Michigan recently celebrated the six-year anniversary of the passage of concealed-carry legislation, which allows law abiding gun owners to carry a concealed weapon in public places (assuming they do the training, have a permit, pass a background check, etc.) The NRA recently ran a story on this topic, and quoted someone from the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police as follows: "I think the general consensus out there is that things are not as bad as we expected it could be. What we anticipated didn't happen, and I think we should breathe a sigh of relief."
You see this in state after state. Before concealed-carry legislation happens, cops, the mainstream media, and anti-gun groups wail and gnash their teeth. Their quotes are pretty predictable; almost inevitably they involve the phrases "wild west," "blood in the streets," and/or "fender-benders turning into shoot-outs." Then, once the laws pass and nothing changes, the more honorable ones among them say, "I'll be damned...guess we were wrong."
For reasons best known to me, I once compiled a series of these "before-and-after" quotes and related article excerpts from various sources. What follows is a big old list of them. No need to read them all. They pretty much say the same thing, over and over again:
“Glenn White, president of the 2,350-member Dallas Police
Association, said he lobbied against the (shall-issue) law in 1993 and 1995
because he thought it would lead to wholesale armed conflict. ‘That hasn't
happened,’ he said. ‘All the horror stories I thought would come to pass didn't
happen,’ said Senior Cpl. White, a patrol officer who works the 3-to-11 p.m.
shift. ‘No bogeyman. I think it's worked out well, and that says good things
about the citizens who have permits. I'm a convert.’”
“Some of the public
safety concerns which we imagined or anticipated…have been unfounded or
mitigated.” – Fairfax County, Virginia Police Major Bill Brown.
“The concerns that I had – with more guns on the street, folks may
be more apt to square off against one another with weapons – we haven't
experienced that.” – Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina Police Chief Dennis
Nowicki
“The Kentucky
Association of Chiefs of Police opposed the bill, saying that more guns would
mean more incidences of gun-related injuries. Craig Birdwhistell, executive
director of the association, said so far that hasn't happened. ‘No, we haven't
experienced the problems that some of our chiefs of police have anticipated,’
he said.”
“’I have changed my opinion of this (program),’ Campbell County
(Kentucky) Sheriff John Dunn said. ‘Frankly, I anticipated a certain type of
people applying to carry firearms, people I would be uncomfortable with being
able to carry a concealed weapon. That has not been the case. These are all
just everyday citizens who feel they need some protection.’”
“…Lt. William
Burgess of the Calhoun County (Michigan) Sheriff Department said ‘to the best
of my knowledge, we have not had an issue.’ Burgess admitted he is surprised.
‘I had expected there would be a lot more problems,’ he said. ‘But it has
actually worked out.’”
“As you know, I was very outspoken in my opposition to the passage
of the Concealed Handgun Act. I did not feel that such legislation was in the
public interest and presented a clear and present danger to law-abiding
citizens by placing more handguns on our streets. Boy was I wrong. Our
experience in Harris County, and indeed statewide, has proven my initial fears
absolutely groundless.” – John B. Holmes, District Attorney, Harris County,
Texas (which includes Houston).
“…Louisiana Sheriffs
Association Executive Director Bucky Rives, who expressed concern about the law
before it passed, said he hasn't heard anything about the effect of the law –
good or bad. ‘So far, I guess, so good,’ Rives said. ‘I cringed when they
passed the law, but I stand corrected thus far.’
“’The truth is, I
don't know that there has been a change one way or the other here or anywhere
else,’ said Anoka County (Minnesota) Sheriff Bruce Andersohn. ‘We had one side
that swore the world would be safer, we'd be in better condition, we'd have a
fall in crime. That's not a reality. The other side was that this would be the
Wild West with a shooting on every corner. Well, I'm not seeing that, either.’”
“…Oakland County
(Michigan) Prosecutor David Gorcyca said most (concealed weapon permit)
violations are minor, for infractions such as being intoxicated while carrying
a weapon or carrying a weapon without a license. ‘We haven't seen a huge
increase in offenses,’ he said. ‘It's already been three years. I don't think
we'll ever see any increases.’”
“’We have not seen,
in Michigan, that people get out their guns and start blasting each other,’”
said Matt Davis, of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. ‘It appears the new
law is working
“’What we've found
is there's been no significant increase in crime, because the people getting
permits are law-abiding people,’ said Katie Bower, one of the administrators of
Michigan's 2001 concealed-carry law. ‘There have been a few cases where we've
had problems, but it's not statistically significant.’”
“’Everyone who looks at this who was anticipating more violence
sees that the numbers of problems is (sic) very small,’ said Kim Eddie,
assistant executive secretary of the Michigan Prosecuting Attorneys
Coordinating Council, a state agency. ‘Both sides see that.’”
