Responding to false claims about Constitutional Carry in The Economist magazine
Dr. John Lott submitted a letter to The Economist magazine about false claims that they made about Constitutional Carry (“Permitless-carry gun laws are misguided and should be scrapped,” May 8, 2021). The Economist didn’t accept the letter for publication, but here is what was sent in.
A copy of The Economist’s article is available here.
Lott’s response
Gun control advocates never seem to tire of doomsaying, particularly when it comes to concealed handgun laws. This time, The Economist predicts ensuing disaster if Texas and Louisiana join the other 20 “Constitutional Carry” states (“Permitless-carry gun laws are misguided and should be scrapped,” May 8, 2021). This would allow citizens who legally own guns to carry concealed without a permit. Thirty-three states, including Louisiana, already allow open-carry without a permit.
The Economist has warned previously about the dangers of Texas and other states letting people carry permitted concealed handguns at universities (e.g., “Concealed carry in Texas Students v guns,” May 12, 2011) and in general. But none of The Economist’s dire predictions have come true. While police are rarely convicted of firearm violations, Texas permit holders are convicted at less than 1/7th the rate of officers.
Constitutional carry lets people quickly protect themselves. Currently, if a woman is stalked, it takes at least 60 days in Texas and 90 days in Louisiana to get a permit. But that might be too late. Last year, despite the huge increase in crime, 20 states stopped or almost completely stopped issuing permits because of the Coronavirus.
Secondly, permits often prevent those who benefit the most from carrying. The total cost for getting a permit in Louisiana is about $300. My research shows that those who benefit the most from concealed carry — poor blacks who live in high-crime urban areas — are priced out by these costs. Democrats oppose free voter IDs as imposing too much of a burden on people.
John R. Lott, Jr., President, Crime Prevention Research Center
Additional material that could have been included but which wasn’t to make it a more acceptable length as a letter.
While The Economist claims that there have been 181 mass shootings in the US so far this year, only a few are the kinds of mass public shootings that get news attention. The FBI has defined mass public shootings as four or more people being killed in a public place, when the event does not occur in the commission of another type of crime such as robbery. Mass shootings are overwhelmingly drug gang-related, and The Economist’s list consists of many cases that had no fatalities and just a few injuries.
Drug gang battles are tragic. But they are of a very different nature than attacks meant to kill as many people as possible in a public place. The causes and solutions are different, but The Economist just wants to be sensationalist and use the largest number possible.
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