Support for concealed weapons is lower in high-crime areas

Duluth New-Tribune ^ | Apr. 14, 2003 | JIM RAGSDALE

[jdege]

This is the longer version of a story that the St. Paul Pioneer Press printed less than half of:In the concealed-weapons debate, is compromise possible?

[Support Free Republic]

Hi mom!

[tracer]

Democrats is as Democrats does.....

[Redbob]

"Support for concealed weapons is lower in high-crime high-Dimocrat areas"

What they shoulda said.

[jdege]

Bang!

[jdege]

Support for concealed weapons is lower in high-crime high-Dimocrat areas"

Is there a difference?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Truthfully, no. High crime areas invariable vote for the Rat candidates.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I find it simply insane and/or evil that the representatives of the people that NEED a CC permit are the LEAST likely to vote for them to have it.

[jdege]

In Minneapolis, you can have a deranged ex-boyfriend nailing dead cats to your door, and the chief will not consider it as sufficient need to issue a permit.

If, on the other hand, you live in Crow Wing County, the possibility that you might possibly drive to Minneapolis someday is considered sufficient need.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Is there really a Crow Wing County in Minnesota? If so, the sheriff of that county has his head on straight.

[jimkress]

Support for concealed weapons is lower in high-crime areas

There is no factual basis for the authors claim. He certainly doesn't provide one in this hit-piece.

[jdege]

Is there really a "Crow Wing County?"

Read the article:

Brainerd, a city of 13,421, had 109 valid concealed-weapons permits last year -- just a few less than St. Paul, which had 122 permits and a population of 287,260. Crow Wing County, the southern edge of a vast area that might be called Minnesota's Gun Belt, received 1,018 applications last year and approved 98 percent of them.

[Luna]

I don't ever want to be in a situation where the police department is a second choice and the first option is, all of a sudden, taking it into your own hands."

That's right. Rely on the police rather than protecting your family and property yourself if the time comes. Who cares if the police arrive too late? We all know that having a dead victim is morally superior to having a dead perp. [sarsasm]

[archy]

The main topics of discussion included a businessman's proposal to manufacture sausage in an abandoned building, a pitch for a car-sharing system from an environmental group and whether the Frogtown Festival should be merged with National Night Out.

[epow]

How can any sensible person totally ignore the experience of the 30-odd states which already have shall-issue CCW statutes, and have seen their crime rates plummet after they were enacted? How dumb do you have to be to believe you're in greater danger from criminals if you carry a gun than if you're an unarmed and helpless victim? Unfreakinbelievable morons.

When I lived in Fl the media worked themselves into a hysterical nervous breakdown when the 1987 shall-issue law was passed. The nightly news and the editorial pages were filled with predictions of bloody shootouts at every street corner, of neighbors slaughtering neighbors over minor arguments, and of virtually every car on the freeways being riddled with bullets from enraged motorists firing at one another as in the old gangster movies.

Of course, what actually happpened was that none of the above occurred, but what did occur was that the FL murder rate fell by 27% in the next five years, burglary and armed robbery rates declined substantially, and only one CCW permitee was charged with using a gun in the commission of a crime.

When I left the state in '96 I was still waiting for the media clowns to admit they were 180 degrees wrong. Still waiting.

[jjm2111]

Klang said weapons are often taken from their owners and used against them and he has doubts about how well civilians can perform when faced with the life-or-death decisions that law enforcement officials train and study for years to learn how to handle.

That is the biggest load of horse hockey. You try taking away the someone's .45. He is transposing the real danger for a cop having his weapon taken when restraining a suspect from the completely imagined danger of a civilian losing her drawn weapon when faced with a knife-weilding criminal. "Life-or-death" decisions. Please. If a bad guy is trying to kill you, it's not that hard to know what to do: Run or fight. You think a Sherriff would know better.

"There's absolutely, really no reason to be carrying a gun on your person," Klang said. "But it's our Second Amendment right." He said he worries how the presence of guns at a chaotic scene will affect law enforcement. "We show up on the scene -- how are we to know who the good guys or the bad guys are?" he asked.

God forbid we inconvenience the cops by demanding that we are allowed to protect ourselves.

Ultimately, there may be no way to work out the argument for the individual right to self-defense and the position that the social good requires limits on that right.

The author of the article goofs big time here. "Social good" (a typically undefined socialist term) does not abrogate one's right to defend himself. The only logical argument FOR gun control is keeping weapons out of would-be criminals. Even a lefty could not argue that limiting the right of self-defense is some sort of "social good".

[butter pecan fan]

He said he worries how the presence of guns at a chaotic scene will affect law enforcement. "We show up on the scene -- how are we to know who the good guys or the bad guys are?" he asked.

Here we have a fool of a sheriff as much as publicly admitting that he currently assumes any armed person who is not a policeman is a criminal.

[jdege]

Worse yet, he's assuming that because he works in a town that doesn't issue permits, he doesn't need to worry about whether the civilians his officers encounter are armed.

[TYVets]

Law Enforcement is not present when 99% of crimes are comented.

All you unarmed citizens can relax knowing that fact. (driping with sarsasm)

[F.J. Mitchell]

This wasn't the longer version of the story? Surely you jest.

These people are obviously addicted to being victimized. Another form of perversion has been exposed here.