Why would you want to do that?
His wallet isn’t deserving of being defended, but the chihuahuas are?
Makes about as much sense as anything else he says. 
The story was Beyond This Horizon, by Robert Heinlein. Not one of his best, but it didn’t totally suck…
Hey, guess what. Michigan has a concealed carry law. Guess that makes Detroit one of the safest cities in America.
In fact, let’s look at the homicide rankings by city:
- DC
- Detroit
- Baltimore
- Memphis
- Chicago
- Philadelphia
- Columbus
- Milwaukee
- Los Angeles
- Dallas
- Phoenix
- Las Vegas
- Houston
- Jacksonville
- Nashville
- Charlotte
- Indianapolis
- Boston
- Tucson
- Ft. Worth
- Denver
- San Antonio
- Oklahoma City
- San Francisco
- New York
- Seattle
- Portland
- San Diego
- Austin
- San Jose
- El Paso
- Honolulu
So yeah. I would feel safer in New York than in Dallas. I’d feel safer in San Diego with no conceal carry than just about any city in Texas with conceal carry. Same with San Francisco. And I’d feel less safe in Memphis with it’s conceal carry than in Los Angeles without.
There’s just no real correlation between conceal-carry and crime rates. New York City and Los Angeles have both posted the largest drop in crime rate over the past few years of any major metropolitan area and they did it without conceal carry laws.
It just doesn’t make much of a difference either way. Better policing and more good job opportunities are a much more effective way to cut the crime rate than conceal carry laws.
How’s that slippery slope to total gun confiscation coming along?
Meh. Oklahoma passed a concealed carry law a few years back too… it was a huge issue for a little while, with experts predicting everything from a crime-free utopia to some kind of mob-ruled post apocalyptic wasteland.
Several years down the line, I had trouble remembering that we even passed the thing. Absolutely nothing happened. For a while, public stores posted signs prohibiting taking concealed weapons on the premises (as was their right by the terms of the law) and nowadays I hardly even see those. Hardly anyone bothers to get the permit to carry one, and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a case in the news where a person with a concealed weapon used it in any capacity.
Here, it’s a complete and utter non-issue. Our recent passage of a law prohibiting cockfighting caused a significantly larger stir…
According to some, it seems to be going along swimmingly.
Actually, you are right.
You are right that you “can” be much safer, but not that “everyone” is safer.
Detroit actually is(or “can” be) one of the safest cities in america, depending on the individual.
Since they adopted ccw a few years ago, not one citizen who had a ccw and was armed, has been murdered, nor robbed, nor raped. I think the armed women of Michigan deserve a salute for not a one of them being raped.
Pretty good record I think.
Furthermore, there have been no cases yet where an armed (civilian) ccw citizen has shot another law abiding citizen. No cases of “road rage gunfights”, zero, etc.
Of course, I am speaking about Detroit being safe for an “armed” citizen. An armed citizen in Detroit is infinitely safer than an unarmed citizen in Los Angeles, or New York. (I am not necessarily saying unarmed people are safer anywhere)
Are you sure about that? I find it very hard to believe, because it varies so much from the experience in other states.
In other states, the incidence of rape, robbery, car-jacking, abductions, kidnapping, etc, has been much lower for women who arm themselves. Are you saying that armed women in Oklahoma have the same rape, murder, kidnap rate that unarmed Oklahoma women have?
If so, I cant understand why. Why would an armed woman be abducted, raped, murdered? Do you have any knowedge of specific statistics on the number of armed women in Oklahoma who victims of violent crime? Do “all” armed people in Oklahoma(including police) experience the same violent crime victimization rate as do unarmed Oklahomans?
Perhaps Oklahoma needs better self defense training classes for its ccw citizens and its police.
Or are you just saying that you personally have “read” no stories of armed women who were not raped? (i.e., a woman who is NOT raped is not a news item, a police officer who is NOT robbed is not a news item, etc.)
New Hampshire is as shall-issue as can be - it’s really easy to get a permit and there are no restricted zones except courtrooms (and federal property of course). You can even carry while drinking in a bar if you want. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a no firearms sign on a business either.
It doesn’t seem to cause us any problems, and I’ve heard of several cases of self defense.
If concealed carry caused problems, you’d think the cops would
know all about it. Yet they seem to be consistantly pro-gun. We had a nice friendly chat when I applied for my permit. They don’t mind us going shooting out in the woods either (ok, that doesn’t really have anything to do with concealed carry).
Cite?
No, but I can take a look and see if there’s anything like that. I highly doubt it though.
What I typed was “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a case in the news where a person with a concealed weapon used it in any capacity.” I don’t see how I can make it any clearer. All I’m saying is I don’t personally know of any case where a licensed person with a concealed weapon used it in any way, whether to rob a bank or fend off a rapist.
I’m taking the null hypothesis of “it just don’t matter one way or the other.” If you think it seriously matters, whether increasing or decreasing the incidence of crime, the onus is on you to demonstrate that concealed weapons make some kind of difference.
The “National Center for Policy Analysis” report you’ve cited so far says essentially two things:
1.) People with licensed concealed weapons are less likely to commit crimes.
