Snowballs in Hell? MSNBC Says Private Gun Ownership Lowers Gun Deaths

Sometimes what makes a particular story interesting is its source.  This story from MSNBC is one of those stories. The most liberal of the lame-stream media is reporting that the more guns owned by private citizens, the fewer deaths due to fire arms. Yes THAT MSNBC.

According to the MSNBC.com report, in the 1980s and 1990s, Americans were killed by guns at a rate of about 5.66 per 100,000 population, at the time the concealed-carry movement (carrying a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner) began gaining momentum.

The report explains that in the past decade, the gun-homicide rate has fallen to 4.07 per 100,000, which equates to a 28 percent reduction in homicides with the use of firearms. This decline in homicides follows a five-fold increase in a “shall-issue” (the granting of a permit to carry a concealed weapon is subject only to meeting certain criteria laid out in the law) and unrestricted concealed-carry laws in states from 1986 to 2006.

Gun-rights activists point to studies they say prove that having more guns in civilian hands, whether being carried by permit holders or not, has reduced crime rates.

“Firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens prevent 1 million robberies, murders and rapes every year,” said John Pierce, a Virginia-based gun-rights activist with opencarry.org. That’s at least partly due to the huge increase in “shall-issue” states, which has been “the most significant beneficial public policy move in my lifetime,” said the 41-year-old Pierce.

Alan Gottlieb, president of the Second Amendment Foundation, says the movement to carry guns, has been a grass-roots drive.

As he built his Bellevue, Wash.-based organization from its start in 1974 to its membership of 600,000 today, he constantly polled members for direction. Each time, he said, they responded with a clear message: “‘I want the right to carry.’ That was the single biggest thing everyone wanted.”

When Gottlieb’s foundation got its start, just four states allowed regular citizens to carry concealed weapons simply because they wanted to.

Some other states were known as “may issue,” meaning concealed weapons permits were dispensed at the discretion of state or local law enforcement officials. That system often was dogged by charges of political favoritism, and it continues to be in states such as California and New York, where it is still in place.

...Publicity had a snowball effect, according to Gottlieb. By 1990, there were 15 “shall-issue” states and by 2000, there were 30. 

The NRA’s Arulanandam said the movement gained even more momentum in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“People saw it live, they saw people taking trash cans and throwing them through store windows right in front of TV cameras,” he said. “People processed these images, and they processed these events, and they realized that when the unthinkable happens, they want to have an effective means of defending themselves and their loved ones.”

While gun-rights and gun-control activists argue about what led to the loosening of concealed-weapons laws, they agree that the lobbying prowess of groups like Gottlieb’s and Arulanandam’s helped make it happen.

“We are tenacious and we work hard to pass whatever our legislative agenda is,” Arulanandam said.

“Tactically, they’ve been brilliant on a lot of issues,” agreed Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, perhaps the nation’s best-known gun-control advocacy group, which opposes "shall-issue" concealed-weapons laws but does not advocate a ban on handguns.

The concealed-carry movement also has been aided by a fractured opposition, said Jim Kessler of the progressive think tank Third Way, who has been advocating gun-control measures for years. “The gun safety movement is splintered. … They have different issues and they fight each other.”
Indeed, gun-control advocates are often at odds over such basics as the effect of relaxed concealed-carry laws on crime.

The full report can be found here