Last week, Feb 5-7, 2013, many Minnesota Democrats embarked on an effort to impose new legislation to limit gun ownership rights for all legal and ordinary citizens. There is a lot of discussion about the value of such legislation. There is not much debate about what started the effort, the Sandy Hook tragedy. They reason that banning certain styles of guns will prevent such tragedies. For many that "logic" is not only faulty, but shallow.
The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, passed in 1994, expired on September 13, 2004. It was in place for the Columbine School shooting,which occurred on April 20, 1999, and others that followed. The existence of the law had no impact on that tragic act. In fact, according to US Today, the original weapon of choice was not even the guns they ultimately used, and are now once again the target of legislative actions.
A decade after Harris and Klebold made Columbine a synonym for rage, new information — including several books that analyze the tragedy through diaries, e-mails, appointment books, videotape, police affidavits and interviews with witnesses, friends and survivors — indicate that much of what the public has been told about the shootings is wrong.
In fact, the pair's suicidal attack was planned as a grand — if badly implemented — terrorist bombing that quickly devolved into a 49-minute shooting rampage when the bombs Harris built fizzled.
"He was so bad at wiring those bombs, apparently they weren't even close to working," says Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, a new account of the attack.
Columbine was intended not primarily as a shooting at all, but as a
bombing on a massive scale. If they hadn't been so bad at wiring the
timers, the propane bombs they set in the cafeteria would have wiped out
600 people. After those bombs went off, they planned to gun down
fleeing survivors. An explosive third act would follow, when their cars,
packed with still more bombs, would rip through still more crowds,
presumably of survivors, rescue workers, and reporters.
The report on Columbine shows one very clear fact, killers are not
limited by limiting guns, they will seek out a different "tool" to carry out their evil acts.
The evidence of any links between gun legislation and these tragedies is extremely tenuous at best. During the eight hours of committee presentation, the anti-gun lobby, headed by Heather Martens, promised extensive statistics to support their claims, but ultimately delivered very little on that promise. They ignore many facts, such as (the creator of this chart limited it to rifles, as that is all that is being discussed in "Assault Weapon" legislation) [Picture of Chart]
The Facebook post earned a "True" rating because it reflected the FBI’s statistics from 2011,
the most recent year available, for murders with knives (1,694),
personal weapons (728, typed on Facebook as 726), blunt objects (496)
and rifles (323).
So how convincing has the anti-gun lobby been? They try to convince the public that this is a partisan issue. But that is a fatal canard. Just before one of the sessions Representative Jason Metsa (DFL) from district 6B came to speak to the Second Amendment supporters in Room 10. He stated clearly that this is not a partisan issue and that he, and others, did not and will not support the legislative actions. He was far from the only democrat to make statements during the presentation and public testimony. Police officers, mothers, and self declared lifelong democrats voice opposition and disbelief in the arguments made. Video: Self declared lifelong democrat declares "probably no more".
Clear thinking and real solutions are what all sides of the political spectrum want in our legislature. A lack of critical thinking and political expediency provides no protections, and costs ordinary citizens much.
The Minnesota House Committee on Public Safety Finance and Policy, presented the HF 241 bill today, 2/6/2013. This bill relates to: "Assault weapons; crime established for manufacturing, transferring, or possessing assault weapons; existing assault weapon disposal or registration provided for; terms defined; data classified; language clarified; and penalties provided."
So you would think that as elected representatives, tasked with preserving the rights and liberties, as well as the safety of all Minnesotans, they would want to hear testimony that directly relates to what they are currently discussing and planning on prohibiting.
How will this affect potentially millions (47%, the national average, of the 5.4 million people in Minnesota) of you and your neighbors who own guns?
What is it that is really subject to this legislation, cosmetic features?
What will be potentially making felons of those affected?
It is the responsibility they were elected to fulfill, but that seems to be too much for several when presented with the real objects, unloaded, inspected and approved by the Sergent at Arms for the House prior to display. And grudgingly allowed by the Committee Chair Michael Paymar, who said he was not happy about it.
However 5 DFL Legislators decided to be abruptly "not-present" while this presentation took place.
Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee Meeting Feb 6, 2013. Alice Hausman DFL 66A presented her bill to ban particular styles of rifles. During the presentation Alice Hausman made some startling revelations about her understanding of the United States Constitution Second Amendment. She is comparing the US to other Nations on Gun violence (not violent crime of course, which would completely negate her argument, even without consideration of her error on the 2nd Amendment).
