I have used guns since I was 10, have owned my own since I was 21 and have had a carry permit for 15 years. And, no, I never consulted any studies because I am safe, proficient and comfortable with firearms. So, I see what you are getting at, I suppose. But I would give the same answer about owning and driving a car, or a chain saw, or a ladder, or a fire extinguisher. They are all useful, and if used safely, the benefits outweigh the dangers.
Great! My point is not that you shouldn’t carry a gun around. My point is, you did not consider public safety when you decided to start doing it. You don’t actually know if you are safer carrying the gun around, nor do you know if the public is safer with you carrying it around. Because that information is irrelevant.
I’m fairly certain I can find studies that recommend the placing of fire extinguishers in one’s house and/or car. But that’s not really my point.
They can carry, but not concealed. Many peopel don’t like to carry open, but prefer to carry concealed. So increasing the number of people who can carry concealed will increase the number of people carrying overall by significantly more than open carry laws.
I also point out that as more people have guns legally and responsibly, the more people will think that having and carrying a gun is the trendy thing to do, and they are not as likely to be as legal and responsible as the first cohort.
Your argument would work much better if there were no accidents with guns carried in public, then you could say “look, we’ve increased the number of guns carried in public, and still no accidents.”, but instead, you do see that there are accidents with people carrying guns in public, and say that it doesn’t seem that, with the current fairly small uptick in the number of people carrying in public, there has not been a larger uptick in accidents. Both carrying in public and having an accident in public are enough of statistical outliers that there is too much noise in the data to say that when you have a 5% increase in carrying (from 1% of the public to 1.05% of the public), and don’t have a 5% increase in gun accidents, that you can extrapolate that to when 5, 10, or 25% of the public is carrying.
Depends on how the bill turns out. My understanding, which could be wrong, but I have stated in this thread and not been corrected, is that you can get a non-resident CCW from another sate, and have that honored in your home state. This means that states will have an incentive to have race to the bottom, and people can go shopping for the easiest state to get their permit, or find the state that they are qualified for.
This is not allowing people to drive across state lines, in your example, you can already do that because the states have voluntarily given reciprocity to each other. If A state decided to drop it’s age requirement, or other requirement for a driver’s license, another state could refuse to honor those licenses.
And this is the same as the current situation, where states have voluntarily entered into reciprocity with other states that they feel meet their standards. To take it back to the driver’s license analogy, this would be like forcing states to honor the license of a state that allows 12 year olds to drive with no training or testing.
Some people refuse to wear their seatbelt, because they “feel” safer without it (something about “thrown clear”), even though all available statistics and studies will tell them that they, and those around them, would be much safer for wearing it.
You can’t reason someone out of a feeling.
I’m not talking about open carry, though it’s fine to to include. Laws in most states have become increasingly permissive in regards to concealed carry and the fear about greater number of accidents and crime has not materialized. The point stands, this line of argument is particularly weak.
This is essentially an appeal to ignorance which would be a poor argument unto itself. As it happens, it’s also wrong on the facts. What you characterize as a “small uptick in the number of people carrying” is really an increase in the number of CCW permit holders going from roughly 2.7M permit holders in 1999 (the earliest I can find commonly repeated stats for) to approximately 14.5M in 2016. That’s an increase of 400%? What do you think the accident and crime figures have done over that time? Like I said, this whole line of argument is weak.
For the people that live in one of the 41 free states, if they want to carry they can already do so. I would expect this to only impact those 9 states that are no-issue and there is no reason to expect them to behave significantly differently than the other states that have gone shall issue.
I don’t know. I believe there was a period in which people could get an out-of-state permit from Florida or Utah even if they didn’t have one in their own state because their home state made it too difficult (fees, tests, etc.), and still recognized an out-of-state license. I think states made that practice impossible or unwieldy. But I have not dug through all 50 states on any of the websites to see if that’s true or not. I find it hard to believe any states allow their residents to use an out-of-state permit in place of a home state one.
Two counterpoints here.
The number of CCW holders has gone up, yes, quite dramatically, from 1% of the population to nearly 5% of the population, a 400% increase. But still a pretty small minority.
Out of the people with CCW’s, or otherwise legal carry, the number of people actually carrying on a day to day basis, not nearly as much.
My concern is when the number of guns carried in public is no longer a statistical outlier (more people believe in UFO’s than have a CCW), because the standards to acquire one have lowered, and the trendiness of carrying has increased.
This is true currently, but we are talking about a bill that may change that. Like I said, my understanding of reading the bill is that it would require states to honor non-resident CCWs from other states. That would make what you find hard to believe the law of the land.
I am definitely safer. No question about it. I am better able to defend myself and my family against violent crime. Why do I need to consult studies for that?
