It is October 27 and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has just finished ignoring national concealed carry reciprocity for a 42nd consecutive week.

National reciprocity was introduced by Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) on January 3, 2017, and Ryan has remained mum on it ever since, with one exception. That one exception came in the wake of the June 14 Alexandria attack, when Ryan told Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) that “he didn’t think the time was right” for legislation revolving around reciprocity.

This is typical of a ruling class mentality. Ryan enjoys taxpayer-funded armed protection wherever he goes while the common man is forced to plan family vacations along routes where our nation’s patchwork of concealed carry laws will somehow afford him the ability to keep a handgun close at hand for defense of himself and his family.

If a common man with a concealed carry permit from Kentucky needs to travel I-64 to St. Louis, Missouri, he will have to do so unarmed because the route includes passage through Illinois, which refuses to recognize any concealed carry permit but its own. Or if a common man with a concealed carry permit from Arizona has to travel to surrounding states for work he can be armed for self-defense in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, but he has to move throughout California unarmed because that state will not recognize any outside permits either.

Why should Second Amendment rights be null and void because someone crosses a state border?

Rep. Hudson’s bill fixes this mess by making a concealed carry license from one state valid in the other 49 states, just like a driver’s license. Moreover, Hudson’s bill had 212 co-sponsors by the end of September, making it appear that momentum was finally on the side of the Second Amendment.

The NRA tweeted:

#ICYMI Reciprocity bill nears goal line in the House but needs YOUR support to reach the end zone #2A https://t.co/yu5ok0VkVO — NRA (@NRA) September 27, 2017

But we are still waiting on Speaker Ryan, who has let national reciprocity languish for 42 consecutive weeks.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.