Sad thing is, in the U.S., I have never had a gun pulled on my. While in Colombia on business, where it is essentially illegal for any private citizen to own a gun, I was in the middle of a drive by shooting. witnessed a bomb go off in a police outpost, and there were bars on every window (much like most of the rest of the world)

Making guns legal or illegal has no effect on the likelihood that someone will "pull out a concealed weapon and shoot you."

While I understand that some people fear guns, nearly all ignore statistics, or make them up on the spot to justify their belief that guns need to be taken away from everyone. The simple facts are that:

1)The United States has 9 guns for every 10 people, making it the most armed country in the world.

Reuters

2)The five most dangerous countries to live in ALL ban regular people from owning a gun. Lot of good it seems to do.

Dangerous

With all the statistic that I have read, I have come to some conclusions. Having a gun does not make anyone safer or less safe, however the option to own a gun DOES make a community safer. Passing a concealed carry law in California will make everyone safer, even if not a single person conceals a gun because of it.

 

I've seen that study somewhere in the last week or so. The slight decrease in rape, murder, and muggings was in the first year. The updated study reported that the murder rates dropped from well above the national average to about average or below over a two or three year period. Other violent crime rates dropped as well.

 

Yeah, the chances of AB357 passing in CA are very, very slim to none. This state is run by far too many liberals who won't take an honest look at the reasons to pass this bill. I won't mince words here and say otherwise. But the fact that this bill is even on the table in this state took some tremendous effort and courage on behalf of Assembly member Knight and, as a law abiding gun owner who believes in his 2nd Amendment rights, it is my duty to take this as far as I can go with it. I hope for the best but I am also prepared for the worst.

 

I'm not comfortable with this. I'm surprised that you all, who seem skeptical of the government's purposes and ability to protect you is so ready to commit the responsibility for deciding which members of society are generally "law-abiding," "mentally stable," and "trained in the use of guns." Who's going to be approving all of these applications? State bureaucrats who already have too much paperwork flying across their desks? I'm sure that they're never lazy or make mistakes.

Last summer I worked for a judge at a federal courthouse. I participated in a demonstration of a firearms simulator in the US Marshall service facility in the building. We used a real weapon equipped with a laser and compressed-air filled bullets to simulate the feel of a real gun while navigating a simulated hostage situation. BY FAR the worst of all present, including a woman who had never felt a real gun, was a federal employee who stated she had an arsenal of 4 pistols of various calibers and a shotgun, and who had gone through (and apparently passed) several hours of federal weapons training. She shot 4 of the hostages and got killed by a terrorist who rushed her with a knife while she fumbled to chamber a round.

I do not place much faith in the bureaucracy to figure out who will be a responsible concealed-carry permit holder. Honestly, I don't trust them to process backround checks on gun ownership applications, period, though I am not suggesting that you gun owners here obtained yours wrongfully. Even you don't seem to be confident that all people who get the permit will be responsible with it. My concern is that such irresponsible owners will escalate situations to heights of violence that would not have happened if no one had a gun; like a bar fight, or a road dispute. Clearly, I'm not so naive so as to believe that no one will carry a gun even without a permit, but allowing such permits, and increasing the number of weapons being carried in public settings is not a good thing.

 

 

Quick2k:
Everyone is entitled to their opinion. It doesn't sound like we are going to be able to change yours. However, in order to provide a counterpoint to your opinion, allow me to make the following statements.

In previous posts, you asked for evidence showing the effectiveness of CCW laws in reducing crime. CG provided that information in the following link:

http://www.concealedcampus.org/pdf/ccw_gun_facts.pdf

All that information can be cross referenced in the bibliographical references listed on that report.

In response to your question about who is going to be approving these CCW applications, its not just the state bureaucrats who process the paperwork for CCW permits, each applicant must first pass a background check through the FBI's NICS (National Instant Check System) first. It's not as simple as filling out a form and here's your CCW. If you want to look carefully at that report on that link above, it also very clearly states some very convincing statistics about common citizens without CCWs having higher chances of committing a crime than citizens with CCWs.

