BY DAWSON BELL
Some of what passes for research and analysis of the effect of permissive concealed weapons laws on crime and violence is pretty crude.
Take, for instance, the anti-gun Violence Policy Center's Web page called "Concealed Carry Killers."
It purports to tally the carnage that results when states, such as Michigan, authorize ordinary citizens under most circumstances to be licensed to carry concealed guns.
A closer look at VPC's data
Michigan's concealed weapons law requires the State Police to report annually on deaths by suicide of license holders.
But the reports contain no information about how the licensee died or whether a firearm was involved.
Several other "victims" in the VPC report appear to have been criminals themselves, shot attempting to rob legally armed citizens. But with 276,000 concealed pistol license holders, even the unscrubbed VPC numbers hardly establish evidence of a crime wave.
One of the few pieces of relative consensus about concealed weapons and crime is that licensees, who in most states, including Michigan, undergo background checks and training, tend to be more law-abiding than the adult population at large.
Even Dennis Henigan of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, no fan of permissive CCW laws, concedes as much.
During the past 15 years, more than two dozen peer-reviewed analyses of the effect of right-to-carry laws on crime have been published in academic journals, Lott said. Sixteen found that concealed carry reduced crime; 10 suggested no discernible impact. None showed crime to have increased in right-to-carry jurisdictions
http://www.freep.com/article/20110801/NEWS06/108010323/More-gun-licenses-more-debates?odyssey=obinsite
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