During a 2018 gubernatorial campaign speech, Tim Walz pushed for numerous gun controls, including opposition to national concealed carry reciprocity.
National concealed carry reciprocity is a push to recognize concealed carry permits state-to-state the way driver’s licenses are recognized. In other words, a permit from North Carolina would be good in all other states, as would a permit from Oklahoma, Idaho, or New York.
Such reciprocity saves concealed carry permit holders from the patchwork of laws they currently face, where some states recognize their out-of-state permit while others do not.
National concealed carry reciprocity was part of Trump’s 2A platform during the campaign for the 2016 election.
On September 18, 2015, Breitbart News reported Trump’s conviction that “concealed carry…is a right, not a privilege.” He used a policy position paper to explain that national reciprocity needs to succeed, saying:
The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.
But Walz opposes such reciprocity and, in 2018, told a group of would-be supporters that one thing gun controllers can do is “make sure that we don’t reciprocal carry among states.”
During the same 2018 speech, Walz pushed universal background checks, gun violence research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a ban on AR-15s and other firearms which Democrats refer to as “weapons of war.”
Breitbart News noted that Kamala Harris and Walz pushed a ban on AR-15s during their joint campaign appearance for the 2024 race.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at
