What Happens When
We Disarm the Good Guys?
By Rob Morse. Jan 8, 2025
Article Source
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.
In theory, each county in California issues a state permit to carry a firearm in public. The facts say something else. Some counties have carry rates that are not too different from what you might see in other states. Some of the larger democrat-controlled counties hardly issue carry permits at all. When they are averaged together, the average rate of carry in California is 3-percent of the national average. Note that the average varies from state to state. Some states have twice the national average while other states have half the average rate of carry. Only states with severe restrictions have a rate that is a thirtieth of the national average.
Disarming honest citizens has real effects. The restrictive laws in California disarmed more than 3-million honest citizens who would otherwise want a permit. Each year, more than 100-thousand of those disarmed citizens became victims of a violent crime. Over 8-thousand of the disarmed citizens became victims of rape or sexual assault.
One way to estimate the cost is to think of all the additional police officers who would be required to stop an additional 100-thousand crimes in California. Another way is to look at the costs to the victims and their families. The disarmed victims pay that price year after year.
California politicians said we were safer if honest citizens were disarmed. That isn't what the victims think.
