Reply #82: I guess someone could do your research

[iverglas]

Have you no native curiosity?

This one's a little vague:
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/ccw2_20020102.htm

While untoward incidents have been rare, so have reports of defensive uses of a weapon by a CCW licensee. Backers of the new law predicted that it would save lives as armed citizens warded off attackers.

Hey, parenthetically: is this a case we've heard tell of?

In Ogemaw County, a 61-year-old man was charged with felonious assault in October after he drew his weapon during a traffic altercation. No shots were fired. He pleaded guilty and his license was revoked, authorities said.

The VPC tells us:

http://www.vpc.org/studies/cccrimst.htm

The NRA's greatest success in lobbying for looser concealed weapons laws has been through framing the issue in terms of self-defense against crime. Yet the NRA has not been able to offer much in the way of hard evidence to support its assertion that armed citizens make for a safer society. ... The NRA vigorously touts relaxed concealed carry laws as a mechanism to arm law-abiding citizens against predatory criminals. And in each state where it battles to "reform" concealed carry laws the organization points to Florida as proof that such laws work. ... Meanwhile, the battle over such laws continues in Michigan, Ohio, and other states. In every state, however, proponents of relaxed concealed carry laws, led by the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), hold up the state of Florida's concealed weapons law as a model to be replicated throughout the nation. ... Since 1987 the NRA has successfully conducted a state-by-state campaign to loosen concealed weapons laws, holding up the Florida statute as the model of how such laws work.

Now of course it's always possible that the VPC is just lying about the NRA. Quite the elaborate lie, if so.

Well, how about the horse's mouth?

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=18 (emphasis added)

More RTC states, less crime. The nation`s violent crime rate has decreased every year since 1991 and in 2002 hit a 23-year low. In the same period, 17 states adopted and 13 states improved RTC laws. RTC states have lower violent crime rates, on average: 24% lower total violent crime, 22% lower murder, 37% lower robbery, and 20% lower aggravated assault. The five states with the lowest violent crime rates are RTC states. (Data: FBI)

RTC and crime trends. Studying crime trends in every county in the U.S., John Lott and David Mustard found, "allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states which did not have Right to Carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders; 4,177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly. ...(T)he estimated annual gain from allowing concealed handguns is at least $6.214 billion. ... (W)hen state concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent." ("Crime, Deterrence, and Right To Carry Concealed Handguns," 1996.)

And I'm afraid all that goes a little beyond observation of correlation, and crosses right over the line into assertion of causation: would have been avoided, just for starters.

And that just looks an awful damned lot like a "promise" to me -- an assertion that if your state had adopted the NRA's recommended legislation, a rather specific number of murders, rapes and aggravated assaults would have been avoided can't really be understood other than as an assertion that if your state adopts the NRA's recommended legislation, some ascertainable number of murders, rapes and aggravated assaults will be avoided, I don't think. Speaking honestly.

Anybody else interested in speaking honestly is invited to do so.