AmmoLand.com

Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens

Cato Institute

Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- This special publication uses an extensive collection of news reports from over an eight-year period to survey the circumstances and outcomes of defensive gun uses in America.

Federal and state lawmakers often oppose repealing or amending laws governing the ownership or carrying of guns.

That opposition is often based on assumptions that the average citizen is incapable of successfully employing a gun in self-defense or that possession of a gun in public will tempt people to violence in contentious situations.

Those assumptions, illustrated in this report, are false.

Such cases are an exceedingly small minority of gun uses by otherwise law-abiding citizens and a great number of tragedies-murders, rapes, assaults, robberies-have been thwarted by self-defense gun uses.

The vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent – and thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.

This report’s analysis begins with an overview of the academic studies that have tried to estimate the frequency of defensive gun uses. It then examines recent legal issues and trends surrounding the law of self defense, and then explores the manner and circumstances in which people use guns against criminals.

This paper also examines instances of gun use in self-defense in order to provide a better understanding of their character. When ordinary Americans use guns in self defense, what is the nature of that use? How frequently do these events occur and what are the consequences? Finally, a lengthy Appendix provides scores of documented examples in which ordinary people have used guns to defend themselves.

Tought Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens, Cato White Paper No. 33

About the Authors
Author/Editor Summary:

Clayton E. Cramer teaches history at the College of Western Idaho and is the author of Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (Nelson Current, 2007).

David Burnett is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Business and Economics and serves as the director of public relations for the Students for Concealed Carry.

Filed under: Gun Rights News by Ammoland No Comments »

Texas Leads Nation with Campus Firearms Carry Bill

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus

AUSTIN, TX --(Ammoland.com)- Legislation allowing licensed concealed firearms on college campuses has been introduced in the Texas House of Representatives.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Driver would allow Texas residents already licensed to carry under state law to have the same right to self-defense on college campuses as they do elsewhere in Texas.

“A lot of people hear about guns and schools and become alarmed,” said David Burnett, President and spokesman of Students for Concealed Carry.

“The fact is that concealed carry is already an established body of law in Texas and most other states. There’s a process with age requirements, background checks and training before you can carry a handgun. If you’re mentally ill, or have a history of violent crime or drug and alcohol abuse, you can’t carry a gun.

“This is about people who already responsibly carry elsewhere in the state, including restaurants, shopping malls, movie theaters, churches and banks. No one feels unsafe in those places, even though the odds are someone there is armed. Yet if a citizen walks onto a college campus, their right to self-defense is taken away.”

Texas Leads Nation with Campus Firearms Carry Bill

Students for Concealed Carry got started after the Virginia Tech shooting, which the group says proved gun free zones don’t work.

“Stickers on the doors saying ‘no guns allowed’ won’t keep an armed killer out of the building,” said Burnett. “Until you have a practical mechanism for enforcing a gun-free zone, you can’t tell people they can’t protect themselves.”

Texas is one of nine states currently considering campus carry; similar bills are advancing in Arizona, Tennessee, Michigan, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Florida, Nebraska and Mississippi.

Critics argue that colleges are generally safe environments and adding guns would make things worse. But the group points to reports of rising crime on college campuses, noting that in addition to high-profile shootings like Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, there were more than 3,000 sexual assaults, 4,500 robberies and 5000 assaults on college campuses in 2008.

The group also notes that 26 colleges in three states already allow licensed concealed carry on campus, with no resulting problems.

“We’re not handing out pistols at the door,” said Daniel Crocker, the Southwest Regional Director with Students for Concealed Carry.

“We’re talking about former military, ROTC cadets, professors and other mature adults with permits.”

The bill has been assigned to the Homeland Security & Public Safety committee.

CONTACT:

• David Burnett: President, Students for Concealed Carry
• Daniel Crocker: Southwest Regional Director, Students for Concealed Carry

About:
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization comprising over 44,000 college students, professors, college employees, parents of college students, and concerned citizens who believe that holders of state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else. SCCC has members in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. SCCC is not affiliated with the NRA or any other organization. SCCC extends an open invitation to publicly debate representatives from any organization or institution opposed to ‘campus carry.’ Visit: www.concealedcampus.org

Filed under: Gun Rights News by Ammoland 1 Comment »