Bootleggers and Constitutional Carry.

• Author: Newhard, Joseph Michael

Legislation enshrining "constitutional carry"--that is, the legal right to carry a firearm without a government permit--is spreading quickly across the country. Many states have adopted constitutional carry in the past decade, and more are expected to do so in the coming years.

Gun control groups unsurprisingly oppose constitutional carry. More surprisingly, so do some police chiefs associations and police unions. They argue that permitless carry increases the danger faced by law enforcement officers. Yet, officer fatalities have trended downward slightly over the past four decades (excepting COVID-19 deaths), despite a growing number of law enforcement officers, a growing U.S. population, more guns in circulation, and expansions in concealed and open carry.

Could another motivation be behind the police groups' opposition to constitutional carry? The economic theory of regulation, outlined by Nobel economics laureate George Stigler, posits that government regulation often reflects private interests rather than the public interest. An extension of this idea, public choice theory, holds that policymakers and other government officials, themselves, can be the private beneficiaries. Accordingly, law enforcement organizations' position on constitutional carry may reflect their economic benefit from gun control. Armed citizens are a substitute for police in dangerous areas, thus gun control increases demand for police services, leading to more funding and more law enforcement jobs.

This may explain why police chiefs and unions, if not the rank-and-file of law enforcement, tend to favor gun control measures. Individual officers, many of whom are gun owners and Second Amendment supporters, may see only a small direct economic benefit from gun control, but police unions enjoy a larger membership and more union dues, and police chiefs enjoy the greater prestige and power that comes from commanding larger and better-funded police forces. Likewise, municipal law enforcement representatives are more likely to support gun control than their rural counterparts because they see armed citizens as substitutes for law enforcement. In rural areas, where crime rates are lower, armed citizens are seen as complements.

Law enforcement and gun control / Vermont, which is the historical home of several major U.S. gun manufacturers, led the way in constitutional carry, having never restricted the right to carry a firearm. As a result, constitutional carry is...