I have respect for folks who get permits so that they may carry when otherwise they wouldn't, but that has nothing whatever to do with my objection.
Thank you for clarifying that. I will point out that in most urban areas it is effectively impossible to comply with the federal gun free school zone law without a permit to carry issued by the State in which the school zone is located.
In
many (not all, but many) cases then, those without permits are either not carrying in urban areas or are carrying in violating in federal laws.
Let's now deal with your real objection.
Statistically, most crimes are committed by a few people. So, statistically, by eliminating those people you've eliminated "most crimes" from consideration. But that doesn't reveal much of use (this is why statistics and technocratic analysis, and by extension things like government licensure, tend to be useless), because those people wouldn't bother getting permits anyway. Unfortunately, the vast majority of remaining crimes (especially serious crimes like murder) are committed by those without an extensive rap sheet. Most of those folks could receive permits; whether they do so or not must depend on other factors not under consideration.
Really?
According to
the US Department of Justice "Seventy percent of violent felons had a prior arrest record, and 57% had at least one prior arrest for a felony. Sixty-seven percent of murderers and 73% of those convicted of robbery or assault had an arrest record."
It appears you are factually in error about the "vast majority of remaining crimes (especially serious crimes like murder) are committed by those without an extensive rap sheet [who]
could receive permits..."
Considering the relatively minor offenses that will prevent a person from getting a permit to carry, a person with a permit is almost certainly NOT part of the 70% of violent felons who had a prior arrest record and definitely not part of the 57% who had a prior felony. A person with a permit is very unlikely to be part of the 67% of murderers and 73% of robbers or assailants who had a prior arrest record.
Individuals are not statistics.
No. But in the absence of personal data, statistical or group data can be useful.
What else am I equipped to say or predict about his likelihood of killing me compared to everybody else's? The answer is, of course, "nothing", from which we can see that class generalizations do not readily apply usefully to the individual.
From the group you've chosen to highlight, you are correct. But you can observe much of the individual and then place him into various groups. Is the individual male of female? What age? How is he dressed? Alone or in a group? Same race/ethnicity as you or different? What is the individual's total comportment?
Once we move past the safety of our homes and the nice theory into real practice, there are all kinds of things that we consider as we do threat assessment. It is entirely possible for a 5 year old kid to run up and drop a live grenade at my feet as we saw in Vietnam. But thus far here in the US a 5 year kid running down the sidewalk toward me raises a lot fewer concerns than say 20 year old men with shaved heads and swastika tattoos. Skin heads put me into condition orange or red a lot faster than toddlers or teenager catholic school girls. Bikers raise my awareness until I see their Bikers Against Child Abuse patches at which point I get less concerned than if I see "Hell's Angels" insignia.
I may know nothing about any such individuals, but once I know they belong to one group or another, I make judgments about their potential risk to me and mine. And so does every other sane, sensible adult out in real life. Some are loathe to admit it. Some, like Jessie Jackson, may regret the manner in which they admit it.
The simple fact is when you are comfortable around a random stranger, you are making a class/category judgment. You are making the same sort of judgment about a licensed individual. The only implication from selecting permit-holders as a "more preferable" category is that non-permit holders are "less preferable". But why should you treat a non-permit-holder any differently from any random Joe of the street? If you shouldn't, then why are we touting the merits of permit eligibility?
Frankly, it seems to me that you're operating from a position of innumeracy coupled with an exaggerated, credentialist notion of the value of bureaucratic approval.
I think we've found your real objection. It is that you don't like the idea that someone might get any kind of preferential treatment based on having a government license, or that someone else might be treated less than because he doesn't have that government license or permit.
I understand your objection. But I think you're letting theory overcome reality.
The reality is, in Utah over the past 20 years and with some 500,000 permits currently valid, we revoke about 0.2% (2 out of every 1000) permits each year and this for crimes from murder on down to very minor non-violent crimes like drug possession, shoplifting, etc. On the other hand, 1 in 100 adults in this nation is behind bars on any given day according to
to this article from the National Institute of Justice. It tends to take fairly major crimes to draw jail time, so that 1 out of 100 stat doesn't include a lot of offenses for which we statutorily revoke permits to carry. It seems clear to me that the rate of late-in-life offenders among those who choose to obtain a permit to carry is lower than for those who choose not to obtain a permit to carry.
By your own assertion, this says nothing about any specific individual and so you or anyone else who chooses not to get a permit should not take offense.
Nor should you take offense if someone (a cop, landlord, employer, etc) in some situations, gives some preferential treatment to a person who presents a valid permit over someone who doesn't present a permit, in the absence of any other personal data on which to make assessments. People make assessment wit the data we have at hand. A permit in hand provides some data.
I look forward to they day when a permit to carry a gun is as foreign an idea to this nation as a permit to attend church would be. But until then, I'm not going to let high minded theories blind me to reality.
Charles
