Mom Runs Burglars Off with Gun

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

You could argue that concealed carry prevents crime on the whole (which you're doing) but the fact is, open carry prevents crime to YOU at that moment. As you've posted, cops "put their guns out there" so criminals know where they are. I do the same. I don't want a criminal to have to think about "should I victimize this guy or not?" I want him to think "that dude has a gun so I'm going to move on to the next person who doesn't have one."

I could care less what the overall crime rate is for a given area. I live mere blocks away from the most dangerous neighborhood in America yet I'm never in fear of being victimized. Why? Because I make it a point to look like I'm not an easy victim.

Concealed carry is effective in making work environments dangerous for criminals. But, to argue that it's more effective than open carry can't be proven - especially since people who open carry daily are rarely victimized.

Sure and when was the last time a person got assaulted at a gun show?

It can actually be proven in crime statistics which show marked drops after the implementaion of concealed carry even when open carry has been legal for many years. Ohio is an example. So is Kentucky, Georgia, Montana and many other states had always had open carry but only in the last 15 years or so implemented concealed carry. Crime dropped following concealed carry. You will see the same in Wisconsin, which also had open carry and now has concealed carry.

Open carry protects you, but no one else. While YOU will not be victimized, someone else WILL be because the criminal is still there and if the law abiding populace has no option to carry concealed the criminal will just bash the next guy who is not openly carrying a gun. His "risk" has not been increased, it has only decreased the available market to victimize, not made the market unpalatable. Concealed carry REDUCES CRIME in every state it has been implemented, that is good news for everyone. Open carry reduces the chances of YOU being the victim. UNLESS the guy cases a joint sees you with a gun and decides to take you out with the first shot. This is getting a bit out in left field now, but my point is that concealed carry has the overall effect of reducing crime even for people who do not have the fortitude to defend their families themselves and rely on others to do that. Providing more "others" in society helps the cowards and wusses and weinies and I am the kind of guy that would like to help other people if I can, especially if it requires no additional effort or cost on my part. Carrying my handgun concealed protects no only myself, but everyone around me.

When uniformed police, always outnumbered, cannot protect all the wimps that intend to dial 911 when their family is threatened, need to have a force multiplier, they go to plainsclothes officers, plainclothes air marshalls, etc. And THAT is what concealed carry is, a force multiplier. When you have constitutional concealed carry, such as Vermont and now Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming have, the situation of good guys with guns being outnumbered is, at least theoretically, reversed and now more good guys have guns than bad guys. Or at least more good guys CAN have guns.

FWIW my Uncle, now passed away, had a nice boat near his retirment home in Sarasota FL and whenever he went to the yacht club he made quite a spectacle of carrying a stainless steel pump shotgun over his shoulder to the boat and layed in on the dashboard. He would say "If any of these effin' pirates have any ideas about MY boat I want them to know they will die trying!" That was during a period when alot of boats were being stolen at sea by drug dealers and before concealed carry in FL. Often the owners of the boats washed up on the beach. The problem went away for the most part since concealed carry.

[slim 1,525]

Sure and when was the last time a person got assaulted at a gun show?

It can actually be proven in crime statistics which show marked drops after the implementaion of concealed carry even when open carry has been legal for many years. Ohio is an example. So is Kentucky, Georgia, Montana and many other states had always had open carry but only in the last 15 years or so implemented concealed carry. Crime dropped following concealed carry. You will see the same in Wisconsin, which also had open carry and now has concealed carry.

Open carry protects you, but no one else. While YOU will not be victimized, someone else WILL be because the criminal is still there and if the law abiding populace has no option to carry concealed the criminal will just bash the next guy who is not openly carrying a gun. His "risk" has not been increased, it has only decreased the available market to victimize, not made the market unpalatable. Concealed carry REDUCES CRIME in every state it has been implemented, that is good news for everyone. Open carry reduces the chances of YOU being the victim. UNLESS the guy cases a joint sees you with a gun and decides to take you out with the first shot. This is getting a bit out in left field now, but my point is that concealed carry has the overall effect of reducing crime even for people who do not have the fortitude to defend their families themselves and rely on others to do that. Providing more "others" in society helps the cowards and wusses and weinies and I am the kind of guy that would like to help other people if I can, especially if it requires no additional effort or cost on my part. Carrying my handgun concealed protects no only myself, but everyone around me.

