Easing handgun licensing laws: helping the public fight back

"... Discretionary licensing regulations and prohibitions against the carrying of weapons succeed in disarming only those who respect the law."

A little over a decade ago, a controversial "concealed-carry" law went into effect in Florida. In a sharp break from the conventional wisdom of the time, the law allowed adult citizens to carry concealed firearms in public. Many people feared this quickly would lead to disaster and that blood literally would be running in the streets. To, day, it is safe to say that those dire predictions were completely unfounded. Indeed, the current debate over concealed-carry laws centers on the extent to which they can reduce the crime rate.

To the shock and dismay of gun control proponents, concealed-carry reform has proven to be wildly popular among state lawmakers. Since Florida launched its experiment in October 1987, numerous states have enacted similar laws, with positive results.

Prior to 1987, almost every state either prohibited the carrying of concealed weapons or permitted concealed carry under a licensing system that gave government officials broad discretionary power over the decision to issue a permit. The key feature of the new licensing laws is that the government must grant the permit as soon as the citizen can satisfy specified. objective licensing criteria. In general. these laws provide that a permit must be issued to any adult state resident who has not been convicted of a felony; has no history of drug or alcohol abuse and/or mental illness: has not committed any violent misdemeanor within the last three to five years: and in years; and, in most states, has taken a firearms training course. In nearly all of these instances, the applicants' fingerprints are recorded and the license seekers are subjected to a background check.

In most instances, the new shall-issue laws replace concealed-weapon statutes dating from the 1930s and 1940s that granted the licensing authority (usually the police) broad, undefined discretion to issue permits to "suitable persons" or individuals of "good moral character" who had "proper cause" or a "justifiable need" to carry a weapon. Such laws still continue in about 15 states. As written, they suggest that only certain people, in "special" circumstances, are entitled to defend themselves from deadly violence with lethal force, and that those who face just the "ordinary" risk of criminal violence do not deserve the right to carry the means with which to defend themselves. The implicit suggestion that some lives are more worth protecting than others is morally repugnant and insupportable.

In large metropolitan areas with high crime rates, these older licensing, laws typically have been administered to deny the issuance of permits to ordinary citizens. From 1984 to 1992, the city of Los Angeles refused to issue a single permit. In a metropolis of 3,500,000 people over a period of nine years, not one applicant was found to have both "good moral character" and "good cause" to carry a handgun for protection. In Denver, Police Chief Ari Zavaras granted a mere 45 permits in a city with a population of 500,000. The detective who administered Zavaras' program explained that "Just because you fear for your life is not a compelling reason to have a permit." Among those denied a permit was Denver talk-show host Alan Berg, who had received death threats from, and later was killed by, white supremacists.

In New York City, the list of permit holders strongly suggests that licenses are issued on the basis of celebrity status, wealth, political influence, and favoritism. Such luminaries as journalist William F. Buckley, Jr., real estate mogul Donald Trump, publisher Michael Korda, comedians Bill Cosby and Joan Rivers, and radio shock-jock Howard Stern are among those who have been granted licenses. Meanwhile, taxi drivers, who face a high risk of robbery and murder, are denied permits because they carry less than $2,000 in cash. A Federal district court in California upheld similar class-based discrimination in Los Angeles County's policy of issuing permits to carry firearms almost entirely to retired police officers and celebrities, "because famous persons and public figures are often subjected to threats of bodily harm."

The point is not that celebrities, the wealthy, or influential citizens do not deserve to protect themselves; they most certainly do. The crime victim rolls in this country are not populated predominantly by the rich and famous, though, but almost entirely with the names of ordinary citizens, who equally are entitled to defend themselves and protect their lives. The frustration of the common, law-abiding citizen's desire to protect himself (and, increasingly, herself) from violent crime due to law enforcement's arbitrary refusals to issue permits under the older licensing systems has led to vociferous demands for licensing based on satisfaction of nondiscretionary, objectively verifiable, and specified criteria.

The right of self-defense

Shall-issue licensing systems are based on a recognition that an individual's safety is his or her personal responsibility and on the right of self-defense. Every state recognizes a right of its citizens to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault that threatens imminent danger of death or grievous bodily injury. Self-defense, so defined, is not lawlessness; it is in accord with the law. It is, in fact, in accord with the same law the police rely on in using lethal force. The right of self-defense belongs to each person, not merely those who the police or other licensing authorities believe "deserve" to have that right. Yet, this right is a hollow promise if a state deprives its law-abiding citizens of one of the most effective means to exercise it.

According to Department of Justice statistics, about 87% of violent crimes occur outside the home. Despite the fact that Americans possess approximately 70,000,000 handguns, one is not armed if one does not have a weapon at hand when, and where, needed. Perversely, discretionary licensing regulations and prohibitions against the carrying of weapons succeed in disarming only those who respect the law. By ensuring that those who abide by the law will not carry weapons outside the home, licensing regulations aid and abet criminals by assuring them that they will find unarmed, easy victims. Shall-issue concealed-carry laws, by contrast, deprive criminals of that peace of mind.

Critics who advocate that citizens should remain defenseless and rely solely on the police ask people to disregard some unpleasant realities about both the nature of criminal assaults and the responsibilities of the police. Even assuming that the victim can "see it coming" and has the time and ability to call the police, Department of Justice statistics reveal that they can get to the scene within five minutes about 28% of the time. The idea that police protection is a service that people can summon in a timely fashion is a notion that often is mocked by gun owners, who love to recite the challenge: "Call for a cop, call for an ambulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows up first."

