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Are people with concealed handgun carry permits a menace to society?
The Volokh Conspiracy ^ | December 28, 2011 | David Kopel

Posted on 12/30/2011 12:36:24 AM PST by neverdem

According to the New York Times, the answer seems to be “yes.” An article in yesterday’s Times by Michael Luo collects some anecdotes about misbehavior by a few licensees in North Carolina. The Times article has some numbers in it, and it provides the number of North Carolinians with carry permits (240,000). After a thorough search of North Carolina records, the Times finds that about 1% of permitees were convicted of something, other than a traffic offense, over the past five years. Of these 2,400 convictions, by far the largest group is “nearly 900 permit holders were convicted of drunken driving, a potentially volatile circumstance given the link between drinking and violence.”

“Drunk driving” (which, I would guess, the Times uses as a shorthand for lesser offenses such as driving while impaired) is a serious crime in itself. But just because a woman has three glasses of wine with dinner at a restaurant, and then gets caught in a police checkpoint, doesn’t make her some “potentially volatile” person who is going to murder somebody in an inebriated rage.

In any large population (e.g., 240,000) there will be at least a small percentage who over a period of time are found guilty of some crimes. This does not mean that that population as a whole is dangerous. It would have been useful to compare the conviction rates of North Carolinians who have carry licenses with the convictions rates of those who do not. I suspect that the non-licensee crime rate would be much higher, especially for violent gun crimes.

In a 2009 article in the Connecticut Law Review, I collected data from Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. (The state data begin on page 564 of the article.) The data show that concealed carry licensees are much more law-abiding than...

(Excerpt) Read more at volokh.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: banglist; concealedcarry
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To: MaxMax
There’s no guns in the utopia of NY, what are they afraid of besides southern food?

I assume you are referring to NYC. Except for NYC, NY law does not require a permit to purchase a long gun and the vast majority of upstate counties issue CCW permits on a shall issue basis. (BTW -- The southern food is not the problem; it's the fat people that seem to go with the food.)

21 posted on 12/30/2011 5:00:47 AM PST by Labyrinthos
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To: MaxMax
There’s no guns in the utopia of NY, what are they afraid of besides southern food?

I assume you are referring to NYC. Except for NYC, NY law does not require a permit to purchase a long gun and the vast majority of upstate counties issue CCW permits on a shall issue basis. (BTW -- The southern food is not the problem; it's the fat people that seem to go with the food.)

22 posted on 12/30/2011 5:01:00 AM PST by Labyrinthos
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To: tired&retired

I lived in the Asheville area 11 years... Maybe that’s the problem .


23 posted on 12/30/2011 5:02:17 AM PST by momincombatboots (Back to West by G-d Virginia.)
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To: IamConservative
Arizona and Alaska may well have higher rates.

Arizona does not require a permit. So you could say the number is 1000 per thousand.

24 posted on 12/30/2011 5:03:05 AM PST by CPOSharky (The only thing straight, white, Christian males get is the blame for everything.)
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To: neverdem
Are people with concealed handgun carry permits a menace to society?

HELL yes!

Why ELSE would I carry one?

If a 'society member' comes into the gas station I'm in and demands money from the clerk while brandishing his weapon; you can be SURE I will 'menace' his soon to be room temperature butt!

We don't take too kindly to that sort of stuff out my way!


https://www.google.com/search?q=kroger+employee+kills+robber&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&rlz=

25 posted on 12/30/2011 5:30:56 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: IamConservative

Woo woo!

Number 2!


26 posted on 12/30/2011 5:33:00 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: neverdem

“Are people with concealed-carry permits a menace to society?

For the stealth soviet revolutionaries among us, the answer will always be a resounding yes.

(They don’t want them free Christians to have any guns because they make not take too well to the revolution.)

IMHO


27 posted on 12/30/2011 5:42:39 AM PST by ripley
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To: neverdem

I wonder if Mr. Luo has tried checking on crimes committed by cops into proportion to their numbers. He would probably find out that concealed carry permit holders are more law abiding than the cops...


28 posted on 12/30/2011 6:17:39 AM PST by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: IamConservative

Alaska has Constitutional Carry - no permits.


29 posted on 12/30/2011 6:27:44 AM PST by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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To: Elsie

I’ll give them 10 to 1 odds on a bet as to what is a bigger menace to society, measured by the resulting violence & death:

1) Concealed handgun permitted citizens.
2) Children of “single mothers”


30 posted on 12/30/2011 6:28:37 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)
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To: neverdem

The New York Times fascists fear armed citizens because of what happened to their totalitarian buddies in Libya.

