A study released by the American College of Surgeons in 2018 examined the relationship between violent crime and concealed-carry laws. The researchers analyzed data from the U.S. Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from all 50 states spanning 30 years.
They concluded that there is “… no statistically significant association between the liberalization of state level firearm carry legislation over the last 30 years and the rates of homicides or other violent crime.”
Why? Because for the most part, violent crime is not perpetrated by average gun owners. It is perpetrated by a small number of criminals who ignore gun control laws.
In October of 2021, The Columbus Dispatch reported on a study conducted by the National Network for Safe Communities, confirming that “… a relatively few individuals, many of them young people involved in gangs, drive much of the lethal violence … typically a fraction of individuals are behind half of the homicides.” And these criminals are already prohibited from possessing firearms.
If we want to both reduce crime and respect citizens’ right to defend themselves and their families, it’s time to make the burdensome and expensive licensing process optional for concealed carry and to demand that cities enforce current laws against those who actually commit violent crimes.
— Dean Rieck in Guns right group president: ‘Alarmists’ are wrong. ‘Permitless’ concealed carry a right in Ohio
Gasp, they needed a 30 year study to figure this out?
To be fair, science. There are thousands of things you learned from your family, friends, and just by living, that scientists don’t understand. So, they study those things, and along the way, sometimes they learn other things. It’s what scientists do, after all – confirm that the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west, then figure out WHY it does what it does.
But, you’re right. It takes an idiot to fail to understand that criminals commit crimes, and law abiding citizens rarely commit offenses of any sort.
It wasn’t a 30 year study.
They analyzed data collected over 30 years.
The larger the sample, the more statistically reliable are the results.
Isn’t “half” also a fraction though?
It depends. Are u pessimistic or optimistic?
🙂
“If we want to both reduce crime and respect citizens’ right to defend themselves and their families, it’s time to…”
The author of this statement makes two suppositions that I would suggest are, at least, questionable depending on whom is assumed to constitute “we”.
Strych9,
Had the same thought.
“The author of this statement makes two suppositions that I would suggest are, at least, questionable depending on whom is assumed to constitute “we”.”
Uhm, please explain?
The author assumes that
1. “We” want to reduce crime and
2. want to respect the right of citizens to engage in self-defense.
I’d argue that there is a cohort of people out there that want neither of these things. This seems to include most Blue City DA’s and politicians.
When I look at an awful lot of what’s going on these days I don’t see just stupid. I see a lot of dipshits and a few people who are actively engaged in trying to make things worse for future political gain.
I won’t suggest that all the DA’s are smart enough to understand what’s going on here, especially in light of how much the “wise Latina” seems to know about virtually anything related to CoV-2. I suspect that most lawyers drawing a public paycheck are basically fucking morons. If they were competent they’d be working for a private firm, maybe their own.
That said, the soft-on-crime policies that they pursue are not just idiocy. They’re reminiscent of the Reichstag Fire in some regards. The concept, across the board here from the Dems, seems to be to cause as much trouble as possible in the hope that they’ll then be begged to fix the problem with MOAR government, which is to say, totalitarian policies.
You can see this going back years and years with Teachers’ Unions. They make the problem worse so that they can ask for moar money to fix the problem which they then make worse and ask for yet moar money. They tend to get it because, mostly, until last year parents didn’t pay any goddamn attention to what was going on. Not even enough to ask what their kids were doing in school today/this week/at all.
I strongly suspect that the current set of policies you see vis a vis crime in cities is by design. Similar to the way the Left deals with drugs and… everything else.
The general playbook is fairly simple. They select words that they know people attach a standard meaning to and then change that definition but keep using the word in public speaking. A semi-auto rifle becomes an *Assault Weapon*. *Decriminalization* of drugs becomes outright legalization combined with active encouragement to use narcotics. *Criminal Justice Reform* becomes closing jails, dropping charges and defunding police forces willy nilly (as opposed to in some targeted manner). *Supply Chain Fixes* become hiding problems as they get worse. *Infrastructure* becomes pork. *Monetary policy* becomes printing money. The list goes on. And on. And on.
The result is something the public didn’t bargain for because they didn’t understand the game because, on some level, they thought words meant what was in the dictionary. But they change those definitions too. [Remember when an Anti-va-x-x-e-r was a sorta odd person with conspiracy theories about immunology and now it’s someone who opposes top-down government policies across a wide range of *Public Health* diktats?]
The results have predictably negative outcomes. Those outcomes lead the public to demand that something be done. And of course, that’s the game.
Now you offer them your pre-packaged solution which is, and always was, designed to enhance your power over people. Hitler wanted to suspend civil liberties so his people planned a fire and got the Reichstag Decree which suspended nearly all civil rights until the end of the war.
