Leaders | Bearing harms

Permitless-carry gun laws are misguided and should be scrapped

More states are falling for an extremist take on the Second Amendment

EVERY AMERICAN state requires you to have a licence to drive a car, hunt or become a barber. Yet by the end of this year at least 20 states will allow you to carry a handgun in public without a permit. So far in 2021 five have already passed “permitless carry” laws, and five more, including Texas and Louisiana, are considering them. If these became law, around a third of Americans would live in states where it was legal to carry guns around without any need for a licence or training.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Bearing harms”

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