“In my professional
experience in South Dakota, a ‘shall-issue’ concealed-carry state where permits
are issued to anyone who can pass a background check, I have never had—nor
heard of—any problems with a person legally carrying a concealed pistol.” –
South Dakota municipal patrol officer, Adrian Alan
“’There was concern here initially that more officers would be
killed or more officers would be drawing on people who didn’t announce right
away that they were carrying,’ says Kym Koch at the Oklahoma State Bureau of
Investigation. ‘We haven’t seen that.’”
“’The people that go
through all the effort to get a pistol permit seldom get into any trouble with
the police,’ Fulton County (Georgia) Police Maj. Terry Mulkey said.
“'We haven't seen any cases where a permit holder has committed an
offense with a firearm,’ (the Covington, Kentucky police chief) said.
'’Licensing is not the problem relating to firearms.’”
“Sgt. Tom Keller,
who helped usher in the (Nevada) law during the two years he spent with the
Police Department's concealed-weapons detail, said he couldn't recall any cases
during his watch ‘where there was inappropriate use of a CCW (permit).’ Nor
could his boss at the time, Lt. Bill Cavagnaro. ‘I don't recall anybody getting
in any trouble,’ he says. ‘It seems to me most people who had the CCWs acted
responsibly.’”
“’We feel the program has done very well over the past 10 years,’
said Sgt. Bill Whalen, supervisor of the (Arizona) DPS Concealed Weapon Permit
Unit. ‘The program has served as a model for other states.’ There has been no
analysis of whether the concealed-weapon law has had any effect on crime,
Whalen said, but nearly everything he's heard points to the vast majority of
permit holders as responsible gun owners focused on safety. ‘All the people who
get concealed weapon permits are law-abiding citizens. These are the people who
aren't getting in trouble,’ Whalen said. ‘The people who don't care for laws,
in general, don't get permits.’”
“A lot of the
critics argued that the law-abiding citizens couldn't be trusted, nor were they
responsible enough to avoid shooting a stranger over a minor traffic dispute.
But the facts do speak for themselves. None of these horror stories have
materialized.” – Sheriff David Williams, Tarrant County, Texas
“I think that says something, that we’ve gotten to this point in
the year and in the thirdlargest city in America (Houston) there has not been a
single charge against anyone that had anything to do with a concealed handgun.”
– Harris County (Texas) District Attorney John Holmes
“Florida has the
longest track record, and officials there maintain that the state has
encountered few problems with concealed weapons. ‘It’s not the old Wild West
that everyone predicted, with shoot-outs at traffic lights,’ says John Russi,
director of the licensing division in Florida’s Department of State. ‘It just
didn’t materialize.’”
“’I haven't seen any problems from people carrying weapons. And we
haven't had more crime broken up because people have weapons,’ said Lt. M. E.
Frank of the Virginia State Police division, which supervises 14 counties in
that state.'"
“’I haven’t seen any problems because of’ the law, (West Virginia
Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Stephens) said. ‘Most of the problems we have is
(sic) with people who aren’t going to get a permit anyway.’”
“Concealed handgun permits have been available in New Mexico for
nearly a year, and so far, about 2,000 state residents have chosen to pay
hundreds of dollars for a license to keep a hidden, loaded weapon. When the
state Legislature enacted the permit law last year, some people said it would
make them feel safer and deter crime. Others, including those who
unsuccessfully challenged the law at the state Supreme Court, said concealed
guns would increase public fear. But law-enforcement officers in Santa Fe
County say the new law has no noticeable impact.
“Cabarrus (North Carolina) Sheriff Robert Canaday said the county's
crime rate had been falling before the new concealed-weapons law passed. ‘I
haven't seen any impact whatsoever,’ Canaday said. ‘We haven't had any
incidents where these folks who have the permits have done anything wrong, and
you can't draw any correlation between concealed-weapons permits and the crime
rate.’”
“When the state’s concealed weapons law was passed in 1996, critics
said it would turn South Carolina into Dodge City. Although a few abuses have
been recorded, law enforcement officials say the program has been effective for
the most part and is growing in popularity. …Former Gov. David Beasley signed
the concealed gun bill into law in 1996 after heated debate in the Legislature.
At the time, critics said it would just add trouble to the state’s gun culture.
But (state police captain Joe) Dorton said very few permit holders have abused
the privilege since the law was enacted.”
“…there haven’t been reports of people with concealed handgun
permits getting in trouble with their guns, even though critics of the law
predicted there would be problems. ‘I haven’t heard of any (problems),’ said
Sgt. Michael Noel, supervisor of daily operations in the (Louisiana) State
Police’s concealed handgun section.”
I've come to the conclusion that the Brady Campaign is seeking total gun bans. How it appears that they intend to do this, is to disarm innocent people, allow the criminals to operate with impunity, and use the resulting carnage to justify their agenda. It's not working.
Posted by: Matthew | May 04, 2009 at 01:55 PM