Green Beret Congressman: SOF Vets Deserve Federal Carry Rights

Rep. Pat Harrigan (NC-10) isn't just talking about supporting veterans. He's acting.

The Special Forces combat veteran introduced the **Special Operations Forces Concealed Carry Act**—legislation that would extend federal concealed carry authority to active-duty and veteran SOF personnel across all 50 states, no exceptions, no blue-state carve-outs.

Think about who we're talking about. Army Special Forces. Navy SEALs. Marine Raiders. Air Force Combat Controllers. These are operators who passed selection courses that destroy ordinary soldiers. Who qualified on weapons systems most Americans have never seen. Who ran missions the government still won't fully acknowledge.

**And in too many states, they get treated like suspects for wanting to carry a sidearm to the grocery store.**

Harriган's bill closes a glaring gap in federal law. The Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act—LEOSA—already grants qualified active and retired law enforcement nationwide carry rights. That framework makes sense. But it left SOF veterans completely out of the picture.

That's not an oversight. It's an insult.

When you consider that special operations training dwarfs the firearms qualification standards of most police departments in the country, the omission becomes impossible to defend on any logical grounds. The only reason it exists is because no one fought hard enough to fix it—until now.

Harrigan framed it exactly right: if the federal government trusted these operators to carry weapons in enemy territory, it has no business stripping that right the moment they land back on American soil.

**This is the argument that wins. And it should.**

The bill is now in the House. It needs co-sponsors. It needs committee momentum. And it needs the kind of public pressure that makes congressmen nervous about being on the wrong side of a vote for America's most elite warriors.

Congress already extended federal carry rights to retired cops. There is no world in which the men and women who took the fight to America's enemies deserve less.

Call your Representative. Demand they co-sponsor the SOF Concealed Carry Act. Make some noise—because bills like this die quietly when nobody's watching.