XDA

R,

I tend to respond in sequence hence I did not read this comment b/f posting in response to the one above.

"Allowing good honest citizens to carry concealed weapons is an imperfect solution but it is better than nothing, which is what that law allowed--a gun free zone where the crazy shooter had no fear of armed resistance while he executed one after another."

Your statement is patently absurd. 1. If the shooter were crazy, w/ which I agree in terms of my own definition of sanity, and bent on self destruction, which obviously he was, why would the prospect of armed resistance deter him? Remember, we are not dealing w/ a person who assesses risk the way we do.

2. What is the prospect for harm to innocents posed by "good and honest citizens" carrying concealed weapons?

Consider risk versus reward. Merely b/c you are "a good and honest citizen" and know firearm safety does not reneder you an expert in how to react in situations perceived as life and death. Nor does it render you an expert on assessing whether situations are life and death. Or even whether situations are real.

"Gee, I didn't realize that the students I encountered on my way to class were rehearsing "Othello" so when the guy began to strangle the girl, I shot him."

I suspect very strongly that if "good and honest citizens" were allowed to carry concealed weapons as a matter of course at the end of any given year, the accidental homicides and mayhem caused by these citizens would far outnumber the crimes they prevented while encountering them in flagrante delicto.

Of course the issue arises whether good and honest citizens carrying concealed weapoons would reduce the crime rate b/c criminals not bent on self destruction would be deterred by the prospect of their victims being armed.

I suspect that some crime would be reduced while violent crime or crimes in which firearms are involved would increase.

You know more about the criminal mind than I do. What do you think?
 

Tony, I don't think it is the prospect of armed resistance that would deter him. It is the actuality of a slug in his chest that would.
 

He was crazy enough to want to kill a lot of people, but not so crazy that he shot at random at hallucinations, for example. He had the foresight to chain lock the double doors. So I don't think it absurd to think he had the wits to consider his chances of encountering an armed citizen as nil. You are free to disagree but your argument is not persuasive to me. The risk to innocents by armed good citizens is pretty minimal--no program is perfect, but hardly anyone who gets a carry permit abuses the right and shoots innocents. But I agree that just having shot some at a 4 hour class does not instantly render you ready to shoot back effectively in a stressful life and death situation. I said it's at best an imperfect remedy, if you recall. But at least there's the chance. You are all wet about guns stopping crime. It happens a lot-- generally just showing the gun sends the felon-to-be running. I don't believe the 2 million a year figure put forth by some gun guys but half a million a year seems to be a number even the skeptics embrace, unwillingly. Certainly the prevented crimes hugely outnumber the gun accidents and wrongful shootings which are minimal in shall issue carry permit states like ours. These permits seem to reduce all violent crime, but it's tough to tell because crime statistics advance and receed for a lot of reasons. And Mike is 100% right. For the would be mass murder, just showing the weapon probably wouldn't do it. Guns don't kill people, it's the bullet hitting home in the 10 spot. Just so, the death penalty deters future crime because the executed criminal will commit none after his execution.
 

R,

Oh man. Let me just say that the non executed murderer sentenced to life also does not, for much less $, commit additional murders, except perhaps in prison when the odds are dead on the victim is one of his own ilk about whom we care only in the abstract.

I am still in the PPPV execution camp. It has that free market ambience about it that makes it difficult to eschew.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. People w/ guns.

I am all for the 2nd Amendment. I am not turning the streets of our cities, towns, and hamlets into Dodge Ciry meets The Road Warrrior, which is the inevitable result of your proposal.

T
 

What a chicken little. Shall issue permit states now number in the upper 30s and the streets are not fully crimson. Modern police forces would kill to have Dodge City's crime rate circa 1877, it was so much lower than the average today.
 

"I am not [for] turning the streets of our cities, towns, and hamlets into Dodge Ci[t]y meets The Road Wa[]rrior, which is the inevitable result of your proposal."

I believe you lawyers call that "conclusory". The rest of us would call it begging the question.

The available evidence (substantial at this point) indicates that your scenario is also false. Such a bloodbath has never come close to happening when more legal firearms are carried by ordinary citizens. (See the statistics in Colorado, Texas, Florida, and every other state that has loosened the requirements for concealed handgun carry.)

I can understand why you wouldn't want to adduce actual, you know, evidence for your position. It is only in the absence of evidence that your argument has any weight at all.