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I'm sure gun people will be pissed at me for this, but wanting to have a concealed gun on you doesn't really make much sense to me if guns are supposed to be a deterrent. You aren't deterring anyone with your gun if no one knows you have it. Shouldn't you want to wear it where everyone can see it so they know not to try anything funny?
I don't think guns are supposed to be a deterrent. Someone running to mug you isn't thinking clearly about the possible complications or repercussions.
A carried gun is a commitment to kill someone before you are killed in a life or death situation. Not too feel cool or show off, or brandish as a warning.
Plus if you dress like a cowboy, someone might try to mug you FOR that gun, making you a bigger target.
That's all pretty heavy, and the odds are low that you'd encounter that situation. So not a lot of people are willing to complicate their lives for it.
I know you're getting blasted with replies. It's not supposed to be a deterrent. You carry concealed so that you can defend your life with deadly force without having to walk around pretending to be a badass all the time. Carrying a gun doesn't stop crime, it stops people when they make an attempt on your life.
The deterrent is supposed to be the possibility of armed people. The idea is supposed to be that allowing people to legally carry concealed weapons means that any potential victim might have a gun.
On the other hand, many gun owners who support concealed carry oppose open carry for several reasons.
First off, they don't want to make them or their gun a target. They don't want someone trying to steal their gun, and they don't want to flag themselves as the first target for any kind of attack.
But another huge reason is that they feel like the only reason to carry openly in public is to make a political statement and carry around an implied threat. Most people who carry concealed consider themselves pretty normal people and they aren't interested in making statements or threatening others. They just carry a gun.
I'll occasionally carry my target postil concealed just to keep the gun secure while transporting it. It's usually in a safe at the house, but when I'm going to the range or leaving town I'll take it with me, and it's less-likely to get stolen off my hip than it is by having my car window smashed. Keeping it hidden on my person is just another part of firearm safety.
The deterrent is the uncertainty of who may and may not have a gun on them. A lot of self defense is making yourself a harder target, the knowledge that a firearm might come into play and the victim may be proficient at using it makes anyone and everyone a harder target. It doesn’t mean desperate criminals won’t still make a move, but it should decrease the number of crimes attempted.
Again, it is already uncertain who may and may not have a gun on them.
Is there any data to that effect or is that just wishful thinking?
There's not good data on anything related to guns and it's frustrating.
Intuitively it makes sense that if there might be a bear in the woods some people aren't going to go into the woods because they're afraid of getting mauled by a bear. It almost certainly has an effect, but quantifying it is going to be hard and subject to bias and the real effect will always be subject to other unrecorded factors (e.g. maybe when they tested one group the bears were hibernating).
I personally don't think many people who aren't into gun culture or traumatized by guns give much thought to whether or not someone is going to have a gun in XYZ place ... which probably translates to a lot of crimes of passion or desperation (e.g. I need drug money so I'm going to go rob this gas station).
Very well said and I am in agreement.
A gun person might say open carry can also make you a target.
Then guns are definitely not a deterrent.
There is no such thing as a deterrent that deters people who don't know about its existence, and if you're a target by openly carrying the thing you call a deterrent, that doesn't deter people either.
So maybe the argument that guns are a deterrent should be dropped by the people who want to carry their gun concealed about their person.
Well, I believe the idea is that if you are wanting to start something and you know people are definitely carrying, but you don’t know who or how many is the deterrent.
I am not here to convince you.
"I don't know if someone around me has a gun" doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent so far since that's the status quo regardless of the legality.
Let me start by saying I appreciate this hasn’t devolved and does seem to be a civil discussion.
The idea is most citizens are law abiding and if it is illegal to conceal carry or barred by the establishment to carry then only three types of people would be a threat to someone who intends to cause violence. First a law enforcement officer, second another person intended to break the law with a weapon and last would be an individual with the attitude’rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6’. The possibility of those types being in the vicinity is much lower than when everyone can be capable of self defense with a firearm.
There are many more nuances involved: does the person carrying have training? Can the person carrying be more of a danger than the danger their presence prevents? Is the criminal logical/smart enough to know and understand that there is a risk of an armed populace when they enact their crimes? And many more variables that can be put into play that aren’t part of this discussion.
Thanks for reading.
I can understand your points here, but I still don't understand, and maybe it's just me, how not knowing who around has a gun makes everyone safer than knowing that you have armed people around in case there's a problem.
Like someone else said, everyone they know conceals as a deterrent from mugging. I'm no mugger, but I know I'd be a lot less likely to mug someone I saw was carrying a gun.
I'd like to see some actual hard data that having legal concealed weapons actually makes people safer than having them out in the open.
Sure, but if you were a mass shooter you'd take out the guy with a holster on his hip first.
Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this, but if I were a mass shooter, I would avoid shooting up the place where I saw someone with a gun in a holster.
Especially if you knew there was a damn good chance others were carrying that you couldn't see, too.
That's not what I'm saying.
Let's say I'm a mass shooter. I'm going to kill as many people as I can before I'm taken out. I know I'm going to die either way.
Scenario 1: I walk into a mall and I'm going to start shooting, but I see a guy with a gun and I go somewhere else where I know I'll get a chance to kill more people.
Scenario 2: I walk into a mall and I only suspect someone might have a gun, so I start shooting in the hopes that no one does.
Anyway, there are still mass shootings in states where people can have concealed weapons, so it's not like that is proof they are a deterrent either.
