Questioning the Necessity of Concealed Carry Laws

The State of Ohio recently became the thirty-seventh state to pass some form of concealed carry legislation, under which persons may carry concealed firearms. Given the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, such legislation appears unnecessary since individuals have a constitutional right to carry firearms. In this article, I argue that the Second Amendment’s text guarantees an individual’s right (not a state’s right or a “collective” right) to keep and bear firearms. Part I of this article contains that argument.

If the text is binding—and I believe it is—further analysis regarding whether the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to keep and bear arms is unnecessary. Nonetheless, the original meaning of the Second Amendment confirms my reading of the text, as I show in Part II of this article. In Part III of this article I go a step further and conclude that the scope of the individual right to keep and bear arms includes the right to carry concealed firearms.