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“[With more] people carrying around guns—they’re going to be losing them, they’re going to be stolen, there are going to be more criminals with guns, and the criminals are more likely to carry guns because they know there are guns out there. For a whole array of reasons, more concealed-gun-carrying outside the home pushes up violent crime.” – John J. Donohue III in Do Right-to-Carry Gun Laws Make States Safer? [via theatlantic.com]

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59 COMMENTS

    • I think he was focusing on guns left in cars being stolen by criminals and then used in violent crimes.

      But honestly, the thief was a criminal before he stole a gun, and could have used any number of weapons to commit violent crimes. Even in places like Japan it is well known that mafia style gangs have firearms. And most importantly, if he is right that more CCW leads to more gun thefts, that is just a problem with gun free zones.

      Gun free zone parking lots = gun store for criminals.

    • Truth and facts? These fools could care less as long as the anti propaganda flows like water. Sadly, the brain stems eat it up.

  1. Hmm ole grandpa carried an old S&W police revolver for 30 something years before buying a colt commander and carrying that and a PPK until his death. None of them ever killed anyone and my dad still has all three in his safe….

    I guess facts like ‘the most violent cities in the country are “protected” by the strictest carry and ownership laws’ are too difficult for you to comprehend. Or just doesn’t fit your narrative.

    Either shove your opinions until you can do some real research that’s not dependent on your ‘feels good’

  2. Aha! It’s a “new algorithm”. I wonder if they modeled it on the one used by the “global climate change” crowd.

    • Well, not really. With that model, the output is a fake hockey stick, regardless of the dataset that is used as input.

    • Exactly! I read “…using a synthetic-control methodology…” as a way to manipulate the data to fit the intended outcome of the study.

  3. Brings up an interesting point – what are the actual statistics on guns stolen or lost?

    Are there any reliable statistics on guns recovered from crime scenes or arrested criminals as to whether or not they were previously reported stolen?

    And that’s not even considering employers or other restrictions that require concealed carriers to disarm and leave their pistols in their car where they might be stolen. (Has happened to me twice, a long time ago..)

  4. –The researchers built fictional, or “synthetic,” states as near-identical counterparts to the 33 that passed right-to-carry laws between 1981 and 2014.–
    The data are only as valid as the selection of the synthetic control.

    • Thank you for saying that! I caught that too, a made up city using a new algorithm that THEY devised. Then as you read on as the author leads the “scientist” into answering his questions that is obvious to anyone that can fog a mirror is anti-gun agenda. Sad really people will believe as long as its inside their echo chamber.

  5. In a new paper, researchers dispute a popular argument for arming everyday citizens. “There is not even the slightest hint in the data that [these] laws reduce violent crime,” they write.

    As if we needed an excuse for more freedom.

  6. The same lie, repeated over and over, doesn’t become true with enough repetitions…it just becomes a boring lie.

  7. I think these crybabies would assume a fetal position if they knew how many guns were really out and in the public. Every CCW buddy of mine carries multiple guns as their form of passive aggressive protesting.

    • They have just removed my comment (“detected as spam” wtf?). Here’s my original comment:

      “There is not even the slightest hint in the data that these laws reduce violent crime”

      This claim is solely based on analysing state-level data.

      States are extremely heterogeneous units. Most are mixtures of primarily low crime areas and a few very high crime areas, suburbs, rural areas and urban areas, high gun-ownership areas and low gun-ownership areas. Generally speaking, gun ownership rates are lowest in the urban areas where crime rates are highest. The larger the units analyzed, the greater the heterogeneity, and the greater the potential for aggregation bias.

      Donahue et al. believe that more guns = more crime. Suppose, however, that in states that have more guns the increases in gun-carrying occurred largely in suburban, small town, and rural areas, while the increases in crime rates occurred in big cities. Surely this would cast doubt on the notion that more guns and the increases in gun-carrying were responsible for the crime increases. State-level analysis (or even county-level) makes it impossible to detect these details.

      Unfortunately, the FBI’s national crime data only provides gun murder statistics down to the city level, which masks the clustering of violence within neighborhoods and streets.

      Let’s take a look at Ilinois as an example. If you look at Chicago’s homicide rate, it is 18.5/100k population. When you look at the rest of IL that is NOT Chicago, that rate is 1.5/100k population.

      When gun control advocates suggest it’s because of the weak gun laws in Indiana, what they’re not telling you is that Chicago is not the only portion of IL that shares a border with IN. IL shares borders with many so-called lax gun law neighbors. But it’s only Chicago that has the high rate of firearm murders. This is true for most cities and states.

      This completely demolishes the gun-control advocates’ arguments. Which is why they concentrate on macro instead of micro.

