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Are concealed carry laws part of the gun control formula?

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk
in insidious encroachment by men of
zeal, well-meaning but without
understanding." 
Justice Louis Brandeis
(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

The key to starting the conversation? Communicate with others from THEIR viewpoint. Many people get turned off hearing phrases like: “The Second Amendment says…”

In the following, their question may have resulted from being under-educated–blame the media and public education, not the inquirer–and they struggled to understand why somebody would “like guns.”

[via email]

I am honestly trying to understand the issue of gun control laws.

You wrote about the statistics for Right to Carry states, and that the carriers of guns in those states have required training and license to carry a weapon. Isn’t THAT part of the gun control platform (licensing and training, I mean)? Don’t those stats prove that gun control works?

T.S. – Florida

(Note: From the their perspective, it makes sense. Shall-issue right-to-carry laws are indeed LAWS, written by legislatures and enforced by state and local law enforcement agencies, which lay out the rules by which a law-abiding person may carry a gun in public. These laws CONTROL how people may behave in public in relation to GUNS. Therefore, if passing laws governing the carrying of guns works, then gun control laws work.)

[response]

Gun control is generally defined as laws limiting the civilian ownership of firearms. For example, the 1994 “assault weapons” ban removed certain self-feeding semi-automatic rifles from civilian sales. Some of these rifles looked like true military rifles, except that since 1934, fully-automatic assault rifles–used by military–have effectively been banned from civilian purchase. Since these laws restricted civilian ownership of certain firearms, they are gun control laws.

One must create reasonable parameters around what they consider gun control. Otherwise, we could consider the inability to own tanks and artillery as proof that gun control works, simply because nobody has blown up their neighborhood lately with these military arms.

True gun control laws include licensing and training, similar to those in California: In order to buy a firearm, one must take a class and pass a test (training). They then obtain a state permit to buy a firearm (owner licensing). Each firearm purchased is linked in a state’s Department of Justice database to that owner (firearms registration).

The laws you mention have to do with Right to Carry (RTC), where law-abiding citizens carry concealed handguns in public. If the issuing state can’t prove an applicant is unqualified, they must grant the license. The applicant isn’t required to prove their need.

These laws are opposed by pro-gun-control organizations like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. (Brady also rates California the highest of all states because of its gun control laws like owner licensing and firearms registration, and no RTC.) According to Brady, gun control laws should prohibit concealed carry except for those who prove to police that they have a real need to carry for self-protection (e.g. pharmaceutical sales representatives who carry lots of samples).

RTC laws enable an unlicensed gun owner to carry a concealed, unregistered handgun in public, with certain restrictions such as police stations and court rooms. There are those who believe the licensing requirement is an affront to the Second Amendment, and therefore is a gun control law as you state. But this law is NOT part of the gun control platform, as proven by the vehemence with which gun control organizations derogate RTC laws. (RTC states consistently are rated the lowest by Brady.)

Some states, as part of their concealed carry law, mandate state law enforcement to maintain databases of criminal violations and convictions of licensees. Texas goes a step further, producing annual conviction reports for both concealed carry licensees and the non-licensee population age 21 and over (the minimum age for a RTC license). These laws prove that licensees are many times more law-abiding than non-licensees. In that sense you are correct: RTC laws show that those who take the extra training and pass FBI background checks are the most law-abiding population group.

In conclusion, concealed carry laws, according to Brady Campaign criteria, prove that gun control does NOT work.


 

Did this make a difference? Only one thing is guaranteed: If you do nothing, then something unpleasant is more likely to happen. Like a marketing campaign, the response rate is a certain percentage of all the people you communicate with. The more people you talk to, the more people you connect with. Also, the more people you talk to, the better you get at it, increasing your success rate as you go.

 

P.S. – Gun control proponents learned during the 20^th Century that incrementalism is most successful. To win, we must make their successful tactics our own. This response was in that vein: First, get them to agree, then see what their next step is. Ten years ago, I believed you shouldn’t own any guns. It took the patience and wisdom of a real American hero to start me on my journey, and he did it by piquing my interest in research, rather than rhetoric.

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