What Happens When
We Disarm the Good Guys?

We are not all the same. Different states handle things in different ways. We know that taxes vary from state to state. So do the regulations on our civil rights. Some states make it easy to defend yourself in public. Other than a clean criminal record, you might not need a permit at all.

In contrast, states like California make it hard for honest citizens to own a gun and harder still for them to legally carry it in public. The permit may take months to obtain, take several days of classes and interviews, and cost more than a thousand dollars. That is the good news. The real costs are far higher when we look at the number of disarmed citizens who became disarmed victims.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics is a part of the Department of Justice. The BJS asks ordinary people if they were victims of crime. The answers are shocking. There were four times move victims than are reported by the police. In the case of California, the rate of violent crime is about 40-percent above the national average. .....