As far as your comment about regular citizens being deemed "law abiding", "mentally stable", and "trained in the use of guns", you might want to consider how many examples of cops from all different agencies in this great country compare to those standards. As far as law abiding goes, how many examples of police corruption do we hear about on a daily basis? As far as mentally stable goes, how many times have we heard about some cop murdering his wife or other family members? And as far as trained in the use of guns goes, I can't tell you how many cops I have met that I can personally outshoot any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Just because someone is a cop doesn't mean that they are law abiding, mentally stable, or effectively trained in the use of guns. Those qualifications vary from one individual to another, whether they are a cop or a common citizen. So it wouldn't be fair for you to hold all CCW permit holders to those standards if all the cops in this country can't even live up to them.

As far as the hostage scenario you took part in, let us be perfectly clear that ordinary citizens with CCW permits will not be called upon to perform SWAT type work. CCW permit holders are not SWAT, FBI HRT, or Delta Force. They do not have the tactical training, trained reflexes, nor the necessary precision in marksmanship to do that kind of work. They are simply going about their daily lives and should a situation arise where their lives are threatened, they have sufficient firearms training to protect themselves and their loved ones.

Your apparent lack of trust in other people around you carrying guns in public is a common one. It is a viewpoint that we actually all share. That is why those of us law abiding citizens who believe in the importance of protecting ourselves want to make sure we also have the ability to keep that other guy who is carrying a gun, whether legally or illegally, in check and honest. I want to reiterate, as proven by the report listed in the link above, that CCW holders are generally very responsible citizens, far more so than a common citizen without a CCW.

As a side note, a woman with four pistols and a shotgun does not really possess an arsenal as you describe it. I personally know common citizens who legally own more than 100 guns and I live in CA. I would consider that to be an arsenal or at least somewhat close to it. I'm sure there are many examples where people in other states own even more guns than that.

CCWs are not for everyone. They are not for people who are criminals or who have had a criminal history. Anyone who has any offense as serious as a misdemeanor or above will not be able to obtain a CCW. Anything more serious than a speeding ticket will automatically disqualify you from EVER getting a CCW.

Increasing the number of weapons being carried in public settings by responsible, trained, law abiding citizens for the use of personal protection in any local area is a very, very good thing. It keeps the criminals on their toes and keeps them guessing as to who might be a good potential victim and who might not. This will, in turn, make the jobs of the local police easier and reduce crime overall, as proven by the report listed in the link posted above that was originally provided by CG.

 

Amen.

 

to quote wikipedia:
and here is the evidence to back that up...http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html

in your latest post above you have a bunch of paranoia about government bureaucracies and one anecdotal example of some woman who failed at some random test. i'm not trying to bash you personally. all i'm saying is, numerous posters here have attempted to assuage your general fears of the concealed carry law with actual facts and statistics and studies on the effect CC laws have had in other states. The only thing you've done is list your own fears repeatedly without any evidence to back those fears, aside from a couple of anecdotes.

we obviously aren't going to convince you at this point.

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29623587/?gt1=43001

How often do we read news stories like this? Of course, the cops were able to do something to stop this tragedy like so many of the others...

Concealed Carry laws don't affect you until you find yourself in the middle of a situation exactly like this.

 

This kind of stuff isn't helping your cause: 10 shot dead in Alabama
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/03/10/At_...35321236733463/

Murder rates in the US are higher than most other developed country, like the UK, Ireland, Australia, Italy, France, New Zealand etc. But a lot of Americans LOVE their guns.

Personally I'd feel safer if I had less gun owners surrounding me. Carry concealed weapons and who can snap at any time, get into an argument with their spouse at the cinema and pull their gun, or have road rage and pull their gun, or a parking dispute and pull their gun, or get fired and in a moment of rage pull their gun at work.

It might make you 'feel' like a big man, carrying that concealed weapon, but it doesn't make the society any safer, increasing gun density in the urban areas does not decrease gun violence, that's a lie of the NRA.

Edit: and don't pull out stats which indicate that the US has higher gun ownership than somalia/uzbekistan/Iraq/pakistan and is safer. Compare murder rates with other first world civilised democracies and the difference is obvious.