http://95theses.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/its-osha-and-the-corrupt-congress-combined/

Although my personal choice of weapon is the longbow, I have several firearms as a backup LOL – and am going to get more and stock up on ammunition before OSHA decides that we can’t have any because of safety issues!

Any candidate for any public office who advocates anything involving gun control, will never get my vote – unless by “gun control” they mean never having to say “Sorry I missed you!”

In your experience you were threatened with what seemed at the time to be a fire arm had you been armed you could have defended your self since at the time you could not know it was a fake gun and it very well could have been real and then where would you be?
With out a gun you are 100% at the mercy of any one stronger, more gutsy or more well armed than you. With a gun you may die anyway but you would die like a human fighting for your existence rather than like a slave begging for your life.

besides whether or not people are injured by firearms at a higher / lower rate given their [guns] popularity in a given area is irrelevant! I’m sorry but it doesn’t matter if there is a high rate of gun crime or not that doesn’t have a hill of beans to do with the people’s right to keep and BEAR ARMS(that is to go about with a fire arm in a ready to use condition). We are not allowed to own guns in this country, it is a right that the government cannot take away even though it passes illegal and unconstitutional laws that says it can.

I’m all for honest debate and keeping an open mind for the record. I just don’t think its appropiate to just sum up your opposition by just calling them all Communist and “Stalin is their hero” (post #54).

Surely you agree FloatingRock?

I’m glad to hear you have an open mind. Sorry for the insinuation, (or whatever), in my first paragraph above… it’s just that usually I find people have already made up their minds on the issue and debating it rarely changes them.

There is a very old saying, “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight”. Well, if the crazy left wing Dems have their way, then criminals would be the only ones with access to guns and we would all be left with only a steak knife from the kitchen draw to defend our family from a home invasion in the middle of the night.

A steak knife is too dangerous. Look what they use in the UK to defend their homes. Elite Self Defense System for countries that have banned guns.

This is a must read on the subject. THanks again for the link

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=523002

I think my second post just missed your post. I did review the data that you mentioned but 1996 seems a bit stale.

Thanks for the link. I was not debating the merits, I was looking for information to make an informed decision.

Instead, if you’re interested, here are a few links on the pre-eminent researcher who wrote the standard by which all arguments in favor of CC laws are based: John Lott is far more qualified than myself to argue the merits of his findings.

http://www.strike-the-root.com/3/chapin/chapin10.html

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html

I should note that there has been at least one instance where some anti-gun group claimed to have disproved his findings, but their data was shown to be laughably bogus. Sorry, I don’t remember the details.

What a great link!

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry

In Florida, which first introduced “shall-issue” concealed carry laws, crimes committed against residents dropped markedly upon the general issuance of concealed-carry licenses.

Also:

In states whose laws respect the citizen’s right-to-carry guns for self defense the total violent crime is 13% lower, homicide is 3% lower, robbery is 26% lower and aggravated assault is 7% lower. (Data: Crime in the United States 1996, FBI Uniform Crime Reports)

http://www.azccw.com/More%20Facts%20&%20Statistics.htm

I did a quick google search on the subject and found most of the “official” research to be a bit stale (no studies since 2002). THere seems to be a spilt around 50/50 in support of and against assessing the impact that CC/CHL laws have on crime rates.

I did find an article from 2006

http://www.theppsc.org/forums/showthread.php?t=649

From their bio: PPSC is a diverse group of professionals, brought together by common goals, and a common commitment to excellence. While nearly half of our staff consists of individuals with Ph.D.’s, Medical Degrees, and Master’s degrees, the other half of our staff are seasoned criminal justice trainers and practitioners. We have collectively provided training and consultation to thousands of U.S. law enforcement agencies, and to agencies in over 30 other countries.