Gun control groups campaign against right-to-carry laws by claiming that guns carried in public pose a substantial threat to public safety, and that concealed carry permitting laws lead to more violent crime, not less. Giffords, for instance, alleges that “the dangers of permissive public carry laws” include an increase in gun thefts and “other undesirable outcomes,” with absolutely no counterbalancing public safety benefits.
Professor Carl Moody and Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) have just released an updated paper, How Does Concealed Carrying of Weapons Affect Violent Crime? (May 31, 2024). These researchers examined information related to claims that carry concealed weapons (CCW) laws indirectly increase violent crime by driving up firearm thefts or by decreasing police effectiveness. Using a unique new data set that employs the number of permit holders as the variable of interest, the authors found no evidence that CCW laws are associated with significant increases in gun thefts or impact the effectiveness of police.
On gun thefts generally, an existing government source on how criminals obtain their firearms suggests that only a small amount of crime guns are acquired by theft. A Bureau of Justice Statistics report, Source and Use of Firearms Involved in Crimes: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016 (Jan. 2019) shows that only 6.4% of state and federal prisoners who had possessed a firearm during the offense for which they were serving time listed “theft” (burglaries, thefts from retail sources or a family/friend, or “other”) as their gun source.
Previous literature from the CPRC indicates that CCW permit-holders are unlikely to be violent criminals – in fact, as a class they tend towards the extreme opposite end of the law-abiding spectrum. In jurisdictions where information on crimes and permits is available, it shows that permit-holders are less likely to drive recklessly or under the influence than non-permittees, and permit-holders are “convicted of firearms-related violations at one-twelfth the rate of police officers.”
Professor Moody and Dr. Lott analyzed the theft question (whether CCW permit holders are a significant source of stolen guns beyond the amount expected due to the existing burglary rate) using variables that included the number of CCW permits (and a dummy variable for constitutional carry laws), the number of stolen guns, and the burglary rate as a control. “Stolen guns,” they conclude, “are apparently independent of CCW permits or permitless carrying.” The evidence revealed that neither the number of CCW permits nor the effect of constitutional carry laws had a significant impact on the rate at which guns are stolen. Constitutional carry states do not have significantly higher gun theft rates but, because most of the constitutional carry laws are relatively recent (since 2015), “it may be too early to draw any conclusions” on their impact.
The second issue examined was whether CCW permit-holders were associated with declines in police effectiveness, measured as the clearance rate of violent crimes. Variables included the clearance (arrest) rates and the number of crimes recorded for several given violent crimes types. Here, too, the analysis showed that “police effectiveness is unrelated to either the number of CCW permits and or existence of constitutional carry laws.”
These results confirm what many in the Second Amendment community know already – that despite all the spurious rationalizations advanced against lawful carrying, CCW permittees and others carrying responsibly are not the ones who threaten public safety or produce more crime.
—Courtesy of NRA-ILA
Of course they don’t. Weapons are not the problem. Never have been.
The problem is evil men wanting to control others.
If they are talking weapons control they have marked themselves as evil.
Armed citizens are hard to load into cattle cars, unarmed sibjects are infinitely more compliant – oops, wait, that never happened – right Silent Miner?
I gotta gat in my vehicle. I just came from dropping my son off for work & went to Dollar Tree with my beautiful wife. Coming home on a side street in my neighborhood a large goofy black man walking in the middle of the street jumped toward us. I managed to not hit the demented dolt. Did I feel like pulling my loaded gat? Yep. Did I? Nope. Dissuaded by my wife & my good sense🙄
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It does say something when the po.liti.cal classes have fear, disdain, and contempt for the law abiding. Says even more the ruling class openly allies with criminals against the law abiding.
“Says even more the ruling class openly allies with criminals against the law abiding.”
More and more difficult to find a difference between the two.
–only 6.4% of state and federal prisoners who had possessed a firearm during the offense for which they were serving time listed “theft”– So, this statistic relies on self-reporting of theft by convicted criminals???
“So, this statistic relies on self-reporting of theft by convicted criminals???”
Always wondered how statisticians “correct” for bias with things like this.
I thought in Crook County the rate of stolen guns being used by thieves and murderers was much higher, and that the average time to crime was about ten years before a stolen gun was recovered at a crime scene. So where are the bag guys getting their gats?
It does increase the number of shot/killed criminals. Which isn’t a bad thing.
“It does increase the number of shot/killed criminals. Which isn’t a bad thing.”
Oh, nein, mein herr; you do not see that removing criminals permanently is an attack on government. Criminals are necessary to the justification of oppressive govt.