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From madison.com:

Dear Editor:

The passage of the concealed weapons law shows the administration is getting soft on crime. Now criminals will be able to carry weapons for crimes of opportunity, or planned, without fear of being arrested while going to the place of the act. Citizens and police will be put at risk when a crime of passion, anger or substance abuse rears its ugly head. A robbery will turn into a murder when the criminal knows the victim may be armed and shoots at the first movement.

Will the workers and police at the Capitol feel safer when 100,000 people protest and many or most may be armed? It used to be when a person carried a weapon you knew he or she was a criminal; now you will never know. Wait for the civil wrongful death and criminal charges to fill the already backlogged courts. This is another insane move by an increasingly insane administration.

Ken Kamp
Madison

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38 COMMENTS

  1. Mr. Kamp needs to visit his neighbor, Iowa, and see how the Concealed Weapons Permit holders carry themselves in public. So far I haven’t seen a ‘crime of passion, abuse, or substance abuse rear it’s ugly head’ and escalate into a shooting match. And there are a lot of folks carrying weapons in central Iowa.

    “It used to be when a person carried a weapon you knew he or she was a criminal; now you will never know.” (What about the cops?)
    Best part of that quote is that the criminals will never know either. Giving them time to think about what they are about to do, maybe the thought of his intended victim being armed will deter his crime (which is what it’s all about, isn’t it?) and make the streets a safer place to be no matter where you go.
    As far as the courts being overburdened with civil and criminal trials of wrongful death suits, Mr. Kamp needs to take a chill pill, the ‘fear card’ doesn’t work anymore.

  2. i grew up in california, where just saying the word gun quietly could get you in trouble in some places. why? because most guns are illegal to own in california. did making guns illegal to own, let alone concealed carry them in public, stop the violent crimes? nope, not even close. i can still recall at least one shooting per year at my small town college for every year i was there. some years there were many times many more. the criminal knew no one had a gun to stop him and they knew the police wouldn’t shoot them. they were caught when they ran out of ammo. later i moved to arizona, where everyone over the age of 21 automatically has a concealed carry permit. granted we have had a very bad experience with the shooting of the senator earlier this year, but while living here for more than a year now, not too many violent gun related crimes happen here. i live in the greater phoenix metropolitan area. i remember reading somewhere an article written by a convicted criminal. he stated he was afraid to commit any crimes with a gun because the state had its concealed carry laws and he was afraid because he didnt know who had a gun and who didnt.
    the author states, “It used to be when a person carried a weapon you knew he or she was a criminal; now you will never know.” the truth about criminals is they wont obey the laws no matter what, they will use any and every advantage they can get to succeed at their ventures, and since their ventures are crimes, they dont have any qualms about breaking the laws. now, if they know that there’s an ever increasing chance that the average citizen has a loaded gun somewhere on them, the criminal is less and less willing to break the law when people are around, which in turn lowers the violent crime rate. since they cant guarantee when no one will be around the criminal will be less inclined to commit any crime as they will start to fear retaliation if they are caught in the act. these things will either turn the criminal into a much more law abiding citizen, or, which is much more less likely, turn the criminal into a smarter, more clever individual. and should they get smarter they might just decide that politics would be a safer and more profitable venture.

  6. Lots of handgun permit holders commit stupid, irresponsible, and criminal acts with firearms. No one should find this surprising since the requirements are so low.

    • Lots of people without handgun permits commit stupid, irresponsible and criminal acts. No one should find this surprising since the vast majority of law breakers accomplish their misdeeds without a firearm.

  7. As the gun lobby tells it there are two types of gun owners: career criminals and the proverbial “responsible, law-abiding citizens.” And naturally, all the violence and mayhem is perpetrated by the career criminals, who don’t have permits, etc. This is largely a myth. “Responsible, law-abiding citizens” with gun permits commit crimes with firearms with disturbing frequency.

    While gun loons like to assert that legal gun owners are more law-abiding, and that legally carrying a firearm makes one less likely to commit a crime, this is a bogus claim for several reasons. How many can you spot?

