Constitutional carry is one of those things that should exist in all 50 states. After all, criminals aren’t obtaining permits to carry their firearms, so the law only regulates the law-abiding citizens. It’s a barrier to the lawful bearing of arms that is downright unconstitutional.

In Tennessee, though, the governor wants to change that. He recognizes the bad guys aren’t worrying about permits and that permitting requirements aren’t stopping them, so why hamstring the law-abiding?

Unfortunately, though, some are less than thrilled with this plan.

The Memphis Shelby Crime Commission board of directors has reportedly voted to oppose Governor Bill Lee’s plan to support legislation that would remove handgun permits in Tennessee. The Crime Commission says 39 out of 49 participating members voted to oppose the governor’s gun plan. … The Crime Commission released a statement on the vote, saying in part, “In considering changes in state law involving guns, we urge our state legislators to always ask themselves whether a change is likely to increase gun violence or reduce it and consistently take action to reduce such violence.”

The problem is, they think the governor hasn’t done that.

More guns mean fewer crimes being committed. When people don’t have to go through the hassle of getting a permit, they’re more likely to carry a firearm. That means more guns on the streets in the hands of law-abiding citizens. You’re deluding yourself if you think the bad guys won’t make note of it.

“Joe had to give that robbing folks stuff up. People gonna get shot over that mess now.”

Yes, that’s precisely what will happen and we all know it. Once that starts, crime will drop throughout the state. Bad guys don’t want to get shot any more than the rest of us. As a result, they’ll start avoiding situations where they’re more likely to be shot.

As a result, constitutional carry will reduce gun violence.

The problem is, though, the Memphis Crime Commission is a group of people isolated in an urban enclave with typical urban sensibilities on things like guns. They’ve listened to their fellow urbanites in other cities and remained convinced that gun control will save the day, despite it failing in cities like Detroit, Baltimore, and Chicago.

Yet the expansion of gun rights has yet to lead to any upticks in crime. Why is that? If more guns mean more crime as the Memphis Crime Commission seems to suggest, those upticks would appear shortly after gun rights are expanded. While correlation doesn’t equal causation, causation does tend to show a correlation.

In other words, it’s a non-issue, but the good folks with the Memphis Crime Commission think it is.

With them being so unable to look at objective reality, it kind of makes you wonder just how in the hell they’re going to do anything about crime in Memphis. What’s next? Are they going to blame the color orange for the opioid epidemic? It makes just as much sense as believing an expansion of gun rights will result in more crime despite it literally never having done so before.