How to spin a study...

[Maverick]

Nice hypothetical situations. I saw the results for real in my home town.

The city had been dumping on the local department for several years refusing to fund wages to a living level. More than half of the married Officers qualified for food stamps and the average monthly wage was rather low, about $500 to $650 for street Officers and the Department was losing about 30% of their personnel every 5 years. Time was about 1973-74.

The wage negotiations stalled and a strike was called. At the time of the strike the gun stores recorded a record sale of weapons. While the strike was going on with supervisors doing patrol and all civilians still in place, calls for service dropped to almost nothing. Even though there was the usual number of calls for collisions and other minor situations, burglary and robbery calls dropped to almost zero after the paper announced the run on guns. It was one of the most peacefull 3 week periods in quite a while.

In dealing personally with the folks who do commit those crimes it was fairly obvious that they are cowards to an extreme looking to find the weak and helpless. The best deal for them is to burglarize a house with no one home rendering no threat to their security or health. Unless they feel in control they are not willing to risk being caught or stopped. Looking at a population where there is a significant number of guns creates a risk factor for those who are willing to personally confront the victim. The experiance shown is that the risk factor is a definate impediment to those who want to prey on the rest of society.

Should EVERYONE be armed, of course not. There are those who are not suited for that level of responsibility or have shown themselves to be unable to control themselves. Of the vast majority who are not irresponsible and are qualified to do so, they should have the option to carry if they wish, based on training and qualification for the permit. In other words a "shall issue" situation with completion of the training and recurrancy training. A significant part of the training should also contain not just when and how to shoot, but more importantly when NOT to shoot.

[Terror]

Originally posted by Urchin
No, if NO ONE had a gun there would be no effect on the crime rate.  If I robbed and killed one person a month and nobody was armed, I'd rob and kill 12 people a month.  If a small proportion of people are armed, I'd still rob and kill 12 people a month.. there would be no effect on the overall crime rate.  

Granted, if I were one of the unarmed victims I'd wish I had been one of the armed guys  that got passed over, but the effect on the overall crime rate would be nil.

If you were a bad guy and had a 1 in 20 chance (5%) that your victim you be armed, would you think twice before attacking?  At what point do you think a criminal would have serious second thoughts about committing his crime?  1 in 5 (20%), 1 in 2 (50%).  

I guess my point is:  If you do not enact a CCW type law, there will never be a point that a criminal has second thoughts about committing a crime.  At least with the CCW capability, criminals will start having second thoughts about committing crime due to fear that the intended victim may be able to defend themselves with extreme force.  Having second thoughts does not mean a criminal will not attempt to carry out the crime, but it just may in some cases.  And if he does attempt it, he just may be stopped from committing the crime by a CCW holder.

Terror

[lazs2]

Urchin... in your example...  you would probly move to an area that had no concealled carry laws... And that would be fine with me.  If you were a "gangsta" you would probly be the most threat to your fellow "gangstas" in any case.

Studies show that even with very easy concealed carry laws that only about 10% of the population will carry concealled.. this is fine.

As mav points out... not everyone should.  10% is a meaningfull number to criminals tho...  violent criminals.   It means that they have a 1-10 chance of getting shot if they attack a person while they are alone... if they rob a resteraunt with 10 people in it....they know that someone is likely to be armed and... they don't know who.

If numbers of people carrying concealed had to be higher than 10% the sky marshall program would be worthless.

Most studies show that violent crime goes down with concealled carry but is replaced by "property" crime.   that is also fine so far as I am concearned.

The main thing is that everyone should have the choice... the right to defend yourself is a human and inalienable right.

lazs

[lazs2]

and urchin... if no one were armed in our present society... you may or may not rob or kill any more people but a lot of your cowardly friends might take up the profession.  

There is no such thing as "unarmed"  some people are extremely well armed with nothing but their bare hands.   A group of thugs against one normal man or woman is much better armed than the victim... a club is better than a fist... a knife better yet... a car  whatever.

firearms merely equalize the arms race for older or outnumbered or infirm or female human victims.