Alice Hausman:
"But there is one component that sets us apart, and its a sentence. Um the second amendment, I've heard from a lot of people in the last few days about that. Um, and um, um, I just wanted to speak on that sentence for a minute. Uh, a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, [speeding up her voice here] the right of the people shall not be infringed. That first part of the sentence is one we don't hear very often. The one frequently repeated are those last few words "shall not be infringed". But the first part of it, and this is what will weigh heavily on you, what does that mean "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state"?
Representative Alice Hausman has a viewpoint that many liberals want or would like to be true, but which was recently and very solidly been decided in the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller.
Hamline Law Professor Joseph Olson explains:
I actually had one of my articles cited in Heller. So, uh, I know Judge Scalia is familiar with my work. I have read the opinion a number of times, I teach it in my seminar at Hamline Law School. Uh, the Supreme Court did two things in Heller case that are relevant to the discussion as Representive Hausman brought it up. One in Heller the Supreme Court made very clear that the introductory clause to the second amendment is not part of the normative statement. In other words the introductory statement is not part of the rule of law. The rule of law is "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". And the court went on to discuss just exactly how much the District of Columbia was infringing that right. Furthermore the court talked in the case about the arms that were protected by the second amendment, and it said the arms that were protected were the arms that were in common use. Military style firearms are in common use.
It could not be any clearer. Rep Alice Hausman has a very faulty understanding of the United States Constitution and is making serious error in the proposed law she is authoring. We need serious discussion on what is a solution. Not misguided efforts that will do nothing to actually resolve the issue they claim to be furiously "doing something" about.
An event titled MNGOP Where Do We Go form here? was held on Jan 30. Steve Hensley of RealCapitolView.com and LookTrueNorth.com were the organizers
Hosts: Mitch Berg, Jeff Johnson
Panelists: Maryanne Stebbins, Mark Westpfahl, Doc Dan Severson, Sarah Janecek, Walter Hudson, Andy Parrish, Erin Haust
The complete video is available on this youtube channel a link is given below.
First a review of other articles "covering" this event:
If you searched for the traditional media attending the event, there were (as of today) two. They included little actual information about what was said, concentrating on a strident display of Andy Parrish's comments. Rachel E. Stassen-Berger and Cyndy Brucato attended the event and subsequently wrote articles. I must give cudo's to Rachel E. Stassen-Berger. She had twittered the obvious liberal take away line from Andy Parrish.
At which point I leaned over and asked "so are you going to be including in your article the line he said right after that?" She responded "what was that?" And though I doubt it was due to my prompting, she did report the entire relevant quote. It was the dominating and closing point of her article. Which left you with a completely false impression of what was the reality of the event. However for the low-information voter, that will be all they see, and will be their reality. Have you checked her linked article yet for that full quote? You can also see it in the video, but here is the line: "because that's what the Democrats do"! The rest of the quote is entertaining, but not really important to the story.
If you want to actually get a good description of the nights discussion, here is the best. Predictably it is on a great news analysis blog LookTrueNorth.com, one of the sponsors of the event.
My Analysis:
One of the points that Cyndy Brucato closes her article with, is what typifies the liberal viewpoint that I find most mystifying, and of course quite incorrect.
The two-hour discussion ended as it began — with no unity on content of message, tactics or strategy but plenty of evidence that Minnesota Republicans are scattered well beyond the boundaries of the big tent.
One of the overarching themes that liberals attempt to claim as their own is that of "the value of diversity". A message that in so many ways they reveal they really don't believe. Cyndy's statement is evidence of that. What was on display Wednesday night (Jan 30) was one of broad diversity of opinion. Far broader than you see at any liberal meeting (which I film and attend many), where conformity to their singular message is mandated and enforced by enormous social pressure. And resulting from that ambivalent mind set (i.e. double minded), diversity is the first thing the liberal commentators use to try to tear apart and dismiss the message and the content of the event.
From Rachel:
The panelists, who, at times, testily disputed one another, offered a wide variety of sometimes conflicting prescriptions.
Yes that is how real, lasting and enduring compromise is achieved. It does not instantly appear, nicely packaged and ready for use. It is earned and forged with messy discussion and hard work. To find that common ground where all can stand proudly and proclaim this is a solution we can implement for the benefit of all of us. To the liberal mind it is merely an unwillingness to compromise and dis-unity. To those who really seek to have theirs and other's voices heard, it is the path of hope.