Is the public safer if I carry a gun vs. if I do not? Possibly no, possibly yes. While the public in general might be infinitesimally less safe because there is one more gun out there (mine), the public is safer because I can defend myself and my family against vioent crime and, depending on the situation, I could also defend John or Jane Q. Public against violent crime imminently upon them.
Safety to the public is definitely my concern. It is definitely relevant, always.
So in a place where there is shall issue and this hasn’t happened, would that allay your concern? In those places, anyone who wants to carry and is not prohibited can already do so and yet what you are concerned about has not come to pass. This seems exactly like FUD that discounts the actual evidence in those places.
No question about it? Of course there is a question about it, that’s sort of the point. You THINK you are safer. But nothing you can produce shows that you actually ARE safer. Maybe carrying around a gun makes you a target? Maybe people who pull a gun when they are getting robbed are more likely to get shot? Maybe people who carry a gun save 100s of people a year? The point is, you don’t know. You only THINK you know.
So if a study came out saying people who carry a gun around in public are more likely to die during a robbery than those who don’t, you would stop carrying? I highly doubt it. In fact, I would surmise that no matter what study came out that ends with “therefore, carrying a gun around is actually less safe than carrying one” you wouldn’t stop carrying.
Again, I’m not advocating that you NOT carry, as is your right. Just don’t pretend that carrying automatically makes the public safer, no matter how much you may think that is the case.
I’m not trying to reason someone out of carrying a gun. It’s their right. I just hate the automatic assumption that it makes society safer, based on nothing except “I feel safer, therefore I am”
I have said that there are many with CCWs who, IMHO, don’t deserve to carry, aren’t qualified (IMO) to carry, and shouldn’t carry. They make things less safe by carrying. But I trust myself to carry. Yes it’s a double standard, I fully admit that.
I think you are putting way too much faith in studies. There are studies out there showing a wide gamut of conclusions, all kind of shaky IMO. Ones quoted by gun control advocates ignore all of the times guns are used without any shots being fired. Ones used by gun rights advocates are more valid, IMO, but are still based on relatively little data.
But in the end, what does any statistical data mean to the guy who lives alone in the country 30 miles from the nearest police station. Or the family who lives in a trailer park that is becoming ridden with drug activity and crime. Or the woman who lives in a poor urban neighborhood that has gang activity. Or the father who lives in Alaska where dangerous bears are common. Or the guy like me who lives in a very safe area, but occasionally travels to work in sketchy neighborhoods in nearby cities in other states. Frankly, it’s easy for people who don’t hunt, don’t target shoot, have not grown up with guns and don’t understand the culture one iota to say all of these people are irrational or paranoid or nutty.
As for the bills being discussed, a huge number of people live near state borders and regularly cross back and forth. Most of the population in PA lives near borders with “not-free” states that don’t recognize our carry permits (four of the six states that border PA). And, no, it is not within the letter of the law to simply lock up your gun and ammo in your trunk if you venture into NY, NJ, DE or MD. Those rules are intended for people without a permit who are a) going to and from home and a gunsmith, range, etc., or b) people with or without a permit traveling through a state to get from home and another area that recognizes the second amendment (second home, vacation spot, hunting location, shooting event, etc.). Under these conditions, you are not even allowed to stop at a restaurant, but must continue directly on your way from point A to point B.
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
As the saying goes.
Does NJ require people who have a driver’s license from another state to remove the sparkplugs from their car as soon as they cross the state line into NJ?
That’s the whole purpose of a national act - it removes obstacles like that.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is perhaps the most pristine example of awful logic I have ever seen on this board.
“New Jersey doesn’t require drivers to remove spark plugs, therefore we need Federal laws so New Jersey can’t do that.”
More of a pristine case of you missing his point. What he meant, and I expect you really understood, is that NJ’s present laws about guns, if applied to cars, are AS IF when you drive into NJ you have to disable your car. His point is that since NJ doesn’t have such a law about cars, they ought not have one for guns either. But you knew that.
Well, an example of a law/restriction that does already exist is tinted windows. The tinting restrictions vary widely from state to state. People drive through non-home states all the time. Some states (NY) except out-of-state vehicles from tinting regulations but most do not make such a distinction.
So if you’re from Texas with 25% VLT windshield, you can (and most probably will) be ticketed in Illinois (which has stricter tinting laws) or Virginia (where no tinting of windshield is allowed). I think that’s pretty ridiculous, but that’s how it is.
Back towards the beginning of the thread I mentioned PA not ticketing cars from states that don’t require inspection stickers. Somebody else mentioned that states that require front license plates don’t ticket cars from states that have only rear plates. So, WRT cars it would seem that states pick and choose what they will accept from other states whether it is sensible or not. This proposed legislationattempts to eliminate that sort of situation WRT carry permits.
It’s been a while since this case has been on my radar, but IIRC, even by being subjected to this “light sentence” she would have become a felon prohibited from owning/carrying a firearm anywhere in the US. Not exactly a reasonable outcome IMHO.