JWR,
One topic that has come up recently is that license holders are more law-abiding than the general population, presumably because they’ve undergone background checks by the state. The reality is that this has been shown in multiple case reviews.
A 2011 study in Texas concluded that CCW/CCL permit holders generally do not use guns to commit crimes and they commit crimes of any nature much less frequently than the general population of Texas.
According to an article by the Beaufort Observer concerning the study:
“The Texas Department of Public Safety published a list of crimes committed in Texas in 2011 by everyone convicted and by those convicted who also held CCL’s. The bottom line: Concealed carry permit holders commit less than 1% of the crimes. If you want to be exact, they committed two tenths of one percent of the crimes in 2011. And not all of those involved firearms or violence.”
“The data show that 63,679 people were convicted of a long list of crimes. Of those 63 thousand, only 120 were CCL holders.”
“Ironically, if you drill down into the data it shows that the most frequently committed crime by CCL holders were domestic violence related crimes.”
Likewise, a recent article looking at Kansas CCW permit holders by the Wichita Eagle concluded the same:
“Of the 51,078 permits that have been issued by the state since the law took effect in 2007, 44 permit holders have been charged with a crime while using a firearm through late October, according to records provided by the Kansas Attorney General’s Office. That works out to one charge for every 1,161 permit holders, or 0.09 percent. The numbers squeeze even tighter when you consider that of the 44 permit holders charged, 17 licenses have been revoked because they were convicted of a crime that disqualifies them from having a permit.
Additionally, a 2011 New York Times article derived that among North Carolina permit holders, they were 5.48 times less likely to commit a violent crime.
Granted, there is no guarantee that someone with a clean past cannot commit a future crime – we are all born without a criminal conviction. However, it would seem impossible not to concede that those who legally carry a weapon are the Good Guys.
Thanks again, – Doc C. in Flyover Country