Right-to-carry guns is proven way to reduce the crime rate

The Oakland Press ^ | March 24, 2004

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Some Daily Oakland Press readers had mixed emotions last week when we reported a Farmington Hills woman had frightened away would-be robbers because she was legally carrying a gun. They praised us for printing the story, but wished we'd put it on the front page.

It may be the first such local story we've printed or known of - and that was because the chief of police there wisely brought it to public attention.

The successful threat of a weapon in the hands of a potential crime victim is an event that rarely becomes public.

This surely was not the only such happy ending since Michigan residents were permitted by the state Legislature to exercise a constitutional right to keep and bear arms about five years ago.

Before the law was passed people outside the law enforcement community rarely were granted concealed weapons permits. The main qualification of too many who did get them was political clout of some kind.

Regular people typically didn't bother to apply.

Those in opposition feared we'd set off a bloodbath. Their theory was we'd all become armed and we'd start shooting each other at the slightest provocation.

We even had made some schools "gun-free zones," thus telling violent criminals they're safe. Many school massacres most likely could have been prevented or stopped had someone on the premises been armed.

Guns in the house are not necessarily a great hazard, either. National data at the time of the debate showed just 44 gun-related deaths at home of children under 10.

You can bet opponents of the change would be shouting "I told you so" if it had been followed by so much as an upward blip in handguns involved in crimes, household accidents, domestic assaults and so forth - all the things that were confidently predicted.

One of the reasons nothing changed is because the vast majority of those who were granted licenses under the new law already owned the guns and had been carrying them as they saw fit. They just wanted to be able to go about their business without being lawbreakers.

But elsewhere, widely publicized liberalization of so-called right-to-carry laws actually has been linked to a reduced crime rate. Would-be felons apparently think twice before taking somebody on.

Florida had passed a similar law before Michigan acted and noted a sudden increase in crimes against tourists - people driving cars with rental-company decals or out-of-state license plates.

The assumption is the bad guys figured those drivers would be much less likely to be armed and dangerous than a Floridian.

In Great Britain, the crime rate increased over the decades, tracking right along with a steady crackdown on the citizen ownership and carrying of weapons.

Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer has done us all a favor by reminding us that the right-to-carry law is there and can protect us. And he is reminding would-be criminals of the same thing.

[4CJ]

Many school massacres most likely could have been prevented or stopped had someone on the premises been armed.

Bump.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Is the Oakland Press a new paper? How can they print an article like this without getting run out of town???

[Pearls Before Swine]

I'm for more CCW, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of a Laffer curve in there--that is, an optimum weapons density for civil order. In Palestine, or in Iraq, or Afghanistan, the populace and the nuts are heavily armed, and very effective weapons -- e.g., RPGs and explosives are all too easy to find. On the other hand, here in the USA, the criminal element is well-armed while the government often tries hard to keep the law-abiding populace from protecting itself. And, in the UK and Australia -- fageddabout it. Just a thought.

There's also the Singapore solution. Any use of firearms is treated extremely harshly, as are many other offenses. That works until the government itself turns on you.

[coloradan]

Any use of firearms is treated extremely harshly, as are many other offenses. That works until the government itself turns on you.

And the odds that that will happen are pretty good. In the last 100 years, many, many more civilians were killed by their own governments than by criminals or even as combatants in wartime. "It is a mistake a free people get to make only once" according to a dissenting judge from the Ninth Circus.

[Wisard]

It all depends on which end of the Gun YOU are facing or another way to think is whose holding the gun?

[MD_Willington_1976]

I just posted this to the local student rag..er I mean paper...

RE: Wednesday issue of the Daily Evergreen (March 24, 2004 Volume 110, No127.)

On the front page "...Police Urge precautionary measures..." Leila Summers reported Chris Wuthruck's statement ". If an attacker knows more about guns than the potential victim, he could take the weapon and use it in the crime...". His statement is probably based on liabilities imposed on the WSU campus ie, the university does not want to be involved in a wrongfull death dispute or use of deadly force dispute.

I am not a "gun nut" but I do support the second amendment, I personally do not own any firearms or advocate the use of them without proper training. I do believe that Chris Wuthruck's statement is incorrect and would like to present the following facts with sources:

Guns are not a good deterrent to crime.
Fact: Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. . Often the gun is never fired and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed. Just showing a gun prevents every day 550 rapes, 1,100 murders and 5,200 other violent crimes. In less than 0.9% of the time is the gun ever actually fired. (Dr. Gary Kleck, Criminologist, Florida State University).

Fact: 60% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. 40% of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed. (Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms)

Fact: Washington, D.C., has banned gun ownership and has a per capita murder rate of 56.9, according to the FBI report "Crime in the United States". Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, gun ownership is not regulated, and the murder rate is a mere 1.6 per capita.

Guns are not effective in preventing crime against women
Fact: When women are armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of attempted rapes are successful, compared to
32% when unarmed (U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape
Victimization in 26 American Cities 1979).

Fact: The probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: offering no resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun. (Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey)

Fact: 28.5% of women have a gun in the house. (Smith, T: 2001 National Gun Policy Survey of the National Opinion Research Center: Research Findings.
National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, December 2001.)

Thank you for your time

MD Willington.