Concealing the Facts
In respect of gun control, we don't mind saying that it's not the issue that keeps us up at night. But as an emblem of the irrational streak in our political debate these days, it's without peer, a point about which we were reminded by the editorial in Tuesday's Times, "A Day Without Guns … ." It was arguing, if that's the word, against Florida's liberalized concealed carry laws. Basing its comments on research done by the Florida Sun-Sentinel that showed some criminals in Florida have gotten permits to carry concealed weapons, the Times decried the state Legislature's "gruesome handiwork." It chided the "corrupt and cowardly" legislators who refused to "undo these lethal threats" created by legal concealed carry.
Our first thought was that Floridians are grown-ups possessed of rational minds and capable of making their own laws without the Times' haranguing. This is what Floridians have done over the last two decades by repeatedly electing representatives who believe Americans have a right, vouchsafed in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, to keep and bear arms. It's a right that has been called the palladium of American liberty. But about what was the Times speaking with the claim that Florida's concealed carry laws are "lethal" and "gruesome"?
Since the Jack Hagler Self Defense Act went into effect in 1987, crime in Florida has gone down by almost every measure there is. According to statistics provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, firearm murders in Florida between 1987 and 2005 dropped in real terms to 521 from 697. Expressed as the number of firearm murders per 100,000 persons, the drop is even more dramatic, to 2.9 from 5.8. That's a change of 50%. The drop in violent crime overall is less precipitous but equally steady, including drops in the rates of murder, aggravated assault, robbery, and sexual assault.
It is difficult to argue that permitting more persons to carry concealed weapons in and of itself caused this drop in crime, although some have tried. Causal relationships of that nature are notoriously tricky to pin down, and the relationship between crime and concealed carry has been explored in academic circles for years, with little consensus. But it's even harder, given the statistics, to argue that legalizing the carry of concealed weapons has increased crime. Or that it has had some terrible adverse consequence.
Predictions of wild-West style shootouts and lawlessness have proven false. That's not what happened. Not in Florida or in any of the other 37 states with legalized concealed carry. There is nothing "lethal" or "gruesome" about permitting law-abiding citizens to defend themselves by carrying a weapon — or simply to carry a weapon without defending themselves. The truth is that if there is a lesson to be drawn from the Sun-Sentinel's reporting, it's not, as the Times suggests, that there is something wrong with existing laws. Rather it is that judges should start treating criminals as the law prescribes.
In Florida, the law on concealed carry allows persons who have committed serious crimes and have reached plea agreements with judges to have their records scrubbed, to become eligible once more to receive a concealed carry license. An ordinary person might expect an editorial writer opining on all this, particularly in a city where the mayor is trying to make an issue out of "illegal" guns, to look into the statistics on crime and include these facts in an editorial, if only to deal with them. But at the Times, they're not fit to print.
