Gunman enters school board meeting...

[The_Dude 1,142]

it would also appear from those reports none are deterred by the police.

Charles, nothing will deter a determined criminal. It is the crimes of opportunity that you hope to eliminate with crime prevention and law enforcement.

[Ban Hammer 13,332]

Charles, nothing will deter a determined criminal. It is the crimes of opportunity that you hope to eliminate with crime prevention and law enforcement.

which is why an armed citizen is the best defense.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

With the exception of Alaska doesn't the statistics show lower crime rates where there is a conceal carry law?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

With the exception of Alaska doesn't the statistics show lower crime rates where there is a conceal carry law?

Not conclusively by any means.

[The_Dude 1,142]

With the exception of Alaska doesn't the statistics show lower crime rates where there is a conceal carry law?

There are mitigating factors that preclude Alaska from being any sort of model for crime prevention.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Not conclusively by any means.

So in the states (like Vermont) where crime has lowered is the argument that another factor has caused it or is it just that you feel more studies are needed to pinpoint the connection? That at the moment its more coincidence?

There are mitigating factors that preclude Alaska from being any sort of model for crime prevention.

Personally I think Alaska has far too many environmental factors to include it in any country-wide study.

[The_Dude 1,142]

So in the states (like Vermont) where crime has lowered is the argument that another factor has caused it or is it just that you feel more studies are needed to pinpoint the connection? That at the moment its more coincidence?

Personally I think Alaska has far too many environmental factors to include it in any country-wide study.

The state of Alaska has a population size roughly of Riverside County. I think that alone would disqualify it.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

So in the states (like Vermont) where crime has lowered is the argument that another factor has caused it or is it just that you feel more studies are needed to pinpoint the connection? That at the moment its more coincidence?

Analysing the statistics involves a lot of inferences about cause and effect that aren't really proveable IMO - it's not as simple as some people would like to point out. As such, the interpretations of statistics are heavily politicised. There's a bit about it here.

Research on the efficacy of concealed carry

In Florida, which introduced the "shall-issue" concealed carry laws used as a model for other states, one study found that crimes committed against residents dropped markedly upon the general issuance of concealed-carry licenses.[63] However, another study suggests that in most states with shall-issue laws, there were increases in crime of all types.[64]

In his book, More Guns, Less Crime, University of Maryland scholar John Lott's analysis of crime report data claims a statistically significant effect of concealed carry laws on crime, with more permissive concealed carry laws correlated with a decrease in overall crime. Lott studied FBI crime statistics from 1977 to 1993 and found that the passage of concealed carry laws resulted in a murder rate reduction of 8.5%, rape rate reduction of 5%, and aggravated assault reduction of 7%.[65] Yale Law professors John J. Donohue III and Ian Ayres have claimed that Lott's conclusions were largely the result of a limited data set and that re-running Lott's tests with more complete data yielded none of the results Lott claimed.[66] However Lott has recently updated his findings with further evidence.

According to the FBI, during the first year of the Obama administration the national murder rate declined by 7.4% along with other categories of crime which fell by significant percentages.[67] During that same time national gun sales increased dramatically. According to Mr. Lott 450,000 more people bought guns in November 2008 than November 2007 which represents a 40% increase in sales, a trend which continued throughout 2009.[65] The drop in the murder rate was the biggest one-year drop since 1999, another year when gun sales soared in the wake of increased calls for gun control as a result of the Columbine shooting.[65]

In reporting on Lott's original analysis The Chronicle of Higher Education has said that although his findings are controversial "Mr. Lott's research has convinced his peers of at least one point: No scholars now claim that legalizing concealed weapons causes a major increase in crime."[68]

An article by Moody and Marvel uses a more extensive data set and projects effects beyond a five-year span. Though their data set renders an apparent reduction in the cost of crime, Donohue and Ayres point out that the cost of crime increased in 23 of the 24 jurisdictions under scrutiny. Florida was the only jurisdiction showing positive effects from Shall-Issue Laws. Donohue and Ayres question the special case of Florida as well.[69]

This empirical back-and-forth may well indicate that the data is too incomplete, ambiguous, and crude to establish the positive effects of conceal-carry on crime.[70] For further discussion, also see Moody and Marvel's and Ayres and Donohue's 2009 articles in Econ Journal Watch.[71][72]

The National Research Council, the working arm of the National Academy of Sciences, claims to have found "no credible evidence" either supporting or disproving Lott's thesis.[73] On the Ayres and Donohue hybrid model showing more guns-more crime, the NAS panel stated: "The committee takes no position on whether the hybrid model provides a correct description of crime levels or the effects of right-to-carry laws."[74]

In 2009, Public Health Law Research,[75] an independent organization, published an evidence summary concluding there is not enough evidence to establish the effectiveness of "Shall-Issue" laws as a public health intervention to reduce violent crime.[76]

Using publicly available media reports, the Violence Policy Center claims that from May 2007 through the end of 2009, concealed carry permit holders in the U.S. have killed at least 117 individuals, including 9 law enforcement officers (excluding cases where individuals were acquitted, but including pending cases). There were about 25,000 murders by firearm that period,[77][78] meaning that concealed carry permit holders committed less than 1% of the murders by firearm. Furthermore, a large number of the victims were killed in extended suicides, most of which took place in the home of the shooter, where arms can be possessed without special permits.[79]

In 2008, there were 16,272 murders and 245 legally justified/self defense killings in the United States.[80] However, the FBI Uniform Crime Report states that the justifiable homicide stat does not represent eventual adjudication by medical examiner, coroner, district attorney, grand jury, trial jury or appellate court; few US jurisdictions allow a police crime report to adjudicate a homicide as justifiable, resulting in a undercount in the UCR table. The vast majority of defensive gun uses (DGUs) do not involve killing or even wounding an attacker, with government surveys showing 108,000 (NCVS) to 23 million (raw NSPOF) DGUs per year, with ten private national surveys showing 764,000 to 3.6 million DGU per year.[81][82]

[Peikko 1,575]

There are mitigating factors that preclude Alaska from being any sort of model for crime prevention.

Indeed there are