IMHO, the Left wants chaos so they can offer you a totalitarian solution. They have no interest in curtailing crime. They want crime out of control so that they can come after your rights, such as your right to self-defense.
You can see this everywhere these days. Economics, CoV-2, supply chains, crime, fiscal and monetary policy, medicine etc etc etc.
In every instance they make things markedly worse. This is strongly suggestive that it’s not just idiocy. Idiots would occasionally get things right by accident and there would be a reasonable standard distribution for things that were kinda meh, didn’t help but didn’t hurt. When everything goes in one direction and only one direction that’s because someone wants it to.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is the enemy in action. Several thousand times at all levels of government over decades is…
Which of course leads to the question of how you fix any of this. To which the answer is abyssus abyssum invocat, and not in the kinda crappy band sort of way.
The really sort way to say it in a way that political junkies would understand is to say
“This is Cloward & Piven, on steroids and applied to virtually everything at every level”.
That’s okay.
Plenty of “studies” are in the wings to tie the rise in violent crime over the past two years to the adoption of constitutional carry laws.
Whatever you want can be correlated and that’s good enough for politics, media and the high priests of psyence and their true believers.
I’m waiting for the studies that prove gun laws are almost always racist, especially when written by a Democrat.
Part of the problem is that left leaning, nanny state loving cowards like Haz and Geoff the Florida Pervert happily comply with permit requirements. This type of behavior hurts us real patriots’ ability to force our government to stop this overreach.
Take your happy gun-toting ass to Washington, wave your gun around and tell those bastards you’re not going to take any of their shit any more.
Show everyone how it’s done, or STFU.
Already done, and I’m still standing. Do you have the courage to stand with me, or are you just another pretend patriot?*
*please note that this is a rhetorical question. I can tell by your comment that you’re a left leaning, nanny state loving punk.
I don’t believe you. You sound like a guy that call others cowards while bragging about what a hero you are when actually you are a big mouth pussy.
Tell us specifically what you did and how you got away with it when people that simply walked around in the capitol have been arrested and jailed. What makes you special or maybe you’re a fed plant claiming to be a patriot?
I don’t believe you. What exactly did you do that you got away with when others have been arrested and jailed for merely walking through the capitol building?
You’re a big talker, nothing more.
(My previous attempt at a response was moderated, this one is more mellow)
Still no response on what you actually did to be a ‘patriot’? Like I said, big talker.
Who would stand with a lying loser like you?
“Part of the problem is that left leaning, nanny state loving cowards like Haz and Geoff …”
If there’s anyone with extensive personal experience of living life as a coward, it’s that scared little boy who keeps inventing new user names.
See what others have to say about this mentally-ill demented troll, including a link to the original comment for context :
“Dude, you’re the epitome of “living in your head rent-free.” You don’t even wait for your “nemesis” to post something that you can criticize. How much time in a day do you obsess over someone you’ve never met and probably never will? Let it go and live your life. You’re not convincing us to hate GTG — you’re posting non-sequitors that makes us dislike you.”
https://dev.thetruthaboutguns.com/as-washington-gears-up-for-gun-control-states-act-to-protect-second-amendment-rights/#comment-4766495
How humiliating it must be for him!
I just bet his imaginary wife hopes she could see other men, considering there’s nothing dangling between his cowardly legs… 😉
Geoff the Florida Pervert is *obsessed* with male genitalia and other peoples’ comments. What a tragically small fool ‘he’ is lol 🤣🤡!
You might want to learn that following the law has it’s perks. Like not being arrested? I follow the law as well. I have a State issued permit.
This one glows with a brightness that is both rare and obvious.
To The 2nd Amendment is my permit:
Find a copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, read it, digest it, and get back to us on how your strategy is a winning strategy.
Pro tip: winning a battle which causes you to lose the war is NOT a winning strategy.
My daughter is dating a guy from a suburb of Seattle. She reports they have CNN playing all day, every day. I’ve been concerned that she is being influenced by these matrix-dwellers. But, this week she told me the step- father has an extensive collection of firearms. The rest of the family, including my daughter’s boyfriend, show no interest in guns, but I am somewhat relieved a member of that family has a strong interest. Not sure of his politics, but my daughter gets to see that gun enthusiasts are a diverse lot.
“I’ve been concerned…”
I have a daughter away at a “big city” university, so I understand. If you at least reasonably lived out and taught her truth and how to think, she’ll very likely turn out ok eventually. There may be a few hiccups, but she’ll get it sorted. My parents told each other something similar when I left for that same school, and again when #2 left for the military, and again when #3 moved out and went straight into the workforce. My parents were able to end a long history of family misery.
