OSD 160: Unstick to the status quo

The power of defaults goes both ways.

When Alabama passed permitless carry into law this week, it marked a milestone:

Rob Romano @2Aupdates

BREAKING: The population in constitutional carry states has eclipsed that of may-issue ones as Governor Ivey makes Alabama the 22nd state to remove its carry permit requirement. The bill, which leaves the country with 21 shall-issue states, takes effect on 1/1/23.

Now, sure, this isn’t a game of capture the flag, the US is structurally designed to be wary of majoritarianism, and this milestone has no legal significance. But it’s still something of a watershed because of what it means for cultural defaults.

Permitless carry is called “constitutional carry” because that reflects the idea that when you take a constitutional right seriously, the right is self-justifying — you don’t need a reason to exercise it.

A quick two-tweet thread on that from last year:

Open Source Defense @opensrcdefense

This recurring talking point is a great case study in assumptions. When people assume gun rights aren't "real" rights, they have a blind spot where they can only think of gun ownership as a favor that comes from the state. Those laws have indeed been (and are still) brutal.

David Frum @davidfrum

Gun rights in the US have never been a tool for the powerless. Gun rights in the US have often been a tool for the locally powerful. 16/x

Open Source Defense @opensrcdefense

When we think of something as a real right, it's not parceled out by the state to people it approves. A right is something that all people have — and which they don't need to show any reason for. That's what gun rights really are.

We take this for granted in certain domains. The idea that you’d need to get a permit before starting a Twitter account would be laughable. Ditto for a permit to be free of police searches of your home. But is that because we’re enlightened, or because that’s the status quo we’re used to?

The economist Paul Seabright tells a story about the power of status quos in his 2004 book The Company of Strangers (excerpt from page 10 of this pdf):

In Eastern Europe and the countries that used to belong to the Soviet Union, even after the collapse of their planning systems there has been persistent and widespread puzzlement that any society could aspire to prosperity without an overall plan. About two years after the breakup of the Soviet Union I was in discussion with a senior Russian official whose job it was to direct the production of bread in St. Petersburg. “Please understand that we are keen to move towards a market system”, he told me. “But we need to understand the fundamental details of how such a system works. Tell me, for example: who is in charge of the supply of bread to the population of London?” There was nothing naive about his question, because the answer (“nobody is in charge”), when one thinks carefully about it, is astonishingly hard to believe.

So you have a curious Russian official thinking, “Obviously somebody has to be in charge of bread”, and a British economist realizing that his own society’s status quo is the counterintuitive opposite: “Obviously nobody can be in charge of bread.” What you think is obvious is mostly a function of what you’re used to seeing.

The constitutional carry wave is a rare reset of the status quo (or, more precisely, an undo of the change of status quo that played out across 3-4 decades in the late 19th and early 20 centuries). A change right under our feet from “obviously you need a permit for that” to “obviously you don’t need a permit for that”.

The evolution of a status quo looks something like:

1. Anathema

2. Fringe

3. Controversial

4. Common

5. So common it’s obvious

6. So obvious that people no longer realize that things can be another way

Most ideas never make it past step 2. Permitless carry just got to step 4, and it’s at steps 5 or 6 in some parts of the country.

Now, the US is a big place with a patchwork of cultures. Will it ever be the case that 100% of the country is at step 6? Probably not, and that’s fine. But we’re quickly shifting to a world where the abolition of permit regimes is the default, not the exception. With three more states still in the permitless pipeline for 2022, this is only accelerating.

---

This week’s links

How to use an AK

The high-quality content like this is mostly AR-focused, so it’s cool to have some AK content out there too.

Black Rifle Coffee Company goes public

A behind-the-scenes video from their IPO day. BRCC catches a bunch of flak, but it is cool to see a giant banner that says “Black Rifle” wrapped around the NYSE building.

Side note, in “OSD 102: Gun stonks” we wrote about how laws for publicly traded securities can expose gun companies to control by stakeholders who are not keen on the idea of gun rights. It’ll be interesting to see if any proxy fights break out over $BRCC.

Flying alongside a cruise missile at 500 mph

Damn that pesky NFA.

---

OSD office hours

If you’re a new gun owner, thinking about becoming one, or know someone who is, come to OSD office hours. It’s a free video call with an OSD team member to ask any and all your questions.

---

Merch

Top-quality shirts, hats, and patches with OSD vibes.

---

Support

Like what we’re doing? You can support the work at the link below.