Florida Update: Concealed Carry Permits Up, Violent Crime Down

     

The recent report from ABC News that in Florida, where there are more concealed weapons permits than anywhere else in the country, violent crime has dropped to the lowest point in history, delighted Sean Caranna, executive director of Florida Carry, Inc. u201CWe're happy to have facts and statistics put into these debates, because every time they do, we win,u201D he said.

Firearm-related violent crimes in Florida have dropped by one-third in just four years, 2007 to 2011, while concealed carry permits jumped by 90 percent in that period. Further, violent crime of any kind dropped almost as much, 26 percent.

There were naysayers, but their voices are becoming muted as more and more states have adopted u201Cshall-issueu201D carry laws and have seen their own crime rates drop as well. One of the naysayers was Gary Kleck, a Florida State criminologist who calls himself u201Cas liberal as they get.u201D He said the link between more permits and less crime might just be a coincidence. He said that nationally, crime has been falling steadily since 1991 and Florida's numbers might just be part of that trend. He warned against drawing too hasty a conclusion that one statistic caused the other. “The real problem there in drawing conclusions is that you're guessing why that decline or change in gun violence has occurred,” he stated.

In a backhanded support of Kleck's warning, Arthur Hayhoe, the executive director of the Florida Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said u201CIt's difficult to attach gun control to the reduction of crime, and vice versa. We don't know what works. We can't prove that gun control works because we don't have gun control laws.u201D

Kleck has authored numerous books and articles over the last 20 years, but none garnered as much national attention as his 1994 National Self-Defense Survey which, based on a survey of 5,000 households, concluded that there were far more incidents where gun owners defended themselves against potentially violent crime than there were actual crimes involving the use of guns. This outraged liberals who thought Kleck would find something that would support their typically anti-gun posture. One such was Marvin Wolfgang, another liberal Florida criminologist who described himself as being u201Cas strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among all criminologists in this country.u201D He said,

I would eliminate all guns from the civilian population and maybe even from the police. I hate guns – ugly, nasty instruments designed to kill people…. What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck … The reason I am troubled is that [he has] provided an almost clear-cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator … I do not like [his] conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault [his] methodology….

Such a report from Florida must encourage Professor John Lott, who in 2000 authored the groundbreaking book More Guns, Less Crime. Lott never intended to become the lightning rod for the anti-gun forces. He began the study initially because he saw that much of what passed for valid statistical analysis in the field was poorly done, and he saw an opportunity to correct and update it. What it did was change his life, and not necessarily for the better. In his recent update to the book, Lott wrote,

Ten years have passed since the second edition of this book. During that time, both the argument and the data have been hotly debated. This debate has often been unpleasant, vociferous, and even disingenuous. To say that my career has suffered as a result is something of an understatement…. And yet … within the scholarly community [my] research has withstood criticism and remains sound. Further, the additional ten years of data provide continued strong support for [my] arguments….

When Florida passed the first u201Cshall-issueu201D law requiring authorities to issue concealed weapons permits to qualified citizens upon request in 1987, critics warned that the Sunshine State would soon become the u201CGunshineu201D State, with predictions of differences being settled by gun fights in the streets, and crime soaring. The exact opposite happened. As Guncite.com noted, u201Chomicide rates dropped faster than the national average [and] through 1997, only one permit holder out of over the 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide.u201D

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