2.) Crime in Texas is down since the passage of the concealed carry law.
My responses are as such:
1.) Of course people that license their concealed weapons are less likely to commit crimes. Anyone who says otherwise is a nitwit. The kind of people that are likely to commit violent crimes don’t typically license their weapons…
2.) Post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy. The report actually seems to recognize this, it’s pretty generous with weasel words like “may” and “possibly.” Actual causality needs to be demonstrated between overall crime rates among the entire population (or even just the number of victims that were packin’ heat at the time) and the presence of a concealed carry law. This is ridiculously hard to demonstrate, and well beyond the scope of their report.
I stand by my “meh.” I can also tell you that at least in my own experience, and that of every single person I know in Oklahoma, the concealed carry law has not affected any of us in any way whatsoever. None of us carry concealed guns, none of us have been mugged by someone carrying such a licensed gun, it’s simply never come up at all since the law was passed.
Vermont is not a “shall issue” state, because (get this) carrying a concealed weapon in this state is totally, absolutely, legal.
While we do have the occasional murder, our rate is quite low. As to whether there is any cause-and-effect here, who knows? It may well be that we have never bothered to enact a concealed weapons ban precisely BECAUSE our murder rate is low…
So, CCW permit-states tend to select for law-abiding citizens? Go figure.
I figure, before this, I had to be concerned about the possibility of getting shot by the cops or the bad guys. Now I also have to worry about getting shot by a law-abiding citizen who’s either pissed off at me or at somebody else and he’s a lousy shot.
It’s not a huge amount of concern, it’s not made huger by the passage of this law, and I’m not necessarily even right that I should be more concerned, but for now, it is a change, and not for the better. One more thing.
And just what is THAT supposed to mean? That if someone didn’t carry a gun, for whatever reason, and she was raped, then it was somehow her fault? Or that somehow she didn’t fight back enough?
Pennsylvania has been a shall-issue state since 1989.
As of this writing I have not had to step through rivers of blood in the gutters, nor have I ever witnessed the small-scale Armageddon that Diogenes seems to think will descend upon Minnesota any day now.
I don’t think she meant to yank your chain on the rape thing specifically. In some absolute moral sense it’s never anyone’s “fault” when something bad and unjustified happens to them. As we don’t live in a world where perfect moral deserts are served, though, there’s some argument that individual citizens bear practical responsibility for evaluating situations and risks and taking reasonable and available precautions against (concededly unfair and unjustified risks). Jesse Jackson admitted he does this. Every woman I know does this.
How to determine what’s reasonable and available countermeasures . . . that’s the rub, and I’m not going to argue here that carrying a gun is definitely the only reasonable response to the threat of robbery or rape or terrorism (though for some, sometimes, it may be). Nor that fighting back is always the only non-stupid response to robbery, rape, terrorism (though in some cases obeying when the guy tells you to get in the trunk while he drives you out to the forest is probably not a high-yield life strategy).
But that’s a question of handicapping, and unfortunately we all have to handicap our own cost/benefits, including on life and death matters, everytime we go outside, and our choices do have consequences.
So putting aside the issue of “fault,” which seems inflammatory, I don’t think it’s prima facie unreasonable for her to applaud women for taking what she thinks (YMMV) is a survival-enhancing step, or even for implying that absent this step, their misfortune is in some sense causally attributable (factual causation, not moral blame) to their choice not to take this step. I’ll leave it to the moral theologians whether failure to take a readily available countermeasure that clearly would have averted (I’m not saying this is factually true of gun ownership vis a vis rape, etc., but consider it as a hypothetical) your experiencing a Bad Thing also makes you “to blame” for your misfortune.
Interestingly, the police and the courts also believe that there is no general guarantee against Bad Things, and that individuals are in the first instance responsible for their own well-being. The state may from time to time speak aspirationally about To Protect And Serve or promoting the general welfare, but individuals who try to sue, say, the P.D. for failure to avert their particular rape/robbery/murder find out that there is no specific legal duty or undertaking of the state to prevent particular crimes or to ensure that you, the individual, won’t be victimized – and hence, (absence special circumstances/gross negligence) no remedy for the individual who called 911 but was robbed/raped anyhow.
I agree completely. I’m glad Michigan women are safer, if that’s the case - I personally think Desdinova nailed the issue; after all, the homicide rate nationwide has been going down for quite some time - but Susann, your choice of words was moronic and offensive.
In response to Lumpy’s original question. Last I checked the right to keep and bear arms was a constitutional right. I think its a great thing anytime the constitution is upheld and there are less obstacles to overcome.
I live in Michigan and have had my CCW for about 6 months, and don’t always carry but feel that the choice to carry or not should be entirely up to me.
Americans in general are too quick to give up our rights and freedoms. [digress] Don’t even get me started about the seatbelt laws[/digress]
So yeah any time we push the pendulum back in the direction of freedom I am a happy camper.
There is no constutional right to own a gun. The 2nd amendment refers onl to militias…well regulated militias.
Before everyone piles on DtC and hijacks this thread, check out what Cecil wrote about it. There are a plethora of threads in GD discussing this very thing, IMHO, let it go…