Concealed Carry Laws Decrease Violent Crime

As Robert Cottrol, JD, PhD, Professor of Law and History at George Washington University, wrote in the article "Gun Control Is Racist, Sexist, and Classist" published in the Sept. 1999 issue of American Enterprise: "In recent years a majority of states have passed laws permitting honest citizens to carry concealed weapons, and the results tell us much about self-defense and the responsibility of the average citizen. Once it was passionately argued that such laws would turn minor altercations into bloody shoot-outs; now we know better. Over 1 million Americans have licenses to carry firearms, but firearms misuse by this group has been utterly negligible. Criminologists now debate not how much harm has been caused by concealed-carry laws, but how much good. .. [A right to bear arms] says the individual is not simply a helpless bystander in the difficult and dangerous task of ensuring his or her safety. Instead, the citizen is an active participant, an equal partner with the state in ensuring not only his own safety but that of his community. This is a serious right for serious people. It takes the individual from servile dependency on the state to the status of participating citizen, capable of making intelligent choices in defense of one's life and ultimately one's freedom. This conception of citizenship recognizes that the ultimate civil right is the right to defend one's own life, that without that right all other rights are meaningless, and that without the means of self-defense the right to self-defense is but an empty promise. " In other words, concealed carry laws are very beneficial to the community. It allows people to protect others. Here are some statistics from Campuscarry. com: 1. At the start of the 2010 fall semester, 14 Colorado community colleges (38 campuses) began allowing licensed concealed carry on campus. 2. Since the fall semester of 2006, Utah state law has allowed licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on the campuses of Utah's nine degree-offering public colleges (20 campuses) and one public technical college (10 campuses). 3. Concealed carry has been allowed on the two campuses of Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO, and Pueblo, CO) since 2003 and at Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA) since 1995. 4. After allowing concealed carry on campus for an average of more than three years (as of June 2011), none of these 26 colleges (71 campuses) has seen a single resulting incident of gun violence (including threats and suicides) or a single resulting gun accident. When we look at the concealed carry movement as a whole, from its beginnings in the late 1980s to the present, we see a huge increase in the number of people with carry permits, from around one million in 1987 to around six million today. Now here's the kicker: during this same time frame, violent crime has fallen to record lows in America, hovering nationwide at rates not seen since the early 1960s. Historic numbers of guns in the hands of private citizens, who are increasingly carrying those guns in public, and a dramatic, ongoing drop in violent crime. Now there's something to think about! Tactically speaking, the element of surprise is a great thing. If someone doesn't know you have a firearm, then they can't tactically adjust them selves for that. If they were to try and rob you and you pull a firearm they didn't know about, that surprises most criminals, not all, but most. Something they were not expecting has the potential to rattle cages. Plus when you are out in public I think people are less likely to be jumpy or nervous if they don't see a firearm on your side and no badge on your shirt. Again, not all people would respond that way I wouldn't think, but some might. . http://concealedguns.procon.org... . http://www.campuscarry.com... . http://blog.chegg.com... . http://www.usconcealedcarry.net... . http://www.usacarry.com...