Criminals choose the time and place of their assaults and take pains to ensure that their crimes occur when the police are not around. Criminals choose their victims and take pains to select those over whom they believe they have an advantage, be it in the possession of a weapon, youth, strength, or number. Therefore, the victim almost certainly will be alone and at a disadvantage relative to his assailant. The encounter will not be on equal terms; the fight will not be "fair." Without a weapon, an "equalizer" to overcome those natural disadvantages, it is unlikely that the victim will have an effective means of self-defense. Without a weapon, it is very likely that whether the victim lives or is maimed or injured will depend largely or entirely on the mercy of his or her assailant.

To make matters worse, while laws deprive citizens of the ability to defend themselves effectively outside the home, thereby placing them in the position of having to rely on the police for their protection in extremis, it is a settled principle of law throughout the U.S. that the police have no legal duty to protect any individual from crime. This holds true even in cases where the police have been grossly negligent in failing to protect a crime victim.

The function and responsibility of the police is to serve solely as a general deterrent, for the benefit of the community as a whole; they are not personal bodyguards. Those who would prohibit the carrying of arms for self-defense thus bear a burden of establishing on what basis and moral authority the government, having no obligation to protect any particular individual, deprives particular individuals of the ability--and means--to protect themselves.

Opponents of the new licensing laws argue that:

* More guns on city streets will lead to more violence and deaths.

* The laws will transform the streets of America into "Dodge City," as previously law-abiding citizens take to settling hotheaded arguments over fender benders and slights to their dignity with guns.

* The carrying of weapons by ordinary citizens jeopardizes the safety of the police.

* Citizens' lack of training will lead to false confidence in or unrealistic expectations about the usefulness of firearms, with the possible result that license holders will take foolish risks.

* Due to insufficient training, license holders will lack good judgment in determining when it is appropriate to use their weapons, resulting in wrongful shootings and wrongful brandishing of firearms.

* Insufficient proficiency with their weapons will result in the shooting of innocent bystanders or loved ones.

While opponents of licensing laws are not wrong to point out that those adverse results are potential consequences of the widespread carrying of weapons, it is no longer necessary to speculate about what the effects of such laws might be. There now is evidence from 25 different states with diverse rural and metropolitan populations--including the cities of Miami, Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, New Orleans, Seattle, and Portland--regarding perhaps as many as 1,000,000 permit holders carrying their weapons for hundreds of millions of man-hours. The results are in, and they show unequivocally that the number of persons currently in possession of permits to carry firearms ranges from one to five percent of the state's population; almost no criminals apply for permits; permit holders do not take to settling their traffic disputes or arguments with guns, or "take the law into their own hands"; shall-issue licensing states have almost no problems with violent criminality or inappropriate brandishing of firearms by permit holders; and some permit holders have used their guns to defend themselves and others.

There appears to be no reported case of any permit holder adjudged to have wrongfully killed another in connection with carrying and using his weapon in public. As of this writing, shall-issue licensing laws are creating no reported law enforcement problem in any of the 25 states that have enacted them. Dodge City has not returned, and blood is not running in the streets.

The new laws save lives

A 1997 study by John Lott and David Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," provides significant criminological support for the claim that, far from increasing bloodshed, shall-issue systems save lives, prevent rapes and robberies, and confer benefits that extend well beyond those garnered by the people who are issued the permits. Analyzing crime data from all 3,054 counties in the U.S. throughout the period 1977-92, Lott and Mustard found that, when shall-issue licensing laws went into effect in a county, murders fell on average by 7.65%, rapes by 5.2%, robberies by 2.2%, and aggravated assaults by 7.0%. Had all the counties in the nation had such laws, the researchers suggest that there would have been 1,414 fewer murders, 4,177 fewer rapes, 11,898 fewer robberies, and 60,363 fewer aggravated assaults. On the other hand, property crime rates increased 2.7% after the passage of shall-issue laws. Lott and Mustard conclude that criminals appear to respond to the threat of being shot by victims by substituting less risky, non-confrontational crimes.

For most violent crimes like murder, rape, and aggravated assault, the new concealed-weapon laws had the greatest deterrent effect in counties with high crime rates. Significantly, Lott and Mustard also found that "concealed handguns are the most cost-effective method of reducing crime thus far analyzed by economists, providing a higher return than increased law enforcement or incarceration, other private security devices, or social programs like early educational intervention."

The study has been the subject of strong criticism by a number of other criminologists who, in performing their own analyses of the data, find reason to question some of Lott and Mustard's conclusions. Lott, however, has produced strong rebuttals of critics' arguments. What is most notable about this debate is that, despite fears of opponents that the licensing laws will lead to increased crime and violence, the criminologists finding fault with the Lott-Mustard study are arguing only that shall-issue licensing laws have no demonstrable effect on violent crime rates--that is, they neither decrease violent crime rates (as Lott maintains) nor increase them.

Thus, even if one believes the critics of Lott-Mustard, the reality is that, after up to 10 years of intense scrutiny of national data, there is no comprehensive economic analysis supporting the view that shall-issue licensing laws are a danger to public safety; the debate is over how much they benefit society. In a free society, the burden of proof is borne by those who would restrict the liberty of others. Opponents of shall-issue licensing laws are lacking in hard criminological data and analyses condemning those laws and justifying opponents' desire to prevent persons who satisfy the licensing standards from carrying handguns for self-defense.

Shall-issue licensing systems are not, as sometimes is asserted by their opponents, another example of America's free-wheeling, hands-off approach to guns. The licensing systems are gun control. On the basis of years of experience in 25 states, it is possible to conclude that shall-issue licensing systems work. They accomplish the twin goals of providing a mechanism by which law-abiding citizens can carry the means with which to defend themselves from a violent criminal assault that imminently threatens life or grievous bodily harm and provide the public with reasonable assurance that those who receive permits are persons who will act responsibly.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Society for the Advancement of Education
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