According to statistics, the average response time for an emergency call is about 10 minutes. This is if you have the opportunity to make that critical call to law enforcement. What will you do if you are caught in a situation where your life, or the life of others, is in danger?
The decision of whether or not to carry is a very personal decision. It is a decision that puts you within a split second of the ability to defend yourself or fall victim to a crime. Here are some facts you will not get from most main stream media sources about concealed carry.
Myth: Concealed carry doesn’t prevent crimes
Myth: Concealed carry laws increase crime
Fact: Gun homicides were 10% higher in states with restrictive CCW laws, according to a study spanning 1980-2009 (Applied Economics Letters, Vol 21, No. 4)
Fact: Florida’s homicide rate fell from 36% above the national average to 4% below, (Florida Department of Justice, 1998)
Fact: In Texas, murder rates fell 50% faster than the national average in the year after their concealed carry law passed. Rape rates fell 93% faster in the first year after enactment, and 500% faster in the second. Assaults fell 250% faster in the second year. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, online database, reviewing Texas and U.S. violent crime from 1995-2001)
The Washington Times has a story titled:
“Murder rates drop as concealed carry permits soar” ‘
The story states that the number of concealed carry handgun permits has skyrocketed since President Obama was first elected, while murder rates have fallen.
“Since 2007, the number of concealed handgun permits has soared from 4.6 million to over 12.8 million, and murder rates have fallen from 5.6 killings per 100,000 people to just 4.2, about a 25 percent drop, according to the report from the Crime Prevention Research Center.
And the number of permits issued is increasing faster every year. Over 1.7 million new permits were issued last year — a 15.4 percent increase over 2013, the largest such single-year jump ever, according to the report from the center led by President John R. Lott and research director John E. Whitley.”
Committee Reports from the Library of Congress
A study of the effect of concealed carry laws on crime rates, published in 1997, estimated that `[w]hen state concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell by 7.65 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent.'
The general conclusion of this study, that concealed weapons deter crime, has been replicated and confirmed by other scholars.
All this puts the myth from anti-gun groups and individuals that if we have more law-abiding citizens walking around concealing guns, we will have more crime.
The choice to conceal carry is ultimately yours. Please do your own research and make the best decision for yourself.
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