The Effects of Concealed Carry Laws

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Pro-gun control groups would have you believe that concealed carry laws are too lax. They rail against loose concealed carry weapons permits, the new conceal carry reciprocity act and ease of buying a handgun. These cite these as causes of an increase in mass shootings.

Policy  18 USC 926 specifies groups and individuals who may not legally own firearms. State laws specify who and how concealed carry weapons.

Arguments and some data insist some outcomes of concealed carry include:

The increase in unintentional injuries, self-injuries, and deaths. However, the actual evidence that there is an increase in these deaths and injuries as concealed carry laws are looser is pretty limited.

There is also no evidence that  more lax concealed carry laws result in more injuries and deaths to children, either.

As for an increase of violent crimes in  states with lax concealed carry laws? Whether there is a direct relationship between lax concealed carry laws and increases in homicides, firearm homicides, robberies, assaults, and rapes? The relationship is inconclusive.

There seems to be a murky link between an increase in gun ownership and more relaxed concealed carry policies as well.

Also inconclusive is the link between looser concealed carry laws and increases in suicides and self-inflicted handgun injuries.

When studies concentrated on mass shootings there was no evidence to link mass shootings to tightened concealed carry permits. There was also no perceived link between states which required no concealed carry permits. Many studies pointed out that mass shooters often used guns that had been purchased illegally, stolen, or weren’t even their weapons. Thus, there appears to be no basis for pro-gun control groups’ instance on gun control because it decreases mass shootings.

The percentage of Americans with concealed carry weapons has increased. A study by The Centers for Disease Control in 2013 conducted by The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and National Research Council noted that the use of guns by victims of crime is more common than in previous decades.

In fact, the study found that victims’ defensive gun use was at least equal to offensive use of handguns by criminals.

Between 2008 and 2013, offensive use of guns rose from ½ a million to over three million.

It’s logical to conclude that any study of gun violence should include a look at: gun violence used in the commission of a crime but also gun violence used by a victim in defending himself, his family and/or his property.

Granted looking at both sides of this gun violence issue will upset the pro-gun control groups. They are intent on proving links between:

• Increase evidence of handguns—both legal and illegal—and increase in violent crimes
• Decrease in regulations to obtain a concealed carry permit and increase in gun violence
• Increase in handguns and increase in gun-related injuries and death of children
• Decrease in regulations required to own a handgun and/or a concealed carry permit and an increase in mass shootings.

Logically, they may argue these links exist. Realistically, the data does not bear out their arguments.