Daily Verse | Esther 9:28b
And these days of Purim should never cease to be celebrated by the Jews, nor should the memory of them die out among their descendants.

Happy Tuesday my friends. Some of you can’t carry a tune unless it’s dead and slung over your shoulder.

Speaking of dead and slung over your shoulder … Texas is this close to adopting a constitutional carry law. Constitutional carry means that a person can carry a handgun concealed or openly without a license or permit. In other words, Texas is ready to acknowledge that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the only regulation we need to “keep and bear arms.”

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

— Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution

I’ve often thought that any regulation of “arms” is an infringement, and therefore a violation of, my second amendment rights.

I have to take a class in order to carry a gun? Infringement.

I have to pay a fee and get fingerprinted to own a gun? Infringement.

I have to leave my gun outside when I come into your establishment? Infringement.

I can only use magazines that hold ten bullets or less? Infringement.

The Second Amendment does not say that I can have gun if I have a permit. Or if I pass a test. All it says is that I have a right to keep (own) and bear (carry and use) Arms.

Texas, along with 20 other states, is simply removing all of the obstacles and red tape that government bureaucracy has layered onto gun ownership. It wasn’t always like this.

We were visiting my aunt this weekend and while I was at her house, I saw that she had a .22 caliber rifle. When I asked her about it, she told the story of her and her fiancé stopping by a gun shop on the way home from the wedding rehearsal dinner. They went in, looked at different guns, and chose that one. No background checks. No ID necessary. No registration with the government. Just picking out a gun in a local store like you would vegetables for dinner.

Then, they brought it home and took it out back, where they fired it into a slope. No gun range, no laws prohibiting shooting in a local neighborhood, no “eyes and ears” required; just a fun hobby they did together.

Something similar is happening in South Carolina, where “Gov. Henry McMaster will soon sign legislation that will allow South Carolinians with concealed weapons permits to carry their guns openly in public.” A step in the right direction, for sure, with the main goal being to some day strip the permit requirement altogether.

That’s the Constitution in its purest form, and we need to be willing to fight for and support legislation like this, especially as the country falls farther down the rabbit hole.