    • Let’s see some facts shall we? Maybe some crime statistics, something other than your word. “Disturbing frequency” sounds like a whole lot of crime, that’s something that we should be hearing about right?

      Because all the studies I’ve heard of claim that people with licenses to carry firearms are many times LESS likely to commit violent crimes.

    • “disturbing frequency” ? Would that be much less often than police who commit crimes? Because that is the reality.

    • “… This is largely a myth. …”

      Citation please. I wonder how many legal permit-holding individuals use their firearm to defend themselves or others and then end up wrongly convicted after the fact.

  8. 2Wheels says: “Let’s see some facts shall we? Maybe some crime statistics, something other than your word. “Disturbing frequency” sounds like a whole lot of crime, that’s something that we should be hearing about right?

    Because all the studies I’ve heard of claim that people with licenses to carry firearms are many times LESS likely to commit violent crimes.”

    That’s probably because you only read “studies” from the gun lobby. To understand the nature of the numbers, you need a baseline: how statistically likely is ANY person to commit a violent crime? Then you can sort out permit holders, legal gun owners, etc. The gun lobby claims most gun crimes are committed by illegal firearms, a lie they perpetrate by twisting their definitions.

    Here’s example #1 of a “responsible, law-abiding citizen” with a legal carry permit charged with a gun crime. I can post one a day here until you are truly sick of reading them, so just let me know when you want me to stop.

    On May 13, 2009, concealed handgun permit holder Ronnie Cook exchanged gunfire with police in an hours-long standoff during which Cook wore a bulletproof vest. The standoff began after Cook phoned a woman and told her that he had killed his wife. When officers eventually entered Cook’s home, they found his wife Darlene dead in the bathroom with a single gunshot wound to the head. Police also found five guns and ammunition. According to the assistant district attorney for Anderson County, authorities believed Cook shot his wife as she sat on the toilet. He called the shooting a “cold-blooded and calculated murder.” In January 2010, Cook pleaded guilty to one count of murder and four counts of attempted murder against the responding officers. The Cooks had taught concealed handgun permit classes on their property using a mobile home converted into an indoor firing range. He was still listed as such on the Texas Concealed Handgun Association’s directory of instructors after he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

    Source: Palestine Herald-Press, January 16, 2010; Palestine Herald-Press, May 15, 2009.

    • An example is not a statistic. Statistics typically look like “X out of Y exhibit this”. An example doesn’t tell us anything other than that one group does not exhibit a trait perfectly.

      Perhaps you could compare violence crime likelihood of the general population and the violence crime likelihood of the concealed carry permit holder. Incidentally, I’ve already done a study on crime, race, and gun control.

      • Then the first thing you know is that felons and others with certain criminal records are generally denied carry permits, thus skewing the two potential sample groups. So what is the incidence of violent crime among non-permit holders without criminal records? Unknown.

        So the gun lobby makes nonsensical and meaningless claims. All they are really claiming is that people with criminal records are, to some unclear degree, more prone to commit crimes than people without prior criminal records. Gee. Thanks for that.

        • Magoo says:
          May 30, 2011 at 10:44 PM
          Then the first thing you know is that felons and others with certain criminal records are generally denied carry permits, thus skewing the two potential sample groups. So what is the incidence of violent crime among non-permit holders without criminal records? Unknown.

          So the gun lobby makes nonsensical and meaningless claims. All they are really claiming is that people with criminal records are, to some unclear degree, more prone to commit crimes than people without prior criminal records. Gee. Thanks for that.

          “So basically, to your point, no one can really say if CCWers are prone to a statistical curve of violence or not. Besides one side or the other having a strong opinion for or against the case. Good point, Magoo.”

        • I did a post a while back crunching FL murder stats based on the assumption that legal concealed carry weapons (CCW) permit holders were responsible for ALL of Florida’s gun-related homicides. The stat so generated was still less than one percent of the total number of CCW holders.

          That’s not exactly exoneration, but it’s close.