Do you believe that the rule of law should be survival of the strongest and most ruthless?   The gun is the law.

criminals should not be allowed to have em.   If you can't keep em out of the hands of criminals and you can't make criminals behave or..... most important..... If you can't guarentee my personal safety and that of everyone else...

then don't try to disarm me.  I take that as a personal attack on my well being.  So no.... I do not wish to be "reasonable" about it unless that means... you carry if you want and I will carry if I want.

lazs

[Urchin]

Originally posted by lazs2
Urchin... in your example...  you would probly move to an area that had no concealled carry laws... And that would be fine with me.  If you were a "gangsta" you would probly be the most threat to your fellow "gangstas" in any case.

Studies show that even with very easy concealed carry laws that only about 10% of the population will carry concealled.. this is fine.

As mav points out... not everyone should.  10% is a meaningfull number to criminals tho...  violent criminals.   It means that they have a 1-10 chance of getting shot if they attack a person while they are alone... if they rob a resteraunt with 10 people in it....they know that someone is likely to be armed and... they don't know who.

If numbers of people carrying concealed had to be higher than 10% the sky marshall program would be worthless.

Most studies show that violent crime goes down with concealled carry but is replaced by "property" crime.   that is also fine so far as I am concearned.

The main thing is that everyone should have the choice... the right to defend yourself is a human and inalienable right.

lazs

Lazs, out of the 50 states in the union... only 2 have no sort of concealed carry laws.  Hell, even Maryland has one, and Baltimore is a drug and crime infested sewer.

I actually don't disagree with anyone who thinks there is an inalieable right to bear arms.  I agree completely - it is one of the only things that can keep the government (and by extension, the wealthy) at bay.

I was pointing out that the author of the study in question was not lying when he said that concealed carry *laws* have little to no effect on the crime rate, and pointed out why.  

By the way, I did a (very) little bit of checking.  Florida, which I believe is the latest state with a "shall issue" CCW law, has ~1.5% of the population making use of it (granted, I looked the numbers up on Wiki, but they are usually pretty accurate).  

1.5% is not a very large percentage of the population.  I am not a criminal, so I couldnt say if a 15/1000 chance of my victim being armed would deter me from crime, but I rather doubt it.

[john9001]

Urchin
 you are wrong and i will explain why.

some time ago Florida was known for attacks on tourists, it was because rental cars were clearly marked as rental cars and bad guys know foreign tourists do not carry guns.

 because of that the law was changed to make rentals look just like local cars, no bumper stickers or special tags.

after that happened attacks on tourists dropped to nothing because the bad guys didn't know who was a unarmed tourist and who was a armed Floridian.


a armed Floridian.

[Dead Man Flying]

Your convincing empirical analysis has persuaded me that Urchin is wrong, john9001.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[john9001]

Originally posted by Dead Man Flying
Your convincing empirical analysis has persuaded me that Urchin is wrong, john9001.

-- Todd/Leviathn

who are you going to believe, some so-called "expert" with a agenda or me, a brave and loyal virtual fighter pilot from AH?

[lazs2]

Several studies show that overall crime changes little when concealed carry permits are issued (crooks will be crooks) but..

The number of violent crimes drops.  property crime may and often does increase but violent crime drops.  In the study in question several of the states studied had cc laws but had issued very few permits.

Florida is a good state to look at because it has so many permits issued and had such a high violent crime rate before a lot of permits were issued.

Florida had a real problem with a huge spike in violent crimes to about 1200-1300 a year per 100k for about 10 years... they enacated cc laws and issued permits and violent crime dropped to 800.

concealled carry works in slowing violent crime and allows people to take responsibility for their own safety.

http://www.beast-enterprises.com/ccw.html

[Debonair]

I dont need a gun
I'm a ninja

[lazs2]

so far as I am concerned.... You should not be forced to get one then.

lazs