Legalizing Concealed Weapons May Deter Crime Essay

Imagine a situation where a big event was taken place and among the many people a mass shooting breaks out killing hundreds until the police shown up 12 minutes later. Concealed carry laws save lives. To start off, it is an Americans constitutional right to bear arms for self-defense. Second, concealed carry is effective and proven to keep civilians safer. “In truth, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (Chong 27).

FBI statistics accumulated on a countrywide level show that in states that have strict gun control laws, there are higher crime rates. If gun control laws have any effect, it may be to increase crime! For instance, New Jersey adopted what sponsors described as “the most stringent gun law” in the nation in 1966; two years later the murder rate was up 46 percent and the reported robbery rate had nearly doubled. In 1968, Hawaii imposed a series of increasingly harsh measures, and its murder rate, then a low 2.4 per 100,000 per year, tripled to 7.2 by 1977. In opposition, states with liberal gun carry laws have much lower crime rates. In Florida the homicide rate dropped from 37 percent above the national average to 3 percent below the national average after the state changed its concealed carry law in 1987. In 1987, Florida’s murder rate was 11.4 per 100,000 compared with the national rate of 8.2. By 1992, the national rate had risen to 9.3 per 100,000 while Florida’s had dropped to 9, and in 1993, it continued to drop another .3 to 8.7 per 100,000. Between 1987 and 1992, rape increased nationally by 14.4 percent. But in Florida, it increased only 2.9 percent and in 1993 rape in Florida decreased .2 percent. Florida issued 204,108 concealed carry licenses during the first six and half years

* It was found that “criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use.” Studies show that the number of respondents claiming to be victims of gun violence outnumbered those claiming to have used a gun in self-defense by more than 4 to 1.

Specific Purpose Statement: To persuade my audience that each individual must take responsibility for his or her own actions. The must not blame guns for problems caused by people. .

Now a citizen carrying a concealed weapon can be very beneficial to society and maybe even help save lives. In an article by ProCon.org, it is stated that “...this law helped to stop a massacre in Dec. 2007 when a volunteer security guard for the church who was carrying a concealed handgun shot an attacker who had opened fire in the church.” ProCon claims that because this man had his concealed weapons permit, he himself was able to stop what could have been an awful and tragic mess. And that is the entire point of having a concealed weapons permit, so that any citizen can protect themselves from certain situations.

Since 2007, over 921 American citizens have been killed by concealed carry weapons (VPC: Concealed Carry Killers). Concealed Carry should be illegal in the United States because countries with stricter gun laws have lower homicide rates and concealed carry weapons provide an easy way to commit suicide and other forms of violence. As of right now, the United States Government leaves concealed carry laws up to individual states to decide. Thirty-one states have shall issue laws, which entails that if law-abiding people complete specified requirements then they are eligible to get a concealed carry license (NRA-ILA). Connecticut is the single state with reasonable issue laws. Reasonable issue implies that the state has some discretion over

Many Americans tend to be on opposing sides when dealing with such a controversial issue such as gun control. A more specific category of such a broad topic as gun control is the practice that some Americans participate in, called concealed carry. Concealed carry is the practice of carrying a weapon, typically a handgun, on one’s body that is hidden from the public. This political issue hits many different institutions within America, such as many special interest groups, the constitution and Judicial branch of the government, and also the principle of Federalism.

There is a small percentage of the population that has a concealed weapons permit. In that small percentage everyone is a law abiding citizen, except for a few here and there. They are a set of citizens hard to tell apart in a crowd because of their normality. This meaning that they do not plan on doing harm with their weapon. They respect the fact that having a concealed weapon is serious business. They are willing to go through the tests and classes that one must go through to obtain their permit. They know all the laws, which they must fallow, with that one could safely say that a concealed weapon would be handled safely by this set of people.

The problem with guns is fairly obvious: they decrease the difficulty of killing or injuring a person. In Jeffrey A. Roth's Firearms and Violence (NIJ Research in Brief, February 1994), he points out the obvious dangers. About 60 percent of all murder victims in the United States in 1989 (about 12,000 people) were killed with firearms. Firearm attacks injured another 70,000 victims, some of whom were left permanently disabled. In 1985, the cost of shootings was an estimated $14 billion nationwide for medical care, long-term disability, and premature death. In robberies and assaults, victims are far more likely to die when the perpetrator is armed with a gun than when he or she has another weapon or is unarmed.