          Whether CCW holders are any more or less murderous than the general population (which includes gang bangers and hardened criminals and psychos and drug dealers and other gun crime-prone peeps), I have no clue. Common sense suggests not. While we await John Lott’s input, I will say this: CCW permit holders kill people who shouldn’t be killed (the VPC’s so-called “concealed carry killers). They are not all saints.

          But I believe that those incidents are part of the price we pay for our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. On the statistical and societal level, weighed against the benefits of gun ownership (which are, again, subject to uniformed debate), it is a small price.

        • So now you’re saying that permit holders actually do commit less crime as a group than the population as a whole, but it’s meaningless because the sample is skewed by the requirement that permit applicants not have a criminal record?

          Earlier you said, “Lots of handgun permit holders commit stupid, irresponsible, and criminal acts with firearms. No one should find this surprising since the requirements are so low.”

          So which is it?

    • I wasn’t aware that a couples stories added up to meaningful statistical proof of anything… Or simply dismissing studies that you probably haven’t even read as BS proves your point…

      Thanks for the lesson.

    • I think that the replies here are responding to your suppressing fire approach to stating your position. You make so many claims–the opposition doesn’t sufficiently understand statistical analysis, the gun lobby lies, the opposition says that CCW holders don’t commit crime, the opposition are loons, and so on–that it becomes impossible to make a concise counter.

      The bottom line might be that no one here would suggest that CCW holders are saints, either because the CCW makes them so, or because only saints seek and acquire CCW permits.

      Also, I think it is noteworthy that the anecdote you present does not represent a case where the CCW holder is exercising his privileges as such at the time he committed his terrible crimes. So this is not an account which would actually play to the fears expressed in the letter to the editor.

    • Blind one:

      Statistics deals with large populations not individual cases. Your story a day promises provides no evidence. I can go through the armed citizen literature and show how CCW holders save lives. The correct way to do it is to compare demographically similar jurisdictions for all crime rates. For example Arlington, Virginia and Northwest Washinton are demographically identical places yet Northwest DC has a significantly higher crime rate. Arlington has more CCW permits then DC has legal guns for home use. You may not that due to the road net a criminal living in southeast can get to Arlington faster then he can to Northwest. He can be in my neighborhood inside of 20 minutes in the crime prone evening hours. Please explain why there more violent crime committed in Northwest DC then in Arlington?

  9. We all know that the vast majority of gun related crime is committed by convicted criminals with no respect for society or any type of laws. There will always be a few people who legally own a gun and then break the law, just like all those evil car owners on the road. Most drivers obey the law but I guess if we keep having drunk drivers and speeders endangering all our lives, then we should have the gun haters branch out and start a movement to ban all cars. Then they can start banning knives and forks because they can be deadly, but at least we can keep the spoons cuz I’ve never heard of someone getting offed by a spoon. I know I’m being silly, but TROLLS drive me nuts and that will never change.

  11. It used to be when a person carried a weapon you knew he or she was a criminal; now you will never know.

    Two errors here no one else seems to have caught. One, the man says “It used to be” but the law hasn’t changed in WI. Two, when people carried/carry concealed in violation of the prohibition you didn’t/don’t know and never would know.

  12. I find it odd that a more than casual association of law abiding gun owners with criminality passes through people’s logical filters as acceptable and non-prejudicial, yet any other form unjust stereotyping and false equivalency is detected and decried immediately, no matter how subtle. These kinds of statements are as fallacious, unfounded, unsupportable, and insulting as claiming a hypothetical state’s liberal policies toward “minorities” equate to softness on crime. Logic and standards of proof should be reasonably uniform regardless of the topic.

    -D

  13. I’m not even going to give Mr. Kamp the benefit of the doubt that he may be misguided and say right out that he is a liar. Why is he a liar? Because this is the same line of drivel that gets peddled about by the antis as the basis of their arguement in spite of empirical evidence that shows it is not true.