      FACTS:

      1.
      The overall pattern is very clear – the more methodologically adequate research is, the less likely it is to support the more guns-more crime hypothesis. (SOURCE: Gary Kleck: “The Impact of Gun Ownership Rates on Crime Rates: A Methodological Review of the Evidence”)

      2.
      About 99% of lethal violence in the United States is concentrated in just 5% of street addresses. (SOURCE: Robert Muggah: “Concentration of Lethal Violence in the US” – “The Global Violence Reduction Conference 2014”)

      3.
      “Most of the recent debate entirely missed the point about the nature of most gun violence in America. The largest share – up to three-quarters of all homicides in many cities – is driven by gangs and drug crews. Most of the remainder is also concentrated among active criminals; ordinary citizens who own guns do not commit street robberies or shoot their neighbors and wives.” [SOURCE: David M. Kennedy, “Another Kind of Gun Control”]

        • Yep, he sure did, he let his inner Cossack off the leash.

          I kinda like this one:

          “You think I’m joking… that’s adorable. Don’t forget cupcake, we’re the guys who have been stockpiling guns and ammo for the past eight years. We are also just about fed up with the left wing deciding that elections don’t have consequences.”

          *snicker*

      • Yep. The comment section was particularly bereft of any good rebuttals to the “synthetic” study. Usually such comment section are filled with very well written pro-gun replies. They probably deleted your comment because it was well written, factual and gave good reasons to doubt the studies results, as they probably deleted other’s that were good rebuttals as well.

        They probably left in pwrserge comments because they were crude and left a general impression of gun owners being uneducated and potentially violent. (Hey pwrserge, I call ’em as I see ’em.)

  8. Oh goody! More anti-civil rights hate speech, more bigoted fear-mongering and more fabricated propaganda!

  9. Well, forcing legal carriers to leave their gats in their cars does lead to more thefts, but other than that, he’s pretty much full of sh!t.

  10. Wrong perspective. The viewpoint should not be society but the individual. The individual has an inalienable right to self defense which exists regardless of societal goals.

  11. So it used to be “blood will run in the streets” with concealed carriers. Now that carry is permitted in one form or another in much of the country, they have to change up their tactics and talking points.

  12. At first glance, most gun stores and ranges are located in suburbs and it seems reasonable that suburban areas probably have more guns per capita than urban areas. The first question we need to answer is how many suburban guns are stolen and taken to urban areas? We may never know unless stolen guns are reported.

    • Every gun range I’ve been to that wasn’t indoors, was in a rural area. It might be in the city limits, but all farm and ranch land surrounding it put in the rural category in my mind. To be fair I’ve never looked up the precise definitions of rural, suburban, or urban.

    • We may never know and we should not care as it doesn’t matter. Suburban guns (or any other guns) don’t cause crime in city (or anywhere else). It’s city dwellers who cause (commit) crime. If they can’t steal guns in the citty nor in suburbs, they will have them made or smuggled in to continue with their crimes.
      If by some quirk of natural laws all guns stopped working tomorrow, “gun violence” will cease to exist, but criminals will continue to use violence in their crimes.
      TL;DR It’s the people, not the tool!

  13. Let me see if I get this right, I shouldn’t carry a gun… because criminals will carry guns.

    To paraphrase a line from the classic British sci fi film “Quatermass 2”, “The stupid! It burns!”

    Gun control, the theory that 110lb. women have the “right” to fistfight with 210lb. rapists…

  14. They have to make up an imaginary world to show why violent crime would have went down even further without legal carry laws. When you look at reality the number of guns based on our population has increased and the rate of violent crime has decreased.

  15. You can’t just say more guns carried by law abiding citizens gives more chances for criminals to steal them, if they were taken by force from an individual it would probably be from a shake down where violence/theft was the criminals intent and just happened upon a a ccp holder that’s still a people problem, besides majority of stolen guns are from vehicles and homes not the ones kept on person. Just another Dem nipping at ankles hoping to reach the nuts

    • Someone who knows what they are talking about!

      Yes, they ARE Communists!
      The democrat party hi-jacked the political platform of the CPUSA, many years ago!
      And ever since, they have been pushing hard to convert this country to full blown Communism!

      Public schooling, 99 percent of the colleges and universities, more and more govt positions, departments and regulations!
      All as our true freedom declined! Over blown PC, dictating “Law from the Judicial Bench and on and on!

      Right up to the point of electing a Communist to be our president, 8 years ago!
      Such gave the real “Commiecrats” the mistaken idea that they had pushed the country “over the hump”, and we were now a “downhill” to Communism country!

      As the election showed, they were dead ass WRONG.
      And that, along with their illegal previous acts, are what have the “Commiecrats” in such a dither! They just cant allow such dangerous TRUTH TO STAND!

      Just think, 8 years of Trump, then of Pence as well, another 8 years of one of the Trump boys, followed by Ivanka, and she followed by Barron Trump!

      Oh, the future looks great, doesent it Libs, oh, sorry, I meant “Commiecrats” there, the real name for lying, illegal acts preforming, Liberals!

  16. except all the evidence we have points to the contrary. go ahead and look up videos or read articles about DGU’s in public. I can’t remember ANY at least in the last 10 years that ended up with one civilian being shot accidentally by another civilian while in a DGU. Now civilians accidentally shot by cops, as in they were not the intended target, thats a different story.

