Concealed Carry Cedes the Day to Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence
“Okay, my hat is off to ICHV Exec Director Thom Mannard,” writes Concealed Carry, Inc., president John Birch in his press release announcing the shutdown of his gun rights organization.
“I started Concealed Carry, Inc. because I felt I had identified a reasonable, and achievable goal for gun owners in Illinois - a Concealed Carry Weapons law,” Birch wrote McHenry County Blog.
“Nine years later I understand how Illinois works.
“What seems logical in the real world, has no bearing on the Illinois political landscape.
”I lacked money. I lacked connections. In the end, I lacked success. You pay to play in Illinois and I was a fool to think otherwise,” Birch concluded.
As I understand its history, Concealed Carry was conceived out of frustration with the Illinois State Rifle Association.
Illinois remains one of the few states where women cannot carry personal protection on dark urban streets as a deterrent to rapists and muggers.
If only a few well publicized women did that, it would at least keep the rapists and muggers nervous.
The "feel good"opposition to allowing such personal protection is hard to understand.
I remember Michigan—a state demographically like Illinois--passed such legislation right before I ran for governor as a Libertarian.
There were going to be shoot-outs in the street, according to opponents.
Of course, none of that happened in Michigan or other states because those getting permits are law-abiding people.
The proportion who lose their permits because they break a law is less than the impurities in Ivory Soap.
Enough of my thoughts. You can find President John Birch’s admission of defeat in Illinois on McHenry County Blog here: Fellow subjects of the State of Illinois.
9 comments:
There's another political reality in Illinois that Mr. Birch simply failed to recognize. In the 1996 contest between Salvi and Durbin, Salvi's support of concealed carry legislation was one of the biggest issues. At that time, few states allowed concealed carry, and public reaction to the idea was horror.
Durbin trounced Salvi, and the debate over concealed carry was over in Illinois for all intents and purposes.
Any chance you can explain how a concealed weapon deters anybody?
A bad guy seeing somebody with a concealed weapon will not be deterred at all. The person would look like any other potential.
Maybe the organization shut down because the power of logic was too difficult to overcome.
Skeeter,
The vast majority of thugs have more brains than gun-banning politicians.
To your question: It's the uncertainty. Criminals will think twice if it is possible that their next victim might be armed. That's deterrence.
In jurisdictions that ban handguns, criminals feel safer. They have the law on their side--they are certain that their victims will be unarmed.
That's why crime rates have dropped in states that allow some form of carry. This is undisputed fact.
When Texas and Florida crime rates are lower than Chicago or Washington, DC, I wonder why you fear traveling in jurisdictions that allow citizens to defend themselves on equal terms with criminals.
Have a great day worrying about guns in law abiding hands.
the power of logic was too difficult to overcome.
The logic that says that some 35+ states can have it, but somehow IL can't?
The real problem with Salvi was he just took it. He didnt' make any sort of a defence at all. I have heard that he did so based on advice/dictation from D'amato, the national senate chair.
It didn't help that he beat the establishment candidate in the primary.
To those who want to ban guns if this guy couldn't be successful without connections and pay to play. Then what about the guy who is able to play that game. Uh-oh you're in trouble now.
Skeeter,
NOT allowing conceal carry doesn't deter (ie, reduce) crime either....it only reduces the ability of the victim to defend themself.
Gun related crimes neither significantly increased or decreased in states that have enacted conceal carry. You say that's an arguement against it. But as someone who believes that the government needs a compelling reason to take away rights - not a reason to grant them - I say it's an arguement in favor of allowing it.
It appears to me, based on the experience in states that allow concealed carry versus those that don't, that other factors -- such as a strong economy, community policing, more accessible drug rehab -- have a greater effect on crime rates than concealed carry.
The thing that bothers me about concealed carry is that it takes one more tool away from cops. Let's say you live in a state with concealed carry. A cop sees someone putting a gun away. He stops the person, performs a search, and finds drugs (or cash or whatever that leads to an arrest). It seems to me that the defendant would have a pretty strong argument that the search was not based on probable cause, because the cop had no reason to believe that the defendant did not have a concealed carry permit; thus, there's no reason to believe that possession of the gun was illegal. The entire search gets thrown out, and the criminal walks free.
Somehow, this scenario bothers me. I think it's just so much easier on law enforcement to be able to say that any gun on the street constitutes probable cause that a crime is being committed (i.e., unlawful possession of a weapon).
Flame away . . . .
Concealed Weapon laws seem to decrease crime by U of C studies and FBI statistics. Whether that is correlation or causality I am not sure but it makes sense that people having weapons deter criminals.
Law abiding people who take a course and pass a background check should be allowed to carry a weapon.
Self defense is good and a right.
For some reason in Illinois the emotion and not the logic governs this issue.
Cardoza,
I believe that you're referring to the articles and book written by John Lott.
Since facts are important, here's some:
Ian Ayres and John Donohue wrote a paper that found that, if anything, concealed carry laws lead to more crime. Lott, (along with Florenz Plassmann and John Whitley) wrote a reply where they argued that using data up to 2000 confirmed the “more guns, less crime” hypothesis. In Ayres and Donohue’s response to that paper, they found that Lott’s data contained numerous coding errors that, when corrected, reversed the results. Furthermore, this was the second time these sorts of errors had been found in Lott’s data.
For a fuller explanation, read this article.
Of course, Lott also invented a personality, "Mary Rosh," to defend his work on numerous websites and blogs.
At any rate, Lott's work is so tainted that it's virtually impossible to use his study as "logic." People who cling to his work appear to be the emotional ones.
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