In the panel statements that message is clearest heard through the voice of the ever eloquent Walter Hudson, on the question "What is your dream for the party"
at 1:39:06 - 1:40:39 in the video http://www.tubechop.com/watch/898280
Walter's dream (watch the video for full statement);
My dream for this party is that we learn, first to understand, and then to project the positive, morally good, life affirming philosophy that undergirds our policies. Individuals seek out values, they seek out that which is going to perpetuate their life, help them survive, and to help them improve their quality of life, help them to thrive. And the only way you can do that, as a human being, is if you are free to act upon your own judgement. Thats unique to human beings.
There was a time in this country where the reason to come here, the only reason to come here, was to be free of the tyranny that you were leaving behind in your country of origin. And when you got here, there was no guarantee that there was going to be food or water or health care or retirement or anything. Other than land and trees and air. I think we can agree as a party that we still believe in the pioneering spirit that brought those people here in the first place. And we want to get government off, not just our backs, but everyone's back. Especially those whom we would consider disadvantaged or "lower class" or in need. Because, they more than anyone, they need that hope that "I can build something, I can achieve something, and I don't need somebody else to do it for me".
And on the question of what plans came out of the meeting, which Ms. Brucato did not hear, one of the several plans or tactics suggested, came from Erin Haust. One which I am sure Rachael and Cyndy would say is completely unnecessary, because really the media is so fair and balanced.
We can talk all day long about what our messaging should be. But if we don't have a tactical plan to get that message out, we're lost, we're dead in the water. So some of the things we can do right now, and they seem like very easy things, but I promise you we are not doing them, and they [the Democrats] do them very, very, well on the other side. Number one, start viral videos on twitter and Facebook Have your candidates, have your issues, have your whatever it is. Make it funny, make it short. Two to four minute videos, teaching a thing, talking about a tax, talking about something The next thing we can do is advertise on Facebook right now, right now, for 2016 elections. 2014 you might be too late to start changing a lot of the culture right now. But by 2016, boy we better have ads going. Use memes and info-graphics, and if you don't now what they are get on twitter get on Facebook and find out. Because if we're not using them we're lost. The young people are using memes to make points every chance they get. And then finally make friends with our local newspapers. One of things we also don't do very well is get media of any kind on our side. We don't have a chance with MSNBC. We don't have a chance with some of the larger groups out there, but some of these local newspapers we can get people to apply for the reporter job that are already in our camp. We can write not just letters to the editor, but articles. Let's talk about something great thats happening at a local business and say why the taxes will hurt that person. There are things we can do right now, but we better start with social media. We better start with twitter and Facebook, and if your not on it get on it right now! And encourage all your friends to do the same.
So my response to the event was, of course, quite different from Rachel and Cyndy. I saw a positive, and while not all on one message, start at the dialog that leads to agreement. We need to understand the difficulties of achieving good compromise. It is not simply submitting to one side and letting them control, much as Democrats want. Defining opposing thought as always the one not compromising (see my article on Tolerance) does not achieve compromise or a useful path forward. Journalism, that does the hard work and critical thinking required to explore the historical context and opposing sides viewpoints is the best way to "get things done". So the evening successfully presented the vast array of opinion that we call "Republican". The work ahead will define the future of the GOP, and how it will implement those goals embodied in the messages, hopes, and dreams above.
At the recent townhall held in Oakdale I posed the question to Betty McCollum, what are you going to do about spending! First I gave some well deserved cudos to the Oakdale City Council and Staff. They have done that which is necessary for the State and the Federal governments to learn. Governor Dayton should be listening.
Of the legislative bodies represented up in front, I believe Carmen and the City of Oakdale and the Staff are the only ones who have had a balanced budget and not grown the budget in the last four years. Unlike the federal government and the state. The federal government has $1.3 trillion deficit spending. The budget has not been present, and a budget that uses too much of the resources of the country is worse than no budget. We've been doing way too much appropriations. How are you planning on bringing those two factors into line?
First in her answer Rep McCollum says:
"Well we do have a budget, its called the Budget Control Act … so there is a budget. There is a budget in effect that has the force of law. It's not a regular order budget. It's not the way I think we should be moving forward in doing our due diligence and oversight."
Actually the Budget Control Act did basically only two things, it increased the debt ceiling and formed the "super-commitee" which proposed the sequestration "threat" that was part of the fiscal cliff scare-fest. It has not yet been implemented. And was in fact yet again pushed down the road while we have implemented yet another debt ceiling increase this January. Do we see a pattern there?
