Conceal carry laws decrease violent crime

As noted, I argue that conceal handgun laws LOWER violent crime. Deterrence (use with argument below)A common misconception throughout Europe is less guns equal less crime, and the same argument applies in current US media, all claiming guns and conceal carry are evil. Now before we claim criminals can be deterred, we must first ask can they be deterred? The answer is yes, as many economic studies (studies done by economists) find when increased punishments or possible problems occur when doing the crime the negative outweigh the positives of committing the crime, and then they are less likely to commit the crime. Now we must ask why are they deterred by this? The answer is self explanatory, but I shall point out the obvious: They want self preservation, they want to be able to get away with their deeds. Also many surveys conducted show that criminals are more scared of people with guns then police officers, as if the gun is hidden they may be attacked back without warning (polices warning is the uniform). Now, lets look at a thing Lott calls a "hot burglary. " This is when a criminal strikes when a person is already at home. In Canada and England, where gun control is very strict, almost half of the burglaries where hot. In contrast, 13% in america where hot. Now what is the reason? Because they think they may get shot, they say robbing at night when people are home is the best way to get shot, they would rather case a house. This proves they fear guns. Now, lets use some examples of deterrence. Lott uses the literal example of apples and oranges. He says if the price of apples increases while the price of oranges decreases apples sales will decrease, while orange sales will stay the same or increase. This shows the human oh it has consequences effect. Is open carry and conceal carry different, when it comes to deterrence? When a concealed carry permit holder has a gun, it is harder to actually tell if they have a gun. Criminals wont know if they are attacking an old lady, or an old lady packing a .45 Springfield in her purse. This raises the risk to criminals, hence also their preservation. Whereas open carry is much less scary, as you know who not to annoy, and not to annoy anyone around him (as he may help the other person). The conceal carry laws threaten the criminals more. The empirical data Law Passed Murder fell 7.7%, Rape fell 5.3%, Aggravated assault by 7.01%, robbery 2.2%, Burglary .5%, Larceny 3.3%, Auto 7.1%. [1] (1977-1997 data)Other data, his 1999 data, shows a better outcome of a 10% decrease in murder, and the other categories too had a larger decrease in crime, hence CCW in hi later data was slightly revised in new data sets. Lotts early data can be found in #2. Now lets look at PA. They had a drop in murder of about 26%, and overall violent crime drop of 5.3%. Now, one of the criticisms of this basic trend is just because the drop happened after the law, we can also look at other variables, the most common one is arrest rates. Lott makes many dummy variables, tables, and to the best of his ability shows CCW laws where a significant portion of the decrease. [1] Another reasons he concludes the drop is because when there is a spike in people who have permits there is a decrease in violent crimes. To get more local statistics, lets look at his findings in some states. In Oregon, for example, murder dropped 37% after the law was passed. Now, there are other variables he accounted for in the third addition making his data superior to the first. He did other dummy data sets, and still finds CCW had a large portion of the deterrence an drop in crimes. [1] Now, it is logical to assume they actually decrease crime due to my deterrent argument above. The CATO study also finds similar reasons why it would actually decrease crime. They also fund similar accounts of data, and they conclude the Florida CCW law was positive and the other states that passed these laws also had a positive showing. Another question that must be answered: would it increase or decrease mass public crimes? Now, as this is a valid fear, see the recent shootings in Chicago I believe, or Virginia tech. But to define shootings/killings, we must look into what is defined by. It is defined as a public shooting in a place where 2 or more people are killed or injured. Now based n his data in figure 5.1, he found the likelihood of a state to have this happen was about 60%, a little more. After the conceal carry law was passed, data and trends suggests the state now has only a 1% chance of these types of shootings in areas where conceal carry holders are allowed. [1] I may have misphrased the argument here: the likelihood of deaths or injuries when the crime occurs. Essentially saying conceal carry laws make it harder for the psycho to kill when in the area where a conceal carry permit holder resides. Now, another question would be does it lower crime committed with guns? This argument used is common amongst people trying to go against conceal carry laws. But this is not the case. In the new 2010 edition of source 1, it finds a 9% decrease in murders with guns after non-discretionary laws are passed. Murders with non handguns dropped at a similar rate, 8.9%. "If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravate assaults would have been avoided yearly. " [1] [2] (1997 study)Summary of argument: source: [1], and "the conceal handgun debate", john lott.