The Quad Cities Dispatch had a nice story about concealed carry in Illinois at our three-year anniversary of passing a CCW law.
Concealed carry prophets of doom guessed wrong
By John Donald O’Shea
(Quad Cities Dispatch) – Those who favor stricter gun control in Illinois have operated on the premise — I believe in good faith — that allowing the concealed carry of firearms will result in greater gun violence because those with “concealed carry permits” (CCPs) will misuse their weapons.
Yeah, opponents of civil rights have made that argument publicly. However, gun control has long been used for race control, keeping the “undesirables” from gun ownership and bearing arms in self-defense since the “Army-Navy” laws following the Civil War. Yes, gun control is racist, classist and sexist. We don’t support those things.
On July 9, 2013, Illinois became the last state to permit concealed carry — only after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit declared unconstitutional Illinois law prohibiting concealed carry as violation of the Second Amendment. The court gave the legislature 180 days to craft a bill permitting individuals to carry firearms outside the home for self-defense.
And the Illinois General Assembly literally waited until the last hour of the last day of the Spring session that year, barely coming in under the 180-day wire, to enact a bill.
Three years have now passed since concealed carry became Illinois law. Because I could recall no news accounts of Illinois CCPs being convicted of firearm violence, I went to the internet to see if there were accounts I might have missed.
The first article I found was a Chicago Tribune piece captioned “In Illinois, concealed carry of guns has quiet first year; expansion sought.” To my surprise, the article did not list a single incident of criminal misuse of a firearm by a CCP. The worst “problem” cited involved an incident wherein a CCP lawfully tried to foil an armed robbery by shooting at the fleeing robber in Crestwood, forcing a responding police officer to duck for cover.
As of May 31, 2016, IllinoisCarry states that about 178,000 CCPs are in effect in Illinois. So how many of those 178,000 CCPs have been convicted of gun violence or murder?
In checking the internet, I can find only one episode of gun violence by an Illinois CCP — a murder/suicide. Given the lockstep predisposition of the liberal press to lobby for “stricter gun control,” it is inconceivable that if CCPs were using their weapons for murder and violent crimes, that the internet would not be awash with such reports.
Corroborating my research, Chuck Goudie of the ABC-7 Chicago I-Team wrote on Aug. 14, 2015, “There are now more than 120,000 CCPs in Illinois and it is extremely rare to hear about a permit holder being involved in any violent crime, much less a murder. Friday’s (murder/suicide) was the first of 2015 according to police officials, if not the first at all here since Illinois passed concealed carry.”
That translates to 1 violent crime per 120,000 CCPs. This is consistent with a July 16, 2015 Report from the Crime Prevention Research Center, entitled “Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States,” which concludes, “Permit Holders are Extremely Law-abiding.”
If only our governors were so honest.
“Permit holders on rare occasion violate the law. But in order to truly appreciate how incredibly rare those problems are, one needs to remember that there are over 12.8 million CCPs in the US. Indeed, it is impossible to think of any other group in the US who is anywhere near as law-abiding …
In Illinois the standards for CCP are rigorous. The applicant, among other things, must have no felony or misdemeanor convictions for crimes of violence, no pending warrants, a full background check, 16 hours of firearms training by a state police-approved instructor, and local law enforcement officers must have no objection.
Additionally, the new law clarifies and expands the reporting requirements relating to individuals who have severe mental health problems. Physicians, clinical psychologists, and qualified examiners must report when they determine that someone poses a clear and present danger, is developmentally disabled, or may be otherwise disqualified from possessing a FOID Card. (For a good summary of the requirements, see this link.)
Illinois’ law has the highest number of required training hours, and is one of the most rigorous in terms of vetting applicants.
All that effort to keep a citizen and patriot from HAVING rights.
The only blood in the streets has been that of dead criminals and ken’s periods.