Also, I wish people wouldn't just angrily downvote my comments rather than talk to me when I am trying to be as reasonable and non-confrontational about this as I can. Especially when I have admitted that maybe I'm just not understanding this.
I appreciate the discourse I am having with you.
Mass shootings happen in "gun free" zones. Legally carried guns are for the immediate defense of life. It isn't complicated.
This is about concealed vs. open carry. No one is talking about not allowing guns at all.
I agree. Nukes only work as a deterrent (for example) because the countries that have them "open carry" them. A concealed-program nuke is only good for after the fact revenge on a country that attacks you or an ally/neighbor. Just like a gun.
If a person with a gun decides they're going to start shooting, are they going to shoot the other person with a gun first, or last?
A law like this doesn't stop criminals so much as it let's them not worry about being shot at. It doesn't stop a criminal from having a gun. It stops everyone else from having a gun.
Explain to me how it makes a park safer to not allow concealed weapons in it. I'll listen to your reasoning. No big wall of text with 50 reasons that would take ages to go over. Just explain to me how a law that stops a law abiding citizen from having a concealed weapon in a park will make it safer.
LOL, "I'm willing to listen to reasoning, but only if you format it in a way that I'm willing to read."
For real, though, fewer guns means fewer gun crimes. The whole 'then only outlaws will have guns' is really a myth. Statistics have shown over and over again that the vast majority of criminals who purchase guns do so legally. If they can't purchase one locally, they just go a state over where the laws are lax. The whole 'black market' gun stores thing is just a false argument.
The idea that a 'good guy with a gun' will make everyone safer is also pretty well debunked. Just look at John Hurley - the 'good guy with a gun' who was posthumously branded a hero after he was shot by the police.
Guns are inherently unsafe. We're never getting rid of them in military applications, but any reasonable restrictions for private ownership should be a no-brainer.
All the arguments for 'private gun ownership makes us safer' fall apart under any scrutiny. So does the constitutional argument. The only real, provable argument you have is that your personal freedom to own a killing machine is more important to you than public safety.
I wouldn't argue against all of what you said, but that isn't this law. It's not fewer guns, or gun purchase restrictions, or legally owned guns or any of that. This is just a law that bans concealed carry at a few added places. Police can't search a person without cause. These aren't security restricted places places where you get checked for weapons before entering. There's literally no hindrance to go into a park with a concealed firearm aside from "its against the law". How will this stop the criminal sort from having or using a gun? Do you think a person robbing someone at gunpoint will be like "woah, I can't rob them with this in the park. That's extra illegal now"? Or that the criminal sort will stop going to a park with a gun, even though they wouldn't be able to get caught with it if they leave it concealed and don't do anything that would cause a cop to be allowed to detain and search them? The law passed doesn't really do much to make these places safer.
Shooting a weapon is always a risk. Not allowing weapons takes that risk away.
A concealed gun isn't going to do shit when the mugger is already holding you at gunpoint.
I've never understood why you'd want a gun. The risks of guns being everywhere just seems a lot more obvious than the rare situations where they'd actually be useful.
Guns are far more likely to be used for bad than good, that's why you want as little as possible guns around...
That's simply untrue. On several different occasions I've avoided getting mugged/carjacked/robbed because I saw someone who looked like they were coming my way with intent and their hand in their pocket or just starting to draw it out, so I pulled out my own and in each case they turned around and walked away, presumably to find an easier target. Same with the multiple times armed junkies broke into my house - they see my gun, and they run rather than proceeding to do whatever the fuck they were going to do. I am a cripple, so I'm not gonna be able to fight - it's this or nothing. Not just me, but my wife and son as well.
Yes, guns are bad. Yes, less guns is good! Total agreement. Unfortunately, life is not so black and white. In the US we have SO MANY GUNS, and so many available illegally, and cheaply, that any of these gun laws are only stopping law abiding citizens like myself from having a tool to defend ourselves with, as a criminal is going to be carrying wether it's legal or not for him to as it's readily available.
Australia and the UK, shit even Canada, are so different in this respect (guns per capita and availability and cheapness of black market guns specifically) that you really can't compare policy - what works there isn't necessarily going to work here.
So what's the answer, you say? Lots of things!
We have a lot of gun laws on the books in regards to background checks/greymarket/gunshow sales/etc that are simply not enforced, or not enforced well. Enforce them! Make the checks more strict, stop letting folks with mental issues buy guns, etc.
Want a gun? You should have to take a mandatory safety course for that specific type of gun (shotgun, revolver, semi auto pistol, etc - just like classes on your drivers license). You should have to pass a test and renew it regularly, similar to CCW permits on most states. Let's make it so that if you ARE a law abiding citizen carrying a gun, you know how to safely use the kind of gun you carry, can shoot reasonably accurately with it, have been taught your local self defense laws, have been taught trigger discipline, and have been taught how to check your fucking backdrop before you pull the trigger so you don't put other innocents at risk when defending yourself.
Do something to limit the number of new guns brought into the system. The ones we got are here, can't really do much about that without people losing their collective shit. But we ought to be able to slow down the numbers of new ones made available to the public, via extra taxes, limits on how many guns a person can purchase in a time period, I don't know really, this is a hard one, but I think it's the way we need to do it so we don't just fuck over the average citizen - gradually.
This is, once again, just a supposition. Is there any evidence anywhere of a mass shooter gong for an armed person first during a mass shooting?
You have a fundamental misunderstanding. I don't carry to deter anyone, I carry because I'm physically disabled and humans are animals.