MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed on Wednesday called on Alabama’s business community to urge state lawmakers to consider repealing the state’s law allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
The comments came during a Montgomery Chamber of Commerce event at the RSA Activity Center.
“What I was going to challenge this group to do is to give us your support at the State House,” Reed said, speaking to a few hundred attendees gathered at the event, many of them business owners.
“Give us that same energy, give us that same motivation in the state legislature to come up with something that addresses the permitless carry bill. This group can make things move, because I’ve seen you do it.”
Reed has long been opposed to Alabama’s permitless carry law, which, passed in 2022, removed the requirement that Alabamians acquire a permit to conceal carry a firearm.
At the time, the bill’s supporters, including Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, who carried the bill in the Senate, championed the measure as a way to protect Alabamians constitutional rights. Critics of the proposal, which included a number of Alabama sheriffs, warned that removing the requirement for permits to conceal carry could pose serious safety risks to law enforcement.
“We have to have a common-sense approach to gun reform,” Reed said. “…Don’t just point out the problem, point out a solution.”
Reed’s call to the business community came roughly a month after the Montgomery City Council, much to the chagrin of Attorney General Steve Marshall and other state Republican Party officials, adopted an ordinance to require anyone conceal carrying a firearm to also carry a photo ID.
“I want to thank our city council who came together to pass a recent gun ordinance as another positive step in the right direction for our city,” Reed said, reflecting on the ordinance’s passage.
“We’ve been told that it’s outside the bounds of the city to pass this type of gun order, but I believe that it was necessary, and I’m glad the city council saw that the same way.”
Gun violence in Alabama has increased over the years, particularly in the state’s urban cities such as Montgomery.
The firearm homicide rate in Montgomery County increased from 18.2 per 100,000 people in 2018 to 30 per 100,000 in 2022, the eight-highest firearm homicide rate in the country.
Across the state, the firearm homicide rate increased by 54% between 2012 and 2021, with gun violence now being the leading cause of death for Alabama children and teens as of 2023.
Speaking with Alabama Daily News, Reed later expanded on his call to Alabama’s business community, and why he believed they could be so instrumental in applying pressure on lawmakers to repeal that state’s permitless carry law.
“I think it’s important for the business community in particular to weigh in; the business community is very powerful, not only in this city, but in this state,” he told ADN.
“Think about the toll that gun violence takes on our community, our hospitals. Obviously (for) the people who are impacted directly and indirectly, it’s a health issue.”
From electric companies to those in the defense industry, the chamber’s hundreds of members span a wide range of businesses across many sectors. Banking on their influence with state lawmakers, Reed said he was hopeful that, with their support, lawmakers may consider taking another look at the state’s permitless carry law.
“It’s not a partisan position to take, it’s one that to me is for the benefit of not only the city of Montgomery, but for the state of Alabama,” Reed told ADN. “I think that’s where the business community can maybe help us look at some things in a very objective way to bring forth to our state legislature prior to the session starting.”
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