The act will not actually reduce the overall U.S. debt over the 10-year period it is specified for, only slow down the existing rate of growth of the debt.[13] That is partly because the cuts due to the act will not reduce federal spending in absolute terms, but rather reduce the year-to-year increases in spending from what had previously been anticipated.[2] Even with the slowdown, both federal spending and the debt are still projected to grow faster than the U.S. economy, due to the cost curve effects of health care, which the act does not address
The budget we are really operating under is called baseline budgeting, with "continuing resolutions" (i.e. just more appropriations) thrown in. Baseline budgeting is a horrible accounting practice that basically automatically increases the budget 6% each year. And that is what Congress uses as the "starting point" for any budget they might deem to put forth. Which, because of Senate Democrats, has not been done. Hence the ease with which they demonize those who want to even slow down the growth of federal spending, as "draconian cuts". Something which baseline budgeting will never do. But sadly, yes it does have the force of law.
Returning to Betty McCollum's response, she begins to elaborate on the sad state of taxation and how we are not able to ask tax questions in the budget committee.
We need to be thoughtful, mindful, and you know, very judicious about the way we are spending um, you know your treasure, your money. But if your on the budget committee [ed: and she is, by the way, as well as the spending/appropriations committee] you can talk about prohibiting, cutting, spending, but you can't talk about any of the tax perks. I offered an amendment on, to do away with, some of the tax perks that most of us in this room would be scratching our head and saying, uh um excuse me why are we doing that. But you are prohibited from doing that, in doing that in the budget committee. So we need to have a well rounded, a well thought out discussion about revenues, about spending. We need to talk about what we want our entitlements to look like for our seniors, not only today, but tomorrow, but for generations to come. And we need to do this with everything on the table. Everything on the table. And right now for the most part we're not able to talk about what the ways and means committee is doing with some of these tax perks. And you don't have to read the whole Simpson Bowles if you don't want to, but if you do look at Simpson Bowles it has it indexed and I think you would find some of the things going on in our tax code really outrageous. And that needs to be part of the discussion.
So, once you review her comments, spending restraints, that all of us have to do in our every day lives, is simply not something Rep Betty McCollum sees as very important. It is straight to getting more money from your pockets, and increasing the spending. Not only does this fail to acknowledge some very basic accounting and economic principles, but it is fairly evident Rep. McCollum does not understand the purview of the Budget Committee. I am guessing willfully, for purposes of trying to make a point. The Budget Committee is responsible for revenue estimates and potential requirements, but not the taxation to get it. It is specifically not the place to be talking about taxation. That is indeed entirely and solely (unless giving a speech from the floor) under the purview of the House Ways & Means committee. So not being able to talk about taxes in the Budget committee is basically a specious argument for making it seem like it means something nefarious.
We as a country and society need to get serious about reducing the size and scope of government. There is no way to reduce the spending without reducing that which government thinks it can assume the right of control over. This is not a new concept. It has been voiced many time and many ways in the history of our country.
This quote is often, and apparently incorrectly, attributed to John Adams, (which does not diminish its appropriateness for the occasion)
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
Henry Hazlitt, in Man vs the Welfare State
The more things a government undertakes to do, the fewer things it can do competently. When the government tries to do every-thing it must do everything badly.
"The fact is that, unless you're a criminal, that gun is much more likely to kill or hurt someone who's innocent than to protect someone from being killed or hurt"
The progressive viewpoint can only understand the world from their viewpoint that guns are a danger to everyone. Guns do not provide any protection. In essence they see no redeeming value. That is --unless they suddenly feel the need for protection. Then its fine for them. Thus proving their own belief that guns really do help protect and revealing their own deceit.
My initial answer was:
"We now have an unfortunate experiment, to answer that question, initiated by the idiotic actions of the media (a New York newspaper that just started using armed guards). I am sure someone will track future crime in the area where the names and addresses of conceal carry were published."
Reformed crooks say the New York newspaper that published a map of names and addresses of gun owners did a great service – to their old cronies in the burglary trade. The information published online by the Journal-News, a daily paper serving the New York suburbs of Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, could be highly useful to thieves in two ways, former burglars told FoxNews.com. Crooks looking to avoid getting shot now know which targets are soft and those who need weapons know where they can steal them. “That was the most asinine article I’ve ever seen,” said Walter T. Shaw, 65, a former burglar and jewel thief who the FBI blames for more than 3,000 break-ins that netted some $70 million in the 1960s and 1970s. “Having a list of who has a gun is like gold - why rob that house when you can hit the one next door, where there are no guns?
