The reason is not concealed carry. There might be a concealed carry correlation, but that is not responsible for the crime rate decrease.
The reason for the crime rate decrease is the actual murder rate in previous reporting periods. What happened was that many bad criminals were murdered and the crime rate subsequently declined
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Conceal/Carry may have some minor effect but it's too soon to tell really. We'd have to see the longer term crime rates going forward to see what the real story is.
I will say this: Typically every spring there's a huge SURGE in shootings/murders in Chicago. The murder rate always drops in the winter, I guess the gang bangers hate the cold weather.
This winter was MUCH colder than normal and this spring has also been much colder than normal and THAT is probably the reason why the fourth quarter/2013 and first quarter/2014 murder rates are down so much. December through March have been the four coldest months EVER recorded in Chicago. The average daily temperature was 17-23 degrees BELOW NORMAL. That kept alot of people including the gang-bangers inside most of the winter.
Wait till the temperature gets above 60 degrees in Chicago --- that's when the murderin' is gonna start back up.
Sorry, Bert, but it just ain't so. That culture breeds like rabbits (it boosts welfare income), and replenishes itself enough to more than make up for the loss of a few hundred baby-daddys a year.