The Libyan people and the army - more than half of it - attacked the government, dragging bureaucrats and Qaddafi loyalists into the streets and either shooting them or hanging them from lampposts. Thousands of Qaddafi loyalists are MIA, being held in private jails by militias. Their fate is unknown.

Qaddafi’s army chief of staff was taken into the street and either shot or hanged. Qaddafi’s elite bodyguards were shot or hanged. The brutal sub-Saharan mercenaries paid to protect Qaddafi were killed. Qaddafi himself was dragged onto a road, slammed against the hood of an SUV, beaten severely and then executed.

Bet your dollars that this demonstration of armed citizens scared the cheese out of the fascists at the NYT and the Washington elitists.


31 posted on 12/30/2011 6:31:19 AM PST by sergeantdave
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To: neverdem

This was an interesting effort by the NYT.

I grew up in NY and have recently been traveling there frequently because of family concerns. I have actually been looking into legal CCW once I cross the Westchester-Connecticut line (I travel thru Westchester, the Bronx, Queens, sometimes Manhattan, and Nassau County), because I am legal in all six New England states and I carry every day.

It’s AMAZING that, in my situation (traveling with small kids, at night, and managing monetary affairs) that legal carry is an impossibility. It’s even MORE amazing that, of all the weapons violators who abound in the five boroughs and on the Island, the person most likely to be sentenced to prison if caught is - me.

It’s truly a complete moral inversion, and while the liberal fascism that has taken over NYS/NYC has many, many examples more injurious to people than this one, this one is particularly offensive to me as I sit here, unarmed, for the next few days.

NYS/NYC policy of no legal nonresident carry (except for business owners in NY who reside elsewhere, and famous people) is as clear and unambiguous a denial of the Second Amendment right as I can imagine.

I started by saying that this piece in the Slimes was “interesting”. It’s interesting because it indicates that the Ruling Class must be under pressure to allow legal CCW, even in NY, and they want the sheeple to go back to sleep.


32 posted on 12/30/2011 6:50:13 AM PST by Jim Noble ("The Germans: At your feet, or at your throat" - Winston Churchill)
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To: neverdem
No, but cops are:

'I’m a cop, I can do whatever I want ' off-duty policeman shouts before 'executing guy in bar'.

NO cheers, unfortunately.

33 posted on 12/30/2011 7:02:37 AM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: vetvetdoug

To the writers and editors of the New York Times: the people who have CCW licenses are not the problem. Your childlike faith in armed state employees is the problem, as evidenced by this discussion between a Utah Dept. of Transportation (UDOT) agent and CCW holder.

The UDOT agent admits to having no problem with stealing and killing fellow Americans in an “emergency” food shortage situation. Here is the fun story about a UDOT agent and food storage. [For the NYT: folks in the “flyover country” of Utah are taught from their earliest days to have survival food stockpiled (for up to a year), unlike New Yorkers who are running to their local convenience stores every other day.]

http://www.defense-training.com/quips/23Dec11.html


34 posted on 12/30/2011 7:03:17 AM PST by MasterGunner01 (11)
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To: neverdem
"Are people with concealed handgun carry permits a menace to society?"

Wow, and all this time I was told it was people with guns that were dangerous. Now we find out it is the people with permits. I learn something new each day.

35 posted on 12/30/2011 7:33:37 AM PST by Dutch Boy
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To: momincombatboots

“I lived in the Asheville area 11 years... Maybe that’s the problem .”

Visiting Asheville is like going back to the late 60’s or early 70’s.... I love it there.


36 posted on 12/30/2011 10:46:56 AM PST by tired&retired
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To: MrB

It CAN’T be #2; for we SUBSIDIZE the creation of these!


37 posted on 12/30/2011 4:41:37 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Jim Noble
It’s truly a complete moral inversion, and while the liberal fascism that has taken over NYS/NYC has many, many examples more injurious to people than this one, this one is particularly offensive to me as I sit here, unarmed, for the next few days.

NYC! What's NOT to LOVE??


38 posted on 12/30/2011 4:50:35 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: Little Ray

I know if he checked the members of “Mayors against Guns” or what ever Hizoner Bloomberg’s astroturf group is called, he would find a higher felony rate.


39 posted on 12/30/2011 7:07:17 PM PST by donmeaker (e is trancendentall)
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To: donmeaker

Yep. Mayors are lot more likely to be convicted felons than CCW holders!


40 posted on 12/30/2011 7:56:57 PM PST by Little Ray (FOR the best Conservative in the Primary; AGAINST Obama in the General.)
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