PACKING HEAT

It's not my idea of civic bliss, but Michael Barone is sanguine about America's gun laws:

In 1987, Florida passed a law allowing citizens who could demonstrate that they were law-abiding and had sufficient training to obtain permits on demand to own and carry concealed weapons. In the succeeding 20 years, many other states have passed such laws, so that today you can, if you meet the qualifications, carry concealed weapons in 40 states with 67 percent of the nation's population (including Vermont, with no gun restrictions at all).

When Florida passed its concealed-weapons law, I thought it was a terrible idea. People would start shooting each other over traffic altercations; parking lots would turn into shooting galleries. Not so, it turned out. Only a very, very few concealed-weapons permits have been revoked. There are only rare incidents in which people with concealed-weapons permits have used them unlawfully. Ordinary law-abiding people, it turns out, are pretty trustworthy.

...In most of the United States, as you go to work, shop at the mall, go to restaurants and walk around your neighborhood, you do so knowing that some of the people you pass by may be carrying a gun. You may not even think about it. But that's all right. Experience has shown that these people aren't threats.

Barone is another commentator who thinks the Virginia Tech massacre might have been prevented if the students had been allowed to carry firearms on campus. Undergrads with guns???

Comments

[Patti]

Hmmm.. doesn't Barone live in the Beltway area--where a couple of years ago two snipers terrified Maryland, DC and Virginia for a couple of months by shooting people at random from inside the trunk of their car, which had been fashioned into a little target-shooting HQ? How do you shoot back at someone when you can't see where they are?
I read a post recently from a a US Army sharpshooter, who said that it's ridiculous to think that, under pressure (i.e.: Cho shooting your classmates) people cannot even shoot someone standing two feet in front of them and hit their mark. It takes precision and a great deal of training. If that's the case, more guns just adds up to more people killed.
What I don't understand is this: people are people all over the world. And where there are strict gun laws, there are less murders. It seems to me to demonstrate a very simple math problem: less guns equals less murders.

[Larry, San Francisco]

I too used to be a gun control advocate who like Barone has changed his mind.

Hasn't Great Britian crime rate risen since gun control has come into effect? (The causality could go the other way, rising crime rates causes gun control).

Switzerland where almost all men are required to own guns has a very low murder rate.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

Also Israel has a low murder rate and everyone there has an Uzi.

I know that Japan has an extremely low murder rate and very tight gun control laws, yet I doubt the murder rate would rise much if guns were easier to get (maybe suicides would increase).

There are stories of people with guns killing mass murderers in other situations most famously the Appalachian Law school incident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_School_of_Law_shooting

Additionally, Virginia Tech is not Harvard or Yale, it is a huge engineering school in rural Virgina. There are probably a large number of ex-servicemen enrolled who have had serious military training.

I am not a gun nut and I do not know if concealed carry gun laws would have made the situation better. However, I believe that gun bans will end up being as counterproductive as our idiotic war on drugs.

Probably the only way to avoid catastrophes like VT shootings would be to change our instituitionalization rules. I am not sure we want to do that.

[John]

Generally speaking, Conceal Carry permits have a minimum age of 21 (incidentally, the minimum age to own a handgun under any circumstance). This means that the majority of undergraduates would not qualify for such permits.

Florida has a pretty relaxed process through which one can purchase a firearm, requiring compliance with federal background checks only. Obtaining a Concealed Carry permit requires that one successfully attend a specialized training course. I've not taken that course yet, so I can't tell how good a job it may do in weeding out the whackos, but crime stats suggest that it is working.

You can read all the regulations and exclusions involving Florida firearms ownership at this site: http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/weapons/index.html

BTW, Florida does also subscribe to the notion that putting up a sign or regulation saying 'No guns in schools' is effective in keeping people with guns out of schools.

[Simon]

I think that we need to stop lumping all types of "gun crime" in to one category. Gun control is not going to prevent drug gangs obtaining weapons, but if we look at the two spree killings in Britain ( those of at Hungerford & Dunblane ) they were carried out with weapons purchased legally. Strict gun laws willsharply reduce the incidence of spree killings but they are not a solution to urban crime.

[anonymous.com]

And where there are strict gun laws, there are less murders. It seems to me to demonstrate a very simple math problem: less guns equals less murders.

And where there are many black people there are more killings eg Africa, Harlem.

Correlation does not prove causation.

To test causation all you do is look at how the murder rate changes when you change the gun laws.

As I understand matters, more legal guns gives you the same killing but less burglary etc.

Does anyone have any actual evidence to point to, or are we all just going to shout its obvious to each other?

[mikek]

anon.com, that is garbage. Most of the murders in the U.S. are over drug trade. Race is not relevant. btw, Harlem does not have a high murder rate and immigrants from Africa beat everyone in the country in education. (move over India and random Asians:)

patti, two feet? I would bet that 80% of the people that have shot a handgun at least once could hit a person two feet in front of them. Two feet is like half your arm, point and shoot.

I wouldn't mind if people who had carried weapons for years (retired cops, old military guys or people with legal permits for over five years) carried at school. They have proven that they will not get pissed off and start shooting people.

[Patti]

I agree regarding race not being an issue.... race is irrelevant.

Never having shot a gun before, I can't say whether or not I'd be able to aim at someone standing in front of me--I was "quoting" from an Army sharpshooter who posted on another website. The point he was making was that under duress (i.e, someone shooting at you), most people cannot take aim and shoot accurately.

[G]

Uhh mikek and Patti, anon.com's point, as is obvious to all sentient people, is that by the standards of argumentation used by Clive Davis and some commentators on his blog you would have to argue that black people cause crime. If you reject this conclusion as simplistic or just plain wrong, you also need to rethink your attitudes to guns.
Yeesh.