Conceal Carry Laws reduce violent crime

I hope for an enjoyable and civil debate. The logic: deterrence If violent acts occur due to emotional problems (very common), random emotions, this concludes stronger penalties would deter the amount of people who actually commit the act. The questions are: Do criminals respond to disincentives? Do emotions influence crime? The answer is likely yes, to an extent. General deterrence theory, this is more of the evolution of crime (evolution is a solid theory, so is deterrence theory), explains all of this. The theory claims increasing the possible punishment, or apprehension, makes it less likely for people to commit the crimes that have the increased punishment. Gary S. baker in his study shows that the data is on deterrence side, and that criminals often act as we do, and weigh cost and benefits. [1] The point being if we increase the possible problems a criminal will run into, they will likely think twice before committing this crime. Now an example is Mr. White is assistant manager and his boss, Mr. Smith, was promoted so there was a vacant manager spot. Smith was in control of who took his place. He choose Mr. Otero instead, and left White in his same spot. White was angry, but did not show it. When he got home, in his anger, he kicked his dog across the room and then wept. (yes, I know poor dog.) But if he was angry at Smith, why did he not hit him? Or throw things at Otero for taking his spot. With this we may assume this was just an irrational act. But contrary, he responded to deterrence. If he hit Otero, he would likely not get promoted, and would likely be fired. If he hit Smith, he would get fired as well. He would also likely be arrested for assault, or they would fight back in defense. Point being if he kicked his dog it would be harder for people to have found out and there would be less consequences. As we can see deterrence works. Now lets change the scenario. White is married, and his wife the head of PETA. His next door neighbor a cop, and his dog a bull Mastiff. If he truly wanted to hit something alive, he would likely find another victim. Even if we take out some of these factors, he would still be less likely to do it as this increases his chance of injury or being caught for animal abuse. Point being, deterrence works. Almost always. Criminals weigh the pros and the cons. CCW (conceal carry) means they do not know who is armed. The fear of the possible injury to them, and the mystery of not knowing if old granny packs a .45 pistol will likely make him say "hey, that may not be beneficial". Data: Just the boring data Here is the debate, as without data mere deterrence theory objections are non conclusive. Now there are many data sets, graphs, and conclusions in the 16 studies that prove my point. I will first point out in Lotts book (first part his 1997-92 data) he finds Violent crime overall drops 4.9%. To break into sub sets:Murder drops 7.7%Rape drops 5.3%Robbery drops 2.2%Assault drops 7.01% [2]As we can see, the large drops in crime after the laws (immediate effects lead to a strong correlation). Now one could argue this is just a result of a basic crime cycle, these laws are passed right when crime is barely decreasing from a high point or is still increasing. The average crime trends in the years before these laws where enacted was about minus 0.9% in violent crime. This means the other 4% can be made up of other factors. Using regressions and dummy variables Lott finds that the majority of the drop in crime is indeed linked to CCW laws. [2]Now when Lott thought other gun policy might be occurring. Other laws may be enacted. After all of these variables where entered, he still got a 4.2% decrease in violent crime due to this CCW law, and the logic was still basic deterrence theory. Now the last part was overall (rural and city) data. In his 5th chapter, he gives a run down of the data for counties with population of 100,000 or more. In these urban areas, he found even larger results. (with a more crowded area crime is more common, a drop in crime here means deterrence at its finest). He found even larger results here! Murder dropped 9.7%, arrest rates fell, Murders with guns, again murders with guns, dropped 9%, and murders without guns dropped 8.9%. [2] So in his early data, 1977-1994 we saw huge beneficial results. In his 1977-2000 data he saw even larger decreases, as the trend continued, and he even saw increased issued permits corresponded with lower crime. In other words, more people with permits and guns less crime. With 1,000 more permit holders, there where 0.3 fewer murders, 2.4 fewer rapes, 21 fewer robberies, and 14.1 fewer aggravated assaults. Now, if there is a 1% change in the share of state population with permits violet crime drops 7%. [2] These percentages may seem confusing to less keen readers, so here is the actual amount of average lives saved when a 1% change occurs:432 less murders 3,862 fewer rapes35,014 fewer robberies 28,562 fewer assaults 144,227 fewer robberies[2]Also note 5% of PA's population has a permit, so a CCW law with a 1% change like this is very realistic. And about 2.03% of the US population has these permits.This indicates more permits (the law leads to more permits, hence this is relevant) less crime. Now lets look into his 2010 data. Simple before after averages: - 4.5% in murder, - 5.7% in rape, -1% in robbery, and - 5.9% in Assault. Annual trend: -1.5% in Murder, - 1.2% in Rape, -0.6% in robbery, -0.7% in Assault [2]**Note I know a few states may have more, less, or different results, but on average these are the results. My opponent will likely show a few states with small increases, but again this is refutable and does not refute this as it is an averageStates that adopted these laws in the 80s saw the largest benefits, the ones in the 90s also had substantial ground, the ones in 2000 and after saw benefits but as the trend is not long enough it is non-conclusive. ---> Other studies?Readers might ask is Lott the only one that found this hypothesis? Is he a loner and am I cherry picking data? No, I am not. A good/solid science is one that is replicable. 19 studies prove Lott's thesis, and 20 if you count his 2003 book. 11 studies show it has no effect, and 2 studies claim it raises crime (both of with NOT ACADEMICALLY REFEREED). Also note my opponent is arguing it raises crime, so he might have some trouble. Plassman and Whitley study: "Analyzing county-level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000,we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5% and 2.3% for eachadditional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect."[3] And the other I feel like citing (out of my other 18 options):Moody And Marvel Study: "In Table 2 we list the key research items of the debate. In our judgment, theweight of evidence—particularly that of peer-review—indicates that shall-issuelaws reduce crime."[4] CONCLUSION:Using Lotts data, and proving his accuracy by showing other studies have similar results, I think we can conclude that PRO has proved CCW leads to less violent crime. VOTE PROSources:http://www.debate.org...