"Open" or ready "No Carry" or abusive, "Concealed" Carry discretionary "Concealed Carry" -------------------- -------------------- 32% of US Population 68% of US Population -------------------- -------------------- Area Murder Rate Area Murder Rate Maine 1.6 District of Columbia 78.5 North Dakota 1.7 Louisiana 20.3 New Hampshire 2.0 New York 13.3 Idaho 2.9 California 13.1 Montana 3.0 Maryland 12.7 South Dakota 3.4 Texas 11.9 Wyoming 3.4 Illinois 11.4 Vermont 3.6 Missouri 11.3 Oregon 4.6 North Carolina 11.3 Washington 5.2 Nevada 10.4 Connecticut 6.3 South Carolina 10.3 Pennsylvania 6.8 Arkansas 10.2 West Virginia 6.9 Michigan 9.8 Indiana 7.5 Oklahoma 8.4 Virginia 8.3 New Mexico 8.0 Arizona 8.6 Kentucky 6.6 Florida 8.9 Kansas 6.4 Alaska 9.0 Ohio 6.0 Tennessee 10.2 Colorado 5.8 Georgia 11.4 New Jersey 5.3 Alabama 11.6 Delaware 5.0 Mississippi 13.5 Wisconsin 4.4 Massachusetts 3.9 Nebraska 3.9 Rhode Island 3.9 Hawaii 3.8 Minnesota 3.4 Utah 3.1 Iowa 2.3 AVERAGE 6.4 AVERAGE 10.5 Some readers were kind enough to forward some criticisms posted to the net regarding my finding that violence is typically lowest in the states that have the most permissive gun policies and highest in states that have the most restrictive policies. Critics of the claim argue that the examples used by me in "Guns in the Medical Literature - A Failure of Peer Review" (Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, March 1994) are "cherry picking" and, to a degree, the examples used by me are admittedly selective simply to be demonstrative, _however_ "cherry picking" of the _exceptions_ by my critics is insufficient to invalidate the claim. [Note also that in his lengthy and unedited criticism of the article, Arthur Kellermann MD offered no refutation of the claim]. So, let us look at _all_ the states on the basis of today's most fundamental isssue related to guns - the right to self-defense _outside_ the home. One might as easily look at the data based on categorization as "permissive" or "restrictive" based on another criterion (machine gun bans, semiauto bans, waiting periods) or even a weighted amalgam of criteria (which would be even more subjective), however the progressive reform of concealed carry laws seems an instructive point of departure for this discussion. These comparisons from the most recent annual release, 1994, of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports are the data collected in 1993. Doing this for every category of crime indexed by the FBI is the primary source of our finding in our most recent article, "Violence in America - Effective Solutions" (Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, June 1995): One-third of Americans live in the 22 progressive states that have reformed laws to allow good citizens to readily protect themselves outside their homes, openly or concealed. In those states crime rates are lower for every category of crime indexed by the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. Homicide, assault, and overall violent crime are each 40% lower, armed robbery is 50% lower, rape is 30% lower, and property crimes are 10% lower. Let me reiterate, these data are offered only to show that the prohibitionists cannot demonstrate that stringent gun control is associated with lower rates of violence or crime (the same patterns are generally observed no matter which category of the FBI's crime statistics one reviews). The data are _not_ offered to "prove" that less gun control "causes" less violence. I have never made such a silly claim. I have pointed out that stringent gun controls have little effect on those who we would like to disarm (violent predators) and have a disproportionate effect in disarming good people, leaving them defenseless --- "Victim disarmament is _not_ a policy that saves lives." Some anti-self-defense advocates have wrongly extended my example (falsely pretending that I have made the claim that less gun control causes less violence) to create an easily destroyed "straw man" argument in hopes that destroying _their_ straw argument somehow invalidates my actual observations. Dr. Edgar Suter