Originally published by AmmoLand.com.

Louisiana- I co-host a Podcast about civilian self-defense.   I looked back at 2016 and found the good news for gun owners.  This is where we were.. and a glimpse of where we're going.

January-

-Open carry passed in Missouri.  The Missouri State House and Senate overturned their governor's veto to legalized open carry and concealed carry in schools.  The new law also prevents local municipalities from passing laws banning open carry.  It lowers the permit to carry age from 21 to 19 and allows specially trained school employees to carry guns while on the job.  Welcome to 2016.

-Guns ownership is ordinary and growing- We reported increased gun sales in January, just as we did for every month in 2015.  January was busier than January 2015, February of this year saw larger sales than February 2015. And so on.  Anti-gun lobbyists said that only a few of us were buying all those millions of guns and that there, in fact, were fewer gun owners than ever before.

It turns out that the anti-gun laws passed in anti-gun states showed that claim to be a lie.  Anti-rights states like Massachusetts, California, and Illinois require that gun owners register every gun single gun they purchase.   The number of licenses to own a gun increased in Massachusetts by 66% since 2010. Other states that register gun owners also show strong increases as well.  In Illinois with their firearms owners ID card, the number increased about 75%, from a little over 1 million in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2015.  Gun ownership is ordinary and growing.

February -Gun control cities are violent. The most violent cities in the world, and the most violent cities in the U.S., all embrace gun control.  US cities ranked among the 50 most dangerous.  St Louis, Baltimore, and Detroit come in at numbers 15, 19, and 28.

Looking at the US cities in more detail, they are each governed by progressive Democrats. And every single one of them has been an enthusiastic member of Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns.  Chicago deserves a dis-honorable mention.  You can smell the corruption from here.

-A senior State Senator in California was arrested.  This wasn't just any California politician.  Democrat Senator Leland Yee had sponsored and supported many anti-rights bill that removed the right of self-defense in California.

Senator Yee's political career ran from being a member of the San Francisco school board, president of the school board, State Assemblyman, State Senator, and Speaker, pro-tem of the California State Senate.  That made him the second most powerful person in the California Senate.  Yee was named to the honor roll by the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence.

Yee was arrested in 2014 and convicted in February 2016.  Yee was charged with wire fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and illegally importing firearms for sale.  He was sentenced to federal prison.

March

-West Virginia passed Constitutional Carry.. twice.  The voted to allow law-abiding adults to carry a firearm in public without a state permit.  They passed the bill again to override Democrat Governor Tomblin's veto.  The combined vote was 87 to 44, so it wasn't close at all.

To their credit, the West Virginia legislators encouraged training while not requiring it by law.  The recently passed bill authorizes a $50 tax credit for anyone who took firearms training to get a permit.

-Idaho passed constitutional carry.  Unfortunately, the law only applies to state residents.  Visitors are still required to have a permit to carry concealed while they visit Idaho.

-The right to bear arms applies to non-firearms.  In a unanimous eight to zero decision, the US Supreme Court extended the Heller and McDonald decision to arms that are not firearms.  The court told the Massachusetts supreme court that the right to bear arms extends to arms that were not in existence at the time of the founding.  That includes knives and stun guns.

April-

-New Jersey legislators don't like gun owners.  New Jersey police often deny applications to get a concealed carry permit.  Then, the police refuse to explain why the applications were denied.  Pro-rights groups had to sue the state to find out what was required to get a gun permit.  A judge both ordered the state of New Jersey to pay a hundred thousand dollars in court costs and legal fees and to also deliver and make public the state's Firearm Investigative Manual.