Re: Guns in Florida

mark@unicorn.com
Fri, 10 Jul 1998 06:31:45 -0700 (PDT)

ChuckKuecker [ckuecker@mcs.net] wrote:
>I think it's likely that concealed carry laws will result in higher
>gun crimes for the period it takes to purge out those who pass the
>tests but are unsuited to the responsibility.

>From the figures I've seen the "unsuited" amount to less than 0.1% of
those issued with carry permits, and most are "unsuited" only because of minor technicalities (e.g. taking a gun into a bar, which is normal behaviour in Israel). I think there has been one murder committed by a person with a concealed carry permit, but with 150,000 or more issued over eleven years that's pretty good going.

People who go through all the hassle of getting legal carry permits are the kind of people who don't break the laws in other ways; and since very few violent crimes are committed by people who don't have a prior record, they wouldn't get permits anyway. Of course the criminals don't care and just carry illegally.

Mark