New Scam Offers ‘Nationwide’ Concealed Carry Permit

Chances are that if you’re a regular reader here at Bearing Arms and a regular listener/viewer of the Bearing Arms Cam and Company podcast, you’re already aware that there is no such thing as a nationwide carry license. Second Amendment advocates have been trying to pass a nationwide reciprocity bill for years now, as well as trying to convince the Supreme Court to take up a case that deals with bearing arms outside the state where a gun owner lives, but as of today there is no way for someone to carry in all 50 states based on a single permit. 

Not every gun owner is an avid Second Amendment advocate and activist, and there are plenty of folks keeping and bearing arms who may have only a cursory knowledge of federal gun laws. It’s that group that appears to be the target of a new scam recently identified by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. 

Analysts identified more than 20 pages that have collectively run more than $3.1 million on scam advertisements promoting concealed carry permits on Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram. In one instance, at least 10 of those pages also appear to operate as a single network in violation of Meta’s policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior.[3] Together, the ads—particularly their use of generative AI—represent the latest iteration of dubious gun- and permit-related advertising on the platform.[4]

The ads often target senior citizens and veterans, two demographics that studies show are particularly vulnerable to scams, and do so using appeals to patriotism and veterans’ service, as well as stoking fear about geopolitical tensions, terrorist activity and the risk of home invasions. The proliferation of scam advertisements on Meta platforms presents a consistent moderation failure and concern: reports indicate the company earned 10 percent of its revenue ($16 billion) in 2024 from “scams and banned goods.”[5] Despite a renewed commitment from the company earlier this year to crack down on such ads, this ISD Investigation shows how scam networks continue to operate and evolve on Meta platforms.[6]

Just like you can’t depend on the police to protect you from harm as an individual, I don’t think we can expect social media platforms to protect us from every scammer out there. On some level, it’s up to us to be able to protect ourselves, whether from a home invader or a Nigerian prince who promises hundreds of thousands of dollars if we will only help with a small transfer fee to get the ball rolling. 

But as ISD notes, scammers also know how to target demographics who are more vulnerable to the tricks of their trade. In this case, ISD found at least two distinct networks that had purchased more than $3 million worth of ads on Meta that urged users to buy the nonexistent national concealed carry permit, which generated at least 24.8 million impressions. These networks “often made use of AI-generated videos of law enforcement and prominent national security officials, as well as President Trump, and routinely targeted veterans and senior citizens.”

While ISD discovered two networks running thousands of these ads, there were about a dozen different pages operated by the networks. One of them was designed to look like an individual Meta user, but most of them were pages for nonexistent groups like National Carry Association, Freedom Carry, and Patriot Permit. 

You should read the entire eye-popping report from ISD for yourself, because it’s absolutely wild. The group found AI-versions of Robert De Niro touting national concealed carry permits while talking to an AI Stephen Colbert, multiple videos featuring AI-generated Donald Trumps urging seniors to get their national carry license, and even an AI-generated sheriff endorsing the nonexistent permit while behind the wheel of his patrol car. 

If these scammers are spending millions of dollars promoting their schemes, they’re probably making millions more. ISD says that Meta is taking down these pages, but it can sometimes take days or weeks to do so, and in the meantime more pages are popping up. I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to rid social media of the scourge of scammers, but we can all do our part by calling out these scams when we see them. 

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