More Guns = Less Crime
Here’s a headline you probably already knew: More guns equal less crime.
A recent report from the Philadelphia-based Crime Prevention Research Center found that as concealed carry permits has increased 178 percent in the last several years, the murder rate has dropped.
John Lott, an author who has held teaching and research positions at Stanford, Penn, Yale and the University of Chicago said the huge increase in the number of permits issued to allow law-abiding Americans to carry demonstrates attitudes toward firearms are changing. "Americans have increasingly come to believe that guns make them safer," Lott said, stressing that African-Americans are increasingly embracing their Second Amendment rights.
“More permits means that it is becoming riskier for criminals to attack victims,” Lott said,” which if you think about it, makes sense. As has been demonstrated time and time again, so-called gun free zones become unrestricted killing fields for criminals and psychopaths where they know their victims cannot fight back. Even the possibility a potential victim is armed is a huge deterrent to crime.
There are demographic shifts in attitudes towards guns as well.
A recent Pew Research poll that showed that, over the last two years, African-Americans more than any other group have accepted the notion that owning a gun can prevent them from being a victim of crime. The Center also found that minority groups were getting permits at a rate that greatly exceeded that of whites.
While more and more states have been adopting laws to allow individuals to obtain concealed carry permits over the years, gun control advocates say there are more factors involved, and worry about the number of hidden handguns.
Worry about the number of hidden handguns? Aren’t hidden or concealed handguns the primary reason crime is down?
