Right-To-Carry Laws Are Good

By Daniel Miessler on January 5th, 2007: Tagged as Culture | Guns | Law

Adding to the reasons why voters should “Dump Doyle” in Wisconsin’s upcoming gubernatorial election, their state had the greatest total violent crime rate increase (15.1%) between 2004-2005. Murder was up 25.2%; robbery up 11.2%; and aggravated assault up 20.2%. Wisconsin is one of only two states that prohibits Right-to-Carry entirely, but in 2005, 11 of the 12 states that had the greatest decreases in total violent crime, and 12 of the 14 states with the greatest decreases in murder were Right-to-Carry states. The seven states with the lowest total violent crime rates in 2005, and 11 of the 12 states that had the lowest murder rates, were Right-to-Carry states.

Last, but not least, is good news from Florida, the state that during the last 20 years has been most often attacked by anti-gunners, for (among other reasons) setting the Right-to-Carry and “Castle Doctrine” movements in motion. In 2005, Florida recorded a murder rate 13% lower than the rate for the rest of the country (4.96 per 100,000, vs. 5.67 for the rest of the country). For the record, Florida’s 2005 murder rate was 58% lower than it was in 1986, the last year before the state’s landmark Right-to-Carry law took effect.

This is well understood by my readers (they tend to be rather bright), but I’ll say it again just for the record: if you make it illegal to carry a weapon in the United States, all you will do is ensure that only criminals have weapons.

There is a really easy way to end the debate here. Find the number of negative outcomes that have arisen due to right-to-carry laws, e.g. legal carriers having accidents or injuring/killing someone out of anger, and then compare that to the amount by which negative outcomes decreased among criminals, i.e. the overall crime rate fall.

At that point it’s relatively simple. Hell, now that I think about it the crime rate itself would include the crimes committed by the legal owners, so it’s a moot point. Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are good. I mean, damn — look at the U.K. Gun control is doing wonders for them, right?

Or look at Jamaica vs. Switzerland. Jamaica allows virtually no guns and has an insane murder rate. Switzerland has an exorbitant number of guns and maintains a very low crime rate. Think about it.

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Michael S Black 2 years ago 1 point
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'Course it helps that all Swiss men capable of serving (i.e able-bodies men between 18 and 30) are required to undergo 15 weeks of military training. Over the next 22 to 32 years, they must attend a succession of two- to three-week training camps during until he's accrued 300 to 1,300 days of active service. (Service requirements depend on rank: the higher the rank, the more years and accrued days are required.)

Having every physically fit man in a country trained in using a rifle, and then actually having that rifle in their homes all the time...well one could see why you might want to steal from a different country

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Daniel Miessler 2 years ago 1 point
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This actually supports my point. Not only are there more guns but more people trained to use them -- yet still less crime.

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