As Prof. Steven Levitt concluded in 2004, “Ultimately, there appears to be little basis for believing that concealed weapons laws have had an appreciable impact on crime.”
Well, that’s odd. A couple hours ago they were pushing stories that would lead one to believe that CCW holders were murdering sons of bitches laying in wait for their moment of rage.
Well, more blood dancing from the Brady Campaign
What struck me most about this report was how they closed it out:
By the way, this makes the third concealed carry permit-holder charged with murder since July 5.A fourth has recently pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Seriously? Okay, for one they’re making a big deal about just being charged with murder. There haven’t actually been convicted yet , but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re eventually all convicted. We’ll presume 4 murders by CCW holders from July 5 to July 17th.
Four. That’s not a huge number.
In 2006 there were 17,034 murder convictions in the US. That means we’re rolling about 1400 murders in this country every month. That’s about 700 every two weeks, roughly the same time frame that we’re dealing with from July 5 to 17. Of course, I’m totally ignoring the simple fact that homicides and murders increase during the summer months. It’d hunt those numbers down but that isn’t really needed right now.
Presuming that we’re working with an even distribution, which we aren’t, that would mean that CCW holders are responsible for about 0.5% of the murders in this time period.
So, in order for the “ZOMG!11 CCW HOLDERS ARE MURDERERS IN WAITING” argument to make sense CCW holders would have to make up less than 0.5% of the population. From what I gather it’s actually closer to 1% overall, which would indicate that even with the numbers stacked against us, ignoring the summer months, and cherry picking a time span where 4 CCW holders comitted a murder you’re still half as likely to commit a murder if you have a CCW permit than the population at large.
On the other hand, presuming my 1% CCW rate is correct, if there actually were an even distribution then we’d see about 170 muders by CCW holders a year. That’s about 14 a month. 3 a week. Constant.
Guess what? Ain’t happening.
So it’s safe to presume that the murder rate is lower amongst CCW holders when compared to the general population.
Think about that.
Folks that certainly own a gun, and that can legally carry it around town with them, very capable of committing murder within seconds… don’t. At least not with any regularity to make a significant impact on national figures.
Now, if I were a moron I’d proclaim from on high that issuance of CCW permits would dramatically lower the murder rate, but I’m not a moron, at least not in this instance. That’d be about as dumb as the Kellerman study that says just keeping a gun in the house makes you 43 17 12 times more likely to be killed by a gun. Ain’t the gun that changed the odds, just like it isn’t the permit that changes things.
It’s the people.
Had a little bit of brain lock today while working. It happens to me when I try and work on two things at once. I hate that. The best way for me to get out of it is to take a short break and go back to work once I stop trying to solve both problems at the same time.
So, I took a 15 minute break and hit the range today around the time most folks would be eating lunch.
So, as a law-abiding gun owner I unlocked my gun room, unlocked the safe, removed a pistol, verified that it was unloaded, wiped up a little extra oil that I found on it, verified that it was unloaded again, cased it up, placed it in my vehicle in an area where I could not reach it while driving as per Michigan law, drove to the range, shot for about 10 minutes, and reversed the whole process when I got home.