Hawkeye,
Absolutely!! It is all about helping our children build good character and critical thinking. Seems like your parents did just that. Kudos to them!!
As for my daughter, surrounded by the matrix, she is showing signs of unwillingness to surrender to tyranny. She is choosing to not visit establishments that require vaccine passports or recent Covid tests (mandatory in Seattle proper). It is not about her vaccine status; she compares Seattle to her unrestricted movement here in PA and now has a better view of what freedom is all about.
30+ years ago Seattle was a great (“quirky”) place. That was LONNNNNG ago. Microsoft effect ruined it and now is to be avoided. A cesspool.
If there’s no correlation between crime and carry laws, doesn’t that mean that making concealed carry easier doesn’t reduce crime?
I’ll be quite honest, I don’t carry to reduce crime for the world, but to protect myself. But existence of a causative link between a reduction in crime and concealed carry was a foundational basis for the work of John Lott which, itself, was responsible for getting rid of so many of the laws preventing concealed carry this seems inconsistent with that argument.
“If there’s no correlation between crime and carry laws, doesn’t that mean that making concealed carry easier doesn’t reduce crime?”
Interesting point. Have you seen data correlating ease of concealed or open carry with reduced rates of crime? Usually, it seems to be correlated with reduced rates of victimhood. Just asking.
Yeah, it was the core of this book. I read it about 10 or 15 years ago and it was my first thought when I read the post.
Here’s a wiki link to it and it’s conclusions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime
Excellent! Thank you for that link. Looks like a book worth owning. Laughed when I saw the U of C referred the editions. That could never happen today.
The “Truth” is “shall not be infringed”. I need one of them thar blade sharpeners just posted for the next BlackLootersMurder mostly peaceful riot…truth!
@ former water walker
“The “Truth” is “shall not be infringed”.”
I know, man, I know. And it stinks to admit it, but the reality of the world, and the reality of constitutional interpretation, is that some restrictions are going to happen. It happens with speech, and the first amendment is just as clear as the second on its face. But after 20+ years as an attorney, I am sad to tell you that what something says on its face isn’t just how it works. The best example is that the government can’t restrict speech under the express language of the first amendment, but it’s still illegal to yell “fire” in a crowded theater because the consequences of that action outweigh the benefits of protecting the right to speech. That law is always, always gray, at least in my experience. It’s also slow, rarely practical, and a pain in the ass, but it’s what we’ve got, and the US is a much better place to be under the way we do things compared to a lot of places, so I don’t get too upset about it.
@LifeSavor
It’s a solid book. Some of the data analysis and statistical techniques are a bit flawed, at least in my opinion, but I’m almost 30 years out from the last stats class I took in college, so I don’t pretend to be an expert. I think, as a general proposition, his concept makes sense, and his data support it, just not as strongly or in the way that I would have wanted to see it. It certainly didn’t change my mind about concealed carry being a good thing. I mean, personally, I don’t care if it lowers crime overall — I just want to know that if I need a gun to protect myself that I can have one legally.
It depends on what you mean. You might glean something from actually reading the paper…
From the paper itself, most of the way through the discussion section:
“If a naive statistical approach had been used, significance would likely have been demonstrated. For example, if the naive and inaccurate assumption is made that all yearly observations within a state are independent of each other, then the association between the carry status and the CDC homicide rate is highly significant (3.5% 1.1% per level of liberalizing, p ¼ 0.0011). This inaccurate assumption would lead to an inaccurate assessment of the level of evidence…”
Pennsylvania gun owners feel the same.We came with in a breath of getting constitutional carry but we have a gutless progressive liberal as governor that wouldn’t sign the legislation benefiting us in any way.We will work hard next year to support a governor with a different position on this and it won’t be another Tom Wolfe.
No. Permitless carry doesn’t have any effect either direction on violent crime. Ask any street level police officers or detectives who they see committing the majority of crimes. If they are honest and not playing politics, they will tell you they deal with the same 10% of the population 80% of the time.
We’ve got the pallid surgeon in Kansas, I’ve never caught one, there up north in the Missouri river.
“no statistically significant association” = chose to ignore the societal benefits of millions of defense gun uses per year. Including ventilating deserving felons who will no longer offend. Room temperature is a solution.
I’m surprised that dacian hasn’t made an appearance and tried to down the article
Weird how it seems no one here bothered to actually read the paper itself. If you had you’d note how they attack the Violence Policy Center and others for shitty stats work and that the associations they’re looking for are increases in violent crime due to liberalization of carry laws.
Just sayin’. You might find it to be a bit different than the article here presents it to be if you, ya know, read it.
Constitutional carry and permitless carry are not always the same thing.
John Lott, call your lawyers. Some group in OH is plagiarizing your research