Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Data Show An Armed Citizenry is a Safer Citizenry


By Joseph Diedrich

“Would you feel safe putting a sign in front of your home saying, ‘This home is a gun-free zone?’ Law-abiding citizens might be pleased by such a sign, but to criminals it would be an invitation.”

That is an anecdote offered by noted gun researcher John Lott, who along with Professor William Landes did a study in 1999 which found that “from 1977 to 1999, states that adopted right-to-carry laws experienced a 60 percent drop in the rates at which (gun) attacks occur and a 78 percent drop in the rates at which people are killed from such attacks.”

More recently, Lott pointed out that “with just one single exception, the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

As far as public policy is concerned, Lott and Landes recommend that to reduce the occurrence and severity of mass shootings, the general public must have increased availability and easier access to firearms. Their study also concludes that concealed handgun laws reduce the number of multiple victim public shootings.


Source: The College Fix



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