In the seemingly never-ending fight over gun rights, the anti-2A side continually tries to argue that more concealed carry firearms in society increase the number of crimes in that society. But is that really the case?
We’re looking at exactly that today with something that gun control advocates continually avoid: context.
Now, to be fair to the anti-2A side, lack of context may not mean that their conclusions are wrong (you need to look into the data in context to know that). They argue that more guns mean more crime because criminals would be able to get their hands on guns more often due to an increase in gun thefts and that more legal gun owners somehow decreases the effectiveness of law enforcement.
Those who advocate for more legal gun owners carrying regularly (that would be me and, likely, you) argue that criminals use weapons illegally anyway, so, reducing the number of legal guns and reducing or eliminating legal concealed carry of firearms doesn’t reduce criminal activity, and that there’s no link between legal firearm ownership and the effectiveness of law enforcement. What gun control does do is prevent legal gun owners (who do follow the law, after all, unlike criminals) have less options to even the playing field against criminals, and, in a perverse policy position choice, those who argue for gun control are nearly always the same people arguing to weaken law enforcement in an area (so, who is weakening the effectiveness of law enforcement?).
What do the actual statistics, in context, show us, though (hat tip to here for the lead)?
A new paper by John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center and Professor Carlisle E. Moody of the College of William and Mary – Department of Economics and the Crime Prevention Research Center shows the following:
We have a unique data set that allows us to gauge the effect of CCW [Concealed Carry Weapon] permit holders on important issues concerning the pathways by which right-to-carry laws might increase violent crime. We find that permit holders are not responsible for gun thefts beyond that expected by the average burglary rate, that the number of CCW permits has no significant effect on the number of gun thefts. With respect to the second issue, whether CCW permit holders reduce the effectiveness of the police, we find that there no evidence that the number of CCW permits has any effect on police effectiveness, measured as the clearance rate of violent crimes.
With respect to the effect of constitutional carry laws, the evidence shows no impact on the rate that guns are stolen or are the effectiveness of police. However, since most of the constitutional carry laws have been passed since 2015, it may be too early to draw any conclusions. Also, since we have no measure of concealed weapon carrying in those states, we are limited to difference in differences analyses. In that case we have more data than that available in the data set used in this analysis. More research is needed.
To translate into everyday language what that conclusion says: Those arguing for gun rights have more data, and that more complete data doesn’t show that higher legal concealed carry rates increase gun thefts or weaken law enforcement. Data for constitutional carry states, though, may not have enough time on it (since most of those laws have passed since 2015), so, from a statistical analysis position, we may not, yet, be able to put the nail in the coffin of the anti-2A movement.
And, let’s be honest, those arguing for gun control aren’t arguing for it from a rational position but from an irrational, purely emotional position anyway, so, this debate with those pushing for gun control isn’t likely to go away quickly.
It is nice to be reaffirmed, though, that those of us who advocate for gun rights are on the right side of reality.