So there are things far deadlier than a gun, that is the misguided pen of the liberal journalist! Putting people in danger is their specialty.
In the search for real understanding of the impact of an armed public on gun violence mass shootings there are lots of anecdotal information. And many studies with value ranging from painfully obtuse to useful and data driven.
We identified and analyzed 62 of them, and one striking pattern in the data is this: In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.
From its original article after the Colorado theater MJM described their methodology, they included cases where:
The shooter took the lives of at least four people. An FBI crime classification report identifies an individual as a mass murderer—as opposed to a spree killer or a serial killer—if he kills four or more people in a single incident (not including himself), and typically in a single location.
Their methodology statement reveals a tremendous flaw in their study (hence I would deem obtuse), part of which is pointed out by a survivor of one they excluded. Another examination shows why this criteria for discarding some data points is so flawed.
With 15 incidents stopped by police with a total of 217 dead that’s an average of about 14.29. With 17 incidents stopped by civilians and 45 dead that’s an average of 2.33.
So setting the data inclusion value at 4 or more, effectively eliminates most cases where an armed civilian stops the shooter. Another common tactic used is to essentially limit armed civilian cases to only those where the civilian actually shot. Implying there is no effect from seeing someone else positioned to oppose the shooters rampage. Another tactic is whenever a shooter stops or is stopped by the presence of an armed civilian, studies and the media try to question was there any effect by saying "we don't know if they would have continued". A form of argument from silence.
First Significant Case Study
The following study covers a significantly larger sampling and pays due attention to other factors, including state laws and their changes. We have 50 states essentially providing 50 experiments on laws, effects, and timing.
A paper published Feb, 27, 1999
Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement
John R. Lott, Jr. and William M. Landes http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=161637
Page 6
We analyze multiple victim public shootings (hereafter, multiple shootings or killings) in the United States in the period 1977 to 1995. The main advantage of restricting our study to U.S. data is that we can compare states with and without shall issue laws at different points in time (other things constant) and, therefore, can estimate the effects of a change in the law within a state during the sample period.
page 17
Although one can also imagine circumstances where shall issue laws increase the availability of guns to potential offenders or where guns used in self defense lead to more not less killings, our results so far strongly indicate that these effects, if they exist, are not sufficient to offset the overall negative impact of shall issue laws on multiple shootings.
Here we separate the effects these laws have on the number of shootings from the number of people harmed. Suppose, for example, perpetrators are undeterred by legal penalties or the prospect of encountering an armed defender. Then the number of persons harmed per shootings could still fall (as the two school shooting examples suggest) if concealed handguns interfered with the offender's ability to carry out his plans. Using either the dummy law variable or the before-and-after time trends, the coefficients in Table 10 indicate that concealed handguns reduce both the number of shootings and the number of people harmed. The evidence on whether shall issue laws have a bigger impact on the number of people harmed relative to the number of shootings is mixed.
page 19
Again the percent of the population covered by shall issue laws continues to have negative and statistically significant effects on the number and change in the number of monthly shootings.
While the evidence provides little support for the copycat hypothesis, we note that our data contains shootings by adults. The recent public school shootings involving children might be different and more consistent with the imitative hypothesis. However, data on school shootings involve such a small sample that it is not possible to study these shootings separately.
Page 20
The second stage regressions support our earlier results contained in Table 6. Adopting a shall issue law is associated with a significant decline in the combined number of multiple killings and injuries (both absolutely and per 100,000 persons). In the separate murder and injury regressions, the coefficients are always negative and either significant or marginally significant (a t-statistic greater that 1.65).
Page 21
Finally, because the presence of citizens with concealed handguns may be able to stop attacks before the police are able to arrive, our data also allows us to provide the first evidence on the reduction in severity of those crimes that still take place.
Taking the data from their tables, I prepared the following charts to show the data trends for mass shootings. The Table 2 Chart shows statistically significant trends for fewer shootings in states with shall issue conceal carry.
The table 4 chart shows the statistically significant trend (the detailed mathematical treatment is described in detail in the PDF report) for fewer mass shootings once a state decides to become a shall issue state. The trend indicates the probability the number of victims continues to decline the longer the state has been shall issue as well.
An Opposing Study One of the later studies, June 2010, that reviews Lott, the National Research Council and others is found in this paper.
