Fears of Interstate Handgun Laws Soon Forgotten?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/21/john-lott-concealed-carry/

Tomorrow morning the US Senate will vote on whether to allow concealed
handgun permit holders to carry handguns across state lines. The
legislation sponsored by Senator John Thune (R, SD) would only allow
reciprocity in permitting, as anybody would still be required to obey
the laws of the states that they travel in. This is the same way
driver's licenses work.

Yet, gun control advocates are predicting the worst. Sen. Frank
Lautenberg (D, NJ) warns it is an "attempt by the gun lobby to put its
radical agenda ahead of safety and security in our communities." Sen.
Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) calls it a "harmful measure" that will put
the public at risk. Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY) says: "It could
reverse the dramatic success we've had in reducing crime in most all
parts of America."

The claims echo those made when concealed-handgun laws were originally
passed, when gun control advocates warned that permit holders would
lose their tempers and there would be blood in the streets.

Obviously that never happened. We now have extensive experience with
concealed-handgun permit holders. In 2007, about 5 million Americans
were permitted to carry concealed handguns across 48 states that let
citizens carry. 39 of these states have relatively liberal
right-to-carry laws that let people get permits once they pass a
criminal background check, pay a fee, and in many states receive
training

Take Florida, for example. Between Oct. 1, 1987, and March 31, 2009,
Florida issued permits to 1,480,704 people, many of whom renewed their
permits multiple times. Only 166 had their permits revoked for a
firearms-related violation - about 0.01 percent.

Similarly in Texas, in 2006, there were 258,162 active permit holders.
Out of these, one hundred forty were convicted of either a
misdemeanor or a felony, a rate of .05 percent. That is about
one-seventh the conviction rate in the general adult population, and
the convictions among permit holders tend to be for much less serious
offenses. The most frequent type of revocation, with 33 cases,
involved carrying a weapon without their license with them.

The same pattern occurs in state after state. Permit holders lose
their permits at hundredths or thousands of one percent for any type
of gun related violations, and even then they are usually for
relatively trivial offenses.

Gun control groups such as the Violence Policy Center and the Brady
Campaign have put out reports this week that attempt to show how
dangerous permit holders are. But they make several serious mistakes:
they usually include arrests and not convictions and they make
mistakes on whether the people have concealed handgun permits. Even
in the few cases where they correctly identify problems, they never
discuss the rate that permit holders violate the law.

If a permit holder fires a gun defensively and kills or wounds an
attacker, even if the shooting was completely justified, they will
almost always be arrested. A police officer who arrives on the scene
simply can't be sure what happened until an investigation is
completed. But these justified shootings are exactly why concealed
handgun permits are allowed and including them as a cost of concealed
handgun laws has the entire process backwards.

Even though the adoption of right-to-carry laws was highly
controversial in some states, the laws were so successful that no
state has ever rescinded one. Indeed, no state has even held a
legislative hearing to consider rescinding concealed-carry.

Everyone wants to keep guns away from criminals. The problem is that
law-abiding citizens are the ones most likely to obey the gun control
laws, leaving them disarmed and vulnerable and making it easier for
criminals to commit crime.

Police are extremely important in deterring crime - according to my
research, the most important factor. But the police also understand
that they almost always arrive after the crime has been committed.

There is a lot of refereed academic research on the impact that
right-to-carry laws across the country have crime rates. While a
large majority of the refereed studies by economists and
criminologists find that crime rate fall after these laws are adopted
and some claim to find no effect, no such studies find a bad effect on
crime rates, suicides or accidental deaths.

The legislation before the senate doesn't really break new ground.
Most states already recognize permits from other states: 34 states
recognize Missouri's permits, 33 for Utah, 32 for Florida, 31 Texas,
26 Ohio, and 24 Pennsylvania. And there is no evidence that these
reciprocity agreements have caused any problems.

Here is a prediction. Just like the original ruckus over passing
concealed handgun laws, the fears about allowing people to travel with
guns will soon be forgotten.

John Lott is the author of More Guns, Less Crime. John Lott's past
pieces for Fox News can be found here and here.