Detroit Free Press CCW series should raise cheers in NW

A two-part series on the ten-year history of reformed concealed carry in Michigan contains some blistering information about the gun prohibition lobby that ought to raise cheers among anyone who has had to explain what’s wrong with the folks at Washington CeaseFire.

The reports appeared this weekend in the Detroit Free Press, a newspaper not known for being particularly friendly toward the Second Amendment, not unlike the Seattle Times or Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Those newspapers were split on Initiative 676 in 1997 (the P-I surprisingly opposed, the Times supported) the roundly-rejected, gun control measure that was pretty much the Titanic maiden voyage of Washington CeaseFire as a lobbying organization.

“Ten years after Michigan made it much easier for its citizens to get a license to carry a concealed gun,” the Detroit newspaper reported, “predictions of widespread lawless behavior and bloodshed have failed to materialize.”

That was just for starters. The story revealed that about the same number of Michigan residents – approximately 276,000 citizens – are licensed to carry as there are here in the Evergreen State, where the number hovers around 270,000 at last report. The newspaper also recalled the rhetoric that surfaced a decade ago when the reform statute was being debated. Does this sound familiar?

“During the debate, opponents of the change warned of gun-toting, trigger-happy citizens loose on the streets.

“But violent crimes have been rare among carrying a concealed weapon license holders. Only 2% of license holders have been sanctioned for any kind of misbehavior, State Police records show.—Detroit Free Press

Even with that, gun prohibitionists still argue, the newspaper reported, that “changing the law was a grave mistake.”

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Web site describes state reforms like the one enacted in Michigan as ‘a recipe for disaster.’—Detroit Free Press

Even the president of the state’s association of county prosecutors, Ionia County prosecutor Ronald Schafer, had to acknowledge, “I think you can look back and say ‘It was a big nothing’.” He further admitted, “We were all a little too caught up imagining what might happen.”

Anti-gunners, as history has demonstrated repeatedly, have sometimes very vivid imaginations.

This does not trivialize tragedies like Virginia Tech or Columbine High School, because those are instances that have polarized the issue of gun rights. But to keep things in perspective, the maniacs who carried out those atrocities are hardly representative of the 80-90 million law-abiding gun owners in this country, and their acts were roundly condemned by the National Rifle Association, Second Amendment Foundation, Gun Owners of America, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and virtually every other grassroots gun rights organization in the nation.

But there was an unexpected revelation in the second part of the series that surprised Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, not because he was not aware of it, but because the newspaper printed it:

Some of what passes for research and analysis of the effect of permissive concealed weapons laws on crime and violence is pretty crude.

Take, for instance, the anti-gun Violence Policy Center's Web page called "Concealed Carry Killers."

It purports to tally the carnage that results when states, such as Michigan, authorize ordinary citizens under most circumstances to be licensed to carry concealed guns.

Concealed carry licensees "routinely" kill cops, perpetrate mass murders and other gun homicides, writes VPC. The center counted 308 "Private Citizens Killed By Concealed Carry Killer" (sic) since 2007. A lot of them -- 78 -- were Michiganders.

A closer look at VPC's data doesn't necessarily confirm a CCW crime nightmare scenario. The overwhelming majority of Michigan victims the center cites (62) were licensees who committed suicide. Michigan's concealed weapons law requires the State Police to report annually on deaths by suicide of license holders.

But the reports contain no information about how the licensee died or whether a firearm was involved.

Several other "victims" in the VPC report appear to have been criminals themselves, shot attempting to rob legally armed citizens. But with 276,000 concealed pistol license holders, even the unscrubbed VPC numbers hardly establish evidence of a crime wave.—Detroit Free Press

Several of the VPC’s purported “victims” of these “Concealed Carry Killers” appear to have actually been criminals who were shot by their legally-armed, would-be victims. Is that not what legal concealed carry is all about?

Washington State enjoys one of the oldest and most reliable concealed carry provisions in the nation. It has served as a model for other state’s concealed carry laws. Washington has had concealed carry since 1935, and open carry has been accepted here since before Washington became a state.

Recent high-profile shootings in Kent, Seattle and elsewhere have involved people who were either too young or too encumbered with criminal histories to carry handguns legally, yet gun prohibitionists invariably seem determined to lump everyone together.

The Detroit Free Press has not published the proverbial “last word” in this debate, but it has – as gun control proponents have frequently insisted – taken a “reasonable step.”

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