“One man with a gun can control 100 men without one.” This quote was voiced by Vladimir Lenin that was a Russian communist revolutionary. The reference explains how people with a gun are in control and how if they aren’t responsible, they can take lives within minutes. Handgun killings can vary between taking out a concealed handgun and silently murdering someone, or openly walking into a school and killing everyone. Statistics from 2010 show that concealed handguns took 31,076 American Lives in homicide, suicides, and unintentional shootings. Concealed handguns should be prohibited because carrying a concealed handgun increases the chances of a confrontation escalating and turning lethal, second amendment rights have limits, criminals are more likely to carry a gun if they suspect their victim will be armed, permitting concealed handguns increase crime rate, and finally public safety should be left to professionals instead of untrained citizens.

Additionally, in states that have laws permitting concealed weapons for those who qualify, there has been a measurable reduction in violent crimes and murder. There are forty states that allow those who have permits to carry a handgun. Consequently, there are approximately 3.5 million U.S. citizens that are permitted to have a concealed weapon on their person, or in their car (Kates & Mauser, 2007). John Lott and David Mustard conducted a study on the concealed handguns law. They analyzed FBI crime statistics for the entire United States, covering the years from 1977 to 1992. With conservative approximations, states enacting the concealed weapons law had a reduction in rape by 5%, robbery by 3%, aggravated assault by 7%, and murder by 8.5% (Lott, n.d.).

Advocates of gun control seem to strongly believe that by adding restrictions on firearms, the amount of crimes committed with guns will decrease. Statistics, however, have shown otherwise. Let us look at Chicago for an example. A ban on handguns became effective in Chicago in 1982. In 2010, the ban was lifted due to the Supreme Court ruling that it was unconstitutional. Statistics on deaths caused by handguns were recorded before, during, and after the handgun ban took place. These recordings have shown that the deaths caused by handguns was significantly higher during the period that they were banned than the years before when they were not banned. From 1965 to 1982, about forty-eight percent of all murders were committed with a handgun in Chicago. During the twenty-eight years the handgun ban was enacted, approximately fifty-nine percent of all murders were committed with handguns (gun control, 2016).

"Allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths." This study, using data from 1977 to 1992, concluded that, had the states which outlaw "concealed carry" allowed their citizens to carry concealed weapons, over 1,500 murders, 4,000 rapes, and 60,000 aggravated assaults could have been

In modern days society, there are numerous crimes are caused by firearms including handguns which are relatively easier to access for normal citizens compare to other firearms. The country I will mostly focus is United States of America, since US is the country where crime related to gun happens the most. This is because the inclusion of the right to bear arms and owning firearms to protect itself from others are in the second amendment to the constitution of the United States of America. According to the most recent research by statista.com, from 1972 to 2017, approximately above 40 percent of American citizens had contact with gun at least one time. For these kind of reasons, the United States suffers from gun-related incidents. Some people argues that gun control regulation will not affect the rate of gun related crimes and other incidents. However, that is not right. They argue that gun is not only main factor of innocent people’s death and it is just one of small factor, there are more diverse crimes cause more death than guns. Next, they claim that majority of people has a gun, you also might get shot, but will that person still willing to shoot? Further, they also mentioned that gun control efforts have proved ineffective. But, does arguments made by opposing side are very arguable with specific reasons with evidence, which I will explain in following paragraphs.

To begin, decreased gun control would help save more lives and decrease crime then would’ve been caused by adversaries of society. Firearms are used properly by equitable citizens in self-defense about 2.5 million times annually (GOA). Ninety-two percent of the time, out of the 2.5 million times, the citizen solitarily showed the weapon to appear menacing to the aggressor (GOA). The accumulative amount of firearm use for self-preservation is six times the aplenty of criminal gun abuse(Gun Facts). One study found that merely 2% of citizen shootings result in the death of an innocent person, albeit police shootings innocent civilian death rates were 11% (Gun Facts). An outbreak of sexual assaults, in Orlando, Florida, 1966, caused the city to take decisive action by supplying women with concealed carry classes, rape rates decreased by 90% the ensuing year (Gun Facts).