Showing posts with label Concealed carry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Concealed carry. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Concealed-carry laws amplify violent crime



I live in gun-loving Arizona, one of 33 states where the right-to-carry law means you can swagger all around town like you are Wyatt Earp reincarnated. In Arizona you can actually take your gun into bars, schools and public buildings. The National Rifle Assn. with head gun nut, Wayne LaPierre, leading the way, has convinced these pathetic souls that their guns are more valuable than the lives of their family, friends, neighbors and innocent individuals. But all of this could be changing if an apathetic American public takes notice of new research on concealed-carry.

This all may have stemmed from the research of John Lott and David Mustard in 1997 that found more guns meant less crime, which was flawed in its findings, even certifying an increase in violence with concealed-carry through new research by legal scholars John Donohue and Abhay Aneja and economist Kyle Weber. They confirmed the following frightening statistic published in The Nation...
"Ten years after a state passes a right-to-carry law, violent crime—which includes murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault—will be 13 to 15 percent higher than if the state had done nothing."
Adding to the validity of the new report is the number of years available to the researchers on which to base their analysis; those years between 1981 and 2007 when right-to-carry laws were passed, ten of those years after the John Lott and David Mustard report. The new paper took advantage of cutting-edge statistical techniques by constructing synthetic control groups for states using what’s known as a LASSO analysis to pick the best variables for comparison. Their findings were always consistent in the fact that...
"When states passed right-to-carry laws, violent crime ended up higher than it would have been otherwise."
It's time to get the cowboys and cowgirls off the street and generally begin a sweep to curb the number of guns owned in this country with some relatively tough new reasonable gun laws. 

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Guns and Violence-The Two Go Together


Both make headlines two days in a row. The first on Sunday at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Some irresponsible gun owner discharged the weapon in his pocket and the ricocheted bullet grazed a woman's head; she was probably a millimeter from death. Four other people were injured by shattered glass and debris, but there was no indication the man would be charged. Now this was an incident where someone was almost killed by a harebrained concealed gun carrier that apparently did not secure a weapon he was carrying around in his pocket. This is why gun control advocates want these guns off the street and kept in the home.

And yet another more violent incident in Columbus, Ohio, on Monday where a 16-year-old boy murdered four and injured one woman. The kid was charged with murder and kidnapping, the latter which police did not explain, nor did they disclose a motive. The same question arises, where did the boy get the gun? Until we can answer this following every gun death, the slaughter will continue.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

GUN CONTROL ADVOCATES SHOULD LOVE BERNIE SANDERS...I THINK


The Senator from Vermont who is running the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton has voted for more background checks and to ban assault weapons and magazines of over 10 rounds. But on the other hand he voted against the Brady bill, voted to block lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and voted to allow guns to be transported in checked baggage on Amtrak trains and to prohibit foreign aid from going to any international efforts to restrict gun ownership. Not sure where Sanders stands on open and concealed carry and so far cannot find where he has voted for or against. The latter is a hot issue and is now being voted on in the house to drop some of the requirements on getting a permit. This is my sore spot because there are so many cowboys on the street carrying around a gun in a holster or concealed who have not had one iota of training. Anyone who stands for that does not deserve to be President.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

MORE ON 2ND AMENDMENT LOOPHOLE

David Kopel of the Washington Post said "The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the individual to own and carry firearms, including handguns. The 2nd Amendment actually says, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." The District of Columbia v. Heller 2008 ruling, "...protects an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." A bit off the subject but the Justices said nothing about cowboys walking around on the streets with their guns. Something tells me that, until we find something more direct--that is to really gut the 2nd Amendment--we concentrate on passing universal background checks and getting rid of concealed carry, except for extenuating circumstances.

