Packing Heat
Steve Chapman has a good piece up over at Real Clear Politics about concealed carry permits, the facts versus the scaremongering. The fact is that the horrific, lurid predictions that the gun control zealots keep spouting have not come true. And there is a good reason for that.
It may not be true, as some experts believe, that America has gotten safer because more people are legally packing heat. But it's impossible to claim that the change has made us less safe.
At the outset of this experiment, gun opponents forecast that hot-tempered pistoleros would spray bullets at the slightest provocation, requiring the rest of us to wade through rivers of blood just to cross the street. In fact, one of the most conspicous facts about handgun licensees is their mild temper. It's rare for them to commit crimes, and even rarer for them to use their firearms to commit crimes.
A report by the Texas Department of Public Safety found that in a state with more than 200,000 people licensed to carry guns, only 180 were convicted of crimes in 2001, and most of those crimes didn't involve firearms. Only one licensee was convicted of murder. Florida, which has nearly 400,000 permit holders, revoked only 330 licenses last year — about one out of every 1,200.
This record should not be surprising. As a rule, concealed-carry licenses are off-limits to anyone with a history of crime, substance abuse, drunk driving or serious mental illness, and most states require safety training. In any case, people who are inclined to commit mayhem generally don't seek state licenses to carry guns, any more than they ask permission to break into houses or beat up girlfriends. It's the law-abiding folks who apply for licenses.
Why would these peaceable souls want to take their guns when hiking or camping in a national park? Same reason they might take them other places: a desire to protect themselves. Though federal lands are mostly safe, they sometimes play host to crime. In fact, park rangers are far more likely to be assaulted or killed than FBI agents.
Of course the rivers of blood meme still comes up whenever a state enacts a CCW law. Of course the grim predictions simply never happen. And Chapman is precisely correct, when you give law-abiding citizens the right to carry concealed weapons, they remain law-abiding. It has always been the criminal types who don't get licenses for anything that have been the problem.
Legal, Observations, Ordnance | Gaius Sunday, 26 November , 2006
By Former Republican, Sunday, 26 November , 2006 @ 5:09 pm
You are exactly right. I can understand both sides of the gun control issue, myself, but despair of the country ever reaching consensus. Too much ignorance, too much emotion. I recently had an exchange with someone who was a bit fuzzy on the difference between automatic and semi-automatic, and who didn’t know of any legitimate reason why anyone should own a handgun. But he felt perfectly entitled to have a strong opinion in favor of gun control.
By Gene Kennedy, Monday, 4 December , 2006 @ 12:37 pm
Historical data is the only way to show that the orginial claims from opponents of carry laws such as: “the streets will run red with the blood of innocent people”, can now be disproved with actual statistical data. Tennessee implemenmted their carry law in 1994. Since then, http://www.legallyarmed.com has followed the statistics regarding Tennessee Handgun Permit Holders. How many are there, what is the % of handgun permit holders within every Tennessee county, how many handgun permts have been rescinded, etc.. This statistical data is available at: http://www.legallyarmed.com
Now when opponents of these laws try to place their views in front of the general public without statistical information backing-up their claims, historical data can now be used to show that legally armed citizens do NOT turn into mindless wild shooting imbeciles after they receive their authorization to carry. History shows that they remain law abiding citizens who believe in taking care of their own safety without endangering the general population.
Gene Kennedy