  14. Home » Content
    FBI data proves anti-gunners wrong on crime
    printable page
    Submitted by cbaus on Wed, 06/01/2011 – 07:00. National Politics Guns in the News Gun Grabbers
    Preliminary crime data from the FBI for 2010 adds more evidence that gun prohibitionists have been consistently wrong, and that more guns do not equal more crime, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

    According to the FBI, all four violent crime offense categories show declines nationwide for 2010, with murder and manslaughter down 4.4 percent from 2009, robbery down 9.5 percent and aggravated assault down 3.6 percent. Forcible rape was down 4.2 percent. Violent crime declined in all four regions of the country. At the same time, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, firearm sales were up dramatically.

    “Gun banners can spin data anyway they want,” observed CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “but in the final analysis, their contention that more guns in the hands of law abiding citizens translates to more crime is clearly nonsense. More than 6.2 million citizens are licensed to carry, Wisconsin appears ready to join states with rational carry laws, and the NSSF reports that the largest surge in gun sales happened during the years 2008 to 2010.

    “Instead of more guns resulting in more crime,” he added, “increased gun ownership just might be having the opposite effect. Of course, you’d never get the gun prohibition lobby to admit that.”

    According to the FBI report, released Monday, violent crime declined in all city categories, with the greatest drop at 6.9 percent in cities with populations of 250,000 to 499,999, although these cities reported a 3 percent increase in murder and manslaughter. Violent crime in rural counties decreased 6.4 percent and in metropolitan counties, the decline was 6 percent, the FBI report said. Murder and manslaughter dropped 25.2 percent in small cities (below 10,000 populations). Robbery is also down across the board, the FBI report said.

    “The bottom line,” Gottlieb stated, “is that none of the extremist predictions about blood in the streets and skyrocketing body counts as a result of increased gun ownership, reformed gun laws and expanded concealed carry have come true. Once again, the Chicken Little mentality of the anti-gun lobby has been refuted by the facts.

  15. There are those on this forum who wish to discuss “facts”. Well, let’s do that. And, these facts are not
    derived from any gun rights organization. Instead they are statistics and information gathered from various governmental sources, as well as researchers and other interested parties.

    Fact: Quoted from the U.S. Supreme Court decision, “McDonald Vs. City of Chicago”: “Chicago Police Department statistics, we are told, reveal that the city’s handgun murder rate has actually increased since the ban [on handgun ownership/possession] was enacted…”

    Fact: Fact: Thirty-nine states, comprising the majority of the American population, are
    “right-to-carry” states. Statistics show that in these states the crime rate fell (or did not
    rise) right-to-carry laws became active, as of July 2006.

    Fact: In Texas, murder rates fell 50% faster than the national average in the year after
    their concealed carry law passed. Rape rates fell 93% faster in the first year after enactment, and 500% in the second year. Assaults fell 250% faster in the second year. (Bureau of Justice Statistics)

    Fact: The FBI reports consistently that violent crime has dropped for quite some time. For example, in 2010, Nationally, murder declined 4.4 percent, while forcible rape dropped 4.2 percent, robbery 9.5 percent, and aggravated assault 3.6 percent—all when compared with 2009 crime figures.

    Fact: For example, starting in the year 2000, the Texas Department of Justice reported that citizens with concealed carry permits were 14 times less likely to commit a crime.

    There are hundreds, if not thousands of examples I can provide.

    Next, carry permits are not “easy” to get, either. For example, where I live, I am required to take a course where I must attend lectures, take tests, provide fingerprints, be subjected to an extensive background check and prove my skills on a shooting range.

    You see, one of the main problems is that you who do not care for guns don’t understand guns and the gun culture. You see the news, read stories, listen to the gun control advocates and think you have all the facts.

    You don’t.

    In fact, I would challenge you to read “400 Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It working?” by Howard Nemerov. He was a healthcare researcher who used to favor total civilian disarmament, and set out to prove that gun control would make society safer.

    He proved otherwise. It does not.

    But sadly, many of you who desire gun control won’t. You see, if many of you won’t even engage in a civil discussion, but lower yourselves to such tactics as describing gun enthusiasts as “loons”, “crazies”, and “nuts”, to describe some of the milder terms, you won’t take the time to learn the truth.

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