the right of self-preservation, and under the Constitution, all citizens should be able to exercise the right of self-defense anywhere in the country. It disparages their ability to do so, and diminishes their personhood to deny the right to bear arms they have in their home states when they are visiting other states.” guns.com
