Florida concealed carry license (courtesy legallyarmed.com)

“The first study to find a significant relationship between firearm crime and subsequent applications for, and issuance of, concealed-carry gun permits has been published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence,” medicalexpress.com reports. “Firearm Violence and Effects on Concealed Gun Carrying: Large Debate and Small Effects found there is a consistent link between violent crime—especially crimes that involve guns—and an increase in the number of people issued carry permits over two time periods examined in the study.” And now for the money shot . . .

“From a theoretical perspective, the finding of firearm crime as a predictor of concealed carrying is the first such demonstrable relationship and provides evidence that should solicit further investigation,” the study says . . .

Given the complexity of legal gun carrying, Carter and his co-author included a number of control variables that helped to isolate the effects of firearm violence. Carter said, “After controlling for a range of possible explanatory factors, the relationship between firearm violence and subsequent legal gun permitting is quite present.”

Translation: give me more money! But seriously folks, we paid good money for someone to prove that an increase in crime stimulates Americans’ desire to exercise their natural, civil and constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms? That said, there is an interesting hidden dynamic in play.

The research focuses on county-level data from all 67 counties in Florida, which has issued more concealed-carry permits than any other state. As of November 2015, there were 1.6 million valid concealed-carry permits in Florida.

The study measures violent crime using the Uniform Crime Reporting index offenses of violent crime, including homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The two time periods examined by the study are 2005 to 2012 and 1996 to 2012.

Theoretically, nonviolent crime receives noticeably less media attention and does not carry the heightened degree of sensitivity that comes with firearm violence. As such, there could be unique differences between firearm and non-firearm violence that might influence people’s decision to want to carry a gun, says Carter.

Spot on. Burglary, theft, Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on your door probably add to the “heightened degree of sensitivity” that leads to concealed carry permit applications. But what about TTAG’s role? I almost tempted to write Mr. Carter a check. But not quite. [h/t ActionPhysicalMan]

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18 COMMENTS

  1. I read a lot about this late last night. It’s written very confusingly, likely on purpose, but it seems to me that the authors of the study are claiming that increased carry permits are causing crime, not that increased numbers of permits are a result of crime. If so, that is REALLY reaching.

    If the gun grabbers are grasping at straws like this, maybe we are winning.

    • I read it that way first. Had to completely rewrite this post! But it’s not as it first appears. The study simply says violent “gun crime” leads to an increase in the number of carry permits. A piercing glimpse into the obvious but . . . science!

      • The way they wrote the summary is abysmal and likely purposeful. They don’t mention that the periods studied for the increased application for carry permits is a response to a prior period of rising crime. They way it’s written it seems as if they are suggesting the opposite, that crime is rising as a result of the increase in carry permits.

      • RF, every time a “study” is said to report something, keep in mind all of these studies are loaded with bias, and the the studies will almost report what the authors set out to find. The peer reviewed process is coming under closer scrutiny with even some of the Editor in Chiefs of the science journals saying that 50% of these studies are garbage at best, and fraudulent at worst. When you see the word “study” in the media, take it with a grain of salt, if at all.

      • The shooting numbers in Chicago may be up this year, but there is an extra day, so I’m sure per day it’ll even out. /sarc/

    • Incredible! People arm themselves in response to higher crime? What’s next, scientific study claiming that rubber boots’ sales rise when it rains a lot?
      Give them more money, this really requires some deep research. NOT.

  5. When a human predator tried mugging me, was when I started carrying a firearm.

    Or otherwise known as “A constitutional/libertarian is a progressive raised libertarian that was almost mugged”.

  6. This is what we get for our coin. Violent crime leads to people arming themselves. The exception being where elected representatives decide you can not, which begets more crime.

    Some organization should study why elected representatives continue to deny lawful self protection. That would be of interest.

  7. Actually it would be violent crime reported in the media leads to people arming themselves. If the reports of crimes were read off in detached clinical fashion and buried on page six of a newspaper, there wouldn’t be as much effect.

  8. “Study: Violent Crime Leads to Concealed-Carry Gun Permits”

    An “undulating lie” is a statement that seems to mean one thing on the surface, but means something completely different when you dig down. The shallow implication is false, while what you figure out eventually is true. Unless you do the work, you’ve been lied to. In addition, because you were mislead, it’s because you are stupid, not because you have been fed inaccurate, misleading language. This is an evil, evil tactic.

    Skimmed, the headline suggests that violent crime leads the people doing it to get concealed carry permits. Thus, those evil concealed-carriers are criminals, who do violence. Or at least some of them are. The ones who get concealed-carry permits after they do violence. And they can get the permits after doing violence, so clearly we need more “common sense gun regulation” to keep legal guns out of the hands of folks who do violence.

    Dig into the article, and you can determine that violent crime leads non-criminal people to get concealed carry permits to protect themselves.

    So an “undulating lie” aint’ a straight-out lie because if you squint and work hard enough, you can find a way to fit the words said to the truth eventually uncovered. Plus, you got it wrong because you are stupid.

    Me, I think it’s on the writer to convey what they intend. If other people “get it wrong” it’s crappy writing.

    In this case it’s carefully crafted writing, to drag in a bucket of implications convenient to the anti-gun folks agenda. People will look for implications and interpretations that agree with what they already want to believe. So, the title “Violent crime…” will feed that. Plus, it’s a study. Data. Science! So, all those biases have a science-y data point, simply from this title.

    This is propaganda of a high order. Conveniently, you don’t need everyone spewing the words to understand the crafting. You feed them the terms to use, which they repeat as canned terms and phrases, complete with all the baggage you’ve installed.

    This title is much like the title in the “Blue Force Gear” post. “It’s Hard to Argue with America’s Gun Owners.” Consider the possible meanings.

    – Hard to argue … because they are crazed whack jobs, or because they are so reasoned in what they think?

    – Hard to argue … because they are crazed whack jobs, or because they have a point?

    – Hard to argue … because they believe stuff that just ain’t so, or because their conclusions are based on facts I never considered?

    A more accurate title might be: “In Person, America’s Gun Owners have Coherent Reasons for What They Believe. ‘also, now we get why it’s called a ‘giggle switch.'”

    Shorter: “America’s Gun Owners Have a Point (and shooting guns is fun. Who knew?)”

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