When uniformed police, always outnumbered, cannot protect all the wimps that intend to dial 911 when their family is threatened, need to have a force multiplier, they go to plainsclothes officers, plainclothes air marshalls, etc. And THAT is what concealed carry is, a force multiplier. When you have constitutional concealed carry, such as Vermont and now Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming have, the situation of good guys with guns being outnumbered is, at least theoretically, reversed and now more good guys have guns than bad guys. Or at least more good guys CAN have guns.

FWIW my Uncle, now passed away, had a nice boat near his retirment home in Sarasota FL and whenever he went to the yacht club he made quite a spectacle of carrying a stainless steel pump shotgun over his shoulder to the boat and layed in on the dashboard. He would say "If any of these effin' pirates have any ideas about MY boat I want them to know they will die trying!" That was during a period when alot of boats were being stolen at sea by drug dealers and before concealed carry in FL. Often the owners of the boats washed up on the beach. The problem went away for the most part since concealed carry.

The crime rate started falling before the AWB. I know you're not touting the AWB as being the driving force behind the falling crime rate, are you? And for what it's worth, concealed carry is not a force multiplier, it's a variable. When cops need extra help they don't call the plainclothes guys.... they call SWAT.

The fact is guns in the hands of law abiding citizens reduces crime whether those guns are out in the open or tucked in a waistband.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

The fact is guns in the hands of law abiding citizens reduces crime whether those guns are out in the open or tucked in a waistband.

And that is true and I certainly am not suggesting we ban the open carry of firearms, nor do we have a restriction on open carry here. I could just as well carry openly, and many carry "semi-openly" such as the gun sticking out of their back pocket or the obvious Glock in the jacket pocket of the guy in front of me at the grocery store last night, The ,45 not quite covered by a short jacket, People do not really care if it shows or not because there is no law one way or the other and no one in Vermont flips out over the sight of gun.

But I do not carry openly as a habit.

Cops call SWAT when they have identified the threat. When the threat is unidentified...an increase in subway assaults for example, increase in burglaries, increase in store robberies...they use plainclothes officers and unmarked cars and do press conferences saying "We are positioning an additional force of unmarked cars and plainclothes officers" they even set up "stings" with undecover officers.

Edited February 14, 2012 by Gary and Alla

[slim 1,525]

Sure. But saying concealed carry is the reason crime has decreased isn't necessarily accurate either.

You could say the AWB reduced crime. You could also say the sunsetting of the AWB reduced crime. The "facts" of crime and the involvement of firearms aren't "yes" or "no." They're "maybe."

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Sure. But saying concealed carry is the reason crime has decreased isn't necessarily accurate either.

You could say the AWB reduced crime. You could also say the sunsetting of the AWB reduced crime. The "facts" of crime and the involvement of firearms aren't "yes" or "no." They're "maybe."

Not necessarily.

If there were a number of crimes with assault weapons and that number remained unchanged or went up or went down in response to a law on the use of assault weapons and other crimes remained unchanged or changed LESS, then you could say that an AWB had some effect (good or bad, whatever) by isolating those crimes and seeing the result. the late, great assault weapons ban is a poor example since it did not "ban" anything and left everything in place that existed before the law and even allowed functionally similar rifles to be produced sans a useless cosmetic feature. This made it physically impossible for the AWB to have ANY effect on crime, except perhaps bayonetings. I have not reviewed the statistics on that particular offense.

If you pass a concealed carry law and crime goes down in general buyt crimes involving incidents where one can defend oneself with a firearm (assault, rape, robbery etc) go down MORE than the genrral trend, then you CAN SAY the ability to defend oneself is the determining factor.

In a state like Vermont, which has always allowed concealed carry and has always had low crime in the area of crimes against persons, yet has had fluctuating values in other types of crime... it is clear the role of concealed carry. During bad economic times we may see larcency or theft increase, but rape, homicide, home invasion, armed robbery, asault etc. remain the same or continue to go down. When the state remans at the bottom of the list despite ups and downs in the crime trends nationwide, it is because of a unique feature of that state. In Vermont, that is allowing anyone to carry a gun concealed or otherwise. I am sure you do not disagree that that ability reduces crime.

[Dan and Judy 614]

　

The number of Crime Index offenses reported by Wyoming law enforcement agencies during the third quarter of 2011 increased 5.71 percent compared to the same quarter of 2010. Excluding arson, the crime Index totaled 4,091 offenses during July-September, compared to 3,891 offenses in 2010.

http://attorneygeneral.state.wy.us/dci/pdf/2011ThirdQuarterReport.pdf

Maybe the criminals haven't heard about the new law yet

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

I wonder if this also works with High School Teachers?