C'punks,
The following is from USA Today of last Friday:
In a comprehensive study that may reshape the gun control debate, researchers have found that letting people carry concealed guns appears to sharply reduce killings, rapes and other violent crimes.
The nationwide study [from the University of Chicago] found that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed handguns: * Homicide, down 8.5%. * Rape, down 5%. * Aggravated assault, down 7%. ... The drop isn't primarily caused by people defending themselves with guns, says John Lott, the study's author. Rather, criminals seem to alter their behavior to avoid coming into contact with a person who might have a gun.
The official release of the study is scheduled for tomorrow. The study took two years and was peer reviewed.
S a n d y
Correlation != causation. What are the figures on other crimes? I presume they would have to have gone up, since the criminal element has been deprived of it's "revenue" in this manner. Perhaps they simply didn't have time for killing, raping and assulting; being too busy lugging around their legally concealed handguns and pointing them at shop-keepers. -- "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+ |Julian Assange RSO | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union | |proff@suburbia.net | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID = | |proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 | +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+