The debate on the impact of ―shall-issue or ―right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws on crime—which has now raged on for over a decade—is a prime example of the many difficulties and pitfalls that await those who try to use observational data to estimate the effects of controversial laws. John Lott and David Mustard initiated the "More Guns, Less Crime" discussion with their widely cited 1997 paper arguing that the adoption of RTC laws has played a major role in reducing violent crime. However, as Ayres and Donohue (2003a) note, Lott and Mustard’s period of analysis ended just before the extraordinary crime drop of the 1990s occurred. They concluded that extending Lott and Mustard’s dataset beyond 1992 undermined the ―more guns, less crime (MGLC) hypothesis. Other studies have raised further doubts about the claimed benefits of RTC laws (see for example, Black and Nagin 1997 and Ludwig 1998). But even as the empirical support for the Lott and Mustard thesis was weakening, its political impact was growing. Legislators continued to cite this work in support of their votes on behalf of RTC laws, and the ―more guns, less crime claim has been invoked often in support of ensuring a personal right to have handguns under the Second Amendment. In the face of this scholarly and political ferment, in 2003, the National Research Council (NRC) convened a committee of top experts in criminology, statistics, and econometrics. Its purpose was to evaluate the existing data in hopes of reconciling the various methodologies and findings concerning the relationship between firearms and violence, of which the impact of RTC laws was a single, but important, issue. With so much talent on board, it seemed reasonable to expect that the Committee would reach a decisive conclusion on this topic, and put the debate to rest. The bulk of the NRC report on firearms, which was finally issued in 2005, was uncontroversial. The chapter on RTC laws was anything but that. Citing the extreme sensitivity of point estimates to various panel data model specifications, the NRC report not only did not narrow the domain of uncertainty about the effects of RTC laws, but may have broadened it. The NRC report concluded there was no reliable statistical support for the ―more guns, less crime‖ hypothesis. One dissenting panel member, though, argued that the majority's own panel data estimates revealed that RTC laws did in fact reduce the rate of murder. Conversely, a different member of the NRC panel went even further than the majority’s opinion by doubting that any econometric evaluation could illuminate the impact of RTC laws. Given the esteemed academics on the panel and the sharply conflicting conclusions on both the substantive issue of the impact of RTC laws and the suitability of empirical methods for evaluating such legal interventions, a reassessment of the NRC’s approach and findings could be useful for those seeking to estimate the impact of various legal and policy regimes. A systematic review of the NRC's evidence also provides important lessons on the perils of using traditional panel data methods to elucidate the impact of legislation. To be clear, our intent is not to provide what the NRC panel could not—that is, the final word on how RTC laws impact crime. Rather, we show how fragile panel data evidence can be, and how a number of issues must be carefully considered when relying on these methods to study politically and socially explosive topics.
Page 12
Indeed, there may be simply too much that researchers do not know about the proper structure of econometric models of crime.
By the time one gets to their conclusions you feel you have been twisted in myriad directions, all to make you simply more confused:
Finally, despite our belief that the NRC’s analysis was imperfect in certain ways, we agree with the committee’s cautious final judgment on the effects of RTC laws: ―with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.
Wrap Up
The big take away from all these studies is:
1) It is an extremely complex problem that needs to look at essentially far too many sociological, economic variables to be able to make any easy or clear conclusion either direction of the argument. The anti-gun contingent regularly uses this argument to disregard cases that don't support their arguments, but often will not apply to their cases.
2) However the flip side of that is when progressive anti-gun activists try to say "clearly guns increase crime" they are guilty of gross naivete in data and analysis and in fact.
Final comments come from a man who has been a gun store owner, involved in SWAT training, and the busiest Utah Concealed Weapons instructor.
I have written for national publications on topics relating to gun law and use of force. I wrote for everything from the United States Concealed Carry Association to SWAT magazine. I was considered a subject matter expert at the state level, and on a few occasions was brought in to testify before the Utah State Legislature on the ramifications of proposed gun laws. I’ve argued with lawyers, professors, professional lobbyists, and once made a state rep cry.
...
And here is the nail in the coffin for Gun Free Zones. Over the last fifty years, with only one single exception (Gabby Giffords), every single mass shooting event with more than four casualties has taken place in a place where guns were supposedly not allowed.
The evidence does not support the progressive anti-gun activists arguments to any significant degree. The frothy over the top arguments and ad hominem attacks (and there are far too many) used to attempt to justify their gun legislation are not only illogical, but unconstitutional. And ultimately that will be the deciding factor.
