the criminals know that many homeowners are armed and that there are plenty of people who carry firearms legally.
Since criminals fear armed citizens more than they do police, the crimes the smart ones avoid confrontations with potential armed citizens.
In the rural area of Florida where I currently live the criminals will walk off with anything you leave outside but RARELY enter an occupied home. Almost everybody I know has at least one firearm, many have concealed weapons permits and many also carry loaded firearms in their cars which doesn't even require a license. The firearm has to be "securely encased" which means
as "in a glove compartment, whether or not locked; snapped in a holster; in a gun case, whether or not locked; in a zippered gun case or in a closed box or container which requires a lid or cover to be opened for access." source:
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Getchell1.htm One friend I knew when I lived in the Tampa Bay area carried a loaded .45 auto in his car in a cigar box, which has a lid, on his passenger seat. He was a retired police officer and a competitive shooter who had won many tournaments.
Professional criminals are not stupid. Like most predators they prefer to attack the weakest of the herd. If they plan to mug a person they often pick on some fool with a cell phone glued to his/her ear. They are well aware that those who carry often practice situational awareness and are alert to their surroundings. The professionals often look for giveaways that a person might be carrying like a knife clipped to their pant pocket or someone wearing a vest. Their occupation is to break the law but like everybody else they like to come home safe after a days work.
It's hard to prove that states that allow citizens to own firearms and carry concealed have a lower rate of violent crime but I seriously believe it is a major contributing factor. It would be interesting if some state decided to repeal concealed carry and impose draconian gun control which would make it very difficult for a person to own a firearm in his home for self defense.
Washington D.C. does provide a
possible interesting example of gun control failure.
There is no question, of course, that guns figure in countless murders, suicides and accidental deaths. Over the five years ending in 1997, the Justice Department says, there was an average of 36,000 firearms-related deaths a year. (Fifty-one percent were suicides, and 44 percent homicides.) Determining whether particular gun control laws would have, on balance, prevented some of those deaths is difficult. Take Washington, D.C., whose near-total ban on handguns in the home was on the receiving end of last week’s decision.
At the crudest level, as Justice Breyer wrote, violent crime in Washington has increased since the ban took effect in 1976. “Indeed,” he continued, “a comparison with 49 other major cities reveals that the district’s homicide rate is actually substantially higher relative to these other cities than it was before the handgun restriction went into place.”
Those statistics by themselves prove nothing, of course. Factors aside from the gun ban, like demographics, economics and the drug trade, were almost certainly in play. “As students of elementary logic know,” Justice Breyer wrote, “after it does not mean because of it.”
***snip***
There is some evidence, Professor Volokh said, that denying guns to people who might use them in self-defense, usually merely by brandishing them, tends to increase crime rates. There is also evidence that the possibility of confronting a victim with a gun deters some criminals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak.html What happened after the Supreme Court overthrew Washington D.C's handgun ban?
Court's Gun Decision An Important Win for Americans Who Want to Defend ThemselvesBy John Lott
Published June 28, 2010
| FOXNews.comWhen the “Heller” decision was handed down in 2008 striking down Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and gunlock regulations, Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley predicted disaster. He said that overturning the gun ban was "a very frightening decision" and predicted more deaths along with Wild West-style shootouts and that people "are going to take a gun and they are going to end their lives in a family dispute." Washington’s Mayor Adrian Fenty similarly warned: "More handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence."
Yet, Armageddon never arrived.
Washington’s murder rate has plummeted -- falling by 25 percent in 2009 alone. This compares with a national drop of only 7 percent last year. And D.C.'s drop has continued this year.
Comparing Washington’s crime rates from January 1 to June 17 of this year to the same period in 2008, shows a 34 percent drop in murder. This drop puts D.C.'s murder rate back to where it was before the 1977 handgun ban. Indeed, the murder rate is as low as was before 1967.
Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/06/28/john-lott-supreme-court-guns-ban-washington-chicago-daley-kagan-sotomayor/#ixzz1O9TzZjiu Still it's very hard to argue that the decision by the Supreme Court made the difference in Washington D.C.'s crime rate. Washington D.C. placed so many hurdles in the path of firearm ownership that few people today have been able to obtain handguns for home defense. Eventually D.C. may be forced to allow a more reasonable path to firearm ownership and the results may be more revealing.
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