🚀 go-pugleaf

In <karches-2211941137500001@dal33.onramp.net> karches@onramp.net Tom Karches writes:

>In article <CznJo5.10w@metronet.com>, rayward@metronet.com (Ray
>Ward-telecomrc.com) wrote:
>
>> In article <NEWTNews.9333.782545086.woolfson@woolfson.unicom.net>,
>> Eric Woolfson  <woolf@unicom.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > From: krehn@bashful.cc.utexas.edu (karl rehn)
>> 
>> Let's see some stats, citations, etc. and get quantitative.  Passing
>> carry laws brings some classes of violent crime down substantially --
>> 20%+ is a year or so, not the noise-level drifts you allude to.
>
>How can you prove that carry laws reduce violent crime? If the crime
>dosen't happen, how do we know that a concealed, carried weapon prevented
>it?

It's real simple, if you have half a brain.  You look at the violent
crime rate several years prior to the enacting of the CCW law.  You look
at both the rate of crime and the rate at which it is changing.  Then
you look at what happens across the time period when the CCW law went
into effect.  You compare any changes you see to changes in areas that
*had* shown similar rates and trends to the study area prior to the
enacting of the law.

What you find when you do this is that there is a sharp downward change
in both the rate of violent crime and the rate of change of that rate
(in fact, the rate of change reverses and goes negative).  Similar areas
showing a continuing increase.  Seems pretty obvious to anyone willing
to look.

Now, you may say that that isn't *proof*, and you'd be right.  But then,
using that standard of 'proof', you can't prove *ANYTHING*.

>
>> >
>> >> All the numbers I've ever seen on the subject show that CCW permit
>> >> holders are *less* likely to misuse their guns than the general public.
>> >> A CCW permit is only issued after a background check and a considerable
>> >> amount of training.  
>> >
>
>This makes sense as long as the training is truly comprehensive and not
>just a couple of hours at the range. 

That's all that the typical police officer gets.  Why should a civilian
who is carring a weapon strictly for personal defense be required to
have more training than a law enforcement official whose business it is
to be able to play the 'corner cases' of the law?

>They should be bonded also, like
>security guards.

Horse manure!  I'll agree that that makes sense when you start requiring
bonds of people owning long guns, automobiles, aircraft, cleansers, and
other such dangerous things.

Why not just be honest and say that you are opposed to CCW and your goal
is to try to make it so expensive and onerous that no one will do it
even if they are legally allowed to?

--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
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merlin@annwfn.com -- I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.