It is February 8, 2018, which means Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has ignored national reciprocity legislation for 48 consecutive weeks.

He is just weeks away from ignoring it for a full year.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) introduced national reciprocity for concealed carry in the House on January 3, 2017. After 48 weeks conservatives overcame Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) stonewalling tactics and passed the measure.

National reciprocity was introduced in the Senate on March 1, 2017, and we have now hit the 48 week mark but McConnell is still looking the other way.

The shame of this lies in the fact that national reciprocity for concealed carry represents the single greatest pro-gun opportunity since the ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791. It accomplishes this by removing the cumbersome patchwork of laws that currently prevent the common man from traveling with a handgun by his side for defense of his own life and the lives of his family members.

Democrat lawmakers in states like Illinois and California cannot directly kill the Second Amendment so they have used restrictive concealed carry laws to do the next best thing–to fetter it, rendering it pointless. National reciprocity would fix this, mandating that all 50 states respect not simply the right to keep arms but the right to bear them as well.

But McConnell remains mum on this grand opportunity for the common man.

Like so many members of the ruling class, McConnell has his protective detail and myriad other comforts that come his way as part of Washington DC’s elite. In the meantime, average Americans must plot their travels in such a way that they only drive through states that recognize their concealed permits. Otherwise, both they and their families are defenseless.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets, 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. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.