More to come.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

LAS VEGAS SHOOTING CONCEALED CARRY CIVILIAN SHOULDN'T HAVE DIED

I've said it before and now it's happened again; a vigilante type carrying a gun in public has died as a
Cici's Pizza Las Vegas shooting
result this time. He shouldn't have but it is this kind of cowboy mentality promoted by the National Rifle Assn. that leads these folks to think they are ready to defend the American public. They aren't. It takes months of training for a police officer to know what to expect in crucial situations like this but I doubt if the armed guy, Joseph Wilcox, had anywhere near that. He didn't anticipate an accomplice and she shot and killed him. In the Gabby Giffords Tucson shooting in 2011, two Arizona gun gauchos tried to come to Giffords' aid and nearly shot each other. In Arizona the only thing necessary to carry a gun around on the streets is to have a pulse. I am firmly against open and concealed carry permits and hope that the Supreme Court will soon make this a thing of the past.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

New York’s strong gun laws make state safer than weaker states of Arizona and Texas

The gun nuts, especially in Arizona, will argue with you until they are blue in the face that because the state’s gun laws allow just about anyone to own a gun and carry it around concealed to just about anyplace they want, including bars, that the state is a safer place for it.  They would be wrong.  In a recent Wall Street Journal Letter to the Editor, Richard Reay of Riverdale, NY, made his point by using the 2010 FBI Violent Crime Statistics report.


NY Mayor Bloomberg for gun control

As an example, there are 408.1 violent crimes and 6.4 murders/manslaughters in Arizona per 100,000 population compared to 392.1 and 4.5 in New York.  In the same comparison, Texas is 450.3 and 5.0.  Reay’s letter was reacting to the typical inaccuracy of a gun freak who spews out whatever garbage the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) tells him to.  The guy, a Californian named Dave Culver, was ranting over the fact that the people of New York were less safe because they had been disarmed by their civic leaders.

To add to Culver’s misinformation, Reay tells us that gun-related robberies and aggravated assault in New York were around 20 percent and 25 percent that of Texas and Arizona, respectively.  (also in FBI Crime Statistics)  With the population growth of cities like Phoenix, Dallas and Houston, the density rate is adding to the problem, and when you give anyone in those metropolitan areas a handgun that asks for it, you are just asking for trouble.

If you want to check out gun laws by state, Wikipedia has excellent access to the data with facts on each facet of buying and carrying a handgun.  For example, New York requires a permit to purchase, the owner must register the weapon, assault weapons are not allowed and there is a limited conceal carry law; you cannot carry a gun into a bar or state offices or government buildings. 

AZ concealed permit no one needs
In direct contrast, Arizona requires no permit to purchase, registration is limited to federal laws, assault weapons are allowed, and anyone, literally anyone, can walk around with a concealed weapon.  Texas laws are very similar to Arizona but the latter stands out as the state with the most lax gun laws in the U.S.  In a ranking by The Daily Beast, Arizona ranked second in gun deaths per 100,000 pop., Texas 23 and New York 45.

The facts don’t lie and don’t talk to me about recent reports that overall crime is down in the U.S.  That would be right but there is still absolutely no excuse for even one murder due to a handgun being in the wrong hands, much less the recent massacres in Tucson and at Virginia Tech.  The above reports even came with the news that shootings—yes, that would require a gun—of law enforcement officials has increased for the second year in a row, 23 percent in 2011.

Common sense suggestions on gun control from Delaware Gov. Jack Markell below:



Paul Helmke, former Mayor of Ft. Wayne, Indiana and also a recent President of The Brady Campaign, exclaims that an astonishing 40 percent of guns are purchased without a background check.  To illustrate this, the state of Indiana does not require documentation to either sell or buy firearms.  On the other hand, California is ranked number one for its universal background check system, dealer regulations and assault clip ban. 

And there is where we should start with more gun control.  Ban large capacity magazines like the ones used in Tucson and at Va. Tech.  Require a background check for every firearm purchase to stop mentally ill from getting them.  Close the gun show loophole where private dealers have to require little or no information to purchase a weapon.  By the way, Indiana is tied for 38th according to the Brady Campaign when it comes to laws preventing gun violence.

With the above revelations, you would think that at least progressive congressional Democrats would get behind legislation for at least the three issues above.  And where has President Obama been on gun control since his election and his reaction to Gabby Giffords shooting?  The American public has also softened on gun control, that is until one of their own is taken from them.  Yes, hindsight can be a great thing but in this case, it is too late.

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