HB 1468 and SB 663 are taking Missouri closer to constitutional carry. As of now, permitless open carry is in effect there. If HB 1468 passes, then concealed permitless carry will be allowed.
Enter Everytown For Gun Control. They have released an ad against the law.
“A new bill would dismantle Missouri law and let people carry a hidden handgun in public without a permit or gun safety training; even some violent criminals and people with multiple DUI’s.”
Start with a true statement, then follow up with propaganda. Well I had no idea people with DUI’s were absolutely terrible people. Or that they should lose a right?
A station in St. Louis interviewed Mayor Francis Slay and Police Chief Sam Dotson. The mayor claimed that making it easier to get a gun and have a gun makes neighborhoods more dangerous. These bills just make concealed carry permitless. If anything, shouldn’t people that are afraid of guns feel better that more guns will be out of sight?
The police chief claimed that states with stronger gun control laws have less violence. To compare these stats you can find many, many sources. I chose to compare murder rates by state based off of FBI Uniform Crime Reports, and Guns and Ammo’s list of best states for gun owners. Missouri is number 9 on the list, with number 1 being the best state for gun owners. The murder rate per 100,000 people was 6.6 in 2014. Number 1 was Arizona, which has 4.7 murder rate, and number 2 was Vermont with 1.6.
Now sure, there are many different ways to compare states on how gun friendly they are. But don’t you think that if more gun friendly states were more violent then Vermont would be one of the worst states? Number 4 on the list was Utah, which had a 2.3 murder rate. So, not only does correlation not mean causation, these stats don’t even seem to correlate very well with each other.
There are many other factors involved so it is very misleading when a police chief states that these new laws would increase violence. It will be good to see Missouri take another step towards gun rights. Hopefully a couple officials hell bent on preventing it do not succeed in persuading the public based on their few words in those interviews.
I am also befuddled every time people think someone bent on breaking the law will suddenly care about getting a license to conceal carry before committing a crime.
Have a nice day, everybody.
Also. If you wish to see more correlation data:
Graphs comparing homicide rate and Brady scores
Note that the second one includes all gun related deaths until the last graph, where suicides are filtered out. Also, the comparison is made to firearm deaths, not homicides. The article doesn’t make a direct comparison to the first link I posted as it meant to.
Comparisons at the State level are iffy at best.
A single New Orleans, Chicago, or NYC can artificially skew the crime numbers for an entire state. The gun control laws of NYC are vastly more restrictive than that of the rest of the state. Same thing with Chicago, New Orleans, etc…
Comparisons of City/Metropolitan areas is much more useful. And, it does a much better job of disproving the gun control advocates claims.
I thought about that while writing this. Since the chief has said states, I decided to stick to states. But yes, you are entirely right that comparing cities would be much more useful. It would also require many details to be researched. Perhaps if I ever feel like doing a lot of research I would do it myself.
Well the not so sleepy but not so large town I live in in CT has had a nice increase in shootings, about 5 in the past 30 days. Some leading to injuries some not. And shocker they are all in the shitty part of town and likely drug and/or gang related perpetrated by known criminals. How gun control hasn’t stopped a one of them.
We had 5 or 6 murders two years ago. Iirc our average was 1 or 2 for sometime before that.