    • I’ve don’t recall ever hearing of DGU use in which a bystander was shot. I’ve also never heard of the situation in which a carrier was mistaken for a shooter when responding to a shooter.

      As a subscriber to Murphy’s Law, it either has happened or will happen. But using that as an argument against carrying a gun is like saying no one should ever have sex because they might get herpes (except I’ve definitely heard of people getting herpes).

  17. The old fart should mind his own business. Maybe he loses stuff worth hundreds, but I don’t. And what’s to say a lost gun will fall into the wrong hands? If the streets are full of people criminally inclined enough to keep a found gun then I should definitely be carrying.

  18. 3 kinds of lies…Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics. I taught a course on statistical analysis. One if the areas we covered was statistical manipulation. Depending on the set of numbers used and how they are presented. You can make them say you want them to say. This is how may pollsters work the numbers to get the results their clients are looking for.

  19. Have never had a handgun stolen because don’t leave it in my car. Especially at a doctor’s appointment. Already know my Doctor doesn’t allow weapons in her office and I don’t allow her office to keep me waiting for over an hour. It’s with in 15 to 20 minutes of appointment. If longer I politely set another appointment and leave.

  20. I don’t give a damn if it makes the state safer. It makes it safer for me and mine and thats all I care about!

  21. So Philando Castile died because he had a CCW. From the evidence it appeared he died because he did not follow a very nervous cop’s orders. “Don’t reach for it” pretty simple directive.

  22. An economist making a synthetic model to replicate his viewpoint. Sorry leave this stuff to criminologists.

  23. Most of the time, when I read about guns stolen from cars, it seems it usually police cars of one sort or another, such as the nine stolen from officers in San Francisco last year. Or police officers leaving their gats in the restrooms–even a federal air marshal on an aircraft. It really is NOT an issue of BGs stealing guns from the persons of CCW holders, from what has been reported, but residential burglaries, which of course have nothing to do with CCW laws.

  24. Sounds like POS Tyranny scared.

    Music to my ears and lightness in my heart.

    MF paid for writer doing “writing”, the Atlantic will have NYT style layoffs soon enough.

  25. Ok let me get this straight.

    We know I’m the past 8 years between 80 and 100 million guns were purchased.

    During the same period licenses for concealed carry went from 4 million to over 14 million.

    Violent crimes rates have continued to drop overall except in certain cities. Th biggest cominality of these cities is poverty ( under Democratic rule) and tight gun control.

    You play effectively play a game of Sim City and say more guns means more crimes, conuter to all evidence because your model says so?

    you might want to sue whoever educated you. You did not get the education you were promised.

  26. I lost all my guns in a boating accident. Does that mean I’ve armed up the local smelt population?

    Smelt are mighty tasty, btw. Mighty tasty.

  27. Well that’s just “common sense.”

    It doesn’t matter that there is absolutely no data to support it, because it’s “common sense.”

    It’s similar to all of the whining that occurs when concealed carry is being considered in state legislatures: Legalizing concealed carry will lead to “blood in the streets,” and it will turn into the “Wild West.” They use the exact same verbiage every time.

    It matters not that the exact opposite has happened every single time after concealed carry was legalized, because you just can’t argue with “common sense.”

  28. I have yet to see a miscreant unable to tool up if they want to. Indeed, I have in on good authority that in many neighborhoods it’s easier to get a gun than a book. (Who was that guy, again? Kinda went away but not really?)

  29. Anybody that believes that taken your weapon is for the good is full of shit. I think you need to protect yourself and without a lot of hopla!

  30. I’ve read a lot of the research and I believe that “more guns equals less crime” but I don’t think it is a very strong pro-gun argument.

    The reason is that it does not matter. If free speech causes more disagreements, that’s not a strong argument to get rid of free speech and if at any time more guns were to by circumstance cause more crime, that would likewise not be a strong argument for dismantling the right to armed self-defense.

  31. I don’t need to see anything except the words quoted in the original post. Specifically:

    “they’re going to be”
    “they’re going to be”
    “there are going to be”
    “are more likely to”

    These are words used by someone who has never seen real data, real statistics, on the subject he is talking about. He believes certain things because it is “commonsense” to believe those things, and he never lets the facts get in the way of his theories. Therefore, he is the perfect useful idiot for any elitist who wants to forward any elitist agenda.

  32. My comments on the article
    I recently read your article regarding the purported increase in violent crime and the increase of states with right to carry firearms laws. I’m not sure where the authors pulled the supposed statistics, but all they need to prove their data is wrong is look at the state of Vermont. Our state doesn’t have anything such as a gun ‘permit’ because we are guaranteed the right to carry by our state and federal constitution. over 50% of households have firearms in them. We are the safest state in the union for violent crime, second only to Switzerland where all able bodied households are required to maintain firearms. The actual facts in the real world seem to negate their argument for gun control. States and localities that have the strictest firearms laws and regulations have some of the highest violent crime rates in the world. Just look at Chicago(murder capital of the country), California, DC, New York City, etc. Please use real facts instead of attempting to push an agenda.

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